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When Peter Collier and I launched the Freedom Center in 1988, we knew that there was a war going on in America. As former radicals, we also knew that only one side was aware that they were combatants in a war, or that its objective was to destroy “The American Empire” and establish a one-party state. These anti-American radicals set their sights on gaining full control of the Democrat Party, a goal that was achieved in 2008 with the election of a dyed-in-the-wool anti-American, anti-white, radical, raised by Communists— Barack Obama.
The evidence of this radical takeover was there all along—but most conservative organizations failed to heed it. By the 1984 Democratic Convention, elements of the radicals’ ideology were so entrenched in the Democrat Party that New York Governor and former presidential contender, Mario Cuomo, could deliver a keynote speech with sentiments like this: “We need to work as we have never done before between now and November 5th to take Congress back from Republicans, because ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, the Republicans are the real threat. They are a real threat to our women. They are the real threat to our children. They are the real threat to clean water, clean air…”
This language was the uncompromising language of war. But the Republican response to this demonizing assault, which was to grow more and more extreme over the years, was to refer to Democrats as “liberals,” as though they were tolerant and inclusive. As former radicals, Collier and I understood the malicious, treasonous intentions of the left and created the Freedom Center to warn patriots of the dangers our nation faced from within.
Guided by our understanding of the Left, we were the first conservative institution to alert Americans that their universities and school systems had been captured by radical ideologues who had no respect for American achievements and communities and were transforming these educational institutions into indoctrination and recruitment centers for the anti-American left.
We were the first conservative institution to organize Islamo-fascism teach-ins, to champion the rights of Muslim women, and to warn others about the unholy alliance between the Islamic terrorists and the American left. We managed to give speeches on these threats on 400 campuses and to expose Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) as a creation of the Hamas Nazis whose goal is to aid the terrorist enemies of the West and to bring about a second Holocaust of the Jews.
In 1999, we published Hating Whitey & Other Progressive Causes to highlight our determination to mention the unmentionable, to say the quiet thing out loud: that the wild-eyed anti-white rhetoric of the left was a racism designed to undermine faith in the American dream as a prelude to its destruction. From the outset of the George Floyd case, we exposed the hoax of the case itself, and the race war black Marxists had launched against “white supremacist” America.
As we broke these taboos and issued our warnings, the left was busily weaponizing the government and ratcheting up its hatred for everything and everyone in its way. In other words, we understood that we were asking for trouble. This didn’t deter us because by then we were veterans of many wars, including decades of battles to defend our country.
In 2019, the IRS informed us that they were conducting an investigation of the Freedom Center to see whether we were a legitimate “non-profit” deserving of the tax-deduction subsidies we had been granted 31 years before. Five years later, the I.R.S. dropped the other shoe, informing us that they had reached a “determination” that we were not a non-profit, and if we did not respond within 30 days, and persuade them they were mistaken, our tax-exemption would be revoked.
The key rule we were alleged to have violated was to have participated in a political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office. In our 35 years, we have never endorsed a political candidate, nor did the IRS claim we had. Our thought crime emanated from our mission to defend free societies under attack from forces without and within them.
But these facts did not deter the IRS. From the viewpoint of the government behemoth, we were guilty because we expressed the journalistic opinion in our online news site, Frontpagemag.com, that Hillary Clinton had violated U.S. espionage laws and obstructed justice by destroying 30,000 emails subpoenaed by the United States Congress, putting classified data on an unsecured home server which could be read by our enemies, and had gotten away with it with the aid of a corrupt attorney general. That the IRS views this truth-telling as an instance of illegal electioneering is clear evidence of the agency’s capture by the ideological left.
The IRS’s hypocrisy in misusing tax laws to suppress unfavorable opinions about the left could not be clearer. In the eyes of the same IRS officials, the criminal, violent, and generally lawless organization, Black Lives Matter, is a “charity” that qualifies for tax-exemption even though it claims to have raised $60 million for Joe Biden’s 2020 election campaign and has a donation button for Democrats on its website.
The BLM case is not isolated. In the 2020 election cycle, Mark Zuckerberg deployed $400 million tax-exempt dollars to register voters in overwhelmingly Democrat districts and require a laundry list of reforms – use of unsolicited paper ballots, ballot harvesting, and unwatched drop boxes – all regarded by the bi-partisan Carter-Baker Reform Commission as measures to be shunned because they facilitate cheating.
The IRS is so politically weaponized that it provides tax-exempt subsidies via third party “charities” to violent anarchist organizations like Antifa, pro-Hamas terrorist organizations, and street rioters via George Soros’ massive tax-exempt, anti-American networks.
At the same time, the IRS goes out of its way to harass, hamper, and cripple patriotic non-profits like the Freedom Center, along with religious groups and others resisting the putsch from the left. This is selective prosecution and under a government that respects constitutional order would be a legal defense against such governmental attacks.
The Freedom Center is in its fifth year of a political witch hunt, conducted by a corrupt, weaponized IRS. For a non-partisan, non-profit dependent on private voluntary contributions, being under an audit for five years is nothing short of death by a million cuts.
In the last year alone, we have had $100,000 donations from two donors of 25 years and more withheld out of fear that giving to an organization accused of violating IRS rules might jeopardize their other charities.
The Freedom Center has spent $600,000 in legal fees, but that is only the beginning of our challenge. Several large foundations, some of which had been supporting the Freedom Center since its inception, have withdrawn from supporting us because of the IRS Audit. Many of our individual donors have stopped giving, again, because of the IRS Audit. Add $600,000 in legal fees and that’s $1 million out of a $7 million budget.
The Freedom Center is a lean organization; we have a small and dedicated staff, almost no overhead, and we run on a very tight budget. Our margins are very small, we don’t have an endowment or a sizable reserve of savings like some larger organizations. So, when over a million dollars gets pulled from our budget, we are in serious trouble.
In spite of the hardships caused by the IRS audit, we have not slowed our pace in the slightest. Quite the opposite; in fact, we have expanded our programs and work.
In just the past year we have:
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- Launched a Center podcast program, which is reaching more mainstream audiences than ever before, including younger audiences and ethnic minorities who aren’t typically exposed to conservative messaging.
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- Frontpage Magazine has achieved all-time highs in readership over the last two years, and features some of the most prolific writers in the conservative sphere, such as Daniel Greenfield and Robert Spencer.
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- Conducted two campus programs to confront and expose the Jew hatred and ideological capture of our universities in 2023 and continued our Stop K12 Indoctrination Campaign to halt the politicization of our public schools.
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- Published two books and a series of eight pamphlets and reports on topics ranging from the weaponization of the IRS by the left and the phenomenon of “Election Jihad” wherein Islamist political machines are influencing state and federal elections.
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- The Center has introduced digitized versions of our many pamphlets, which now constitute over 70% of our total pamphlet sales and have allowed us to spread our messaging further than ever before.
Our staff is composed of 13 dedicated, self-sacrificing, creative people who have been working together for 20 years. Despite their small numbers, our staff has produced widely-praised books on the crises our nation is facing that have sold almost two million copies, fought for intellectual diversity and an end to Jew hatred on hundreds of campuses, composed an encyclopedic guide to the American left, and run campaigns that have targeted the terrorist organizations that our elite universities subsidize and support.
Our dedicated staff members are dependent on the Center for their livelihoods. They have been fighting on the frontlines of the battle to save our country, informing and rallying American patriots, and taking the hits that come with defending what is right and good and opposing what is evil and wrong.
It is important to note that as of now, the Freedom Center is still a non-profit organization and that any donation you make is still 100% tax deductible. And regardless of the outcome, we will continue to fight. We are working with our lawyers to appeal the IRS’s ruling. And even if it stands, we intend to fight on and continue our critical work to defend America.
To continue this work, they – we – need your help now. Please give generously to support the bright future we are confident awaits us all up ahead.
[To donate to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, CLICK HERE.]
