KIRKchls 2 bak

3/19 bak

see trupsa KIRK 3

tag 921 krk on am frontline dr

capt 921

tool of russian trolls? does he know? care? aha/yikes kernal of truth keeps twit from de-plat?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/how-trump-is-once-again-colluding-with-russia/

no lnx twt

how  Trump is once again colluding with Russia

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly August 14, 2020

Almost two weeks ago, a story circulated that Portland protesters were burning Bibles and American flags. It spread via social media and was picked up by conservative outlets, such as the Washington Examiner. Of course, several Republican leaders joined the bandwagon.

tp kirk --> djt jr?]

ted cruzretweet: This is who they are.

Ian Miles Cheong

@stillgray

Left-wing activists bring a stack of Bibles to burn in front of the federal courthouse in Portland.  https://twitter.com/Shelldrayk/status/1289481822414413827/video/1

don jr

Now we move to the book burning phase. I’m pretty sure ANTIFA doesn’t actually stand for what they say it stands for. Maybe just remove the anti part of them name and it’s perfect.

tpkirk

BLM inc arsonists just burned a stack of Bibles in Portland

The activist media won’t report on this because it’s likely they support it

Our faith is under attack. 

If you vote for Biden—you vote for Bible burnings

---

Two reporters at the New York Times, Matthew Rosenberg and Julian Barnes, decided to look into the story and found Vladimir Putin’s fingerprints all over it. As is often the case with effective propaganda, this story contains a kernel of truth. Apparently, some group was handing out Bibles to protesters that night and one of them was used to start a fire. An American flag was also burned. But a local paper covering the protests that night devoted just one sentence to that story in a lengthy piece about what happened.

The video news agency connected to Russia Today (RT) was regularly streaming a live feed of the Portland protests. They edited the clip of the fire and made it the focal point of their protest coverage that night. Then, RT did an entire story about it. Social media took it from there and the next thing you know, outlets like the Washington Examiner were picking it up. Here is how Rosenberg and Barnes summarized the process:

The Russian technique is a kind of information laundering, akin to money laundering.Stories originate with Russian-backed news sites, some of them directly connected to Moscow’s spy agencies, officials and experts said. They are then picked up by Americans on social media or in domestic news outlets, and their origins quickly become obscured. Often, by the time a story reaches most of its American audience, there is little to indicate that it was created to fuel grievances and deepen political divisions.

Following Trump’s press briefing on Wednesday, Hunter Walker tracked down another example of Russia’s attempt to get their propaganda in the news. He wrote about the question OAN reporter Chanel Rion asked the president.

Rion: In the last hour or so, if you googled antifa.com. it would take you straight to Joe Biden’s website, his official campaign website. Odd situation. We don’t know who’s behind that. But it raises an interesting leadership question. Should Joe Biden, the Democrat party, Kamala Harris– should they publicly denounce the Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization?

Trump: They should. I think they’re afraid to. It’s– in my book it’s virtually a part of their campaign, Antifa. The Democrats act like, gee, I don’t know exactly what that is.

Take a look at Portland. Take a look at any place you want to take a look at, and they’re all over the place. They were here.

Basically Rion gave Trump the opportunity to claim that Antifa is part of the Biden campaign—which is, of course, a blatant lie.

Walker looked into what actually happened with the antifa.com website. Once again, as Pelosi said, “all roads lead to Putin.”

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Records for “antifa.com” in the domain name database Whoisology.com show the site was registered in the Russian Federation from 2013 through last July. Starting last November, the site’s registration was moved to Panama, The website has always been anonymously registered and its owners could not be reached for comment.

Russia set up the antifa.com website and eventually redirected it to Biden’s campaign page, allowing the president to claim that the group was involved politically with Democrats. Of course, this raises the old question of whether this was all coordinated with the president or if Trump is simply taking advantage of Putin’s efforts. The same questions are raised about the role of OAN in these kinds of Russian propaganda efforts.

So there you have two examples of how Russia is currently interfering in the 2020 election to support the reelection of Donald Trump. One thing worth noting is that if these examples are reflective of their efforts, Vladimir Putin has calculated that his best bet is to inflame the so-called “culture wars,” something that has been the bedrock of the Republican strategy for decades. The Bible burning story was especially useful for the Christian nationalists who want to scare their followers into thinking that, as Trump has suggested, Joe Biden is against God and the Bible.

It is important to keep in mind that the only reason we know about these Russian efforts is because some reporters put in the time to track down the story. Senator Richard Blumenthal, who has seen what our intelligence services know about Russian interference, said that the 2020 efforts “make Moscow’s past interference and nefarious actions look like child’s play.” But the Trump administration is keeping that information from the public, while the attorney general hypes the antifa story and puts all of his energy into accusing the Obama administration of “spying” into the Trump campaign. That strikes me as the definition of collusion.

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FAIL

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kent-state-gun-girl-kaitlin-bennett-too-extreme-even-for-the-trump-campaign/ar-AALSQqs

no lnx

How a "diaper protest" imploded a conservative student group

Meet Turning Point USA, an astroturf right-wing student group that became the butt of the joke

By DEIDRE OLSEN

PUBLISHED MARCH 25, 2018

On October 18, 2017, members of right-wing student group Turning Point USA (TPUSA) staged a protest against safe spaces by dressing up in diapers and soothers on the campus of Kent State University during “Free Speech Week.” The idea was to make fun of the political left by dressing up as literal babies. But in the process, TPUSA itself became the butt of a joke, mocked as “Toilet Paper USA” and turned into a viral meme by the Twitter left.

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The so-called diaper incident may end up being TPUSA’s undoing, or at least the beginning of the end. The group has since come under intense scrutiny and criticism for its controversial and plodding "activism," and in turn, has lost funding and had members resign.

Since its inception, TPUSA has been a right-wing success story, reaping millions in donation revenue annually, being backed by major Republican party donors and becoming one of the most prominent conservative student groups in the United States, in part due to its online organizing prowess and savviness using memes and image macros to appeal to millennials. TPUSA was founded in 2012 by then 18-year-old Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist from a wealthy Chicago suburb. At the time, Kirk had been rejected from West Point Military Academy, which he blamed on affirmative action. A non-student, Kirk decided to create the student advocacy group.

Charlie Kirk met Foster Friess, a businessman and prominent Republican donor, at the 2012 Republican National Convention. Kirk successfully pitched TPUSA to Friess, landing him a six-figure donation to finance his burgeoning organization; Friess now serves on the advisory council. Since becoming the astroturf group of choice for wealthy right-wing types, TPUSA has grown to more than 1,000 university and high school chapters across the United States. In 2014, TPUSA had $2 million in contribution revenue, which ballooned to more than $4.3 million by the end of the 2015 fiscal year, as ProPublica noted. Leaked documents have shown that this money was secretly used to fund conservative student government campaigns.

While TPUSA has a “mission of identifying, organizing, and empowering free market activists” in the predominantly liberal ecosystem of academia, its methods of outreach and activism to conservative students have proven controversial. For instance, in 2016, TPUSA launched “Professor Watchlist,” a directory of liberal, so-called “un-American” professors for conservative students to keep an eye on. The website says its purpose is “to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

Professor Watchlist has come under a storm of criticism. In an unrelated 2016 event, a Donald Trump supporter named Carl Higbie suggested that Japanese internment camps set a historical precedent for Trump’s proposed Muslim Registry. With the launch of the liberal surveillance site, TPUSA’s watchlist has been scrutinized in these comments. Cataloging a liberal professor’s name, location, photo and alleged offenses into a database sets a terrifying premise for the implications of conservative activism.

Throughout its existence, TPUSA has been a meme-making machine, blasting out content reminiscent of the internet’s earlier days. Its main Twitter account and university chapter accounts spew an unending stream of stock photos overlain with quotes in Impact font such as “Big Government Sucks,” “Crying Doesn't Solve Problems,” “Not Everyone Is A Winner” and “There Are No Safe Spaces.” The right-wing group sells T-shirts with similar messaging in its online store, including “Guns Save Lives," “Socialism Sucks," “I Love Capitalism" and "Taxation Is Theft.”

What may have been a conservative force to reckon with due to its seven-figure financial backing has instead almost undone itself altogether through its laughable, meme-worthy attempts to rile up campus leftists. At a Chicago Socialist Conference, TPUSA members attempted to out-argue leftists by using one-liners like "You have some nice Nikes on!" and "You like those good capitalist french fries?" Elsewhere, the TPUSA chapter of University of California, San Diego, hosted a free speech event at which it had a massive inflatable beach ball on which attendees were to write messages, often intentionally offensive ones. However, a pocket knife–wielding leftist student who called himself “Karl Marx” popped said balloon, prompting TPUSA to call in campus security over the perceived violation of its safe space.

While Professor Watchlist is undoubtedly terrifying and dystopian, TPUSA has demonstrated that the thought process behind a good portion of its activism and outreach is half-baked. Now that the activist group can't tweet or post without some lefty troll calling up the “Toilet Paper USA” insult, TPUSA’s latest attempts to stir the political pot have backfired. Charlie Kirk himself has become a meme after tweeting a photo of himself scowling in a white button-up shirt and hands on hips on a white background. The image reads “God is real. Taxes are theft. There are only 2 genders. USA is the best country ever. Socialism kills. Hillary should be in prison." The photo of Charlie Kirk was parodied by other Twitter users, captioning their renditions with “When that last episode of The Handmaid's Tale hits a bit too close to the mark" and "When your mom forgot to wash your other white button downs.”

With much of TPUSA’s efforts inadvertently becoming fodder for lefty enthusiasm, it’s uncertain where the conservative student group is headed next. What’s certain is that in spite of its bank account, the group has done little to upset its opponents and, in fact, has lost many of its own. In the comedic aftermath of the diaper incident, Kaitlin Bennett, the former Kent State University TPUSA president, wrote an angry resignation letter.

“As of right now, I am in disbelief at how I went from being so upbeat, enthusiastic, and passionate about this organisation to being disgusted, frustrated, and embarrassed to have invested my entire senior year into an organisation founded by a college dropout who hires some of the most incompetent, lazy, and downright dishonest people I have ever encountered,” she wrote.

As the now-suspended Twitter account of Kent State University TPUSA (@TPUSAatKent) put it in a tweet from February 12, 2018: "Charlie Kirk[,] you should’ve been the one in the diaper."

DEIDRE OLSEN

Deidre Olsen is a Toronto-based digital marketer and writer whose work has appeared in Refinery29, New York Magazine’s The Cut, Brooklyn Magazine, Narratively, and more. Follow them on Twitter @deidrelolsen

lnx

The so-called diaper incident may end up being TPUSA’s undoing, or at least the beginning of the end. The group has since come under intense scrutiny and criticism for its controversial and plodding "activism," and in turn, has lost funding and had members resign.

Since its inception, TPUSA has been a right-wing success story, reaping millions in donation revenue annually, being backed by major Republican party donors and becoming one of the most prominent conservative student groups in the United States, in part due to its online organizing prowess and savviness using memes and image macros to appeal to millennials.TPUSA was founded in 2012 by then 18-year-old Charlie Kirk, a right-wing activist from a wealthy Chicago suburb. At the time, Kirk had been rejected from West Point Military Academy, which he blamed on affirmative action. A non-student, Kirk decided to create the student advocacy group.

Charlie Kirk met Foster Friess, a businessman and prominent Republican donor, at the 2012 Republican National Convention. Kirk successfully pitched TPUSA to Friess, landing him a six-figure donation to finance his burgeoning organization; Friess now serves on the advisory council. Since becoming the astroturf group of choice for wealthy right-wing types, TPUSA has grown to more than 1,000 university and high school chapters across the United States. In 2014, TPUSA had $2 million in contribution revenue, which ballooned to more than $4.3 million by the end of the 2015 fiscal year, as ProPublica noted. Leaked documents have shown that this money was secretly used to fund conservative student government campaigns.

ref

a former student activist for conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA on Monday called the organization a “shithole” with “increasing levels of drama” and “some of the most incompetent, lazy, and downright dishonest people I have ever encountered.”

“The following is the resignation letter I handed into my bosses earlier this morning,” Kaitlin Bennett, formerly the president of Kent State University’s chapter of Turning Point USA, wrote.

She addressed her resignation to Frankie O’Laughlin and Alana Mastrangelo. A Facebook page under O’Laughlin’s name lists him as a field director at Turning Point USA, and a Twitter page under Mastrangelo’s name lists her as a regional manager for the organization.

Bennett posted her resignation on Liberty Hangout, a website that bills itself as a “libertarian media outlet and alternative news source” that seeks to promote “Austrian economics and property rights.” The letter appears to be her only post on the website.

In her resignation, Bennett said she was “highly disappointed” in the organization’s leadership for taking “zero responsibility ” in the aftermath of a widely mocked event in October 2017 where members of the university’s Turning Point USA chapter dressed up in diapers to protest “safe spaces.”

Safe spaces are for children. pic.twitter.com/OSsETyDbC4

— TPUSA at Kent State (@TPUSAatKent) October 19, 2017

According to Bennett, O’Laughlin and Mastrangelo “approved the event” but “failed to show any leadership” when the chapter faced “the consequences of online harassment.”

“I was embarrassed to have been left alone to deal with the aftermath of the safe space event,” Bennett wrote. “Although I thought the safe space event was funny and have zero remorse for holding it, I took full responsibility for it when Turning Point failed to show any leadership.”

Bennett said she was “deeply saddened that Turning Point USA did not turn out to be the organization I thought it was.”

“I have realized how much of a shithole organization Turning Point USA is, and am glad I got out of this bullshit before I invested my whole life into it, let alone just my senior year of college,” Bennett wrote. “I expect to be paid in full for my hours worked, since the organization is also too incompetent to multiply 10 by 12.50 every week.”

She advised the group’s leaders to find “real” jobs.

“Maybe answering to business professionals rather than college dropouts, egotistic enough to put their face on stupid memes, will give you the leadership skills you desperately need for your positions,” she wrote. “Maybe after this is published on Liberty Hangout and Occupy Democrats Logic, to audiences that reach 17 million people on a bad week, I too can be verified on Twitter like you, Alana.”

Bennett signed off with “good riddance,” and added, “If you need a safe space after everyone hears about this, I still have the diapers.”

The Twitter account for the university’s chapter of Turning Point USA tweeted at Charlie Kirk, the nonprofit’s executive director and founder, several hours after Bennett posted her resignation.

.@charliekirk11 you should’ve been the one in the diaper

— TPUSA at Kent State (@TPUSAatKent) February 12, 2018

==

ref 2

no lnx

Uni. of Wyoming Conservative Student Group Funds Blocked

A conservative student group at the University of Wyoming has been suspended by the college's student government from receiving student fee funding.

Dec. 14, 2017,

U.S. News & World Report

By JEFF VICTOR, Laramie Boomerang

LARAMIE, Wyo. (AP) — When conservative commentator Dennis Prager visited the University of Wyoming in November, his planned speech — and even just his presence — set off a flurry of debate across campus.

Protesters argued Prager should be disinvited, citing his opinions on everything from homosexuality to climate change. Prager's supporters argued he should be allowed to speak, citing principles of free speech.

The night of the event, protesters stood silently by the venue entrance as roughly 600 people, both students and members of the Laramie community, shuffled into the Education Auditorium.

The debate has returned, more than a month later, as Turning Point USA — the student group responsible for inviting Prager to campus — fights a suspension levied at it by student government after ASUW determined the group violated its funding policy.

"A lot of RSOs (recognized student organizations) violate small pieces of financial policy like we did and so, based on that, I do think it was driven by politics," said Jessica Leach, UW chapter president of Turning Point. "Without funding, we are pretty much unable to host an event like that in the future."

RSOs can request funding for special events through the student government. ASUW's RSO Funding Board evaluates each request and bumps requests more than $1,000 up to the full student senate for approval. These funds come from mandatory student fees.

Turning Point — a national student movement with conservative ideals, which arrived in Laramie around May — requested the maximum amount, $10,000, to offset the $17,000 it paid Prager.

The funds were approved by both the funding board and full senate, but were attached to policies about how to advertise for and host an ASUW-sponsored event.

Turning Point is the first student group to be penalized for violating these policies, Wetzel told the Laramie Boomerang.

"For a long, long time, we've had issues with RSOs violating the finance policy and no way to hold them accountable," he said. "So, the power to do this was actually added into our finance policy last April, and this was the first time, to our knowledge, that an RSO violated the finance policy since we added in this section."

One of two main violations cited in the suspension involves selling tickets. Turning Point offered free tickets through a website called Eventbrite.

"In the finance policy, it says that any ticketed RSO program or activity funded by ASUW shall utilize the Wyoming Union ticket office, Fine Arts Box Office or a similar venue for ticket dispersal to students," Wetzel said.

Leach said the policy was vague and her group's infraction was minor.

"We didn't know necessarily the stipulations of the words 'similar venue,'" she said.

Turning Point also failed to make it clear only ticketed guests would be allowed into the auditorium and — on the night of the event — failed to prioritize students, Wetzel said.

"Students pay the mandatory student fee so that their programming and their services and everything is provided to them all throughout their term on campus, and they don't have to incur secondary costs," he said. "So, for students to pay this $700 mandatory fee and then try to attend a speaker on campus and get turned away, is kind of counter to what we stand for."

Wetzel added the other primary violation involved Turning Point's promotion of the event. Posters for the event, visible across campus, neglected to include the ASUW logo — a requirement the student government is very concerned with.

"If we're going to fund an event, we want students to know it's an ASUW-funded event and they can attend for free," Wetzel said.

Leach said her group began adding stickers of the ASUW logo in the days leading up to the event, once they were informed about the violation.

"We began putting stickers on them and that was taken care of," she said. "However, close to the event, a lot of the posters were getting ripped down and so they were being replaced with other posters that didn't have the stickers on them yet. And that miscommunication happens a lot with RSOs hosting events."

While Turning Point is the first RSO to be punished under the new policy, ASUW will continue to scrutinize all funding requests, even taking a closer look at funding requests approved throughout the current semester.

"We only have so much money and it's kind of first-come-first-serve as RSOs have their events," ASUW Senator Haley Fried said. "And so I think it's a way for ASUW to create a transparent and consistent communication with the RSOs at the University of Wyoming."

Fried added she did not expect more suspensions, even as ASUW looks into past funding requests.

"If we look back into it, I think there would be little things here and there, but I don't think it would be on as big of a scale as what Turning Point violated," she said.

Leach said she acknowledged her group had made mistakes and broken the funding policy, but added suspension was too harsh a punishment.

"The repercussions that we've received do not necessarily match the small violations that occurred," she said.

A suspension bans Turning Point from receiving funds from the RSO Funding Board until the spring 2019 semester, but does not ban them from seeking money through other sources, even other sources on campus, Wetzel said.

"It doesn't even mean that we won't support them," he said. "Our director of RSO relations helps with event planning and registering events on Collegiatelink, and they can still do all of that. They are by no means cut off from ASUW services, it just means they cannot apply for this pot of funding for the remainder of the semester and then one calendar year."

A GoFundMe page, aiming to raise $10,000 for the Turning Point UW chapter, states donations to the campaign will help "host future successful, educational events in Laramie despite the leftist pushback on campus."

The fundraiser had raised $2,826 by Wednesday evening.

The suspension was not politically motivated, Wetzel said.

"The people that brought forward the issues pertaining to this event and its violations of the finance policy were members of the senate that had actually voted to support the event and had been supporting the event all the way through," he said.

Leach said her group is appealing the suspension.

Information from: Laramie Boomerang, http://www.laramieboomerang.com

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-cpac-everything-is-socialism-and-the-only-solution-is-more-trump/

Interviewing EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Fox News contributor Lawrence Jones mused, “This is an anti-socialism conference, but there has to be an alternative,​ administrator,​ to the people that want socialism.” At this year’s ​CPAC, it seemed the only prescription put forward was voting for four more years of President Donald Trump in the White House.

Last year, CPAC was explicitly committed to formulating effective ways to combat what American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp dubbed “creeping socialism.” This year​’s conference was similarly committed to sounding the alarm against a socialist resurgence supposedly inching closer to the heart of power in Washington, exemplified in ​Democratic presidential frontrunner ​Sen. Bernie Sanders’ victories in early Democratic primary states. ​Attendee badges bore the tagline “America vs. Socialism,” and numerous main stage panels were devoted to the topic.

Sanders has called himself a democratic socialist for years while advocating for increases to the federal minimum wage, the expansion of social welfare programs, and the nationalization of healthcare. The organization Democratic Socialists of America describes its agenda as one that believes “both the economy and society should be run democratically.” The United States already has several ​popular socialist programs, ​including Social Security and Medicare, and public attitudes about socialism have been shifting. ​

“Socialism, we believe, gets to the very core of violating the dignity of the individual human being that has God-given rights,” Schlapp said ​Thursday.

On CPAC’s main stage this year, every Democrat was a socialist, and socialism was a threat to the ​very essence of America. To save it, conservatives need​ to ensure that Trump is reelected president.

Vice President Mike Pence told CPAC attendees that “there are no moderates in this Democratic field” of presidential candidates​ that every Democratic candidate running—despite any stated policies—embraces Sanders’ “socialist agenda.” It was important, Pence said, for conservatives to renew Trump’s 2019 State of the Union declaration: “America will never be a socialist country.” Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee abided Pence’s demand, declaring on a panel Thursday that conservatives were “going to help stamp out socialism forever.”

During a conversation with Schlapp Friday, Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said that socialism was a far bigger threat to the American economy than even the coronavirus, which had just sent the stock market into its worst week since 2008.

“The virus is not going to sink the American economy. What is or could sink the American economy is the socialism coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle,” Kudlow said.

[twet]

kudlow was joined in his warning by other Trump administration officials,​ including Department of Veterans Affairs Sec. Robert Wilkie, who warned that socialism would leave veterans neglected.

“Socialism in America will kill the promise that Abraham Lincoln made … that we would take care for those who have bore the battle and for the widows and the orphans. If socialism ever comes to America, that sacred promise will be destroyed​, and our warriors will go to the back of the lines,” Wilkie told CPAC​, echoing growing civil war rhetoric on the right. ​

Charlie Kirk, founder and president of the youth conservative organization Turning Point USA, warned conservatives that communism was spreading across college campuses across ​the United States and that via Sanders, socialism has a real chance to succeed in America.

“I want every conservative activist to get your laughs out of the way and your mockery out of the way and get deathly serious,” Kirk said. “Because we should not do what the left did in 2016 and dismiss an outsider populist candidate.”

Former White House Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka agreed with Kirk. “America needs to wake up. America needs to understand the reality of the threat that this November could come to fruition,” ​he said in his speech Saturday. He went on to attack Sanders’ advocacy for implementing universal healthcare in America.

“Didn’t Bernie have a heart attack? Did he go to Venezuela to get treatment? Did he go to Cuba or Canada? Did he go to Canada? Of course he didn’t! He got treated here. Why? Because he wanted to live, that’s why,” Gorka said.

Dale Bellis, President Emeritus of Liberty HealthShare, vowed to do what he could to never allow America to experience the “ravages of socialism in healthcare.” People who advocate Medicare for All plans don’t actively seek to replicate the Soviet Union, he said, but “however you slice it, the end result is still the same.”

Bellis said that socialism is “immoral” and “strips human dignity and the value of the individual,” that it “assaults the very foundation of our individual freedom as creators created by God,” and that it is “antithetical” to fundamental human rights.

Right-wing news commentator Mark Levin criticized the increasingly popular democratic socialism movement, rhetorically asking, “how do you have democratic socialism when socialists hate democracy? You get one vote, they get in power, then they destroy everything.”

Levin stressed the need for conservatives to “crush” Sanders and “his little Marxist army” in 2020. Echoing Pence’s statements, Levin said that of the Democratic field of candidates, there was “not a moderate among them."

twt]

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck opened the stage Saturday by claiming that Sanders and his supporters were leading a revolution that “will result in death and misery,” as Media Matters documented.

“Another Holodomor. Or another Holocaust. Or whatever we call the next great socialist atrocity,” Beck said. He later added, “They’re armed with pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, and guns. They are here for revolution.”

Joshua Philipp of the reportedly Falun Gong-tied outlet Epoch Times was hosted on stage, where he warned that socialism was designed to destroy peoples’ religion, morals, and culture while on the path to implementing communism.

“It is about attacking and destroying your values, your culture, your ideas, and the foundations of your society,” Philipp said.

Rick Harrison of “Pawn Stars” fame took a brief round of questions from the audience and put the threat of socialism simplistically.

“It’s not a bad thing having a lot of money,” Harrison said. “All your leftist friends would love to have a lot of money; they just don’t want anyone else to have it.”

But Republican U.S. Senate candidate John James, who is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Gary Peters in Michigan, contrasted many speakers at CPAC by cautioning that it would not simply be enough for Republicans to run on the message “socialism sucks.” The 2020 election, James said, is not about “beating Bernie,” and he wanted to be “crystal clear” that the audience should not underestimate the appeal of socialism “for those whom the status quo has failed.”

“For us to defeat socialism, for us to save a generation, we can’t just say ‘socialism sucks’ and assume that people will follow us. Stuck Americans don’t want socialism, they just want the pain to stop.” James said. “It’s up to us to offer a remedy that works.”

Some conversations about socialism were also less serious. Conservative pundit Jesse Kelly took to the stage for a skit styled after ​”The Daily Show” called “Socialist News Network,” with a CNN-inspired logo, that bore little resemblance to socialist thought in the United States. Kelly parodied praise of figures like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Joe Biden, both of whom socialists broadly hold critical views of. In the CPAC exhibition hall, a booth played a socialism versus capitalism.

