Last week, the newly-formed super PAC began airing TV ads targeting Blankenship, who spent one year behind bars following a deadly 2010 explosion at his Upper Big Branch Mine. The national party isn't promoting its role in the group but its fingerprints are all over it.
The 30-second commercials, which the group is spending nearly $700,000 to air, accuse Blankenship's company of contaminating drinking water by pumping "toxic coal slurry," even as the multimillionaire installed a piping system that pumped clean water to his mansion. "Isn't there enough toxic sludge in Washington?" the narrator intones.
Blankenship last month issued a statement saying he was well aware of the possibility that party leadership could target him.
"In 2012, four Americans were killed by terrorists in Benghazi, Libya. Many say the Obama administration hid the Benghazi truth," a deep-voiced narrator says. "The truth about more killed Americans has also been hidden. In 2010, 29 Americans were killed. None were ambassadors, none were CIA agents, none were killed by terrorists. They were American coal miners killed when the U.S. government reduced their mine's air flow. President Trump must be told the truth about Obama's deadliest cover-up."
Another ad features a miner who worked for Massey telling viewers: "the people will decide whether they believe Barack Obama's prosecutors and judges or the coal miners who were there."
The coal miners who were there are dead, but their families are still alive. One of them told a local TV station: "Everything [Blankenship] says is a lie."
|
The above quotations are from Columns and news articles on Politico.com.
Click here for other excerpts from Columns and news articles on Politico.com. Click here for other excerpts by Don Blankenship. Click here for a profile of Don Blankenship.
Please consider a donation to OnTheIssues.org!
| Click for details -- or send donations to: 1770 Mass Ave. #630, Cambridge MA 02140 E-mail: submit@OnTheIssues.org (We rely on your support!) |