HOLDEN, W.Va. -- Thousands showed up to a free Labor Day rally at a reclaimed mine site in Holden, where musicians and speakers fired up the crowd with one part country music and another part politics at a gathering that highlighted jobs, the working class and the future of coal.

Musicians such as Hank Williams Jr. John Rich, Halfway to Hazard and the Blackwater Outlaws joined Fox News political commentator Sean Hannity and other speakers, including coal industry executives, on the main stage. Rocker Ted Nugent, nicknamed the Motor City Madman, emceed the Friends of America Rally and played a shrieking guitar rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

By early Monday afternoon, the crowd was well below the 100,000 expected to show.

Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, who told the crowd he spent about $1 million on the rally, offered sharp criticism of multinational corporations, Republicans, Democrats and "environmental nuts" who are trying, he said, to ship American jobs to China.

Federal cap-and-trade legislation was at the heart of Monday's rally. The speakers and musicians, however, evoked the weakened economy, jobs, President Obama, illegal immigration, hippies, hunting and gun rights, health-care reform, religion and Appalachian culture to strike a nerve with the audience.

"Today's the day when the American worker takes back this country," Nugent said. "That's what I think."

Blankenship criticized the political action committee of railroad company CSX for donating to the campaign of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and also Caterpillar, a top manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, for supporting caps on emissions of carbon dioxide.

"In my view they are un-American, and I have told them so," Blankenship said of Caterpillar.

Blankenship told the crowd their own government is the worst enemy of American labor today, and asked if they want a government that shuts down coal mines.

He dismissed the notion of global warming, and criticized TV ads that say it's real.

"Only God can change the Earth's temperature, not Al Gore," he said, later adding, "Global warming is pure make-believe."

Like Nugent and others, Blankenship called on the crowd to contact their lawmakers to discourage cap-and-trade legislation.

"This crowd will scare these politicians to death," Blankenship said. "We all need to learn that cap-and-trade is a Ponzi scheme."

This summer, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a version of the Waxman-Markey bill, which would set a cap on the emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas mostly blamed for warming the planet. The legislation also would set up a market for "trading" permits for carbon dioxide emissions, which puts a price on the emissions.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who worked with the bill's sponsors to modify it in an effort to protect the coal industry, said this summer the changes are carefully balanced and enables coal usage to grow as electricity demand increases. The main goal is to reduce and delay mandated greenhouse gas reductions (by 2020) while pumping lots of money into carbon capture and storage technology.

Still, some at Monday's rally feared the worst.

"If they pass that cap-and-tax, or cap-and trade ... we're going to lose everything because he's going to lose his job," said Toni Fitzpatrick, the wife of a coal miner and mother of three. "I won't be able to take care of my family, and if we leave here we won't be able to afford to live anywhere else because electricity will be so high. I don't want to have to leave here."

Fitzpatrick, who lives in Kermit, said her husband has worked at a strip mine since 1994.

She was not alone Monday, as several people in the audience criticized national leaders and said they are upset with the direction the country is headed.

"The overspending of the government -- it's gone crazy," said Daniel Lipscomb of Hurricane.

If cap-and-trade legislation passes, Lipscomb believes it will open the door for the Chinese and Indian coal industries to fill the void and result in higher domestic energy costs.

"It's a bad economy as it is," he said. "The larger the government gets, the weaker the nation becomes."

Others in the crowd drove in from Tennessee and Kentucky to see the show.

HOLDEN, W.Va. -- Thousands showed up to a free Labor Day rally at a reclaimed mine site in Holden, where musicians and speakers fired up the crowd with one part country music and another part politics at a gathering that highlighted jobs, the working class and the future of coal.

Musicians such as Hank Williams Jr. John Rich, Halfway to Hazard and the Blackwater Outlaws joined Fox News political commentator Sean Hannity and other speakers, including coal industry executives, on the main stage. Rocker Ted Nugent, nicknamed the Motor City Madman, emceed the Friends of America Rally and played a shrieking guitar rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

By early Monday afternoon, the crowd was well below the 100,000 expected to show.

Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, who told the crowd he spent about $1 million on the rally, offered sharp criticism of multinational corporations, Republicans, Democrats and "environmental nuts" who are trying, he said, to ship American jobs to China.

Federal cap-and-trade legislation was at the heart of Monday's rally. The speakers and musicians, however, evoked the weakened economy, jobs, President Obama, illegal immigration, hippies, hunting and gun rights, health-care reform, religion and Appalachian culture to strike a nerve with the audience.

"Today's the day when the American worker takes back this country," Nugent said. "That's what I think."

Blankenship criticized the political action committee of railroad company CSX for donating to the campaign of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and also Caterpillar, a top manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, for supporting caps on emissions of carbon dioxide.