Tags: Charlie KirkDale BellisGary PetersGlenn BeckJesse Kellylarry KudlowMark LevinMarsha BlackburnMatt SchlappMike PenceRick HarrisonRobert WilkieSebastian GorkaCPAC 2020Election 2020 socialism

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plenty of corp money, funds student gov't elections, winning [posh glossy posters? ucsc?]

Kirk Endorses Sean Feucht, Congressional Candidate Backed by Christian Nationalists and Dominionists

READ MORE

==

looking for tpusa reaction to wind rant, i only found this on fake logo

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/charlie-kirks-turning-point-usa-group-embarrassed-president-trump

interesting djt wd show up after don jr ucla fiasco? more controlled aud? wonder how wind "rant" treated by tpusa

note for context, djt killd electric car subsidy

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/observers-stunned-after-trump-delivers-moronic-and-unhinged-diatribe-against-wind-power/

no lnx

Observers stunned after Trump delivers ‘moronic’ and ‘unhinged’ diatribe against wind power

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams December 23, 2019

In a speech to the right-wing Turning Points USA conference in Florida on Saturday, President Donald Trump launched into an incoherent diatribe against wind power in which he said in the same breath that he “never understood wind” and has studied windmills “better than anybody,” pointed out for no apparent reason that the earth is “tiny” compared to the rest of the universe, and claimed there are “bird graveyards” under wind turbines.

“I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much,” Trump told the audience of mostly high school and college students. “It’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly—very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured tremendous, if you’re into this, tremendous fumes, gases are spewing into the atmosphere.”

“You know we have a world, right?” the president added. “So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint. Fumes are spewing into the air, right? Spewing. Whether its in China, Germany, its going into the air. Our air, their air, everything. Right?”

Trump went on to rant about the threat wind turbines pose to birds, without noting that fossil fuel plants are far more deadly.

“They’re noisy. They kill the birds,” Trump said. “You want to see a bird graveyard? You just go. Take a look. A bird graveyard. Go under a windmill someday. You’ll see more birds than you’ve ever seen ever in your life.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/the-conservative-establishments-nightmare-is-only-just-beginning/

no lnx

The conservative establishment’s nightmare is only just beginning

Written by Matthew Sheffield / Washington Monthly November 22, 2019

Richard Viguerie, the conservative activist who invented direct-mail marketing, once said that “fear and anger are much stronger motivations than support for a cause.”

The Republican Party is now finding that out first-hand as it’s battling a white supremacist insurgency for the hearts and minds of Generation Z.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

The ranks of the “alternative right” political movement were decimated in the aftermath of the August 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Many of its top leaders faced arrest, lawsuits, or were banned from online fundraising and social media platforms.

But after two years in the political wilderness, white nationalist activists have managed to regroup thanks to a new effort to attack on the highly lucrative right-wing infotainment industry that has sprung up around conservative think tanks, Fox News, and talk radio.

Unlike the original alt-right, which was mostly driven by lone trolls collaborating ad hoc on social networks, the far-right resurgence is being led by a single figure:Nick Fuentes, a 21-year-old YouTube pundit who originally made a name for himself as a host on the Right Side Broadcasting Network. He was fired from that post in 2017 for saying it was “time to kill the globalists” at CNN for allegedly being unfair to President Donald Trump.

Since starting his own YouTube program (called “America First” after Trump’s slogan) shortly after his sacking, Fuentes has amassed a following that is just as dedicated and belligerent as the original alt-right via a re-calibrated message. Rather than using Hitler memes, Germanic sculptures, and mocking religion, Fuentes serves up a steady diet of Christian nationalism and hatred of immigrants, secular people, and Muslims.

Over the past several weeks, Fuentes and his fans—who call themselves “Nickers” and “Groypers” after a cartoon toad that serves as their mascot instead of Pepe the Frog—have been tapping into conservative Christian anxieties and melding them with concerns that President Donald Trump has failed to deliver on his campaign promises of mass deportations and a “big beautiful wall” on the Mexican border. Their preferred mechanism of attack has been to overwhelm question-and-answer sessions following the speeches of mainstream conservative figures.

These appearances are typically organized by groups like Turning Point USA, Young Americans for Freedom, and the College Republicans. Their purpose is to recruit young adults into the conservative movement. It’s not an easy task, however, as surveys increasingly indicate that socialism and pluralism have more appeal to students than unregulated capitalism and Christian nationalism.

Taking advantage of the fact that conservative college events are often sparsely attended, Groypers have easily mobbed the events—especially those of 25-year-old Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk—to ask questions designed to embarrass the speakers and question their fealty to the conservative cause. In addition to invoking biblical injunctions against homosexuality, the hecklers have questioned whether the Republican Party can have a long-term future absent a complete stop to legal immigration and some sort of deportation of existing immigrant citizens.

Their crowd manipulation tactics—which are very similar to practices taught for decades at the conservative Leadership Institute—have succeeded over the past several weeks at embarrassing Kirk, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas, and Christian nationalist commentator Matt Walsh. In response, event organizers have often curtailed audience participation.

For the most part, the national press ignored the protests and the burgeoning insurgency until the Groypers employed the same tactics at a Nov. 10 event where Donald Trump Jr. was touting his new book, Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us.

Reports from the scene in Los Angeles indicated that the Groypers comprised about a third of the audience for the event and utterly dominated the proceedings. Even before the presidential son took the stage, Nickers began booing and jeering as an event staffer announced that Don Jr. and his girlfriend, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, would not be taking any questions after their remarks.

The taunts, which also included audience members laughing at inappropriate times in a manner similar to Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker character and chants of “America First,” grew so loud that Don Jr. stopped speaking as he tried to figure out what was going on. Guilfoyle lashed out at the audience, claiming they were not making their parents proud and that they probably couldn’t get dates. Eventually, the couple and a silent Kirk exited the stage as the Fuentes fans kept booing.

Since then, the scene has repeated itself at several other events, particularly those of Kirk. He and many other conservative figures have been forced to answer inconvenient questions about various topics including past criticisms of President Trump, transgender rights, and immigration. More often than not, Kirk has faced overwhelming audience jeers and has struggled to respond.

It remains to be seen what the commander-in-chief, who is reportedly extremely sensitive to embarrassment, will think of all this but one thing is clear: the conservative establishment’s nightmare is just beginning.

Long before Trump came along, conservatives have had a complicated relationship with extremism, both encouraging and shunning it.

William F. Buckley, founder of National Review and the most prominent early conservative figure, began his political career denouncing Dwight Eisenhower and atheist professors at Yale. His magazine published several pieces defending Jim Crow and South African apartheid.

Over the years, he often told supporters that they should always support the “furthest right” candidate that they believed to be electable, setting up a perpetual cycle of GOP candidates who constantly assert that they, alone, are the “true conservatives” out to save the nation from Republicans in Name Only (RINOs).

In fairness, Buckley strenuously opposed the John Birch Society, a conspiracy group funded by Fred Koch, father of Charles and David Koch, which was highly popular among the conservative grassroots. And National Revieweventually relented and came out against segregation and apartheid.

Former president Ronald Reagan also had a decidedly mixed record on racial matters, spending decades opposing sanctions on South Africa for apartheid and the creation of a national holiday to commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. but eventually taking liberals’ positions on the two matters. He was also recently revealed to have privately referred to African United Nations delegates as “monkeys” who were uncomfortable wearing shoes.

Conservatives were also more than willing to welcome Strom Thurmond, the one-time segregationist senator who broke from the Democratic Party as it began supporting civil rights for African-Americans. Young Americans for Freedom, the group that preceded today’s Young America’s Foundation, hailed Thurmond as a “Man of Courage” in 1964 before he broke with his racist positions.

Many conservatives also had no problem with George Wallace, the Alabama Governor who ran for president on segregationist platforms. Richard Viguerie—who still is raking in the GOP direct-mail money today—handled Wallace’s fund-raising in 1976.

In light of the many ways in which conservative leaders were willing to side with them on particular issues, white nationalists have sought to openly enter Republican politics for decades. Jared Taylor and his American Renaissance magazine were big promoters of Ron Paul’s presidential runs. As I’ve written previously, many alt-right activists were also strong Paul supporters before branching off to start their own movement. Former Klansman David Duke has repeatedly run as a GOP candidate in his native Louisiana but been rejected by party leaders.

Progressives have long accused Republican strategists of trying to communicate indirect messages of support to white racists through the party’s infamous “Southern Strategy” which succeeded at turning the South away from its decades of loyalty to the Democratic Party. Few GOP strategists have ever been transparent about these efforts, but one who discussed them honestly was Lee Atwater, the widely successful consultant who passed away in 1991.

Ten years before his death, while firmly ensconced within the Reagan White House, Atwater gave an anonymous interview (the audio recording was published posthumously) in which he stated definitively that Republicans used race to appeal to Southerners but did so in an effort to gradually wean them from bigotry in favor of small-government appeals.

According to Atwater, the idea only worked because whites favorable to segregation understood that cutting the government would disproportionately harm African-Americans.

“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘N*****, n*****, n*****,’ he told interviewer Alexander Lamis, a Case Western Reserve political scientist. “By 1968 you can’t say ‘n*****’—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… ‘We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘N*****, n*****.’”

More recently, numerous reports have exposed the role of the late Thomas Hofeller, a redistricting expert who worked for many Republican organizations over the years, in masterminding GOP state legislatures’ successful attempts to use race as the primary factor in congressional redistricting. Journalists have also exposed Hofeller’s covert advocacy for a new Census question about citizenship which he believed would suppress Hispanic responses and thereby harm Democrats.

The ascension of Donald Trump from wrestling sideshow to the heights of Republicanism has greatly increased the prominence and power of racists within the party. The 2015 launch of his presidential campaign with portrayals of most Mexicans as rapists and murderers electrified the white nationalists who had formerly supported Ron Paul’s quixotic efforts and they began flocking to the billionaire, producing hundreds of thousands of memes and trolling comments in his favor.

“White nationalists have always sought to inject their ideas into conservative politics, Fuentes is just the latest person to be doing it,” Howard Graves, a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center told me. “What’s different now is that is that they feel emboldened by our commander-in-chief.”

Steve Bannon, who eventually became Trump’s campaign chairman, very carefully nurtured the online fascists. Referring to them as his “killing machine,” he threatened to use them as a force against any faction hoping to deny Trump the presidential nomination at a brokered convention. Bannon also boasted that he was fashioning Breitbart News into “the platform for the alt-right” as his editorial protégé Milo Yiannopoulos allowed racist activists to line-edit articles.

Once in office, Trump pandered to extremist supporters in numerous ways including his efforts to ban all Muslims from immigrating to the United States, break up families of unauthorized immigrants, and enact legislation exempting far-right Christians from any law they felt restricted their freedom to discriminate. Most infamously, Trump, acting on Bannon’s advice, repeatedly claimed that “very fine people” had attended the fascist-organized Unite the Right rally in support of Confederate memorials.

Recently, Stephen Miller, Trump’s top adviser on immigration was revealed to have regularly promoted white nationalist talking points to a Breitbart News reporter. He is one of a number of Trump staffers who have been revealed to have ties to racist groups.

The growing closeness between the extremist right and Republican elites during the Trump era and the recrudescence of white supremacism has prompted several prominent conservative figures to try to take active measures to block the incursion.

Fuentes himself became a target of Turning Point USA after students at Iowa State University invited him to give a speech under the TPUSA banner in March. The event attracted controversy and put Fuentes on the group’s radar permanently. Kirk’s organization further aroused the anger of Nickers in September after it cut ties with one of its social media advocates after she appeared at a private event with Fuentes.

Egged on by Fuentes’s insults and a pre-existing infiltration campaign of a small alt-right group called the American Identity Movement, far-right young men began crashing TPUSA head Charlie Kirk’s lavishly funded “Culture War” college tour events in early October and the Groyper rebellion was born.

As the campaign has gathered steam, Sebastian Gorka, the former Trump national security adviser who now hosts a daily radio program also called “America First” became the first prominent conservative outside of TPUSA to attack Fuentes as racist. Ben Shapiro, a talk radio host and co-founder of the conservative website Daily Wire, condemned Fuentes as a “garbage human being” during a lengthy speech to Stanford University students earlier this month.

But the denunciations have done little to curb the insurrection, in part because Republicans have spent 50 years building their entire political edifice around implicit appeals to white Christian identity, granting at least some built-in support to anyone claiming to stand up for far-right Christians.

This lesson was made crystal clear during the 2016 Republican presidential nomination contest when Donald Trump kept amassing support among conservative fundamentalists despite his utterly irreligious demeanor and the many denouncements he faced from religious activists who supported Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). None of that mattered, however, because Trump promised that if he became president, “Christianity will have power.”

“The Christian right has been remarkably effective at maintaining a market and culture of people who are fed hateful messages and that makes it almost inevitable that white nationalists would tap into that, especially during a time when many of those people feel like they are an embattled minority,” Graves, the researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center told me.

Fuentes, who identifies as a traditional Catholic and is partially of Hispanic descent, is perfectly able to wrap his arguments in the Christian supremacist argot that has become central to almost all Republican rhetoric. He’s also been careful to disclaim the label white nationalist even as he has conceded that it could accurately describe his views.

While many in the “Nicker Nation” are obviously racist, it’s unclear what percentage of the people who’ve been disrupting conservative speeches are fully onboard with a white supremacist agenda. In fact, several of the questioners who have challenged establishment Republicans appear to be black or Hispanic.

The idea that minority Republicans would want to support a white nationalist makes little sense until one realizes that Fuentes isfond of using coded language to hide messages intended only for racists, a practice frequently referred to within the alt-right as “hiding your power level.” (He has slipped up a several times, however, including going on a profane and anti-Semitic rant in August and once joking about racial segregation.)

As might be expected, Fuentes’s dog whistles are based on more up-to-date references than Atwater’s. Several of his fans were confused by them during the Nov. 5 broadcast of his “America First” show, when he used a coded reference to praise Andrew Anglin, the publisher of the  racist Daily Stormer blog, a key figure in the original alt-right who has tried to re-brand himself from a neo-Nazi into a soldier for Christ.

But the sly reference, couched as a shout-out to Daily Wire podcast host Andrew Klavan, confused some of Fuentes’s viewers.

“I know that Andrew Klavan from Daily Wire has been very supportive,” Fuentes said in response to a viewer question. “And I appreciate that … I really do appreciate his support, I think he’s very funny, I love what he writes. He’s very funny, very talented writer, Andrew Klavan of Daily Wire. And I appreciate his support, I think it’s been very helpful. I think Andrew Klavan has been right about this country from the beginning. I think he’s been right about this—the things he’s been saying for the past two years, particularly about the right wing has been so true and we are vindicated together, Andrew Klavan from Daily Wire and me.”

Not everyone watching the show could hear the dog whistle, however.

“Why are you CRINGE shilling for Andrew fake Christian Klavan,” a commenter on Fuentes’s live stream wrote.

“Daily Wire? Isn’t that Ben S?” another wrote, referring to Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro.

Many of the viewers understood the reference, however, correctly pointing out that Fuentes was not actually praising Klavan.

“Are you people stupid? He’s obviously talking about Anglin but framing it as Klavan,” a third fan replied.

“People are soo dumb who actually thinks [sic] he’s talking about Andrew Klavan,” said another.

For his part, Anglin seems to have understood the reference. He responded to the praise on the Daily Stormer by posting a meme of two men bowing to each other.

Fuentes’s habit of mostly sticking to standard-issue conservative talking points and masking his more extreme messages—including one in which he joked about the Holocaust through a Cookie Monster metaphor—has also led several prominent conservative figures to lend him their support.Michelle Malkin, the Asian-American columnist and former Fox News commentator, has repeatedly praised Groypers and Fuentes specifically for advocating against immigration, arguing that endorsing some of their views does not mean endorsing all of them.

“Here’s my message to the new generation of America Firsters exposing the big lies of the anti-American open borders establishment and its controlled opposition operatives: If I was your mom, I’d be proud as hell,” she said during a Nov. 14 speech at UCLA. In her remarks, she also condemned Shapiro as “creepy” and “cringe” for calling Groypers losers just days earlier.

Alex Jones, the dietary supplement kingpin and radio host, has also expressed support for Fuentes, inviting him twice onto his InfoWars platform to attack Charlie Kirk. Cassandra Fairbanks, a popular social media personality and writer at the right-wing conspiracy site Gateway Pundit, has also tweeted in support of Malkin’s position that conservatives should stand up for Fuentes’s ability to speak, even if they don’t like some of his statements. Ali Alexander and Wayne Dupreee, black conservatives who have built a following among Trump fans, have agreed with this sentiment.

The conservative establishment’s attempts to fight back against the growth of white nationalism have also been weakened by the fact that many of its voters have come to realize that American conservatism as presently constituted is heading for  electoral extinction. Exit poll data from 2018 indicates that white Americans were the only racial group in which a majority voted for Republicans, but only by a slim margin. Fifty-four percent of people of European descent said they voted for a GOP House candidate while 44 percent picked a Democratic one. Among Hispanics, 69 percent went Democratic as did 90 percent of African-Americans.

Numeric analysis suggests that it is Republicans’ anti-government views and practice of white Christian identity politics that are driving voters away. African-American were formerly a Republican voting bloc but that changed after conservatives took over the GOP in the 1960s and forced the party to oppose civil rights and back massive spending cuts. A similar process, much less remarked upon, has happened among Asian-Americans, most of whom consistently voted for Republicans until the 2000 election and George W. Bush’s decision to re-brand the GOP as the party for Christians.

As a demographicgroup, it is difficult to speak generally about Asian-Americans since they come from so many dissimilar countries. But the one generalization that can be made about the fastest-growing racial group is that today’s Asian-American population is significantly less Christian than in prior decades. According to the American Religious Identification Survey, 66 percent of Asian-Americans were Christians in 1990. By 2008, this number had declined to just 38 percent.

The decline of Christianity among Asian-Americans has had an impact on their voting habits. In the 2018 election, 77 percent voted for Democratic House candidates.

But even younger whites are turning away from the GOP. In the 2018 election, only 43 percent of European-Americans between 18 and 29 voted for a Republican House candidate. That’s a decline from the 47 percent who voted for Trump in 2016, and the 51 percent who voted Republican in 2012.

Instead of facing the uncomfortable reality that Americans don’t like their policies and presentation, most conservatives have simply ignored the party’s demographic dilemma, offering insulting platitudes to racial minorities while utterly ignoring the concerns of secular young whites.

“Here’s how we look into the future,” Rep. Dan Crenshaw replied when asked about the GOP’s long-term future by a Fuentes supporter at a Nov. 4 event. “We don’t lie to minorities and tell them that we’re going to solve all of their problems. We tell them that they are included in this country and that the only colors that matter in this country are the red, white, and blue—that identity politics has no place in this nation.”

While the Republican party itself issued an “autopsy report” after the 2012 election that indicated the party needed to do more to appeal to people who were not white, the document’s recommendations were utterly ignored by Trump in his 2016 campaign and ever since then.

With conservative elites unwilling to talk about modifying some of their unpopular policy positions, the resulting vacuum in the conservative discourse has been mostly filled by immigration opponents who have been arguing that the GOP must stop legal and illegal immigration or risk electoral apocalypse. It’s a partisan-oriented, proto-white supremacist argument that some of the right’s biggest stars have repeated many times.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham has been one of its biggest boosters. During her Nov. 6 program she blamed “foreign-born” people for enabling Democrats to take control of Virginia’s state government. Last August, she said that “the America we know and love doesn’t exist any more” thanks to “demographic changes” brought on by legal and illegal immigration.

Her colleague Tucker Carlson has also repeatedly pushed the same line. In December 2017, he claimed that Democrats were using a “flood of illegals” to force a “demographic replacement” which would bring them new voters. In July 2018, he asserted that “Latin American countries are changing election outcomes here by forcing demographic change on this country.” This past April, Carlson warned Democrats were trying to “change this country completely and forever” through immigration.

The two Fox News stars’ repeated statements about immigration and the GOP’s future are eerily similar to ones made by Fuentes. During his November 17 show, he called legal immigration a “critical threat to the Republican party” that will “make us unable to win a national election ever again.”  This past August, Fuentes argued that both parties were seeking a “systematic replacement of the people that constitute the country.”

Besides sounding like two of Fox News’s most popular prime-time hosts, Fuentes also has similarities to some of his most vociferous critics in the conservative establishment.

Sebastian Gorka, the former Trump aide and current radio host who first condemned Fuentes, has his own history of accusations of fascist sympathies. Like Fuentes, Gorka has also called for executing people he believes have betrayed America.

Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro, another one of Fuentes’s critics, has also made comments very similar to the embattled YouTube star.

While he currently argues that Republicans should not care about increasing non-white immigration levels and slams Fuentes supporters for saying otherwise, Shapiro had a very different stance in a 2014 video in which he argued that granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants was “absolute lunacy” that would doom the GOP because Hispanics “lean left on big government.” Three years later, he argued that Stephen Miller, the Trump aide who spread white nationalist material at Breitbart while Shapiro worked there, “knows what he’s talking about on immigration.”

In some cases, Shapiro’s statements appear to be even more radical than Fuentes’s expressions.

In 2014, he did an interview with a white nationalist podcast in which he argued that Jewish media executives were trying to wage a “war on Christianity.” During the conversation—which was bundled alongside a promotion for a separate interview with white nationalist academic Kevin MacDonald—Shapiro repeated several anti-Semitic tropes but directed them only at secular or “leftist” Jewish people.

“There are a lot of Jews in Hollywood who feel the obligation—they have a perverse leftist view of history pushed by the Soviet Union that what really destroyed Europe was Christianity. It was not fascism, it was not communism, it was not leftism, it was Christianity,” he told host Lana Lokteff. “And therefore, the cure for intolerance is to bash the hell out of Christianity.”

“There certainly is a war on Christianity, it’s coming from some people who are secular Jews, it’s coming from a lot of leftists,” he continued. “Most Jews in America don’t care about Judaism.”

Ironically, Red Ice Creations, company which produced the show, is the former employer of Patrick Casey, the leader of the American Identity Movement which has been the boots-on-the-ground in the Groyper insurgency.

In the same broadcast, Shapiro also warned that entertainment studios seeking to condemn racism and sexism and include positive minority characters in their products are actually engaging in an insidious plot to “pervert” Americans’ minds as part of a “very subtle war on white males in our society.”

“What they want is they want to destroy the foundations of American society,” Shapiro said, speaking of media executives. “There’s no question that this is what they want. I mean this has been the case for the left since the 1960s.”

Shapiro has also endorsed ethnic cleansing in Israel of Muslims and Christians, writing in 2003 that forcibly removing Palestinians elsewhere is “an ugly solution, but it is the only solution” in the Middle East. Fuentes does not seem to have ever called for non-violent removal of Americans who are not white but Richard Spencer, one of the alt-right’s first figureheads, has. In the years since, however, Shapiro seems to have turned against the idea of ethnic cleansing.

The Daily Wire did not respond to repeated requests for comment for this piece

While most conservative pundits and activists appear blissfully unaware that their beliefs are generally unpopular, right-wing election consultants have long struggled to overcome this problem in their efforts to obtain winning electoral coalitions. Yet, rather than moderating their positions to appeal to centrists who disagree with conservative ideas on economics, religion, and social policy, they have opted instead to appeal to white religious fundamentalists who are anxious about a country that’s become more educated, secular, and tolerant since the 1960s.

Murray Rothbard, one of the most influential figures in early libertarianism who was also heavily involved in GOP politics, described the concept in a shocking and prescient 1992 essay that touted David Duke and Joe McCarthy as the exemplars of an “outreach to the rednecks” strategy that would build a coalition of racist fundamentalists, business leaders, and anti-government ideologues under a platform of “America First.” Donald Trump, who employed McCarthy’s lawyer and repeatedly refused to disavow Duke, only slightly updated the playbook for 2016.

Expanding the Republican political tent to protect and include extremists was profitable for the GOP in the short-term. Among other things, conservatives’ effective use of religion and race as distractions from unpopular economic policies has enabled them to keep the United States as the only wealthy country in the world without universal health-care for decades.

But the conservative coalition’s days are numbered. In the last five presidential elections, the GOP has won the presidential popular vote only once. The white Christian identity politics which Republicans have long offered as an emotional inducement to voters is of no value to the majority of Americans who now want religion out of politics. Young people, meanwhile, are more interested in voting for democratic socialism than worshiping capitalists with Ayn Rand.

Despite its advocates’ claims of believing in “timeless principles,” American conservatism is actually a historical anomaly, one made possible by its host country’s geopolitical struggle with the atheistic and communistic Soviet Union. As that struggle fades into the mists of time, so do Republicans’ electoral victories.

The prudent, and indeed the conservative, approach would be to refashion American conservatism into something decent—a Republican Party that would promote efficiency while expanding the social safety net to support families, protect workers from exploitation, reduce immigration by improving life in other countries, and reject religious and racial bigotry while also making some space for people with traditionalist religious views.

In the face of overwhelming evidence that Americans want something different than what they’ve been offering, however, the powers-that-be on the right have resorted to gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement to forestall the inevitable.

But now, in addition to facing pressure from the center and the left, conservative elites are now feeling the heat from angry white Christians who have been promised everything for 50 years while receiving very little in return. Nick Fuentes and the Groypers may seem like a social media sideshow now, but in truth, they are only the beginning of a series of troubles that will destroy the Republican Party from within even as it’s caught within a demographic death spiral.

While the president’s consistent verbal appeals to Christian and white racial grievances was enough to get him the far-right’s loyalty in 2016, the serial humiliations of Donald Trump Jr., TPUSA, and their allies demonstrate that the resurgent alt-right wants more and that conservatives’ disingenuous attempts to portray themselves as free speech absolutists can easily be used against them. David French, a conservative writer and activist who has often been targeted by the alt-right, almost exactly described a year ago what the Groypers are doing today:

“Hatred for political correctness has yielded an unhealthy fascination with and admiration for pure defiance. Young voices pride themselves on fearlessness and place attitude over thought in their words and deeds. They troll online and at school to ‘trigger the libs,’ and nothing triggers the libs more than defiance on matters of race.  … If the ethos of the defiant Right is never, ever to accede to either a leftist or (what is, arguably, more hated) an ‘establishment’ or ‘elite’ conservative critique, then it’s easy to see how bigots can flourish.”

