Billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch were stopped today. The Keystone XL oil pipeline will meet its end today in a Washington DC press conference. The pipeline would’ve been one of the largest oil developments in American history. The pipeline would’ve destroyed American homes, farmlands and sensitive ecosystems along the nearly 2,000-mile path from Northwest Canada and through six U.S. states to the Gulf of Mexico.

But it also represented a win for brothers Koch, who’ve used their net worth to influence politicians and the media to support policies that would make them richer.

The Koch brothers helped fund and start the Tea Party group, Americans for Prosperity. It’s Nebraska chapter has actively promoted and organized around the Keystone pipeline despite numerous concerns voiced by the Republican governor of Nebraska and thousands of Cornhusker residents. Many activists in our Koch Brothers Exposed network have said they’ve seen Americans for Prosperity commercials in their communities supporting the pipeline.

The Koch brothers have a profit and greed motive behind the pipeline too. Read the rest of this entry →

Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch look like they’re easy graders. Their tea party group released its rankings this week of senators and congressman who tow the Koch line most, and it gave a total of 44 A+’s for the 112th Congress.

Americans for Prosperity, the Tea Party group funded by the Kochs, based its grades on opposition to affordable health care, clean air, alternative energy and net neutrality. Scores were also boosted if the elected official signed the tea party group’s anti-revenue pledge.

In sum, the five senators who scored 100 percent on the Americans for Prosperity how-can-we-make-the-Kochs-richer test received $187,400 in campaign contributions from the Kochs and their allies.

These senators are Ron Johnson (R-WI), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and potential Republican vice presidential nominee Marco Rubio, a freshman from Florida. Indeed, Rubio, Johnson and Coburn have a lifetime of A+ scores!

Though the brothers are worth about $42 billion, a little political donation here and there goes a long way. Factor in the brothers’ self-serving “philanthropy” with the Kochs’ numerous other nonprofit foundations and academic think tanks and you’ve exposed a vast echo chamber of perpetuating myths and distortions designed to make the Kochs richer.

While the Koch brothers use their enormous wealth to influence democracy in the Capitol, they’re also funding or supporting groups that aim to replace the values of working families with policies that make the Koch brothers richer. At the same time, the Kochs are working to bolster their clout with influential members of the political and media elite to favor devastating environmental developments that would boost the soaring profits of Koch Industries. Read the rest of this entry →

Co-written by Robert Greenwald, President and founder of Brave New Foundation, and Judith Browne Dianis, co-Director of the Advancement Project.

If you live in one of 38 states, billionaire political operatives Charles and David Koch are trying to influence your and your neighbors’ constitutional right to vote. The Koch brothers and their allies have already succeeded in shepherding voter suppression bills through seven states, which amount to about one third of the 270 electoral votes to win the White House.

Through their web of think tanks, nonprofit organizations, family foundations and political donations, the Koch brothers have bought access to democracy’s lifeblood: elections. They’ve used their $42 billion in wealth to support state laws and legislators that erect barriers to the voting booth.

The Kochs’ victims are young people, senior citizens, disabled individuals and people of color– precisely the 99 percent of us who are opposed to the Koch brothers’ political agenda.

In 34 states, the Kochs have supported legislation that makes a photo ID a prerequisite to voting. It’s a Jim Crow poll tax of a different name, and the voter fraud it engenders the Kochs to silence whole communities. These Koch-supported voter suppression laws have the intended effect of transforming constitutional and civic obligations into an endless challenge for the elderly, disabled and young voters alike. Read the rest of this entry →

Tens of thousands of Americans and citizens around the world have rightfully spoken out about the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a roughly 2,000 mile long development that would carve up six states and enrich the 1% even more.

Few personify the wealthiest 1% more than Charles and David Koch, who’re among the largest financial beneficiaries of dirty tar sands oil. The Keystone XL pipeline would hurt America and make the Koch brothers richer. In other words, it would give the Koch brothers more billions of dollars to buy American democracy and bend it to their whims.

This doesn’t have to be the case. The State Department and White House can veto the pipeline’s permits because it crosses an international border with Canada.

The pressure’s on. The State Department was rightfully exposed for shoddy oversight. Leaders in Congress continue fighting to further investigate the Koch brothers’ involvement, and just recently, President Obama said he would personally approve or deny the Keystone XL pipeline.

It’s the biggest environmental issue from now until next year. Will President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose American safety or will they hand the Koch brothers billions more in profit that they’ll politically use against them? Read the rest of this entry →

David Koch does not own Palm Beach, it turns out.

Our film crew exposed the hypocrisy of the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch and the public policies they fund and support. We wanted the Koch brothers to be honest about how their attacks on Social Security would benefit their corporate bottom line.

In response, David Koch tried to build a wall around his home. But through a simple matter of law and order, David Koch was defeated.

Let me explain. To personify income inequality, we filmed three Florida seniors picnicking outside David Koch’s home and asking David’s security guards if they could talk to David one-on-one about why he wants to cut their minimal Social Security income. These seniors couldn’t understand why, with $42 billion and seven homes, the Koch brothers wanted to dismember Social Security and their fixed incomes.

