#EndorseThis: John Oliver Flips Off Trump And His Coal Barons

#EndorseThis: John Oliver Flips Off Trump And His Coal Barons

Donald Trump’s promise to “bring back coal” — a madly Faustian bargain on a warming planet — may well have swung some Rust Belt states his way, as John Oliver suggests. But his administration’s claims to have fulfilled that pledge with “50,000 new coal jobs,” ironically articulated by EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, are simply lies.

Behind the arguments over coal and employment, advanced by Trump, the Republicans, and the mining industry, are even bigger lies. The victims of those lies, of course, are the miners themselves — who, unlike the coal barons, deserve much more federal assistance than they have received.

But as Oliver demonstrates, it’s the coal barons like convicted criminal Don Blankenship who enjoy the tender concern of Trump and the far right. It is especially uplifting to watch him defy an attempt at intimidation by Bob Murray, the unappealing chief of Murray Energy Corporation.

Bonus: What Trump really thinks of coal miners, expressed in a Playboy interview from 1990.

As always, Oliver contrives to present an infuriating story with precision, compassion, and lots of laughs.

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North Carolina GOP's Extremist Nominees Excite Democratic Strategists

Michele Morrow

In 2020, Joe Biden narrowly missed capturing North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, losing the state by a slim 1.4-percentage-point margin. But that was nearly four years ago. Before the Dobbs decision. Before Donald Trump’s 91 felony indictments. And before last week, when the state’s GOP voters nominated a guy who favorably quotes Hitler, has compared LGBTQ+ people to insects and larvae, and thinks a six-week abortion ban isn’t quite extreme enough for governor. Tar Heel State Republicans also nominated another extremist, Michele Morrow, for superintendent of the state’s schools.

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