Fuentes has echoed this sentiment in his own way repeatedly, including during the same November 5 episode in which he endorsed a neo-Nazi. In the segment, he vowed to continue embarrassing the conservative establishment, regardless of the impact on Republicans’ 2020 chances.

“We’re not asking for anything that is not just and owed to us,” he said. “Unless and until Charlie Kirk and these others are willing to give us what we deserve, which is a seat at the table in Conservative Inc. or the conservative movement or whatever, they allow us to spread our message in the same marketplace of ideas that they do, then this will continue. And if it’s a liability then so be it.”

Perhaps links can serve to substantiate this. Who faced arrest, who was banned from online fundraising, and who was booted off social media platforms?

an 1119

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Watch: Donald Trump Jr booed off stage at UCLA book event — by members of the far right

Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story November 11, 2019

An appearance by Donald Trump Jr. at UCLA was abruptly ended on Sunday when the son of President Donald Trump was attempting to promote his book “Triggered.”

According to the LA Times, “Chanting ‘humanity first,” dozens of people protested outside the UCLA hall on Sunday where Donald Trump Jr. was speaking as part of a promotional tour for his new book.”

Inside the hall, protesters chanted “America first,” and then booed after Trump, TPUSA activist Charlie Kirk and Trump girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle refused to take questions.

According to the Guardian, “the appearance backfired when his own supporters, diehard Make America Great Again conservatives, raised their voices most loudly in protest and ended up drowning him out barely 20 minutes into an event scheduled to last two hours.”

“At first, Trump and Guilfoyle tried to ignore the discontent, which originated with a fringe group of America Firsters who believe the Trump administration has been taken captive by a cabal of internationalists, free-traders, and apologists for mass immigration,” The Guardian continued. “When the shouting would not subside, Trump Jr tried – and failed – to argue that taking questions from the floor risked creating soundbites that leftwing social media posters would abuse and distort. Nobody was buying that.”

You can see clips from the event below via Twitter.

The Red Elephants Fan Account

@elephants_red

Turning Point USA announced that they cancelled the Q and A... Everyone booed. What are you afraid @charliekirk11 ??

Embedded video

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/conservative-evangelical-becomes-aoc-loving-vegan-after-flabbergasting-encounter-with-turning-point-usa/

anecdote but

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eed / Raw Story November 6, 2019

A young Michigan native recently transformed from a right-wing evangelical Christian into a vegan fan of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) after he had a jarring encounter with Turning Point USA, the Trump-loving organization for young conservatives.

The Boston Globe reports that 21-year-old Giani DiTrapani had a shocking experience recently when he attending a Turning Point event that was held at Michigan State University.

Although DiTrapani had for years been a conservative Trump supporter, he nonetheless believed that man-made climate change was a major problem that needed to be addressed. Because of this, reports the Globe, he found himself “flabbergasted” when a speaker at the Turning Point event extolled the virtues of pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

As speaker Alex Epstein said that increased CO2 emissions were a positive sign of economic development and passed out pins that said, “I Love Fossil Fuels,” DiTrapani found himself disturbed that so many of his fellow conservatives were cheering on rhetoric that was completely contradicted by basic science.

“Is this what conservatives really think?” he tells the Globe that he recalls asking himself. “The climate really changed my mind.”

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-american-priority-conference-speakers-sowed-distrust-peddled-conspiracy-theories-and-called-for-civil-war

Joshua Feuerstein took the main stage at the American Priorities Festival and Conference at the Trump Doral National Miami resort to deliver a message: the Civil War was here.

Feuerstein, a former evangelical pastor, used his sermon voice to recall the original Civil War, which he called the “turning point of America,” the battle of Gettysburg, which he deemed the “turning point of the war,” and the men who fought in Pickett’s Charge, which he labeled “the turning point of Gettysburg.” He paced the stage in his navy blue suit, passing by the large red “AMP” letters on the screen behind him, and painted a picture of heroic men and hand-to-hand combat during Pickett’s Charge. “Those men did not think it anything special,” he said.

“I need you to know that 2020 is a civil war that will change the face of America forever,” Feurestein said, his voice rising, as the crowd began to applaud. “And it’s God, ladies and gentlemen, it’s God that calls the qualified, that qualifies those that are called, that are willing to step up in the moment that matters, that has greatness thrust upon them. And tonight, together here in this place to say that we are willing to fight, we may think ourselves insignificant, but that we will stand together in 2020, and we will win the war that will change the face of America.”

Feurestein’s declaration of war wasn’t the only one at the conference. Earlier in the evening, evangelicalPastor Mark Burns had called for war; “We’ve come to declare war!” he said, and attendees in the back of the ballroom replied with “War! War!” 

Over three days, speakers at the pro-Trump conference sowed seeds of distrust in nearly every American institution imaginable and cited conspiracy theories to bolster their case for the use of such civil war rhetoric, as they perpetuated sentiments of victimization and loathing. The conference could have been dismissed as a meeting of the fringe, but big-ticket speakers like Don Trump Jr. and Sarah Huckabee Sanders lent legitimacy to the conference,as did more respectable Republican groups like the Leadership Institute, which held a series of trainings in side rooms. By the time Don Trump Jr. took the stage on Friday evening, he simply invoked themes hammered into the audience throughout the day using subtler language, and it worked the crowd into a frenzy.

In this Trumpian, upside-down world, it’s hard to understand where one has landed until you take one conspiracy at face value: the “deep state.” The so-called deep state is supposedly comprised of supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in high-rank positions in different government agencies who aim to sabotage Trump at every opportunity and eventually overthrow him. Originating on the fringe, the conspiracy theory has now entered the mainstream GOP and has become a staple of right-wing media messaging. At the American Priority Conference, the speakers legitimized the deep state, and layered more conspiracy theories on top. 

Perhaps most telling was the “Unmasking the Russian Hoax” panel with Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, a right-wing “investigative” organization, conservative activist Ned Ryun, George Papadopolous, who went to federal prison for making false statements to FBI agents about the timing of his contact with Russian intermediaries in 2016, and Corey Lewandowski, former Trump campaign manager and author ofTrump’s Enemies: How the Deep State Is Undermining the Presidency. Tracy Beanz, abooster of the QAnon conspiracy theory, moderated the panel.

In Fitton’s world, bad actors had been planning a coup before Trump was even elected.

“Anytime you heard the word impeachment, you can substitute the word coup, because that’s what’s going on here,” Fitton said. “It began during the campaign, when they weaponized intelligence agency against Trump, people like George [Papadopoulos], and who knows who else, to protect Hillary Clinton, to protect Barack Obama, and as Mr. Strzok said, to have an insurance policy if Mr. Trump won.”

The “insurance policy” Fitton references isa conspiracy theorybirthed on 4chan message boards that Democrats had a ready-to-go scheme to impeach Trump if he won.Amplified by right-wing media, the conspiracy theory has reached the White House and influenced the president’s policy making.

“They [Congress] weren’t getting the traction they needed, so the intelligence agencies, it looks like, that were targeting him to begin with, came up with another smear operation,” Fitton continued. “They had a leak they wanted to get out on this Ukrainian conversation, but they recognized doing it would be illegal, so they gussied it up in a whistleblower complaint and illegally communicated classified information, it looks like, with Adam Schiff and lied about it. And now it’s led to the coup operation of President Trump.“

Papadopoulos floated the deep state theory as well. “Some of the same spies that went after Michael Flynn in 2015 were after me in 2016,” he said. As for the whistleblower report, Papadopoulos noted that it came out when WIlliam Barr was, he said, trying to investigate the previous administration. “This was a preemptive strike by the deep state,” Papadopoulos said, suggesting that it was an effort by deep state actors to protect themselves.

Lewandowski focused on the FBI.“I look at the fact that they spied on American citizens who were participating in the political process, because they didn’t like our politics,” Lewandowski said.  “What we know see over the course of the last three and a half years is that Jim Comey, and Andy McCabe, and the lovers, Dr. Page, which Trump talked about last night, James Baker who is the general counsel at the FBI, they use their badges and guns to go after American citizens because they don’t like our politics.” 

The bad actors need to punished, the panelists agreed. “People have to go to jail,” Ryun said, to which an audience member yelled: “Barack Obama!” 

According to the panelists, the media was among the bad actors, conspiring with Democrats. “The media intentionally wanted to brainwash all of you. They wanted to create chaos and division, and attempt a silent coup,” Papadopoulos said.

Later that evening, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA  warmed up the stage for Don Trump Jr. He zoomed in on the Jussie Smollett story, an actor who apparentlystaged a hate crime against himself, claiming it was indicative of the Democratic situation and “Democratic privilege,” where Democrats, like Smollett, are never prosecuted for wrongdoings. Kirk used the Smollett story to sow doubt—if Smollett fabricated a hate crime, what else could they lie to you about?—and bolster another debunked conspiracy theory that Adam Schiff changed the whistleblower laws just before the whistleblower filed his complaint.

“Guess what happens when we don’t hold them accountable? What happens is Congressman Adam Schiff then flies his staffer up to Ukraine, changes the whistleblower laws, uses a friend that he has in the CIA, and then do it all over again, just with a different country,” Kirk said. 

Kirk then moved on to other supposed deep state actors. “If [Trump] would’ve won and did the typical Republican thing … maybe the deep state actors would’ve just stayed at bay. But the fact that they’re relentlessly going after him should give you renewal and confidence that this president actually doing what he said he was going to do,” Kirk said.

When Don Trump Jr. walked out onto the stage Friday night following Kirk, he wasted no time in getting to the Smollett story and attacking Schiff and the media.“Adam Schiff is the Jussie Smollett of Congress on steroids,” he said as his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, stared at him adoringly from her chair on stage. “And he gets away with it because people in the media protect him.”

“On paper, 2020 should be over, but it’s not, because we’re not in a fair fight,” Trump Jr. said, claiming that “the mainstream media has made a conscious decision to be the marketing team of the opposing party.”

While Trump Jr. didn’t go as far as to call for civil war or double down on the deep state, he didn’t need to. His presence lent legitimacy the conspiracy theories floated all day.  It’s this very type of environment that civil war rhetoric on the right has grown. In early October, it appeared to reach Trump himself, who went as far as toquote Fox News contributor Pastor Robert Jeffress on Twitter saying, “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” 

In an upside-down world, where a deep state is conniving to imprison administration officials just doing their jobs, continues to get away with spying and crimes, and stages a coup against a democratically elected president, calling for a civil war doesn’t seem like that big of a leap.

==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/trump-promotes-far-right-student-organization-accused-of-racial-bias-and-supporting-extremism/

Trump promotes far right student organization accused of racial bias and supporting extremism

Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement October 23, 2019

As he inches closer and closer to being impeached President Donald Trump is working hard to secure his base. One of the most powerful organizations at the president’s disposal is Turning Point USA, which is closely tied to the Trump campaign through Trump family members. TPUSA has been described as a “far-right group” which was originally funded by billionaire donor to Republican and Evangelical Christian causes, Foster Friess.

(Friess may be best-known to most Americans as the man who suggested the best birth control for women is “Bayer aspirin between their knees.”)

TPUSA was founded and is headed by Charlie Kirk, who a USA Today opinion writer says “seems to have a fraught relationship with facts when they get in the way of his worshipful approach to President Donald Trump.” The group claims to have “a presence on over 1,500 campuses,” and calls itself “the largest and fastest-growing youth organization in America.”

That’s Kirk in the photo above, interviewing President Trump.

Its website currently lists its “advisory council” as “coming soon,” but archived versions show far right wing extremists like former Tea Party Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and powerful lobbyist and Tea Party activist Ginni Thomas (spouse of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas) have served the organization.

Kirk calls Donald Trump, Jr. “a personal friend,” and the president’s eldest son has often toured with Kirk, speaking at TPUSA rallies. Lara Trump, who is married to the president’s other adult son Eric, is also tied to the group, according to New York Magazine’s Jane Mayer. In December of 2017 Mayer wrote an exposé titled, “A Conservative Nonprofit That Seeks to Transform College Campuses Faces Allegations of Racial Bias and Illegal Campaign Activity.”

Of course, TPUSA may forever be known best for its disastrous attempt to launch into the UK. During a seminar aimed at recruiting new members in London, its then-communications director Candace Owens launched a disturbing attempt to promote the failed concept of nationalism. She was subsequently accused of defending Hitler, after delivering these revolting comments:

“Whenever we say nationalism, the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler,” Owens said, as Buzzfeed reported. “But if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine. The problem is that he wanted, he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalise. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German. Everybody to look a different way. To me, that’s not nationalism.”

In a profile of TPUSA the ADL writes: “TPUSA’s leadership and activists have made multiple racist or bigoted comments and have been linked to a variety of extremists.”

There’s more, of course (see links at the end of the article.)

Despite all this, or perhaps because of it, President Trump Wednesday AM offered up these tweets promoting Turning Point USA and its founder, Charlie Kirk:

Young campus Conservatives are flocking to Turning Point USA & other Conservative speaker events all over the Country, AND IN RECORD NUMBERS. Thousands of students are turning out. “I just want to compliment the President of the United States for signing that historic Executive..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

….Order a couple of months ago saying that any school that does not uphold the First Amendment Rights of its students will lose Federal Funding. We have seen a huge change in how the Universities interact with us as a national & local student organization. Our studends….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

….feel EMPOWERED. There’s a movement happening on these campuses like I’ve never seen before. When you have 3000 students wanting to get into an event that couldn’t get in, that’s pretty remarkable!” @charliekirk11 Turning Point USA KEEP AMERICA GREAT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2019

==

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Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson, a serial plagiarist, claimed the complaint has “no evidence,” is “unverified” and “uncorroborated,” and is being “used to launch a fraudulent investigation.”

Conservative radio host and QAnon supporter Bill Mitchell claimed that “this whole thing is hearsay” and addedthat “we are witnessing the end of the Democrat Party as we know it.”

==

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/right-wing-groups-are-training-young-conservatives-to-win-the-next-meme-war/

april 2019

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POLITICS

APRIL 2, 2019

“The Left Can’t Meme”: How Right-Wing Groups Are Training the Next Generation of Social Media Warriors

Memes helped elect Donald Trump. Now well-funded conservative groups are using them to proselytize.

STORY BY STEPHANIE MENCIMER, VIDEO BY MARK HELENOWSKI

Benny Johnson took to the stage at the convention center in Palm Beach, Florida, before an audience of cheering young Trump supporters in December to lead a session titled “How to Own the Libs.”

“I ask myself every day: How do we own the libs?” said Johnson, at the time a reporter for the right-wing Daily Caller. “How do we do it in a way that makes a difference? Because these people deserved to be wrecked.”

According to Johnson, the answer to that question is memes. These bits of humor or political propaganda—generally images overlaid with a caption designed to go viral—are best known for littering social media, but some experts think they might have helped elect Donald Trump. Or as notorious internet troll Chuck Johnson has said, “We memed the president into existence.”

Following that unexpected meme-driven success, well-funded conservative groups are making a more organized push to train young internet-savvy right-wingers in the art of meme-making, enlisting a growing army in what they see as the coming meme war of 2020.Turning Point USA, the conservative campus group that organized the conference, is merely one of these organizations seeking to sway hearts, minds, and elections via meme trainings. And it’s clear that when it comes to political memes, the left—which has never taken them very seriously—is trailing the right badly, and falling even further behind.

“Right-wing speaker training has been around for decades,” says Angelo Carusone, president of the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters, which did a study of Facebook memes last summer. “Memes are a new front in the asymmetry. What you’re looking at here with memes is storytelling around the bend, and what you’re seeing is the future.”

Memes are best known for littering social media, but some experts think they might have helped elect Donald Trump president.

Trump’s presidential campaign keyed into the power of memes early on, monitoring obscure meme sites and boosting pro-Trump images and videos onto mainstream platforms like Facebook. Facebook’s algorithms favor images and videos over more nuanced text posts or links to news articles, so pro-Trump memes quickly went viral. During the campaign, memes also helped spread misinformation about Hillary Clinton’s health and the Pizzagate conspiracy theory that prompted an armed North Carolina man to show up at aDC pizza parlor to break up a nonexistent child sex ring supposedly led by Democratic Party operatives.

Perhaps no one understood the effectiveness of memes better than former Trump campaign strategist Steve Bannon, who had served as executive chairman of the far-right publication Breitbart News. In 2016, only 5 percent of Breitbart‘s posts were of images, but those images accounted for half of the site’s most-shared posts on Facebook.

Jeff Giesea, a consultant who has worked with venture capitalist Peter Thiel and the Koch brothers, is a self-described “memetics” expert. During the 2016 campaign, he joined with men’s rights agitatorMike Cernovichto organize MAGA3X, a grassroots army of online trolls who worked to meme Trump to the White House. The effort produced tens of thousands of social media accounts, all working in concert to promote Trump, with a heavy emphasis on iconography. They even created a flash-mob meme generator to make it easy for Trump supporters to hook up in real life.

Giesea has long argued that memes are such a powerful tool they should be used as cyberwarfare to combat propaganda from ISIS and other foreign threats. In 2015, he wrote in a NATO journal on information warfare that “it seems obvious that more aggressive communication tactics and broader warfare through trolling and memes is a necessary, inexpensive, and easy way to help destroy the appeal and morale of our common enemies…Memetic warfare is about taking control of the dialogue, narrative, and psychological space. It’s about denigrating, disrupting, and subverting the enemy’s effort to do the same.”

The same could be said of memes in politics. Cheap, subversive, and designed to provoke an emotional response, memes are a disruptive form of information guerrilla warfare. Republicans have gotten Giesea’s message, while Democrats have all but ignored it.

“Right-wing speaker training has been around for decades,” says Media Matters president Angelo Carusone. “Memes are a new front in the asymmetry.”

Johnson’s skill in this area launched him to Washington media fame for a while, until he was ousted from BuzzFeed and then the Independent Journal Review after being accused of plagiarism. He seems to have found his calling with Turning Point USA, the conservative campus activist group that sponsored the student convention in Palm Beach and is itself something of a meme factory.

Founded in 2012, TPUSA got its startup funding from Foster Friess, a wealthy Republican donor, and it has since raked in donations from the oil and gas industry and organizations affiliated with the Koch brothers. With a budget of more than $8 million last year, TPUSA amplifies its campus presence by churning out endless “Big Government Sucks” memes on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Turning Point USA

Like most memes, a few of TPUSA’s are clever and spread far, and many more have been trashed by internet trolls, who have created a whole meme subgenre they call “Toilet Paper USA.” Johnson was on hand in Florida to help TPUSA members up their game.

Johnson started his tutorial with “based Lindsey Graham,” a video montage of the South Carolina senator’s angry performance during the contentious confirmation hearing of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in high school. “That is a special moment,” he explained, noting that Kavanaugh was confirmed in spite of the allegations.“In your lifetime, there has never been a culture war that conservatives have won except for this.”

He proceeded to walk the audience through the evolution of Graham memes that went viral during the hearing and may have helped change public opinion on Kavanaugh. On the big screen, Johnson showed photos and a video he had taken of Graham coming out of the Capitol after a day of hearings. In the video, Graham is coolly adjusting his tie and smiling, while in the background, a police officer restrains a hysterical-looking woman who’s screaming at him about Kavanaugh. Johnson tweeted that he had just taken “the most thug life @LindseyGrahamSC photos of the entire Kavanaugh saga.”

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter

Benny

?

@bennyjohnson

I hate to brag.

I just took the most thug life @LindseyGrahamSC photos of the entire Kavanaugh saga.

[Story soon]

From there, the internet took care of the rest. “Did this sucker meme?” Johnson asked, laughing. The answer was yes. Creative internet users tweaked and photoshopped the image, both still and video, as it spread. Johnson showed one meme of the tie-adjusting Graham superimposed on the burning Twin Towers. Then one featuring Joe Biden planting a kiss on the screaming woman. And finally, one that turned Graham into a “thug life” rap video star.

Embedded video

Benny

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@bennyjohnson

???? MUST WATCH: SOUND ON ????

???? MUST WATCH: SOUND ON ????

???? MUST WATCH: SOUND ON ????

???? MUST WATCH: SOUND ON ????

???? MUST WATCH: SOUND ON ????

???? MUST WATCH: SOUND ON ????#kavanaugh

2,539

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“This is how you know you’ve made it in this profession,” Johnson told his audience. “When memes take life.”

In February, TPUSA hired Johnson to do this sort of thing full time as its chief creative officer, a sign of just how seriously well-funded pro-Trump organizations are taking the business of memes.

The TPUSA conference also included a second, more interactive session on memes, hosted by two minor Instagram stars, Rogan O’Handley (Instagram handle DC_Draino) and Grant Godwin (the_typical-liberal), who got into the nuts and bolts of the art form—or, as Godwin explained, how to get your Pepe the Frog memes to go viral.

Two weeks earlier, meme training got top billing at the American Priority Conference, which billed itself as an “America First,” pro-Trump political gathering.Speakers included Roger Stone, the longtime Trump associate who was indicted the next month for obstruction and false statements in the special counsel investigation, and AnthonyScaramucci, who lasted less than a week as White House communications director. The conference featured a session on memetics by Tom Shadilay, a producer for Mike Cernovich. (Shadilay’s name may itself be a meme: It’s a popular hashtag on Gab, the social media site favored by the far right, and a code word for trolls on 4chan. Shadilay is the name of a 1986 Italian disco song by a band called P.E.P.E., whose album art featured a cartoon frog that resembles Pepe the Frog. Tom Shadilay does not appear to have any internet presence before his Twitter account was created in May 2017. He stopped responding to my emails after I asked whether that’s really his last name.)

In January, Liberty Con, a national convention of libertarian students, offered advice from David Gay, a libertarian activist who runs the Facebook group Liberty Memes, which has nearly a half-million followers spreading his political message through memes. (Until late 2016, Giesea, the meme expert, was on the board of Students for Liberty, which sponsored the conference.)* Johnson has four events scheduled this month on college campuses on “winning the meme wars.”

Boston University professor Gianluca Stringhini studies memes for a living. When I told him that well-funded right-wing organizations were specifically training activists for the next great meme war, he was surprised. Typically, he says, memes are seen as organic, emerging from the dark corners of the internet, not propaganda directed by people in politics. “Memes are tools for information warfare,” he says. “Probably this is a new way of doing politics. A new weapon that campaigns can use.”

It’s not clear exactly whether memes do, in fact, change public opinion, but conservative groups working to train grassroots troops seem to think so. So do the Russians. In the 2018 report commissioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm that meddled in the 2016 presidential election, researchers discovered that the IRA was especially fond of memes put out by TPUSA. Using accounts that it created to look like ordinary Americans and spread misinformation and propaganda, the IRA gave TPUSA memes a boost across multiple social media platforms. But the researchers couldn’t determine exactly what the impact of all those memes was.

Last year, Stringhini and six colleagues published a study on the origins of memes, analyzing more than 2 billion social media posts on Twitter, 4chan, Reddit, and Gab, tofigure out where the most popular memes get their start. Stringhini says the most trafficked memes start on right-wing internet forums, places like 4chan’s politically incorrect /pol/ channel and Reddit’s /r/the_Donald/ subreddit. From there, the far right has been extremely successful in getting its stuff to take off on mainstream platforms.Stringhini notes that after the 2016 presidential election, Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, tweeted her thanks to 4chan and Reddit users for making it all happen, putting a sharp point on how much people on the right believe that memes are influencing public opinion.

As a result, conservative groups seem to be incorporating memes into their training arsenal for grassroots activists in a way that has no parallel on the left. In fact, “the left can’t meme” is itself a subgenre of memes, reflecting an idea accepted on both ends of the political spectrum that progressive activists are really bad at this form of political warfare.

One potential exception is long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who has recently catapulted to fame thanks to memes. But those memes are coming from the same sources, on Reddit and 4chan, that promoted Trump, not from liberal groups, creating a bizarre movement of Yang fans among white nationalists.

Media Matters’ Carusone says people on the left are more concerned with nuanced facts and gray areas that can’t always be boiled down accurately into a photo with a caption. On the left, he says, “every meme has to have a million qualifiers, so that it’s no longer a meme. It’s a Medium post.” Conservatives, on the other hand, tend to communicate their ideas “in ways that are very reductionist. They’re also much more comfortable lying, and their audiences are much more likely to accept it.”

Benny Johnson has his own take on what makes a good political meme. The first step for successful lib ownership, he told the students assembled in Palm Beach, is to “challenge the culture,” as Graham did during the Kavanaugh hearings. Second, “join the conversation” by creating an interaction, but be sure it will “demonstrate the superiority of conservative ideas.”

As an example, he played a goofy video he made withFederal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai. In the video, Pai is dressed like Santa Claus, wielding a light saber, and he defends his plan for “internet freedom” in response to criticism of the Trump administration’s move to end net neutrality. “We were trolling the internet,” Johnson said. And it worked.

He flashed through a host of viral memes that took off after the video was posted. In the video, there’s a shot of Pai in front of a screen eating popcorn and watching a movie. Meme-makers have swapped in clips to make it look like Pai is watching Hitler rallies or the burning Twin Towers. Even Luke Skywalker weighed in:

View image on Twitter

View image on Twitter

Mark Hamill

?

