Miners concerned about jobs, election

ROME TOWNSHIP — A Republican-led rally for coal miners and coal workers was hosted at the Lawrence County Fairgrounds on Saturday.

Featured speaker was Deneen Borelli, FOX News contributor and author of the book, “Blacklash.”  Also featured were a group of miners from Boone, Logan, Nicholas and Putnum Counties in West Virginia.

The 70-degree, sunshiny weather was the backdrop for a rally outside near the newly constructed exhibition barn at the fairgrounds.  The rally was conducted concurrently at the fairgrounds with the Lawrence Soil and Water Conservation Office’s Showcase and picnic.  Hundreds of people were present at both events.

Amy Jo Schennewark, a Rome Township mother of seven, opened the rally with prayer.  The National Anthem was sung by T.C. See as a huge American flag was unfurled and carried out onto the grounds by dozens of veterans.  Joe Klein entertained the crowd with a very emotional rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”  Placards waved and citizens cheered as coal miner.Josh Nelson spoke passionately about their plight under the Obama administration.

Nelson said, “Coal miners in West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky have lost thousands of jobs.  Power plants that generated electricity using coal have been shut down due to unfair regulations imposed by Obama’s EPA.”

Nelson, a graduate of Liberty University, went to work in the coal mines to pay off a debt of thousands of dollars in college tuition loans.

Josh, like so many young people of Appalachia, wanted to return home to his community and family after college.

However, jobs that used to be plentiful have disappeared as the Environmental Protection Agency fines coal mine owners tens of thousands of dollars a day in “penalties” just to operate,  Nelson said. “The EPA uses the guise of regulations to fulfill Barak Obama’s campaign promises made in 2008, to shut down coal powered energy plants,” Nelson said.

All across Appalachia homes are heated and electric is plentiful as this available natural resource has been utilized.

However, according to Nelson that is changing.  A looming energy crisis in Appalachia is forcing electric bills to go up, along with unemployment.

Other members in the group of coal miners spoke about former well paying jobs in the mines being lost.

Without jobs, the miners said their families have been forced to go on welfare, something they do not want to rely on.  Wives and sisters spoke about their fears of poverty for their children and grandchildren.

The crowd seemed to be shocked by the statistics offered by Deneen Borelli, author and Director of Outreach for FreedomWorks, a Tea Party grassroots movement for lower taxes, less government and more freedom.

Borelli and her husband, Tom, both spoke about the liberties that American citizens are sacrificing to live under Obama’s form of government.

Deneen, an African American woman, spoke about the plight of black people who have been mislead by the black establishment leadership.

She accused their leaders, Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters, Al Sharpton and others of trying to brainwash young blacks into believing that they are victims.

Borelli said that growing up in Harlem she saw the violence and suffering caused by drugs, guns and hopelessness. Borelli said that has not changed for these neighborhoods and communities under the Obama administration.

Borelli asserts that she broke out of the chain of poverty by hard work in getting an education in the extreme conditions of the public schools.

She urged other young blacks to take advantage of the freedom that America offers and to break the cycle of poverty. Deneen Borelli warned that Americans must “wake up” to the erosion of civil liberties, or suffer under an oppressive burden of government on the people.

The rally was at the end of a “Get Out The Vote” campaign that took place all over Lawrence County throughout the day. The coal miners who had caravanned in from West Virginia spent the day with local citizens going door to door trying to convince people to vote for Mitt Romney for president and Josh Mandel for Ohio’s United States Senate seat.

Volunteers handed out literature and yard signs, gave out absentee ballot applications and voter registration forms.

The rally was concluded with a benediction delivered by the Rev. John Carter, assistant pastor of First Baptist Church, Proctorville.