Which Side
by The Lincoln Project
Jan 16, 2021
There's a new Jim Crow Caucus — and anyone that financially supports them, supports racism at the highest level.
****************************
Statement from the Lincoln Project
by Ryan Wiggins, Senior Communications Advisor & Nate Nesbitt, National Press Secretary
January 6, 2021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Senior Communications Advisor:
Ryan Wiggins
ryan.wiggins@lincolnproject.us
National Press Secretary
Nate Nesbitt
nate.nesbitt@lincolnproject.us
January 6, 2021 - “Today’s violence and insurrection in Washington and in state capitols is the direct responsibility of Donald Trump. This shameful culmination of four years of lies, propaganda, dog whistles, gaslighting, and conspiracy theories at the hands of a dangerous, unstable president has now put our Constitutional system of government at risk. While our democracy has been under attack since Donald Trump was elected in 2016, today’s domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol highlights just how much Trump and his enablers have entirely abandoned the principles of the Constitution and the Republic.
This is no longer simply about Donald Trump’s charade. It is an armed, violent, and planned insurrection against the United States of America. It is a moment where the tenets of Trumpism replaced the tenets of American democracy with the inevitable, violent results.
“Make no mistake, this is sedition and insurrection,” said Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, “People have long asked why the Lincoln Project has targeted Trump’s Republican allies, and today they have their answer. Those Republicans who have endorsed and encouraged Trump’s lawless coup attempt in the House and Senate deserve to be prosecuted, not seated in the halls of government.”
“The House should immediately impeach Donald Trump for directing and provoking this attack. The United States Senate should immediately vote to convict and remove him from office. Any Member of Congress who refuses to do so should be considered a co-conspirator.”
The Lincoln Project is a group of former Republicans who worked to defeat Donald J. Trump’s reelection and will continue to battle Trumpism in America.
Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certification
Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
by admin » Sun Jan 17, 2021 4:15 am
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Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
by admin » Sun Jan 17, 2021 5:45 am
'Kill him with his own gun': Police describe facing the mob at the Capitol
by Mark Morales
CNN
Updated 9:06 AM ET, Fri January 15, 2021
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
Washington (CNN) As DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone lay on the ground at the US Capitol building, stunned and injured, he knew a group of rioters were stripping him of his gear. They grabbed spare ammunition, ripped the police radio off his chest and even stole his badge.
Then, Fanone, who had just been Tasered several times in the back of the neck, heard something chilling that made him go into survival mode.
"Some guys started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, 'Kill him with his own gun,'" said Fanone, who's been a police officer for almost two decades.
Fanone, one of three officers who spoke with CNN, described his experience fighting a mob of President Donald Trump's supporters who'd invaded the Capitol in an insurrection unheard of in modern American history.
Federal officials have said the details of the violence that come out will be disturbing.
"People are going to be shocked by some of the egregious contact that happened in the Capitol," acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin said Tuesday in reference to attacks on police officers.
Fanone, a narcotics detective who works in plain clothes, heard the commotion at the Capitol and grabbed his still brand-new police uniform that had been hanging in his locker and put it on for the first time, he said. He raced to the building with his partner and helped officers who were being pushed back by rioters.
Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone
But Fanone, who said he'd rather be shot than be pulled into a crowd where he had no control, was suddenly in his biggest nightmare as an officer. And in those few moments, Fanone considered using deadly force. He thought about using his gun but knew that he didn't have enough fire power and he'd soon be overpowered again, except this time they would probably use his gun against him and they'd have all the reason to end his life.
"So, the other option I thought of was to try to appeal to somebody's humanity. And I just remember yelling out that I have kids. And it seemed to work," said the 40-year-old father of four.
A group within the rioters circled Fanone and protected him until help arrived, saving his life.
"Thank you, but f*** you for being there," Fanone said of the rioters who protected him in that moment.
Fanone's anger and frustration was a sentiment felt by law enforcement around the country, furious that Trump supporters had breached the grounds of the Capitol on the very day Joe Biden's win was confirmed by the House and Senate.
Fanone's dramatic encounter with the Trump supporting rioters was repeated all over the grounds of the US Capitol as law enforcement officers battled to push them back. Fanone, one of scores of officers who were injured in the brutal battle, shared his story for the first time, still suffering the effects of a mild heart attack.
Since the breach of the Capitol, investigators have been dissecting every aspect of the day's events, from the response of US Capitol Police to the nationwide manhunt for everyone involved.
Investigators are now looking into the notion that here was some level of planning, with enough evidence to indicate that it was not just a protest that got out of control, law enforcement sources tell CNN.
"Certainly some things that we saw on the ground were some indication that there were some coordination going on, but I think as we get further into the investigation, a lot of that will be revealed," acting MPD Chief Robert Contee told reporters Thursday.
Fanone said the rioters had weapons, either of their own or taken from his fellow police.
"We were getting chemical irritants sprayed. They had pipes and different metal objects, batons, some of which I think they had taken from law enforcement personnel. They had been striking us with those," said Fanone, who added that he wasn't going to be sitting at a desk while an insurrection was happening at the Capitol.
"And then it was just the sheer number of rioters. The force that was coming from that side," he added. "It was difficult to offer any resistance when you're only about 30 guys going up against 15,000."
Fighting off 'bear mace'
Officer Christina Laury, a member of the Metropolitan Police Department's gun recovery unit, got to the Capitol at around 12:30 p.m. ET and saw the riotous groups gaining ground.
Laury, who was guarding the line to make sure there were no gaps for anyone to slip through, was hit with a much stronger type of pepper spray that's supposed to be used only on bears, she said.
"The individuals were pushing officers, hitting officers. They were spraying us with what we were calling, essentially, bear mace, because you use it on bears," she said.
"Unfortunately, it shuts you down for a while. It's way worse than pepper spray," Laury added. "It seals your eyes shut. ... You've got to spray and douse yourself with water. And in those moments it's scary because you can't see anything and have people that are fighting to get through."
She was lucky enough not to be struck with anything but saw others beaten with objects.
"They were getting hit with metal objects. Metal poles. I remember seeing pitchforks. They're getting sprayed, knocked down," said Laury, who added that reinforcements kept rotating in so others could rest during the hours-long battle.
"Just pulling officers back to heal up and (reinforcements) stepping in to get to the front line. And then they go down and more officers step in and the officers that were knocked down, they're better again and they're just battling because the bottom line is, we're not letting anyone through."
'He was practically foaming at the mouth'
Officer Daniel Hodges was one of those officers who tried to battle back rioters but was roughed up in the fight. Hodges gained notice after footage of him circulated being crushed by a door. The 32-year-old officer is seen in the clip with blood dripping through his teeth as he kept gasping for enough air so he could yell "Help" at the top of his lungs.
Hodges raced to the Capitol to offer support like many others and soon found himself being assaulted from an angry mob that, he said, believed they were patriots.
Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges
"There's a guy ripping my mask off, he was able to rip away the baton and beat me with it," said Hodges, who was stuck in the door and added that his arm was bent before they ripped the weapon away.
"He was practically foaming at the mouth so just, these people were true believers in the worst way."
Hodges was eventually rescued by other officers who eventually came to his aid.
"You know things were looking bad," said Hodges, who miraculously walked away with no major injuries and may have suffered a minor concussion. "I was calling out for all I was worth, and an officer behind me was able to get me enough room to pull me out of there and get me to the rear so I was able to extricate myself."
This was Hodges's first visit to the Capitol building.
'They felt entitled'
The patrol officer said he had been hearing about the possibility of violence for years so he wasn't surprised that the rioters would storm the Capitol. What did surprise him was how the insurrectionists thought the police would be on their side.
"Some of them felt like we would be fast friends because so many of them have been vocal," Hodges said. "They say things like, 'Yeah, we've been supporting you through all this Black Lives Matter stuff, you should have our back' and they felt entitled."
He added, "They felt like they would just walk up there and tell us that they're here to take back Congress and we would agree with them and we'd walk in hand in hand and just take over the nation. But obviously that's not the case and it will never be the case."
Now, only days before Biden's inauguration, federal authorities are warning of other threats that may come.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has publicly warned people not to come to the city for the inauguration.
Hodges echoed her sentiments, and wanted not only residents, but Trump supporters and extremists to stay home too. But with one caveat.
"Stay home. Stop this," said Hodges. "On the other hand, I hope they're caught. Let's leave it at that."
by Mark Morales
CNN
Updated 9:06 AM ET, Fri January 15, 2021
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
Washington (CNN) As DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone lay on the ground at the US Capitol building, stunned and injured, he knew a group of rioters were stripping him of his gear. They grabbed spare ammunition, ripped the police radio off his chest and even stole his badge.
Then, Fanone, who had just been Tasered several times in the back of the neck, heard something chilling that made him go into survival mode.
"Some guys started getting a hold of my gun and they were screaming out, 'Kill him with his own gun,'" said Fanone, who's been a police officer for almost two decades.
Fanone, one of three officers who spoke with CNN, described his experience fighting a mob of President Donald Trump's supporters who'd invaded the Capitol in an insurrection unheard of in modern American history.
Federal officials have said the details of the violence that come out will be disturbing.
"People are going to be shocked by some of the egregious contact that happened in the Capitol," acting US Attorney Michael Sherwin said Tuesday in reference to attacks on police officers.
Fanone, a narcotics detective who works in plain clothes, heard the commotion at the Capitol and grabbed his still brand-new police uniform that had been hanging in his locker and put it on for the first time, he said. He raced to the building with his partner and helped officers who were being pushed back by rioters.
Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone
But Fanone, who said he'd rather be shot than be pulled into a crowd where he had no control, was suddenly in his biggest nightmare as an officer. And in those few moments, Fanone considered using deadly force. He thought about using his gun but knew that he didn't have enough fire power and he'd soon be overpowered again, except this time they would probably use his gun against him and they'd have all the reason to end his life.
"So, the other option I thought of was to try to appeal to somebody's humanity. And I just remember yelling out that I have kids. And it seemed to work," said the 40-year-old father of four.
A group within the rioters circled Fanone and protected him until help arrived, saving his life.
"Thank you, but f*** you for being there," Fanone said of the rioters who protected him in that moment.
Fanone's anger and frustration was a sentiment felt by law enforcement around the country, furious that Trump supporters had breached the grounds of the Capitol on the very day Joe Biden's win was confirmed by the House and Senate.
Fanone's dramatic encounter with the Trump supporting rioters was repeated all over the grounds of the US Capitol as law enforcement officers battled to push them back. Fanone, one of scores of officers who were injured in the brutal battle, shared his story for the first time, still suffering the effects of a mild heart attack.
Since the breach of the Capitol, investigators have been dissecting every aspect of the day's events, from the response of US Capitol Police to the nationwide manhunt for everyone involved.
Investigators are now looking into the notion that here was some level of planning, with enough evidence to indicate that it was not just a protest that got out of control, law enforcement sources tell CNN.
"Certainly some things that we saw on the ground were some indication that there were some coordination going on, but I think as we get further into the investigation, a lot of that will be revealed," acting MPD Chief Robert Contee told reporters Thursday.
Fanone said the rioters had weapons, either of their own or taken from his fellow police.
"We were getting chemical irritants sprayed. They had pipes and different metal objects, batons, some of which I think they had taken from law enforcement personnel. They had been striking us with those," said Fanone, who added that he wasn't going to be sitting at a desk while an insurrection was happening at the Capitol.
"And then it was just the sheer number of rioters. The force that was coming from that side," he added. "It was difficult to offer any resistance when you're only about 30 guys going up against 15,000."
Fighting off 'bear mace'
Officer Christina Laury, a member of the Metropolitan Police Department's gun recovery unit, got to the Capitol at around 12:30 p.m. ET and saw the riotous groups gaining ground.
Laury, who was guarding the line to make sure there were no gaps for anyone to slip through, was hit with a much stronger type of pepper spray that's supposed to be used only on bears, she said.
"The individuals were pushing officers, hitting officers. They were spraying us with what we were calling, essentially, bear mace, because you use it on bears," she said.
"Unfortunately, it shuts you down for a while. It's way worse than pepper spray," Laury added. "It seals your eyes shut. ... You've got to spray and douse yourself with water. And in those moments it's scary because you can't see anything and have people that are fighting to get through."
She was lucky enough not to be struck with anything but saw others beaten with objects.
"They were getting hit with metal objects. Metal poles. I remember seeing pitchforks. They're getting sprayed, knocked down," said Laury, who added that reinforcements kept rotating in so others could rest during the hours-long battle.
"Just pulling officers back to heal up and (reinforcements) stepping in to get to the front line. And then they go down and more officers step in and the officers that were knocked down, they're better again and they're just battling because the bottom line is, we're not letting anyone through."
'He was practically foaming at the mouth'
Officer Daniel Hodges was one of those officers who tried to battle back rioters but was roughed up in the fight. Hodges gained notice after footage of him circulated being crushed by a door. The 32-year-old officer is seen in the clip with blood dripping through his teeth as he kept gasping for enough air so he could yell "Help" at the top of his lungs.
Hodges raced to the Capitol to offer support like many others and soon found himself being assaulted from an angry mob that, he said, believed they were patriots.
Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges
"There's a guy ripping my mask off, he was able to rip away the baton and beat me with it," said Hodges, who was stuck in the door and added that his arm was bent before they ripped the weapon away.
"He was practically foaming at the mouth so just, these people were true believers in the worst way."
Hodges was eventually rescued by other officers who eventually came to his aid.
"You know things were looking bad," said Hodges, who miraculously walked away with no major injuries and may have suffered a minor concussion. "I was calling out for all I was worth, and an officer behind me was able to get me enough room to pull me out of there and get me to the rear so I was able to extricate myself."
This was Hodges's first visit to the Capitol building.
'They felt entitled'
The patrol officer said he had been hearing about the possibility of violence for years so he wasn't surprised that the rioters would storm the Capitol. What did surprise him was how the insurrectionists thought the police would be on their side.
"Some of them felt like we would be fast friends because so many of them have been vocal," Hodges said. "They say things like, 'Yeah, we've been supporting you through all this Black Lives Matter stuff, you should have our back' and they felt entitled."
He added, "They felt like they would just walk up there and tell us that they're here to take back Congress and we would agree with them and we'd walk in hand in hand and just take over the nation. But obviously that's not the case and it will never be the case."
Now, only days before Biden's inauguration, federal authorities are warning of other threats that may come.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has publicly warned people not to come to the city for the inauguration.
Hodges echoed her sentiments, and wanted not only residents, but Trump supporters and extremists to stay home too. But with one caveat.
"Stay home. Stop this," said Hodges. "On the other hand, I hope they're caught. Let's leave it at that."
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Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
by admin » Sun Jan 17, 2021 6:36 am
Prosecutor: Capitol rioter aimed ‘to take hostages’
by Jake Bleiberg
Associated Press
January 14, 2021
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
This undated photo provided by the Grapevine Texas Police Department shows, Larry Rendall Brock Jr. During the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, Brock was photographed on the Senate floor wearing a helmet and heavy vest and carrying zip-tie handcuffs. The retired Air Force officer was arrested in Texas and charged Sunday, Jan. 10 in federal court in the District of Columbia. (GrapevineTexas Police Department via AP)
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A retired Air Force officer who was part of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol last week carried plastic zip-tie handcuffs because he intended “to take hostages,” a prosecutor said in a Texas court on Thursday.
“He means to take hostages. He means to kidnap, restrain, perhaps try, perhaps execute members of the U.S. government,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Weimer said of retired Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr. without providing specifics.
The prosecutor had argued that Brock should be detained, but Magistrate Judge Jeffrey L. Cureton said he would release Brock to home confinement. Cureton ordered Brock to surrender any firearms and said he could have only limited internet access as conditions of that release.
“I need to put you on a very short rope,” Cureton said. “These are strange times for our country and the concerns raised by the government do not fall on deaf ears.”
Brock appeared in court in a light green jumpsuit, a mask and with shackles at his hands and feet.
Weimer did not detail a specific plan by Brock but noted “his prior experience and training make him all the more dangerous.”
He also read in court social media posts from Brock, including one posted on the day of the Capitol riot that said: “Patriots on the Capitol. Patriots storming. Men with guns need to shoot their way in.”
Brock was arrested Sunday in Texas after being photographed on the Senate floor during the deadly riot wearing a helmet and heavy vest and carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs. The 53-year-old is charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Brock’s attorney, Brook Antonio II, noted that Brock has only been charged with misdemeanors. Antonio said there was no direct evidence of Brock breaking doors or windows to get into the Capitol, or doing anything violent once he was inside.
“It’s all talk. It’s all speculation and conjecture,” said Antonio, who noted Brock’s long service in the military, including being reactivated after Sept. 11 and his four tours in Afghanistan.
Weimer said Brock will likely face additional charges.
More than 100 people have been arrested in the Capitol riot, with charges ranging from curfew violations to serious federal felonies related to theft and weapons possession.
The FBI has been investigating whether some of the rioters had planned to kidnap members of Congress and hold them hostage.
Before his arrest, Brock told The New Yorker magazine that he found the zip-tie cuffs on the floor and that he had planned to give them to a police officer.
“I wish I had not picked those up,” he said.
There was no evidence presented that Brock had a firearm on the day of the Capitol riot.
Antonio asked an FBI agent who was testifying whether it was possible Brock had just picked up the cuffs, and the agent acknowledged that was a possibility.
Weimer read a termination letter from Brock’s former employer that said he had talked in the workplace about killing people of a “particular religion and or race.” Weimer also read social media posts in which Brock referred to a coming civil war and the election being stolen from President Donald Trump.
Weimer said Brock’s posts also referenced the far-right and anti-government Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, a loose anti-government network that’s part of the militia movement. The Oath Keepers claim to count thousands of current and former law enforcement officials and military veterans as members.
The FBI agent though testified there was no evidence beyond the social media posts that Brock was involved with either of those groups.
Judges across the country, including some nominated by Trump, have repeatedly dismissed cases challenging the election results, and Attorney General William Barr has said there was no sign of widespread fraud.
___
Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle contributed to this report from Dallas.
by Jake Bleiberg
Associated Press
January 14, 2021
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
This undated photo provided by the Grapevine Texas Police Department shows, Larry Rendall Brock Jr. During the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, Brock was photographed on the Senate floor wearing a helmet and heavy vest and carrying zip-tie handcuffs. The retired Air Force officer was arrested in Texas and charged Sunday, Jan. 10 in federal court in the District of Columbia. (GrapevineTexas Police Department via AP)
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A retired Air Force officer who was part of the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol last week carried plastic zip-tie handcuffs because he intended “to take hostages,” a prosecutor said in a Texas court on Thursday.
“He means to take hostages. He means to kidnap, restrain, perhaps try, perhaps execute members of the U.S. government,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Weimer said of retired Lt. Col. Larry Rendall Brock Jr. without providing specifics.
The prosecutor had argued that Brock should be detained, but Magistrate Judge Jeffrey L. Cureton said he would release Brock to home confinement. Cureton ordered Brock to surrender any firearms and said he could have only limited internet access as conditions of that release.
“I need to put you on a very short rope,” Cureton said. “These are strange times for our country and the concerns raised by the government do not fall on deaf ears.”
Brock appeared in court in a light green jumpsuit, a mask and with shackles at his hands and feet.
Weimer did not detail a specific plan by Brock but noted “his prior experience and training make him all the more dangerous.”
He also read in court social media posts from Brock, including one posted on the day of the Capitol riot that said: “Patriots on the Capitol. Patriots storming. Men with guns need to shoot their way in.”
Brock was arrested Sunday in Texas after being photographed on the Senate floor during the deadly riot wearing a helmet and heavy vest and carrying plastic zip-tie handcuffs. The 53-year-old is charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds.
Brock’s attorney, Brook Antonio II, noted that Brock has only been charged with misdemeanors. Antonio said there was no direct evidence of Brock breaking doors or windows to get into the Capitol, or doing anything violent once he was inside.
“It’s all talk. It’s all speculation and conjecture,” said Antonio, who noted Brock’s long service in the military, including being reactivated after Sept. 11 and his four tours in Afghanistan.
Weimer said Brock will likely face additional charges.
More than 100 people have been arrested in the Capitol riot, with charges ranging from curfew violations to serious federal felonies related to theft and weapons possession.
The FBI has been investigating whether some of the rioters had planned to kidnap members of Congress and hold them hostage.
Before his arrest, Brock told The New Yorker magazine that he found the zip-tie cuffs on the floor and that he had planned to give them to a police officer.
“I wish I had not picked those up,” he said.
There was no evidence presented that Brock had a firearm on the day of the Capitol riot.
Antonio asked an FBI agent who was testifying whether it was possible Brock had just picked up the cuffs, and the agent acknowledged that was a possibility.
Weimer read a termination letter from Brock’s former employer that said he had talked in the workplace about killing people of a “particular religion and or race.” Weimer also read social media posts in which Brock referred to a coming civil war and the election being stolen from President Donald Trump.
Weimer said Brock’s posts also referenced the far-right and anti-government Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, a loose anti-government network that’s part of the militia movement. The Oath Keepers claim to count thousands of current and former law enforcement officials and military veterans as members.
The FBI agent though testified there was no evidence beyond the social media posts that Brock was involved with either of those groups.
Judges across the country, including some nominated by Trump, have repeatedly dismissed cases challenging the election results, and Attorney General William Barr has said there was no sign of widespread fraud.
___
Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle contributed to this report from Dallas.