David’s staff didn’t merely say “no” to the seniors’ request, they called the cops on them. And, we would find out after we left Florida in March, that David began unlawfully building a fence around his home– the $27 million, 25,000 square-foot landmark Villa el Sarmiento.

Read the rest of this entry →

Billionaire political donors Charles and David Koch aren’t the only ones who saw our latest investigative film. Thousands of people have posted comments on our Facebook page and have offered additional testimony about the Koch brothers’ pollution in their communities.

In a smear campaign orchestrated in response to our investigation, the Koch brothers attacked almost all of the residents featured in our film. These individuals say they’re suffering from cancer because they live too close to a Koch Industries factory, which pollutes rivers and creeks flowing near their rural homes.

This duality between the haves and have-nots in our society is a big driver of the rising tide of Occupy movement– and for good reason. The Koch brothers personify the top 1 percent and the avarice that’s allowed the richest Americans to profit at the expense of the other 99 percent and those of us who’re hardest hit by the jobs crisis and economic recession.

Thousands of people posted comments that both reflect the goals of the Occupy movement and aid the people of Crossett, Arkansas, who are part of the other 99 percent and have volunteered to hand-deliver these messages to the Kochs. Some viewers, like Lance Blann, reached us directly and shared their personal reactions.

Read the rest of this entry →

Our ongoing Koch Brothers Exposed video investigation has discovered something so tragic it will haunt Charles and David Koch for years to come.

Is a Koch Industries factory getting away with murder?

While the brothers wage war against safety precautions, every day their factory is dumping millions of gallons of wastewater into streams that flow near a small rural town. It’s this kind of abuse by the top 1% of Americans that’s driving young and old to fight money in politics, occupy Wall Street and protest in the streets. The Koch brothers personify inequality, and people are rising up and have identified the overwhelming corporate influence on democracy as a corrosive stain that harms the rest of us.

Our latest video reflects this as we follow the money and prove the Koch brothers buy a system that makes them richer at the expense of everyone else. Through political donations, think tanks and front groups, the Koch brothers are able to weaken safety and oversight laws, which leaves communities like Crossett, Arkansas behind to suffer.

“The Koch brothers are killing me and my family,” Norma Thompson told us during our investigation. She’s lived near the Koch brothers’ mill for 39 years. Journey to Arkansas and watch her story:

Read the rest of this entry →

Charles Koch, one of our country’s most prolific conservative donors, was recorded praising his oil, energy and Wall Street friends who contributed millions of dollars to his political causes. That Koch likely referred to President Obama as Saddam Hussein and framed the upcoming election as the “mother of all wars” overshadowed the real news.

There’s disclosure about the Koch brothers secret strategy sessions. The recording at the center of the controversy was taken from the most recent Koch seminar in June, and we now know the litany of polluting tycoons and industrialists who are allied with the Kochs in ideology and corporate greed.

And like the Koch brothers, this millionaire and billionaire club stands to gain from the hazardous and unnecessary Keystone XL oil pipeline, which passed a critical assessment in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

The billionaire brothers are the subject of our activist community that’s taking action to stop the Kochs on this controversy and other critical policies that affect our society and health. Read the rest of this entry →

Koch Industries and its army of subsidiary corporations operate 57 chemical facilities in the U.S. and have fought in and out of Congress to avoid a comprehensive safety solution that would mitigate fallout from any natural and man-made disasters, according to a new investigation from Greenpeace.

Charles and David Koch, and their related businesses, have poured money into politicking across the country. In Wisconsin alone, they were Gov. Scott Walker’s largest out-of-state contributor, and they famously bought all kinds of advertisements and electioneering courtesy of their Tea Party group Americans for Prosperity.

They aren’t done. The folks on the ground fighting back in Wisconsin now discovered another dimension to the Kochs’ dirty tactics.

The brothers are buying up web domain names. The equivalent of facebook.com or google.com, the Kochs’ have bought:

• StopKoch.com
• StopKochIndustries.com
• AntiKoch.com

That’s in addition to their KochFacts.com page, which they’ve used to attack us and journalists who have written about us and the Kochs’ laundry list of dirty deeds and self-serving ideology.

That the brothers would go ahead and buy domain names like this is a sign of their nervousness. Why are they playing defense, and do they really think that buying three URLs is going to stop someone from setting up StopDavidKoch.com or StopKoch.net?

This latest twist shouldn’t be too big of a surprise since the Kochs have demonstrated a willingness to do whatever it takes and consequences be damned approach to getting their way. Our latest investigative film rattled them to the core, so much so we had to cut a sequel and rebut their denials and retreats.

Is this a case of over-reaction and over-reach, or do the Kochs really believe that buying three web domain names will quell the movement against their selfish influence in democracy and society?

Cast your votes in the comments below and discuss it with me at the Koch Brothers Exposed page on Facebook.