I'm assuming readers of this blog never miss an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver but just in case there's one: In June of 2017, Mr. Oliver devoted much of his show to a story on the coal industry. It's not doing well and he explained some of the reasons and pointed out that Donald Trump's promises to bring it back strong were unachievable campaign-type promises. The "villain" of the piece (more or less) was Bob Murray, the founder of Cleveland-based Murray Energy Corporation and a big Trump supporter.
In the piece, Oliver predicted Murray would sue him, the show, HBO and everyone within suing distance. He was right. He then predicted that the suit would get tossed out of court. He was right again. He then announced that he would soon discuss the whole matter on his show and would bring back Mr. Nutterbutter, a very large squirrel or possibly, if you want to be cynical about such things, a man in a big squirrel costume. Mr. Nutterbutter had delivered some of the comments that sent Bob Murray ringing up his lawyers.
This was all some time ago and John Oliver has not mentioned Murray or the lawsuit on the show since the suit was tossed, nor has he made good on his promise to bring Mr. Nutterbutter back on. Maybe it's time…
The slow death of the American coal industry has forced Murray Energy, the largest private coal miner in the United States, to file for bankruptcy protection Tuesday. Murray Energy's bankruptcy has been telegraphed for years. It recently failed to make payments to lenders, and the company entered into a forbearance agreement that bought it time to negotiate a restructuring. But that grace period came and went, and Murray Energy was unable to pay its bills. S&P Global Ratings downgraded the company's credit rating to "default" earlier this month.
One might assume that the coal miners and other employees of Murray Energy have not fared well through all of this. I await Oliver's follow-up and an encore performance by that very large squirrel or possibly, if you still want to be cynical about such things, a man in a big squirrel costume.