I recently took a two-day trip down to Palm Springs to attend an event called “Uncloaking the Kochs” hosted by Common Cause. Accompanied by my dear friend, former assembly candidate Alvaro Day, I traveled as an independent investigative journalist, and not in any official capacity on behalf of Big Government or Breitbart.com (though I was pleasantly surprised to run into a familiar friend of mine on rollerblades jovially inviting everyone to Applebee’s).

Among Common Cause’s, well, common causes, are campaign finance reform, net neutrality, outlawing the filibuster, promoting cap and trade, and in this particular case, herding a mass of protesters outside a nearby hotel to yell at Charles and David Koch for being conservative and rich.

Unfortunately several “haves” have missed the memo that you’re not to be both rich and conservative at the same time, and that bankrolling your pet causes is an extra no-no if you’re conservative—thus exempting left-wing billionaire philanthropists George Soros (from whom Common Cause has received $2 million over the past eight years) Peter Lewis, John Doerr, Julian Robertson, Nicolas Berggruen, and many others from being yelled at too. (more…)

Today E&E News reports (subscription required) green group faux-rage that industry reps were consulted on drafting an amendment by Sen. Lisa Murkowski to (IMO, rather unwisely) grant the Democrats a one-year reprieve from their looming political nightmare of EPA threatening to actually try and regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources by regulation under a Clean Air Act never designed for such foolishness.

Such unseemly whimpering is about as credible as the greens’ phony “hacked emails!” outrage, over what was from all appearances a whistleblower releasing “ClimateGate” email evidence of dirty green tricks. These are the same crowd whose slimy green tactics include stealing my trash on a weekly basis and working with, e.g., the Guardian to dishonestly cobble together unrelated, out-of-context (unlike ClimateGate) excerpts from emails to paint a false picture. (“Greens involved in journalism process!”; sadly, the Guardian never called me for their “story” about, well, me, so I must confess I wasn’t involved).

Specifically, E&E notes how:

“the Washington Post reported yesterday that [Bracewell & Giuliani's Jeff Holmstead] and another former EPA official, Roger Martella, ‘helped craft the original amendment Murkowski planned to offer on the floor last fall.’…

Environmentalists pounced on the reports as evidence that coal and oil interests are behind Murkowski’s efforts. ‘We now have proof that lobbyists for Big Oil, dirty coal and other special interests are directly involved in recent attempts to bail out big polluters and gut the Clean Air Act,’ said a Sierra Club press release. ‘What’s more, these big polluter lobbyists are the same former Bush administration officials who completely disregarded the Clean Air Act and even disobeyed the Supreme Court for years.’

(more…)