@HamillHimself

Cute video Ajit "Aren't I Precious?" Pai ??-but you are profoundly unworthy 2 wield a lightsaber-A Jedi acts selflessly for the common man-NOT lie 2 enrich giant corporations. Btw-did you pay John Williams his royalty? @AjitPaiFCCorpShill #AJediYouAreNOT

The third step in successful lib ownership, Johnson instructed the crowd, was critical: “Have more fun than the left.” He played a video he had made in 2015 of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz cooking bacon on a machine gun. “Can you think of three thing libs hate more?” he exclaimed with a laugh. “Ted Cruz, bacon, guns.” All the ingredients for a good meme.

Finally, Johnson concluded: “Smile. You’re on the winning side.”

==

==

https://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/who-funds-conservative-campus-group-turning-point-usa-donors-revealed-2620325

Conservative campus group Turning Point USA is opposed to “safe spaces” — except when it comes to the generosity of its donors. Charlie Kirk, the group’s 24-year-old founder, has claimed his organization has campus chapters at 1,000 colleges and universities and raised more than $5 million in 2016. Earlier this year, leaked records revealed TPUSA efforts to secretly funnel thousands of dollars into multiple college student government elections to elect conservatives.

The sources of much of that money have been a mystery, and how much some known sources give is still unknown. “To answer your question, no I will not disclose private giving amounts,” Kirk told International Business Times in an email. “Some people like the amount of their charitable giving to remain anonymous so we wish to honor that request.”

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, TPUSA is not required to disclose its donors. But based on public tax records and some reporting by other outlets, IBT has identified the sources of over $900,000 in funding for TPUSA. Republican mega-donor families, GOP politicians and other wealthy individuals have provided large amounts of money so the organization can spread free-market principles — from which the donors benefit — among young people, the majority of whom, overall, lean liberal.

The group’s motto is “Big Government Sucks”; its mission, “to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.” TPUSA recruits “free market activists,” creates “innovative grassroots messaging,” puts out publications and hosts conferences.

“We are proud to fight for free markets and smaller government, both of which are ideas that are resonating extremely well to our target demographic of 18-24 year olds,” Kirk told IBT.

Working to appeal to millennials, TPUSA is funded by a substantial number of older, wealthy individuals whose economic views the group promotes. IBT identified 17 donors to TPUSA, including nine from publicly available Internal Revenue Service records. The documented donations came mostly in 2014 and 2015, as tax records from many of the foundational donors are not yet available for 2016.

Wealthy Conservatives Bankroll TPUSA

Some of the biggest donations came from rich families in the Chicago area, where TPUSA is based.

From 2014 to 2016, the Ed Uihlein Foundation gave TPUSA $275,000, including $175,000 in 2016. Richard Uihlein, the founder of a lucrative shipping business and president of this foundation named after his father, is a Republican mega-donor and a “free-markets, smaller-government crusader” from the Chicago area. He and his wife, Elizabeth, spent $23.7 million on politics during the 2016 election cycle, the ninth-highest total in the country, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Richard Uihlein made 6- and 7-figure donations to many independent political spending groups including the Unintimidated PAC, which supported Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund; and Club For Growth Action. Uihlein is America’s top donor to outside spending groups in the current election cycle.

:{

[Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner declares victory during his election night gathering while incumbent Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn is yet to concede on November 4, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. Photo: John Gress/Getty Images]}:

The family foundation of Republican Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, a former private equity executive worth an estimated $500 million, gave TPUSA $150,000 from 2014 to 2015, according to tax records. Uihlein spent nearly $3 million in 2014 to help elect Rauner. The governor, with help from his wealthy friends, is trying toremake Illinois into a conservative-dominated state.

The family foundation of healthcare products company CEO Vince Foglia and his wife Pat, based in the Chicago area, donated $210,000 to TPUSA from 2013 to 2014. Foglia is a frequent donor to Republican campaigns, including $55,000 to Rauner in 2014 and donations to former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who is a member of the TPUSA advisory council.

In 2015, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus’ foundation donated $72,600 to TPUSA. Marcus is a major GOP donor, having given $5 million to the pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America Now and millions more to spending groups affiliated with the Republican House and Senate during the 2016 cycle.

TPUSA advisory council member Gary Rabine, an Illinois-based roofing and paving CEO, is a donor, Kirk told IBT.

Other GOP mega-donors to the group include the Henry and Lynde Bradley Foundation ($20,000 from 2015 to 2016), the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, named after the in-laws of current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos ($10,000 in 2015), and Foster Friess, a Wyoming-based investment manager known for his 2012 comments about “gals” putting aspirin “between their knees” as a mode of contraception. Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has encouraged Freiss to run for U.S. Senate. IBT did not find public records of Friess’ donations, but Bloomberg reported that Freiss, who is on TPUSA’s advisory council, gave Kirk a “five-figure check.” Freiss made least $3.4 million in contributions in federal political races since the 2012 election cycle, according to Buzzfeed News.

Other donors identified by IBT include:

• Mike Leven, a TPUSA adviser and former CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation whose Michael and Andrea Leven Family Foundation gave the group $50,000 in 2015. Leven was vice-chair of the Marcus Foundation as of 2015.
• Illinois-based finance executive Peter Huizenga ($50,000 in 2014, according to The Atlantic )
• Chicago jeweler and TPUSA adviser Mike Miller ($50,000 in 2014, according to Bloomberg )
• Dunn’s Foundation for the Advancement of Right Thinking ($20,000 in 2014)
• The Einhorn Family Foundation ($5,000 in 2015). Venture capitalist Stephen Einhorn is a TPUSA adviser.

According to a book co-authored by Kirk, TPUSA has also received unknown amounts of money from Montana Congressman Greg Gianforte, who is known for assaulting a reporter during a campaign event this year; Allie and Lee Hanley (Allie Hanley is a TPUSA adviser, and Lee Hanley is deceased); Tom Patrick; and the late Jack Roeser.

Kirk would not disclose amounts but told IBT that most members of the TPUSA advisory council “are financially supportive on a varying degree of support.” While IBT did not discover records of contributions from TPUSA advisory council member Doug Deason, a big donor to Republican candidates whose father is worth $1.3 billion, he is likely an important donor to TPUSA.

:{

Tomi Lahren(L) and Charlie Kirk at Politicon at Pasadena Convention Center on July 29, 2017 in Pasadena, California. Kirk is the founder of Turning Point USA, and Lahren, a Fox News contributor, will speak at the group's December seminar. Photo: John Sciulli/Getty Images]}:

Event Sponsors Add To List Of TPUSA Supporters

In addition to traditional funders, TPUSA has a host of event sponsors, many of which are key organizations in the right-wing advocacy movement such as the conservative public policy think tank Heritage Foundation, the nonprofit Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom and the libertarian think tank the Reason Foundation. Kirk said event sponsors typically top out at $5,000-$10,000.

“Most of the speakers we bring to campus are paid for by Turning Point USA but we do [have] several partnerships throughout the year with select organizations,” said Kirk. The Foundation for Economic Education provided its CEO Larry Reed to “speak on free markets and the purpose of limited government” at a TPUSA-sponsored event in April at the University of Colorado at Boulder. FEE is a recipient of donations from the Charles Koch Foundation and from TPUSA donor Dunn’s Foundation for the Advancement of Right Thinking.

Just a few weeks ago, Dennis Prager — CEO of digital media organization PragerU, a TPUSA sponsor — spoke at a TPUSA event at the University of Wyoming. Kirk says it was a “packed house,” but students came out to protest as well, upset at potential “hateful rhetoric” and the fact that student fees covered the event’s $10,000 price tag.

Another TPUSA sponsor, the National Rifle Association, visits TPUSA campus events to “speak about the constitution,” said Kirk. In October, the NRA participated in an event at the University of Arizona.

Sponsors of TPUSA’s recent Western Regional Conference, which featured speakers including former Breitbart writer Ben Shapiro and Benny Johnson, now a Daily Caller reporter known for his previous plagiarizing, include nonprofits to which TPUSA funders also donate. They include the Heritage Foundation, the Job Creators Network, the Leadership Institute and Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled an anti-LGBTQ hate group.

TPUSA’s upcoming Student Action Summit in December has additional sponsors including the Reason Foundation, the Koch-connected Generation Opportunity Institute and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. Most featured speakers listed on the event page are either Trump insiders, Fox News employees, or both; speakers include Donald Trump Jr., former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former White House press secretary Anthony Scaramucci, former Trump White House adviser and current Fox News “national security strategist" Sebastian Gorka, Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade, Fox News host Greg Gutfield, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Fox News contributor and pro-Trump nonprofit employee Tomi Lahren, Fox News host Jesse Waters and Fox News contributor Guy Benson. Some speakers listed on the event page and other not listed are not affiliated with Fox or the Trump administration, Kirk said.

The events are being held in West Palm Beach, Florida, the town that is home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, but Kirk says his summit will take place at the Palm Beach Convention Center. Kirk said that “one of our supporters is thinking of hosting a small dinner early that week at Mar-a-Lago, but nothing [is] finalized and not officially part of [the Student Action Summit],” and that he could end up attending the dinner.

In addition to sponsoring events, the Heritage Foundation provides pocket constitutions to TPUSA students, said Kirk. Heritage is one of the most influential conservative think tanks in America, and its healthy funding comes from the likes of TPUSA donors the DeVos Foundation and Dunn’s Foundation, as well as from multiple Koch family foundations.

Controversial Moves

TPUSA has had its fair share of controversy over the last several years.

On Nov. 15, journalist Adam Weinstein reacted on Twitter to a meme generated by the group with the heading, “Socialism Hurts Everyone.”

[pix eg]

After enormous criticism, TPUSA deleted the tweet and issued an apology, saying the tweet was in “poor taste” and was meant to be a Harvey Weinstein joke and not anti-Semitic.

The organization has invited former Breitbart News editor and right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to college campuses. During an appearance at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Yiannopoulos targeted a transgender student.

In November 2016, the group launched a “Professor Watchlist,” which lists professors who allegedly “advance a radical agenda in lecture halls.” Media Matters found that most of the alleged incident reports on the various academics cited by TPUSA came from conservative activist groups such as the Leadership Institute (which is a partner of TPUSA and receives donations from TPUSA donors such as the Ed Uihlein Foundation), heavily biased sources such as The College Fix and discredited sources such as the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Project Veritas, which was revealed on Monday to have botched a sting operation targeting the Washington Post. Some have compared the watchlist to a Cold War-era, anti-Communist McCarthyism.

As part of its student activism efforts, TPUSA chapters sometime demonstrate against liberals on campus. One recent demonstration in which a Kent State student wore a diaper and played with toys in a public, outdoor area ended up causing much of the social media world to ridicule TPUSA.

Safe spaces are for children. pic.twitter.com/OSsETyDbC4

— TPUSA at Kent State (@TPUSAatKent) October 19, 2017

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, TPUSA is not allowed to engage in direct political advocacy, and the organization has not done so, according to Kirk. But its funding by major Republican donors and close ties to the White House project the image of a partisan organization.

Kirk, a former contributor to Breitbart News, the online platform of the racist alt-right, is an ally of the Trump administration. He worked for the Trump campaign in 2016 and spoke at the Republican National Convention that year. Kirk has appeared on Fox News alongside members of the Trump family.

Two members of the TPUSA advisory council, investor Gentry Beach and Thomas Hicks, Jr., the son of a Dallas billionaire, worked with Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric to establish a Texas nonprofit to sell access to the president to big donors during inauguration festivities in January. Beach and Hicks, who were both national vice chairmen of the Trump campaign, raised millions of dollars for the campaign. Beach has visited the White House multiple times in 2017.

Beach’s father, Gary, was indicted on five charges of bankruptcy fraud in 2016. Charlie Kirk's father is allegedly Robert W. Kirk, the project architect manager for Trump Tower in New York City.

“We stay totally removed from restricted political activity,” said Kirk. “Instead, we focus on starting chapters, hosting debates on campus, planning training seminars, and hosting national training conferences such as our upcoming one in Palm Beach in December.”

The organization has over 100 people on staff, and the highest salary is $70,000.“Considering the size of our budget and organization that is something that is not typical with non profits in today’s time,” said Kirk.

Controversy aside, Kirk says that the last year has been “amazingly successful.” TPUSA chartered over 350 new chapters and expects over 2,000 students at its December summit in Florida, said Kirk. “We are proud to have the support of thousands of grassroots Americans that want to see the next generation more understanding of the ideas of free enterprise and smaller government.”

off bs

Charlie Kirk is the founder and Executive Director of Turning Point USA, a national student movement dedicated toward educating, empowering, and mobilizing young people behind the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government. Since the inception of Turning Point USA on June 5th of 2012 Charlie has grown Turning Point USA from nothing, to having representation on over 800 high schools and colleges nationwide.  At 24 years old, he has appeared on Fox News, CNBC, and FOX Business News over ninety times including frequent  appearances on “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” “Varney & Co.” and “The Willis Report.”  He is a featured columnist for the Washington Times and a contributor for Breitbart.com.  In addition to his entrepreneurial political endeavors, Charlie plays every type of Saxophone, was captain of his school’s Varsity Basketball and Football team, and is a proud Eagle Scout.

William Montgomery is the Co-Founder, Treasurer, and Senior Advisor for Turning Point USA. At 76 years of age, he considers himself a “healthy and youthful senior.” His vast knowledge and experience has helped Charlie Kirk to establish TPUSA as a highly credible 501(c)3 non-profit organization in a very short period of time.

William has lived in Lemont, Illinois with his wife for over 25 years. He grew up in Peoria, Illinois and his two favorite people are from Perkin, IL and Dixon, IL – Senator Everett Dirksen and President Ronald Reagan.

Some of Bill’s experience:

* Attended Lincoln College

* Illinois Air National Guard for 6 years

* Active Duty for 11 months during “Berlin Crisis”

* Asst. Sales Manager & Marketing Development Manager – E. C. Dewitt & Co.

* Division Sales Manager for Standard Pharmaceutical – Elgin, IL

* Regional Sales Manager and Lecturer – Optical Sciences Group Inc.

* Marketing Director – Milroy Labs Inc. – Sarasota, FL

* Marketing Director and Sales Manager – Laser Works Inc. – Bradenton, FL

* Co-Publisher of Siesta Key Pelican Newspaper – Sarasota, FL

* Publisher and Editor of Review Magazines – Gulf Coast of Florida

* Sarasota’s Campaign Manager for re-election of President Nixon – Sarasota, FL

* Publisher of 13 Weekly Newspapers in Cook and DuPage Counties – Illinois

* 123,000 weekly mailed circulation – Montgomery Publishing Co. – Lemont, IL

* Business Development Advisor – The Stapleton Group CPA’s – Orland Park, IL

* Owner of Strand Café – Famous for Cajun food and entertainment – Lemont, IL

George F. Hamstra is a member of the board of directors of Turning Point USA. George has an extensive computer technology and business administration background. George will advise executive management and the board of directors on technology, management, procurement of assets, and sales proficiency.

George was a founding Member of NetGain Technologies, LLC which developed the Bad Amplitude electric dragster. NetGain Technologies worked with and was funded by, NASA to test super-capacitors in the dragster during 2002 and 2003. The EV motor distribution business (NetGain Motors, Inc. – NGM) was spun- off from NetGain Technologies in September of 2007 and has been operated by George since that time.

In 1985, George started a now publicly traded computer distribution company with annual sales that exceeded $40 million, at the time, and he sold it in 1989. George came out of retirement to start a software development company in 1994; this company was sold to a Fortune 500 company in 1995.?George gained invaluable experience when he worked for Bell Labs for more than 14 years, much of that time in the original UNIX Support Group based in Naperville, Illinois. He added knowledge related to UNIX computer systems, administration, security, performance, as well as artificial intelligence. While employed at Bell Labs George was an instructor in the Bell Labs Continuing Education Program. He left Bell Labs to join a company that specialized in UNIX training.

==

Foster Friess

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Allie Hanley

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Mike Leven

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David J Blumberg

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Michele Bachmann

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Mica Mosbacher

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George Strake, Jr.

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Peter Theron

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Henry P. ‘Rip’ McIntosh, IV

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Michael Burstein

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William Stephens

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Wayne Newkumet

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Jon D. Willis

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Scott Studebaker

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Hanley Sayers III

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==

new

https://www.desmog.co.uk/2019/03/12/turning-point-meet-trump-allied-climate-science-denying-fossil-fuel-funded-ultra-conservative-us-student-group-coming

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Turning Point: Meet the Climate Science Denying, Fossil Fuel Funded US Student Group Coming to a UK Campus Near You

By Richard Collett-White • Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - 00:34

Turning Point UK tour advert]

The US leaders of a scandal-hit American student movement are touring the UK this week, following the launch of a British branch of the organisation last month.

Advocating climate science denial, “free markets and limited government”, and with numerous links to the fossil fuel industry and Donald Trump, Turning Point claims to have a presence on more than 1,300 college campuses and high schools, engaging in “over 500,000 face-to-face conversations with college students each semester.”

The scandal-hit group has been plagued by incidents of racism and allegations of illegal campaign spending since its launch, with its “professor watchlist” accused of stymying academic freedom.

Nonetheless, Turning Point USA’s (TPUSA) founders are in town this week for a three-stop tour of the UK, making appearances in London, Nottingham and Brighton, where Sussex University Conservative Society is hosting an event.

So, what can we expect?

Read more about Turning Point and Charlie Kirk in DeSmog’s Disinformation Database

Trans-Atlantic Strategy

:{

}:

With a multi-million dollar annual budget, the group is known for its slick videos and well-funded campaigns. But the online launch of itsUK spin-off just over a month ago quickly descended into chaos when hundreds of parody Twitter accounts appeared, leaving people wondering which were real and which were fake.

At the time, Turning Point UK (TPUK) received the blessing of various leading pro-Brexit politicians, including Conservative MPs Priti Patel, Steve Baker and Jacob Rees-Mogg, as well as former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

A leaked memo from fellow US youth conservative organisation, Young America’s Foundation, warned its activists about associating with Turning Point, however, referencing the group’s alleged harbouring of “racists and Nazi sympathizers.”

Similarly, the UK Conservative Party advised its student associations “not to work with [TPUK] in any capacity”.

:{

}:

Speakers at a TPUK event in London on Sunday included Chloe Westley, campaign manager of campaign group the Taxpayers’ Alliance, which shares offices at 55 Tufton Street with the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s premier climate science denial group. And among the guests at TPUK’s formal launch event in December were climate science denier columnists James Delingpole and Rod Liddle, Buzzfeed reported.

At that event, TPUSA co-leader Candace Owens made headlines after statements she made about the way people associate nationalism with Adolf Hitler:

“He was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine,” she said. Owens later clarified on Twitter that she in no way supported the actions of Nazi Germany.

Climate Science Denial and Fossil Fuel Funding

When asked at the launch event to reveal who funds TPUK, John Mappin, a Scientologist who owns a castle in Cornwall and is one of the key figures behind the group, answered: “Well, the whole idea is to stay anonymous… That's how they do it in the United States. It actually doesn't matter who funds it because it’s about the ideas.”

But some of TPUSA’s funding has been revealed. And, given the group’s penchant for climate science denial, unsurprisingly a lot of it seems to come from the fossil fuel industry.

:{

}:

TPUSA previously produced a video that claims NASA scientists are “wrong about climate change”, and founder Charlie Kirk has publicly supported President Trump’s assertion that he will withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.

TPUSA also played a key role in organising opposition to student campaigns for universities to divest from fossil fuels. In 2016, the organisation distributed a pro-fossil fuels guide for campuses called “Fossil Fuels Save Lives,” which claimed that students were being “indoctrinated to believe the myth that fossil fuels are dirty.”

A leading figure for the UK group, Darren Grimes, who is embroiled in a scandal over spending on the Leave campaign during the Brexit referendum, has also expressed scepticism about the threat of climate change. He tweeted in response to recent school strikes for climate that:

Darren Grimes

?

@darrengrimes_

I used to bunk off of school during PE - if only I could’ve used ‘climate change’ as an excuse and have it legitimised by our left wing media and politicians! Nightmare.

1,023

12:40 PM - Feb 15, 2019

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Kirk, who set up TPUSA in 2012, has openly admitted soliciting funds from the fossil fuel industry, acknowledging in an interview with the New Yorker that some of TPUSA’s donors “are in the fossil-fuel space.”

He has also spoken and fund-raised at fossil fuel industry events, including with the National Mining Association and the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), a trade association representing US oil and gas producers.

:{

}:

Turning Point has a partnership with Prager University, a non-profit largely funded by fracking industry billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks which seeks to spread “'Americanism' through the power of the Internet.”

:{

}:

TPUSA is also funded by the Hanley family, who own Hanley Petroleum, as well as the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which act as a vehicle for big donors to funnel donations anonymously to conservative organisations, many of which spread doubt about climate science.

In particular, the Donors Trustacts as a vehicle for donations from the Koch brothers, owners of the US’s largest privately-owned fossil fuel company. The Kochs fund organisations including the Heritage Foundation and the Foundation for Economic Education, which in turn sponsor TPUSA events.

:{

}:

The groups also share some personnel. Adam Brandon is both President of Koch-funded FreedomWorks and sits on the TPUSA advisory council. Tommy Hicks is similarly on the national board of the American Enterprise Institute’s Enterprise Club and a TPUSA advisory council member.

Turning Point is not the Kochs’ first foray into UK politics. Previous DeSmog investigations have shown how the fossil fuel magnates fund alt-right media voices centred around Spiked and the Living Marxism network, and use their UK connections to influence the Brexit debate.

TAGS: Turning Point USACharlie KirkTurning Point UKfossil fuel fundedclimate science denial55 Tufton Streetkoch industriesKoch Family FoundationsDonors TrustBrexit

==

lnx

US leaders of a scandal-hit American student movement are touring the UK this week, following the launch of a British branch of the organisation last month.

Advocating climate science denial, “free markets and limited government”, and with numerous links to the fossil fuel industry and Donald Trump, Turning Point claims to have a presence on more than 1,300 college campuses and high schools, engaging in “over 500,000 face-to-face conversations with college students each semester.”

The scandal-hit group has been plagued by incidents of racism and allegations of illegal campaign spending since its launch, with its “professor watchlist” accused of stymying academic freedom.

Nonetheless, Turning Point USA’s (TPUSA) founders are in town this week for a three-stop tour of the UK, making appearances in London, Nottingham and Brighton, where Sussex University Conservative Society is hosting an event.

So, what can we expect?

Read more about Turning Point and Charlie Kirk in DeSmog’s Disinformation Database

Trans-Atlantic Strategy

With a multi-million dollar annual budget, the group is known for its slick videos and well-funded campaigns. But the online launch of its UK spin-off just over a month ago quickly descended into chaos when hundreds of parody Twitter accounts appeared, leaving people wondering which were real and which were fake.

At the time, Turning Point UK (TPUK) received the blessing of various leading pro-Brexit politicians, including Conservative MPs Priti Patel, Steve Baker and Jacob Rees-Mogg, as well as former UKIP leader Nigel Farage.

A leaked memo from fellow US youth conservative organisation, Young America’s Foundation, warned its activists about associating with Turning Point, however, referencing the group’s alleged harbouring of “racists and Nazi sympathizers.”

Similarly, the UK Conservative Party advised its student associations “not to work with [TPUK] in any capacity”.

Speakers at a TPUK event in London on Sunday included Chloe Westley, campaign manager of campaign group the Taxpayers’ Alliance, which shares offices at 55 Tufton Street with the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), the UK’s premier climate science denial group. And among the guests at TPUK’s formal launch event in December were climate science denier columnists James Delingpole and Rod Liddle, *Buzzfeed* reported.

...

Climate Science Denial and Fossil Fuel Funding

When asked at the launch event to reveal who funds TPUK, John Mappin, a Scientologist who owns a castle in Cornwall and is one of the key figures behind the group, answered: “Well, the whole idea is to stay anonymous… That's how they do it in the United States. It actually doesn't matter who funds it because it’s about the ideas.”

But some of TPUSA’s funding has been revealed. And, given the group’s penchant for climate science denial, unsurprisingly a lot of it seems to come from the fossil fuel industry.

TPUSA previously produced a video that claims, and founder Charlie Kirkhas publicly supported President Trump’s assertion that he will withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement.

TPUSA also played a key role in organising opposition to student campaigns for universities to divest from fossil fuels. In 2016, the organisation distributed a pro-fossil fuels guide for campuses called “Fossil Fuels Save Lives,” which claimed that students were being “indoctrinated to believe the myth that fossil fuels are dirty.”

A leading figure for the UK group, Darren Grimes, who is embroiled in a scandal over spending on the Leave campaignduring the Brexit referendum, has also expressed scepticism about the threat of climate change. He tweeted in response to recent school strikes for climate that:

Kirk, who set up TPUSA in 2012, has openly admitted soliciting funds from the fossil fuel industry, acknowledging in an interview with the *New Yorker* that some of TPUSA’s donors “are in the fossil-fuel space.”

He has also spoken and fund-raised at fossil fuel industry events, including with the National Mining Association and the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), a trade association representing US oil and gas producers.

Turning Point has a partnership with Prager University, a non-profit largely funded by fracking industry billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks which seeks to spread “'Americanism' through the power of the Internet.”

TPUSA is also funded by, who own Hanley Petroleum, as well as the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which act as a vehicle for big donors to funnel donations anonymously to conservative organisations, many of which spread doubt about climate science.

In particular, the Donors Trust acts as a vehicle for donations from the Koch brothers, owners of the US’s largest privately-owned fossil fuel company. The Kochs fund organisations including the Heritage Foundation and the Foundation for Economic Education, which in turn sponsor TPUSA events.

...

==

new

https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/trump-supporting-groups-chapter-president-was-caught-on-tape-promoting-white-power-and-hurling-racists-slurs/

Trump-linked right wing conservative college group :{Turning Point USA:(style="box-sizing:border-box;outline:none;margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: has removed the president of its University of Nevada, Las Vegas chapter after he appeared in a viral “white power” video.

