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WBKO in Bowling Green, Ky. is reporting that Ashley Judd has started a bit of a firestorm with her recent remarks to the White House Press Club.
Judd told the group that mountaintop removal is destroying the Appalachian mountains she loves. "And it gets bigger with every Appalachian mountaintop that is blown up, every holler that is filled, every stream that is buried, every wild thing that is wantonly and recklessly killed, every ecosystem that is diminished, every job that is lost to mechanization, every family that is pitted one against the other by the state-sanctioned, federal government-supported coal industry-operated rape of Appalachia: mountaintop removal coal mining."
"Ashley Judd is an egotistical brat from California," said Wayne T. Rutherford, Pike County Judge-Executive, "who doesn't understand the culture, the heritage of what she calls hillbillies, and we're proud to be hillbillies."
"I think the statements she made are off base," said Senator Johnny Ray Turner, "and I'm not trying to bash her, but I think mountaintop removal has been good for eastern Kentucky and the economy in eastern Kentucky."
Said Rutherford, "She doesn't realized it when she gets up with the lights, the lights she uses to put on her make-up, the lights come from coal."
Video: During the I Love Mountains rally in Frankfort on Feb. 17, 2009, Judd took the podium to speak out against mountain top removal mining and in support of the Stream Saver Bill.
