“Mark Hertsgaard, from Politico.”

Lying, or at the very least, misrepresenting your credentials – in this case, your place of employment – is not something you should do when speaking to elected officials, especially savvy ones who have a camera nearby.

This is not an ambush video, as the ambush is the interview itself. Instead, the video captured by a staffer shows the would-be “journalist” attempting to confront U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., about climate change. Regardless of your personal feelings on the subject of climate change, the video provides a real-time lesson in what NOT to do as a blogger, citizen journalist, reporter, or policy flak.

Hertsgaard tells Inhofe that he works as a reporter for Politico, the web-based political news site. Unfortunately for the earnest climate advocate, he is nothing of the sort:

Dan Berman, energy editor at Politico, told The Daily Caller that while Hertsgaard has written one opinion article for them, he was not and is not affiliated with Politico.

“Mr. Hertsgaard is not a POLITICO reporter or employee and we have asked him not to portray himself as one,” Berman wrote in an e-mail to The DC.

Whoops.

We were floored to see a report that U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, D-Colo., would have former Vice President Al Gore doing a fundraiser for her on Oct. 16, which can only remind undecided voters in her 4th Congressional District of her 2009 vote for cap-and-tax legislation.

Passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, led by House Democrats under the guidance of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, exposed vulnerable freshman representatives like Markey as being far left on “global warming” and energy policy, pressured by enviro groups such as Gore’s Repower America.

“We need you to contact your representatives in Congress,” Gore said in the video above, the week of the vote. “Overwhelm their phone lines with your message.”

What’s overwhelming is that cap-and-tax passed at all, given an analysis by the Heritage Foundation (reported by The Wall Street Journal) that it could “cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four.”

The Senate version of the legislation has been bottled up and (hopefully) will stay that way. There’s a detailed explanation of that in the current New Yorker magazine, including a description of the Edison Electric Institute getting “almost everything” it wanted in potential Senate legislation. Edison, based in Washington, D.C., is “the association of shareholder-owned electric utilities,” according to its website.

We told you in June about Markey getting guidance from Pelosi’s former right-hand man, Brian Wolff, a high-powered lobbyist and senior vice president at Edison.

Wolff was listed as a co-host of a fundraising event on Friday at the institute for Markey, with donations sought of $2,500 per political-action-committee host, according to the invitation published by the Sunlight Foundation’s Party Time.

“This year, U.S. Representative Betsy Markey specifically requested millions of dollars of government spending to benefit the electric power industry, including money to fund a “Energy Conversion Laboratory” and a “Smart Grid Simulation Laboratory,” reported a blog called “That’s my Congress”, which cited the invitation. “Why on earth would Markey specifically ask for this money, when the residents of her congressional district have so many other needs?”

Separately, CompleteColorado.com raised sharp questions recently about the connections between Markey’s fundraising, her policy positions and a green energy company in her district.

If Markey is so keen on the green economy, perhaps on leaving office she can pursue the path of Gore, whom the Telegraph speculated last year “could become the world’s first carbon billionaire after investing heavily in green energy companies.”

As long as it’s not with the taxpayers’ money.

Andrew Romanoff, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Colorado, nearly had Republican me swooning over his tax policy…IF only he’d stopped when he was ahead.

“My goal is to make our tax code as efficient, as equitable, as transparent as possible and to make sure that we’re not punishing the kind of activities that we ought to instead be rewarding,” he said at a July 20 forum in Colorado Springs, hosted by the Coalition for a Prosperous America.

YAY! Finally! A guy who’s speaking my language! He must really get it. We need wholesale tax reform to save the Republic. WOO HOO!!!

“When you tax something you get less of it. We tax work. We impose an income tax to provide the revenues that government needs to supply the services that citizens want.”

Right on, brother! I loooove logical politicians. This is logic at its best! No more income tax! Don’t penalize success! Win!

“It seems to me the best way to design a tax code would be to instead encourage activities by taxing them less, activities like work or savings, research/development, investments of those kinds…”

I found my unicorn! A Democrat who understands the fundamental purpose and folly of taxes. THIS MAKES MY DAY!

“…And instead discourage the activities that disadvantage us. Like, for example, carbon emissions.“

WAIT! WHAT? Nooooooooo. . . you were so close! SO CLOSE!

“I want to also make sure, and I think that some of the earlier conversation reflected this, that as we’re designing this tax code, we don’t unfairly disadvantage the folks who have the least ability to pay. I think progressivity is an appropriate part both of CPA’s platform and of our own tax code.”

Sigh. I knew it was too good to be true . . . I KNEW IT! I should have known better.

Have you ever had your heart built up only to have it torn down again? Send your sob stories (FISCAL only, please) to whosaidyousaid@gmail.com.

Following former U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo’s announcement Thursday that he’s running for governor of Colorado as the American Constitution Party candidate, he answered my questions about his view of the Democratic nominee, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper.