"In my view they are un-American, and I have told them so," Blankenship said of Caterpillar.

Blankenship told the crowd their own government is the worst enemy of American labor today, and asked if they want a government that shuts down coal mines.

He dismissed the notion of global warming, and criticized TV ads that say it's real.

"Only God can change the Earth's temperature, not Al Gore," he said, later adding, "Global warming is pure make-believe."

Like Nugent and others, Blankenship called on the crowd to contact their lawmakers to discourage cap-and-trade legislation.

"This crowd will scare these politicians to death," Blankenship said. "We all need to learn that cap-and-trade is a Ponzi scheme."

This summer, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a version of the Waxman-Markey bill, which would set a cap on the emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas mostly blamed for warming the planet. The legislation also would set up a market for "trading" permits for carbon dioxide emissions, which puts a price on the emissions.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who worked with the bill's sponsors to modify it in an effort to protect the coal industry, said this summer the changes are carefully balanced and enables coal usage to grow as electricity demand increases. The main goal is to reduce and delay mandated greenhouse gas reductions (by 2020) while pumping lots of money into carbon capture and storage technology.

Still, some at Monday's rally feared the worst.

"If they pass that cap-and-tax, or cap-and trade ... we're going to lose everything because he's going to lose his job," said Toni Fitzpatrick, the wife of a coal miner and mother of three. "I won't be able to take care of my family, and if we leave here we won't be able to afford to live anywhere else because electricity will be so high. I don't want to have to leave here."

Fitzpatrick, who lives in Kermit, said her husband has worked at a strip mine since 1994.

She was not alone Monday, as several people in the audience criticized national leaders and said they are upset with the direction the country is headed.

"The overspending of the government -- it's gone crazy," said Daniel Lipscomb of Hurricane.

If cap-and-trade legislation passes, Lipscomb believes it will open the door for the Chinese and Indian coal industries to fill the void and result in higher domestic energy costs.

"It's a bad economy as it is," he said. "The larger the government gets, the weaker the nation becomes."

Others in the crowd drove in from Tennessee and Kentucky to see the show.

Tim Slone, president of a small engineering company called IRTEC in Caryville, Tenn., said he came out to support coal miners. Like others, he wore an American flag-collared shirt and a miner's helmet with an old-fashioned headlamp.

"We're from Tennessee, so we get beat up a lot," he said. "The environmentalists are always beating us down. ... We're firm believers in coal."

Slone and Fairdale resident Carrie Clemons have family history in the coal mines.

"My husband's a big Hank Williams fan, and I'm a coal person all the way," Clemons said. Her brother, a Navy veteran, and her father, who passed away in May, both were coal miners.

"Without [coal], we'd be in the dark," she said. "And it keeps all the other businesses going, too."

Clemons works at the Rite Aid pharmacy in Glen Daniel, and said the Massey mines down the road are "what keeps us going."

Earlier this year, layoffs at Massey hurt the pharmacy's business, she said. "We thought we were going to have to shut down for a while," she said.

For others at Monday's rally, politics were secondary.

Jesse Short, 17, of Eastern Kentucky, has been a Hank Williams Jr. fan since he was 6 or 7. He definitely had to hear Williams sing "A Country Boy Can Survive."

Tina Hurd drove in from Knoxville, Tenn., to see Williams. She came to the rally with a buddy who's "the biggest damn Hank Jr. fan."

"The taxes and jobs and crap, it's all cool," she added.

Early Monday morning, Lipscomb said he was looking forward to hearing what Hannity had to say.

"Obviously he's a flamboyant speaker," Lipscomb said. "And who wouldn't want to see 'the Nuge'?"

Nugent -- who said he just left deer camp to attend the rally -- shared his views with the crowd on politics, hunting and American complacency.

"We have the perfect president for a nation who doesn't care," he said, suggesting the new national anthem should perhaps sound like a sheep's "baa."

"Go home and raise hell like you've never raised it before," he said.

Defiance will win back the country, and honor the wounded veterans who fought for it, Nugent said.

With the crowd's approval, Nugent named himself the new "venison czar of America," and wished the crowd a happy hunting season.

"Are you guys whacking 'em and stacking 'em or what?" he asked.

Hannity said liberals like to blame former President George W. Bush for some ridiculous reasons. For example, he said that later, when the audience listened to Hank Williams Jr. and John Rich perform on stage, some were going to drink -- and drink heavily -- and in the morning they'd wake up with a nasty headache.

Liberals would say that's Bush's fault, Hannity said. Alcohol, however, was not allowed at the rally.

He also thanked veterans in the crowd, blasted government-run schools and health care, criticized the "liberal media" and asked if Americans want a president who associated with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers -- two names brought up regularly during the 2008 campaign -- or a president who tells the French that America is too arrogant.

Reach Davin White at davinwh...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1254.