Just arrived at #SAS2020 in West Palm Beach and students are blocked from the entering Palm Beach County Convention Center due to a limit on capacity pic.twitter.com/cGmONX6qDJ
— Jorge Ventura Media (@VenturaReport) December 19, 2020
What they said before the event, per Vanity Fair:
… After covering Turning Point’s West Palm Beach bash in past years, I’ve concluded that “right-wing Coachella” is the most accurate way I’ve heard the conference described, encompassing the big-name lineups; the huge crowds of young people, many of whom travel hundreds of miles to be there, documenting every moment and every celebrity sighting on Instagram; the meticulously planned outfits, including Lilly Pulitzer elephant-pattern dresses and skirts paired with pearls, or tucked-in Trump campaign T-shirts; and the drunken, after-hours debauchery that goes on until the bars close, at which point students often go to pools or file into packed hotel rooms to continue drinking.
With COVID-19 case numbers in the U.S. reaching record highs, this week recording more than 247,000 cases and over 114,000 hospitalizations, Turning Point spokesman Andrew Kolvet assured the Palm Beach Post earlier this month that organizers are “reacting and adjusting our plans on the fly as information becomes available” and said that the group has made a “sizeable investment” in personal protective equipment, adding that students will be encouraged to only eat with and spend time around their respective pods, i.e. the group of attendees they are rooming with. In other words, Turning Point is employing a similar mitigation strategy that universities relied on, only to learn that telling thousands of young people to stay away from each other doesn’t work out well. (The New York Times reported last week that more than 397,000 coronavirus cases have occurred on college campuses since the pandemic began, an explosion that sometimes led to students bringing the virus back home.) Kolvet described the situation as “fluid,” and emphasized that “the national conversation was different” when the event was planned. Still, he argued that so many students are still eager to attend despite the ongoing pandemic because “kids want to get out—they know they’re not a super vulnerable cohort so there is probably a little more willingness to go out.” …
What they found when they got there, per the local CBS-12 news team:
Palm Beach County officials are blaming Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a popular group for conservative college students, for overselling tickets to its Student Action Summit and leaving hundreds of students stranded outside the Palm Beach County Convention Center Saturday night.
Turning Point USA is denying that.
Tweets from attendees show a large crowd of students outside the convention center shouting “let us in.” Several posts and online articles blamed the City of West Palm Beach, which does not own or operate the convention center, for changing the capacity requirements at the last minute. Palm Beach County owns the convention center that is hosting the event.
County Administrator Verdenia Baker told staff Saturday night that Turning Point had “oversold their contract capacity by 500-600 people,” according to communications obtained by CBS 12 News. The county administrator went on to say “the Convention Center is adhering to the contractual agreement with Turing Point of a 2,000 person capacity; this leaves 500-600 people unable to enter the Convention Center.”
A Turning Point spokesperson tells CBS 12 News there was no contract that explicitly restricted the venue to a 2,000 person capacity, but the agreement did allow the venue to change capacity at any time. The spokesperson said the convention center stopped allowing attendees to pick up badges, which caused the outdoor backup. They added that had attendees been able to pick up badges, they would have been directed to “overflow contingency plans.”
The spokesperson added that outdoor overflow spaces will be provided Sunday to adhere to COVID protocols.
CBS 12 News asked when TPUSA knew of the 2,000 person capacity restriction and is waiting to hear back…
Attendees posted on Twitter and Instagram Saturday night, blaming the city or in some cases county health officials for what they perceived as suddenly halting entries into the convention. A group of students even marched to City Hall in West Palm Beach to protest the convention center’s closure…
Even if they can’t mob the convention center hoping to get selfies with ‘luminaries’ like Donald Trump Jr., Ted Cruz, and Seb Gorka, the young SASers have a new indignity to document on social media for each other. And such material, as Jane Austen might say, must be a consolation to people who so enjoy being outraged…
INCREDIBLE: The County is limiting capacity at @TPUSA’s #SAS2020 and @DonaldJTrumpJr went out to talk to the crowd outside.
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) December 20, 2020
rikyrah
Get the heebie jeebies just looking at this ?
Basilisc
Right wing Fyre Festival amirite?
NotMax
Deadwoodstock.
Redshift
Sorry for all the service workers who have to be exposed to these assholes who “want to get out.”
Debbie(Aussie)
Yuk!yuk!yuk! As the saying goes ‘there’s no accounting for taste/IQ/empathy’. Rotten youngsters and their enablers the grifters. Sad!
NotMax
@Debbie(Aussie)
The road apple doesn’t fall far from the (well, you know the rest).
