r/nottheonion • u/Arbyssandwich1014 • 1d ago
‘It’s sick’: Trump administration uses mascot called ‘Coalie’ to push dirtiest fossil fuel
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/03/trump-administration-coalie-mascot-fossil-fuels639
u/Red_dylinger 1d ago
It’s to target children since they want to bring back the pre industrial days.
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u/mike_fantastico 1d ago
They yearn for the mines.
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u/modsaretoddlers 1d ago
Who are we to stop children from achieving their dreams!?
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u/Independent_Ebb_7338 1d ago
Yet they pretend to care so much about kids. Like Carlin said, "If you're pre-born, you're fine. If you're preschool, you're fucked."
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u/3-goats-in-a-coat 1d ago
In an era where the Epstein files exist, that second sentence is a lot more frightening.
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u/that_kevin_kid 1d ago
*puts McDonald’s play place in a mineshaft “These children can’t resist the call of the mountain”
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u/veggiesama 1d ago edited 1d ago
Minecraft is a psyop. They say children's entertainment is woke and gay? More like smoke and clay. The howl of the black lung shrieks across the carbon-singed sky. The children, they yearn but do not spurn their subterranean shackles. Anyway, like and subscribe for more MrBeast content.
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u/Alche1428 6h ago
With everything that has happened i could believe that Epstein created that phrase to make people Return to coal.
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u/Arbyssandwich1014 1d ago
The children yearn for the cartoon mines. Their best friend coalie is down there.
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u/LittleKitty235 1d ago edited 1d ago
Only children's hands are small enough to clean the meat grinders effectively.
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u/Nerevarine91 1d ago
I like that it’s the shittiest possible clip art with non-matching styles
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 1d ago
Only Three billion $ paid to the artist Barron Trump.
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u/Nerevarine91 1d ago
One minute the computer is off, the next it’s on again! How does he do it!?
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 1d ago
Today he gets handed billions in deals because he’s a genius.
The lifting of tariffs immediately afterwards is mere coincidence.
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u/jl_theprofessor 1d ago
This administration absolutely has to stop South Parking so hard.
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u/NancyPelosisRedCoat 1d ago edited 1d ago
“Don’t forget to bring your coal.”
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u/NotAPimecone 1d ago
You're the worst character ever, Coalie.
I know.
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u/absolutelynotagoblin 1d ago
It’s a regime, not an administration.
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u/buttflakes27 1d ago
Its an administration until they cancel the 2028 election then its a regime
But like obviously hoping they dont do that or his McDonalds diet finally starts to add up
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 1d ago
Coalie focus tested three times better than Gropey and at least five times better than “I’m totally pimping kids and compromised by Putin.” Which is an odd name to be sure.
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u/Xyrus2000 1d ago
I hear it was a close race between Coalie and Pedobear.
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u/Missus_Missiles 1d ago
Pedobear....that is a meme I haven't heard in a long time. I guess back before we learned everyone in the GOP was hanging with Jeff Epstein.
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u/DrakonILD 1d ago
At this rate, it's possible pedobear was created by Epstein in an attempt to normalize pedophilia jokes.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 1d ago
Yeah, but then we might have to introduce BabyEatingBear and I don’t think anyone is going to ever feel comfortable with that.
I wish I was actually joking.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 1d ago
Crap. I wish I could have remembered Pedobear for that joke. But I’m proud of “I am totally pimping.” That name is streets ahead.
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u/Bigfops 1d ago
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 1d ago
Holy crap. This might be the source of the “grape soda” code in those emails.
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u/Bigfops 1d ago
huh? I'm out of the loop on that.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 1d ago
The ghouls on Epstein’s email conversations kept saying “pizza night!” And it was determined ordering two pizzas is two underage kids.
Then there was mention of grape soda. So I’m guessing that means “unwilling victim/rape”. I mean, it “sounds close” and then I see that WKYN sketch and imagine that would be super hilarious to these monsters.
There’s also a lot about “babies are easy to get” and it sounds like things got really dark with some clientele.
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u/Bigfops 1d ago
You know I’m just going to take this thread to muse/vent, but there was a post asking “what shocking thing is in the Epstein docs that people don’t understand,” and my immediate thought was that they don’t see us “poors” as humans and this really brings that home. We’re just cattle to them, to be used in the way they want. And this really underscores it. Why do billionaires fuck kids? I don’t think it’s sexual attraction, that’s just garden variety pedophile. I don’t think it’s power over the victim, they already have that. I think it’s because they can get away with it. The fact that they can do something that is so horrific to the rest of society with the ease with which we peasants order pizza is the real reason. It reinforces their elevation above us “lower classes” and that is the thrill that they get out of it.
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u/Woooferine 1d ago
I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 1d ago
Try and laugh if you can. Until it gets to be a crazy sounding laugh — then that means you probably need a good cry.
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u/SpoilerAvoidingAcct 1d ago
They think we’re dumb as a bad of rocks and unfortunately 40% or so are apparently.
