January 6, 2011- Last month, pranksters set up a spoof website for petroleum/paper cup/carpet conglomerate Koch Industries. Then they sent out a fake press release that claimed Koch was remaking itself into a paragon of corporate responsibility. FOR THIS THEY WILL BE DESTROYED.

January 5, 2011: Today, as Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) was sworn in as the Speaker of the House for the 112th Congress, ThinkProgress witnessed a group of Koch Industries lobbyists entering the Capitol along with members of Congress and their families. Tim Phillips, a former business partner to Jack Abramoff who now leads the Koch front group Americans for Prosperity, was with Nancy Pfotenhauer, a former corporate lobbyist for Koch Industries. ThinkProgress learned that David Koch, the polluter billionaire who has bankrolled groups organizing the Tea Parties and much of the modern conservative movement, was also in attendance in the Capitol for Boehner’s swearing-in event.

By Hamilton Nolan

January 5, 2011- Last August, Jane Mayer wrote a long investigative article in The New Yorker about the Koch brothers, the conservative billionaires who bankroll a host of right-wing causes. Since then, she's apparently become the victim of a disturbing, organized smear campaign.

Mayer, who's reported extensively on America's use of torture during the "War on Terror" and co-authored books on Clarence Thomas and Ronald Reagan, is certainly no stranger to peals of right-wing outrage. But her work on the reclusive Koch brothers (whose official objections to the story are laid out in this letter) seems to have raised it to a new level. Sources tell us that rumors have been circulating for some time now that a private investigator was hired to dig up dirt on Mayer in the wake of the Koch brothers story. (Dirty business, but that sort of thing does happen.)

January 4, 2011: David Koch masks his role as one of the top financiers of the Tea Party movement and pro-polluter front groups by loudly tacking his name to more laudable charities, like the New York city ballet. Koch, who has professed his devotion to “The Nutcracker” ballet performance by Alexei Ratmansky, made a matching grant of $2.5 million so that it could go on this season. At a special opening of the performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music shortly before Christmas, Koch made an appearance to talk about his donation. The Financial Times’ John Gapper was in the audience and witnessed a crowd of “harried Brooklyn moms and salivating balletomanes” erupting in boos at the sight of the Tea Party billionaire:

March 30, 2010- Koch Industries has “become a financial kingpin of climate science denial and clean energy opposition,” spending over $48.5 million since 1997 to fund the climate denial machine, according to an extensive report today by Greenpeace.

December 3, 2010- Outside groups spent nearly $18 million on Michigan’s most competitive congressional races this year – nearly $6 million more than that spent by the candidates themselves.

The Lansing-based Michigan Campaign Finance Network issued its findings today after looking at Federal Election Commission records as well as data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. It also consulted its own records on spending by some shadow advocacy organizations, including the conservative Americans for Prosperity, which has been linked to industrialist David Koch.

Virginia Thomas is sidelined by new management with Koch brothers ties.

November 18, 2010- Even before the Anita Hill phone message, it had become increasingly clear that Ginni Thomas was a “loose cannon.” Who knew what might spill out next? So in short order earlier this week, Ginni Thomas was pushed aside and a new Liberty Central leader, an attorney named Sarah Field, said she’s the new spokesperson. If my attempts to find or contact her are any indication, Fields appears to be a very good secret keeper.

November 23, 2010- Does anyone else sense something strange is going on with the apparently spontaneous revolt against the TSA? This past week, the media turned an "ordinary guy," 31-year-old Californian John Tyner, who blogs under the pseudonym "Johnny Edge," into a national hero after he posted a cell phone video of himself defending his liberty against the evil government oppressors in charge of airport security.

Koch Industries has been responsible for over 300 Oil Spills in the US, resulting in 3 million gallons of crude oil leaked into fisheries and water supplies.

Koch has spent lavishly to oppose wind farms.

Koch is one of the top 10 toxic air polluters in the United States

Click here to learn more about Koch Industries dismal record

October 23, 2010- As the 2010 campaign draws to its raucous close, the Republican Party's biggest donors are slowly beginning to choose sides, with some still looking for a strong alternative to a populist conservative movement that makes them uneasy.

The big New York, Texas, California and Florida donors who traditionally play a key role in choosing the GOP nominee lined up behind George W. Bush in 2000 and, largely, John McCain in 2008.

November 3, 2010- After months of message wars between progressive grassroots organizations and big oil companies over Proposition 23, the ballot measure to suspend California's landmark global warming legislation in the name of job creation, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took a jab at the bill last night that may have put the final nail in its coffin.

By funding numerous rightwing organisations, the mega-rich Koch brothers have duped millions into supporting big business

October 25, 2010: The Tea Party movement is remarkable in two respects. It is one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen – and the biggest Astroturf operation in history. These accomplishments are closely related.