Half Of Funding 2 Expire; McConnell's Staffers Won't Even Meet With Black Lung Victims, Protestors

[hatrack]

With just days left before a Congressional deadline, advocates for black lung treatment are still pushing Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell to secure funding for miners’ benefits.

About two dozen people demonstrated Wednesday near McConnell’s regional office in London, Kentucky, carrying placards reading “Black Lung Kills” and singing along with a banjo tune modified for the occasion. “Oh, Mitch McConnell, when will you answer? Somebody’s knocking at your door.”

The demonstrators said they were denied a planned meeting with McConnell’s staffers. Instead they delivered letters from affected residents who want the Senate’s powerful majority leader to extend the tax on coal that supports the federal Black Lung Trust Fund.

If Congress does not act, the tax will decrease by about half, adding billions of dollars of debt to the fund. “He has the power to help these people,” Harlan County, Kentucky, resident Teri Blanton said of McConnell. Blanton spoke of her family’s personal experience with the toll of the disease. “I watched my father smother to death from black lung.”

EDIT

http://www.wvpublic.org/post/still-they-persist-black-lung-advocates-demonstrate-mcconnell-s-ky-office#stream/0

[dem4decades]

1. But they hate Obama that have them healthcare. Not a big

Fan of Kentucky.

They have us McConnell. And their other asshole Senator.

[mountain grammy]

2. I remember my union days from long ago.

UMW members were some of the finest and courageous people I met. Now, I'm having a hard time whipping up any sympathy for the misery coal miners find themselves in after the choices they've made in the voting booth.