[Hoot Gibson]

This thread isn't about cap and trade, feel free to start a thread about that. This thread is about low coal(and even cheaper gas) prices causing the bulk of layoffs of theses mines around here.

Sorry if the direction of the thread is interfering with your effort to paint Obama as something other than an enemy of the coal industry. Facts are stubborn things.

Nobody disputes that a deep recession leads to low coal prices. It has happened during every recession that I can remember. However, we have never before had a president proposing serious job killing legislation like cap and trade in the midst of a recession, or if you prefer a "jobless recovery."

The jobs being lost in the coal industry today will become as permanent as the ones that the auto industry suffered over the past few decades if Obama's agenda achieves its aims. High taxes and misguided government regulations left the Big 3 unable to compete in the world market and Obama's proposed legislation will make layoffs like those at Cam Mining common place.

After our federal government spreads its special brand of misery throughout the coal fields, a politician with explain that "these jobs are not coming back" as they tout millions of "green jobs" that somehow never materialize in the numbers promised.

If you want to restrict a thread about job losses in the coal industry to posts praising Barack Obama or his handling of the economy while absolving him of any responsibility for job losses, then you should apply to BGR for a Thread Czar position. Job losses and bankruptcies in the coal industry will dwarf those of past recessions if Republicans and Democrats from coal-producing states cannot block large parts of Obama's legislative agenda.

Obama's response to impending job losses in the coal industry has been like dispatching a gasoline tanker to a fire.