Long before the outbreak of the Cold War, Lenin bragged that the West would sell him the rope he would use to hang us.
Hitler outlined his plans in "Mein Kampf" well in advance of World War II.
Islamic terrorists telegraphed their intentions years before Sept. 11.
In each case, we remained oblivious to the publicized threats and expressed collective surprise and consternation when our avowed enemies made good on them.
How many of us today are dumbfounded by the counterproductive policies of our current president, policies he promised to implement during his campaign for the Oval Office?
West Virginia is now feeling the job-threatening brunt of those policies as Barack Obama and his radical environmentalist allies pursue their much-trumpeted plans to attack the coal industry in America.
We can't say he didn't warn us. In a Jan. 17, 2008, interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Candidate Obama promised to "put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there." He boasted that he was "the first to call for a 100 percent auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter."
Just to make sure there was no misunderstanding, Obama spelled out the implications of his proposal: "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."
The West Virginia Record reported this week on a lawsuit recently filed by the coal-mining industry charging that the Environmental Protection Agency and other branches of the Obama administration are imposing significant delays on surface coal mining and making it increasingly difficult to obtain permits for mining operations.
West Virginia needs to fight back for coal and the 40,000 jobs it brings.