MAHER: What do you think are the biggest contrasts between you and the mayor?

TANCREDO: He is a wild-eye liberal, left-wing ideologue. You think I say crazy things? This guy takes the cake. He makes me look completely rational.

MAHER: Okay, and so, some examples – on WhoSaidYouSaid, our blog he said – we have documented he said he wants to spend tens and tens of billions of dollars fighting climate change with climate change insurance. What would be a contrast to that?

TANCREDO: I have . . . I can’t imagine except to say, what? What did he say? What? It makes no sense. I have no idea what that means. I mean, does anybody? Where do you get this insurance? Who pays this insurance? Billions and billions and tens of billions? Is that enough? How about tens and tens and tens and tens of billions? I mean, it’s just ludicrous. And, this is my point when I talk about the fact that there are great…there are absolutely differences between the two of us. Yeah, I believe that government has a role to play, but it’s really very limited. Our whole campaign theme is…you know, I never did that…I don’t think I ever said that [at the campaign announcement] but – gather them all up again – our whole campaign theme is more freedom. It’s about more freedom. His is about more government. He is a collectivist. He thinks that way, he likes it. It’s what he’s all about. I’m just the opposite. I’m for an individual. Individual rights mean far more to me that collective rights.

John Hickenlooper’s vision for Colorado in urban areas (and maybe beyond?) is for people to bike, walk and ride mass transit.

The occasional car, of course, is needed to transport Denver Mayor Hickenlooper around the state to enlighten the rest of us.

In a video recently posted by Adobe Airstream, an online culture magazine, Hickenlooper discussed sustainability, urban planning and Denver’s new bike sharing program.

“How do we begin thinking about people moving on bicycles and walking and taking light rail or buses?” said Hickenlooper [at 5:37 of the video]. “We have the largest bike-sharing program in the United States, right? Almost 500 bicycles, 45 stations. And the whole notion is that people can get off light rail. They can get onto a bike. They can do the last hundred yards. It doesn’t cost them anything. You know, this is, you know, how do we wean ourselves off automobiles?” (Emphasis WSYS)

And how is Hickenlooper campaigning for governor across the state? By stagecoach?
We’ve already seen how Hickenlooper’s eco-vision translates into policy with FasTracks, the Denver metro region’s mass transit project reportedly facing a $2.4 billion shortfall.
In the documentary “Sprawling from Grace,” Hickenlooper described the promise of transit-oriented development around light-rail stops. “So that you’d have the maximum opportunity for people to get what they want without having to get in a car,” he said.
In 2009, Hickenlooper said said it would be “insane not to be spending tens and tens of billions a year” to combat climate change. “But I’m a moderate.”
With moderates like this who needs extremists?
——-
Must Like Cars, David Harsanyi, The Denver Post, 7/2/10

With a bill on energy policy, including climate change, reportedly to be introduced in the U.S. Senate next week, it’s worth following the Americans for Prosperity “Regulation Reality Tour.”

“The EPA is trying to enforce regulations without a vote of Congress,” said Mary Ellen Burke of Americans for Prosperity, during a tour stop last month in Wheat Ridge, Colo. “We think that all these environmental issues should be debated on their own merits in Congress, where they’re supposed to be.”

When the EPA in December made its “endangerment finding” on greenhouse gases, the Wall Street Journal wrote, “With cap and trade blown apart in the Senate, the White House has chosen to impose taxes and regulation across the entire economy under clean-air laws that were written decades ago and were never meant to apply to carbon.”

In the meantime, Americans for Prosperity created a petition in the form of an “EPA Carbon Cops Citation.”

Carbon Cop Citation Form http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf

When Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper spoke at the Colorado Environmental Coalition’s “Rebel with a Cause” gala in May 2009, he showed he was down with the green crowd.

“What’s weird about me being up here is, you know I have a masters in geology, I took climate studies,” said Hickenlooper [at 3:00 of the video above]. “I’m one of those people that says I’m not sure how fast the climate..I’m not saying that the sky is falling. I’m saying that clearly the climate is changing, clearly mankind’s activities are causing it. And that we’d be insane not to be spending tens…tens and tens of billions of dollars every year buying insurance to begin to prevent and stop that change that’s happening. But I’m a moderate.”

If this is Hickenlooper’s definition of moderate, we’d love to know what (and who) he thinks is radical.

Apparently not Van Jones, whom he praised [at 10:55 of the same video] as “a rock star. He is. Everything you’ve ever heard about Van Jones, he’s bigger and better in life than what you’ve heard.”

Jones, given the CEC’s “Rebel with a Cause” award, wasn’t able to attend the event in person.

In September, Jones resigned his Obama Administration post as green jobs czar “amid controversy over past activism.”

