Tag: Turning Point USA

Charlie Kirk’s pro-Trump youth group stokes vaccine resistance as covid surges again

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Turning Point USA and its affiliates are urging students to resist mandates and spreading baseless claims about ‘medical raids’ as part of a bid for donations

A young emergency room doctor stood before dozens of students in a Tampa convention center this month and gave them a script for resisting coronavirusvaccines.

“You say, ‘I’m 18 years old. I have no health conditions. Based on the five-year mortality data, I have a highly likelihood of dying from flu versus covid, and I don’t get the flu vaccine, so I’m not going to get this one,’” Sean Ochsenbein, a 33-year-old attending physician in Johnson City, Tenn., told students gathered for a summit hosted by the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, according to a recording of the session obtained by The Washington Post. “Drop the mic. You’re done. That’s it.”

That presentation is just one way the group led by Charlie Kirk, 27, has recently sought to rally young people against vaccine mandates. Continue reading.

Young conservatives mingled maskless at Mar-a-Lago and partied with a money cannon

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Conservative student group Turning Point USA held two large events in Florida this weekend, including one at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private club, allegedly violating local coronavirus restrictions and disregarding authorities’ pleas to avoid such massive gatherings.

Turning Point on Friday night held its annual winter gala at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. The party was attended by hundreds of students, organizers and GOP notables such as South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Mike Lindell, otherwise known as the “MyPillow Guy.”

Then on Saturday, thousands of students gathered indoors at the organization’s “Student Action Summit,” where they heard from conservative GOP speakers, including Donald Trump Jr., and cheered loudly as women shot money into the crowd with a cannon. Continue reading.

Facebook bans marketing firm running ‘troll farm’ for pro-Trump youth group

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A Washington Post investigation found that teenagers had been recruited to pepper social media with conservative messages.

Facebook said Thursday that it will permanently ban from its platform an Arizona-based marketing firm running what experts described as a domestic “troll farm” following an investigation of the deceptive behavior prompted by a Washington Post article last month.

The firm, Rally Forge, was “working on behalf” of Turning Point Action, an affiliate of Turning Point USA, the prominent conservative youth organization based in Phoenix, Facebook concluded. The inquiry led to the removal of 200 accounts and 55 pages on Facebook, as well as 76 Instagram accounts — many of them operated by teenagers in the Phoenix area.

The fake accounts, some with either cartoonlike Bitmoji profiles or images generated by artificial intelligence, complemented the real accounts of users involved in the effort, which largely entailed leaving comments sympathetic to President Trump and other conservative causes across social media. Continue reading.