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Before I read The New Yorker article by Jane Mayer, titled “Covert Operations,” I was completely ignorant about the Tea Party and had never known about Koch Industries, Inc.  I thought the Tea Party was in fact a party but I soon realized that it is actually only a movement. To be honest when this piece was first assigned, I wasn’t thrilled.

For me, politics and interesting were never used in the same sentence.  But after this investigative story and much research, it turned out to be quite interesting.

With Koch Industries, I didn’t even know how to pronounce the name correctly, let alone what the corporation was all about. The article by Mayer opened my eyes to the hidden agenda of the Koch brothers and their secret support for the Tea Party movement through their front-groups and support of many free markets. 

From the Mayer article alone, our class highlighted the front-groups and organizations Koch Industries supported financially, and the tally was over 30 advocacy groups, sponsorships, and industries. By investigating Koch Industries more in-depth, I found out Mayer wasn’t the only journalist or even the first to formally reveal the Koch Industries financial agenda, and that’s an understatement. 

Besides the Kochs' “Response to Recent Media Attacks” that was sent to The New Yorker, I didn’t find an article that actually opposed the accusations. 

While investigating the agenda’s of Koch Industries, the Tea Party movement, and the Pledge to America, similar information and facts reoccurred in many articles. After reading numerous articles, including the 21-page Pledge to America, articles about the Tea Party movement and Koch Industries, I am more informed of the relation between the organizations. 

Besides countless blogs and editorials, there are many credible news organizations that link the agenda of the GOP’s Pledge to America with that of both the Koch’s and the Tea Party movement. These agendas are similar in that they believe in economic freedom through deregulations, want to limit the government, and support free markets that benefit themselves.  Ironically, these three core values of the Tea Party movement are also appear throughout the Pledge and are the same beliefs of the Koch brothers.

Since Mayer and many other journalists revealed these truths, voters, myself included, will be more informed about these “covert operations” and tactics of Koch and the Tea Party movement this November and future elections. 

Additionally, after reading my article about the three “separate” organizations having the same agenda, I hope the St. Scholastica community will be enlightened about the reality they are faced with this election, because I certainly am after writing it.