We've already discussed what a piece of work this Robert Murray is, whether it's his terrible safety record, coercing employees on who they're going to donate to and forcing them to appear as props at political events, so it isn't really a big shock he'd pull something as cruel and heartless as this -- Midwest coal firm CEO reads staff a prayer for 'divine intervention' after Obama re-election and then lays off 156 of them:

President Obama's re-election was so unpopular with one Midwest industrialist that he prayed for divine intervention the day after and claimed it forced him to lay off 156 staff.

Robert E. Murray, the chairman of Ohio based Murray Energy said that the Democrat would now wage a 'war on coal' and led a prayer in front of a group of company staff members in which he implored forgiveness for firing his employees.

'Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build,' said Murray in his public prayer.

As head of the largest privately owned coal mining company in the country, Murray issued a denial in August that he forced miners to attend a Romney speech in southeastern Ohio in August and it has been reported that his workers have donated $1.4 million to the Republicans since 2007.

Laying off the staff from his subsidiaries American Coal and Utah American Energy, Murray Energy currently has approximately 3,000 employees and produces around 30 million tons of nituminous coal a year - according its website.

My guess is this guy had every intention of laying off those employees already and decided to use them as political pawns once the election was over. As Ed Schultz noted in the clip above, nothing changed for his company from the day before as compared to the day after the election.