Note BuzzFeed’s predictably vicious coverage, beginning with the headline calling Act for America an “anti-Muslim group.” It is now taken for granted in the establishment media that to oppose jihad terror and Sharia oppression is to be “anti-Muslim.” The media maintains this even while insisting that jihad terror and Sharia oppression have nothing to do with Islam.
Note also that BuzzFeed “journalist” Talal Ansari repeats the SPLC’s smears against Act for America without ever providing the reader any information, other than Act’s rebuttal statement, about the SPLC’s own hard-Left biases. Nor does Ansari bother to inform readers that Muslim Advocates has received at least $1.8 million from George Soros, and has a long and consistent record of opposing counter-terror efforts.
This is yet another example of the phenomenon I have pointed out many times lately: the Left is closing in now, trying to shut off those it hates from all access to the means of communication and all platforms — even hotels to hold events. It is a quintessentially totalitarian imperative, and it is advancing.
“The World’s Largest Hotel Chain Is Under Pressure To Cancel An Anti-Muslim Group’s Event,” by Talal Ansari, BuzzFeed, September 21, 2017:
A leading Muslim-American legal advocacy group has asked the president and CEO of Marriott International to drop the annual conference for the country’s largest anti-Muslim group at a Virginia hotel in October.
On Sept. 11, Muslim Advocates, a national legal advocacy organization, sent a letter to Marriott International’s president and CEO Arne Sorenson, asking the world’s largest hotel chain to honor their stance on diversity and inclusion by canceling Act for America’s annual conference.
Scott Simpson, the group’s public advocacy director, told BuzzFeed News that Marriott International has confirmed receiving the letter but that no action has been taken since.
The conference, labeled “ACTCON2017,” is scheduled to be held at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, Virginia, on Oct. 2 and 3. Expected speakers at the conference are former Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson, and Walid Phares, President Trump’s foreign policy adviser during the presidential campaign.
“Your past statements on behalf of LGBTQ equality, for humane immigration reform, and your recent comments that ‘symbolism is wrong’ on the Muslim ban show your understanding of how bigotry and discrimination are not only wrong, they are bad for business,” Simpson wrote. Speaking about the ban on a company conference call in February, Sorenson said “across much of the world” the travel ban “is a really big deal” and that the “that the symbolism is wrong.”
In the letter to Marriott, Simpson also noted the hotel chain’s 2010 decision to cancel an event by a white nationalist group.
“Declining to host ACT for America would help to ensure that Marriott International does not fall behind other companies and would be true to your company’s stated commitment to inclusivity,” Simpson concluded in his letter to Sorenson.
“We are a hospitality company that provides public accommodations and function space,” a spokesperson for Marriott International told BuzzFeed News. “Acceptance of business does not indicate support or endorsement of any group or individual,” they added.
Act, which has been labeled an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, claims to have over half a million members and over 1,000 chapters. Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn — who President Trump fired as national security adviser for lying about communicating with Russia — called Islam a “cancer” at an ACT meeting and is a member of the group’s board.
A spokesperson for Act for America said in an email to BuzzFeed News that the group has “a zero tolerance policy for hatred or bigotry of any kind.”
“The recent statement by Muslim Advocates in an attempt to suppress the speech of those holding opposing views from theirs is disappointing, since it is based on a series of outright fabrications,” the statement said.
“In recent months, however, purely political advocacies like Muslim Advocates and the Southern Poverty Law Center have deliberately attempted to redefine legitimate political differences as hate, in an effort to stop any public conversation about them,” the statement continued.
“By attempting to pressure the venue to cancel it through the distribution of outright lies, Muslim Advocates simply exposes itself as a dishonest political partisan on issues important to millions of Americans. We hope they reconsider their outrageous conduct,” the statement concluded….