Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Koch)

Liberal blogs and publications have published countless slanted pieces on Koch Industries, heavy on innuendo and light on facts.

The Obama administration has long been criticized for maintaining a de facto “enemies list” of its perceived political opponents, whether they are respected Supreme Court justices, disfavored reporters or private citizens who just want to keep their own doctors. The Democrats’ obsession with the Kochs as a political target is, indeed, additional evidence of a truly Nixonian approach to politics.

That the Obama administration and its allies use private citizens as symbols to be attacked and vilified is unfair and deeply threatening to our civic life and the rule of law.

In fact, the Koch brothers have made themselves very public figures. After Charles Koch founded the Cato Institute in 1977, David Koch ran for vice president on the Libertarian ticket he bankrolled in 1980. In person and through their latest front group, the astroturf organization Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs have “attacked and vilified” the Obama administration to a level that approaches “obsession”:

Charles Koch: Obama Is ‘Greatest Assault On American Freedom.’ In his letter inviting fellow conservative millionaires and billionaires to a secret Palm Springs retreat in January 2011, Charles Koch accused President Obama of “the greatest assault on American freedom and prosperity in our lifetimes.” [ThinkProgress]

Charles Koch: Obama Is ‘Saddam Hussein.’ At another secret retreat in the fall of 2011, Charles Koch compared President Obama and the 2012 elections to Saddam Hussein and the Iraq War. “We have Saddam Hussein, this is the Mother of All Wars we’ve got in the next 18 months. For the life or death of this country.” [Mother Jones, 9/6/11]

Read more

“The Kochs are on a whole different level. There’s no one else who has spent this much money. The sheer dimension of it is what sets them apart. They have a pattern of lawbreaking, political manipulation, and obfuscation. I’ve been in Washington since Watergate, and I’ve never seen anything like it. They are the Standard Oil of our times.”

– Charles Lewis, founder of the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity, quoted in a New Yorker expose of the Koch Brothers

Al Jazeera released a new mini-documentary yesterday on the Koch Brothers — the multi-billionare energy tycoons who have spent over $50 million on campaigns to tear down the science of climate change and clean energy policy.

The documentary features a lengthy interview with our colleague Lee Fang, an investigative reporter with Think Progress, who has played a major role in uncovering the strong “web of influence” of the Koch Brothers on state and federal politicians. The film touches on the Koch role in everything from health care to energy policy. It’s worth the watch. (Note: much of the energy and climate stuff is in the second half, after about 15 minutes.)

This is exactly why “the other 99%” of Americans are protesting in the streets.

Join the 19,000 people who follow Climate Progress on Twitter.

Richard Muller

Even Richard Muller, Berkeley Earth’s scientific director who was notorious for not believing the conventional wisdom about climate change, said this study confirms global warming. Muller founded Berkeley Earth, to which the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation donated $150,000, to correct for factors like urban heat, which he said earlier studies had not considered. And yet Muller’s study still confirmed the earlier studies showing global warming.

But the deniers remain skeptical — including one denier who had said in March he would accept these results, according to the New York Times:

[Anthony] Watts, a former television meteorologist, contended that the study’s methodology was flawed because it examined data over a 60-year period instead of the 30-year-one that was the basis for his research and some other peer-reviewed studies. He also noted that the report had not yet been peer-reviewed and cited spelling errors as proof of sloppiness.

He said he was not backing away from the pledge he made but that he wanted corrections made first. “I’m still happy to accept the results, whatever they might be,” Mr. Watts said. ”All I’m asking for is an apples-to-apples comparison of data.”

As Joe Romm put it: “We were told these results would be accepted. [...] It goes to show there is nothing that will derail the deniers.”