TPUSA-UNLV president Riley Grisar appears in the video making the “OK” hand sign “employed by many in the alt-right, and then saying ‘white power’ twice,” Talking Points Memo reports.

“We’re going to rule the country. White power,” yells an unnamed woman sitting next to him in the video. “Fuck the n******,” she says repeatedly.

“Yeah, fuck ‘em all. Fuck ‘em all. That’s right,” says the cameraman, who also says, “white power."

twit vid]

TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk is good friends with Donald Trump Jr., and the two have campaigned for the president together. Kirk also once interviewed President Trump.

Turning Point USA has had more than its fair share of racist and extremist controversies. Its now-former communications director, **Candace Owens**, was excoriated after appearing to defend Adolf Hitler, telling a group in London that he just wanted to make Germany great and his “problem” was his “dreams outside of Germany.” She did not mention the millions of German Jews he massacred, not to mention the millions of others inside and outside Germany’s borders he slaughtered.

The far right wing group was created with funding from Christian right billionaire Republican donor Foster Friess. Friess is likely best known for telling NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell that “this contraceptive thing, my gosh, it’s so – it’s such – inexpensive, you know, back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

NEW

==

who invited her?

https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/trump-fan-candace-owens-goes-down-in-flames-as-rep-ted-lieu-plays-her-bizarre-hitler-remarks-in-a-public-hearing/

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For over a year Republicans and right-wing activists have been promoting the false claim that conservatives are being “silenced” and marginalized on social media platforms. GOP lawmakers love the idea, despite it being entirely false, because it allows them to continue the victimization belief that is at the center of Trumpism: “If only liberals and brown people weren’t part of America we could go back to the way things were” idea. Things were never the way they think they were.

On Tuesday the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Hate Crimes and the Rise of White Nationalism, which was also to “foster ideas about what social media companies can do to stem white nationalist propaganda and hate speech online,” according to the Committee.

Democrats invited representatives from the Anti-Defamation League, Google, Facebook, and other organizations.Republicans invited Turning Point USA’s communications director Candace Owens.

Owens is infamous for her remarks that appeared to be supportive of Hitler, in which she said: “Whenever we say nationalism, the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler.”

“But if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine,” Owens, speaking in London at a TPUSA recruitment event, said. “The problem is that he wanted, he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalise. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German. Everybody to look a different way. To me, that’s not nationalism.”

In fact, Hitler didn’t want to just have “things run well,” he wanted to – and did – exterminate tens of millions of people, including Jews, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and many more.

Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) played those remarks during Tuesday’s hearing.

.@RepTedLieu plays recording of Candace Owens: "I don't know Ms. Owens. I'm not going to characterize her. I'm going to let her own words do the talking. So, I'm going to play for you the first 30 seconds of a statement she made about Adolf Hitler."

Owens responded, only to embarrass herself further. Her remarks were so offensive the Chairman of the Committee, Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was forced to interject and instruct her that she was not allowed to disparage Members of Congress during a hearing in the manner in which she did.

Embedded video

CSPAN

?

@cspan

Candace Owens: "I think it's pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip…That was unbelievably dishonest…I'm deeply offended by the insinuation of revealing that clip without the question that was asked of me."

41.1K

10:55 AM - Apr 9, 2019

20.8K people are talking about this

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Owens accuses Rep.Lieu of being dishonest and playing a selected clip from the entire video. It should be noted that the question that was asked of her when she made her remarks appearing to defend Hitler had nothing to do with Hitler. She chose to bring up Hitler.

Her remarks when publicized were so offensive that Turning Point USA chapters wrote letters denouncing her.

==

==

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity

==

book

https://www.amazon.com/Campus-Battlefield-Conservatives-Battle-Matters/dp/1642930946

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Post Hill Press (October 9, 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781642930948
• ISBN-13: 978-1642930948
• ASIN: 1642930946
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #184,797 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #178 in College & University Student Life (Books)
  • #660 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism
  • #717 in Political Commentary & Opinion

==

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_Hill_Press

Post Hill Press, distributed by Simon & Schuster, is a United States print and e-book publishing house. The company was founded in 2013, and has offices in New York City and Nashville, Tennessee. It publishes pop culture, business, self-help, health, current events, Christian and conservative political books. In 2017, the company added the Bombardier Books division for conservative politics and military books.

Authors published by Post Hill include media personalities and political figures such as Teen Mom stars Maci Bookout and Kailyn Lowry,^[2] Venezuelan actress and fashion model Patricia Velasquez,^[3] former presidential candidate Herman Cain,^[4] former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan,^[5] and Dancing With the Stars dancer Karina Smirnoff.^[6]

Post Hill's publisher is Anthony Ziccardi, formerly publisher of Humanix Books (a division of Newsmax Media) and associate publisher of Simon & Schuster's Gallery imprint.^[7]

References

1. ^ Our Valued Clients
2. ^ "The Reality Star Tome Trend: Can Anyone Get a Book Deal?". Yahoo Celebrity.
3. ^ "World's First Latina Supermodel Patricia Velasquez Hosts Book Release Party for Memoir, "Straight Walk:{":(style="padding-right:0.2em"):}:". Latin Post.
4. ^ "Check Out Herman Cain's New Book: The Right Problems: What the President, Congress, and Every Candidate Should Be Working On-Out January 2016". Fox News.
5. ^ ":{':(style="padding-left:0.2em"):}:The Mayor' by Richard Riordan short on revelations, insight". LA Times.
6. ^ ":{':(style="padding-left:0.2em"):}:Dancing with the Stars' dancer Karina Smirnoff shares dating disasters, advice". Chicago Tribune.
7. ^ "Ziccardi Joins Post Hill Books as Publisher". Publishers Weekly.

External links

• Official website

Categories: 

• Book publishing companies based in New York (state)
• 2014 establishments in New York City
• 2014 establishments in Tennessee
• Publishing companies established in 2014

==

wiki

Involvement in 2016 presidential election

In addition, several former employees and student volunteers for Turning Point claimed they had witnessed collusion between high-ranking Turning Point employees – including Kirk himself andtop 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.^[6]

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.^[6]

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.^[41]

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.^[44]

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."^[45]

In May 2017, DePaul University refused to allow Turning Point to post "Gay Lives Matter" posterson campus. Matt Lamb, a spokesperson for Turning Point, said that the action by DePaul was an infringement of free speech rights.^[46]

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.^[47]

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.^[48][49] Following widespread ridicule on social media, the student-run publication KentWired.com reported that the Turning Point chapter at Kent State had disbanded.^[50]

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.' ^[51]

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."^[52]

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."^[53]

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.^[54]

The Hill reported in February 2019 that Benny Johnson – who was fired from BuzzFeed in 2014 for multiple instances of plagiarism, and later let go by Independent Journal Review for multiple problems, including plagiarism – was joining TPUSA as their "Chief Creative Officer".^[55]

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."^[6][56] 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."^[6] 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."^[6]

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.^[57]

Charlie Kirk has said Turning Point USA has no relationship with alt-right groups.^[58] In 2017, Turning Point chapters organized campus visits by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos to the University of Colorado Boulder and Miami University (Ohio).^[59][60][61]

In 2018, The Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Watch documented TPUSA's links to white supremacists.^[62][63]

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.^[64] In addition, the YAF memo included another memo on the subject circulated internally by YoungAmericans 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.^[65]

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."^[66]

In the Hillsdale College Daily 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." ^[67]

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.^[68] Since then, West has re-affirmed his support for President Trump.^[69]

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.^[70]

Founder Charlie Kirk

The group's founder, Charlie Kirk

The group's founder and current leader, Charlie Kirk, grew up inProspect Heights, Illinois.^[71] Kirk became politically active during high school. In his junior year of school in 2010, Kirk volunteered for the successful U.S. Senate campaign of Illinois Republican Mark Kirk (to whom he is not related).^[72]

In 2012 when he was a high school senior, Kirk wrote an essay for Breitbart News alleging liberal bias in high school textbooks leading to an appearance on the Fox Business Network. At a subsequent speaking engagement at Benedictine University's "Youth Empowerment Day," Kirk met Bill Montgomery, a retiree more than 50 years his senior, who was then a Tea Party-backed legislative candidate. Montgomery encouraged Kirk to get engaged in political activism full-time. He subsequently founded Turning Point USA. At the 2012 Republican National Convention, Kirk met Foster Friess, a prominent Republican donor, and persuaded him to finance the organization.^[8]

According to Kirk, he dreamed of attending the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, but his application was rejected.^[26] According to The New Yorker, Kirk said "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 later said he was being sarcastic when he made the comment.^[73]

Kirk took general education classes at Harper College, a local community college. He founded Turning Point USA while studying at Harper.^[72]

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.^[74] The Dallas Morning News described Kirk as leading the "millennial assault" for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.^[75]

Kirk wrote the 2018 book Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives Can WIN the Battle on Campus and Why It Matters. In a review for The Weekly Standard, Adam Rubenstein described the book as a "hot mess", "nothing more a marketing pitch for TPUSA" and said the "thin" book was "stuffed with reprintings of his tweets and quotes from others."^[76]

In 2018, Kirk praised Kanye West for getting involved in politics and advocating for President Trump. Later that year when Taylor Swift endorsed a Democrat in the Tennessee Senate race, Kirk condemned her endorsement and told her to "stay away from politics."^[77] Kirk suggested, without evidence, that Swift had not written her endorsement.^[78] Kirk said it was "ridiculous" for Swift to accuse Republican Marsha Blackburn of being hostile to LGBT rights and women's rights; Blackburn has a well-documented history of anti-LGBT positions, which Swift cited in her endorsement.^[78]

In December 2018, Kirk falsely claimed that protesters in France's "yellow vests" movement chanted "We want Trump." Kirk's false claims were later repeated by President Trump. The videos in support of the claim were from a far-right protest in London, not from the yellow vest movement in France.^[79] He also falsely claimed that Cuba has 15 years lower life expectancy than the United States, while in fact it has a higher life expectancy, and that 85% of all jobs in the private sector in USA come from small businesses, while that number is less than 50%.^[80]

Turning Point UK

Turning Point UK (TPUK) is a British offshoot of Turning Point USA,^[81][82][83] set up to challenge left-wing political ideology perceived to be dominant in UK schools, colleges and universities.^{[84][85][86][87][88]}

Turning Point UK's chairman is George Farmer^[82][83] (fiance of Candace Owens)^[89] and it employs several staff.^[86]

The organisation 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.^[86] Like Turning Point USA, it does not disclose the identities of its donors.^[86]

The group was launched in December 2018^[86] by Kirk and Owens^[89][90] at the Royal Automobile Club in London.^[86] Among those attending the event were Andy Wigmore, Paul Joseph Watson and James Delingpole.^[86][83] On the day of its social media launch in February 2019, MPs including Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel tweeted supportive messages for the organisation,^[82][83] while it was marked for criticism by left-wing British newspapers and their supporters^[83][89] and the launch of its Twitter account was sabotaged by multiple parody accounts, including a few created by a ‘left-leaning student’ calling himself ‘Skeptical Seventh’.^[90][91][92] There was also a protest from the charity Turning Point over potential confusion caused by similarities between the two names.^[93]

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”.^[94]

alt rt

I'm so excited with the turnout for Young Americans for Liberty at SJSU during the Student Organization Fair. With the help of current YAL members and our friend and ally from Michigan, we had the chance to engage in conversation with so many students about the liberty movement. It makes me happy to see how so many people took genuine interest to have an open dialogue with us in a time where tensions have been higher than ever. Photo Credit: Isaac Edikauskas (YAL Michigan State Chair)

#youngamericansforliberty #SJSU #YAL #CampusAction

salon

...

Trump lapdogs fetched and rolled over on command recently at CPAC— a gathering of the American right under the sponsorship of the American Conservative Union, or in the words of former Trump official, Count Seb Gorka, “The biggest conclave of conservatives in the United States.”

A dedicated masochist, perhaps bored with the kinkier elements of internet pornography, might want to watch some of the speeches and panel discussions from CPAC, all of them now on YouTube. More than depraved thrills, they offer insight into the modern right wing. Charlie Kirk, the leader of Turning Point USA, an organization committed to Trumpian evangelical work on college campuses, told an approving audience that “liberals have always hated America.” Kirk’s consigliere, Candice Owens, a black Republican who recently told an audience that Hitler would have been fine if he “just wanted to make Germany great,” cited as evidence that racism no longer exists in America the fact that she “has never been a slave.” Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, advocated arming everyone but toddlers as the solution for every social ill. And speaking of guns, Jerry Falwell Jr., a nut that did not fall far from the family tree, implied that his sons would shoot Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez if she tries to take their cows.

The main event, of course, was President Donald Trump. The emperor made his entrance to the blaring mawkishness of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” and actually hugged a large American flag, while grinning ear to ear. The audience roared as Trump made it to first base with the Stars and Stripes. It was one of many times they would rise to their feet in ecstatic displays of devotion. Trump’s speech combined megalomania with right-wing observational comedy. It was almost a combination of Fidel Castro and Jerry Seinfeld, if both men were incoherent.

The most alarming aspect of the speech was not that Trump lied about easily verifiable matters. For example, he claimed that when he took office the stock market was “headed down toward disaster.” (In reality, it finished 2016 with a 13.6 percent gain.) It wasn’t even that Trump lied about matters that might result in the eradication of women’s rights and violence toward elected officials. He repeated the slander, now popular in right-wing circles, that Democrats want to rewrite laws so that doctors can execute live babies after birth. The most disturbing part of the horror show was that no matter how absurd, narcissistic or psychotic Trump became — bragging about his inaugural crowd, inventing stories about conversations with a military general named “Raisin Cane,” mocking concerns about climate change — the audience dutifully and enthusiastically stood at attention, cheering, laughing and applauding. CPAC’s own internal survey showed that 91 percent of attendees “strongly approve” of Trump’s performance as president.

The giddiness of the crowd makes other polling numbers seem rather banal when they indicate that 45 percent of Trump supporters believe that white people are the most oppressed group in the United States, and that 45 percent also believe Jefferson Davis would make a better president than Barack Obama. During the 2016 campaign, majorities of Trump voters believed that his run for the presidency represented America’s “last chance for survival,” and that Obama was born outside the United States.

Fox News has become the bastion of far-right conspiracy theory, which amounts to little more than good business, considering that 46 percent of Trump voters believe that Hillary Clinton’s emails include details regarding “Pizzagate” — the theory that the former secretary of state and first lady was running a pedophile sex ring from the back room of a Washington pizza parlor. Sixty-two percent of Trump voters believe that “millions of illegal immigrants” cast votes, presumably for Clinton, in the 2016 race. Brett Kavanaugh, some might recall, during his testimony in front of the Senate asserted that Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations that he had sexually assaulted her was orchestrated as “revenge for the Clintons.”

Trump’s base does not represent a political movement as much as it constitutes a nervous breakdown in motion. Like any psychotic detachment from reality, it will not happen without painful consequences. Two-thirds of terrorist attacks in the United States are now tied to right-wing extremist groups, the ADL reports a staggering increase in right-wing incidents of anti-Semitism, and everything from white supremacist organizations to state militias continue to show an increase in membership as “conservative” Americans are becoming radicalized to believe anything, and adopt hostility toward the very idea of multicultural democracy....

==

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/viral-video-showing-covington-catholic-high-school-students-prompts-propaganda-warfare-2

many lnx images (vid?)

Viral Video Showing Covington Catholic High School Students Prompts Propaganda Warfare

By Jared Holt | January 22, 2019 2:33 pm

(Screenshot / Fox News Channel)

In a video that went viral, a group of students from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky appeared to mock indigenous activist Nathan Phillips, who encountered the teens at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., after participating in last weekend’s Indigenous Peoples March. The teens had just taken part in the annual March for Life, a parade of Catholic high schools and right-wing groups who oppose reproductive rights and hope to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal in all 50 states. After the video spread on Twitter over the weekend, the teens’ families hired a communications firm to launch multi-level public relations campaign to wage war against the press.

The viral video shows a young man who has publicly identified himself as Nicholas Sandmann, grinning and standing silently, facing Phillips, just inches from the Omaha tribe elder’s face, while Phillips plays a drum and sings. Sandmann’s classmates parody Phillips as he plays. Twitter has suspended the account that first sent video of the incident viral. Since that video achieved virality, more video clips of the events that day have emerged.

With each new video clip, right-wing hucksters alleged there was additional proof that the Covington Catholic boys should be exonerated for their display, despite the fact that none of the subsequent video clips prove that the boys did not demonstrate disrespectful behavior toward Phillips—rather, all video evidence reaffirmed that interpretation. What the clips did do, however, is provide documentation of verbal harassment of the boys by demonstrators from a Black Hebrew Israelite group prior to their encounter with indigenous activists. Despite the fact that additional footage showed the kids had been riled up before encountering Phillips, the clips do not change the facts of what happened after they did.

A response to the viral video first launched in a part of right-wing internet that could be aptly likened to a landfill and ascended into the stratosphere. The pushback campaign first took off with fame-hungry media personalities like YouTube hoaxer Joey Salads, climbed through a mill of pro-Trump propagandists, thrust itself into “respectable” conservative outlets, and eventually reached its cruising altitude at Fox News—an elevation where President Donald Trump encountered the narrative and tweeted out its message to the nation[djt tweet]

Right-wing activists created and spread hashtags like #VerifiedBullies and #StandWithCovington. Others began building a database of verified Twitter users who had criticized the teens—and in extreme cases provoked harassment and violent rhetoric against the students—and demanded that those users be suspended and, if they were media professionals, to be fired. So far, that campaign has cost at least one media professional their job. All the while, right-wing personalities siphoned off the outrage campaign to promote their own personally branded media efforts.

Charlie Kirk, president of Turning Point USA, asked how “anyone still trust the media after this weekend” and declared that journalism “is dead.”

...

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no lnx

The Washington Post

‘These children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas.’

A migrant girl from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America, cries after running away from tear gas thrown by U.S. border agents. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)]

By Tim Elfrink and

Fred Barbash November 26 at 6:09 AM

A little girl from Honduras stares into the camera, her young features contorted in anguish. She’s barefoot, dusty, and clad only in a diaper and T-shirt. And she’s just had to run from clouds of choking tear gas fired across the border by U.S. agents.

A second photograph, which also circulated widely and rapidly on social media, shows an equally anguished woman frantically trying to drag the same child and a second toddler away from the gas as it spreads.

The three were part of a much larger group, perhaps 70 or 80 men, women and children, pictured in a wider-angle photo fleeing the tear gas. Reuters photographer Kim Kyung-Hoon shot the images, which provoked outrage and seemed at odds with President Trump’s portrayal of the caravan migrants as “criminals” and “gang members.”

Trump officials said that authorities had to respond with force after hundreds of migrants rushed the border near Tijuana on Sunday, some of them throwing “projectiles” at Customs and Border Protection personnel.

:{

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The chaos erupted Sunday around the bustling San Ysidro border crossing, which Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said was closed “to ensure public safety in response to large numbers of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. illegally.”

But Democratic leaders, human rights advocates and others focused on the images of the two children in particular. Many pointed to the children left gagging from the gas attack as evidence that Trump’s push against a caravan of asylum seekers from Central America had gone too far.

“Shooting tear gas at children is not who we are as Americans,” tweeted Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “Seeking asylum is not a crime. We must be better than this.”

[Why tear gas, lobbed at migrants on the southern border, is banned in warfare]

Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor-elect of California, argued that images of kids sprinting from tear gas run counter to American ideals.

:{

}:

“These children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas,” he tweeted. “Women and children who left their lives behind — seeking peace and asylum — were met with violence and fear. That’s not my America. We’re a land ofrefuge. Of hope. Of freedom. And we will not stand for this.”

Others, such as Democratic Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, noted that the families at the border crossing were fleeing violent conditions in Central America and had the right to seek asylum.

Asking to be considered a refugee & applying for status isn’t a crime.

It wasn’t for Jewish families fleeing Germany.

It wasn’t for targeted families fleeing Rwanda.

It wasn’t for communities fleeing war-torn Syria.

And it isn’t for those fleeing violence in Central America. https://t.co/qhv7Rr1itn

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 25, 2018

Unlike the relatively bipartisan criticism of Trump’s now-abandoned family-separation method of deterring migrants, the initial outrage at the tear-gassing of children appeared to come primarily from Democrats and critics of the president.

Some on the right expressed the view that the migrants could avoid getting tear-gassed by not hurling projectiles or by not attempting to cross the border “illegally.”

If you don’t want to be hit with tear gas when entering a country illegally then don’t enter the country illegally

:{

}:

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 26, 2018

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Trump’s response in an early-morning tweet on Monday was to call for Mexico to return the migrants to their home countries, and to again threaten to “close the border permanently.”

That’s never been done, and experts interviewed by The Washington Post on Sunday night knew of no provision explicitly allowing Trump to permanently close the borders. Most of the border, with the exception of designated crossings, is already closed, which doesn’t stop migrants from entering.

[Borderline: Navigating the invisible boundary and physical barriers that define the U.S.-Mexico border]

So it probably would not solve Trump’s problems with asylum seekers, who, by law, must be allowed to present their claims if in fact they are able to cross the border anywhere.

“This is yet another of several Trump attempts to change what he disparagingly calls the policy of ‘catch and release’ without or against legal authority,” said Yale Law School’s Harold Hongju Koh, legal adviser to the State Department during the Obama administration. “All have been blocked. What he does not understand,” Koh said in an email, “is that everyone crossing our Southern border is not illegally present. Those with valid asylum claims have a legal right to assert those claims and remain.”

Closing the border “permanently” or otherwise would conflict with the asylum laws, agreed Peter S. Margulies, an immigration law expert at Roger Williams University School of Law.

Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the WALL!

:{

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— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2018

:{

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Had the migrants made it to the border and presented themselves as asylum seekers, U.S. officials would have been required by federal law to consider their claim before sending them back to Mexico. Indeed, they are required to do so whether the migrants cross at a designated point of entry or anywhere else.

U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar forcefully reminded Trump of that law last week when he issued a nationwide restraining order against the president’s plan to consider asylum requests only from migrants who cross at legal checkpoints. It was Tigar’s ruling that prompted Trump to lash out last week against the “Obama judge” and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which in turn brought a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Trump’s legal options appear limited. “The border is very long,” Margulies told The Post. But if the administration can “stop people just short of the border, there’s a better argument that those people are not entitled to asylum. I think it would be terrible policy and I think it would be morally repugnant,” he said, “but the administration would be on better legal footing.”

Attempting to stop them short of the border appears to be just what Trump may be planning.

The Post’s Joshua Partlow and Nick Miroff, citing Mexican officials and senior members of President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s transition team, reported that the administration is working with the incoming government of Mexico on a plan that would require asylum seekers to wait in that country while their claims moved through U.S. courts.

While Trump hinted at such a possibility in a tweet Saturday, he did not offer any detail. He could try to invoke an exception to the law called “safe third country,” which permits the government to keep asylum seekers in another country, in this case Mexico, under a bilateral agreement while their claims are being considered in the United States.

However, there are several catches to that provision, American Civil Liberties Union immigration attorney Lee Gelernt told The Post on Sunday night. If and when an agreement is worked out, the law says, “there needs to be an assurance that individuals waiting on the Mexican side are safe, not just from the Mexican government but from gangs” and others.

"We believe it would be impossible for the U.S.” to make that assurance, he added.

Tim Elfrink joined The Washington Post in 2018

CNN)

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office has filed three felony charges and one misdemeanor against Zachary Greenbergafter an attack on the University of California Berkeley campus against a conservative activist. The attack was caught on video.

UC Berkeley campus police arrested Greenberg on Friday. He bonded out of jail and his arraignment is set for Wednesday. CNN has reached out to Greenberg's representatives for comment.

The attack occurred at Sproul Plaza on February 19, officials said. Turning Point USA identified the alleged victim to CNN asHayden Williams, who had been invited to UC Berkeley to help recruit students for a yet-to-be-formed chapter on campus.

Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Warren filed the charges against Greenberg. They include felony assault, felony battery, felony criminal threats and a misdemeanor vandalism charge. The criminal threats charge says it is a "serious felony" and further alleges "that the threatened crime, on its face and under the circumstances in which it was made, was so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate and specific as to convey to Hayden Williams a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution."

Before the charges were filed, a media representative for Williams said he is a field representative for the Leadership Institute,an organization that helps train conservative leaders. Williams is not a UC Berkeley student, the representative said.

"The fact that the victim was not a campus affiliate has no bearing on this case. He had every right to be on campus, and every right to express his point of view," said university spokesman Dan Mogulof.

Incident caught on video, shows two attackers

A short video recorded by a witness shows Williams and a man struggling before the man punches Williams in the face, knocking his hat off. The alleged suspect then gets close to Williams' face, calls him "racist," and shouts profanities before punching Williams again and walking away.

Williams told CNN shortly after the assault that he was fine but declined to answer other questions. He was treated at the scene, his media representative said.

Arda Erbil, the student who shot the footage provided to CNN, said he saw two men harassing Williams. As one of the men became physical, Erbil began to record video.

"Seeing something like that happen in such an open place was disheartening," he said.

The University of California Police Department said in a statement that officers responded to a "report of a disturbance" on upper Sproul Plaza, a center of student activity on campus, where they found the injured victim. According to the police statement, the victim said that two men approached him, a verbal altercation ensued and he began recording the interaction on his phone.

One of the men "slapped the phone out of the victim's hand," police said. "The suspect then knocked over the table the victim was at and the two men struggled over the phone. During the incident, the suspect punched the victim several times causing injury to the victim's eye and nose."

