NEWS JUNKIE POST
Sep 8, 2009 at 12:01 amVerizon Wireless Sponsors Anti-Energy Bill, Right Wing Event
Verizon Wireless sponsored a rally in West Virginia on Labor Day that was organized by climate bill foes and which was attended by conservative FOX News personality Sean Hannity and controversial guitarist, Ted Nugent. Several environmental groups had asked Verizon Wireless to pull from the event, which was put together by Massey Energy, one of the country’s top coal producers.
Some 75,000 people were due to attend the “Friends of America Rally” in Holden, West Virginia. Rally organizers called for those attending to “stand up for American jobs” by opposing the energy bill that passed the House in June (H.R. 2454). The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Henry Waxman and Edward Markley and it calls, among other things, for greater environmental accountability from coal producers.
Dozens of coal companies and other industry-related businesses sponsored the event, but a coalition of over 40 environmental groups, including Greenpeace USA and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), was outraged by Verizon Wireless’ participation. They sent a letter to the cell phone company on Friday asking them to not support the event. Verizon did not answer to the letter and the groups released a news release:
“Despite the rally’s name, it is not friendly to America to cling to an industry that keeps Appalachia in a stranglehold of economic and environmental impoverishment by permanently polluting water supplies, blocking green-energy development and economic diversification, and contributing to global climate change. Coal corporations are making millions of dollars off destroying the mountains, and only pollution and poverty are trickling down to residents,” said Tierra Curry, a native of eastern Kentucky and biologist at the Center for Biological Diversity.
“Americans want clean drinking water and a transition to a green economy that the planet can sustain and that provides a good quality of life for our children and grandchildren. Verizon Wireless, unfortunately, has aligned itself with the extremists who advocate for the catastrophic effects of mining and burning coal,” added Curry in the statement.
At the rally, aside from publicly condemning the Waxman-Markley bill, conservatives attending the event pressed on other issues. Musician Ted Nugent told the crowd that they didn’t need the Bill of Rights to tell them that “God gave” them the right to keep and bear arms.
“Keep means, it’s mine, you can’t have it. Bear means I got them right here,” said Nugent to the crowd waving American flags. Nugent also said that the country was being “dominated” by a president and an administration that “clearly hate America.”
Sean Hannity also took the stage to speak to the crowd. In his speech, Hannity said that if he had a teleprompter like Obama’s, his would say, “Yes we can get rid of Pelosi, Reed, and Obama. That’s what I want my teleprompter to read.”
Watch this YouTube video from the Friends of America Rally on Monday.
I for one have no respect for anything Greenpeace endorses, when they were involved with the K G B back in the soviet days of Russia. Oh well , I guess the end justifies the means in watermelon environmentalism.
Gosh,let’s hear it for the right of free expression,unless,I suppose,it disagress with the enviro-socialist movement.If SEIU can support the socialized medicine proposals of the president without upsetting you,why can’t Verizon,Ted Nugent or anyone else express a point of view that runs counter to yours?Are you afraid of free expression?
Free expression is a two-way street. Ted Nuget can say whatever he wants and Verizon can sponsor his statements if they believe that being the only cell phone company sponsoring the event will help their bottom-line, but every American has the right to express their opinions on the matter. It is freedom OF expression not freedom FROM expression.
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WOw, that is like WAY cool dude!
RT
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Glad to hear Verizon has some good sense and found a good event to sponsor!!!!
I am a Verizon customer and I support them in this matter!
This is great news. I know which cell phone carrier I should use if I ever decide I need one.
Thank you, Verizon. Wish I was there! What a worthy cause. Obama & the Dems can’t fool all the people all the time.
Why don’t yall move to coal country? Or move next to a coal burning electrical plant? My family lived in coal country at one time, eastern Kentucky to be specific. They wanted a better life so they joined the Army.
One day, there won’t be anymore coal. Keep all your TVs on all the time; the future generations are sure to thank you for it.
If Greenpeace is against it, then America should be for it.
Seriously, though – the US is the Saudi Arabia of coal. We should be working at making coal cleaner and using our natural resources and *not* wasting huge government subsidies on immature technologies like Wind power. See the latest article in IBD about how Germany, Italy and the UK are realizing that wind power and other alternative energy sources are not what they’ve cracked up to be. These green-friendly countries are going back on their word to reduce CO2 emissions and stop building coal-fired plants. Germany is bringing something like 20-40 new plants online, realizing there is no point in killing their economy over CO2 (which, btw, is not a pollutant — it’s plant food, for goodness sakes). Alternative energy will have its place sometime in the future, but right now its an idea that just isn’t mature enough. It’s like trying to force the gov’t to develop flying cars. Sure, it would be cool, but just b/c we can throw gov’t money at it doesn’t mean we should…