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- Site Admin
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Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
by admin » Sun Jan 17, 2021 7:12 am
Charlie Kirk deletes tweet saying he sent ‘80+ buses full of patriots’ to D.C.: The tweet was made just two days before rioters stormed the Capitol.
by Mikael Thalen
Jan 10, 2021, 10:10 am
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
KVUE/Twitter Charlie Kirk/Twitter Mikael Thalen
Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA (TPUSA), deleted a tweet in which he claimed to be sending more than 80 buses filled with President Donald Trump’s supporters to Washington, D.C.
The deleted tweet, uncovered by the Daily Dot on Saturday, was posted just two days before Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
"The historic event will likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history," Kirk wrote. "The team at @TrumpStudents & Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president."
The tweet garnered attention online after the riot on Wednesday, which led to the death of four Trump supporters as well as one police officer, who was reportedly violently bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher.
Before the riot, Trump supporters attended a rally near the White House where the president called on the crowd to march to the Capitol as Congress was counting the Electoral College votes.
Kirk, as well as numerous other high-profile figures in Trump's orbit, spent weeks prior to Wednesday spreading debunked claims of widespread voter fraud.
The conservative even played into conspiracy theories regarding the "Pence Card," the false belief that Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the election, in statements on Monday.
"Despite what the media and certain weak intellectually-compromised Constitutional scholars are telling you, Mike Pence does not have to accept the results of polluted and poisoned electors. He does not," Kirk said.
Countless Trump supporters, convinced that Pence had committed treason thanks to the rhetoric online, were heard openly calling for the vice president to be hanged during the riot.
The website for Turning Point Action (TPA), an offshoot organization of TPUSA, earlier in the week openly advertised the campaign, offering both bus rides and complimentary hotel rooms to those willing to come to D.C.
It remains unclear how many buses were ultimately used in the shuttle and whether any occupants joined in on the siege.
Speaking with the Daily Dot, Brian Caviness, a 23-year-old TPUSA member from Texas who took one such bus to hear the president speak, stated that the organization only intended to stay for the rally and not the ensuing march.
Caviness, who condemned the violence on his Facebook page, stated that he left on the bus just as the Capitol was being overtaken.
"All I can say is, I was just in the middle of a very dangerous situation I do not support..." he said.
In a statement to the Daily Dot, a TPA spokesperson likewise condemned the violence and asserted that its organization was in no way involved with the events at the Capitol.
"Turning Point Action (TPA) did bus some students to the January 6th rally, which included a speech from the President of the United States. Following the president's remarks, and in keeping with itinerary, TPA bused those students immediately out of the area," the spokesperson said. "No TPA buses were involved, nor did TPA encourage participation in the march to the Capitol. TPA's leadership condemns political violence and immediately did so as soon as news broke of the incident at the Capitol Building."
Trump supporters, some of whom are still calling for violence, are already planning to return to the Capitol to disrupt the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20.
At current, TPA does not appear to be backing or offering rides to the Inauguration Day protest.
Kirk has since tried to distance himself from the uprising at the Capitol by condemning those who participated on Twitter.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Turning Point USA (TPUSA) instead of Turning Point Action (TPA).
by Mikael Thalen
Jan 10, 2021, 10:10 am
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
Charlie Kirk
@charliekirk11
This historic event will likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history
The team at @TrumpStudents & Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president
KVUE/Twitter Charlie Kirk/Twitter Mikael Thalen
Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA (TPUSA), deleted a tweet in which he claimed to be sending more than 80 buses filled with President Donald Trump’s supporters to Washington, D.C.
The deleted tweet, uncovered by the Daily Dot on Saturday, was posted just two days before Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
"The historic event will likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history," Kirk wrote. "The team at @TrumpStudents & Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president."
Mikael Thalen
@MikaelThalen
In the wake of the Capitol riot, Charlie Kirk has deleted a tweet in which he discussed sending "80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president."
web.archive.org/web/2021010706...Charlie Kirk
@charliekirk11
This historic event will likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history
The team at @TrumpStudents & Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president
12:09 PM Jan 9, 2021
The tweet garnered attention online after the riot on Wednesday, which led to the death of four Trump supporters as well as one police officer, who was reportedly violently bludgeoned with a fire extinguisher.
Before the riot, Trump supporters attended a rally near the White House where the president called on the crowd to march to the Capitol as Congress was counting the Electoral College votes.
Kirk, as well as numerous other high-profile figures in Trump's orbit, spent weeks prior to Wednesday spreading debunked claims of widespread voter fraud.
The conservative even played into conspiracy theories regarding the "Pence Card," the false belief that Vice President Mike Pence could overturn the election, in statements on Monday.
"Despite what the media and certain weak intellectually-compromised Constitutional scholars are telling you, Mike Pence does not have to accept the results of polluted and poisoned electors. He does not," Kirk said.
Countless Trump supporters, convinced that Pence had committed treason thanks to the rhetoric online, were heard openly calling for the vice president to be hanged during the riot.
The website for Turning Point Action (TPA), an offshoot organization of TPUSA, earlier in the week openly advertised the campaign, offering both bus rides and complimentary hotel rooms to those willing to come to D.C.
MARCH TO SAVE AMERICA
JOIN US IN DC!
RIDE A BUS & RECEIVE PRIORITY ENTRY
STAY IN A COMPLIMENTARY HOTEL
MEET US THERE
JAN. 6TH
9 AM
TURNING POINT ACTION
TRACTION.COM/MARCHTOSAVEAMERICA
It remains unclear how many buses were ultimately used in the shuttle and whether any occupants joined in on the siege.
Speaking with the Daily Dot, Brian Caviness, a 23-year-old TPUSA member from Texas who took one such bus to hear the president speak, stated that the organization only intended to stay for the rally and not the ensuing march.
Caviness, who condemned the violence on his Facebook page, stated that he left on the bus just as the Capitol was being overtaken.
"All I can say is, I was just in the middle of a very dangerous situation I do not support..." he said.
In a statement to the Daily Dot, a TPA spokesperson likewise condemned the violence and asserted that its organization was in no way involved with the events at the Capitol.
"Turning Point Action (TPA) did bus some students to the January 6th rally, which included a speech from the President of the United States. Following the president's remarks, and in keeping with itinerary, TPA bused those students immediately out of the area," the spokesperson said. "No TPA buses were involved, nor did TPA encourage participation in the march to the Capitol. TPA's leadership condemns political violence and immediately did so as soon as news broke of the incident at the Capitol Building."
Trump supporters, some of whom are still calling for violence, are already planning to return to the Capitol to disrupt the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on Jan. 20.
At current, TPA does not appear to be backing or offering rides to the Inauguration Day protest.
Kirk has since tried to distance himself from the uprising at the Capitol by condemning those who participated on Twitter.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Turning Point USA (TPUSA) instead of Turning Point Action (TPA).
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Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
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Part 1 of 3
Turning Point USA
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/17/21
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
Turning Point USA
Abbreviation: TPUSA
Formation June 5, 2012; 8 years ago
Type: Nonprofit organization
Tax ID no.: 80-0835023
Purpose: Advocacy of conservatism on education campuses
Headquarters: Phoenix, Arizona[1]
Region served: United States; United Kingdom (TPUK)
Leader: Charlie Kirk
Revenue (2017): US$8,200,000
Website: tpusa.com; tpointuk.co.uk
Turning Point USA (TPUSA), often known as just Turning Point, is an American right-wing organization that says it advocates conservative narratives on high school, college, and university campuses.[2][3][4] The organization was founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk and William Montgomery.[3][5] TPUSA's sister organizations include Turning Point Action, Turning Point Endowment, Students for Trump, and the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty at Liberty University. The group also works closely with PragerU.[6]
The organization is known for its "Professor Watchlist", a site that "exposes" professors that TPUSA claims "discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom".[3] Academic faculty listed have reported receiving threats and harassment, including death threats, after being added, with some professors being added for any mention of race or politics, including in academic publications.[7][8] The Anti-Defamation League has reported that the group's leadership and activists "have made multiple racist or bigoted comments" and have links to extremism, including white supremacy.[3] According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, TPUSA has attempted to influence student government elections in an effort to "combat liberalism on college and university campuses."[9] The group often supports the Trump campaign, and has been subject to several controversies around their beliefs, their means of advocacy, and the organization itself.
Turning Point is funded by a cohort of conservative and right-wing donors and foundations, including Republican politicians. Between July 2016 and June 2017, the organization raised in excess of US$8.2 million. The same year, leaked records found that the group had funnelled "thousands of dollars" into student governments to elect conservatives. Donors include Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, Richard Uihlein, and the Donors Trust on behalf of private donors.
History
Trump speaks at the 2019 Student Action Summit
In May 2012, Bill Montgomery attended a panel discussion at Benedictine University's "Youth Empowerment Day," and was impressed with a speech by 18-year old Charlie Kirk.[10] He described Kirk's speech as “practically Reaganesque”,[11] and encouraged him to postpone college and engage full-time in political activism. In June 2012, the day after Kirk graduated from high school, he founded Turning Point USA, a section 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.[12] Montgomery became Kirk's mentor, and worked behind the scenes handling the paperwork for the organization.[11] Montgomery often described himself as the group's co-founder, although it was not an official recognition by the group or Kirk.[13]
At the 2012 Republican National Convention, Kirk met Foster Friess, a Republican donor, and persuaded him to finance the organization.[11][14] Friess also serves on the organization's advisory council, alongside Ginni Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.[15] Barry Russell, president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), is a key advisor.[16]
In 2017, the loosely connected group Turning Point Canada registered a chapter in Canada.[17] In 2019, Turning Point UK was set up in the United Kingdom.[18]
Leadership and associates
Charlie Kirk
Main article: Charlie Kirk (activist)
Kirk speaking at Culture War Tour, October 22, 2019
Charlie Kirk, an evangelical Christian[19] and Republican activist,[20] was born in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois, and raised in nearby Prospect Heights, Illinois. He is founder and president of the organization and the related Turning Point Action.
In a 2015 speech at the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley, Kirk stated that he had applied to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and was not accepted.[21] He said that "the slot he considered his went to 'a far less-qualified candidate of a different gender and a different persuasion'" whose test scores he claimed he knew.[22][23] In 2017 he told The New Yorker that he was being sarcastic when he said it,[22] and at a New Hampshire Turning Point event featuring Senator Rand Paul in October 2019 he claimed that he never said it.[23]
Kirk addressed the 2016 Republican National Convention. In an interview with Wired magazine during the convention, Kirk said that while he "was not the world's biggest Donald Trump fan," he would vote for him, and that Trump's candidacy made Turning Point's mission more difficult.[24] He spent the rest of the 2016 presidential campaign assisting with travel and media arrangements and running errands for Donald Trump Jr.[25]
Several former employees and student volunteers for Turning Point claimed they had witnessed collusion between high-ranking Turning Point employees – including Kirk himself and top advisor Ginni Thomas – and the presidential campaigns of both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The interactions included Kirk coordinating via email with two officials at a pro-Cruz super PAC to send student volunteers to work for the PAC in South Carolina, as well as two students being requested by Thomas herself, via voicemail, to distribute over 200 Cruz placards in Wisconsin.[22] A former employee for Turning Point, who had been based in Florida, alleged that Turning Point had given the personal information of over 700 student supporters to an employee with Rubio's presidential campaign.[22]
In October 2016, Kirk participated in a Fox News event along with Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Lara Trump that had a pro-Donald Trump tone. A Turning Point staff member wrote on Facebook that students who attended the event would have their expenses covered. The event led tax experts to say the organization's conduct may have violated its tax-exempt status, a charge disputed by Turning Point.[26]
William T. Montgomery
Montgomery (1940–2020), was a marketing entrepreneur and onetime participant in the Tea Party movement.[27] He invested in Kirk after he heard him speak to students at a small college, and helped him set-up Turning Point USA in 2012. He served as the organization's secretary and treasurer until April 2020.[13][27] According to two of Montgomery's friends, Montgomery died in July 2020 from complications related to COVID-19.[13]
Tyler Bowyer
Bowyer became the organizations's chief operating officer (COO) in 2017. He graduated from Arizona State University in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree. He was chairman of the Republican Party of Maricopa County, AZ, for two years before joining TPU as regional manager in 2015.[28][29][30] Bowyer also oversees Students for Trump.[31] He is a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints and part of an effort in August 2020 to launch a "Latter-day Saints for Trump" coalition.[32]
Others
In February 2019, Turning Point hired Benny Johnson as their chief creative officer.[33][34] Johnson was fired by BuzzFeed for plagiarism in 2014[33][34] and suspended by the Independent Journal Review in 2017 for publishing a conspiracy theory about Barack Obama.[35]
In May 2019, communications director Candace Owens resigned after controversial remarks she made in December 2018 were publicized and some Turning Point campus chapters called for her resignation.[36] She had said in a speech at a conservative event in London that "if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, okay fine. The problem is ... he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize." She later stated that "leftist journalists" had mischaracterized her statement.[37]
According to Politico, Turning Point and Falkirk Center "ambassador" Christianné Allen is a surrogate for Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.[38]
Finances
Turning Point USA receives funding from a cohort of conservative and right-wing donors and foundations, including several Republican politicians.[39] According to the Center for Media and Democracy, donors include:
• Marcus Foundation (Bernard Marcus): $1,573,000 in 2015–18[40]
• Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner: $100,000 in 2014[41]
• Darwin Deason: $510,000 in 2014[40]
• Ed Uihlein Family Foundation (Richard Uihlein): $750,000 in 2014–18[42]
• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation: $232,500 in 2014–18, $100,000 in 2019[40]
• Donors Trust (on behalf of a cohort of right-wing private donors): $610,000 in 2017[40]
• Thomas W. Smith Foundation: $400,000 in 2014–18[40]
• Einhorn Family Charitable Trust: $120,000 in 2014–18[40]
Turning Point USA also contributes money to its affiliated operational organizations, including Turning Point Endowment.[43]
In the 2016–17 financial year, Turning Point reported US$8.2 million in donations to the IRS, an increase from $4.3 million the previous year. The same year, expenses for the group doubled, reaching $8.3 million, most of which were employment related costs ($4.3 million).[44] In 2017, leaked records found that the group had funnelled "thousands of dollars" into student governments to elect conservative candidates.[45]
In September 2020, Turning Point USA came under fire for employing a number of teenagers, including some minors, to post disinformation about climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the integrity of postal voting leading up to the 2020 presidential election.[46]
Activities
In late 2017, the organization claimed to have representation on 1,000 campuses. Journalist Joseph Guinto could not verify the number in 2018, finding that Turning Point had 400 officially registered chapters, many of whom showed no activity on their Facebook pages.[47][12] Each of Turning Point's paid workers is supposed to meet a quota to make at least 1,500 student contacts per semester.[48] Student volunteers have several different themes for promoting conservative ideas, including "The Healthcare Games", "Game of Loans", and "iCapitalism".[49] According to The Washington Post, TPUSA centers "group membership on making provocative claims and publicly inciting outrage".[50]
Turning Point USA supports the NRA and the use of fossil fuels,[51] and opposes groups such as Black Lives Matter.[52] Turning Point USA and Turning Point UK promote the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory and said they are working to "combat it" in universities. Kirk described universities as "islands of totalitarianism".[53][54]
Annual summits
Turning Point holds several annual national conferences, including the Teen Student Action Summit,[55] the Young Women's Leadership Summit (YWLS),[56] the Black Leadership Summit,[57] and the Young Latino Leadership Summit.[58] Turning Point provides lodging and some meals for the attendees who can also apply for travel stipends.[58] The National Rifle Association (NRA) was the headline sponsor of the YWLS in 2017 and 2018.[56] According to The New York Times, YWLS "styles itself as an alternative to a liberal culture of feminism that many Republicans characterize as oppressive" and had by 2018 "evolved into an ultra-Trumpian event complete with 'lock her up' chants and vulgar T-shirts disparaging Hillary Clinton."[56] Candace Owens, who days prior to the 2018 conference stirred controversy by saying "the entire premise of #metoo is that women are stupid, weak, and inconsequential", was greeted with a standing ovation at the conference.[56]
Involvement in 2016 presidential election
Several former employees and student volunteers for Turning Point claimed they had witnessed collusion between high-ranking Turning Point employees – including Kirk himself and top advisor Ginni Thomas – and the presidential campaigns of both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The interactions included Kirk coordinating via email with two officials at a pro-Cruz super PAC to send student volunteers to work for the PAC in South Carolina, as well as two students being requested by Thomas herself, via voicemail, to distribute over 200 Cruz placards in Wisconsin.[22] A former employee for Turning Point, who had been based in Florida, alleged that Turning Point had given the personal information of over 700 student supporters to an employee with Rubio's presidential campaign.[22]
A Turning Point staff member wrote on Facebook that students who attended the event would have their expenses covered. The event led tax experts to say the organization's conduct may have violated its tax-exempt status, a charge disputed by Turning Point.[26]
Involvement in 2020 presidential election
In September 2020, Turning Point USA's affiliate Turning Point Action was reported by The Washington Post to have paid young people in Arizona, some of them minors, to produce thousands of posts with Turning Point content on their own social media accounts and on fake accounts without disclosing their relationship with Turning Point.[46][29] According to an examination by the newspaper and an independent data science specialist, the campaign was highly coordinated and included similar messaging under the instruction of Turning Point to prevent detection.[46]
In September 2020, Facebook removed 200 accounts and 55 pages as well as 76 Instagram accounts linked to Turning Point USA’s marketing agency Rally Forge. The agency had paid teenagers in Phoenix, Arizona, on Turning Point's behalf to use their own and fake accounts and pages for thousands of posts boosting Trump and disparaging Democratic candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 United States presidential election. In October 2020, Facebook banned Rally Forge permanently while Twitter suspended 262 accounts from its platform.[29][59][60] Neither organization penalized Turning Point USA or its affiliates, stating that they "could not determine the extent to which the group’s leaders were aware of the specific violations carried out on their behalf, such as the use of fake accounts."[29]
Turning Point hosted Trump reelection rallies, some of them featuring Trump surrogates and some of them Trump himself.[56][61][62]
After the election, Kirk disputed the results and denied that Trump had lost.[63] On Jan 4, 2021, Kirk announced that Turning Point would be sending more than 80 buses to a January 6, 2021, Trump rally near the White House in Washington, D.C, to protest the outcome of the election.[64][65] They actually sent seven buses with approximately 350 participants. The rally, which was attended by several thousand Trump supporters, ended in a riot and the storming of the US Capitol where Biden's win was about to be certified.[66] Kirk later deleted the tweet[64] and said on his podcast that it was "bad judgment" and "not wise" to enter the Capitol but not necessarily insurrectionist.[67]
Professor Watchlist
Main article: Professor Watchlist
First appearing on November 21, 2016, Turning Point USA also operates a website called Professor Watchlist.[68] Kirk has said the site is "dedicated to documenting and exposing college professors who discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values, and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."[69] As of December 2016, more than 250 professors have been added to the site.[70] Reporting from Politico has described that the list contains many inaccuracies, and includes professors listed for things they did not exactly say or do and others listed for being rude to students or for making "clever remarks" about Trump.[71] Talking to New York Times, "Mr. Lamb", a director of constitutional enforcement and transparency at TPUSA admitted that the list was “simply aggregating” academics who had been subject to news reports, and that anyone could report a staff member without evidence.[72]
The website has been criticized for using surveillance type propaganda to manipulate ideas of truth, equality, and freedom.[72][73][74] Critics have compared Professor Watchlist to the actions of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who tried to publicly identify American citizens as Communists and Communist sympathizers in the 1950s.[75][76] The New York Times wrote that it was "a threat to academic freedom,"[72] while Salon commented that it was "a sign of the stupidity of the post truth era."[77]
In May 2017, Northern Arizona University criminology professor Luis Fernandez said Turning Point surveillance of him had led to multiple threats.[78] In The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University Professor Danielle Allen also said she had been threatened after being targeted by Charlie Kirk and Turning Point.[79]
Hans-Joerg Tiede, a staff member of the American Association of University Professors said of a professor who was named for writing a book chapter on teaching mathematics to minority ethnic children: "She was inundated with death threats. She was Jewish and received antisemitic threats and threats of sexual assault. Instances like that are happening with some regularity".[80] The American Association of University Professors has also called for university administrators, governing bodies, faculty and individuals to "speak out clearly and forcefully to defend academic freedom and to condemn targeted harassment and intimidation of faculty members", with the New York Times describing the site as a threat to academic freedoms.[72]
Involvement in student government elections
Turning Point USA has been involved in influencing student government elections at a number of colleges and universities.[26][71] Universities that have been targeted by this effort have included Ohio State University, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Maryland. These claims led to conservative candidates at the University of Maryland withdrawing from student elections after failing to report assistance from Turning Point.[81][82]
A private brochure, handed out only to Turning Point donors, highlighted the organization's alleged strategy to take over student governments at universities across the country, and included a list of every Turning Point-supported student who was elected to student government positions in the year 2017.[22] Turning Point said that it had helped more than 50 conservatives win elections to become student-body presidents.[71] When Politico looked into Turning Point's claims, it found the "success rate to be considerably overstated. Some of the students that Turning Point USA claimed to have backed flatly condemned the organization and said they'd never spoken to anyone who works for it."[71]
Denial of recognition on campus
At Drake University, Turning Point was denied recognition as an official student organization based on student senate concerns that the organization has "a hateful record," "aggressive marketing" and "an unethical privacy concern."[83]
At Hagerstown Community College, a student's attempt to start a Turning Point group was initially blocked when the school said the organization duplicated an existing group. The student's lawsuit led to the school revising its policy on student organizations, clarifying that school funded groups will be denied if they duplicate existing groups while unfunded groups face no such restriction.[84]
In February 2017, Santa Clara University's student government voted to deny recognition for Turning Point as a campus organization.[85] As of March 2017, this decision was overturned by the Vice Provost for Student Life, and Turning Point has been recognized as a registered student organization.[86]
Wartburg College's student senate voted to deny Turning Point USA recognition in late November. The chapter was forced to make changes to its constitution after initially being denied approval.[87][88]
The Executive Board of the student union of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute also voted on January 18, 2018 to deny the Turning Point USA chapter status as an officially recognized student organization.[89]
Controversies
In 2016, Turning Point at Grand Valley State University filed a lawsuit against the trustees of the school. The complainants asked the court to prohibit enforcement of GVSU's Speech Zone policy and declare it a violation of the students' 1st and 14th Amendment freedoms. They have since reached a settlement.[90]
In December 2016, Turning Point falsely quoted Nancy Pelosi in a Facebook post as saying: "Employers cutting hours is a good thing. It then gives that person time to pursue their dreams and passions."[91]
In May 2017, DePaul University refused to allow Turning Point to post "Gay Lives Matter" posters on campus. Matt Lamb, a spokesperson for Turning Point, said that the action by DePaul was an infringement of free speech rights.[92]
In September 2017, a University of Nebraska lecturer was reassigned after she received threats stemming from a video posted online that showed her confronting a student recruiting for TPUSA.[93]
In October 2017, several Turning Point student members at Kent State University conducted a protest against campus "safe space" culture, which involved members dressing up in diapers as babies.[94][95] Following widespread ridicule on social media, the president of the chapter, Kaitlin Bennett, resigned,[96] and the student-run publication KentWired.com reported that the Turning Point chapter at Kent State had disbanded.[97]
In February 2018, the University of South Florida chapter of TPUSA was dissolved when it was discovered that their president, Aida Vazquez-Soto, was working with a pro-Palestinian group. Vazquez-Soto said 'Something is clearly wrong with an organization that felt that somehow by silencing me they could deal with the problem at hand.'[98]
In June 2018, conservative radio talk show host Joe Walsh resigned from the TPUSA board because Charlie Kirk was too closely tied to Donald Trump. Walsh said that "It’s so important to not be beholden to politicians, but to be beholden to the issues ... When Charlie went to work for Trump, that crossed that line. You can’t advance Trump and advance these issues."[99]
In October 2018, the Miami New Times reported that TPUSA members at Florida International University shared jokes "about watching underage cartoon pornography and deporting Latina women, and, in the most repugnant case, share racist 'Pepe the Frog' memes showing Syrian men raping a white Swedish woman at gunpoint."[100]
In November 2018, Fox News correspondent Rick Leventhal cut off Turning Point USA's Anna Paulina after she compared former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the disease herpes.[101]
During October and November 2019, Turning Point USA launched the 'Culture War' college tour of speaking events with appearances from many conservatives such as Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle. These events were frequently targeted by homophobic and antisemitic members of the alt- and far-right who consider TPUSA to be too mainstream and not sufficiently conservative. Concerted efforts were made by this group to ask leading questions during the Q&A sections on controversial topics such as Israel and LGBTQ issues in order to challenge the extent of the speakers' views. These members are called Groypers.[102]
Turning Point USA
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 1/17/21
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
Turning Point USA
Abbreviation: TPUSA
Formation June 5, 2012; 8 years ago
Type: Nonprofit organization
Tax ID no.: 80-0835023
Purpose: Advocacy of conservatism on education campuses
Headquarters: Phoenix, Arizona[1]
Region served: United States; United Kingdom (TPUK)
Leader: Charlie Kirk
Revenue (2017): US$8,200,000
Website: tpusa.com; tpointuk.co.uk
Turning Point USA (TPUSA), often known as just Turning Point, is an American right-wing organization that says it advocates conservative narratives on high school, college, and university campuses.[2][3][4] The organization was founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk and William Montgomery.[3][5] TPUSA's sister organizations include Turning Point Action, Turning Point Endowment, Students for Trump, and the Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty at Liberty University. The group also works closely with PragerU.[6]
The organization is known for its "Professor Watchlist", a site that "exposes" professors that TPUSA claims "discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom".[3] Academic faculty listed have reported receiving threats and harassment, including death threats, after being added, with some professors being added for any mention of race or politics, including in academic publications.[7][8] The Anti-Defamation League has reported that the group's leadership and activists "have made multiple racist or bigoted comments" and have links to extremism, including white supremacy.[3] According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, TPUSA has attempted to influence student government elections in an effort to "combat liberalism on college and university campuses."[9] The group often supports the Trump campaign, and has been subject to several controversies around their beliefs, their means of advocacy, and the organization itself.
