As you know, President Obama's so-called "War on Coal" is over so, naturally, it's time for the war's biggest fans to admit that it was all bullshit.
Infamous coal industry asshole Robert E. Murray, founder and CEO of Murray Energy, spoke to The Guardian on Monday and, while declaring victory over the fictitious War on Coal, Murray was very clear that no one should expect to see more jobs.
Trump’s election has been a boon to coal, said Murray, after what he sees as Obama’s attempts to destroy the industry. But he has also warned the president he should “temper” expectations for jobs growth in the industry.
“I suggested that he temper his expectations. Those are my exact words,” said Murray. “He can’t bring them back.”
"He can’t bring them back."
Longtime readers should be familiar with the exploits of Bob Murray.
It was Bob Murray of Murray Energy who forced his employees to forfeit a day's worth of work and pay to appear in a political ad for Mitt Romney (seen above). Murray allegedly threatened to fire any employee who refused to participate, but many of them would be fired anyway.
After Mitt Romney was defeated in 2012, Murray wrote a letter to employees announcing that hundreds of them would be fired because "the takers outvoted the producers." Murray told his employees that God instructed him to protect his business from President Obama's "War on Coal" by firing them, but Murray would later rehire many of them after his temper tantrum subsided.
Murray also forced his employees to donate to political campaigns of Murray's choosing in 2014, several of which turned out to be massive failures. Specifically, Murray handed the donations off to former GOP Senate candidates Scott Brown in New Hampshire, Ed Gillespie in Virginia, Terri Lynn Land in Michigan, and Mike McFadden in Minnesota. All four of them lost their races against their Democratic opponents. Murray fired over 200 workers after the 2014 election.
More recently, Murray spearheaded a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with a goal of blocking President Obama's Clean Power Plan, but his lawsuit was thrown out of court because the regulations had not even been finalized yet, meaning Murray had no legal standing or "injury" to allege in court.
For most of the past decade, Bob Murray and his colleagues in the coal industry have been screeching about the "job killing" War on Coal while blaming President Obama for layoffs at their own companies. But the war is over now, isn't it? Where are the jobs?
We should expect to see more industry representatives pretend that they never promised to create new jobs. We should expect some of them will even pretend that they never explicitly linked regulations to layoffs.