Williams told Fox News' Sean Hannity shortly after the attack that some students were upset by a sign he had displayed at his recruitment table that said, "Hate Crime Hoaxes Hurt Real Victims" -- apparently a reference to "Empire" actor Jussie Smollett, who has been accused of staging what he maintains was a hate crime against him.

What's next for Jussie Smollett, in his case and his career

"This person claimed we were promoting violence on campus and proceeded to take his aggression out on us," Williams told Hannity.

University condemns assault

UC Berkeley's chancellor and vice chancellor condemned the assault in a statement February 21, calling it "reprehensible."

"That sort of behavior is intolerable and has no place here," the statement said. "Our commitment to freedom of expression and belief is unwavering."

The statement added that university officials have "no information indicating" the perpetrators are affiliated with UC Berkeley.

The incident illustrates the "hate and anger so many on the left harbor and that our student activists encounter on a daily basis," Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA's founder and president, said in a statement last month.

"Our amazing grassroots organizers courageously face threats of violence and discrimination as they fight for the right for conservative voices to be heard on college campuses," Kirk said, adding he was proud of how the group's student activists handled the situation.

Campus known for promoting free speech accused of bias against conservative views

While UC Berkeley has a long history of promoting the tenants of free speech, in recent years there have been protests against conservatives and far right ideologues that have turned violent.

In 2017, a number of protests broke out ahead of speaking engagements by conservative commentators such as Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter. Neither of those events went forward.

Later that year, conservative radio host Ben Shapiro gave a talk as protesters swarmed outside. Nine people were arrested, but the protests appeared to be mostly peaceful.

CNN's Sarah Moon and Margaret Shuttleworth contributed to this report.

==

A conservative activist was punched in the face at UC Berkeley. The ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/.../conservative-activist-was-punched-face-u...

Mar 1, 2019 - 19 while he was recruiting at UC Berkeley. ... The group Williams was working with on campus, Turning Point USA, was founded in 2012 as a ...

Missing: Talking

Arrest made in UC Berkeley attack on conservative activist - AP News

https://apnews.com/46169d225b604e6a9e6726a1daf3f82e

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1.

:{Mar 2, 2019 - (AP) — :{University:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: of :{California:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, :{Berkeley:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: police have arrested a man they say was captured on video ... :{19:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: assault on :{Hayden Williams:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. It's unclear whether Greenberg has an attorney. Williams was :{recruiting:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: for the :{conservative group Talking Points USA:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: at a school plaza when two men approached and ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Arrest Made in UC Berkeley Attack on Conservative Activist ...

https://www.newsmax.com › Newsfront

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:{Mar 1, 2019 - :{University:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: of :{California:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, :{Berkeley:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: police have arrested a man they say was captured on video punching a ... :{19:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: assault on :{Hayden Williams:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. It's unclear whether Greenberg has an attorney. Williams was :{recruiting:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: for the :{conservative group Talking Points USA:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: at a school plaza when two men approached ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Conservative activist attack on UC Berkeley campus: Felony charges ...

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/politics/charges-possible-conservative.../index.html

Mar 5, 2019 - Man accused of attacking a conservative activist on UC Berkeley campus faces felony charges .... The attack occurred at Sproul Plaza on February 19, officials said. Turning Point USAidentified the alleged victim to CNN as Hayden Williams, who had been invited to UC Berkeley to help recruit students for a ...

Trump: Hayden Williams 'took a hard punch in the face for all of us ...

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11934

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1.

:{Mar 2, 2019 - Trump said :{Williams:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, who was assaulted at :{UC:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:-:{Berkeley:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: on :{Feb. 19:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, "took a hard punch in the face for all of :{us:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:." President Donald Trump, while :{speaking:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Saturday at the :{Conservative:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Political Action ... 19 while helping :{conservative groups recruit:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: new members. :{Williams:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:' .... 'for allowing it to get to this :{point:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:'.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

A Right Hook in Berkeley Revives Debate Over Campus Speech - The ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/01/us/berkeley-assault-campus-free-speech.html

Mar 1, 2019 - The assault revived a debate over tolerance of conservative views on college ... Hayden Williams was helping a campus group that was recruiting ... SAN FRANCISCO — The University of California Police Department on ... of the brawl at the Berkeley campus in February 2017 when a group ... More in U.S..

Correction: Trump-Campus Free Speech story - Chicago Tribune

www.chicagotribune.com/.../sns-bc-us--trump-campus-free-speech-20190304-story.ht...

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{Mar 8, 2019 - ... :{Hayden Williams:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, who was :{recruiting:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: on :{Feb. 19:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: at the :{University:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: of :{California:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, :{Berkeley:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, for the :{conservative group Talking Points USA:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: when ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Conservative activist assaulted at UC-Berkeley campus during ...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/conservative-activist-assaulted-at-uc-berkeley-campus-duri...

Published February 21 ... Video shows attack on conservative activist on UC Berkeley campus ... a table where the activist was recruiting members to his group, and an ... The alleged victim, identified by Turning Point USA as Hayden Williams, held up his cell ... “Our amazing Turning Point USA team was talking and then ...

'Go Get 'Em, Hayden' – Trump Hails Conservative Assaulted on Cal ...

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/.../hayden-trump-hails-victim-punched-cal-campus/

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{Mar 2, 2019 - Trump invited :{Hayden Williams:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: to join him Saturday while he addressed activists attending the ... :{19:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: while on the campus of :{University:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: of :{California:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, :{Berkeley:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. He was :{recruiting:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: for the :{conservative group Talking Points USA:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:.:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

Trump to order colleges to back free speech or lose funding | WSET

wset.com/.../trump-to-order-colleges-to-back-free-speech-or-lose-funding-03-21-201...

:{:(style="border-color:#006621;;border-style:solid;border-width:5px 4px 0px;width:0px;height:0px;margin-left:3px;top:7.5px;margin-top:-4px;position:absolute;left:0px"):}:

1.

:{1 day ago - ... 2 speech to :{conservative:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: activists, highlighting the case of :{Hayden Williams:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, ... for the :{group:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: Turning :{Point USA:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: at the :{University:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: of :{California:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, :{Berkeley:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:. ... :{19:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: case at :{Berkeley:(style="font-weight:bold"):}:, neither Williams nor the man arrested for the attack ... If a :{speaking:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: event threatens to turn violent, for example, some say they ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

==

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity

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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 coördinate 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 provocateurMiloYiannopoulos, 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 StateUniversity 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 coördinate 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.

Audio: Listen to Ginni Thomas’s voice mail.

“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 coördinated 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

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Jane Mayer has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1995.Read more »

nyer

Some speakers began to lose their taste for on-campus provocation. In March, Richard Spencer appeared at Michigan State University. Two dozen protesters and counterprotesters were arrested outside the venue—the Pavilion for Agriculture and Livestock Education—and Spencer ended up speaking to a near-empty hall. Afterward, he posted a video. “I really hate to say this, and I definitely hesitate to say this,” he said, “but Antifa is winning.”

The last time I checked, the only content on FreeSpeechWeek.com was a photo of Yiannopoulos and the words “milo will return to berkeley in spring 2018.” I texted Yiannopoulos, who had recently been shilling dietary supplements from the InfoWars studio, in Texas, to ask whether this was true. “Yes I am going back to Berkeley,” he responded. “Working it out with the students now.” No one at U.C. Berkeley had heard about any such plans.

Still, conservative speech at Berkeley continued in Yiannopoulos’s absence. In April, Charlie Kirk, the executive director of the national conservative student group Turning Point U.S.A. and a friend of Donald Trump, Jr., announced that he would give a talk at Berkeley. He tweeted:

My message will be quite clear:

:{

}:

Open borders are inhumane

:{

}:

We must build a militarized wall

:{

}:

There are only 2 genders

:{

}:

Berkeley should be defunded.

Speaking alongside Kirk was Turning Point’s communications director, Candace Owens, a vitriolic young conservative with a knack for creating viral moments.Before she went by her own name, Owens was a YouTuber who called herself Red Pill Black, a reference to the fact that she was an African-American who had “escaped the Democrat plantation.” Near the beginning of the talk, two hecklers stood up, and one of them shouted, “These aren’t ideas, this is Fascism.” They were ejected, and the audience cheered. “Antifa, if you really take a look at their platform . . . they seem to be the ones that are the white supremacists,” Owens said. “They feel like their ideas are so supreme to everybody else’s that they have the right to boycott, to be violent.”

Four days after the panel, Kanye West tweeted, “I love the way Candace Owens thinks,” followed by several tweets in which he expressed his “love” for Donald Trump. Despite widespread bewilderment and outrage, West refused to back down, insisting that his views were not about politics per se but about the higher principle of untrammelled expression. “Love who you want to love,” West tweeted. “That’s free thought.”

In late May, Congress held a hearing on “Challenges to the Freedom of Speech on College Campuses.” One of the witnesses was Bret Weinstein, a biologist who, until recently, taught at Evergreen State College, in Olympia, Washington. Last year, after he wrote a controversial e-mail, students protested and demanded that he be fired. Amid growing unrest on campus, a group of students posted a photo of themselves wielding baseball bats. Weinstein sued the college, alleging that it had failed to protect him from “threats of physical violence,” and left his teaching job. The college admitted no wrongdoing, but settled for half a million dollars. At the congressional hearing, Weinstein was introduced with the title Professor-in-Exile. “The First Amendment is simply not sufficient to protect the free exchange of ideas,” he said.

Near the end of the school year, I met Erwin Chemerinsky, the law-school dean, at a coffee shop in downtown Berkeley. “There is no guarantee that the marketplace of ideas will lead to truth, and that’s obviously a big problem,” he said. He is a Voltairean, not a Panglossian. Nonetheless, he continued, “My distrust of government is so great that I can’t think of a way to address that problem without making it worse.” Later, I talked to john powell. “There are any number of areas—gay rights, animal rights, housing—where legal reformers have set out to change the law,” he said. “If our speech laws looked more like Canada’s, would that be the end of democracy as we know it?”

==

• Simon Maloy read the book by Turning Point USA'sCharlie Kirk. Kirk, a staple on Fox News, is relevant largely because of friendships with the Trump family.

Reading the mess of a book, Maloy comes to the following conclusion: "This is why the Trump family loves Kirk; he and his book are pure expressions of Trumpist politics. He leans intensely on white grievance while mocking the plights of minorities (one chapter is titled 'Black Victimization Bunco'); he demands the in-group (conservative students) receive protection and status ('safe spaces,' unchallenged expression of any idea) while also demanding that protection and status be denied to out-groups (liberals, minorities); and he makes zero effort to reconcile these contradictions while substituting aggressive combativeness for substantive heft. It’s a simple trick: posture as an alpha tough guy, but when the slightest offense arises, performatively howl like a whipped dog."

Kirk's group is best known for the time that its members wore diapers.

Also: After Taylor Swift endorsed Democrats in Tennessee, Kirk endorsed a 4chan conspiracy theory that she may not have formed political opinions on her own.

==

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ron-desantis-david-horowitz-race-war

Sunday, the Washington Post detailed Florida GOP gubernatorial candidate Rep. Ron DeSantis' ties to an extremist group founded by far-right activist David Horowitz.

According to the Post, DeSantis was a speaker in at least four "Restoration Weekend" conferences hosted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC) in 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017 in Palm Beach, Florida, and Charleston, South Carolina.

At the 2015 engagement in Charleston, DeSantis said, "I just want to say what an honor it’s been to be here to speak ... David has done such great work and I’ve been an admirer. I’ve been to these conferences in the past butI’ve been a big admirer of an organization that shoots straight, tells the American people the truth and is standing up for the right thing."

At the DHFC events, DeSantis appeared alongside such figures as Milo Yiannopoulos, the former Breitbart writer who called feminism "cancer" and defended statutory rape; James Damore, the author of the "Google memo" that called women genetically inferior at computing jobs; andCharlie Kirk, the president of Turning Point USA, a far-right youth group that is engineering takeovers of student elections on college campuses.

Horowitz himself, once a prominent member of the New Left movement in the 1960s, has gone on to preach an ideology of hate against immigrants, Muslims, and people of color. He has said the Palestinian people are Nazis, compared Black Lives Matter to the KKK and al-Qaeda, claimed former President Barack Obama was "inviting the terrorists to behead more Americans," said that blacks "would still be slaves" if not for "the sacrifices of white soldiers," and argued that the "real race war" in America is against white people.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Horowitz has also used his online periodical, FrontPage Mag, to promote material from American Renaissance, a white supremacist publication, arguing that its founder Jared Taylor is "no more racist ... than Jesse Jackson and the NAACP."

DeSantis, a devoted supporter of President Donald Trump, has spent the last few weeks facing controversy for his statement that Florida should not "monkey this up" by electing Andrew Gillum, his Democratic opponent and the first African-American major party nominee for governor of Florida.He was also discovered to be the administrator of a racist Facebook group, which he claims he was added to without his knowledge.

-==

https://www.alternet.org/donald-trumps-ambassador-religious-freedom-lobbied-behalf-anti-islam-activist?src=newsletter1094336

an ambassador representing President Donald Trump lobbied the United Kingdom on behalf of jailed activist Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defence League. According to Reuters, the U.S. ambassador inquired about Robinson's safety during a meeting with Britain's ambassador in Washington, D.C.

The discussion about Robinson, who gained worldwide notoriety for his anti-Islam rhetoric, was peculiar considering it was brought up by Sam Brownback, the U.S. ambassador of international religious freedom. Why an ambassador of religious freedom would speak on behalf of a religious persecutor has not yet been explained by the Trump administration.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was arrested in May after broadcasting a Facebook live video outside a courthouse during a child-molestation trial. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison for contempt of court and an additional three more months for breaking the terms of a previous suspended sentence, the Guardian reported.

Robinson has become a figurehead of the alt-right at home and abroad, including the U.S. He has stylized himself as a journalist who covers Islamic issues. In 2009, he founded the English Defence League, a far-right, counter-jihadist group that harasses Muslims.

Robinson's cause has attracted solidarity in America. On Friday, Turning Point U.S.A. founder and staunch Trump supporter Charlie Kirk referenced Robinson in a tweet that attacked the mayor of London.

“Sadiq Khan is trying to lecture the world on ‘free speech’ while Tommy Robinson is locked in a London prison for speaking his mind,” the tweet said.

Robinson's jailing has generated mass protests in Britain. On Saturday, demonstrators campaigning for the release of Robinson incited a riot in central London by blockading a bus being driven by a woman in a headscarf, the Independent reported.

Dozens of protestors reportedly surrounded the bus as it entered Trafalgar Square. The group displayed “Britain Loves Trump” signs as they shoved them on the bus' windows.

Those protestors would be happy to learn that Brownback shared their concerns about Robinson's safety. The failed former governor of Kansas told Kim Darroch, the British ambassador to the U.S., that the U.K. would need to show Robinson more sympathy, otherwise Trump may feel compelled to speak out against the case, Reuters reported.

Brownback's interference on behalf of Robinson represents another situation in which a member of the Trump administration acted counterintuitively to his or her supposed role. Like former EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who rolled back regulations that were designed to protect the environment, Brownback's lobbying efforts could not be justified as an attempt to restore religious freedom. If anything, his lobbying furthered the marginalization of Muslims

==

Owens burst onto the scene recently afterKanye West praised her way of thinking. She is the communications director for Turning Point USA, a group for young pro-Trump supporters that once staged a protest where members all wore diapers.

Owens made more noise this week when she blastedthe #MeToo movement, claiming it was a witch hunt on men. Unbelievably, she also claimed that she talked to CEOs and men in politics, who told her that they were not hiring women. While normal people would be outraged by the admission of illegal hiring practices, Owens used it as a reason to attack #MeToo.

Owens' comments even received criticism from conservative women who pointed out that her rhetoric is damaging to survivors and victims. And that's not the only criticism coming from the right. A competing group for young conservatives wrote a memo calling out Turning Point as damaging. In return, Turning Point seems to have leaked information to a host at Alex Jones' Infowars who Owens has recently praised.

Also: Turning Point held a conference for women. It was full of sexists.

==

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==

mma

Turning Point USA, the student-aimed conservative organization that raises its money by stoking fear among rich conservative donors about the alleged liberalization of college campuses, will host its fourth annual Young Women’s Leadership Summit June 14 through 17. Slated to address the young women attending is a roster packed full of misogynists.

While Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is perhaps most famous for a laughable 2017 stunt in which its members donned adult diapers and sat in oversized playpens to express their outrage over safe spaces, its stated mission is to “identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.” Despite TPUSA’s lofty goals, the organization’s events are often little more than sophomoric spectacles designed to fearmonger -- often via Fox News airtime -- about the supposedly leftist leanings of U.S. colleges. But the group also has a more sinister history that includes hosting serial harassersand defending racists. Overall, TPUSA is focused on combating “political correctness,” and conferences like the Young Women’s Leadership Summit are one vehicle used to accomplish this goal.

TPUSA’s website invites “young, conservative women” to apply to attend the summit, and it promises to deliver “professional development and leadership training,” as well as opportunities to network with fellow young conservatives. While at first glance, the event seems to be about women's empowerment, the slate of speakers scheduled to present says otherwise. The roster includes people who publicly support misogynistic policies, routinely dismiss the importance of issues that advance gender equality, and use dangerously sexist rhetoric. Here is a breakdown of 10 of those speakers and their histories of anti-women messaging:

Charlie Kirk

Jeanine Pirro

Dana Loesch

Kimberly Guilfoyle

Katie Pavlich

Kayleigh McEnany

Tomi Lahren

Ben Shapiro

Candace Owens

Jordan Peterson

Charlie Kirk

The founder, chief fundraiser, and public face of TPUSA, “boy wonder” Charlie Kirk has a long history of attacking feminism and a tendency to dismiss and mischaracterize the problems women face. He is also ever-ready to complain about girls intruding on sacred male spaces like the Boy Scouts.

• More than once, Kirk has taken to Twitter to mischaracterize feminism as man hating, writing that “modern day feminism is much more about hating men than empowering women.”
• Kirk spent the day of the January 2017 Women’s March attacking protesters on Twitter and claimingthere was no need for the protests because “women are actually doing very well.”
• Kirk seems to delight in frequently claiming that there is no gender wage gap (there is). According to his tweets, not only is the wage gap “one of the most dangerous and divisive lies in today’s time,” but “by every metric women are doing much better than men in America.”
• Kirk has a long history of attacking Planned Parenthood, which provides essential health services that are, in some parts of the country, unavailable to women anywhere else.

Jeanine Pirro

At first glance, Fox’s Jeanine Pirro seems an obvious choice for the summit. As the first woman elected to serve as the district attorney in New York’s Westchester County, Pirro spent years working on behalf of abuse survivors, often women and children. Since her years as DA, however, Pirro has seemingly turned her back on abuse victims, using her Fox show, Justice with Judge Jeanine, to downplay sexual misconduct allegations.

• When Pirro’s former Fox colleague Gretchen Carlson reported then-Fox CEO Roger Ailes’ many instances of severe sexual misconduct, Pirro aggressively defended Ailes, dismissing Carlson’s lawsuit as “absurd” and describing Ailes as a “no-nonsense guy.”
• In October 2016, Pirro was quick to defend then-candidate Donald Trump after the release of an Access Hollywood video, which caught him bragging about sexually assaulting women. Two days after the video was released, Pirro dismissed Trump’s violent remarks as “locker room talk" and "frat house language." She also proudly announced that the video did nothing to change her vote, and that Trump was still an undoubtedly better choice than “double-talking woman” Hillary Clinton.
• Days later, when multiple women reported that Trump had touched them inappropriately, Pirro rejectedtheir reports as “a little too convenient” and criticized their timing.

Dana Loesch

NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch is a remarkably bad choice to speak at a women’s conference, considering her numerous glib comments about rape, her mischaracterization of issues that advance gender equality, and her cruel attacks against transgender women. Additionally, Loesch has openly ridiculed college-aged women, the demographic TPUSA’s summit is aiming to capture, for wanting access to contraceptives.

• After conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh aimed misogynistic insults at Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law student who testified in front of Congress about access to contraceptives, Loesch launched a barrage of heinous attacks against her. She denounced Fluke as unable “to control her sexual urges” and claimed that Fluke had testified that she “simply cannot stop getting it on.”
• Loesch then extended her attacks to seemingly include all college-aged women who want access to contraceptives, ridiculing them for acting “like they’re nymphos” and dismissing young women's call for contraceptives coverage as "insulting to the original spirit and intent of the suffrage movement."

• Loesch has a history of making flippant remarks and ill-advised jokes about rape, including comparingthe penalization of gun owners for improperly storing firearms to “shaming a rape survivor.”
• Loesch has been quick to fearmonger about false reports of sexual assault (which researchers say make up only an estimated 2 to 8 percent of allegations), and she came immediately to the defense of former Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) after he claimed that it’s “really rare" for women subjected to "legitimate rape" to become pregnant.
• In addition to her trivializing rhetoric on rape, Loesch has made careless and insensitive comments about gender, including claiming that some women “wouldn’t know what masculinity was if it hit them in the face."
• According to Loesch, the gender wage gap is “an absolute myth.” And after actress Jennifer Lawrence wrote an essay describing her own experience with pay inequality, Loesch denied that “sexism” played a role in Lawrence’s experience, instead accusing Lawrence of having a “self esteem issue.”
• Loesch has additionally aimed cruel and dangerous attacks at transgender women, going out of her way to misgender former soldier and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
• Loesch also claimed that Manning was given “preferential treatment” and an “unnecessary surgery” when she received hormone therapy while in prison. In reality, hormone therapy is medically necessary, and to say otherwise simply serves to dismiss the health needs of transgender women.

Kimberly Guilfoyle

Former Assistant District Attorney Kimberly Guilfoyle has repeatedly used her platform as a Fox News host to make misogynistic and demeaning remarks, and she has spoken out in support of street harassment.

• In a bizarre 2014 endorsement of catcalling, Guilfoyle defended street harassment by arguing that society should “let men be men” and insisting that “men are going to be that way.”
• Later in the same year, during a discussion about women voting, Guilfoyle asserted that “young women on juries are not a good idea” because “they don’t get it.” She went on to contend that they’d be better of going “back on Tinder or Match.com.”
• Guilfoyle has also derided women who have abortions in the third trimester as “selfish and disgusting,” even though women who receive abortions that late in their pregnancies do so because of serious concern for the fetus or their own health and are thus often forced to make heartbreaking and terrifyingmedical decisions.

Katie Pavlich

Katie Pavlich is an editor at the conservative outlet Townhall as well as a Fox News contributor. Pavlich has a history of using insensitive rhetoric and spreading misinformation about sexual assault as well as a tendency to espouse sexist tropes. In 2015, Pavlich gave a disastrous speech on sexual assault at Iowa State University, during which she insulted sexual abuse survivors and spread misinformation about the realities of sexual assault on campuses.

• During the Iowa event, Pavlich argued that the incidence of sexual assaults on college campuses had been exaggerated and advanced the evidence-free notion that allowing students to carry concealed guns on college campuses could reduce sexual assault (the NRA is a sponsor of TPUSA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit). She also made the wildly insulting claim that "lots of the time" women "make a decision about whether you are going to stop a sexual assault or not" before it happens and sarcastically apologized while disagreeing with a woman who shared that she was sexually assaulted as a child.
• In 2016, Pavlich “guarantee[d]” that Russian President Vladimir Putin and “the Saudis” would find then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s voice “grating.”

Kayleigh McEnany

Many of the speakers invited to TPUSA’s summit have served as Trump apologists, but perhaps none have done so as consistently as Republican National Committee spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany. In her constant defense of Trump’s sexist and violent rhetoric, McEnany has demonstrated her own indifference toward the sexism and abuse that women often face at the hands of powerful men.

• McEnany defended Trump in the aftermath of the release of the Access Hollywood video, which contains Trump’s claims that when he sees a “beautiful woman” he will “just kiss” them and not “even wait” to speak to them first. The video also features Trump saying that “when you’re a star… you can do anything,” including grabbing women “by the pussy.” McEnany claimed that she didn’t “think [Trump] was condoning sexual assault.”
• Days later, after multiple women said that Trump had sexually assaulted them, McEnany argued that “Donald Trump's claim is stronger” than that of one of the accusers.
• McEnany also excused Trump’s tone-deaf assertion that if his daughter was sexually harassed at work, she ought to find a new job. She claimed that was “the same advice I would give to my sister.”
• Her sycophancy continued in 2017, when she contended that Trump crossed no boundaries when he made a sexist remark to an Irish reporter.

Tomi Lahren

Fox’s Tomi Lahren has built a career out of making unapologetically cruel and anti-feminist rants. She has a long history of attacking women and empowerment movements, including during a speech at the 2016 TPUSA summit.

• During her 2016 YWLS, Lahren attacked various groups of women and derided modern day feminism. About liberal women, she told the crowd, “You notice the difference between a conservative women’s conference and a liberal women’s conference, because y’all dress like women.” In reference to Hillary Clinton, she proclaimed, “Don’t tell Hillary, but you can wear a dress and still be a woman,” and then she called both Clinton and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) “men” based on the clothes they wear. She accused actress Lena Dunham of making false rape accusations, and she commented that Dunham was “somewhere getting undressed on HBO” and “no one wants to see that.” She described feminists as “barely women,” and she described the modern-day feminist movement as “all about “gimme -- it’s gimme this, gimme this.”