Turning Point is funded by a cohort of conservative and right-wing donors and foundations, including Republican politicians. Between July 2016 and June 2017, the organization raised in excess of US$8.2 million. The same year, leaked records found that the group had funnelled "thousands of dollars" into student governments to elect conservatives. Donors include Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, Richard Uihlein, and the Donors Trust on behalf of private donors.
History
Trump speaks at the 2019 Student Action Summit
In May 2012, Bill Montgomery attended a panel discussion at Benedictine University's "Youth Empowerment Day," and was impressed with a speech by 18-year old Charlie Kirk.[10] He described Kirk's speech as “practically Reaganesque”,[11] and encouraged him to postpone college and engage full-time in political activism. In June 2012, the day after Kirk graduated from high school, he founded Turning Point USA, a section 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.[12] Montgomery became Kirk's mentor, and worked behind the scenes handling the paperwork for the organization.[11] Montgomery often described himself as the group's co-founder, although it was not an official recognition by the group or Kirk.[13]
The co-founder of conservative student group Turning Point USA, Bill Montgomery, has died from complications of the coronavirus, according to two friends of his.
Montgomery, who started it in 2012 with young conservative star Charlie Kirk, died at the age of 80 on Tuesday from Covid-19...
-- Turning Point USA co-founder dies of coronavirus-related complications: Bill Montgomery started the pro-Trump student group along with Charlie Kirk, its current leader, by Daniel Lippman and Tina Nguyen, Politico, 7/29/20
At the 2012 Republican National Convention, Kirk met Foster Friess, a Republican donor, and persuaded him to finance the organization.[11][14] Friess also serves on the organization's advisory council, alongside Ginni Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.[15] Barry Russell, president and CEO of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), is a key advisor.[16]
Foster Stephen Friess (born April 2, 1940) is an American investment manager and prominent donor to Republican Party and Christian right causes. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor of Wyoming in the 2018 election, losing in the primary to State Treasurer Mark Gordon.
-- Foster Friess, by Wikipedia
Virginia "Ginni" Lamp Thomas (born February 23, 1957), is an American attorney and lobbyist who founded Liberty Consulting. She had previously founded the conservative advocacy group Liberty Central, and served as its president until its merger with the Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty. She writes columns for The Daily Caller and previously worked at The Heritage Foundation.
She is the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. Her lobbying activities have been raised as a potential source of conflict of interest for her husband.
-- Virginia Thomas, by Wikipedia
In 2017, the loosely connected group Turning Point Canada registered a chapter in Canada.[17] In 2019, Turning Point UK was set up in the United Kingdom.[18]
Leadership and associates
Charlie Kirk
Main article: Charlie Kirk (activist)
Kirk speaking at Culture War Tour, October 22, 2019
Charlie Kirk, an evangelical Christian[19] and Republican activist,[20] was born in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois, and raised in nearby Prospect Heights, Illinois. He is founder and president of the organization and the related Turning Point Action.
In a 2015 speech at the Liberty Forum of Silicon Valley, Kirk stated that he had applied to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, and was not accepted.[21] He said that "the slot he considered his went to 'a far less-qualified candidate of a different gender and a different persuasion'" whose test scores he claimed he knew.[22][23] In 2017 he told The New Yorker that he was being sarcastic when he said it,[22] and at a New Hampshire Turning Point event featuring Senator Rand Paul in October 2019 he claimed that he never said it.[23]
Kirk addressed the 2016 Republican National Convention. In an interview with Wired magazine during the convention, Kirk said that while he "was not the world's biggest Donald Trump fan," he would vote for him, and that Trump's candidacy made Turning Point's mission more difficult.[24] He spent the rest of the 2016 presidential campaign assisting with travel and media arrangements and running errands for Donald Trump Jr.[25]
Several former employees and student volunteers for Turning Point claimed they had witnessed collusion between high-ranking Turning Point employees – including Kirk himself and top advisor Ginni Thomas – and the presidential campaigns of both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The interactions included Kirk coordinating via email with two officials at a pro-Cruz super PAC to send student volunteers to work for the PAC in South Carolina, as well as two students being requested by Thomas herself, via voicemail, to distribute over 200 Cruz placards in Wisconsin.[22] A former employee for Turning Point, who had been based in Florida, alleged that Turning Point had given the personal information of over 700 student supporters to an employee with Rubio's presidential campaign.[22]
In October 2016, Kirk participated in a Fox News event along with Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Lara Trump that had a pro-Donald Trump tone. A Turning Point staff member wrote on Facebook that students who attended the event would have their expenses covered. The event led tax experts to say the organization's conduct may have violated its tax-exempt status, a charge disputed by Turning Point.[26]
William T. Montgomery
Montgomery (1940–2020), was a marketing entrepreneur and onetime participant in the Tea Party movement.[27] He invested in Kirk after he heard him speak to students at a small college, and helped him set-up Turning Point USA in 2012. He served as the organization's secretary and treasurer until April 2020.[13][27] According to two of Montgomery's friends, Montgomery died in July 2020 from complications related to COVID-19.[13]
Tyler Bowyer
Bowyer became the organizations's chief operating officer (COO) in 2017. He graduated from Arizona State University in 2012 with a bachelor’s degree. He was chairman of the Republican Party of Maricopa County, AZ, for two years before joining TPU as regional manager in 2015.[28][29][30] Bowyer also oversees Students for Trump.[31] He is a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints and part of an effort in August 2020 to launch a "Latter-day Saints for Trump" coalition.[32]
Others
In February 2019, Turning Point hired Benny Johnson as their chief creative officer.[33][34] Johnson was fired by BuzzFeed for plagiarism in 2014[33][34] and suspended by the Independent Journal Review in 2017 for publishing a conspiracy theory about Barack Obama.[35]
In May 2019, communications director Candace Owens resigned after controversial remarks she made in December 2018 were publicized and some Turning Point campus chapters called for her resignation.[36] She had said in a speech at a conservative event in London that "if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, okay fine. The problem is ... he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize." She later stated that "leftist journalists" had mischaracterized her statement.[37]
According to Politico, Turning Point and Falkirk Center "ambassador" Christianné Allen is a surrogate for Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani.[38]
“Nobody can figure out who the eff she is or how she got in there,” a friend of Giuliani told POLITICO.
-- The mystery of Rudy Giuliani's spokeswoman: Meet Christianné Allen, the 20-year-old college student who speaks for President's Trump's personal lawyer, by Daniel Lippman and Tina Nguyen, 12/10/2019
Some lawmakers have suggested that Boebert, a Second Amendment advocate and past QAnon sympathizer, may have deliberately revealed Pelosi's location during the attack on Twitter. Boebert also tweeted "Today is 1776" the morning of the rally.
-- Some Democrats in Congress are worried their colleagues might kill them: House members openly accuse far-right representatives of threatening their health and safety after the Capitol riot, by Benjy Sarlin
Finances
Turning Point USA receives funding from a cohort of conservative and right-wing donors and foundations, including several Republican politicians.[39] According to the Center for Media and Democracy, donors include:
• Marcus Foundation (Bernard Marcus): $1,573,000 in 2015–18[40]
• Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner: $100,000 in 2014[41]
• Darwin Deason: $510,000 in 2014[40]
• Ed Uihlein Family Foundation (Richard Uihlein): $750,000 in 2014–18[42]
• Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation: $232,500 in 2014–18, $100,000 in 2019[40]
• Donors Trust (on behalf of a cohort of right-wing private donors): $610,000 in 2017[40]
• Thomas W. Smith Foundation: $400,000 in 2014–18[40]
• Einhorn Family Charitable Trust: $120,000 in 2014–18[40]
Turning Point USA also contributes money to its affiliated operational organizations, including Turning Point Endowment.[43]
In the 2016–17 financial year, Turning Point reported US$8.2 million in donations to the IRS, an increase from $4.3 million the previous year. The same year, expenses for the group doubled, reaching $8.3 million, most of which were employment related costs ($4.3 million).[44] In 2017, leaked records found that the group had funnelled "thousands of dollars" into student governments to elect conservative candidates.[45]
In September 2020, Turning Point USA came under fire for employing a number of teenagers, including some minors, to post disinformation about climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the integrity of postal voting leading up to the 2020 presidential election.[46]
Activities
In late 2017, the organization claimed to have representation on 1,000 campuses. Journalist Joseph Guinto could not verify the number in 2018, finding that Turning Point had 400 officially registered chapters, many of whom showed no activity on their Facebook pages.[47][12] Each of Turning Point's paid workers is supposed to meet a quota to make at least 1,500 student contacts per semester.[48] Student volunteers have several different themes for promoting conservative ideas, including "The Healthcare Games", "Game of Loans", and "iCapitalism".[49] According to The Washington Post, TPUSA centers "group membership on making provocative claims and publicly inciting outrage".[50]
Turning Point USA supports the NRA and the use of fossil fuels,[51] and opposes groups such as Black Lives Matter.[52] Turning Point USA and Turning Point UK promote the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory and said they are working to "combat it" in universities. Kirk described universities as "islands of totalitarianism".[53][54]
Annual summits
Turning Point holds several annual national conferences, including the Teen Student Action Summit,[55] the Young Women's Leadership Summit (YWLS),[56] the Black Leadership Summit,[57] and the Young Latino Leadership Summit.[58] Turning Point provides lodging and some meals for the attendees who can also apply for travel stipends.[58] The National Rifle Association (NRA) was the headline sponsor of the YWLS in 2017 and 2018.[56] According to The New York Times, YWLS "styles itself as an alternative to a liberal culture of feminism that many Republicans characterize as oppressive" and had by 2018 "evolved into an ultra-Trumpian event complete with 'lock her up' chants and vulgar T-shirts disparaging Hillary Clinton."[56] Candace Owens, who days prior to the 2018 conference stirred controversy by saying "the entire premise of #metoo is that women are stupid, weak, and inconsequential", was greeted with a standing ovation at the conference.[56]
Involvement in 2016 presidential election
Several former employees and student volunteers for Turning Point claimed they had witnessed collusion between high-ranking Turning Point employees – including Kirk himself and top advisor Ginni Thomas – and the presidential campaigns of both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. The interactions included Kirk coordinating via email with two officials at a pro-Cruz super PAC to send student volunteers to work for the PAC in South Carolina, as well as two students being requested by Thomas herself, via voicemail, to distribute over 200 Cruz placards in Wisconsin.[22] A former employee for Turning Point, who had been based in Florida, alleged that Turning Point had given the personal information of over 700 student supporters to an employee with Rubio's presidential campaign.[22]
A Turning Point staff member wrote on Facebook that students who attended the event would have their expenses covered. The event led tax experts to say the organization's conduct may have violated its tax-exempt status, a charge disputed by Turning Point.[26]
Involvement in 2020 presidential election
In September 2020, Turning Point USA's affiliate Turning Point Action was reported by The Washington Post to have paid young people in Arizona, some of them minors, to produce thousands of posts with Turning Point content on their own social media accounts and on fake accounts without disclosing their relationship with Turning Point.[46][29] According to an examination by the newspaper and an independent data science specialist, the campaign was highly coordinated and included similar messaging under the instruction of Turning Point to prevent detection.[46]
In September 2020, Facebook removed 200 accounts and 55 pages as well as 76 Instagram accounts linked to Turning Point USA’s marketing agency Rally Forge. The agency had paid teenagers in Phoenix, Arizona, on Turning Point's behalf to use their own and fake accounts and pages for thousands of posts boosting Trump and disparaging Democratic candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 United States presidential election. In October 2020, Facebook banned Rally Forge permanently while Twitter suspended 262 accounts from its platform.[29][59][60] Neither organization penalized Turning Point USA or its affiliates, stating that they "could not determine the extent to which the group’s leaders were aware of the specific violations carried out on their behalf, such as the use of fake accounts."[29]
Turning Point hosted Trump reelection rallies, some of them featuring Trump surrogates and some of them Trump himself.[56][61][62]
After the election, Kirk disputed the results and denied that Trump had lost.[63] On Jan 4, 2021, Kirk announced that Turning Point would be sending more than 80 buses to a January 6, 2021, Trump rally near the White House in Washington, D.C, to protest the outcome of the election.[64][65] They actually sent seven buses with approximately 350 participants. The rally, which was attended by several thousand Trump supporters, ended in a riot and the storming of the US Capitol where Biden's win was about to be certified.[66] Kirk later deleted the tweet[64] and said on his podcast that it was "bad judgment" and "not wise" to enter the Capitol but not necessarily insurrectionist.[67]
Professor Watchlist
Main article: Professor Watchlist
First appearing on November 21, 2016, Turning Point USA also operates a website called Professor Watchlist.[68] Kirk has said the site is "dedicated to documenting and exposing college professors who discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values, and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."[69] As of December 2016, more than 250 professors have been added to the site.[70] Reporting from Politico has described that the list contains many inaccuracies, and includes professors listed for things they did not exactly say or do and others listed for being rude to students or for making "clever remarks" about Trump.[71] Talking to New York Times, "Mr. Lamb", a director of constitutional enforcement and transparency at TPUSA admitted that the list was “simply aggregating” academics who had been subject to news reports, and that anyone could report a staff member without evidence.[72]
The website has been criticized for using surveillance type propaganda to manipulate ideas of truth, equality, and freedom.[72][73][74] Critics have compared Professor Watchlist to the actions of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, who tried to publicly identify American citizens as Communists and Communist sympathizers in the 1950s.[75][76] The New York Times wrote that it was "a threat to academic freedom,"[72] while Salon commented that it was "a sign of the stupidity of the post truth era."[77]
In May 2017, Northern Arizona University criminology professor Luis Fernandez said Turning Point surveillance of him had led to multiple threats.[78] In The Harvard Crimson, Harvard University Professor Danielle Allen also said she had been threatened after being targeted by Charlie Kirk and Turning Point.[79]
Hans-Joerg Tiede, a staff member of the American Association of University Professors said of a professor who was named for writing a book chapter on teaching mathematics to minority ethnic children: "She was inundated with death threats. She was Jewish and received antisemitic threats and threats of sexual assault. Instances like that are happening with some regularity".[80] The American Association of University Professors has also called for university administrators, governing bodies, faculty and individuals to "speak out clearly and forcefully to defend academic freedom and to condemn targeted harassment and intimidation of faculty members", with the New York Times describing the site as a threat to academic freedoms.[72]
Involvement in student government elections
Turning Point USA has been involved in influencing student government elections at a number of colleges and universities.[26][71] Universities that have been targeted by this effort have included Ohio State University, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Maryland. These claims led to conservative candidates at the University of Maryland withdrawing from student elections after failing to report assistance from Turning Point.[81][82]
A private brochure, handed out only to Turning Point donors, highlighted the organization's alleged strategy to take over student governments at universities across the country, and included a list of every Turning Point-supported student who was elected to student government positions in the year 2017.[22] Turning Point said that it had helped more than 50 conservatives win elections to become student-body presidents.[71] When Politico looked into Turning Point's claims, it found the "success rate to be considerably overstated. Some of the students that Turning Point USA claimed to have backed flatly condemned the organization and said they'd never spoken to anyone who works for it."[71]
Denial of recognition on campus
At Drake University, Turning Point was denied recognition as an official student organization based on student senate concerns that the organization has "a hateful record," "aggressive marketing" and "an unethical privacy concern."[83]
At Hagerstown Community College, a student's attempt to start a Turning Point group was initially blocked when the school said the organization duplicated an existing group. The student's lawsuit led to the school revising its policy on student organizations, clarifying that school funded groups will be denied if they duplicate existing groups while unfunded groups face no such restriction.[84]
In February 2017, Santa Clara University's student government voted to deny recognition for Turning Point as a campus organization.[85] As of March 2017, this decision was overturned by the Vice Provost for Student Life, and Turning Point has been recognized as a registered student organization.[86]
Wartburg College's student senate voted to deny Turning Point USA recognition in late November. The chapter was forced to make changes to its constitution after initially being denied approval.[87][88]
The Executive Board of the student union of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute also voted on January 18, 2018 to deny the Turning Point USA chapter status as an officially recognized student organization.[89]
Controversies
In 2016, Turning Point at Grand Valley State University filed a lawsuit against the trustees of the school. The complainants asked the court to prohibit enforcement of GVSU's Speech Zone policy and declare it a violation of the students' 1st and 14th Amendment freedoms. They have since reached a settlement.[90]
In December 2016, Turning Point falsely quoted Nancy Pelosi in a Facebook post as saying: "Employers cutting hours is a good thing. It then gives that person time to pursue their dreams and passions."[91]
In the interview, CNN anchor Candy Crowley asked Pelosi about concerns that Obamacare would “destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week” by incentivizing employers to keep costs down by slashing employee hours.