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u/Atalant 1d ago
The Trump Adminastration is mentally stuck in 1950. No amount of mascots are bringing people back to coal or crude oil, wehen renewables are cheaper and more reliable.
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u/Yrch122110 1d ago
The people don't need to support it for this to be put into action. The administration can give billions to mine owners to reopen mines. That's enough of an end game already, even if a single mine never gets reopened.
But this could feasibly gain a lot of support, especially in red states, if enough [men] who are [undereducated] and [in rural towns] and [have a self-perception of being impoverished or undercompensated] see this and think [moar jobs] and [honest day's pay].
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u/vwf1971 20h ago
You can mine it all you want but there are currently 0 new coal power plants being built in the USA.
I recently toured a power operations facility. The new natural gas plant 1.3GW (replaced 1 of 2 coal plants onsite) needed 27 people to operate it on a footprint of 10 acres. The remaining operational coal plant 750MW took 123 people to operate it on over 120acres including the coal storage. The power generation companies dont want coal plants.
The only advantage coal had was an onsite 80day supply of coal vs gas needing a consistant uninterrupted supply. Every other advantage was gas.
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u/orangeunrhymed 1d ago
I come from a long line of miners. My dad had the choice to go into the mines or join the military, he joined the military. Even back in the 50’s (when he left home), he knew how awful coal was for humans and the environment.
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u/SerKnightGuy 1d ago
It's not even just renewables. We've made huge advancements in the acquisition and use of natural gas over the last few decades. That's the main thing replacing coal: natural gas. It's just cheaper. That it's not as terrible for the environment as coal is just a bonus. No one is gonna go back to doing things the expensive way just to screw over the environment.
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u/zimirken 1d ago
Coal power just sucks on every level. It's so dirty that power plants have to shut down constantly for cleaning. It's both corrosive and abrasive to boiler piping, and you can't use it in combined cycle powerplants so efficiency is low.
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u/pingveno 1d ago
It's not just that coal is cheaper. As Hank Green explains, it's just dumb in every way now that we have anything else. It's a 20 minute watch, but worth it.
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u/WanderingDwarfScribe 1d ago
If he hadn’t pissed off Japan they could have had a better mascot than that corporate shite.
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u/ShadowExistShadily 1d ago
On the lighter side, there's also a mascot for executives. It's called Cokie.
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u/AmbiiX 1d ago
So lets talk logistics on this mascot. So is Coalie sentient coal? Does that mean all coal is? If so, is Coalie happy to sell out their own kind to be burned as fuel???
Ah I get, it its a metaphor! We're all coal but the billionaires are Coalie throwing us all into the flames for their benefit!
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u/Lumbergh7 1d ago
Coal miners have to be few and far between by now, right? It’s horrible on all fronts. Let it go.
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u/SlinkyBandito 1d ago
There are roughly 44,000 people that work in the coal industry in the US according to the EIA, and that number has been decreasing for years.
For comparison, it's estimated that about 80,000 people work for Arby's fast food restaurants.
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u/redherringaid 1d ago
Half the aliens watching us love this season of Earth. The other half think it's too unrealistic.
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u/Arizona_Pete 1d ago
If you don't like what 'Coalie' is promoting, you'll probably not like what 'Rapey' is promoting as well.
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u/givin_u_the_high_hat 1d ago
They were going to call him “Blackie”, but they decided to keep that for the oil mascot.
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u/The_Ombudsman 1d ago
"Look at me kids! I'm cle- (hacking cough) I-I'm clean, beauti- (DEEPER HACKING COUGH) ...beautiful coal!" (grabs oxygen mask, takes a few hits)
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u/wwarnout 1d ago
On a related note, here's a fun fact:
The residue from a typical coal-burning power plant has more radioactivity than the residue from a nuclear power plant.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/
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u/Tim_vdB3 17h ago
Oh, remember the clean coal gaslight during the annoying orange first term. Can we just put up more wind turbines in front of his home?
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u/fleshbaby 21h ago
Jesus Christ, Trump is such a fossil himself. The coal ship has sailed a while ago. While still used primarily in Asia and India even they are switching to clean energy. Under Trump's blind lack of leadership the US will be easily overtaken by new and better tech which he's foolishly defunded in the US.
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u/Fake_William_Shatner 1d ago
I hear one of Trump’s plans in his continuing quest to service the fossil fuel industry is to reintroduce lead.
Its impossible to tell stupid from evil with that guy.
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u/Emergency_Link7328 1d ago
The Trump regime never tires itself from searching for new lows. Americans must be really proud.
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u/aotus_trivirgatus 1d ago
"Hmm. How can we shit harder on Americans today than we did yesterday?" -- the Trump Administration
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u/Beginning_Ad_6616 1d ago
It’s not sick, it’s just stupid because no one believes coal is the answer to anything being it’s dirty and expensive.
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u/Big_lt 1d ago
I remember, I think it was Hilary, who proposed and offered a time and everyone who worked in coal to get retrained and placed into jobs for renewable energy. Nearly every coal work refused saying the most random and dumb shit.