• On another occasion, during a particularly vicious tirade, she described modern-day feminism as “the dumbest load of hypocritical crap ever masqueraded as an equality movement.”
• In an interview with Playboy, in which she described feminism as “bad,” she implied that feminism attempts to simplify women into “wanting free abortions or free birth control, and by using a false statistic like the 77 cents on the dollar bullshit.”
• In another instance, she slightly tweaked her previous definition of the feminist movement, arguing that feminism is in fact “about man-bashing & free birth control.”
• Lahren once claimed female activists attending a planned “Day Without Women” protest were not “real women.” According to Lahren, “Real women don’t have to remind the world every single day that history once slighted us. Real women don’t wake up and skip work to march for abortions or paid contraceptives.” She added that she wasn’t sure about “a day without women, but I could use a day without this nasty feminist BS masqueraded as women’s rights.”
• Lahren condemned the 2017 Women’s March as a “vulgar display of hate and bitterness” and “a giant temper tantrum clogging our streets and hurting our ears and eyes.” She condemned the protesters themselves as “actual mean girls” and opined, “If only these marchers put this much time/effort into their families & life choices. Perhaps then they wouldn't have to glorify abortion.”
• She complained about girls being allowed into the Boy Scouts.
• She (wrongly) denied that there is a gender-based wage gap.

Ben Shapiro

The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro frequently misinforms his audiences about the obstacles women face, demeans and attacks transgender women, and serves as a reliable source of misogynistic commentary on multiple issues.

• Shapiro has repeatedly denied the existence of a gender wage gap (once again, it's real). When actor Jennifer Lawrence discussed her experience with pay inequality, Shapiro claimed she was just “whining about a bad contract.”
• He has dismissedthe impact that having children has on women’s earnings potential.
• Shapiro is against women serving in combat positions, tweeting: “Women SHOULD NOT register for the draft. National service is one thing. Combat? Come the hell on.”
• He has claimed that “fewer women are interested in getting into tech because of all of the demands of work-life balance.”
• He has repeatedly attacked and misgendered transgender women, tweeting that transgender people have “mental illness[es]” and claiming that Chelsea Manning only “think[s]” she’s a woman.
• In response to the 2015 edition of MTV’s Video Music Awards, Shapiro tweeted: “Feminism is apparently the proposition that women are empowered by showing their breasts, but men are sexists for looking at them. #VMAs”
• He accused “leftist women” of “redefin[ing]” rape and cautioned his followers not to believe “the lies” about “rape culture.”
• He mocked Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke for her activism on contraceptive access and labeledher a “fascist” for wanting contraception to be more accessible to workers.
• Shapiro has launched numerous attacks against planned Parenthood, claimed that women who seek abortions are “kill[ing] their own children,” and denied that medical care received by pregnant women is part of “women’s health.”

Candace Owens

TPUSA’s communications director, Candace Owens, is a vicious critic of the #MeToo movement. She has attacked its leaders and maliciously defamed and insulted victims of abuse. Owens has also maligned feminism and she often promotes sexist and demeaning tropes.

• Owens has been a vocal critic of the #MeToo movement, which has helped elevate the voices of people who have experienced abuse and has led to the rightful downfall of numerous abusive men. Owens, however, has accused the movement of turning “sexual assault into a trend,” contended that its premise is that “women are stupid, weak & inconsequential,” and claimed the movementis at fault for men who won’t hire women. Owens’ attacks on #MeToo were so tone deaf and clueless that even conservative women condemned them, causing at least one conservative organization to pull out of the conference, and leading TPUSA’s Kirk to beseech attendees not to attack Owens publicly.
• Owens also wrote that the “entire #metoo” movement was evidence of how “vicious and cunning women can be when they feel scorned.”
• She argued that the leaders of the movement “were at one time willing to trade sex for career advancements” and accused them of leading a “political witch hunt.”
• Owen’s has promised that her 2018 TPUSA speech will center on why she “hate[s] the #metoo movement.”
• Owens has claimed that women “are being systematically taught to equate ‘regret’ with ‘rape,’” an old and incorrect assertion that is sometimes used to minimize the reality of sexual assault.
• She has accused “modern feminism” of “singlehandedly (sic) deteriorating relationships and eventual motherhood” and argued that feminists “hate men” and are “miserable.” She also claimed that “if you believe in equality between men and women, you cannot be a feminist today.”
• Owens has perpetuated sexist tropes with such statements as “Women are naturally jealous creatures. It’s not a trait they grow out of, they just get better at hiding it.”
• She once relayed the “interesting theory” that “something bio-chemically happens to women who don’t marry and/or have children” to her Twitter followers. She offered comedians Chelsea Handler, Kathy Griffin, and Sarah Silverman as “evidentiary support.” In a similar vein, she noted that “the most vicious perpetuators of modern feminism almost never have any children.”

Jordan Peterson

Right-wing YouTube star and Canadian professor Jordan Peterson advances a philosophy that demonizes and demeans women, refuses to respect the needs of transgender women, and shares videos that have been described as a gateway into the “alt-right” for men suffering from depression.

• Peterson has argued for a hierarchical system built around gender and has condescendingly claimedthat those who view our culture as an “oppressive patriarchy” simply don’t want to “admit” that the “current hierarchy might be predicated on competence.”
• During a discussion about the “incel” (short for involuntarily celibate) who murdered 10 people in Toronto, Canada, at least in part because of his antipathy toward women, Peterson suggested that the “cure” for violent men is “enforced monogamy” to ensure that lower-status men get to have sex with women.
• Peterson has argued that “conscientious and agreeable women” are more likely to prioritize their families over their work.
• He has questioned whether “feminists avoid criticizing Islam because they unconsciously long for masculine dominance?” and asked, “Is it possible that young women are so outraged because they are craving infant contact in a society that makes that very difficult?”
• He warned against women trying to “usurp” men.
• He has Nazi sympathizer and unapologetic anti-feminist Milo Yiannopoulos “unstoppable” and “an amazing person.”
• Peterson ardently rejects the right of transgender people to be called by their prefered pronouns and insists that calling people by the pronouns they prefer won’t “do [them] any good in the long run.” In reality, misgendering is a cruel and dangerous act.

==

fail

day after it was reported that Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) would be allowed to bring her newborn daughter Maile Pearl Bowlsbey onto the Senate floor if necessary, a conservative pundit for Turning Point USA lamented the impact that baby could have on future legislation that might affect children and mothers.

After there were complaints about how having a nursing newborn among the mostly male Senate might affect the political body’s “decorum,” Richard Armande Mills took to Twitter to express misgivings.

“I agree with their statements on “decorum.” Not because I have a problem with babies at the workplace, but because I have issues with Duckworth potentially being able to weaponize that baby to affect legislative decision making. And I could see her doing that,” Mills tweeted.

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jane m

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity

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 coördinate 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 SebastianGorka, 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 coördinate 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.

...

Audio: Listen to Ginni Thomas’s voice mail.]

“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 coördinated 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 theUniversity 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

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https://www.chronicle.com/article/Inside-a-Stealth-Plan-for/240008

Inside a Stealth Plan for Political Influence

To fight campus liberalism, a right-wing group is funneling thousands of dollars to student-government campaigns

By Michael Vasquez MAY 07, 2017  PREMIUM CONTENT FOR SUBSCRIBERS. SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Evidence of a conservative group’s influence in student-government campaigns can be found on campuses from coast to coast.

Charlie Kirk, higher education is a political battleground -- a place where his "Team Right" has been losing for too long.

The rising young conservative star uses his frequent Fox News appearances to blast college campuses as "islands of totalitarianism" filled with liberal students and faculty members who force their worldview upon those around them. So Mr. Kirk's nonprofit political-advocacy group, Turning Point USA, launched a secret counteroffensive. The goal: getting young conservatives elected to student government at universities around the country.

Campus-based groups of all political stripes have long encouraged their members to pursue leadership roles, and so have fraternities and sororities. What makes Turning Point unique, student leaders say, is that its outside parent organization provides critical manpower -- and thousands of dollars -- to help win elections.

Critics say Turning Point has taken on the role of a "super PAC" for student government.

Evidence of Turning Point's influence in student elections can be found from coast to coast. The Chronicle identified at least a dozen colleges that featured candidates who were either Turning Point members, were endorsed by Turning Point, or received campaign assistance from Mr. Kirk's group.

"It might seem like kind of a silly thing to try to take over student-government associations," Mr. Kirk, 23, said during a public appearance before a conservative group in 2015. But he noted that at large universities, student-government budgets can be as much as tens of millions of dollars. And student leaders increasingly have the bully pulpit to champion certain causes -- whether progressive issues like divesting college endowments from fossil fuels, or conservative priorities like the elimination of free-speech restrictions.

"We're not going to change the professor's mind. You're not going to get teachers fired," Mr. Kirk told the group. "But the only vulnerability there is, the only little opening, is student-government-association races and elections, and we're investing a lot of time and energy and money in it."

Turning Point's student-government push, he told the audience, is a "rather undercover, underground operation." The organization has been much more outspoken in promoting its Professor Watchlist website, which lists faculty members who the conservative group believes have a "radical" agenda. Turning Point was founded in 2012 and says it has a presence on more than 1,000 college campuses.

Some of Turning Point's election candidates have been victorious. At a couple of other colleges, the organization's contributions eventually leaked out -- leading to front-page student-newspaper scandals and the abrupt withdrawal of the affiliated candidates.

In elections this spring, candidates at Ohio State University and the University of Maryland at College Park dropped out after they were caught violating spending rules and attempting to hide the help they received from Turning Point.

The group's interest in University of Maryland elections appears to go back to at least 2015, when 3reyer Hillegas, then president of the campus's College Republicans chapter, sent a message to the club's email list.

"Anyone who wants to run for SGA president. Turning Point is offering to pay thousands of dollars (literally) to your campaign to help get a conservative into the position," Mr. Hillegas wrote. "If you are interested in being one of these candidates, let me know!"

There are potential off-campus perks to stacking student government with conservatives. In state capitals and in Congress, the support or opposition of student leaders can help determine the fate of education legislation. If stutdent-body presidents rally behind a proposed law, that boosts its credibility. A student-body president at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Marcus Fotenos, helped persuade state lawmakers this year to pass a bill outlawing "free-speech zones" on campus. Conservatives have long complained that free-speech zones are a way for libera, administrators to stifle unpopular points of view.

Gov. John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, signed the law last month. Mr. Fotenos previously pushed for his student government's legislative council to pass a resolution supporting free speech -- a resolution that Turning Point praised as a "heroic stand" on the issue. Mr. Fotenos declined to comment to The Chronicle about any connection to Turning Point.

"I'm no: sure what you're referring to," Mr. Fotenos said before hanging up. "I've got to go now though, so I'll talk to you later."

Mr. Fotenos's victory last year was marred by bribery allegations -- his "Revolution" slate of candidates was accused of trying to buy votes by giving away pizzas and cookie cakes to students. The college's election commission voided Mr. Fotenos's win and tossed him off the ballot.

Then something strange happened. A prominent Denver elections lawyer, Ryan R. Call, surfaced to argue on behalf of Mr. Fotenos and the other Revolution candidates. Mr. Call is a former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party and last year served as treasurer for a pro-Donald Trump super PAC called Rebuilding America Now.

After Mr. Call got involved, the University of Colorado's chancellor, Philip P. DiStefano, decided to reinstate Mr. Fotenos as the winner. In an interview with Charlie Kirk, The Chronicle asked if Turning Point paid for Mr. Call's legal services.

"I'm not at liberty to comment on that at this time," Mr. Kirk said.

Mr. Call told The Chronicle he would not reveal who paid him, because it is a "matter of attorney-client privilege."

STUDENT GOVERNMENT is where many future politicians get their start. Hillary Clinton was a former student-body president. So were Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, among others.

But even though college can be a political breeding ground, some student-government presidents say their roles have a tradition of being nonpartisan. The emphasis should be on helping students, they say, not on some proxy battle between left and right.

And they argue that Turning Point's aggressive involvement is the wrong way to build a pipeline of young conservative leaders.

"It is kind of shocking that they would turn to trying to corrupt student-government elections to try and do that," said Griffin Thomas, who was elected Rice University's student president last year. This year, after the Rice student newspaper revealed that Turning Point was actively recruiting students to run for office, Mr. Thomas pushed for legislation that prohibits students from accepting donations from outside groups. Student leaders at Rice approved Mr. Thomas's new rule unanimously.

The largest public universities have the population of a small city, but student-government campaigns are clearly amateur affairs. College-office hopefuls might spend as little as a few hundred bucks on their campaigns. Even if they spend more, the purchases are modest items designed to raise name recognition: signs, T-shirts, or novelties like stickers, key chains, and beer koozies.

In that type of small-scale environment, a flood of outside money and manpower can make a big difference. In his 2015 public appearance before the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which describes itself as a group that "combats the efforts of the radical left and its Islamist allies," Mr. Kirk said the Turning Point staff provides a professional suite of campaign services to its chosen students.

"They wake up every single day, just as if you're running a congressional or mayoral race or senate race, trying to develop messaging, fliers, banners, Twitter profiles, to try to get that student-government-association person elected," Mr. Kirk said.

With student races, the strategy of out-spending the competition comes relatively cheap.

"You would be amazed," Mr. Kirk said. "You spend $5,000 on a race, you can win. You could retake a whole college or university."

Turning Point's assistance often continues right up to election day, when the organization will provide on-the-ground campaign workers who flood the university's hallways, rounding up students and collecting their electronic votes using iPads.

Email records obtained through a request to the University of South Florida show that the "leadership directors" within Turning Point's Campus Leadership Project can function as unofficial campaign managers for sponsored students. The project bills itself as a provider of scholarships, networking, and leadership training.

One such leadership director, Alex Chorak, cared enough about the details of USF presidential candidate Ryan Soscia's campaign that he discussed T-shirt designs with him.

"Let me know what you think about this logo on the blue background. I like the lighter blue t shirts better and think people would love rocking that color especially in the spring," Mr. Chorak wrote. "Also 1 would love to get on a call with the campaign manager and just talk about some things I believe are extremely important."

In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Kirk rejected the idea that Turning Point is in charge of student campaigns.

"Giving T-shirt color advice, I think, is hardly running campaigns," he said. Mr. Kirk said that while Turning Point encourages its members to be student leaders, that can include getting involved in athletics or becoming the heads of fraternities or sororities.

If those students decide to run for office, Mr. Kirk said, it is a "bottom-up, grassroots, organic" decision. Mr. Kirk denied that his group is engaged in a stealth effort to get students elected -- contradicting his statements from two years ago.

"Absolutely not." he said. "That's completely ludicrous and ridiculous, that there's some sort of secret plan."

The USF emails show the conversation between Mr. Soscia and Mr. Chorak went beyond just T-shirt colors, however. In December, shortly after he attended a Turning Point USA event, Mr. Soscia sent the organization an itemized spreadsheet with a proposed budget for his presidential campaign: $19,537.

"Item quantity and event frequency is certainly up for discussion," Mr. Soscia wrote. "Please let us know what is available to be sponsored on your end."

A couple of weeks later, Mr. Chorak wrote that he was "working hard" to approve the USF budget.

"The reason it is taking so long is because it is roughly 3 times what the majority of schools are," he wrote. "I'm trying to explain that it is due to the importance, competition, and the relative size of the school."

IN MID-DECEMBER, hundreds of conservative college students descended on South Florida, courtesy of Turning Point USA. They had been chosen to attend the Winter In West Palm Beach Activist Summit, where the speakers included Donald Trump Jr., the conservative commentator Tomi Lahren, and Senators led Cruz of Texas and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

"West Palm Beach was a blast," said Kadin Llewellyn, an Ohio State student who was until recently president of the university's Turning Point USA student chapter.

In between the speakers and training sessions, Mr. Llewellyn said he was introduced to Mary Honaker and Carla Gracia.

They were Ohio State students, too. And they were running for student-government president and vice president. Mr. Llewellyn said it was a Turning Point leadership director, Kennedy Copeland, who made the introduction.

During that conversation, Mr. Llewellyn said, Ms. Honaker talked openly about how Turning Point's financial assistance could be hidden from university administrators by simply underreporting how much the candidates had spent. Students at Ohio State aren't allowed to spend more than $4,000 on their campaigns.

A couple of months later, the campaign was in full swing at Ohio State, but Mr. Llewellyn and many other members of his student chapter were upset. They harbored deep doubts about whether the "Mary and Carla" ticket was truly conservative.

"I felt I was manipulated and lied to during the process," said Mr. Llewellyn, who complained that Turning Point chose to back a candidate it thought could win, even if it meant abandoning its values.

Things would get worse for Turning Point at Ohio State. When the group's staff members attempted to recruit another student as part of their slate of election candidates, the student hit the "record" button -- and leaked the audio to The Lantern student newspaper.

"A huge part of what Turning Point does, that's really important to the donors, is running these student-government races," Ala-na Mastrangelo, Turning Point's heartland regional director, said in the recorded phone call. She also emphasized the importance of secrecy.

"Keep it, like, on the DL," Ms. Mastrangelo told the student. "Like hard-core on the DL, because Turning Point in general has a huge reputation for being really conservative. They're starting to call us the alt-right."

Ms. Mastrangelo declined to comment to The Chronicle.

A text message sent to the Ohio State student, also leaked to The Lantern, explained part of Turning Point's motivation for keeping things hush-hush:

"Liberals consistently dominate campus student government and our goal is to take them out secretly without them knowing what's coming," wrote Kennedy Copeland, a leadership director for Turning Point USA. Ms. Copeland did not return a call from The Chronicle.

The leaked communications -- combined with a photo showing the presidential candidate Mary Honaker attending the West Palm Beach activist retreat -- doomed the Turning Point ticket.

The breaking point came when a rival campaign filed an elections complaint alleging that the "Mary and Carla" campaign had violated Ohio State's $4,000 cap on spending, and then lied about it. The complaint alleged that the two students had "falsified and misrepresented numerous elements" of their fund raising and expenses, including the $871 that the pair said they spent on campaign-related clothing.

In reality, the complaint said, the campaign had spent more than $7,600 on campaign T-shirts. The complaint included receipts in that amount from a T-shirt vendor, billed to Mary Honaker.

Ms. Honaker and Ms. Gracia dropped out the same day.

Reached by phone, Ms. Honaker told The Chronicle that her campaign wasn't connected to Turning Point.

"They didn't end up being involved in our campaign, but they did approach us," Ms. Honaker said. Asked about Mr. Llewellyn's statement that her campaign was not only supported by Turning Point but that she had personally discussed strategies to hide the money, Ms. Honaker replied, "I don't recall that conversation happening."

Then she hung up. Ms. Gracia did not return calls seeking comment.

On March 21, Mr. Llewellyn submitted his resignation letter as president of Ohio State's Turning Point chapter.

"For what it is worth going forward, I have a few parting pieces of advice," he wrote. "Number one is to avoid the student election scene, as even politics on a micro level bring out the worst in people."

TURNING POINT USA is perhaps best known for its controversial Professor Watchlist website, which identifies hundreds of college faculty members who, according to the group, "advance a radical agenda in lecture halls."

Mr. Kirk's larger goal, as outlined in a book he wrote last year, is to make Turning Point "the MoveOn.org of the right." In Time for a Turning Point, he praises Move-On's influence in all 50 states and its strong campus presence, even as he blasts the progressive group for promoting "anti-American propaganda." Mr. Kirk's political vision calls for a greater emphasis on the principles of the Founding Fathers and shrinking the size of government.

Since founding Turning Point roughly five years ago, Mr. Kirk has enjoyed a rapid rise, buoyed by frequent media appearances and deep-pocketed donors who include Gov. Bruce Rauner of Illinois, a Republican, and Foster Friess, an evangelical philanthropist. In 2012, Turning Point had a budget of less than $52,000, according to the group's tax returns. Last year, it was $5.5 million, Mr. Kirk wrote in his book.

Bloomberg News called Mr. Kirk a "Conservative Boy Wonder" in 2015. A year later, he was delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention and campaigning with Donald Trump Jr. for the Republican nominee.

In mid-October, Mr. Kirk appeared at Fox News's Millennial Town Hall, in Las Vegas, seated next to Donald Trump Jr. and Lara and Eric Trump. Tax experts told The Chronicle that Turning Point's connection to the event may have violated federal rules prohibiting 501(c)(3) charities from engaging in political activity -- the event had a pro-Trump tone, and a Turning Point staff member promised on Facebook that "expenses will be covered" for students who attended.

Mr. Kirk responded by saying Turning Point funds were not used to transport students to the town hall. Sally Wagenmaker, a lawyer who represents Turning Point, said, "This was a town-hall forum put on by a news outlet, not a political campaign event."

Back in 2015, when Mr. Kirk spoke about his student-government plans with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, he boasted that Turning Point's strategy to "retake student-government associations" had "never been done on a broad scale" before.

But in recent conversations with The Chronicle, Mr. Kirk described his group's role much differently. Turning Point, he wrote in an email, isn't doing anything different than other campus organizations that encourage their members to be leaders, including athletic teams, Christian youth groups, Jewish student clubs, and Greek-life organizations.

"As you know, fraternities and sororities in most cases completely control the student-election process on campus," Mr. Kirk wrote. "Are they also a part of your story or is this story just about Turning Point USA?"

In a phone interview, Mr. Kirk struck the same tone and said there have been Turning Point members who ran for student government without the parent organization's knowledge.

Mr. Kirk provided a copy of a thank-you email he'd recently received from a student who had just become SGA president at a liberal-arts college in New England. The student wrote that she was naturally a shy person but had gained the confidence to run for president after hearing Turning Point USA speakers encourage students to run for office at the West Palm Beach retreat.

"She ran completely on her own," Mr. Kirk said.

But records show that in many other cases, student campaigns are being supported by Turning Point in a way that typically doesn't happen with fraternities, student clubs, or other campus-based organizations.

Candidates backed by Turning Point have received professional campaign advice from its employees, who are willing to travel to campus for in-person, sit-down strategy sessions. In the recorded phone call at Ohio State, a Turning Point employee said the group would pay student campaign workers "$20 to $50 a day." When Turning Point provides a campaign with T-shirts, yard signs, or other essentials, that assistance can be worth thousands of dollars.

Next month, the National Campus Leadership Council will hold its Presidential Leadership Summit, which includes 200 incoming and departing student-body presidents. Andy MacCracken, the council's executive director, said one of the items to be discussed is how to strengthen the election process -- a decision partially prompted by reports about Turning Point in student media.

"There's a need to better understand best practices and really implement sound policies," Mr. MacCracken told The Chronicle. "Otherwise it could be easily sort of manipulated for outside political interests."

The University of Maryland's student government last year changed its election rules to prohibit donations from outside nonprofit groups, A.J. Pruitt, the student-government president, said the change was "somewhat in response" to Turning Point's interest in elections.

"That was new, and people were uncomfortable with that," Mr. Pruitt said in an interview. "It was not necessarily the political ideology of the organization but just the fact that an outside group was coming in and trying to meddle in a process that is really supposed to be student-centric."

Despite the new rule, Turning Point became an issue in this year's student election at Maryland. The Diamondback student newspaper obtained emails showing that the Unity Party slate of student candidates had its campaign logo designed by Turning Point. That logo was then used for the campaign's T-shirts, yard signs, and social-media posts. The Unity Party never disclosed the help it received from Turning Point in campaign-finance reports filed with the university.

Less than 12 hours after the student newspaper published its article, the Unity campaign withdrew from the race. Mr. Pruitt and other members of the opposing One Party cruised to victory.

The secrecy that surrounds Turning Point's activities speaks volumes, Mr. Pruitt said.

"If you were comfortable with what you were doing, why wouldn't you just come out and do it?" he said. "If they really believe this was 100-percent right, why wouldn't they put their name on it?"

WHEN ALYCIA Hester, Turning Point USA's former campus coalitions director, talks about student governments, she expresses frustration at the dominance of left-leaning students, whom she blames for the rise of "safe spaces" on campus. Ms. Hester, whose job at Turning Point focused on helping student-government campaigns in the Big 10 Conference, also says it's "weird" that some colleges don't allow Christmas trees to be displayed.

"Those little things are what student government controls," she said.

But Turning Point-backed candidates typically don't talk about safe spaces or Christmas trees on the campaign trail. What's striking about their campaign platforms is how generic and conventional they are. Combating sexual assault is a common theme, as are reducing student fees and encouraging diversity.

Yet there is one policy proposal that almost always shows up with Turning Point's candidates: promoting Uber.

The ride-sharing service has long been touted by conservative politicians as an example of free-market innovation. Student government can push for Uber in two important ways: lobbying local municipalities to allow Uber service on campus, and setting aside student-government funds for late-night "safe ride" programs that provide free or discounted Uber service to students.

In Mr. Kirk's book, a group of "Turning Point USA activists" are credited with helping the University of Southern California's student government reach its free-ride arrangement with Uber. Mr. Kirk's book mentions Uber 42 times.

This spring, when the "Mary and Carla" campaign started at Ohio State, it included an "Uber/Lyft" free-ride proposal, and the candidates cited USC's program as a model.

At the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa last year, the student-government president at the time, Lillian Roth, was an outspoken supporter of bringing Uber back to campus. She even met with Tuscaloosa city officials on the issue, and the city allowed Uber to resume service last summer.

Ms. Roth was endorsed by Turning Point's student chapter at Alabama. Her father, Toby Roth, has long been active in Alabama politics and is a registered lobbyist for Uber. Mr. Roth said his daughter didn't have a conflict of interest in advocating for Uber.

"She was not a decision maker in the process," he said. "Whether or not Uber came to campus was not in her discretion. If she was on the City Council in Tuscaloosa, if she was the mayor of Tuscaloosa, then yes, I think recusal would be in order."

At the University of Oregon, a petition drive last year sought to bring back Uber, which left Eugene in 2015 after a dispute with the city. The petition surfaced at around the same time that a Turning Point-backed slate of candidates started campaigning for student government, according to Max Burns, a former Student Senate president. The slate was called One Oregon, and the candidates made the return of Uber one of their signature campaign promises.

Mr. Burns said he was suspicious of One Oregon's large amount of spending, which included buying half-page ads in the student newspaper for an entire week.

So he confronted the One Oregon candidate for student-government president, Zach Rentschler, in front of Mr. Rentschler's campaign tent. It was a heated conversation.