In part of her response, Pelosi said the Affordable Care Act was a good thing because it would give employees the freedom to switch jobs without worrying about losing health care coverage.
“This is life, healthy life, liberty, the freedom to pursue your happiness which could be follow your passion for good rather than follow your palate and be constrained by your policy,” Pelosi said. “It’s about wellness. It’s about prevention, it’s about a healthier America.”
Turning Point USA took down its false Facebook post from 2016 after being contacted by The Associated Press.
-- No evidence Pelosi said employers cutting hours is ‘a good thing’, by Ali Swenson, 9/26/20
In May 2017, DePaul University refused to allow Turning Point to post "Gay Lives Matter" posters on campus. Matt Lamb, a spokesperson for Turning Point, said that the action by DePaul was an infringement of free speech rights.[92]
In September 2017, a University of Nebraska lecturer was reassigned after she received threats stemming from a video posted online that showed her confronting a student recruiting for TPUSA.[93]
In October 2017, several Turning Point student members at Kent State University conducted a protest against campus "safe space" culture, which involved members dressing up in diapers as babies.[94][95] Following widespread ridicule on social media, the president of the chapter, Kaitlin Bennett, resigned,[96] and the student-run publication KentWired.com reported that the Turning Point chapter at Kent State had disbanded.[97]
In February 2018, the University of South Florida chapter of TPUSA was dissolved when it was discovered that their president, Aida Vazquez-Soto, was working with a pro-Palestinian group. Vazquez-Soto said 'Something is clearly wrong with an organization that felt that somehow by silencing me they could deal with the problem at hand.'[98]
In June 2018, conservative radio talk show host Joe Walsh resigned from the TPUSA board because Charlie Kirk was too closely tied to Donald Trump. Walsh said that "It’s so important to not be beholden to politicians, but to be beholden to the issues ... When Charlie went to work for Trump, that crossed that line. You can’t advance Trump and advance these issues."[99]
In October 2018, the Miami New Times reported that TPUSA members at Florida International University shared jokes "about watching underage cartoon pornography and deporting Latina women, and, in the most repugnant case, share racist 'Pepe the Frog' memes showing Syrian men raping a white Swedish woman at gunpoint."[100]
Chats Show FIU Turning Point USA Members Sharing Racist Memes and Rape Jokes
by Jerry Iannelli
Miami New Times
October 16, 2018 | 7:48AM
TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk (left) and the group's gross FIU chat (right).Gage Skidmore via Flickr / TPUSA FIU
Back in 2017, New Times obtained screenshots of gross chats among Florida International University's Campus Republicans. They joked about the Charlottesville neo-Nazi attack last year and threatened to "call ICE" on fellow, undocumented students who were begging Congress to pass the DREAM Act.Chats Show FIU College Republicans Joking About Charlottesville, Deporting Classmates
by Joel Franco
Miami New Times
November 10, 2017 | 12:03PM
IT'S GETTING HARD TO SEE IN THIS BLIZZARD
LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THESE SNOWFLAKES
6:31 P.M.
College Republicans The Best Party on Campus
Update 4:30 p.m.: FIU says in a statement it's aware of the chat and investigating it: "At FIU, we value diversity and work hard to make sure all of our students feel safe in an environment conducive to academic and career success. The sentiments expressed in the chat do not represent the university community. Our office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution will review the matter immediately and conduct any necessary investigations."
Thursday morning, dozens of Florida International University students walked out of class in protest. They urged the government to protect young immigrants who might be kicked out of the United States by the Trump administration. While they were demonstrating, their classmates in the FIU College Republicans were cracking jokes about trying to get the students deported. The exchange happened in a private group chat provided to New Times.
"Call ICE," one of the young Republicans urged. "So they get ICE'd."
"I was about to [call ICE]," another student wrote. "But I don't have their names."
The screenshots included also mention of buying semiautomatic weapons, grenades, and bump stocks and humorously refer to Charlottesville, where one protestor was killed by a white supremacist. The screencaps, which were shared by a participant in the chats who wishes to remain anonymous, are the latest headache for a campus already reeling from a leaked group chat from the campus' Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, which shows the frat members joking about rape and hazing. Those chats have led to the frat's suspension and an investigation.
"The discourse being exchanged in the FIU College is unacceptable," the anonymous tipster says in describing
the motivation for sharing screenshots of the chat. "The dehumanization of our fellow students is repulsive."
An FIU spokesperson declined to discuss the chats. One member of the College Republicans says the group's leaders have addressed the members who made the jokes and asked them to stop.
"It's not the central ones or the main ones in the club. It's more some of the fringe people who have more extreme views," says Connor Acosta, who says he was involved in the chats discussing weapons but not the offensive jokes about Charlottesville. "They discussed it recently at a meeting and they said to curb it. It's definitely being addressed in the club. It's gotten a bit better since then."
On their Facebook page, the FIU College Republicans boast of an award for the "best College Republicans Chapter Ever!" They are a chapter of the College Republican National Committee, founded in 1892, and have hosted numerous local candidates, including Jeb Bush and the recent failed state Senate candidate Jose Felix Diaz.
The screenshots of the chat — which is called "FIU CRs" and includes numerous cell-phone numbers — show a photo of students on campus holding signs in support of the DREAM Act while others discussed how they could try to deport the demonstrators.
Call ICE!
12:19 PM
Just passed by, surprised as to how quiet of a protest it is
12:19 PM
Call ICE
12:21 PM
So they get ICE'd
12:21 PM
They recently started to chant
12:22 PM
Unafraid, Unapologetic" ... If you're undocumented, you're here illegally ... BUILD THE WALL, AND DEPORT ALL ILLEGALS!
That's my instagram story lol
12:25 PM
Bro we need a group of people and they all got to make cardboard walls and we should line up in front of them
12:25 PM
Bro we need a group of people and they all got to make cardboard walls and we should line up in front of them
This is GENIUS!
12:25 PM
Just passed by, surprised as to how quiet of a protest it is
12:19 PM
Call ICE
12:21 PM
So they get ICE'd
12:21 PM
They recently started to chant
12:22 PM
Call ICE
I was about to ... but I don't have their names. LOL...
TBH though they're gonna need some ICE to cool down with this heat!
12:22 PM
And thanks for inviting me
12:22 PM
Hahahaha
12:22 PM
I know
12:23 PM
They need the build wall
12:23 PM
The students who walked out of class were demanding new legislation to protect those seeking legal status in the United States after Donald Trump's executive order a few months ago began the process of ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
The insensitive remarks in the group chat did not stop there. Chats from an earlier date involved a meme showing the car that mowed down protesters in Charlottesville in August. The caption read, "It's getting hard to see in this blizzard. Look at the size of these snowflakes."
In separate texts, three different students discussed firearms. "I guess I should get a bump stock before it gets banned," an unidentified student said in reference to the gun attachment used by the shooter in Las Vegas who killed 59 and injured more than 500 in October. One student even brought up grenade launchers when discussing attachments for an AR-15.
... sight, and a pmag
8:53 PM
FedArm AR-15 Mil-Spec Rifle .223/5.56 16" Barrel, Free Fleat Keymod Rail - $399.00
8:53 PM
This free floating is at 400$ I'm looking into it
8:43 PM
Wait what does it say about the mag?
8:50 PM
Detachable no fucking shit Sherlock
8:50 PM
No it says that among the many accessories you can buy for an AR-15, that you can get a 40mm grenade launcher
8:51 PM
What guns don't have detachable mags?
8:51 PM
I mean after spending $$$ on licenses
8:51 PM
Lol
8:51 PM
And $1k on grenades good luck
8:51 PM
Why cant you just be normal?
THE LEFT
6:30 PM
Just sent this to the wrong group chat fmi
6:30 PM
IT'S GETTING HARD TO SEE IN THIS BLIZZARD
LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THESE SNOWFLAKES
6:31 PM
19 year old college student:
Another chat shows a student dismissing the threat of white racist groups and suggesting that Black Lives Matter is somehow a greater threat:
I have less of a problem with the handful of KKK nutjobs than I do with the nationwide organized BLM movement
1:13 PM
Now, New Times has received disgusting chats from another FIU conservative group, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) — a far-right, college-focused group led by commentator Charlie Kirk. Members joke about watching underage cartoon pornography and deporting Latina women, and, in the most repugnant case, share racist "Pepe the Frog" memes showing Syrian men raping a white Swedish woman at gunpoint.
In one section, a prominent group member apparently had to warn others not to use racial slurs or reference neo-Nazis too often. One group member asked how "edgy" the person's "meme game" can be in the group chat, titled "TPUSA FIU Fun." A prominent group member responded by telling the user to "avoid using the n word and don't reference Richard Spencer too much and don't Jew hate ... all the time." [sic]
Spencer is, of course, an avowed white nationalist who regularly quotes Nazi slogans and advocates the creation of a "white ethno-state."
Just avoid saying the n word and don't reference Richard spencer too much and don't Jew hate just cause all the time
12:33 PM
Representatives for the group did not return messages from New Times yesterday. (A Facebook message was "read.") Nor did the group's regional field director in Florida, Driena Sixto, respond to New Times. She also participated in the chats, the WhatsApp screencaps show.
Turning Point USA was founded in 2012 by square-headed right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk. Kirk has since brought on pundit Candace Owens and has repeatedly held events with Donald Trump Jr. (One was held last week at Nova High School in Davie, but Trump Jr. wound up not attending.) Trump Jr. also wrote the foreword to Kirk's recently released book. (Kirk's text has received uniformly negative reviews — even from other conservatives). But TPUSA is perhaps most famous for the antics of its Kent State University chapter — in 2017, TPUSA activists at the Ohio school wore adult diapers and sucked pacifiers to parody "crybaby" liberals.
Of course, the internet has made fun of the group's members nonstop ever since then for making themselves look like morons.
Although Kirk and TPUSA formally denounce racism, white nationalism, and the alt-right, lower-level TPUSA members keep getting outed as racists or fans of prominent neo-Nazis. In 2017, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer reported the group had possibly coordinated illegally with prominent conservative campaigns and had also "fostered an atmosphere that is hostile to minorities." The magazine obtained internal screenshots showing former national field director, Crystal Clanton, stating "I hate black people. Like fuck them all... I hate blacks. End of story.” The Huffington Post also reported that TPUSA replaced Clanton with a woman named Shialee Grooman, who has used all kinds of racial and homophobic slurs online (including the N-word) and once tweeted the sentence "I love making racist jokes."
And, earlier this year, the head of Turning Point's diaper-wearing Kent State chapter quit — and wrote in a scathing op-ed that one of TPUSA's regional managers was "liking tweets from notorious Charlottesville attendee and white nationalist icon, James Allsup." (For what it's worth, many political commentators, from Leftists to even the staunchly conservative National Review, blame campus-conservative groups for functioning as alt-right breeding-grounds.)
FIU groups have been outed before for gross, sexist private chats. In 2017, New Times obtained Tau Kappa Epsilon frat members' texts making rape jokes and sharing nude pictures of women without their consent. FIU temporarily suspended all Greek life on campus while it investigated the matter. Then, New Times obtained College Republicans' conversations joking about the Charlottesville neo-Nazi murder of Heather Heyer. FIU's College Republican vice-president then quit the group.
Much of the FIU Turning Point chat reads like a bunch of young idiots trying (and miserably failing) to sound tough and edgy to impress one another. A source with knowledge of the FIU chat said that the "TPUSA FIU Fun" chatroom is used to announce the group's meetings and official business, while also serving as an outlet for group members to talk about campus life and share jokes and memes. But it turns out many members find some pretty heinous stuff funny.
Most notably, one user shared a Pepe the Frog meme showing Syrian men raping a white, Swedish woman at gunpoint. The "joke," if it can be called that, was simply that Sweden is letting in too many Syrian refugees, and that the Syrian men are going to pay the Swedes back by raping their women. It's basically about the Swedes getting literally "cucked."
"But it's awful in Europe cause 'WeRe DiVeRsE," the poster wrote, using ~ironic~ punctuation to poke fun at the concept of diversity.
TPUSA FIU Fun
But it's awful in Europe cause 'WeRe DiVeRsE"
REFUGEES WELCOME
12:43 PM
History repeats itself
12:44 PM
Let's hope the next Reconquista doesn't last 774 years.
12:46 PM
(In right-wing internet parlance, Pepe the Frog is a meme character popular with internet neo-Nazis, and the term "cucked," which comes from "cuckolding," references white people letting nonwhites infect their culture. It's as gross and racist as it sounds.)
"History repeats itselff," one user then responded.
Another user then referenced the period from roughly 718 to 1492 when white Christians violently pushed Muslims and Arabs out of the Iberian peninsula in what is now Spain.
"Let's hope the next Reconquista doesn't last 774 years," the user wrote. The term — which translates to "reconquest" — is often referenced in white-nationalist and neo-Nazi circles online.
In another part of the chat, a different user made a blunt joke about deporting brown women as part of a Halloween costume.
"I want to dress like an ICE officer in assless chaps" and "aggressively grapple Latinas and deport them," the post read, even though some members of the group appear to identify as Latina.
TPUSA FIU Fun
@Honey it's just wild cause colleges banned sexy Halloween costumes but now all of a sudden you can do it at virgin's caf...
Would be a Gopnik be sexy
3:22 PM
squat on my face
3:22 PM
HAHAHA
3:23 PM
I want to dress up as an ICE officer in assless chaps
3:24 PM
Pffft
squat on my face
LMFAO
3:24 PM
Aggressively grapple Latinas and deport them
3:25 PM
Some other group members even joked about watching cartoon porn involving underage girls. Many white nationalists and other members of the online alt-right, including Richard Spencer, have loudly professed their love for Japanese anime. One FIU TPUSA member took things a step further by posting a meme referencing "loli hentai," a type of Japanese pornography that, according to Urban Dictionary at least, depicts underage, prepubescent girls having sex:
TPUSA FIU Fun
Remember in snake eater where snake got an impromptu testicular exam lol
2:36 PM
0/10 put it on switch and PC
No us
2:36 PM
when someone asks if you like loli hentai
The law requires that I answer "no"
2:56 PM
Other chats showed TPUSA chat members joking about "infiltrating" other groups on campus, especially leftist or progressive organizations. One user joked about trying to get a progressive campus activist expelled.
According to FIU's own college magazine, PantherNOW, TPUSA created a chapter at the school in 2017. Field rep Driena Sixto, who had already graduated from the school by then, told the paper she had helped bring Turning Point to FIU to change the allegedly "liberal narrative" on college campuses. (It's worth noting that data show the alleged "anti-conservative crisis" at colleges appears to be overblown, and that, if anything, leftist professors actually get "persecuted" more often than right-leaning ones.)
An FIU spokesperson declined to immediately comment on the posts. But, during a similar controversy with the Campus Republicans, the university stressed racist-murder jokes did "not represent the university community."
Jerry Iannelli is a former staff writer for Miami New Times from 2015 to March 2020. He graduated with honors from Temple University. He then earned a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.
In November 2018, Fox News correspondent Rick Leventhal cut off Turning Point USA's Anna Paulina after she compared former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the disease herpes.[101]
During October and November 2019, Turning Point USA launched the 'Culture War' college tour of speaking events with appearances from many conservatives such as Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle. These events were frequently targeted by homophobic and antisemitic members of the alt- and far-right who consider TPUSA to be too mainstream and not sufficiently conservative. Concerted efforts were made by this group to ask leading questions during the Q&A sections on controversial topics such as Israel and LGBTQ issues in order to challenge the extent of the speakers' views. These members are called Groypers.[102]
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Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
by admin » Sun Jan 17, 2021 8:23 am
Part 2 of 3
Instances of racism
In December 2017, The New Yorker published an article by Jane Mayer showcasing interviews with former minority members of the organization. Former staff members said they witnessed widespread discrimination against minorities in the group, and stated "the organization was a difficult workplace and rife with tension, some of it racial."[22][103] One former employee, an African-American woman, said she was the only person of color working for the organization at the time she was hired in 2014; she then said that she was fired on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The article also revealed text messages sent by Crystal Clanton – who was a leading figure in the organization and served as the group's national field director for five years – to another Turning Point employee saying "i hate black people. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story." Kirk responded to the revelations by saying that "Turning Point assessed the situation and took decisive action within 72 hours of being made aware of the issue."[22] The article also noted that Kirk had explicitly praised Clanton in his book Time for a Turning Point, saying that she had been "the best hire we ever could have made," and that "Turning Point needs more Crystals; so does America."[22]
In an article titled "Turning Point USA Keeps Accidentally Hiring Racists," HuffPost reported that the woman hired to replace Crystal Clanton had a history of using racial slurs, particularly against African-Americans, on Twitter before deleting her account. In response to the reports, Kirk referred to the individual in question as "a former employee" in his official statement (without clarifying when she had been fired), and Turning Point issued an internal memo announcing that all current and new staff would face social media background checks.[104]
Charlie Kirk has said Turning Point USA has no relationship with alt-right groups.[105] In 2017, Turning Point chapters organized campus visits by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos to the University of Colorado Boulder and Miami University (Ohio).[106][107][108]
In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch documented TPUSA's links to white supremacists.[109][110]
On May 9, 2019, Riley Grisar was removed from his position as the president of TPUSA's UNLV chapter after a video surfaced of him with a friend using the okay hand signal in tandem with the chants of "white power" and "fuck the niggers".[111] Grisar's friend, who did most of the speaking in the video, is publicly identified as Lily Saxton, a student at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.[112] Saxton has no other known affiliations with TPUSA. The UNLV wing of Turning Point had previous press coverage from circumstances involving an April 2019 display of theirs on UNLV campus, which included a cardboard mock-up of a brick wall reading "Build the Wall". The display received significant protest from fellow students, which included vandalism and violence.[113]
In May 2019, it was reported that TPUSA's director for high school outreach, Kyle Kashuv, had previously used racially inflammatory language.[114][115] Screenshots of a Google Document for a class study guide showed Kashuv writing "NIGGER" multiple times, discussing "JEWISH SLAVES", and declaring that he would "fucking make a CSOG [sic] map of Douglas and practice" (in a supposed reference to the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive shooter game and Stoneman Douglas High School). Text messages reportedly showed Kashuv rating a female student "7/10" and stating that she "goes for niggerjocks".[116][117][118][119] Kashuv resigned from TPUSA hours after his former classmates threatened to make the screenshots public. Almost a week after the screenshots were published, Kashuv acknowledged that his comments were "callous and inflammatory".[114][115]
In July 2019, Kathy Zhu, a Chinese American conservative woman politically active on the University of Michigan campus, was stripped of her title as Miss Michigan USA due to comments about African-Americans and Muslims on social media that Miss World America found "offensive, insensitive and inappropriate."[120] Her posts included comments such as "the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks", as well as criticizing a "Try a hijab booth" at the University of Central Florida, where she previously attended.[121] She defended her comments and opinions afterward, stating that her stances were derived from factual evidence such as FBI crime statistics, and that her statements were decontextualized.[122] Zhu had previously attended Turning Point USA events,[123] but since referred to Turning Point USA as "trash". Zhu criticized them for severing ties with brand ambassador Ashley St. Clair after she attended a dinner with alt-right figures; Zhu was also present at this event.[124]
Instances of racism
In December 2017, The New Yorker published an article by Jane Mayer showcasing interviews with former minority members of the organization. Former staff members said they witnessed widespread discrimination against minorities in the group, and stated "the organization was a difficult workplace and rife with tension, some of it racial."[22][103] One former employee, an African-American woman, said she was the only person of color working for the organization at the time she was hired in 2014; she then said that she was fired on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The article also revealed text messages sent by Crystal Clanton – who was a leading figure in the organization and served as the group's national field director for five years – to another Turning Point employee saying "i hate black people. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story." Kirk responded to the revelations by saying that "Turning Point assessed the situation and took decisive action within 72 hours of being made aware of the issue."[22] The article also noted that Kirk had explicitly praised Clanton in his book Time for a Turning Point, saying that she had been "the best hire we ever could have made," and that "Turning Point needs more Crystals; so does America."[22]
A Conservative Nonprofit That Seeks to Transform College Campuses Faces Allegations of Racial Bias and Illegal Campaign Activity
by Jane Mayer
The New Yorker
December 21, 2017
Documents and former employees reveal troubling issues at a charity that touts its close relationship with the Trump family. Photograph by Melissa Golden / Redux
On Tuesday, in a convention center in West Palm Beach, Florida, amid chants of “USA!” and “The wall is going to be built!,” Donald Trump, Jr., kicked off a three-day annual summit for Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit. Based outside of Chicago, Turning Point’s aim is to foment a political revolution on America’s college campuses, in part by funnelling money into student government elections across the country to elect right-leaning candidates. But it is secretive about its funding and its donors, raising the prospect that “dark money” may now be shaping not just state and federal races but ones on campus.
Turning Point touts its close relationship with the President’s family. The group’s Web site promoted Don, Jr.,’s appearance for weeks, featuring a photo of him raising a clenched fist. Its promotional materials include a quote from the younger Trump praising Turning Point: “What you guys have done” is “just amazing.” Lara Trump, the wife of Don, Jr.,’s brother Eric, is also involved with the group. In West Palm Beach on Wednesday, she hosted a luncheon promoting Turning Point’s coming Young Women’s Leadership Summit. The group’s twenty-four-year-old executive director and founder, Charlie Kirk, told me that he counts Don, Jr., as “a personal friend.”
