Verizon Among Sponsors For Pro-Coal Rally Featuring Massey Coal CEO, Ted Nugent & Hank Jr.

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Verizon says it all started innocently enough. A Verizon Wireless sales team in West Virginia agreed to co-sponsor a Labor Day event called "Friends of America" featuring singer Hank Williams Jr., Ted Nugent and several country music groups. For $1,000, Verizon got to set up a sales table at the event, which is expected to draw 75,000 people to Holden, W.Va. The sales staff "jumped at the chance," said Verizon Wireless spokesman Jim Gerace. But now environmental groups and bloggers are besieging the phone company because they say the Labor Day bash was designed to bash the climate legislation that Congress is considering.

The Labor Day event, labeled a "rally" on its Web site, also features Fox News conservative host Sean Hannity and Don L. Blankenship, chief executive of coal giant Massey Energy, who says in a short video on the site that "We're going to have Hank Williams and a very good time, but we're also going to learn how environmental extremists and corporate America are both trying to destroy your job."

About two-thirds of the way down the event's Web home page -- after the karaoke competition promotion, detailed directions, and photos of the country music stars and Hannity -- the site invites people to "click here" to sign a petition opposing the Waxman-Markey climate bill adopted by the House in June. News of Verizon's role was carried a week ago in a Huffington Post item written by Jeff Biggers, grandson of a miner, historian of Appalachia and author of a forthcoming book on the "secret legacy" of the coal industry.

EDIT

Rob Perks, campaign director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, warned the company in his blog that it faced a "backlash." Perks, who did not attempt to contact Verizon, pasted a familiar photo of the actor from Verizon's television ads over the background of a mountaintop marred by coal mining. The smiling actor holds a phone to his ear. In the next frame, with dirt flying up behind him, he is saying "can't hear you . . . blowing up a mountain."

EDIT

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/04/AR2009090403566.html?hpid=topnews

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1. Don Blankenship is the lowest form of useless human

debris in the state of WV. He is worried about jobs, right, the SOB had a long term contract to supply my company with coal. Instead of honoring his contract he sold the coal for more on the open market and our company had to buy sub-standard coal to keep the coke plant running. The bad coal caused massive damage to our coke ovens and nearly bankrupted the company. He thought he would get away with it since he had bought a WV Supreme Court Judge but we won a law suit against him and he had to cough up almost $300m. That SOB isn't worried about jobs he is worried about his own damn profits, fuck the SOB, Ted Nugent and that asshole Hank F----g Williams Jr. Oh Hannity too.