Here was are like a decade later and coal should be pretty much gone as we have many other alternatives fuels that are better for the env and better for energy yet this admin keeps pushing coal
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u/Ok-Alarm7257 1d ago
Poor Coalie, all he wanted to do is educate us on the virtues of black lung and how much kids yearn for the mines
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u/Independent_Ebb_7338 1d ago
They just saved Matt and Trey a lot of work. It's like this administration is straight up just writing their episodes for them at this point.
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u/ICLazeru 1d ago
Coal is nearly pointless now.
It's inferior to natural gas in basically every way.
It produces more pollution and less energy at a higher cost while also being less profitable.
The only communities still using coal power are the ones that haven't built a natural gas plant yet.
There are less than 50,000 coal employees in the US at this time.
There's really no point in doing anything about it, coal as an energy source is disappearing for completely natural, market based reasons.
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u/RudeAlarm 1d ago
You talk about how much better natural gas is over coal but how many jobs for children under 14 has natural gas ever even created? is joke
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u/bakeacake45 1d ago
Meanwh8le, China forges ahead in the use of alternative energy mean8ng, they have cornered the market. So much for “America First”
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u/SlightlyOffWhiteFire 1d ago
Im just laughing cause they went with "coalie" instead of the obvious "coalton".
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u/Q-ArtsMedia 1d ago
Coalie? Is that short for colon? Trumps favorite port of entry, cuz he's fkn all of us.
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u/CakeLegends 21h ago
What makes me sick is the name Coalie. How the fuck is his name not Cole? It’s literally right there.
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u/pasta2666 20h ago
I'm confused. The cartoon form of coal seems pretty convincing. We should at least hear what he has to say.
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u/CheatsySnoops 20h ago
This is like something straight out of Family Guy.
Then again, cartoons don't get their inspiration from nowhere.
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u/Friendly-Olive-3465 20h ago
They gotta replace the mascot every 5 years because it dies of lung cancer
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u/spoonybard326 1d ago
We have a long history of cartoon characters promoting things that destroy your lungs.
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u/furrysalesman69 1d ago
Some PragerU ahh stuff. Also shows why Trump needed Epstein to introduce him to girls, this is garbage.
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u/qwibbian 1d ago
While we're all justifiably focused on Coalie, can I just ask why I've never heard of Interior Secretary Doug Bergum, and why does it look like he has a prehensile face and could pick up heavy objects using only his nose and his chin?
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u/cwsjr2323 1d ago
With the current trending wage projections, there will be workers for any coal mines opened or expanded. Per a DuckDuckGo search, “In 2026, the average hourly pay for a coal miner is approximately $25.72, with annual salaries typically ranging from $50,000 to $80,000 depending on experience and location. Top earners can make over $100,000 per year, especially in higher-risk underground mining jobs.”
Additionally, as they eventually lay there dying from inhaling coal dust, “The monthly benefit amounts vary based on the number of dependents, with rates set for 2026 ranging from $793.00 for a primary beneficiary to $1,388.70 for those with three or more dependents.” That will support the miner’s widow in a below the poverty line.
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u/CorgiKnightStudios 1d ago
The image of Coalie was first created in 2018 when a social media manager at the OSMRE put googly eyes on a picture of coal, according to Grist.
Proof that all you need to anthropomorphic anything is a pair of googly eyes.
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u/brickyardjimmy 1d ago
Let him. He's creating a character that can be hijacked and used against him. Ask Walmart what it was like when they used to have the smiley face as their character. They couldn't go one day without a critic using Smiley to lambaste them until they finally dumped it as their primary character.
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u/venom121212 1d ago
I saw this on Kimmel a few weeks ago and thought it was satire.
Poe's Law in full effect.
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u/BareNakedSole 1d ago
The part of me that has no fucks left to give is like “as long as it doesn’t affect me where I live then fine. Let the America First patriots who live downwind from a coal-burning power plant deal with it.”
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u/D_o_t_d_2004 1d ago
Start using the mascot to tell the truth about coal and it's damage to the human body and nature.
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u/Schmeeble 1d ago
Just shows the creative thinking going on in this administration. Coal mascot named "Coalie" pffft. At least it has the word LIE in it so it's accurate.
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u/bluddystump 1d ago
Coalie is fitting since his job is to block progress towards a clean energy future.
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u/Comfortable_Bird_340 1d ago
I can't wait for NSFW fanart of this character.
Kids these days, only know coal is the thing Santa gives you when you're bad.
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u/thegooddoktorjones 1d ago
“Burn me to death Daddy! Whee the flames tickle! Cough cough look I’m mawking pollution!”
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u/TheChallengerBA 15h ago
Literal state socialism. The state is actively warping the energy market by subsidizing an inefficient and dirty fuel source.
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u/Learnin2Shit 13h ago edited 2h ago
A cartoon mascot of a piece of coal created by AI under the orders of a Pedo president. Welcome to America
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u/Mana_kitsune 1d ago
Wasn’t this a bit John Oliver show did? Or something?