The Tides Foundation has quite a reputation. It’s known as an intermediary organization that funnels more than $100 million a year to left-wing advocacy groups and is supported by, among others, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.
It provides money to the Arab American Action Network, the activist and often anti-Christian American Civil Liberties Union, as well as the pro-Castro United for Peace and Justice and Center for Constitutional Rights.
All the while, according to a new report from the Western Journal, it is under the same Internal Revenue Service code that applies to local churches.
Most of the conservative groups that Obama’s IRS blocked from obtaining tax-exempt status during the 2012 election campaign were seeking to incorporate as 501(C)4 organizations, which allows political activity.
Non-profit organizations such as churches, however, are incorporated under 501(c)3, which forbids them from endorsing candidates and engaging in partisan political activity.
But that, the Western Journal reports, is the status under which Tides continues to engage in political activism.
“At the same time the Obama administration’s IRS was targeting conservative groups, it was granting special access and American taxpayer dollars to the tax-exempt Tides Foundation, which watchdog groups have charged with essentially being a money-laundering organization, allowing liberals to anonymously funnel millions of dollars to their favorite causes,” the Journal said.
Tides is clearly engaging in activism against President Trump’s agenda, pressing for Congress to return to Democratic Party control.
The foundation in San Francisco says it is an “accelerator dedicated to building a world of shared prosperity and social justice.”
It’s revenues, the report said, were $158 million in 2015.
“Watchdog.org reported in 2013 that not only was the foundation receiving money from private donors, but the Obama administration funneled $28 million in grant money from the American taxpayers,” the Journal said.
IRS 501(c)(3) organizations “are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.”
The code further states: “Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.”
Apparently, that doesn’t apply to Tides, which posted a report in January headlined “It’s Okay to Celebrate Virginia and Alabama…But Lock in for 2018.”
The report by Tides senior fellow Joshua Clark specifically targeted Trump and Republican candidates, rejoicing at the fact Democrats made political gains in Alabama and Virginia.
Clark wrote that the “most important midterm elections of any of our lifetimes await us this November.”
“As we work to support campaigns and candidates that match our values, we must not forget the many pressing threats across our country to a fundamental democratic right: the right to vote.”
All of that should be of interest to the IRS, said Hayden Ludwig, who was interviewed by the Western Journal.
He argued 501(c)(3) organizations “are not created nor given tax-exempt status in order to celebrate or advance candidates for public office.”
Tides does have its own 501(c)4, Ludwig pointed out, which is even more aggressive, called Advocacy Fund.
The group says it “enables progressive donors and activists to run high impact legislative and political campaigns by providing a legal and fiscal home to those advocating for social change.”
WND reported it took eight years of court battles and a change of administration in Washington for the Albuquerque Tea Party, one of the groups originally targeted by the IRS, to become registered as as a 501(c)4 organization.
The American Center for Law and Justice, which has represented dozens of those groups in court cases, said the Obama administration had “orchestrated a complex scheme to dump conservative and tea party nonprofit applicants into a bureaucratic ‘black hole.'”
“The conspiracy to delay the conservative groups’ application for tax-exempt status, hindering their ability to raise funds, likely came from the top,” ACLJ said.
“Hundreds of documents have been uncovered in recent years that clearly establish that ‘top IRS officials in Washington, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew that the agency was specifically targeting ‘Tea Party’ and other conservative organizations.'”
The Obama administration called the tea party targeting scandal “phony,” but when IRS officials admitted to it, things slowly began to change.
Judicial Watch, the Washington watchdog that has for years been fighting to access IRS documents that reveal the extent of its discriminatory actions against Christians and conservatives, has asked Trump to consider criminal counts against the much-feared federal agency.
Tom Fitton, the group’s president, called for Trump to reopen a criminal investigation.
WND compiled a list of the activists organizations assembled to create “resistance” to Trump’s agenda.
The left has mobilized in a new surge of activism since Trump’s presidential campaign and election. “Resistance” groups – many with the help of Soros and Hillary Clinton – are flooding Democratic candidates with volunteers, financial aid and new energy. They’re mobilizing to help Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in 2018. Activists are launching vicious “hate” campaigns and boycotts against conservatives, loudly disrupting GOP town-hall events and even stalking Republican congressmen by showing up at their homes.
Worse yet, radical socialists and anarchists are taking the opposition to a dangerous new level – disrupting speeches and rallies with bloody riots, brutal stabbings and extreme vandalism. They set fires to college campuses, businesses and vehicles while assaulting police officers with rocks, fireworks, bricks and Molotov cocktails. In a stomach-churning twist, the anarchists appear to favor weapons, such as bottles and balloons, filled with urine and feces.
Many of those groups are linked to the Tides Foundation.