?BillinGlendaleCA
I’d take issue with the comparison to Coachella, at Coachella:
The acts are better,
More people attend,
And the drugs are better(or so I’ve heard).
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
No idea what Coachella is. Sounds like a frou-frou brand of wine cooler.
CaseyL
@NotMax:
Ooh. I want a poster of this!
Can’t wait for them all to go back to their Trump-loving families, bearing microscopic spiked gifts. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving crowd.
Mary G
Some of the comments on those tweets are horrendous and a lot look like bots.
Raven Onthill
Word is there’s a deal in the Senate. It’s a bad one. Sen Toomey (R-poverty): “Senate Republicans achieved all four of our objections regarding the CARES act.”
Paul Krugman, earlier today: “Putting the Republican attempt to hobble the Fed in perspective: important to realize that financial crises have been a defining feature of the world economy these past 25 years. The run arguably began with Mexico’s tequila crisis in 1995; then there was the Asian crisis of 1997-8, the horrifying global crisis of 2008, the euro crisis of 2010-12, and a brief but very scary breakdown in March 2020. […] Republicans are trying to ensure that the Fed can’t do its job if there’s a crisis under Biden.”
Basically, next financial crisis, the Biden administration will have to go to the Senate Republicans hat in hand and beg. What is left to give away?
(And, yes, this falls if the Democrats retake the Senate. We hope. We only hope.)
lgerard
Joechella on January 20th will be far cooler then this Alt-right Altamont thing
John Revolta
What is wrong with these people? The only way you could get me in the same room with Seb Gorka is if you gave me a couple dozen eggs to throw. And there are worse people than him by far supposed to be there!
Raven Onthill
@Raven Onthill: To which I will add that this really may have been the best deal the Democrats could get. I’m not in a position to know.
But it’s horrible.
Sister Golden Bear
Can we just let them all in — and then lock the doors? Gotta help them build up herd immunity after all….
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Coachella is a music festival held in the spring in Coachella near Palm Springs.
Richard
I am a service worker. Oh they look nasty. I still believe in people, and you never know. One thing i don’t like about tourists, they are always scared shitless, as if they should be guilty about something. They should be . I can’t explain it. It happened again today.
I like the people who say hello. If you ever lived in a tourist town, well then you want to wear clothes. If you ever look at tourists you will be looking at their clothes. I don’t like their style right now.
It is not their fault . We have not done this before. What was familiar was these idiots saying “jump the rope take the shortcut”.
.we put that rope there for a reason. It was to keep you idiots from trampling the garden. What if everyone did that? I should have yelled at them. Sometimes i just give up. Assholes and they don’t even know it.
I have to think about this often.
Frankensteinbeck
@Raven Onthill:
I’ve been besieged by reports that there’s a deal where Democrats gave away the farm in every negotiation for the last twelve years. It was rarely, if ever, true. I’ll wait and see what passes.
Jay
@Raven Onthill:
WaPo an hour ago, “could be near”.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: Me too, and not just because of who are considered stars of this event. No, really, I think I’m allergic to people now and clusters of them make me cringe. I hope this will fade when it’s safe to live normally again.
WhatsMyNym
@Raven Onthill: Or you could just read a article that contains some actual facts…via Reuters
MisterForkbeard
@WhatsMyNym: Looks like basically: We give most of the current fed lending money back, but allow it to establish new lending later.
Brachiator
@WhatsMyNym:
From the Reuters article.
Trump is too busy doing whatever it is he is doing to provide leadership. And yet he wants to whine that he was re-elected by a landslide. Loser.
The GOP leadership have decided that they can safely ignore him. He is not just a LOSER, he is Mr Irrelevant. His supporters don’t matter anymore either. The GOP figures that they are so stupid, they will believe anything.
But it does appear that the Republicans did back away some from their previous hard line position.
Richard
Not everyone has heard of this. Is it a little baby version of that other festival? I don’t see a problem. Each their own. I’m too old anyway. Coachella.
mrmoshpotato
@Redshift:
Yeah. ☹️
Otherwise I’d say let everyone in – and brick up the doors.
mrmoshpotato
@Mary G: Sergei374406958437374 is so totally a real person, MaryG! ?
Richard
@Richard: and here is another thing. How would you feel if after 2 or 3 years you finally got funding to hire a little crew to maintain trails and do a little revegation on a 6 month project? Huh? And because barbed wire is kinda harsh you just decided to go with rope and human decency?
Jay
@Richard:
TPUSA SAS 2020 is a Griftopia where “young Conservatives” pay money to listen to such modern “Conservative” ’illuminaries as Donald Trump Jr, Seb Gorka, share STD’s and Covid.
Jay
@Richard:
should have gone with landmines,….
Luciamia
You’re in college and Seb Gorka is your dream celebrity?
Noskilz
It’s a shame the outbreak they’re fostering will likely have significant collateral damage outside the attendees themselves. If not for that, delusional grifters and their minions packing together in the midst of an uncontrolled pandemic they don’t believe in would be rather amusing, particularly once it starts to take hold.
A bad scene for staff who don’t have a choice but to be there – and for anyone who crosses paths with these idiots on their way back their COVID convention.
Richard
@Jay: you know we don’t do that. But that was funny.
Raven Onthill
@Frankensteinbeck: it seems fairly obvious that that is true; the middle class is all but gone. We are now into giving away lives.
Richard
I am having difficulty with these smh things. I had to ask about that. I was ok with lmao and roflmao. I understand idk but i don’t like it. IMHO is another example. I suppose imo you could say. I don’t understand this. Now i am seeing more and more fyiways. ” fuck you idiots what are you saying “. I guess i got old. IGIGO! That is not enough. Now the people are using number codes. I will never be cool.
opiejeanne
@Richard: smh = shaking my head.
Amir Khalid
@Richard:
I like to say: TIANA, man.
Richard
@John Revolta: rocks. we are hungry and we won’t waste eggs. Also it would be a disgrace for our chickens.
Geminid
@Richard: sometimes I get SAD (Severe Acronym Dysphoria).
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
TIANA = There is always another new abbreviation
Anonymous
This RWNJ festival to brain wash new college students seems like a great idea — it allows us to I D new Nazis early in their career!
We can attach them to the party now to prevent them from having real job opportunities that their lack of ability precludes them from success in the field. You wouldn’t want to ask them to do something that requires actual logic and rational thought, for example. Clearing Kudzu on Forest Service trails might be about right.
Ooh, should I be using more unexplained acronyms here??!?
Amir Khalid
@Anonymous:
??
Tony Jay
@opiejeanne:
I always thought smh = So Much Hate. It seems to fit the context.
OTOH, I thought YOLO = Year Of the London Olympics and wondered why people were still using it after the Games, so I’ve got form with this.
JoyceH
@Amir Khalid:
Here’s one I invented and my sister and I used a lot in texting back and forth. It’s used as a preface for when you’re bragging about some achievement – BABIBA (pronounced Bah-bee-bah) – Be Amazed Because I’m Being Amazing.
Can be used Ironically, as in “BABIBA! I (finally!) changed the cat litter!”
Richard
@Amir Khalid: what? smh?
Anya
What’s wrong with these young people that they are putting their lives at risk to hobnob with Don Jr., Ted Cruz and Seb Gorka?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
Undefined TLAs(1) can GTFO(2) and DIAF(3), IMHO(4).
(1) Three Letter Acronyms; (2) Get The F$&! Out; (3) Die In A Fire; (4) In My Humble Opinion
Richard
@Richard: i had no idea . I guess i still don’t. I thought it was just a bunch of stupid young people being selfish and horny. You know, kinda like normal. I didn’t think they were going to be that stupid.
We are in for a lot of trouble. One thing i hate about LA is how selfish they are. They are one of the largest cities in the world and they take no responsibility. They don’t give a shit.
Baud
@Anya:
Some young people are conservative, and connections are how people get ahead in their world, more so than average.
Richard
@Richard: probably because they can’t. They don’t think of themselves as a city. They are a lot more like Las Vegas than they admit. Oh well, whatever as long as they will help us get rid of these trump people.
Vhh
@Anonymous: With luck, some will catch COVID and die or be disabled. Darwinism at work.
Anomalous Cowherd
@NotMax:
Jonestown – come drink the KoolAid.
(Gack. They are not only nescient; they are stupid – too stupid to pour piss out of a boot even when the instructions are printed on the heel.)
germy
But I was specifically told that once all the old boomers died out we’d usher in a new age of progressive values.
Zinsky
Perfect! I find myself wishing ill on people I don’t even know, which probably makes me as bad as them. However, I see these actions as essentially Darwinian – thinning the herd of those too stupid or with such poor risk assessment skills that they willfully endanger themselves and their brood. The only thing is that there will be collateral damage because innocent people will inevitably be infected, by coming in close contact with these low-lifes, I see the pool of potential Trump voters in 2024 declining steadily if these activities persist.
Baud
@germy:
Ageism has become the acceptable form of hate for some people on our side.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: This one of these things were these people are such a-holes they are unemployable in any normal company so need to find a-Hole friendly companies? I was thinking that’s why so many, many right wing grifters now, because that’s the only way they unemployable as anything else.
Uncle Cosmo
@NotMax: Deadwoodstock.
Wouldn’tstock. Won’tstock. Can’tstock…
germy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes. The problem with RW people is they do shit work. It’s weird, because their whole philosophy is supposed to be about work. But in my experience working in offices, the co-workers who’d spout off their Rush Limbaugh talking points were the ones taking long breaks, doing half-assed jobs, and leaving their messes for the rest of us to clean up.
I’ve had the same experience with people I’ve hired. A self-described heating/AC specialist came to my house about six years ago and did some work. A year later, a ton of problems. I hired someone else who showed me all the wrong things the first guy did. Yesterday I was organizing some old paperwork and found the first guy’s receipt. I had forgotten his name. Out of curiosity I googled him. And yep, there he is on twitter, retweeting Lin Wood and Donald J., and making angry comments about liberals.
And these guys invariably want the check made out to their own names, rather than their company name. One of them wanted a check made out to “cash”.
An electrician I hired, one of the few liberals to do work in my house, told me it’s because those guys are “hiding money from Uncle Sam.” The electrician had a proper, official receipt, included tax, and had me make the check out to his company’s name. And he did a good job.
Zinsky
@germy: I had the same type of experience in hiring people to do work for me. A right-wing tool who I thought was a friend agreed to do some electrical work for me. He is non-union and first didn’t show up the day he was supposed to, calling me about 3:00 pm and saying “he got busy” and then cut three holes in my ceiling for can lights, but only installed one and said he was going to be back in a week because an earlier job had “blown up” and disappeared. I said fuck him and hired a union guy who did a great job, cleaned up like a champ and charged less than the Trumper. I have found many conservatives talk a big game about “hard work” and “rugged individualism” when many are fat, lazy slobs who rely on their wives or the government to support them.
germy
@Zinsky:
That’s the strangest part. Their entire worldview and self image is “I work hard, not like those lazy [insert liberals or minorities or both]” and yet they can’t be relied on to do a decent job
And that’s something I’ve noticed with neighbors. We lived in three neighborhoods in the past 25 years. And at each place we had a Staunch Republican who lived near us. And each guy had a government job. Our latest neighbor, he works part time for the city, and the rest of his income is from his wife. Of course, they all had to share their opinions on everything.
Calouste
@germy: Right wingers are lazy, and they don’t want to work, and they specially don’t want to work hard. Almost all the economical concepts of the right wing in the US can be explained in that light. Racism: they don’t want to compete with PoC on a level playing field. No inheritance tax: they want to live off their parents’ money. Etc etc.
germy
@Calouste:
I suppose starting a civil war over the right to own slaves was their peak.
zhena gogolia
@Richard:
I am sorry. I do not envy you.
The Moar You Know
@Baud: Feel free to whale away on my age group. GenX has shown their asses to the world, and we have shown ourselves to be what I always knew we were: a bunch of pig-ignorant selfish twits, who when faced with even a hint of adversity, were instantly going to go full Nazi and have.
There will always be a GenX, in every society, at all times. Pray they are never a majority.
different-church-lady
@Redshift: I would love to be able to go in to a convention center again, so I can return to earning the meager living I once had.
I can’t. Because my clients are not sociopaths. And I don’t expect them to be.
frosty
@The Moar You Know: I’ve worked with several GenXers and none of them fits your description, so it’s not universal. Just like with every other generation. So take heart.
different-church-lady
The problem with the ageism wars is that there will always be assholes in every age group. The behavior is the same, only the narratives are different.
Miss Bianca
@different-church-lady: The other problem with ageism is that, if you’re *lucky*, you eventually end up as an Old yourself. Suck.on.that, haters.
different-church-lady
@Miss Bianca: Myself, I’m finding that conception of “lucky” to be increasingly bizarre.
StringOnAStick
@different-church-lady: Funny, the most progressive people I know, with informed and cogent political opinions, are Boomers. The people I know between age 54 and 34 have internalized all the Peterson Institute “Social Security will be broke when it’s my turn” crap and have a lot of uninformed political opinions, I suspect because they do more social media.
Bill Arnold
@MisterForkbeard:
The Biden administration needs to assign forensic auditing teams to all the COVID loan program(s) under Trump. There was a lot of theft. I expect that most of it was by Republicans; most greedy rich people in the US are Republicans. So it might look targeted, but amoral thieves need punishment.
navigator
They should all have headed down the road a bit to Mar a Lago.
I’m certain they’d have been welcomed.