For years, major liberal donors have assembled at swanky resorts to plot campaign strategy at the instigation of financier George Soros and Peter Lewis, the founder of Progressive Insurance. Aside from a few attempted gate crashers, they’ve been left alone.

But the organized left doesn’t seem to believe that conservatives should be able to hatch their projects in peace. Last weekend, almost 1,000 protestors assembled by Greenpeace, the Teamsters and public employee unions gathered outside the Rancho Las Palmas resort in Rancho Mirage, Calif., to agitate against what they called the “Billionaire’s Caucus.” That would be the biannual meeting hosted by Charles and David Koch, wealthy conservative donors who helped bankroll Americans for Prosperity and other groups active in the 2010 election.

Calls for political civility are much in the news, but this group clearly came in an ugly mood. Some of their signs featured swastikas and featured blood splattered next to the message, “Koch Kills.”

Van Jones, the former Obama administration aide who was forced to resign over his ties to extremist groups, whipped up the crowd by saying “the Kochs must be exposed, they must be stopped.” He accused them of trying to create an “economic plantation” for the poor.

After a raucous rally, many in the crowd tried to push past the police barricades. In the end, 25 people were arrested