On October 31, 2013 I wrote how ridiculous it is that the politicians claim to be fighting so hard for coal when election time rolls around but that the rest of the time they sit on their hands as coal is destroyed. I specifically named as politicians who are disingenuous in this regard Nick Rahall, Joe Manchin, and Mitch McConnell. Afterward several coal and non-coal guys asked why I had included Senator McConnell.
Perhaps the below article will help explain. Mrs. McConnell is not only hurting coal she is liberal in other regards. Most important as to why I included Senator McConnell though is that if he is fighting for coal he is not very good at it. Also when I have met with him on occasion he does not listen. He just talks. For several years now he has said that the fight against Climate Change legislation cannot be won. It is sad that our industry has gotten far more support from Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe than from its own senior Senator. McConnell has also shown that he will sell out to Harry Reid on any issue for a little Pork.
Electing McConnell is better than sending a Democrat that will always support Obama to DC but McConnell is not a coal guy. McConnell knows there are more votes in the non-coal areas of Kentucky than the coal areas and McConnell is a quintessential politician. Vote for him in the general but do not be fooled that he will fight for coal. He is no Nick Rahall but neither is he a Jim Inhofe.
-Don Blankenship
See article below:
Mitch McConnell’s wife sits on the board of a group working to kill the coal industry
For the pro-coal senator, the “war on coal” begins at home
For months, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell has accused his Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, of engaging in a “war on coal,” casting her as an outright enemy of one of the state’s most vital industries.
But while McConnell presents himself as a defender of Kentucky coal mining, a member of his own family who serves as a key campaign surrogate is taking a role in an organization that funds one of the most aggressive anti-coal campaigns in the country.
McConnell’s wife, former Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, sits on the board of directors of Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has plunged $50 million into the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal initiative, an advocacy effort with the expressed goal of killing the coal industry.
In 2011, Bloomberg Philanthropies teamed up with the Sierra Club to target coal plants for closure in an effort to “end our nation’s reliance on dirty coal, plant-by-plant, community-by-community, and state-by-state,” according to Bloomberg Philanthropies’ website. The Bloomberg Philanthropies-funded campaign has a stated goal of “retir[ing] a third of the nation’s 500 coal plants by 2020, replacing the majority of retired coal plants, and keep[ing] coal in the ground in Appalachia.” The organization boasts that it has “prevented 150 coal plants from being built” and has taken direct action against 16 plants in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky, arguing that coal production is a health hazard and is harmful to the environment. The website takes credit for retiring 172 “dirty power plants” with “351 to go.”