For all the things that are difficult to deal with about disinformation, the fact that disinfo only works if people see it can make researching it pretty easy. For example, if you want to know what pro-fossil-fuel talking points may be going around, you could check out Alex Epstein's "EnergyTalkingPoints" substack, for messaging as honest as the name is subtle.
Similarly, for the past few years, RealClearEnergy's "recommended" tab has been a convenient place to find all sorts of fossil fuel industry-backed op-ads, and indeed, it still is. In the past week, RealClearEnergy has run a piece by a mining executive begging for more of the public's money, let the guy whose byline claim-to-fame is responsibility for US Army intelligence during the 2003 invasion of Iraq publish his fossil-fueled astroturf talking points, gave one of the GOP's green-washers space to offer an end-run around the democratic process to gut environmental permitting laws, and let CFACT's Duggan Flanakin publish a piece about coal that used a racial slur in its title.
But these days, the billion-dollar disinfo machine is pumping out more content than even RealClear can handle, and since basically zero mainstream news outlets will run their content, disinformation-spreaders are having to find other options for placement.
It seems that The Daily Caller (whose conservative and fossil-fueled donors receive favorable coverage in the outlet) and its "Big Tent Ideas" section is the new overflow receptacle for disinformation that no one else deems fit to publish. Judging by the output, one might guess that the DC News Foundation's Managing Editor, Michael Bastasch, has tapped the disinfo network that trained him, and is regularly running Koch content.
For example, one "Big Tent Idea," from Mandy Gunasekara, Trump EPA Chief of Staff and Director at the IWF Center for Energy and Conservation, is that conservatives should lead on the environment (with methane gas, of course).
Then there's Suzanne Downing, who literally cries wolf about ESG measures with the headline that "Biden is throwing Americans' retirement savings to the wolves. It's not too late to stop him." Downing's byline notes only that she's "publisher of Must Read Alaska," which looks like news but actually gets GOP campaign payments. However, per LinkedIn, Downing was also Communications Director for the Alaska Republican Party and prior to that spent four years as a speechwriter to Republican Governor Sean Parnell.
It’s odd that the Daily Caller didn't disclose that, because the outlet is not adverse to telling readers when the GOP is telling them what to think, as evidenced by Frank Lasee's bio that provides five lines of historical context about his time as a state senator but does not mention his ill-fated presidency of the Heartland Institute, which he basically ran (further) into the ground. Lassee's op-ed finds a way to attack the one kind of hydrogen that isn't greenwashing (when it's generated from renewables) and adds some anti-Chinese racism for good measure.
And that’s not all from “Big Tent Ideas”! Coinciding with the RealClear op-ed advocating for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reform, David Vasquez of the Trump-y dark money America First Policy Institute, argued that in light of the Ohio petrochemical train derailment and ensuing toxic mess, we should just gut NEPA.
We could go on like this, but the last example we'll point to of the Daily Caller's disinfo that was published just in the last week, is a piece by Daniel Turner (yet another Koch-alum whose career is deflecting blame off of fossil fuels), which hypocritically claims that it's environmentalists who "are hard at work deflecting blame" for whale deaths away from offshore wind.
So if you're looking for some "Big Tent Ideas" that range from fossil-fueled, front group-authored propaganda to Republican Party operative-penned propaganda to former Republican official turned fossil field front group astroturfer propaganda, or if every single other outlet, including RealClear, passed on your climate disinfo op-ed, then The Daily Caller's got you covered!