Turning Point casts itself as a grassroots response to what it perceives as liberal intolerance on college campuses. Kirk has called college campuses “islands of totalitarianism”; he and his supporters contend that conservatives are the true victims of discrimination in America, and he has vowed to fight back on behalf of what he has called his “Team Right.” Kirk is a frequent guest on Fox News, and last summer he was invited to give a speech at the Republican National Convention. That was where he met Donald Trump, Jr., and “hit it off” with him, Kirk said. After the convention, Kirk divided his time between Turning Point activities and working for the Trump campaign as a specialist in youth outreach. “I helped coordinate some rather successful events with him,” Kirk told me, referring to Don, Jr., “and I also carried his bags.” When friends threw Kirk a surprise birthday party earlier this year, Don, Jr., attended, as did Sebastian Gorka, the former Trump White House adviser.
As Turning Point’s profile has risen, so has scrutiny of its funding and tactics. Internal documents that I obtained, as well as interviews with former employees, suggest that the group may have skirted campaign-finance laws that bar charitable organizations from participating in political activity. Former employees say that they were directed to work with prominent conservatives, including the wife of the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in aid of Republican Presidential candidates in 2016. Perhaps most troubling for an organization that holds up conservatives as the real victims of discrimination in America, Turning Point USA is also alleged to have fostered an atmosphere that is hostile to minorities. Screenshots provided to me by a source show that Crystal Clanton, who served until last summer as the group’s national field director, sent a text message to another Turning Point employee saying, “i hate black people. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.”
Clanton, who resigned after serving as the group’s second-highest official for five years, at first declined to comment. “I’m no longer with Turning Point and wish not to be a part of the story,” Clanton told me over e-mail. Later, in a second e-mail, she said, “I have no recollection of these messages and they do not reflect what I believe or who I am and the same was true when I was a teenager.”
John Ryan O’Rourke, the former Turning Point employee who received the text messages from Clanton, requested that the messages “not be used in any article or background information concerning Turning Point” and declined to comment on them. Kirk said in an e-mail that “Turning Point assessed the situation and took decisive action within 72 hours of being made aware of the issue.” Soon after, Clanton left the organization.
While Kirk served as the public face of Turning Point, Clanton, its former field director, acted as its hands-on boss, according to former employees. In a 2016 book that Kirk co-authored with Brent Hamachek, “Time for a Turning Point: Setting a Course Toward Free Markets and Limited Government for Future Generations,” he described Clanton as “the best hire we ever could have made.” He called her “integral to the success of Turning Point while effectively serving as its chief operating officer.” He added, “Turning Point needs more Crystals; so does America.”
Former Turning Point employees say that the organization was a difficult workplace and rife with tension, some of it racial. Gabrielle Fequiere, a former Turning Point employee, told me that she was the only African-American hired as a field director when she worked with the group, three years ago. “In looking back, I think it was racist,” she said. “At the time, I was blaming myself, and I thought I did something wrong.” Fequiere, who now works as a model, recalled that the young black recruits that she brought into the organization suddenly found themselves disinvited from the group’s annual student summit, and that when she herself attended, she watched speakers there who “spoke badly about black women having all these babies out of wedlock. It was really offensive.” (Kirk, through a spokesman, denied that any such incidents occurred, and said, “These accusations are absolutely baseless and even absurd.”)
Fequiere said that Clanton fired her on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, on the grounds that she was not performing her job well. “I was the only black American employee they had, and they fired me on M.L.K. Day—it was so rude!” Fequiere told me. She added, “I felt very uncomfortable working there because I was black,” but she said she had seen white employees mistreated, as well. “My Democratic friends had told me that some Republicans didn’t care about the poor and minorities, and I thought it wasn’t true, but then I found the people they were talking about!”
Speakers at Turning Point events on various college campuses have been accused of going out of their way to thumb their noses at ethnic and cultural sensitivities. The conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, for instance, whose appearance Turning Point co-hosted with the College Republicans at the University of Colorado, in Boulder, said that despite being gay, he hated “faggots,” lesbians, and feminists, who, he said, “fucking hate men.”
In an effort to mock campus opposition to hate speech, members of the Turning Point chapter at Kent State University staged a protest last fall in which they appeared on campus wearing adult diapers and sucking on pacifiers while proclaiming “Safe Spaces are for Children.” The protest stirred widespread ridicule, and Kirk’s spokesman said that he disapproved of the display and later issued guidelines against other chapters repeating it.
Kirk grew up in Wheeling, Illinois, and was an Eagle Scout; in a 2015 speech to the Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley, he said that his “No. 1 dream in life” was to attend West Point, but the slot he considered his went to “a far less-qualified candidate of a different gender and a different persuasion” whose test scores he claimed he knew. (Kirk said he was being sarcastic when he made the comment.) An older acquaintance encouraged him to forgo college and launch a conservative analogue to the progressive advocacy group MoveOn.org. Kirk acknowledged in an interview that it is something of an irony that he heads an organization devoted to waging political warfare on campuses when he never actually attended college himself. “I joke that I wasn’t smart enough to go to a four-year school,” Kirk told me, although he noted that he continued his studies at a community college.
MoveOn, however, has one part set up as a super pac, and another as a 501(c)4 “social-welfare group,” both of which are legally allowed to engage in political elections. It also has a policy of disclosing the names of anyone contributing five thousand dollars or more. In contrast, Turning Point is a 501(c)3 charity. This means that, unlike MoveOn donors, Turning Point donors can take tax deductions for their contributions and remain anonymous. In exchange for these benefits, however, the Internal Revenue Service strictly prohibits charities such as Turning Point from engaging either directly or indirectly in political elections.
Several former Turning Point employees told me in interviews that they felt they were asked to participate in activities that crossed lines drawn by campaign-finance laws for groups like theirs. Payden Hall, who worked for Turning Point during the 2016 Presidential campaign, told me that Clanton, who was her boss, e-mailed her at her Turning Point address to make arrangements for her to coordinate with Ginni Thomas, the wife of the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to help Ted Cruz’s Presidential campaign. “That’s where the ambiguity began,” Hall recalled. Soon after, she said, Ginni Thomas, who was supporting Cruz’s candidacy and is on Turning Point’s advisory council, left a voice message for Hall and her sister, who also worked for Turning Point, saying that she was sending two hundred Cruz placards to them to distribute in the coming Wisconsin Presidential primary.
“Crystal gave Ginni Thomas my private mailing address without my permission,” Hall recalled. “They gave out employees’ personal information to the wife of a Supreme Court Justice.” The next thing she knew, she said, hundreds of Cruz placards arrived at her home. “We threw them out,” Hall said. She was a Cruz supporter, but, she says, “We wanted to volunteer on our own terms, not to give in to pressure from a boss. I felt that if it wasn’t crossing a legal line, it was crossing a professional one.”
Trevor Potter, a former Republican commissioner on the Federal Elections Commission who is the founder and president of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan campaign-finance-law watchdog group, said that Turning Point is barred from aiding political campaigns. “Under the law, a 501(c)3 can’t engage in political action or give anything of value to a campaign, including students, or the names of students,” he said. “If what Turning Point USA was doing was helping Republicans on campus and feeding them to campaigns, that’s a political operation, and it sounds as if it crosses the line.”
Reached by phone, Ginni Thomas declined to comment. Clanton’s lawyer, Robert Grabermann, said that if she e-mailed Hall “at her TPUSA email address, it was an honest oversight and sincere mistake on Ms. Clanton’s part. Ms. Clanton categorically denies using TPUSA resources to aid any political campaign activities. She fully understands the 501 (c)(3) guidelines, and has on many occasions consulted with legal counsel to ensure that all personal campaign involvement was compliant with 501 (c)(3) rules.”
Susan Walker, who worked for Turning Point USA in Florida, in 2016, told me that the group did aid Republican political campaigns. Walker said that a list she created while working for Turning Point, with the names of hundreds of student supporters, was given without her knowledge to someone working for Marco Rubio’s Presidential campaign. “That list had, like, seven hundred kids, and I worked my ass off to get it,” she said. “I had added notes on every student I talked to, and they were all on it still.” The Rubio operative, she added, “shouldn’t have had that list. We were a charity, and he was on a political campaign.”
E-mails and interviews from other former Turning Point employees in South Carolina and Ohio showed crossover between Presidential-campaign work and work for the charity, as well. In South Carolina, a chain of e-mails shows, Kirk asked a Turning Point USA employee to round up students to support Cruz at the behest of two officials with a pro-Cruz super pac. In a January 25, 2016, e-mail, Drew Ryun, a Turning Point advisory-council member who was helping run one of the pro-Cruz super pacs, asked Kirk to get another Turning Point employee to “send” the super pac “as many kids as possible.” Ryun, a former deputy director of the Republican National Committee, explained that he needed “as many kids as you can generate for a WSJ piece on efforts in” South Carolina. After Kirk agreed to help, the e-mail thread shows, Kirk coordinated with Dan Tripp, Ryun’s associate at the pro-Cruz super pac, who headed its operations in South Carolina and is the founder and president of Ground Game Strategies.
“Yes!” Kirk answered Tripp when asked for help from Turning Point. “What part of SC?”
“Greenville, Spartenburg or Anderson Counties,” Tripp replied.
“Time of day and how long?” Kirk asked.
“I’m thinking 2 hours late Sunday afternoon. Canvassing, training and pizza,” Tripp responded.
“You got it, will recon shortly,” Kirk e-mailed back. Kirk explained that a Turning Point employee in South Carolina named Anna Scott Marsh would be the point person, and added that “Anna will be helping. Let’s rock this!”
Soon after, e-mails show, Marsh, the Turning Point employee, promised to round up the requested recruits. “Sending something out tonight, and will send you a list hopefully tomorrow . . . I’m sure we can find some solid students here.” Marsh declined to comment about her e-mails.
Asked about these practices, Kirk referred me to a statement from his lawyer, Sally Wagenmaker: “Turning Point USA works diligently to comply entirely with all relevant laws and regulations governing not-for-profit organizations. Turning Point USA focuses on fiscal conservatism, free market economics, and related student education and advocacy, all completely within applicable Section 501(c)(3) legal constraints.”
Ryun confirmed that the exchanges occurred, but said that Kirk e-mailed him “via his personal e-mail and on his personal time!” Tripp, too, confirmed the e-mails, but said, “We welcomed many volunteers to our efforts and were grateful for their support. It would be quite troubling if campaign finance rules were interpreted to prevent conservative volunteers from exercising their right to be involved in the political process.”
In a phone interview, Kirk declined to identify the donors who have supplied his group’s eight-million-dollar-plus annual budget, noting that many prefer to remain anonymous. But Kirk has spoken and fund-raised at various closed-door energy-industry gatherings, including those of the 2017 board meeting of the National Mining Association and the 2016 annual meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. In our interview, Kirk acknowledged that some of his donors “are in the fossil-fuel space.”
Kirk’s ties to fossil-fuel magnates are controversial because Turning Point has helped organize opposition on campuses to students calling for schools to divest from fossil-fuel companies. Turning Point distributed a guide for college students with a foreword by Kirk, titled “10 Ways Fossil Fuels Improve Our Daily Lives.” In it, he argues, “Across the nation, college students are clamoring for their campuses to divest from fossil fuel . . . students are indoctrinated to believe the myth that fossil fuels are dirty and renewable energy is a plausible alternative . . . ” Turning Point, which also runs an online “Professor Watch List” that targets professors it believes are liberal, blamed “leftist professors” in its booklet for having “perpetuated” these “myths.” In the interview, Kirk told me that “We think targeting fossil fuels is rather unfair, and it is not really in the best interests of the universities to favor one type of political agenda over another.” It’s a message that “went great,” he said, when he delivered it at energy-industry meetings.
Last May, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an investigative report on what it called Turning Point’s “stealth plan for political influence.” The story recounted accusations on multiple campuses that the group had funnelled money into student elections in violation of the spending caps and transparency requirements set by those schools. It detailed how student candidates backed by Turning Point had been forced to drop out of campus elections at the University of Maryland and Ohio State “after they were caught violating spending rules and attempting to hide the help they received from Turning Point.” It also quoted Kirk saying in an appearance before a conservative political group in 2015 that his group was “investing a lot of time and money and energy” in student-government elections. (In the story, Kirk denied any wrongdoing and said it was “completely ludicrous and ridiculous that there’s some sort of secret plan.”)
A copy of a Turning Point brochure prepared for potential donors that I obtained provides a glimpse into the group’s tactics. (A former Turning Point employee said the brochure was closely held, and not posted online so that it couldn’t leak.) Its “Campus Victory Project” is described as a detailed, multi-phase plan to “commandeer the top office of Student Body President at each of the most recognizable and influential American Universities.”
Phase 1 calls for victory in the “Power 5” conference schools, including the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big Ten Conference, the Pacific 12 Conference, the Big 12 Conference, and the Southeastern Conference. Phase 2 calls for winning the top student-government slots in every Division 1 N.C.A.A. school, of which it says there are more than three hundred. In the first three years of the plan, the brochure says, the group aims to capture the “outright majority” of student-government positions in eighty per cent of these schools.
Once in control of student governments, the brochure says, Turning Point expects its allied campus leaders to follow a set political agenda. Among its planks are the defunding of progressive organizations on campus, the implementation of “free speech” policies eliminating barriers to hate speech, and the blocking of all campus “boycott, divestment and sanctions” movements. Turning Point’s agenda also calls for the student leaders it empowers to use student resources to host speakers and forums promoting “American Exceptionalism and Free Market ideals on campus.”
Today, Turning Point claims to have a presence on more than a thousand college campuses nationwide, and to have “a stronger, more organized presence than all the left-wing campus groups combined.” Kirk told me his group had started three hundred new chapters in the past year. The Campus Victory Project brochure names more than fifty four-year colleges and universities where it claims the group helped effectuate student government victories in the 2016–17 year, including the University of California, Los Angeles, Syracuse, Purdue, Michigan State, Wake Forest, and the University of Southern California, and it names a hundred and twenty-two more schools whose governments the group hopes to “commandeer” in Phase 2. The brochure notes that completing the task will take money: specifically, $2.2 million.
Kirk, in his interview, denied that any of these funds would directly pay for students’ campaigns. “We do not directly fund any of these candidates,” he said. Instead, he explained, “We will support them through levels of leadership,” including training and what he called “leadership scholarships.”
The prospect of “dark money”—contributions from anonymous donors to national ideological groups—flowing into campus elections has alarmed some students. “Students were outraged that our elections were being influenced from outside,” Danielle Di Scala, who last year was vice-president of the student government at Ohio State University, said. “I’d never seen that before, but it’s starting to be a trend. The problem,” she told me, “is it can price some student candidates out of the market when others are getting money from groups with unlimited funds.”
Andy MacCracken, the executive director of the National Campus Leadership Council, said he worries that campus elections are “particularly vulnerable” to outside money, “because there aren’t really any standard rules.” MacCracken says it’s been “shocking to see how much of an operation there is from Turning Point,” adding that “there’s really nothing comparable that I’m aware of from left-wing groups.” The push, he suggested, reflects a recognition on the part of conservatives about the future value of student leaders. “I can totally imagine they’re thinking that if we can win this on campuses, they will be the thought leaders down the road. This is a way to win it efficiently at the start. The challenge, though,” he says, “is that so much of this is in the dark.”
A Glimpse into Turning Point USA’s Tactics
Jane Mayer, The New Yorker’s chief Washington correspondent, is the author of “Dark Money.”
In an article titled "Turning Point USA Keeps Accidentally Hiring Racists," HuffPost reported that the woman hired to replace Crystal Clanton had a history of using racial slurs, particularly against African-Americans, on Twitter before deleting her account. In response to the reports, Kirk referred to the individual in question as "a former employee" in his official statement (without clarifying when she had been fired), and Turning Point issued an internal memo announcing that all current and new staff would face social media background checks.[104]
Turning Point USA Keeps Accidentally Hiring Racists: “I love making racist jokes,” tweeted the woman who replaced the person who wrote, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE.”
by Ashley Feinberg
Huffington Post
04/25/2018 02:28 pm ET Updated Apr 25, 2018
JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk laughs after President Donald Trump says at a White House youth forum on March 22 that if he could go back in time and give himself advice at age 25, it would be to not run for president.
Turning Point USA, a nonprofit founded in 2012 by then-19-year-old Charlie Kirk, has exploded in the Trump era. With a stated goal of training “students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government” but a practical goal of antagonizing as many of those students’ liberal peers as possible, the group is uniquely poised to capitalize on the fresh belligerence of a new generation of young Republicans.
Such as the group’s former national field director, Crystal Clanton, who once texted a fellow Turning Point employee: “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.”
Or the woman who effectively replaced her, 22-year-old Shialee Grooman, who tweeted in 2013, “All I get is nigger dick.”
Shialee Grooman
As its star has risen, Turning Point has found itself constantly beset with its employees’ racist comments. Some people get fired over them. Some simply delete their old tweets — whether to hide them from the public or their own organization, it’s not clear.
There are real stakes now for an organization that styles itself as a grassroots opposition to the supposed monolithic liberalism of college campuses. Turning Point has closely aligned itself with the Trump administration. Kirk interviewed the president at last month’s White House youth forum, while Donald Trump Jr. attended Kirk’s 24th birthday celebration, along with former deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka.
In December, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker reported that the group engaged in the sort of political activity barred by campaign finance laws governing charitable organizations. Mayer also unearthed the “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE” text from Clanton. Kirk told Mayer that the group “took decisive action” within 72 hours of being told about the texts; presumably he meant firing Clanton, who left the company shortly thereafter. According to someone with knowledge of the situation, Kirk then replaced Clanton with two people: Grooman, installed as field operations manager, and Troy Meeker, 24, who became leadership operations director.
Grooman, it turns out, has plenty of baggage of her own.
@TooFarFetched 15 Jan 2013
"@FreenzingArizona: Dude I love fighting with random niggers on twitter lol" <-lol white girl wild
Shialee Grooman
@shiiialee
Replying to #TooFarFetched
@TooFarFetched omg don't change my tweet to say 'nigger'! Ima have all your dark followers tweeting at me angry for it. Lol.
11:57 PM - 15 Jan 2013
Shialee Grooman
@shiiialee
If I look through your twitter pictures, and they're all of you flexing.. you're a fag.
1:46 AM - 20 Oct 2011
Shialee Grooman
@shiiialee
I am always making racist comments lol
11:59 PM - 11 Apr 2013
Shialee Grooman
@shiiialee
If you're a race other than white I promise to make racist jokes towards you
1:05 PM - 8 Dec 2012
Shialee Grooman
@shiiialee
I love making racist jokes.
12:36 PM - 15 Mar 2012
Shialee Grooman
@shiiialee
Okay. All of you are faggots. -_-
8:34 PM - 28 Feb 2012
SJ @ShobeeJay 20 Aug 2013
idk i'd just kind of like to date someone and not get a ton of shit for it,for once.
Shialee Grooman
@shiiialee
Replying to @ShobeeJay
@Sho-Beezy don't date faggots then
12:35 AM 20 Aug 2013
Shialee Grooman @shiiialee 1 Nov 2012
Replying to @jtofresh94
@jtofresh94 the only reason your family has more money than mine is because we live here legally and have to pay taxes. Unlike you.
Shialee Grooman @shiiialee 1 Nov 2012
@jtofresh94 hahah okay dude it's not my fault I'm a lifeguard and summers over now.
Shialee Grooman @shiiialee 1 Nov 2012
@jtofresh94 haha ill get a job where you work at #bestfriendsANDcoworkers
Shialee Grooman @shiiialee 1 Nov 2012
@jtofresh94 oh you work with all Mexicans? So when you get your paycheck where do you go to switch your money from pesos to American?
Shialee Grooman @shiiialee 1 Nov 2012
@jtofresh94 Shia: 1 Jorge: 0
Shialee Grooman @shiiialee 1 Nov 2012
Replying to @jtofresh94
@jtofresh94 okay you dildo obsessed beaner.
11:11 PM 1 Nov 2012
Shialee Grooman
@shiiialee
All I get is nigger dick RT
@SarcasticEulogy: @Freezing Arizona
only way you can say that bou niggers
is if yhou never had nigger dick
1/16/13, 12:08 AM
Grooman has since deleted her Twitter account entirely. Screenshots of the tweets, which were live as of early April, were given to HuffPost by someone who asked to be identified as an “activist.” Vestiges of Grooman’s Twitter activity can still be found in the remaining halves of the conversations shown in the screenshots. (Grooman went by @FreezingArizona on Twitter before changing her username to @shiiialee.)
x
@TooFarFetched
"@FreezingArizona: Dude I love fighting with random niggers on twitter lol" <- lol white girl wild
11:55 PM - 15 Jan 2013
x @TooFarFetched 15 Jan 2013
@FreezingArizona lol you being racist omg omg haha
x @TooFarFetched 16 Jan 2013
@FreezingArizona lol I know, just messin with ya
At the time of publication, Grooman’s LinkedIn profile still listed Turning Point as her current employer, but in a statement to HuffPost, Kirk referred to her as a “former employee”:This is the only question we will be issuing a statement on and only question addressing:
These are unconfirmed tweets, alleged to be written by a former employee of Turning Point USA which predates her employment with our organization.
According to a second source who also asked to remain anonymous, the tweets were concerning enough to Turning Point USA that they occasioned a memo, sent April 12.
TURNING POINT USA
INTERNAL MEMO
April 12, 2018
FROM: Tyler Bowyer
TO: All Staff
RE: Social Media Policy
As always, Turning Point USA is constantly evolving to better protect the organization and our staff. To ensure that our staff is adequately supported, TPUSA is providing a new and former staff with complimentary social media background checks that will begin to be conducted over the next month.
If you have anything in your social media past or present that could potentially damage your credibility or the credibility of the organization, please contact your manager, myself or if necessary, Human Resources at hr@tpusa.com.
If you are interested in ways to lock down your social media to make it less accessible to the public, or ways to better control your online profiles to separate your professional and personal life, please contact your manager or me directly. We will be adding a training component to all activist and staff trainings about protecting yourself on digital and social media.
If you have any questions, please text or call Tyler Bowyer at [DELETE].
According to the person who provided the memo, Grooman has still been answering Turning Point-related calls and emails, after the release of the April 12 memo. HuffPost followed up with Kirk to clarify when, exactly, Grooman left and under what circumstances; we’ll update if we hear back. Grooman has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Meeker, the other half of the duo who replaced Clanton, has had to delete at least one tweet of his own. According to his LinkedIn profile, he remains employed by Turning Point.
Troy Meeker
@troymeeker
KFC with my niggas @greg1217 and @STFUNICK
8:22 PM 4 Jun 2010
Meanwhile, Turning Point’s Midwest regional manager, Timon Prax, was allegedly forced to leave about a month ago. According to our activist source, it was over his use of bigoted language in tweets and texts.
Timon @TimonPrax 6/2/16
#IAlwaysRollMyEyesWhen people ask me if im Mormon because of my 4 wives. smh.
Timon@TimonPrax 6/2/16
#IAlwaysRollMyEyesWhen people ask me if im Muslim because of my love for goats
Timon
@TimonPrax
#IAlwaysRollMyEyesWhen people ask me if im Jewish because im always counting pennies.
Prax, whose Twitter account has been suspended, was worse in text messages, according to the source. “He used the n-word with the hard R nonstop, made fun of black people and referred to them as slaves and made fun of the mentally disabled,” said the source, who shared several screenshots with HuffPost on the condition that we not publish them.
Prax has since publicly posted on his Facebook that he’s accepted a job as social media director at the Rabine Group. The Rabine Group is owned by Gary Rabine, a current member of Turning Point’s advisory council.
Turning Point is a little more comfortable with other kinds of racial provocation. The group has been in the spotlight recently thanks to Kanye West’s praise on Twitter of Candace Owens, the organization’s director of urban engagement and one of its few black employees.
ye
@kanyewest
I love the way Candace Owens thinks
7:15 AM Apr 21, 2018
Kanye was likely responding to a recent video of Owens that had gone viral in which she says: “There is an ideological civil war happening: Black people that are focused on their past and shouting about slavery and black people that are focused on their futures, OK? That’s really what it comes down to, OK? .... And it’s embarrassing that you utilize their history, you utilize their history and you come in here with more emotion than they ever had when they were living through it. You’re not living through anything right now. You’re overly privileged Americans.”
Like Owens, many of Turning Point’s members often lean on the refrain that racism as liberals understand it simply doesn’t exist in the modern world. If only its own employees would stop proving them wrong.
Charlie Kirk has said Turning Point USA has no relationship with alt-right groups.[105] In 2017, Turning Point chapters organized campus visits by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos to the University of Colorado Boulder and Miami University (Ohio).[106][107][108]
In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch documented TPUSA's links to white supremacists.[109][110]
Turning Point USA's blooming romance with the alt-right
by Brendan Joel Kelley
Southern Poverty Law Center
February 16, 2018
On Monday, February 12, Kaitlin Bennett, president of the Kent State University chapter of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a self-proclaimed “student movement for free markets and limited government,” posted a scathing resignation letter online titled “I’m Turning Point USA’s Top Activist in the Country, & I Quit this Shitty Organization.”
Addressed to a field director and a regional manager for TPUSA, Frankie O’Laughlin and Alana Mastrangelo, respectively, the letter detailed Bennett’s perceived lack of support from the national organization, but made some pointed claims related to the racist “alt-right.”
Bennett asserted that O’Laughlin “told us we were not allowed to bring Kyle Chapman (the Based Stickman) to our campus since Turning Point wants to distance itself from the alt-right.” Chapman is the founder of the Proud Boys-affiliated Fraternal Order of Alt Knights, which he called the “tactical defensive arm” of the “western chauvinist” Proud Boys.
Bennett went on to point out the hypocrisy of O’Laughlin rejecting Chapman as a guest, since O’Laughlin himself was “liking tweets from notorious Charlottesville attendee and white nationalist icon, James Allsup,” and posted a screengrab of an Allsup tweet O’Laughlin liked. Allsup is an alt-right YouTube personality and speaks at white nationalist rallies.
The same day Bennett’s resignation letter was posted online, the Kent State chapter of TPUSA disbanded itself. Bennett did not respond to a request for comment from Hatewatch.
Just 10 days earlier, on February 2, a speaking engagement at Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins, Colorado, by TPUSA founder and director Charlie Kirk attracted a contingent of white nationalists from the Traditionalist Worker Party (TWP). In the runup to the event, anti-immigrant flyers attributed to TWP had been posted on the CSU campus, causing both CSU’s president and its local TPUSA chapter to respond.
“The TWP goes by various names online, but let me keep this simple: a Nazi is a Nazi is a Nazi. And the members of the Traditionalist Worker Party are unapologetic Nazis who advocate murdering all those who don’t align with their worldview,” CSU president Tony Frank wrote in a public statement.
Regarding Kirk’s speaking engagement, titled “Smashing Socialism,” Frank wrote, “the recent appearance of white nationalist rhetoric on campus has been conflated with this speaker and caused concerns about the safety and security of religious groups, people of color, and other targeted populations relative to protestors and counter-protestors that may show up on campus Friday evening.”
CSU’s TPUSA chapter responded with a statement saying, “TPUSA at CSU and UNC [University of Northern Colorado] condemns white nationalism and embraces students from all backgrounds.”
While TPUSA founder Kirk was giving his speech, a group of alleged TWP members showed up on campus wearing masks and carrying shields, chanting the Nazi rallying cry “blood and soil!” The neo-Nazis briefly clashed with anti-racist protesters, and Kirk later crowed about the confrontation on Twitter:Got heated today after my speech today at Colorado State University
Had ANTIFA, disgusting white-nationalists, and hundreds of protestors outside event
Why free speech is awesome: these handful of radicals screamed at each other while hundreds of students filled our event!
During his speech, Kirk acknowledged the white nationalists outside, but distanced himself and TPUSA from the neo-Nazis. “That BS they’re trying to say out there, it’s not who we are, it’s not what we believe, it’s not what Turning Point believes,” he said.
“It’s very funny, they say, ‘Oh Charlie, you must be an ethno-nationalist because these four people with no lives show up outside your event. First of all, that’s a bunch of nonsense. Second of all, I don’t remember anyone saying that when all the communists show up to the Democrat events.”
Still, in his appearance Kirk decried the concept of white privilege, calling the idea racist because the idea is based on skin color. “They’re trying to discredit good ideas and good arguments, just because you’re white, and that’s ridiculous,” he said.
So what exactly is Turning Point USA, and why is the organization so attractive to neo-Nazis and the alt-right?
TPUSA claims chapters on over 1,000 college and high school campuses across the country. It markets itself saying it promotes freedom, free markets and limited government — a brand of conservatism squarely aimed at millennials. Donald Trump, Jr., and his sister-in-law Lara Trump have promoted TPUSA, and according to a New Yorker expose on the group, “[a]mong its planks are the defunding of progressive organizations on campus, the implementation of ‘free speech’ policies eliminating barriers to hate speech, and the blocking of all campus ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions’ movements.”
TPUSA has also been accused of violating spending cap and transparency rules at different college campuses by funneling “dark money” into student government elections, according to the New Yorker article. The piece also suggested TPUSA may have broken campaign finance laws by working to aid Republican presidential candidates in 2016.
Then there’s TPUSA’s “Professor Watchlist,” a McCarthy-ist website featuring professors at universities across the country who TPUSA says “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”
Wendy Lynne Lee, a philosophy professor at Bloomsburg University (BU) in rural Pennsylvania for more than a quarter-century (who’s not yet on the Professor Watchlist), began tracking TPUSA’s activities in 2016. “Here was an organization that had a mission statement that said one thing: libertarian, free market, conservative… fine, but whose activities, affiliations, sources of funding, whose Twitter feed did not cohere, did not line up with its mission statement,” she says.
Lee began collecting a “bibliography” documenting connections between TPUSA, its funders, advisors and guest speakers and online expressions of antisemitism, anti-Muslim sentiment, racism, misogyny and anti-LGBT bias, as well as connections to prominent alt-right personalities.
When Lee discovered there was a TPUSA chapter on her campus at BU, she went to the group’s campus advisor with her concerns and her bibliography. “These kids have free speech rights,” she explains, “but my issue was with formal university recognition that gets them access to all kinds of university-funded things and the use of the university logo. My objection to them wasn’t that they had a right to be here on campus.”
Lee failed in her attempt to get TPUSA’s official campus recognition rescinded, and as a protest, put a hand-scrawled poster in her office window reading “BU-Turning Point USA = Alt-Right = White Supremacism.” When a local news report said some students were concerned the sign endorsed white supremacy, she changed it to read, “Reject white supremacism. Reject BU-Turning Point USA.”
The backlash was swift. Days later posters appeared on Lee’s campus reading, “WARNING COMMUNIST PROFESSORS TEACH ON THIS CAMPUS.” An online meme with a photo of an animated Lee yelling behind a podium at an anti-fracking protest read, “THIS EXTREMIST PROFESSOR CLAIMS THAT FREEDOM IS THE NEW ‘WHITE SUPREMACY’ - WAIT… THAT WOMAN IS ALLOWED TO TEACH?!” It was shared nearly 3,000 times on Facebook.
One connection Lee had highlighted in her bibliography was with alt-right misogynist Ivan Throne, a preposterous figure who spoke at TPUSA’s Mountain West Regional Conference in Denver in March 2017. Throne, who poses as a mysterious warrior persona he calls “Dark Triad Man,” and whose book has been endorsed by prominent white nationalist Greg Johnson on his Counter-Currents website, struck back on his own website in an article titled “The Incredible Howling Damp Virago of Bloomsburg University,” implying Lee was involved in the ecoterrorism movement.
Ivan Throne
The Dark Triad Man
Full Length HD
Jul 27, 2018
[Ivan Throne] We all ready? Back from lunch? Well, it's nice to have a little present from my advisor Mr. Swift after a long lunch. It's good to give everybody a flashbang to wake you up. You guys ready?! We're gonna go a little deep today. I'm gonna take things in a direction that maybe you don't hear very often. Before, during ... for those of you that don't know me or maybe haven't followed my work, a little bit about me and what I do.
As Anthony mentioned, I'm an author. I'm with Castalia House. Director of the safe streets project, which I'll touch on briefly in just a moment. I work on social media. I'm a speaker, and I try to influence the shift of the times to the best ability that I can. And to those of you who know what the dark triad is, yes, I am a narcissist. I'm very wonderful at it. Machiavellian and Psychopath. And people think psychopaths sometimes, and the image that comes to mind is Christian Bale with an axe, or clowns with knives in an alley. No. That's 'empathy is voluntary,' and I don't do pity.
So my role in the Manosphere, what is it that I actually do besides write? And I'm in a kind of an odd place. I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. One of the things I do with the Safe Streets Project, and everybody's seen the ANTIFA or black-clad friends in the street throwing feces and coke cans full of cement, showing up now with rifles and stabbing people. So what we do is we monitor, we track, and we infiltrate them. Alright. I provide, along with my advisor, Mr. Swift, some tactical advisory for Patriot groups like 3 Percenters, Oath Keepers, and so on, when they're going to show up on the ground. We're doing analysis, and we help them prepare coherently and competently for any potential engagements. And where engagements are concerned, we're also doing some ground dominance training. My partner has a background in SWAT team leadership, private military contractor, and so on: Here's how you hold ground; here's how you advance; here's how you retreat in good order, so that the folks on the Left, as they escalate, from activists, to protestor, to insurgent, to revolutionary, that we can grab them and haul them back before they read execution. Because none of you in here is considered a friend to them. And lastly, one of the things I do, not very publicly, but I work as a liaison between a lot of the various different groups that may not talk to each other, but they talk to me. And I'm able to transmit information. I'm able to help coordinate things, and keep things moving in a coherent direction to the best of my ability.
So this all amounts to grabbing the steering wheel of the cultural war. All of you are in the car. So, who's the driver? I am, and you can too. That's a responsibility as a man. That's part of your role. that's part of what this convention is all about.
So, just a quick overview of my book, The Nine Laws, it was mentioned, it came out just about a year ago. It did reach No. 1 in philosophy (on Amazon), and it's essentially an operating system: Faith, values, beliefs, morals -- those are all software that the human being installs. This is your operating system from a person who has no pity.
Weaponize the human being. That's a very important concept. And we're going to take that a little bit further today. Because you need to be a vehicle for the delivery of fate. As a human being, that's what you're created and manufactured for. You know the expression, 'Be careful what you wish for'? And I get it, because words have power. Anybody seen the analogy of how mass bends time and space? Take a bowling ball and put it on a trampoline. What happens? Sinks a little bit, and anything you drop on it rolls towards it. The human being affects reality the same way. that's why be very conscious of your speech, your actions, your thoughts, and your feelings. Because they will shift reality.
Now let's talk about Manhood [Your Crucible of Spirit], the first thing I want to talk about today. What is Manhood?! How do you know if you're a man or not? Manhood is something that must be estimated within you. It's called an "internal" locus of control. If your Manhood is defined by any other human being: your buddy, your wife, your boss, 50,000 haters on Twitter, you're fucked. You must define that yourself. Or it can be stripped away from you.
So what is that? What is the foundation? What is the most basal layers within me that I will live and die over, and say, "No, I won't bend there. Kill me!" Anybody have an idea what that is? My conscience. That is what makes a man. That is something that belongs to you, and no one can force you to violate it.... [6:21]
[10:13]As a male, what is my natural, inherent WAY? Thank about that as we go forward. But as I go through that WAY, I need to be hard. Not brittle. The ninja have an expression 'Take no yōna kokoro, nobana no yōna kokoro,' which means the heart like bamboo, heart like wildflowers. Doesn't snap. You need to have that resiliency; a strength of heart; a committed mind; the discipline; the habits; your conscience; your perogative exercised. And naturally, what takes place in this crucible of the Spirit, is the hardening of the human being, of the Man. The creation of the man, the genesis of it that comes from that.
What are we good for? [WAR] Strike a chord with anyone? Struggle, conflict, war. I don't mean just kinetic war: men with 100-pound packs in greater than hundred degree weather. We are built to win. Winning implies contest. Right? Because there is contest, [WAR: YOUR NATURE IS GLORY]. That's your nature as a man. To strive for glory.
Who has seen the movie "300"? Okay, who liked it? How many of you saw it with a female partner, or talked to a female that you know who has seen it? [LAUGHTER] Do you think they get it? Aside from the beefcake and the spray-on abs, and great massive loins and spears. Do they get it? I read something once a couple of months ago that stuck with me. It's a website called 80proofoinomancy (https://80proofoinomancy.wordpress.com/ ... ess-stone/). I'd never come across it before, but he said something that really resonated. "Why are there no female pallbearers? Because it's your brothers who take you to the grave. The brothers that honor you. Meanwhile, the women? They weep, or gossip, as they see fit. Because the dead have no utility to them. Hypergamy doesn't care.
It’s not difficult to find connections between TPUSA and explicit bigoted discrimination. In the New Yorker expose, reporter Jane Mayer was provided screenshots of a text message from TPUSA’s (now former) national field director, Crystal Clanton, that read, “i hate black people. Like f--- them all… I hate blacks. End of story.” Clanton did not dispute the text’s authenticity.
Clanton left TPUSA after the organization realized the text had been made public, but the article points out that while founder Kirk served as TPUSA’s “public face,” Clanton “acted as its hands-on boss,” and quotes Kirk saying Clanton was “the best hire we ever could have made,” and “Turning Point needs more Crystals; so does America.”
Another former Turning Point employee quoted in the New Yorker story says she was the organization’s only African-American field director, and Clanton fired her on Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.
Kirk himself, besides advocating for the elimination of so-called safe spaces for minority students on campus and claiming that the concept of white privilege is itself racist, recently tweeted “Fact: A police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male, than an unarmed black man is to be killed by a police officer” (a flawed statistic promulgated by neoconservative conspiracy theorist Dennis Prager). Kirk has also posted anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim tweets.
A member of TPUSA’s advisory council, multimillionaire Foster Friess, has funded anti-Muslim organizations and urged students to “be more intolerant” in a commencement speech.
Anti-Muslim sentiment seems all too common in TPUSA. The president of TPUSA’s chapter at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Colby Weatherspoon, has tweeted the anti-Muslim hashtag #IslamControlNow and claims membership in the misogynistic “western chauvinist” Proud Boys in his Twitter bio.
During Islam Awareness Week at the University of Miami last March, a TPUSA member, Driena Sixto, co-hosted a “counter info session” called “The Truth of Being a Woman of Islam” which its organizer summed up as “being a woman of Islam often comes with many dangers.”
And TPUSA was blasted for antisemitism after a writer named Adam Weinstein criticized the group on Twitter by responding on its official TPUSA account, “The best ‘grift’ this morning is having a guy named Weinstein criticize young people for wanting fewer hands in their pockets. Too good.” TPUSA later deleted the tweet and apologized, saying it was a reference to Harvey Weinstein rather than an insult regarding Jewish stereotypes.
TPUSA has also featured former congressman Joe Walsh as a speaker at events. Walsh has been criticized as racist and anti-Muslim for his controversial statements and tweets, and was fired from a talk radio host gig in 2014 for using racial slurs — which didn’t seem to deter him, since he subsequently tweeted, “Found out if I said Redskins or Cracker or Redneck Bible Thumper, I could stay on. But if I said N----- or S----, they cut me off.”
While TPUSA and Charlie Kirk claim to “condemn” the racist alt-right that seem to support the organization, as witnessed by the Traditionalist Worker Party demonstration in Fort Collins in early February, evidence is amassing that the attraction between the entities is largely mutual.