"Zach, are you getting your money from outside sources?" Mr. Burns demanded.

Mr. Rentschler admitted that he was.

The "Students for Uber" petition drive, meanwhile, was accused of sending out text messages that promoted One Oregon's campaign, and the student newspaper reported that the petition was linked to Turning Point USA.

The Turning Point connections proved fatal to One Oregon's campaign. Despite a fund-raising haul of nearly $23,000 -- more than double what two other student campaigns raised, combined -- Mr. Rentschler lost his bid for the presidency. Students were bothered by Turning Point's involvement; in an interview, Mr. Rentschler acknowledged that the issue had hurt his candidacy.

But Mr. Rentschler, who describes his political leanings as "center right," said the importance of Turning Point was exaggerated. Bringing back Uber was his own idea, he said, and he was motivated by a desire to see students "getting home safe." He argued that Turning Point was never promised anything in return for its support.

What kind of support, exactly, did Turning Point provide? Mr. Rentschler declined to say.

The finance reports for One Oregon list Webloot Screen Printing as the campaign's T-shirt vendor. Wayne Hench, the store's owner, says it was a somewhat unusual transaction.

For one, Mr. Rentschler wanted a total of 3,500 T-shirts and 100 sweatshirts, considerably more than the typical student-government campaign orders.

One Oregon wanted its shirts designed more elaborately, too. Campaigns normally ask Mr. Hench for a single color on the front and a single color on the back. Occasionally they'll splurge for two colors on the front.

"These guys had a three-color front with a three-color back," Mr. Hench said. The total bill: $14,950.

Mr. Hench took a $7,500 deposit, which became a hassle because the store's credit-card processor wasn't used to such large amounts. It was flagged as possible fraud, and Mr. Hench had to talk with the credit-card holder a couple of times on the phone to get the payment processed. The man paying the bill was understanding about the inconvenience.

That man, Mr. Hench said, was in Chicago. His name was Charlie Kirk.

"You spend $5,000 on a race, you can win. You could retake a whole college or university."

"Turning Point in general has a huge reputation for being really conservative. They're starting to call us the alt-right."

"Liberals consistently dominate campus student government and our goal is to take them out secretly without them knowing what's coming."

Where Student Elections Involved Turning Point

WON

U. OF COLORADO AT BOULDER

Election Date: April 2016 Candidates: Revolution slate of candidates, including for president

Turning Point praised winning candidates, declined to say whether it paid for their lawyer

U. OF WISCONSIN AT MADISON

Election Date: March 2017 Candidates: Maxwell Goldfarb and Dylan Resch

Turning Point paid for signs for legislative candidates

LOST OR WITHDREW

OHIO STATE U.

Election Date: March 2017 Candidates: Mary Honaker and Carla Gracia (withdrew)

Turning Point secretly backed slate of candidates accused of violating spending rules

PENNSYLVANIA STATE U.

Election Date: March 2017 Candidates: Sammy Geisinger and Jorge Zurita-Coronado (lost)

Turning Point provided campaign advice and election-day volunteers

U. OF MARYLAND AT COLLEGE PARK

Election Date: April 2017 Candidates: Unity Party ticket of candidates, including for president (withdrew)

Turning Point provided campaign-logo design

U. OF OREGON

Election Date: April 2016 Candidates: One Oregon slate of candidates, including for president (lost)

Turning Point paid for campaign T-shirts

U. OF SOUTH FLORIDA

Election Date: March 2017 Candidates: Ryan Soscia and Logan Holland, candidates for president and vice president (lost)

Turning Point provided campaign guidance and discussed paying some expenses

U. OF VIRGINIA

Election Date: February 2017 Candidates: Kelsey Kilgore, candidate for president (lost)

Candidate said Turning Point employee was "helping me out with my campaign"

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA: "You're not going to get teachers fired. But the only vulnerability there is, the only little opening, is student-government-association races."

The Diamondback student newspaper at the U. of Maryland at College Park obtained emails showing that Turning Point USA had designed the logo of the Unity Party slate of student candidates.

Caroline Larkin (left) and Jon Ciavolino, shown here with Katie Albert, their campaign manager, were Unity Party candidates for student government at the U. of Maryland. They dropped out after the student newspaper disclosed their failure to mention Turning Point USA support in disclosures required by the university.

~~

By MICHAEL VASQUEZ

Think You Know What Type of College Would Accept Charles Koch Foundation Money? Think Again.

By Paul Basken DECEMBER 20, 2017  PREMIUM CONTENT FOR SUBSCRIBERS. SUBSCRIBE TODAY

At some public regional universities, the foundation’s conservative politics have made it a tough sell. But a growing number of prestigious institutions now are among the top recipients of Koch funding.

wiki

**Turning Point USA** is an American conservative[1] or right wing ^[2] 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded on June 5, 2012 by Wheeling, Illinois high school graduate Charlie Kirk.^[3] The organization states its mission is to "identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government."^[4]

Contents

  [hide] 

• :{1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Affiliations and infrastructure:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Student activities:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{3:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Finances:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{4:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Controversies:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{4.1:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{*Professor Watchlist*:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{4.2:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Denial of recognition on campus:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{4.3:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Involvement in student government elections:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
  • :{4.4:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{Other controversies:(style="display:table-cell"):}:
• :{5:(style="display:table-cell;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0.5em"):}::{References:(style="display:table-cell"):}:

Affiliations and infrastructure

Turning Point's allies include Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and billionaire Foster Friess.^[5][6] Friess also serves on the organization's advisory council, alongside Ginni Thomas, wife of US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.^[7] Turning Point's non-profit board consists of Charlie Kirk (President), William Montgomery (Secretary/Treasurer), and George Hamstra (Director).^[8]

Groups that are aligned with Turning Point include Project Veritas, the Heartland Institute, Freedom Works, and the National Rifle Association.^{[9][10][11][12]}

Charlie Kirk has disavowed any relationship with alt right groups.^[13] However, he has been a contributing writer for Breitbart News,^[14] and Turning Point has previously shown support for former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos,^[15][16] including when the organization sponsored him at University of Colorado and Miami University (OH).^[17]Turning Point has also sponsored controversial conservative pundit, Tomi Lahren, at East Carolina University.^[18][19]

Numerous Turning Point affiliated individuals have run for local political offices across the country, including Kings Park, New York Board of Education member JuanPablo Andrade and successful Bannockburn Elementary School District 106 Board of Education candidate Jake Leahy.^[20][21]

Student activities

Turning Point USA has more than 1,000 chapters in colleges and high schools and has registered thousands of voters since 2012.^[22][23]

Turning Point holds several yearly national conferences, including the Young Woman's Leadership Summit, High School Activist Conference and Young Latino's Leadership Conference. They have also sponsored outside conferences such as the Conservative Political Action Conference.^[24]

According to Bloomberg News, each of Turning Point's paid workers is supposed to meet a quota to make at least 1,500 student contacts per semester.^[25] Student volunteers have several different themes for promoting conservative ideas, including "The Healthcare Games," "Game of Loans," and "iCapitalism."^[26]

Finances

Turning Point's revenues were $78,890 in 2012, $443,859 in 2013, and $2,052,060 in 2014.^[27] Charlie Kirk has stated that TPUSA received $5,000,000 in 2016.^[28]

Controversies

Professor Watchlist

First appearing on November 21, 2016, Turning Point USA also operates a website called Professor Watchlist in order to "expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values, and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."^{[29][30][31][32][33][34][35]} The website lists academics who “promote anti-American, leftwing propaganda in the classroom” according to a blog post by Charlie Kirk.^[36] Tips are accepted from the public, and over 200 professors are currently listed.^[37] The website has been criticized as racist and pro-fascist, using surveillance type propaganda to manipulate ideas of truth, equality, and freedom.^[38][39][40] 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.^[41][42]

In May 2017, Northern Arizona University criminology professor Luis Fernandez stated that Turning Point surveillance of him led to multiple threats. ^[43] In the Harvard Crimson Harvard Professor Danielle Allen also stated that she was threatened after being targeted by Charlie Kirk and Turning Point. ^[44]

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."^[45]

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.^[46]

In February 2017, Santa Clara University denied official recognition for Turning Point as a campus organization.The Associated Student Government voted 16 to 10 to deny recognition to Turning Point at the February 2nd senate meeting.^[47] 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.^[48]

Involvement in student government elections

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Turning Point USA has secretly been involved in influencing student government elections at a dozen colleges and universities, which some have claimed constitutes a violation of their 501(c)(3) status.^[49][50] Universities that have been targeted by this effort include Ohio State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Maryland. These revelations led to conservative candidates at the University of Maryland withdrawing from student elections after failing to report assistance from Turning Point.^[51]

Other 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.^[52]

In December 2016, PolitiFact reported that Turning Point falsely quoted Nancy Pelosi.^[53]

Also 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. However, a university official, Amy Mynaugh, said that the posters pitted the LBGTQ community against Muslims.^[54][55]

References

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12. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/articles/2017/3/23/a-new-generation-of-freedom-fighters/
13. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "‘Professor Watchlist’ Names Progressive Academics Who Supposedly Show a Liberal Bias". Truthdig. 2016-11-29. Retrieved 2017-02-19.
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16. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ CUIndependent (2017-01-26). "Turning Point USA defends decision to invite Milo Yiannopoulos to CU Boulder". CU Independent. Retrieved 2017-02-19.
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19. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ http://www.theeastcarolinian.com/news/article_30857174-23e4-11e7-9ba0-5311c791e29b.html
20. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ "JuanPablo Andrade: KPAE Questionnaire For New Or Returning Kings Park BOE Candidates 2016". Kings Park Advocates for Education. May 9, 2016. Retrieved 22 April 2017.
21. :{Jump up:(style="user-select:none;top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:^ Meadows, Jonah (March 27, 2017). "Meet Jake Leahy; He Could Soon Be Illinois' Youngest Elected Official". Patch Media. Retrieved 22 April 2017.
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Categories: 

• 2012 establishments in the United States
• Organizations established in 2012
• 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations
• Conservative political advocacy groups in the United States
• Student political organizations in the United States

2017

a full room of students and community members at Chicago's DePaul University on January 11 for a meeting to discuss how to organize resistance to the right wing in the era of Donald Trump.

Most of the 50 people or so attending the meeting organized by the International Socialist Organization were there to discuss protests on Inauguration Day and how we can start building opposition to the right.

But not everyone. During the discussion, one attendee, sitting with a handful of others in the back of the room, said he was "very much a capitalist" and a "very proud Trump voter." He added that he was part of a student group called Turning Point USA, and that they came to "dialogue" and hear different points of view.

The four students in the back-row-right caucus left shortly thereafter, but not before several speakers called the group out for what they represent--which is bigotry and the witch hunting of the left on college campuses.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • -

RIGHT-WINGERS on campus are certainly nothing new, and DePaul in particular is no stranger to right-wing goons. Last year, a protest of some 250 students ran reactionary troll-in-chief Milo Yiannopoulos off campus in the middle of his speech.

But what is Turning Point USA,a group whose website proclaims it to be the "biggest and most far-reaching youth organization in America"? According to the website:

Turning Point USA educates students about the importance of fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government. Through non-partisan debate, dialogue and discussion, Turning Point USA believes that every young person can be enlightened to true free market values.

Turning Point USA was founded in 2012 by Wheeling, Illinois, high school graduate Charlie Kirk at the ripe age of 18. The same year, he began writing for Breitbart News, the website of the so-called "alt-right" and online home of Milo Yiannopoulos.

Kirk has appeared on Fox News, CNBC and Fox Business news more than 90 times, according to his website. He's been described as a rising star in the conservative movement and gained national prominence through his campus organizing and frequent media appearances.

His meteoric rise culminated in, which he began with the motto of Turning Point USA: "Big government sucks."

Nearly every publication Turning Point USA publishes brings its argument back to this right-wing libertarian formulation. On its website, the group feature pamphlets and articleswith such titles as "5 Reasons Big Government Is the Real War on Women," "10 Ways Fossil Fuels Improve Our Daily Life" and--my personal favorite--"It's time for a worldwide capitalist revolution."

According to the pamphlet "10 Ways Big Government Harms You," big government punishes "diversity" by punishing "diversity of opinion"--especially against conservative opinions. "True diversity is not found in skin tone or sexual preference," the pamphlet says. "True diversity is found inside each and every citizen's mind."

Apparently, "Students who tend to support big government ideology shout down and protest limited government speakers on their campuses. Whether it is Condoleezza Rice, Ann Coulter or Donald Rumsfeld, these students do not want to engage the speakers in a debate of ideas; they want them silenced."

Ah yes, those proponents of small government, Rice and Rumsfeld and their "small government" massive expansion of government surveillance and "small government" invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to Turning Point, students who object to Coulter object to her on the grounds that they support "big government"--not because of her constant stream of racist, sexist and imperialist bile.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • -

"BIG GOVERNMENT" is responsible for everything Turning Point USA disdains, from imposing safety regulations that hamper small business to affirmative action:

Affirmative action programs are another classic example of big government creating groups of victims, namely women and minorities and convincing them that without government's force they would not be able to succeed. Once the premise was accepted, they then used affirmative action to gain a foothold and establish control within the entire American university system. The benefiting groups have been big government supporters ever since.

In this way, Turning Point is just a new version of old bigoted ideas that claim "undeserving" minorities are taking away jobs and spots at universities from those who supposedly really deserve them.

Turning Point USA also presents itself as a populist voice representing the put-upon small business owner against big industry:

Before big government passes any kind of new tax or new fine, the first thing they do is consult with the wealthiest leaders of industry to make certain that they will be able to easily adjust to the new rules. Nobody in big government consults the poor or the hard-working private business owner about how the rules will impact them.

If only capitalism were pure and free from government meddling, they argue, everyone could be a successful small business owner and we would have never-ending prosperity for everyone who deserves it.

And what does that "government meddling" include? Any kind of government assistance to workers in the form of welfare, health care, minimum-wage legislation, affirmative action or other protections against racism or sexism.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • -

TURNING POINT USA talks a lot about how "Big Government Sucks," but as a campus group, its activism is largely focused around its other favorite slogan, "Socialism Sucks." Turning Point USA's most well-known campus project is its Professor Watchlist, a website that lists more than 150 professors who "advance a radical agenda in lecture halls."

Students can suggest professors to add to the list for such offenses as decrying a party where students dressed as gang members, being a socialist and posting strongly worded comments on social media. In other words, professors can be put on the list for merely discussing racism or having a Twitter account.

Anthea Butler, a professor included on the Watchlist, succinctly wrote:

For tenured professors like myself, the Professor Watchlist is an annoyance that takes away from research, teaching and time with students. For professors on the tenure track, or lecturers who are trying to keep a contract job, being named on the Professor Watchlist could mean diminished opportunities for their careers if colleges and universities do not understand the purpose and nature of these groups.

To justify their witch hunt, these right-wingers present themselves as being in the forefront of a fightback against "college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."

Turning Point USA's campus activism is primarily focused on feeding left and liberal professors to conservative media outlets like Campus Reform, and putting them on the Watchlist.

At many universities, the organization invites Milo Yiannopoulos to campus--like at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UVM) where Yiannopoulos insulted a transgender student who had protested a school policy that required "nonconforming genitalia" to be covered in the locker room.

"The way you know he's failed is I can still bang him," Yiannopoulos said about the trans woman. The student later dropped out of UVM.

Turning Point USA spends considerable time and money publishing blacklists and paying workers to maintain 1,500 student contacts per semester. Its wealthy sponsors ensure there's a never-ending pool of money to send 100 activists to the Conservative Political Action Conference or to print their delightful "Socialism Sucks" T-shirts.

According to Bloomberg, Turning Point USA claims to have raised $1 million in the first half of 2015 from wealthy donors such as Foster Friess, who spent $2.1 million on Rick Santorum's presidential campaign. Because Turning Point USA is a 501(c)3 nonprofit advocacy group, its donors are anonymous.

On campus, you might see these activists with their "Socialism Sucks" and "Big Government Sucks" T-shirts at tables alongside large signs imploring students to share what they love about capitalism.

You can pick them out in a class because they'll be the ones complaining loudly against persecution of conservatives. And you'll find them in a meeting of socialists, claiming they want to "dialogue" about their bigoted ideas.

==

dictable outcomes of the Charlottesville, Va., attacks earlier this month was that rather than lead to a reasoned and careful conversation about the rise of hate groups in our nation, it led to debates about whether the white supremacist neo-Nazis on display were the victims of discrimination. In Trumpland everything is on its head. Thus we have become desensitized to its dangerous combination of absurdity and malice.

But Charlottesville is not only a story about the mainstreaming of hate and fascism in the Trump era; it’s also a story about how the right has engaged in an all-out war to dismantle our public universities. As we have watched the rising public displays of fascism and bigotry sweep across the nation, it has been easy to overlook the fact that many of these rallies have been purposefully staged on college campuses. The decision to hold these rallies on campuses and to thereby provoke counter-protests also on campuses is a deliberate move by the right: one designed to allow them to further their narrative that college campuses are places that are hostile to free speech.

These days, as many of us across the nation head back into classrooms, we would do well to remember that campus hysteria over free speech has a long history. Before the recent attacks in Charlottesville on the University of Virginia campus, universities grappled with the effects of the McCarthyist red scare of the 1950s. In that period the fear was that communists were infiltrating universities in order to brainwash students and bias knowledge production in favor of a sinister commie agenda.

The details may shift but the pattern of right-wing assaults on higher ed are always the same. Create panic and hysteria by overblowing a perceived threat. Paint the student as an innocent threatened by dangerous professors or describe the student as a whiny, but no less threatening, snowflake determined to undermine any sense of social order. And sow the seeds that will make the public fear, distrust and disapprove of our colleges and universities.

In 1950 fewer than 50,000 Americans out of a U.S. population of 150 million were members of the Communist Party. But that tiny statistic of .033 percent didn’t temper right-wing fears of communist subversion. Government loyalty boards investigated millions of federal employees and more than 39 states required teachers and other public employees to take loyalty oaths.

At a certain level the McCarthy era attacks on higher education as a hotbed of left politics that threatened the fabric of our society never let up; they simply morphed with the times.

In the ’90s, as debates raged over the pernicious effects of multiculturalism and diversity and what Dinesh D’Souza called “illiberal education,” they had little sway. But the events of 9/11/2001 gave the right new traction in their attacks. Led by David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes of Campus Watch, the argument was that universities were not patriotic enough. In Horowitz’s “The Art of Political War,” published just before the  9/11 attacks, he wrote,  “For some time now, conservatives have watched anxiously as tenured leftists have conducted mind experiments on American campuses, regulating speech and punishing ideas that are politically incorrect.”

As Vijay Prashad noted in a piece for “Frontline” in November 2004, the right-wing popular radio host Rush Limbaugh discussed David Horowitz’s efforts to out liberal faculty on his nationally syndicated radio program: “The Right had taken care of the ‘liberal bias’ in the media, he announced, and the new war will be on the academy. In the language of right-wing critics like Horowitz, today’s communists are leftist professors, but the scandal is no less sensational.”

Thus the 1950s era of red-baiting started to adjust to a new version of blue-baiting.

Blue-baiting replaces the communists of red-baiting with liberals who advocate for marginalized identities, social equality and civic justice. It describes these ”blue” activities as a threat to our society and a violation of our nation’s core values. The transition to blue-baiting from red-baiting started as the right moved to attack academic attention to identity politics and campus efforts to diversify the curriculum.

The goal of red-baiting is to intimidate, and today’s blue-baiting continues that trend. But even worse, blue-baiting follows in the footsteps of red-baiting and is designed to destroy public trust in higher education. Ultimately the goal, as seen in the not-so-subtle policies of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, is the total destruction of public education as a common good and as a foundation for civic engagement.

Blue-baiting operates today alongside red-baiting as a strategy designed to dominate the narrative and control the conversation.  In fact, Kathryn Olmsted, chairwoman of the Department of History at University of California, Davis, argues in her study of Herbert Hoover’s use of red-baiting that the red scare allowed today’s alt-right politics to emerge. Their efforts enabled the ideology and tactics that led to cultural fears that leftists “were endangering the home and family.” Whether attacking red commies or blue liberals, the goal is to convince the public that everything they hold dear is under attack and that college campuses are ground zero.

What’s of even greater concern is that today their plan is working better than ever. A recent study by the Pew Research Center found that for the first time a majority of Republicans (58 percent) say colleges have a negative effect on the way things are going in this country. Just two years ago, 54 percent of Republicans said colleges had a positive impact on the country’s direction, with 37 percent rating higher education negatively.

The 20 percent decline in support can be traced directly to news media coverage of blue-baiting activities on campuses that characterize students legitimately protesting the alt-right as rabid menaces to the social order.

Today news about college campuses is overwhelmingly dominated by coverage of the debates over free speech.  As Inside Higher Education reports, “virtually every day Fox News, Breitbart and other conservative outlets run critical articles about free speech disputes on college campuses, typically with coverage focused on the perceived liberal orthodoxy and political correctness in higher education.”Stories about the antifa movement, for instance, focus on the notion that these protesters are scary and violent. And piece after piece, like this recent one from CNN, puff up the myth that anti-fascists are “just as dangerous, if not more dangerous than the right wing could ever be.”

“Every year there seems to be one higher education policy issue that spreads rapidly throughout the states,” says Thomas Harnisch, director of state relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities in a piece in US News and World Report. “This year it’s campus free speech legislation.”

These conflicts over free speech on campus are a direct result of conservative efforts to stir things up and to pass laws purportedly designed to protect free speech on campuses that they suggest limit it. “The campus free speech legislation has largely, if not exclusively, been introduced by conservative state lawmakers who have argued that campuses are not doing enough to ensure that all viewpoints are welcome to be expressed,” Harnisch says.

It’s worth pausing for a moment to reflect on how successful the right has been in launching its narrative that free speech is threatened on campuses these days.  One article after another covers the story as it has been framed on the right with little or no attention to the fact that these arguments are either overblown or completely without merit.

Less than a year ago Turning Point USA launched Professor Watchlist, a website designed to call out college professors who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

Turning Point’s founder and executive director, Charlie Kirk, wrote a blog post to explain that the purpose of the list was to expose professors who are out of line. “Throughout the next 120 days, Turning Point USA will be running ads to make sure students, faculty, and administrators see that these professors made the Professor Watchlist.” The 22-year-old closed his post with the chilling phrase: “We believe these people need to be exposed.”

But guess what? Even if we assume that the list is fair and accurate, which is a big assumption, the list fingers a paltry .013 percent of the entire professoriate in this nation as a threat to free speech. Rather than highlight an epidemic of lefty profs who discriminate against the right, it proves there isn’t one.

As I wrote for Salon shortly after Turning Point was launched, the problem with the list — besides its more than obvious blue-bait tactics — is that it’s really stupid. It makes claims that have no basis in reality. It exaggerates. It creates crisis where there is none. And worst of all, it promises to increase conflict rather than improve it.

In the coming weeks about 20.4 million students will begin their next year at college.  But rather than hear about the real challenges this generation of college students will face, chances are pretty good that the news will focus on the campus debates over free speech that have been orchestrated by the right.

Despite the fact that only about 9 percent of college students will even participate in a campus protest, it is far more likely that their activities will be covered than the 70 percent of students who will graduate with loans averaging $37,172. 44.2 million Americans are burdened with student loan debt and 59 percent of millennials have no idea when their student loans, which average monthly payments of about $350, will be paid off.

But rather than cover that story, we will hear that white supremacist Richard Spencer was denied yet another speaking engagement.

And that leads me to the real crisis facing higher education in our nation. While everyone gets distracted by debates over free speech, Republican-controlled states are slashing support for higher education at precisely the time when our nation’s students need more, not less, funding.

Republicans now hold 34 governorships, matching the party’s all-time high from 1922. And it is those same governors, like Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, who have been behind cuts in funding for their state’s colleges. Recently elected Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens cut $68 million in core funding to colleges, universities and community colleges in his state for the current budget year.

According to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report, in total, after adjusting for inflation, funding for public two- and four-year colleges is nearly $10 billion below what it was just before the recession. They further report that the average state is spending $1,598, or 18 percent, less per student than before the recession.

To make up for the shortfall in public funding students work while going to school. Forty percent of students work at least 30 hours a week. About 25 percent work full-time and go to school full-time. A recent study found that 13 percent of households with students at community colleges and 11 percent with students at four-year colleges worried about having enough money to buy food in 2015.

UC Berkeley’s food pantry served more than 2,000 students last spring, or 5 percent of its total student population, but it’s the student protesters who are getting the news coverage and leading President Trump to talk about defunding Berkeley even more.

This is not to say that counter-protests and free speech debates aren’t important and don’t deserve our attention. But it is stunning to note the public apathy toward the systematic defunding of higher ed — a move that affects all families regardless of political beliefs.

And yet the shrill blue-baiting continues, distracting us from our real crises, sowing distrust in higher education and disincentivizing those on the right from even seeking college degrees — a move guaranteed to help a party that appeals to the less educated.

Despite the fact that the right has tried to twist the meaning of “baiting” by turning the phrase “race-baiting” on its head, it is worth remembering that the term red-baiting and my neologism blue-baiting each derive from the verb “to bait.” Which means to set dogs to bite and harass another animal that is usually chained. The goal is for the dogs to subdue the attacked animal by incapacitating it or killing it.

The chained animal in this story is our institutions of higher ed.

Make no mistake: The right’s blue-baiting has zero interest in helping make our colleges more open to debate and discussion. But it does want to unravel the one institution our nation needs in order to foster an informed and educated citizenry.

Sophia A. McClennen is professor of international affairs and comparative literature at Pennsylvania State University. Her latest book, co-authored with Remy M. Maisel, is, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics.