United Mine Workers calls it quits for Obama

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A major union is dropping out of endorsing President Obama.


The United Mine Workers of America, a prominent Democratic union and avid supporter for President Obama in 2008, is at its breaking point with the Obama administration’s “War on Coal.” After calls from their ‘rank and file’ – who’ve seen plants closed, pink-slips and jobs threatened at the hands of President Obama’s EPA – the UMWA is sitting this one out. Pretty telling of the changing tides when even UMWA officials can’t remember the last time they didn’t endorse a presidential candidate.

Coal miners’ aren’t buying into an Obama 2nd term, and neither are the millions of Hoosiers, Southern Illinoisans, Kentuckians, West Virginians, Pennsylvanians, and Ohioans who rely on the coal industry in their local communities to create jobs and put food on the table. The president’s regulatory policies have hindered recovery in all of these states, most notably in the energy sector.

His EPA has relentlessly attacked the coal industry, which provides both jobs and affordable energy. Thanks to the president’s excessive regulations many plants in these states—have been and will be forced to close leaving hardworking miners without jobs and their communities without a lifeline. Just yesterday, local employees and retirees of Patriot Coal were briefed by the UMWA in downtown Evansville about how the company’s bankruptcy will disrupt their lives.

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24 COMMENTS

  2. What a surprise considering what Obama and his EPA henchmen have done to coal. And the UMWA leadership are fools for not seeing it coming.

  3. The Union leadership milked it financially as long as they could with the dues going to Obama. Finally the membership made them do the right thing. Stop supporting Obama that is killing coal and the economy.

    • Sounds as if the coal miners need not only new union “leadership,” but also a new Commander and Chief as well. Looks like their choices are to stay home or vote for the trust fund kid on election day.

      • “Rich people are just poor people with money.” (Sister Mary Tricky, 2003)

        Re quoted by Rush L. today.

        _____

    • Mitt Romney is not a trust fund kid . Do your homework before you make false statements . George Romneys money was given to many different charities . There was no trust fund . Mitt Romney made his own fortune .He donates more money to charity in a year than Obama & Biden did in their entire career .

      • More than charity donations by the various presidential candidates, I’m concerned about what they will do to fix the mess we ALL find ourselves in today.

        To help me put things in persective, I ask myself: “What shape would we find ourselves in today if Mitt Romney had been elected President in 2008, instead of Obama (or McCain)?”

        Under a Romney administration, where would the U.S. automotive industry be today, for example? Who else would Romney have let go broke in 2009? How many jobs would’ve been lost or created, etc. between 2009 and 2012?

        • Soon2B:

          As a general tenant, do you believe in government subsidizing private industry, and if so, which private industries should it subsidize?

          __

          • I suppose by your quetions that you’d prefer us to be in a Great Depression right now rather than the little depression we are in?

          • This is a pretty moot conversation from my perspective… Romney supported the bailouts and Paul Ryan voted for them… all of them. Also, he has voted for all of the yearly budgets last I checked.

            Furthermore, in 2008 both Obama and McCain practically broke their necks to hightail it back to Washington while the economy was tanking to cheerlead for TARP.

            The people at the top of both parties are controlled by the same bankers. The only hope is the grassroots of the parties, which need to work together to throw the higher ups out on their heads. It’s no real secret that the top campaign donors for both Romney and Obama are the same. They will serve the same masters no matter which is elected.

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp6-wG5LLqE

          • It’s news to me that Romney supported the GM bailout. I’m pretty sure he said he would’ve let them go bust.

          • I didn’t say Romney supported the Auto bailouts, although I think I remember he was quoted in a Toledo newspaper otherwise at some point in time. There is no arguing he was for TARP, which is I believe the ultimate litmus test for a true economic Conservative. I can flood you with embarrassing Youtube videos if you you like.

            Thanks to Rick Perry for this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QDxcrcpY98

    • We did not notice anything about Patriot Coal and Evansville in that article. There is in ours.

  5. You threaten a commenter with banishment for the copy & paste job that they did, yet you continually do the same thing? Why don’t you post links to your sources? How is this different (other than you own the CCO and they don’t)? Aren’t there copyright issues?

    • For starters the entire article was not copied. Also the article is the main subject this way, not as a 1,000 foot blogger post just meant to take over the boards. And yes neither you nor the one who keeps on causing trouble own the CCO thus making it all pointless.

    • We actually took a wire story and added local relevance to it with the UMWA story. Any time we simply republish the source is cited at the end of the story.

  6. Not acceptable. You’re better than copying the work of others and then using the excuse that you added a sentence of your own. When you post the work of others, give them credit.

    This sort of thing eats at credibility.

  7. Unions across the country consistently bite the hands that feed them. Reminds you of the Jews that led other Jews to slaughter in the concentration camps. Any union that supports a republican deserves the slow painful death of the labor movement that we are now witnessing.

    • Any coal miner that votes for Barack Obama is an idiot. The UMWA should endorse Romney based on Obama’s war on coal. To do less is to fail the very miners who pay their salaries.

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