On May 9, 2019, Riley Grisar was removed from his position as the president of TPUSA's UNLV chapter after a video surfaced of him with a friend using the okay hand signal in tandem with the chants of "white power" and "fuck the niggers".[111] Grisar's friend, who did most of the speaking in the video, is publicly identified as Lily Saxton, a student at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.[112] Saxton has no other known affiliations with TPUSA. The UNLV wing of Turning Point had previous press coverage from circumstances involving an April 2019 display of theirs on UNLV campus, which included a cardboard mock-up of a brick wall reading "Build the Wall". The display received significant protest from fellow students, which included vandalism and violence.[113]
In May 2019, it was reported that TPUSA's director for high school outreach, Kyle Kashuv, had previously used racially inflammatory language.[114][115] Screenshots of a Google Document for a class study guide showed Kashuv writing "NIGGER" multiple times, discussing "JEWISH SLAVES", and declaring that he would "fucking make a CSOG [sic] map of Douglas and practice" (in a supposed reference to the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive shooter game and Stoneman Douglas High School). Text messages reportedly showed Kashuv rating a female student "7/10" and stating that she "goes for niggerjocks".[116][117][118][119] Kashuv resigned from TPUSA hours after his former classmates threatened to make the screenshots public. Almost a week after the screenshots were published, Kashuv acknowledged that his comments were "callous and inflammatory".[114][115]
In July 2019, Kathy Zhu, a Chinese American conservative woman politically active on the University of Michigan campus, was stripped of her title as Miss Michigan USA due to comments about African-Americans and Muslims on social media that Miss World America found "offensive, insensitive and inappropriate."[120] Her posts included comments such as "the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks", as well as criticizing a "Try a hijab booth" at the University of Central Florida, where she previously attended.[121] She defended her comments and opinions afterward, stating that her stances were derived from factual evidence such as FBI crime statistics, and that her statements were decontextualized.[122] Zhu had previously attended Turning Point USA events,[123] but since referred to Turning Point USA as "trash". Zhu criticized them for severing ties with brand ambassador Ashley St. Clair after she attended a dinner with alt-right figures; Zhu was also present at this event.[124]
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Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
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Part 3 of 3
Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center
TPUSA has been called an alt-lite organization by the Anti-Defamation League[125] (ADL) and has been criticized by both the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center for affiliating with activists from the alt-right and the far-right.[126]
Conflicts with other conservative organizations
In May 2018, an internal memo written by Young America's Foundation (YAF) was leaked, in which YAF leadership "warned" its members to not associate with Turning Point. The memo accused the organization of various improprieties such as exaggerating the number of Turning Point chapters and activities around the country, taking credit for other organizations' events, increasing attendance at its own events by "boosting numbers with racists & Nazi sympathizers," and sponsoring "humiliating" campus activism events, in reference to the Kent State diaper incident.[127] In addition, the YAF memo included another memo on the subject circulated internally by Young Americans for Liberty, which accused Turning Point of illegally obtaining YAL's email list and soliciting its students without their permission, which Turning Point only stopped doing after being issued a cease-and-desist order.[128]
After the memo was leaked in June 2018, a representative for Turning Point criticized Young America's Foundation in a statement to The Chronicle of Higher Education, accusing the group of "abandoning the 'Reagan Rule'" that "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." Although Charlie Kirk did not directly respond to the memo, he posted on Twitter that he wished "some conservatives fought the left as hard as they fight people who support President Trump". Turning Point's Communications Director Candace Owens directly responded to the memo, saying she was "truly speechless" over the memo supposedly attacking Kirk for his lack of college experience. A former employee stated on Twitter that "TPUSA activists do some incredible work. It's a shame the face for their work has become constant, EXTREME inflation of numbers to mislead donors. They have an opportunity to turn this around, and they should."[129]
In the Hillsdale College Collegian, opinions editor Kaylee McGhee wrote an article titled "Charlie Kirk and TPUSA aren't conservative, as real conservatives already knew". In the article, McGhee referred to TPUSA as a "reactionary cancer" rather than a group supporting real conservatism that is "supposed to preserve the timeless principles of liberty and equality for all".[130]
In late October 2018, The Daily Beast reported that Lucian Wintrich and other conservatives blamed Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens for losing Kanye West as an ally of President Trump.[131] Since then, West has re-affirmed his support for President Trump.[132]
During October and November 2019, Kirk launched the 'Culture War' college tour of speaking events with appearances from many conservatives such as Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle. These events were frequently targeted by homophobic and antisemitic members of the alt-right and far right who consider TPUSA to be too mainstream and not sufficiently conservative. Concerted efforts were made by this group to ask leading questions during the Q&A sections on controversial topics such as Israel and LGBTQ issues in order to challenge the extent of the speakers' views.[133]
In November 2019, the Dartmouth Review called TPUSA an organization that promoted Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump first, rather than conservative values. The article added "True conservatives must eventually outgrow TPUSA and devote their efforts elsewhere. We must challenge ourselves by pursuing an environment of rigorous inquiry, instead of being coddled by the intellectually devoid echo chamber of TPUSA, compromising our values for recognition." [134]
Internal dissension
After TPUSA's annual "Student Action Summit" in late December 2018, dissidents within the organization, headed by conservative activist Kevin Martin, formed "Heal Our Voice", a group critical of Kirk's leadership of Turning Point USA. One member of the group told The Daily Beast that "Charlie Kirk can be a little bit of a snowflake — or a lot a bit of a snowflake." Other complaints concerned sexual harassment and assault at TPUSA events.[135]
Alleged tax code violations
In 2017, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker described two separate actions by Turning Point staff in the 2016 election that appear to have violated campaign finance regulations.[22] Charlie Kirk "denied any wrongdoing and said it was “completely ludicrous and ridiculous that there’s some sort of secret plan."[22] TPUSA attorney, Sally Wagenmaker, refuted allegations of campaign finance irregularities in an article published by Pro Public in July 2020, stating that "payments to businesses belonging to organization officials 'provided a compelling operational benefit in Turning Point’s best and other interests,' and that they were 'in full compliance with TPUSA’s IRS-compliant conflict of interest policy.'[136]
Turning Point Action
Main article: Turning Point Action
Turning Point Action is a 501(c)(4) organization representing right-wing and conservative perspectives. While the group claims to be a "completely separate organization" from Turning Point USA, Forbes noted that both were founded by Kirk and use common marketing and branding styles.[137] Donors to Turning Point Action received a bumper sticker prominently featuring the URL of Turning Point USA’s website; the bumper sticker was also available for purchase from Turning Point USA’s web store.[138]
In September 2020, Turning Point Action was reported by The Washington Post to have paid teenagers in Arizona, some of them minors, to produce thousands of posts with Turning Point USA content on their own social media accounts without disclosing their relationship with the organization.[46] According to an examination by the newspaper and an independent data science specialist, the campaign was highly coordinated and included similar messaging under the instruction of Turning Point to prevent detection. Some of the messages were false and some were partisan.[46] One message posted on Twitter "claimed coronavirus numbers were intentionally inflated" and that "it’s hard to know what to believe." Another tweet warned to not trust Anthony Fauci.[46] The Washington Post reported that Twitter responded to their questions by suspending at least 20 accounts for their involvement in "platform manipulation and spam."[139]
On Facebook, a comment cast doubts on mail-in ballots because of the potential of mail fraud.[46] An Instagram comment claimed that 28 million ballots went missing in the past four elections, implying voter fraud.[46] In actuality, the missing ballots were neither returned as undeliverable nor returned by voters.[140] Also targeted in the messaging was Joe Biden, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate at the time, along with other Democratic politicians, and news organizations on social media. One message claimed that Biden "is being controlled by behind the scenes individuals who want to take America down the dangerous path towards socialism."[46] Facebook removed a number of accounts during their ongoing investigation.[46] Austin Smith, a field director for Turning Point told The Washington Post: "This is sincere political activism conducted by real people who passionately hold the beliefs they describe online, not an anonymous troll farm in Russia." Jake Hoffman, CEO of a Phoenix-based digital marketing firm that joined Turning Point for this project explained that "dozens of young people have been excited to share their beliefs on social media." He also added that participants are "using their own personal profiles and sharing their content that reflects their values and beliefs."[139][46]
Turning Point UK
Turning Point UK (TPUK) is a British offshoot of Turning Point USA,[141][142][143] set up to challenge left-wing political ideology which the organization perceives to be dominant in UK schools, colleges and universities.[144][145][146][147]
Turning Point UK's chairman was George Farmer[142][143] (fiancé of Candace Owens)[148] until April 2019, and its CEO is Oliver (Ollie) Anisfeld (the son of Lance Forman, Brexit Party MEP for London since 2019).[149][150][151] The group employs several staff.[145]
The organization claims it has chapters at the universities of Sussex, Oxford, St Andrews, York, Warwick, Nottingham, King's College London, University College London, the London School of Economics and the University of the Arts London.[145] Like Turning Point USA, it does not disclose the identities of its donors.[145]
The group was launched in December 2018[145] by Kirk and Owens[148][152] at the Royal Automobile Club in London.[145] Among those attending the event were Andy Wigmore, Paul Joseph Watson, and James Delingpole.[145][143] On the day of its social media launch in February 2019, MPs including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel tweeted supportive messages for the organization, as did Nigel Farage[148][142][143] while it was marked for criticism by others.[143][148] and the launch of its Twitter account was accompanied by multiple parody accounts, along with a parody of the organization's website created by a ‘left-leaning student’ calling himself ‘Skeptical Seventh’.[152][153][154] There was also a protest from the charity Turning Point over potential confusion caused by similarities between the two names.[155]
Labour MP David Lammy has described Turning Point UK as evidence that “sinister forces are taking hold of our country” and that the Conservative Party “openly promotes hard-right, xenophobic bile”.[156]
Dominique Samuels, one of the group's "Young Influencers", told the BBC during a radio interview that the UK branch would not set up the same controversial Professor Watchlist for which its US counterpart is known.[157] The group hosts the TPUK Education Watch website, where students can submit examples of political bias in the education system. The site has been described by the University and College Union as having "the acrid whiff of McCarthyism about it" after it called for videos and photos of lecturers to be sent into it for publication. Turning Point rejected the accusation and said that any academic they featured would be given the right to reply and that unlike the US group the default would not be to name people although they reserved the right to do so.[158][159]
Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty
The Falkirk Center is a right-wing think tank housed at Liberty University and co-founded by Kirk and Jerry Falwell, Jr.[160] Fellows include Antonio Okafor, director of outreach for Gun Owners of America and Jenna Ellis, a senior legal counselor for President Donald Trump.[161][160]
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External links
• Official website
Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center
TPUSA has been called an alt-lite organization by the Anti-Defamation League[125] (ADL) and has been criticized by both the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center for affiliating with activists from the alt-right and the far-right.[126]
Conflicts with other conservative organizations
In May 2018, an internal memo written by Young America's Foundation (YAF) was leaked, in which YAF leadership "warned" its members to not associate with Turning Point. The memo accused the organization of various improprieties such as exaggerating the number of Turning Point chapters and activities around the country, taking credit for other organizations' events, increasing attendance at its own events by "boosting numbers with racists & Nazi sympathizers," and sponsoring "humiliating" campus activism events, in reference to the Kent State diaper incident.[127] In addition, the YAF memo included another memo on the subject circulated internally by Young Americans for Liberty, which accused Turning Point of illegally obtaining YAL's email list and soliciting its students without their permission, which Turning Point only stopped doing after being issued a cease-and-desist order.[128]
After the memo was leaked in June 2018, a representative for Turning Point criticized Young America's Foundation in a statement to The Chronicle of Higher Education, accusing the group of "abandoning the 'Reagan Rule'" that "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." Although Charlie Kirk did not directly respond to the memo, he posted on Twitter that he wished "some conservatives fought the left as hard as they fight people who support President Trump". Turning Point's Communications Director Candace Owens directly responded to the memo, saying she was "truly speechless" over the memo supposedly attacking Kirk for his lack of college experience. A former employee stated on Twitter that "TPUSA activists do some incredible work. It's a shame the face for their work has become constant, EXTREME inflation of numbers to mislead donors. They have an opportunity to turn this around, and they should."[129]
In the Hillsdale College Collegian, opinions editor Kaylee McGhee wrote an article titled "Charlie Kirk and TPUSA aren't conservative, as real conservatives already knew". In the article, McGhee referred to TPUSA as a "reactionary cancer" rather than a group supporting real conservatism that is "supposed to preserve the timeless principles of liberty and equality for all".[130]
In late October 2018, The Daily Beast reported that Lucian Wintrich and other conservatives blamed Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens for losing Kanye West as an ally of President Trump.[131] Since then, West has re-affirmed his support for President Trump.[132]
During October and November 2019, Kirk launched the 'Culture War' college tour of speaking events with appearances from many conservatives such as Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump and Kimberly Guilfoyle. These events were frequently targeted by homophobic and antisemitic members of the alt-right and far right who consider TPUSA to be too mainstream and not sufficiently conservative. Concerted efforts were made by this group to ask leading questions during the Q&A sections on controversial topics such as Israel and LGBTQ issues in order to challenge the extent of the speakers' views.[133]
In November 2019, the Dartmouth Review called TPUSA an organization that promoted Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump first, rather than conservative values. The article added "True conservatives must eventually outgrow TPUSA and devote their efforts elsewhere. We must challenge ourselves by pursuing an environment of rigorous inquiry, instead of being coddled by the intellectually devoid echo chamber of TPUSA, compromising our values for recognition." [134]
Internal dissension
After TPUSA's annual "Student Action Summit" in late December 2018, dissidents within the organization, headed by conservative activist Kevin Martin, formed "Heal Our Voice", a group critical of Kirk's leadership of Turning Point USA. One member of the group told The Daily Beast that "Charlie Kirk can be a little bit of a snowflake — or a lot a bit of a snowflake." Other complaints concerned sexual harassment and assault at TPUSA events.[135]
Alleged tax code violations
In 2017, Jane Mayer of the New Yorker described two separate actions by Turning Point staff in the 2016 election that appear to have violated campaign finance regulations.[22] Charlie Kirk "denied any wrongdoing and said it was “completely ludicrous and ridiculous that there’s some sort of secret plan."[22] TPUSA attorney, Sally Wagenmaker, refuted allegations of campaign finance irregularities in an article published by Pro Public in July 2020, stating that "payments to businesses belonging to organization officials 'provided a compelling operational benefit in Turning Point’s best and other interests,' and that they were 'in full compliance with TPUSA’s IRS-compliant conflict of interest policy.'[136]
Turning Point Action
Main article: Turning Point Action
Turning Point Action is a 501(c)(4) organization representing right-wing and conservative perspectives. While the group claims to be a "completely separate organization" from Turning Point USA, Forbes noted that both were founded by Kirk and use common marketing and branding styles.[137] Donors to Turning Point Action received a bumper sticker prominently featuring the URL of Turning Point USA’s website; the bumper sticker was also available for purchase from Turning Point USA’s web store.[138]
In September 2020, Turning Point Action was reported by The Washington Post to have paid teenagers in Arizona, some of them minors, to produce thousands of posts with Turning Point USA content on their own social media accounts without disclosing their relationship with the organization.[46] According to an examination by the newspaper and an independent data science specialist, the campaign was highly coordinated and included similar messaging under the instruction of Turning Point to prevent detection. Some of the messages were false and some were partisan.[46] One message posted on Twitter "claimed coronavirus numbers were intentionally inflated" and that "it’s hard to know what to believe." Another tweet warned to not trust Anthony Fauci.[46] The Washington Post reported that Twitter responded to their questions by suspending at least 20 accounts for their involvement in "platform manipulation and spam."[139]
On Facebook, a comment cast doubts on mail-in ballots because of the potential of mail fraud.[46] An Instagram comment claimed that 28 million ballots went missing in the past four elections, implying voter fraud.[46] In actuality, the missing ballots were neither returned as undeliverable nor returned by voters.[140] Also targeted in the messaging was Joe Biden, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate at the time, along with other Democratic politicians, and news organizations on social media. One message claimed that Biden "is being controlled by behind the scenes individuals who want to take America down the dangerous path towards socialism."[46] Facebook removed a number of accounts during their ongoing investigation.[46] Austin Smith, a field director for Turning Point told The Washington Post: "This is sincere political activism conducted by real people who passionately hold the beliefs they describe online, not an anonymous troll farm in Russia." Jake Hoffman, CEO of a Phoenix-based digital marketing firm that joined Turning Point for this project explained that "dozens of young people have been excited to share their beliefs on social media." He also added that participants are "using their own personal profiles and sharing their content that reflects their values and beliefs."[139][46]
Turning Point UK
Turning Point UK (TPUK) is a British offshoot of Turning Point USA,[141][142][143] set up to challenge left-wing political ideology which the organization perceives to be dominant in UK schools, colleges and universities.[144][145][146][147]
Turning Point UK's chairman was George Farmer[142][143] (fiancé of Candace Owens)[148] until April 2019, and its CEO is Oliver (Ollie) Anisfeld (the son of Lance Forman, Brexit Party MEP for London since 2019).[149][150][151] The group employs several staff.[145]
The organization claims it has chapters at the universities of Sussex, Oxford, St Andrews, York, Warwick, Nottingham, King's College London, University College London, the London School of Economics and the University of the Arts London.[145] Like Turning Point USA, it does not disclose the identities of its donors.[145]
The group was launched in December 2018[145] by Kirk and Owens[148][152] at the Royal Automobile Club in London.[145] Among those attending the event were Andy Wigmore, Paul Joseph Watson, and James Delingpole.[145][143] On the day of its social media launch in February 2019, MPs including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel tweeted supportive messages for the organization, as did Nigel Farage[148][142][143] while it was marked for criticism by others.[143][148] and the launch of its Twitter account was accompanied by multiple parody accounts, along with a parody of the organization's website created by a ‘left-leaning student’ calling himself ‘Skeptical Seventh’.[152][153][154] There was also a protest from the charity Turning Point over potential confusion caused by similarities between the two names.[155]
Labour MP David Lammy has described Turning Point UK as evidence that “sinister forces are taking hold of our country” and that the Conservative Party “openly promotes hard-right, xenophobic bile”.[156]
Dominique Samuels, one of the group's "Young Influencers", told the BBC during a radio interview that the UK branch would not set up the same controversial Professor Watchlist for which its US counterpart is known.[157] The group hosts the TPUK Education Watch website, where students can submit examples of political bias in the education system. The site has been described by the University and College Union as having "the acrid whiff of McCarthyism about it" after it called for videos and photos of lecturers to be sent into it for publication. Turning Point rejected the accusation and said that any academic they featured would be given the right to reply and that unlike the US group the default would not be to name people although they reserved the right to do so.[158][159]
Falkirk Center for Faith and Liberty
The Falkirk Center is a right-wing think tank housed at Liberty University and co-founded by Kirk and Jerry Falwell, Jr.[160] Fellows include Antonio Okafor, director of outreach for Gun Owners of America and Jenna Ellis, a senior legal counselor for President Donald Trump.[161][160]
Jenna Ellis (born 1983 or 1984) is an American lawyer for Donald Trump. She is a former deputy district attorney in Weld County, Colorado and a former assistant professor of legal studies at Colorado Christian University. As a private lawyer, she has litigated cases in state courts. In 2015, she self-published The Legal Basis for a Moral Constitution, a book arguing that the Constitution of the United States can only be interpreted in accordance with the Bible. Since 2018, Ellis has presented herself as a "constitutional law attorney" during cable news appearances, though The New York Times reported her background did not reflect such expertise and The Wall Street Journal reported she had no history in any federal cases.
Ellis was a stern critic of Donald Trump and his supporters in 2015 and early 2016 until he became the 2016 Republican nominee for president, at which point Ellis began voicing support, including in media appearances. Ellis was hired by Trump in November 2019 as a senior legal adviser. In November 2020, Trump announced that Ellis was part of the legal team conducting efforts to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election. However, Ellis has yet to join any such lawsuit on paper or in court. Ellis has baselessly claimed that Trump was the actual winner of the election. She has met state lawmakers in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan, urging the state legislatures to avoid appointing pro-Biden presidential electors even though Biden won the popular vote in those states.
-- Jenna Ellis, by Wikipedia
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Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
by admin » Mon Jan 18, 2021 4:56 am
Pro-Trump youth group enlists teens in secretive campaign likened to a ‘troll farm,’ prompting rebuke by Facebook and Twitter
by Isaac Stanley-Becker
Washington Post
September 15, 2020 at 3:05 p.m. MST
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Republican National Convention, shown on a laptop in Tiskilwa, Ill., on Aug. 24. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News)
One tweet claimed coronavirus numbers were intentionally inflated, adding, “It’s hard to know what to believe.” Another warned, “Don’t trust Dr. Fauci.”
A Facebook comment argued that mail-in ballots “will lead to fraud for this election,” while an Instagram comment amplified the erroneous claim that 28 million ballots went missing in the past four elections.
The messages have been emanating in recent months from the accounts of young people in Arizona seemingly expressing their own views — standing up for President Trump in a battleground state and echoing talking points from his reelection campaign.
Far from representing a genuine social media groundswell, however, the posts are the product of a sprawling yet secretive campaign that experts say evades the guardrails put in place by social media companies to limit online disinformation of the sort used by Russia during the 2016 campaign.
Teenagers, some of them minors, are being paid to pump out the messages at the direction of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA, the prominent conservative youth organization based in Phoenix, according to four people with independent knowledge of the effort. Their descriptions were confirmed by detailed notes from relatives of one of the teenagers who recorded conversations with him about the efforts.
The campaign draws on the spam-like behavior of bots and trolls, with the same or similar language posted repeatedly across social media. But it is carried out, at least in part, by humans paid to use their own accounts, though nowhere disclosing their relationship with Turning Point Action or the digital firm brought in to oversee the day-to-day activity. One user included a link to Turning Point USA’s website in his Twitter profile until The Washington Post began asking questions about the activity.
In response to questions from The Post, Twitter on Tuesday suspended at least 20 accounts involved in the activity for “platform manipulation and spam.” Facebook also removed a number of accounts as part of what the company said is an ongoing investigation.
The effort generated thousands of posts this summer on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, according to an examination by The Post and an assessment by an independent specialist in data science. Nearly 4,500 tweets containing identical content that were identified in the analysis probably represent a fraction of the overall output.
The months-long effort by the tax-exempt nonprofit is among the most ambitious domestic influence campaigns uncovered this election cycle, said experts tracking the evolution of deceptive online tactics.
“In 2016, there were Macedonian teenagers interfering in the election by running a troll farm and writing salacious articles for money,” said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “In this election, the troll farm is in Phoenix.”
The effort, Brookie added, illustrates “that the scale and scope of domestic disinformation is far greater than anything a foreign adversary could do to us.”
Turning Point Action, whose 26-year-old leader, Charlie Kirk, delivered the opening speech at this year’s Republican National Convention, issued a statement from the group’s field director defending the social media campaign and saying any comparison to a troll farm was a “gross mischaracterization.”
“This is sincere political activism conducted by real people who passionately hold the beliefs they describe online, not an anonymous troll farm in Russia,” the field director, Austin Smith, said in the statement.
He said the operation reflected an attempt by Turning Point Action to maintain its advocacy despite the challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic, which has curtailed many traditional political events.
“Like everyone else, Turning Point Action’s plans for nationwide in-person events and activities were completely disrupted by the pandemic,” Smith said. “Many positions TPA had planned for in field work were going to be completely cut, but TPA managed to reimagine these roles and working with our marketing partners, transitioned some to a virtual and online activist model.”
The group declined to make Kirk available for an interview.
The online salvo targeted prominent Democratic politicians and news organizations on social media. It mainly took the form of replies to their posts, part of a bid to reorient political conversation.
The messages — some of them false and some simply partisan — were parceled out in precise increments as directed by the effort’s leaders, according to the people with knowledge of the highly coordinated activity, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the privacy of minors carrying out the work.
One parent of two teenagers involved in the effort, Robert Jason Noonan, said his 16- and 17-year-old daughters were being paid by Turning Point to push “conservative points of view and values” on social media. He said they have been working with the group since about June, adding in an interview, “The job is theirs until they want to quit or until the election.”
