http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060227/reece"...Bob Murray, an influential coal operator, who complained that safety enforcement at his mines was too strict. Ellen Smith of Mine Safety and Health News reports that Murray had personally donated $75,000 to Republican campaigns and that from 2000 to 2003 his political action committee contributed $648,000--96 percent of it going to Republicans. Within days of Murray's meeting with Lauriski, two MSHA officials were transferred away from Murray's mines.
A few months later Murray told other MSHA officials that if enforcement didn't loosen up at his Powhatan Mine in Ohio--which had the worst safety record in Mine District 3--he would put district manager Tim Thompson "in his sights." According to Ken Ward Jr. of the Charleston Gazette, Murray told the MSHA officials, "Mitch McConnell calls me one of the five finest men in America, and the last time I checked, he was sleeping with your boss." Within months Thompson was transferred out of Murray's district, which was already operating at only 86 percent of federally required staffing levels. Two weeks after the transfer, in January 2003, an explosion at the district's McElroy Coal Company killed three miners."If Gore announces I will enthusiastically hit the bricks for him. Hell, if many evangelicals agree finally that it's time to protect the planet, maybe it is his time.