When we last left Tom Perriello (D-VA), he was fending off GOP attacks for his vote on the climate and clean energy bill saying, “The Republicans may win some seats because of this vote, but they can’t regain their souls for demagoguing the issue.”

Turns out some conservatives never had a soul to lose.  As reported by the Charlottesville, VA Daily Progress, before the vote, Perriello’s office, “received at least six letters from two Charlottesville-based minority organizations voicing opposition to the measure”:

The letters, as it turns out, were forgeries.

“They stole our name. They stole our logo. They created a position title and made up the name of someone to fill it. They forged a letter and sent it to our congressman without our authorization,” said Tim Freilich, who sits on the executive committee of Creciendo Juntos, a nonprofit network that tackles issues related to Charlottesville’s Hispanic community. “It’s this type of activity that undermines Americans’ faith in democracy.”

… The person who sent the letter has not been identified, but he or she was employed by a Washington lobbying firm called Bonner & Associates.

As ThinkProgress reports, “Forgery Group, Bonner & Associates, Has A Decades-Long History Of Astroturf Tactics,” which I’ll excerpt below.  TP acquired the forged letters, which you can see if click on the image:

The fake letters say the groups are writing because “we are concerned about our electric bills.  Many of our members are on tight budgets….”  Needless to say, Bonner & Associates, with its many past and present fat-cat corporate clients, including the coal industry, isn’t on a tight budget.

Jack Bonner claims this was done by a “temporary employee” — a “bad employee” who has now been fired (see his statement here).  TPM has been doing some excellent reporting, however, and explains just how bogus this “plausible deniability” defense by Bonner is:

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Question of the week:  Is this greenwashing a highly polluting sport — or an important act and useful message from a key segment of society needed to eventually achieve the full clean energy transformation?  Related question:  Will NASCAR exist in its current form in a couple of decades when the global Ponzi scheme collapses and oil is over $200 a barrel?

Pocono Raceway, which hosts two Nascar Sprint Cup races each year, plans to construct the world’s largest solar energy project at a sports facility….

Mike Lynch, who joined Nascar in October as managing director of green innovation, said the Pocono solar farm would set a standard for sports.

“We have a power footprint that can be addressed with renewable energy,” he said. “We see the Pocono project as one that’s a fantastic example of how it can be done.”

So the NYT report Thursday in “A Fuel-Belching Nascar Track Has Big Plans for Solar Power.”  Certainly it’s much better that they are doing this than not — and this isn’t a rip-offset REC purchase (see “Schendler II: Good RECs vs. Bad RECs“). Here’s more of the story:

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