Four years ago, the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency amplified Turning Point’s right-wing memes as part of Moscow’s sweeping interference aimed at boosting Trump, according to expert assessments prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee. One report pointed specifically to the use of Turning Point content as evidence of Russia’s “deep knowledge of American culture, media, and influencers.”
Now, some technology industry experts contend that the effort this year by Turning Point shows how domestic groups are not just producing eye-catching online material but also increasingly using social media to spread it in disruptive or misleading ways.
“It sounds like the Russians, but instead coming from Americans,” said Jacob Ratkiewicz, a software engineer at Google whose academic research, as a PhD student at Indiana University at Bloomington, addressed the political abuse of social media.
To some participants, the undertaking feels very different. Notes from the recorded conversation with a 16-year-old participant — the authenticity of which was confirmed by The Post — indicate, “He said it’s really fun and he works with his friends.” The participant, through family members, declined to comment.
Kirk and Candace Owens, also from Turning Point USA, listen to President Trump during the 2018 Young Black Leadership Summit in the East Room of the White House. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The social media users active in the campaign, some of whom were using their real names, identified themselves only as Trump supporters and young Republicans. One described herself simply as a high school sophomore interested in softball and cheerleading.
Noonan, 46, said “some of the comments may go too far” but cast the activity as a response to similar exaggerations by Democrats. “Liberals say things that are way out there, and conservatives say things that are sometimes way out there, or don’t have enough evidence.”
Those recruited to participate in the campaign were lifting the language from a shared online document, according to Noonan and other people familiar with the setup. They posted the same lines a limited number of times to avoid automated detection by the technology companies, these people said. They also were instructed to edit the beginning and ending of each snippet to differentiate the posts slightly, according to the notes from the recorded conversation with a participant.
Noonan said his daughters sometimes work from an office in the Phoenix area and are classified as independent contractors, not earning “horrible money” but also not making minimum wage. Relatives of another person involved said the minor is paid an hourly rate and can score bonuses if his posts spur higher engagement.
Smith, as part of written responses to The Post, deferred specific questions about the financial setup to a “marketing partner” called Rally Forge, which he said was running the program for Turning Point.
Jake Hoffman, president and chief executive of the Phoenix-based digital marketing firm, confirmed the online workers were classified as contractors but declined to comment further on “private employment matters.” He did not respond to a question about the office setup.
Addressing the use of centralized documents to prepare the messages, Hoffman said in written responses, “Every working team within my agency works out of dozens of collaborative documents every day, as is common with all dynamic marketing agencies or campaign phone banks for example.”
The messages have appeared mainly as replies to news articles about politics and public health posted on social media. They seek to cast doubt on the integrity of the electoral process, asserting that Democrats are using mail balloting to steal the election — “thwarting the will of the American people,” they alleged.
The posts also play down the threat from covid-19, which claimed the life of Turning Point’s co-founder Bill Montgomery in July. One post, which was spread across social media dozens of times, suggested baselessly that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is inflating the death toll from the disease. (Most experts say deaths are probably undercounted.) Another pushed for schools to reopen, reasoning, “President Trump is not worried because younger people do very well while dealing with covid.”
Much of the blitz was aimed squarely at Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee. The former vice president, asserted one message, “is being controlled by behind the scenes individuals who want to take America down the dangerous path towards socialism.”
By seeking to rebut mainstream news articles, the operation illustrates the extent to which some online political activism is designed to discredit the media.
While Facebook and Twitter have pledged to crack down on what they have labeled coordinated inauthentic behavior, in Facebook’s case, and platform manipulation and spam, as Twitter defines its rules, their efforts falter in the face of organizations willing to pay users to post on their own accounts, maintaining the appearance of independence and authenticity.
In removing accounts Tuesday, Twitter pointed to policies specifying, “You can’t artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts.” That includes “coordinating with or compensating others to engage in artificial engagement or amplification, even if the people involved use only one account,” according to Twitter.
On Twitter, the nearly verbatim language emanated from about two dozen accounts through the summer. The exact number of people posting the messages was not clear. Smith, the Turning Point field director, said, “The number fluctuates and many have gone back to school.” Hoffman, in an email, said, “Dozens of young people have been excited to share their beliefs on social media.”
The Rally Forge leader is a city council member in Queen Creek, Ariz., and a candidate for the state legislature.
Some of the users at points listed their location as Gilbert, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix, according to screen shots reviewed by The Post. Some followed each other on Twitter, while most were following only a list of prominent politicians and media outlets.
One was followed by a former member of Congress, Republican Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, who is on the Catholics for Trump advisory board. Huelskamp said he could not recall what led him to follow the account and was not familiar with the effort by Turning Point. But he praised the group for “doing a great job of messaging, particularly with younger folks.”
Several teenagers were using their real names or variations of their names, while other accounts active in posting the pro-Trump messaging appeared to be operating under pseudonyms. The Post’s review found that some participants seem to maintain multiple accounts on Facebook, which is a violation of the company’s policies.
Explaining why the users do not disclose that they are being paid as political activists, Hoffman said they are “using their own personal profiles and sharing their content that reflects their values and beliefs.” He pointed to the risk of online bullying, as well as physical harm, in explaining why “we’ve left how much personal and professional information they wish to share up to them.”
The accounts on Twitter alone posted 4,401 tweets with identical content, not including slight variations of the language, according to Pik-Mai Hui, a PhD student in informatics at Indiana University at Bloomington who performed an analysis of the content at the request of The Post. The analysis found characteristics strongly suggestive of bots — such as double commas and dangling commas that often appear with automatic scripts — though at least some of the accounts were being operated by humans.
While the messaging appears designed to seed pro-Trump content across social media, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, the act of repeated posting also helps instill the ideas among those performing the activity. In addition, it familiarizes the users with the ways of online combat, she said, and makes their accounts valuable assets should different needs arise as the election nears.
“There is a logic to having an army locally situated in a battleground state, having them up and online and ready to be deployed,” Jamieson said.
Trump shakes hands with Kirk during a panel discussion at the 2018 Generation Next Summit in Washington. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Turning Point Action debuted as a 501(c)(4) organization last year, with more leeway in undertaking political advocacy than is afforded to the original group, which is barred from campaign activity as a 501(c)(3). Both nonprofits are required only to disclose the salaries of directors, officers and key employees, said Marc Owens, a tax attorney with Loeb & Loeb.
Turning Point dates to 2012, when Montgomery, retired from a career in marketing, heard Kirk, then 18, deliver a speech in the Chicago suburbs at Benedictine University’s “Youth Government Day.” He called the address “practically Reaganesque,” according to a 2015 profile in Crain’s Chicago Business newspaper, and urged Kirk, a former Eagle Scout, to put off college in favor of full-time political activism. Kirk became the face of Turning Point, while Montgomery was “the old guy who keeps it all legal,” he told the business weekly.
The organization amassed prominent and wealthy conservative allies, including Richard Grenell, the former ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence, and Foster Friess, who made a fortune in mutual funds and helps bankroll conservative and Christian causes. Both men sit on Turning Point’s honorary board.
Its standing rose significantly as Trump came to power. Turning Point USA brought in nearly $80,000 in contributions and other funds in the fiscal year ending June 2013, according to IRS filings, a fraction of the $8 million it reported for 2017 and $11 million for 2018.
The group, which describes itself as the “largest and fastest-growing youth organization in America,” claims to have a presence on more than 2,000 college and high school campuses. It hosts activist conferences and runs an alumni program. It also maintains a “Professor Watchlist” designed to expose instructors who “discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”
Kirk, the group’s president and co-founder, has been embraced and promoted by Trump and his family. Speaking at Turning Point USA’s Teen Student Action Summit last year, Trump hailed Kirk for building a “movement unlike anything in the history of our nation.” A quote attributed to Donald Trump Jr., who has appeared at numerous Turning Point events, features prominently on the group’s website: “I’m convinced that the work by Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk will win back the future of America.”
Kirk has returned the praise. In his speech at last month’s Republican nominating convention, he extolled Trump as the “bodyguard of Western civilization.”
Equally impassioned rhetoric marked the campaign on social media, with posts asserting that Black Lives Matter protesters were “fascist groups . . . terrorizing American citizens” and decrying the “BLM Marxist agenda,” among other incendiary language.
Noonan said his wife, a hairstylist, monitors the online activity of their daughters more closely than he does, and that their work is often a topic of conversation when the family convenes in the evening.
“We are Trump supporters, but one of the things my wife and I have been very consistent on is to always understand both sides and make decisions from there,” the father said.
by Isaac Stanley-Becker
Washington Post
September 15, 2020 at 3:05 p.m. MST
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Republican National Convention, shown on a laptop in Tiskilwa, Ill., on Aug. 24. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News)
One tweet claimed coronavirus numbers were intentionally inflated, adding, “It’s hard to know what to believe.” Another warned, “Don’t trust Dr. Fauci.”
A Facebook comment argued that mail-in ballots “will lead to fraud for this election,” while an Instagram comment amplified the erroneous claim that 28 million ballots went missing in the past four elections.
The messages have been emanating in recent months from the accounts of young people in Arizona seemingly expressing their own views — standing up for President Trump in a battleground state and echoing talking points from his reelection campaign.
Far from representing a genuine social media groundswell, however, the posts are the product of a sprawling yet secretive campaign that experts say evades the guardrails put in place by social media companies to limit online disinformation of the sort used by Russia during the 2016 campaign.
Teenagers, some of them minors, are being paid to pump out the messages at the direction of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA, the prominent conservative youth organization based in Phoenix, according to four people with independent knowledge of the effort. Their descriptions were confirmed by detailed notes from relatives of one of the teenagers who recorded conversations with him about the efforts.
The campaign draws on the spam-like behavior of bots and trolls, with the same or similar language posted repeatedly across social media. But it is carried out, at least in part, by humans paid to use their own accounts, though nowhere disclosing their relationship with Turning Point Action or the digital firm brought in to oversee the day-to-day activity. One user included a link to Turning Point USA’s website in his Twitter profile until The Washington Post began asking questions about the activity.
In response to questions from The Post, Twitter on Tuesday suspended at least 20 accounts involved in the activity for “platform manipulation and spam.” Facebook also removed a number of accounts as part of what the company said is an ongoing investigation.
The effort generated thousands of posts this summer on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, according to an examination by The Post and an assessment by an independent specialist in data science. Nearly 4,500 tweets containing identical content that were identified in the analysis probably represent a fraction of the overall output.
The months-long effort by the tax-exempt nonprofit is among the most ambitious domestic influence campaigns uncovered this election cycle, said experts tracking the evolution of deceptive online tactics.
“In 2016, there were Macedonian teenagers interfering in the election by running a troll farm and writing salacious articles for money,” said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “In this election, the troll farm is in Phoenix.”
The effort, Brookie added, illustrates “that the scale and scope of domestic disinformation is far greater than anything a foreign adversary could do to us.”
Turning Point Action, whose 26-year-old leader, Charlie Kirk, delivered the opening speech at this year’s Republican National Convention, issued a statement from the group’s field director defending the social media campaign and saying any comparison to a troll farm was a “gross mischaracterization.”
“This is sincere political activism conducted by real people who passionately hold the beliefs they describe online, not an anonymous troll farm in Russia,” the field director, Austin Smith, said in the statement.
He said the operation reflected an attempt by Turning Point Action to maintain its advocacy despite the challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic, which has curtailed many traditional political events.
“Like everyone else, Turning Point Action’s plans for nationwide in-person events and activities were completely disrupted by the pandemic,” Smith said. “Many positions TPA had planned for in field work were going to be completely cut, but TPA managed to reimagine these roles and working with our marketing partners, transitioned some to a virtual and online activist model.”
The group declined to make Kirk available for an interview.
The online salvo targeted prominent Democratic politicians and news organizations on social media. It mainly took the form of replies to their posts, part of a bid to reorient political conversation.
The messages — some of them false and some simply partisan — were parceled out in precise increments as directed by the effort’s leaders, according to the people with knowledge of the highly coordinated activity, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the privacy of minors carrying out the work.
One parent of two teenagers involved in the effort, Robert Jason Noonan, said his 16- and 17-year-old daughters were being paid by Turning Point to push “conservative points of view and values” on social media. He said they have been working with the group since about June, adding in an interview, “The job is theirs until they want to quit or until the election.”
Four years ago, the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency amplified Turning Point’s right-wing memes as part of Moscow’s sweeping interference aimed at boosting Trump, according to expert assessments prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee. One report pointed specifically to the use of Turning Point content as evidence of Russia’s “deep knowledge of American culture, media, and influencers.”
Now, some technology industry experts contend that the effort this year by Turning Point shows how domestic groups are not just producing eye-catching online material but also increasingly using social media to spread it in disruptive or misleading ways.
“It sounds like the Russians, but instead coming from Americans,” said Jacob Ratkiewicz, a software engineer at Google whose academic research, as a PhD student at Indiana University at Bloomington, addressed the political abuse of social media.
To some participants, the undertaking feels very different. Notes from the recorded conversation with a 16-year-old participant — the authenticity of which was confirmed by The Post — indicate, “He said it’s really fun and he works with his friends.” The participant, through family members, declined to comment.
Kirk and Candace Owens, also from Turning Point USA, listen to President Trump during the 2018 Young Black Leadership Summit in the East Room of the White House. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The social media users active in the campaign, some of whom were using their real names, identified themselves only as Trump supporters and young Republicans. One described herself simply as a high school sophomore interested in softball and cheerleading.
Noonan, 46, said “some of the comments may go too far” but cast the activity as a response to similar exaggerations by Democrats. “Liberals say things that are way out there, and conservatives say things that are sometimes way out there, or don’t have enough evidence.”
Those recruited to participate in the campaign were lifting the language from a shared online document, according to Noonan and other people familiar with the setup. They posted the same lines a limited number of times to avoid automated detection by the technology companies, these people said. They also were instructed to edit the beginning and ending of each snippet to differentiate the posts slightly, according to the notes from the recorded conversation with a participant.
Noonan said his daughters sometimes work from an office in the Phoenix area and are classified as independent contractors, not earning “horrible money” but also not making minimum wage. Relatives of another person involved said the minor is paid an hourly rate and can score bonuses if his posts spur higher engagement.
Smith, as part of written responses to The Post, deferred specific questions about the financial setup to a “marketing partner” called Rally Forge, which he said was running the program for Turning Point.
Jake Hoffman, president and chief executive of the Phoenix-based digital marketing firm, confirmed the online workers were classified as contractors but declined to comment further on “private employment matters.” He did not respond to a question about the office setup.
Addressing the use of centralized documents to prepare the messages, Hoffman said in written responses, “Every working team within my agency works out of dozens of collaborative documents every day, as is common with all dynamic marketing agencies or campaign phone banks for example.”
The messages have appeared mainly as replies to news articles about politics and public health posted on social media. They seek to cast doubt on the integrity of the electoral process, asserting that Democrats are using mail balloting to steal the election — “thwarting the will of the American people,” they alleged.
The posts also play down the threat from covid-19, which claimed the life of Turning Point’s co-founder Bill Montgomery in July. One post, which was spread across social media dozens of times, suggested baselessly that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is inflating the death toll from the disease. (Most experts say deaths are probably undercounted.) Another pushed for schools to reopen, reasoning, “President Trump is not worried because younger people do very well while dealing with covid.”
Much of the blitz was aimed squarely at Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee. The former vice president, asserted one message, “is being controlled by behind the scenes individuals who want to take America down the dangerous path towards socialism.”
By seeking to rebut mainstream news articles, the operation illustrates the extent to which some online political activism is designed to discredit the media.
While Facebook and Twitter have pledged to crack down on what they have labeled coordinated inauthentic behavior, in Facebook’s case, and platform manipulation and spam, as Twitter defines its rules, their efforts falter in the face of organizations willing to pay users to post on their own accounts, maintaining the appearance of independence and authenticity.
In removing accounts Tuesday, Twitter pointed to policies specifying, “You can’t artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts.” That includes “coordinating with or compensating others to engage in artificial engagement or amplification, even if the people involved use only one account,” according to Twitter.
On Twitter, the nearly verbatim language emanated from about two dozen accounts through the summer. The exact number of people posting the messages was not clear. Smith, the Turning Point field director, said, “The number fluctuates and many have gone back to school.” Hoffman, in an email, said, “Dozens of young people have been excited to share their beliefs on social media.”
The Rally Forge leader is a city council member in Queen Creek, Ariz., and a candidate for the state legislature.
Some of the users at points listed their location as Gilbert, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix, according to screen shots reviewed by The Post. Some followed each other on Twitter, while most were following only a list of prominent politicians and media outlets.
One was followed by a former member of Congress, Republican Tim Huelskamp of Kansas, who is on the Catholics for Trump advisory board. Huelskamp said he could not recall what led him to follow the account and was not familiar with the effort by Turning Point. But he praised the group for “doing a great job of messaging, particularly with younger folks.”
Several teenagers were using their real names or variations of their names, while other accounts active in posting the pro-Trump messaging appeared to be operating under pseudonyms. The Post’s review found that some participants seem to maintain multiple accounts on Facebook, which is a violation of the company’s policies.
Explaining why the users do not disclose that they are being paid as political activists, Hoffman said they are “using their own personal profiles and sharing their content that reflects their values and beliefs.” He pointed to the risk of online bullying, as well as physical harm, in explaining why “we’ve left how much personal and professional information they wish to share up to them.”
The accounts on Twitter alone posted 4,401 tweets with identical content, not including slight variations of the language, according to Pik-Mai Hui, a PhD student in informatics at Indiana University at Bloomington who performed an analysis of the content at the request of The Post. The analysis found characteristics strongly suggestive of bots — such as double commas and dangling commas that often appear with automatic scripts — though at least some of the accounts were being operated by humans.
While the messaging appears designed to seed pro-Trump content across social media, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, the act of repeated posting also helps instill the ideas among those performing the activity. In addition, it familiarizes the users with the ways of online combat, she said, and makes their accounts valuable assets should different needs arise as the election nears.
“There is a logic to having an army locally situated in a battleground state, having them up and online and ready to be deployed,” Jamieson said.
Trump shakes hands with Kirk during a panel discussion at the 2018 Generation Next Summit in Washington. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Turning Point Action debuted as a 501(c)(4) organization last year, with more leeway in undertaking political advocacy than is afforded to the original group, which is barred from campaign activity as a 501(c)(3). Both nonprofits are required only to disclose the salaries of directors, officers and key employees, said Marc Owens, a tax attorney with Loeb & Loeb.
Turning Point dates to 2012, when Montgomery, retired from a career in marketing, heard Kirk, then 18, deliver a speech in the Chicago suburbs at Benedictine University’s “Youth Government Day.” He called the address “practically Reaganesque,” according to a 2015 profile in Crain’s Chicago Business newspaper, and urged Kirk, a former Eagle Scout, to put off college in favor of full-time political activism. Kirk became the face of Turning Point, while Montgomery was “the old guy who keeps it all legal,” he told the business weekly.
The organization amassed prominent and wealthy conservative allies, including Richard Grenell, the former ambassador to Germany and acting director of national intelligence, and Foster Friess, who made a fortune in mutual funds and helps bankroll conservative and Christian causes. Both men sit on Turning Point’s honorary board.
Its standing rose significantly as Trump came to power. Turning Point USA brought in nearly $80,000 in contributions and other funds in the fiscal year ending June 2013, according to IRS filings, a fraction of the $8 million it reported for 2017 and $11 million for 2018.
The group, which describes itself as the “largest and fastest-growing youth organization in America,” claims to have a presence on more than 2,000 college and high school campuses. It hosts activist conferences and runs an alumni program. It also maintains a “Professor Watchlist” designed to expose instructors who “discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”
Kirk, the group’s president and co-founder, has been embraced and promoted by Trump and his family. Speaking at Turning Point USA’s Teen Student Action Summit last year, Trump hailed Kirk for building a “movement unlike anything in the history of our nation.” A quote attributed to Donald Trump Jr., who has appeared at numerous Turning Point events, features prominently on the group’s website: “I’m convinced that the work by Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk will win back the future of America.”
Kirk has returned the praise. In his speech at last month’s Republican nominating convention, he extolled Trump as the “bodyguard of Western civilization.”
Equally impassioned rhetoric marked the campaign on social media, with posts asserting that Black Lives Matter protesters were “fascist groups . . . terrorizing American citizens” and decrying the “BLM Marxist agenda,” among other incendiary language.
Noonan said his wife, a hairstylist, monitors the online activity of their daughters more closely than he does, and that their work is often a topic of conversation when the family convenes in the evening.
“We are Trump supporters, but one of the things my wife and I have been very consistent on is to always understand both sides and make decisions from there,” the father said.
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Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
by admin » Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:03 am
Breaking News Trump [FULL 1PM]
by MSNBC Breaking News Today
Jan 17, 2021
by MSNBC Breaking News Today
Jan 17, 2021
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Re: Trump lashes out at Gov. Doug Ducey following certificat
by admin » Tue Jan 19, 2021 1:19 am
A Reporter’s Footage from Inside the Capitol Siege
by The New Yorker
Jan 17, 2021
Luke Mogelson followed Trump supporters as they forced their way into the U.S. Capitol, using his phone’s camera as a reporter’s notebook.
by The New Yorker
Jan 17, 2021
Luke Mogelson followed Trump supporters as they forced their way into the U.S. Capitol, using his phone’s camera as a reporter’s notebook.
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