In a Media Matters story, Kathleen Henehan reports that Murray Energy Corp. CEO Robert Murray openly mocked Al Gore on CNN’s The Situation Room. CNN correspondent Carol Costello says of Murray and his stance on Gore’s climate change agenda:

If all of these emissions controls are being put into place all at one time, he fears that’ll be too expensive for companies to absorb. And what happens when that happens? They lay off workers.

Indubitably! Because everyone knows that the well-being of their employees is always the number one priority of coal companies. Am I right, ya’ll? No? Well how the hell was I supposed to know that? It is CNN after all, it’s not like they have the resources and qualified journalists to research topics and guests prior to filming or anything. If I wanted to do homework I wouldn’t watch TV.

Henehan rebuts:

Despite Murray’s purported sympathy for miners, the Pittsburgh office of the National Labor Relations Board issued a formal complaint against Murray and an associate in 2001 because they “[t]hreatened Union officers and its employees with reprisals for publicizing the labor dispute between the parties” and “[t]hreatened its employees with the loss of jobs, and the loss of wages and benefits if they failed to select new Union officers and because of their support for the Union,” according to a 2002 United Mine Workers Journal article.

But wait, it gets even grosser, says Henehan:

An October 20, 2006, article in Kentucky’s Lexington Herald-Leader described Murray as “a huge donor to Republican senators” and reported on a meeting at a Mine Safety and Health Administration [MSHA] office in which “inspectors confronted him [Murray] about safety problems at his mines.” During the meeting, Murray reportedly made reference to his connections to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and McConnell’s wife, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao: “Shouting at a table full of MSHA officials … Murray said: ‘Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last I checked, he was sleeping with your boss,‘ according to notes of the meeting.” The article added: “Murray, in a recent interview, denied that he referred to McConnell ’sleeping with’ Chao.”

I think I need to take a shower now. Full text of the Media Matters report can be found here.

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It appears that Senator Mitch McConnell’s efforts to block Al Gore’s free climate change concert from the grounds of the Capitol have worked.

That’s okay. We have to keep a long-term view of what this maneuver will mean for Sen. McConnell’s ultimate legacy. In the time of half a generation, Sen. McConnell and his goons will be seen for what they really are, and it’s efforts like this on their part that will help us make certain that Kentucky never forgets the sad, sad tenure of Sen. Mitch McConnell.

We’ll be writing Sen. McConnell’s horrid history long after he’s departed this earth for whatever hell awaits him.

Unfortunately for us, we’ll still be dealing with the consequences of the sorry state he left it in.

N.Y. venue possible for ‘Live Earth’ event

NEW YORK, April 5 (UPI) — With staging of one of Al Gore’s “Live Earth” concerts in the nation’s capital apparently falling through, New York has offered three possible venues.

Shea Stadium, Randall’s Island and Prospect Park are three potential sites that could handle the estimated 40,000 people expected to attend the global warming-focused event scheduled for July 7, Variety reported Thursday.

“We’re just waiting to hear back from them on what they want to do,” a spokesman for the New York Parks & Recreation Department said.

Organizers for the event, one of seven to be staged around the world the same day, said New York was always under consideration, along with other U.S. cities such as Philadelphia. They initially sought to hold it at the National Mall in Washington but that spot was already taken. A proposal to hold it on the front lawn area of the Capitol has been held up in the Rules Committee by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans.

“It is unfortunate for the American people that we are being blocked from staging the U.S. concert in our nation’s capital,” event spokesman Chad Griffin said in a statement. “The show must go on.”

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