“Mr. Jones was poised to play a prominent role in disbursing tens of billions of dollars of stimulus money,” wrote The Wall Street Journal. “It was the ideal perch from which he could keep funding the left-wing networks from which he sprang, this time with taxpayer money.”

Gosh, I love speeches – don’t you?

———

Update: WhoSaidYouSaid is mentioned on the 630 KHOW talk show Caplis and Silverman here: http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/DENVER-CO/KHOW-AM/031210HOUR1.mp3

More links to Hickenlooper’s remarks on climate change, prior to running for governor of Colorado:

Hickenlooper on “dramatic” climate change; billions for what?

Hickenlooper on climate politics: the slavery analogy

Hickenlooper: “Transit is the new black. It’s hip.”

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper has made enough public statements about his views on climate change that a pattern emerges: 1) give a nod to the skeptics 2) say that if there’s even a chance it’s true, we need to do something and 3) tout solutions.

All three were evident in a podcast interview recently posted by U.S. News & World Report.

PLUS, Hickenlooper calculated a price tag: up to $80 billion a year “on more sustainable energy sources and making sure that we’re not putting the planet at risk.”

[It's not clear if the interview was conducted before or after Hickenlooper announced Jan. 12 that he would run for governor of Colorado.]

“Many – maybe not all – but a significant majority of our top scientists, believe this is a very, very serious issue,” Hickenlooper said about 3:12 into the podcast. “This could change the world as we know it in very profound and negative ways. If there’s even a two-percent chance that they’re right, we’re fools not to be making significant investments to begin to prepare, as we get more data, if they are exactly correct.”

What type of things? Incandescent street lights and traffic signals, insulating buildings, green construction, high-efficiency and high-mileage vehicles, he gave as examples. “All these things cost us almost nothing and they can have dramatic effects.”

Then came the clincher, making a parallel to personal safety in the home.

“Ask people what they think the chance of their house burning on fire is. And most people will tell you, ‘My house is never going to burn on fire,’ right? And yet we all buy fire insurance. We pay between .2 [percent] and .5 percent of the value of our home, every year, just to have that insurance. Well, by that measure, we should be spending $60 [billion] to $80 billion a year on more sustainable energy sources and making sure that we’re not putting the planet at risk.”

Comparing home fire insurance to “global warming insurance” is a talking point of some progressives. See the video above…

“We know that climate change is occurring, right? Everyone knows that. We know it’s dramatic. We know that mankind is the likely…the vast majority of it is a result of our actions. So we need to address it and move quickly. I think when you start trying to break down which part of the climate disruption is the consequence of which pollution images, or who’s responsible, that’s when we get into trouble. I would certainly dramatically agree that we need billions of dollars…”

So said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper in December, appearing on the show Democracy Now! during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen [at 7:40 of the video above. Full transcript at this link.]

Unfortunately, Hickenlooper was cut off mid-sentence by host Amy Goodman, who wanted to hear from Damon Moglen, the global warming campaign director for Greenpeace USA, about its “demands” at the conference. [Moglen had said earlier (4:46) that, "The expectation is that the U.S. will put somewhere in between half a billion and maybe a couple of billion dollars. This is pennies on the dollar of what’s needed, absolutely pennies on the dollar of what’s really needed."]

So Hickenlooper, now running for governor of Colorado, gets another chance. And we trust that he will answer these questions completely on the campaign trail: WHERE do we need billions of dollars? WHO should pay? And WHAT role should Colorado play?

We’re all ears.

[Updated 2/13/10]
____

Hickenlooper on climate politics: the slavery analogy

Let’s start here…

In December, a month before Hickenlooper entered the Colorado governor’s race, he attended the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Stateside, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency made a splash with an “endangerment finding” that carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases “threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion: “With cap and trade blown apart in the Senate, the White House has chosen to impose taxes and regulation across the entire economy under clean-air laws that were written decades ago and were never meant to apply to carbon.”

In Copenhagen, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman asked Hickenlooper what he thought about the EPA’s action. [Full transcript at this link.]

“I think the EPA stepping in – clearly CO2 and methane, these six gases, are pollutants, there can’t be any question,” he said. “So there shouldn’t be a lot of discussion about whether the EPA has the jurisdiction or the authority. I think the devil will be in the details.”

So far, so bad. Hickenlooper went on to discuss whether Pres. Obama can achieve political consensus on climate change.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mMPnei6AFk]

[The video above is queued up to 5:40.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b68Rk94jPDk

“It reminds me a little bit of slavery, of Lincoln having to deal…If you look at how moderate Lincoln was in 1856, 1858, 1859, even as he was getting elected [president], it’s an intergenerational problem that has been, you know, intensely polarizing. I think what Obama is trying to do is thread the needle and bring the country together around this issue.”

Say WHAT?

________

Hickenlooper on climate spending; billions for what?