Murdering Big Coal to Spend Millions Against Dems

Hey, Jack Conway: Here's your reward for trying to have it both ways on coal.

John Cheves at the Herald:

Several major coal companies hope to use newly loosened campaign-finance laws to pool their money and defeat Democratic congressional candidates they consider “anti-coal,” including U.S. Senate nominee Jack Conway and U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler in Kentucky.

SNIP

But working together as a 527, the companies potentially could spend millions of dollars on political activity, as long as it isn’t coordinated with the Republicans’ campaigns.

“I think this is certainly troubling, and it’s going to put an entirely different face on American politics now that companies can do this,” said Tony Oppegard, a Lexington attorney and mine safety advocate. “People are going to have to expect the rhetoric to get heated.”

SNIP

Several of those companies have been involved in recent mine disasters that led to congressional scrutiny of their safety problems. International Coal Group owned the Sago mine in West Virginia where 12 miners died in 2006. Massey owned the Upper Big Branch mine, also in West Virginia, where 29 miners died in April. Two miners died in April in a Western Kentucky mine owned by an Alliance Resource subsidiary.

Read the whole thing:

No, there is nothing Democratic candidates can do to avoid the tsunami of Big Coal campaign cash spent against them, because there will always be repugs willing to support mandatory addition of coal mining tailings to school lunches.

There isn't enough Democratic money in the country to outspend a Big Coal 527. There's only one way to fight it: draw massive national free media by coming out foursquare against Big Coal.

Demand:

• an immediate end to all state and federal fossil fuel subsidies, redirecting those hundreds of billions to a crash program implementing renewable energy.
• a tripling of mine safety enforcement, including no-appeal shut-downs of unsafe mines.
• a permanent moratorium on mountaintop removal, and $100 billion in reparations from the coal industry to restore the devastated forests, streams, homes, towns, economies and lives in Eastern Kentucky.

Wanna get Democratic voters excited about voting for you, eager to knock on doors on your behalf nonstop from now until November?

Make it clear that you will put an end to Big Coal's century-long Reign of Terror in Kentucky.