Tag Archives: Tides Foundation

Once Corrupt, Always Corrupt

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Former President Obama has repeatedly bragged that there were no scandals during his presidency. He conveniently overlooks the IRS targeting of conservative groups, fast and furious, the New Black Panthers intimidating voters, etc. He created the most political justice department in history and played a major role in trying to undercut the administration that followed him. He really hasn’t changed–he is still working to “fundamentally transform America.” Oddly enough, some of us like a lot of the way America currently works and don’t want it transformed.

On Friday, The New York Post reported:

Millions of dollars sent to Barack Obama’s foundation has ended up being donated to a progressive fund that supported anti-Israel groups, accused of setting up encampments at Ivy League universities, according to public documents.

Donations to the Obama Foundation, set up by the former president to build a 19-acre campus including a museum, athletic facility and fruit and vegetable gardens in Chicago, totaling $2 million were instead sent on to Tides Foundation in 2022 and 2023, according to its latest available federal tax filings.

…The third-party grant-making group is under scrutiny by the House Ways and Means Committee for handling donations for anti-Israel groups such as the Adalah Justice Project, Samidoun and the People’s Forum. Such groups helped set up pro-Palestinian demonstrations and college encampments after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel that left 1,200 Israelis dead.

After this story was published Friday, a spokeswoman for the Obama Foundation told The Post that the $2 million was granted to more than 50 organizations across the country to help reduce “surging summer violence” and provide “safe spaces”  for young people.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, the foundation admitted it has so far spent more than $615 million building the Obama Presidential Center, which is scheduled to open in spring 2026, according to its website.

The group, which received just $129,320 in donations in 2022, spent more than $27 million on salaries.

Among the highest-paid board members are Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to President Obama and CEO of the foundation, who raked in more than $750,000 in compensation in 2023.

Robbin Cohen, executive vice president of the Obama Presidential Center, took in nearly $650,000 in 2023, according to the tax filings. Cohen is a former president of the Pritzker Realty Group, founded by Penny Pritzker, a philanthropist who is also on the Obama Foundation board of directors. Pritzker, whose brother, JB Pritzker, is the governor of Illinois, does not draw a salary.

The center, located in Jackson Park on the city’s South Side and taking up 20 acres, is still under construction, rising like a concrete monolith out of the ground. The privately funded project was started in 2021 but suffered many setbacks during its construction, including blowing through its original $500 million budget.

The corruption continues…

Sometimes You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up!

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On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted an article about the nationwide “Workers Over Billionaires” protest on Labor Day. Oddly enough, the protest was funded by billionaires. How does that make sense>

The article reports:

Billionaire backers were behind the nationwide “Workers Over Billionaires” protest on Labor Day, which took aim at the Trump administration’s policies and called for an end to what organizers described as a “billionaire takeover.”

More than 1,000 protests across the country on Monday drew over half a million people, according to May Day Strong, the coalition that organized the events. Despite the protests being promoted as grassroots movements of working-class Americans, one of the coalition’s central organizers — the Working Families Organization Inc. — is itself heavily funded by billionaires, including the Soros family.

We need to remember (particularly as the mid-term elections approach) that today’s protesters are paid. They hold signs that often are professionally printed. I am a child of the 1960’s–no one paid us and we had to make our own signs. We protested because we cared about something. The protesters of today may care about what they are protesting, but somehow it seems a little less genuine if they are being paid to protest.

The article notes:

Yet, the Open Society Foundations, founded by billionaire megadonor George Soros, has doled out $23,700,000 to the Working Families Organization since 2016, according to the foundation’s website. 

The organization has also received $950,000 since 2021 from Democracy Fund Voice, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit funded by billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, tax filings show. Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz’s Open Philanthropy also gave $1.44 million to the Working Families Organization in 2019, and another $1.5 million in 2021. 

The Working Families Organization has also received millions from Democrat-aligned “dark money” groups, which funnel hard-to-track dollars into liberal political organizations and advocacy groups. For example, the Tides Foundation has directed over $65 million to the group since 2018, while the Sixteen Thirty Fund has also contributed hundreds of thousands to the group, according to financial disclosures. 

It is going to be hard to convince me that your protest is sincere if I know that you are being paid to protest.