Balch Defense Campaign Blows Up

“In totality, the most nauseating, infuriating and pathetic piece of writing I’ve encountered in a long, long time.” − Josh Moon, Alabama Political Reporter columnist

More people want to know:

Who is behind the AstroTurf digital ad campaign defending Balch & Bingham’s conduct in North Birmingham targeting poor black children and discouraging the testing of toxic and contaminated property by the EPA?

The LMAO op-ed defending Balch and allegedly written by Guy V. Martin, Jr. is being aggressively pushed and publicized by the digital ad campaign.

If Balch, Drummond or any entity associated to them is linked to the AstroTurf effort, the digital ad campaign could cause federal authorities to recommend harsher and maximum sentences against convicted Balch partner Joel I. Gilbert and Drummond Company executive Dave Roberson later this month.

And now the media are mocking the “rehabilitation effort” to defend Balch & Bingham.

In other words, the Balch defense campaign has blown up.

Titled “The Stupidity is Still Surprising,” Josh Moon, a respected columnist from the Alabama Political Reporter, shredded Guy V. Martin, Jr.’s LMAO op-ed.

Moon writes:

Your column praising the ethical virtue of Balch and Bingham and Drummond Coal, and making the claim that both companies — employees of each were recently convicted of a massive scam — have been unfairly maligned by the media and the “Obama EPA,” was one of the most absurd, fact-less and idiotic opinion pieces that I’ve ever encountered.

It was so devoid of facts and so thoroughly inaccurate about basic events, when I didn’t immediately see a “sponsored content” label on it, I questioned briefly whether it was satire.

To be certain, no sane individual not named Balch, Bingham or Drummond believes a word of what you wrote. The transgressions of that law firm and that coal company, along with the abhorrent actions of Alabama’s Department of Environmental Management, the Birmingham NAACP, several state and local lawmakers and the current U.S. Attorney General, are well documented, well established as fact and inarguable.

Even among the straight-ticket Republican voters, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who believes that Balch, Drummond and others conspired to prevent the EPA from performing a proper cleanup of the 35th Avenue Superfund site.

In fact, if anything, the overwhelming majority of people believe that MORE people should be in prison over this scam….

But none of that stopped you, Guy, from ignoring all of those facts, all of that evidence presented in open court, and all of those guilty verdicts, and writing an opinion piece in which you claim Balch has “set a high bar in ethical standards that others envy” and boast about the law firm’s “check-mating” of the EPA’s cleanup efforts in Tarrant.

It is, in totality, the most nauseating, infuriating and pathetic piece of writing I’ve encountered in a long, long time. But maybe, given what I know about this state, it shouldn’t be such a surprise that some lawyer would be willing to write such utter dreck on behalf of big money companies.

On the other hand, maybe someone from Balch wrote it and you just slapped your name on it.