Hyatt Hotels has announced they will no longer rent conference space to what they call “hate groups.”
They obviously were pressured by a Muslim advocacy group , surely backed by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” list.
The expanding efforts to silence speech, such as on social media today and where venues (like Hyatt Hotels) refuse to allow people to gather to discuss pressing issues of the day, is the sort of thing the founding fathers feared.
They knew that venting ones views verbally/openly and non-violently in public and often through gatherings of like minded people was an important pressure release valve of sorts.
When people are driven to meet secretly and underground is when real rebellion is fomented.
Originally from the LA Times, but here at the Guam Daily:
Hyatt won’t rent to hate groups
Hyatt Hotels Corp., one of the nation’s largest hotel companies, announced it will no longer host hate groups at its nearly 800 properties, a move that was praised by a Muslim advocacy group.
Mark Hoplamazian, CEO of the hotel company, released a memo to employees Thursday, explaining the new anti-hate policy for Hyatt Hotels Corp.
Scott Simpson, public advocacy director of Muslim Advocates. Learn more about him here: https://www.muslimadvocates.org/about/staff-2/
The hotel company declined to release the memo Friday but instead issued a statement saying: “Hyatt will no longer allow hate groups, those who primarily seek to disparage or demean a specific group of people, to host meetings or events at our hotels.”
Muslim Advocates, an Oakland-based civil rights advocacy group that has been pressing hotel companies to take similar steps against hate groups, called the decision a victory.
“Hyatt’s announcement is a welcome one for consumers who want their hotels to be safe spaces to relax and be themselves free from hostility and discrimination,” said Scott Simpson, public advocacy director for Muslim Advocates.
The Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Virginia hosted a group in September called ACT for America, which describes itself as an organization dedicated to educating and training Americans to “help prevent criminal activity and terrorism.”
But Muslim Advocates accuses ACT for America of being a “white supremacist-aligned anti-Muslim hate group.” Muslim Advocates has pressed Hyatt and other hotel companies to refuse to rent to ACT for America.
[….]
It was not clear from Hyatt’s statement how the hotel company planned to determine which groups promote hate, but it added: “This is a complex and emotional issue, but what we’ve concluded is that we need to commit to a higher level of vetting such that groups using hate speech, primarily seeking to disparage or demean a particular group, are not welcome in our hotels.”
Hint from the story about who might be doing the vetting for Hyatt Hotels….
ACT for America could not be reached for comment but in a news release issued Friday in response to similar accusations by the Southern Poverty Law Center….
Yesterday when I wrote about Chobani Yogurt CEO, Turkish immigrant Hamdi Ulukaya, putting together many global corporations who support and advocate for moving the third world to the first world, I didn’t see Hyatt Hotels on his list yet, but I bet it will soon be there.
By the way, the so-called hospitality industry, like the meatpacking industry, is one of the leading advocates for more cheap LEGAL refugee labor.
I tell my friends not to buy Chobani Yogurt, and….
…it should be pretty easy to find other hotels that aren’t working to silence speech. What the heck there are lots of coffee shops, but getting off of Facebook and Twitter will be hard and that is something I am seriously considering. What do you think?
LOL! The way things are going we might be reaching each other via snail mail soon! (My PO Box is in the lefthand side bar).
Editor’s note: As I reportedhere last week, I received a letter at my home from a Washington, DC lawfirm representing Chobani, LLC and its principal shareholder Hamdi Ulukaya. The letter also references Mr. Ulukaya’s foundation (The Tent Foundation).
They claim that several points I made in a post below are false based on information published by the New York Times, Bloomberg and CNN.
After considering how best to address their many concerns with my post, I determined that it would be most efficient and transparent to simply present their point of view.
So here it is:
~They say that Chobani and Mr. Ulukaya support diversity of opinion.
~They say that Chobani and the Tent Foundation have not advocated bringing more refugees to the US. (They do not say whether Mr. Ulukaya has called for an increase in refugee admissions to the US, only that the Chobani company and Tent have not.)
~They say that Chobani, the Tent Foundation and Mr. Ulukaya have been clear about their objective to provide opportunities for refugees. (Ed—That transparency includes having the Tent Foundation publish a refugee hiring guide jointly with a US refugee resettlement contractor, see here.)
~They say that private companies like Chobani are not involved in selecting refugees or the number of refugees to be admitted and that only the federal government plays that role. (Ed.—of course Chobani cannot make, or be involved in, federal decisions on refugee selection, numbers, and their placement. Any such involvement, if shown would be the proper subject of an Inspector General investigation. But, as evidenced by the refugee hiring guide, the Tent Foundation has become an important vehicle for Mr. Ulukaya to show support for the the federally-funded resettlement contractor community.)
~ They say that the Foundation, Chobani LLC or Mr. Ulukaya have not lobbied to influence the refugee resettlement work of the federal government. (Ed.—Even without lobbying, as shown by the hiring guide prepared by the largely federally-funded Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service for the Tent Foundation, the Foundation has shown support for the federal resettlement contractor community.)
~ They say they do not approve of my discussion about a business model built on a steady supply of cheap legal immigrant labor that must rely on welfare to supplement inadequate wages.
~And they clearly disagree with my opinion that it isn’t humane to remove people from their cultural comfort zones to supply the labor needs of large global corporations. (Ed—they say they support diversity of opinion.)
~ They report in the letter that they told World Net Daily to remove a false statement about Chobani pledging to hire more refugees. (Ed.—I assume that means they want it to be clear that Chobani has not pledged to hire more refugees, but isn’t that what the Tent Foundation is all about?)
~Taking offense at my inference that refugees are at the lower end of the pay scale, they cite several media outlets reporting that Chobani employees are paid well above state and federal minimum wages, receive group health benefits and participate in a retirement plan.
A 2016 report from CNN (cited in the letter as documentation of salaries) mentions that Chobani is proud of its starting hourly wage that is in the $11-$12 per hour range (below the presently accepted living wage of $15 an hour), but that Mr. Ulukaya says he is planning to move gradually to the $15 an hour wage. That sounds good, but the CNN article is more than two years old so it would be useful to know if clear progress toward that higher wage has been made in keeping with Mr. Ulukaya’s “Humanity First” solution to immigration.
~They state that Chobani has never tried to exploit wage discrepancies between American workers and the refugee workers at the Chobani plants. (Ed.—In case you are wondering how many refugees are employed by Chobani, a 2016 report at the Huffington Post says the company employs refugees at 30% of the work force. I have seen other reports with up to 40%. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chobani-ceo-refugee-immigrant-hamdi-ulukaya_us_58189ac4e4b0990edc336cab )
We will be seeking more information from primary sources to make our own assessment of the issue of wages. As for welfare utilization, perhaps Chobani LLC in both New York and Idaho, seeking to set the record straight, would undertake a survey of their refugee employees use of social services including food stamps, housing subsidies and medical care, etc. and make public that information.
More later…..
Below is the original post that prompted the October 2, 2018 letter to me from the law firm representing Chobani LLC. The post should now be read with the additional context provided above.
The original post follows:
What does this have to do with refugees?
Everything(!) because Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya is the primary pusher, through his Tent Foundation***, for global corporations to promote bringing more refugees to the US (and to move others around the world) to provide them with a steady supply of cheap LEGAL immigrant labor.
We have written a lot about Chobani Yogurt and its hiring practices in New York and in Twin Falls, Idaho. See my Chobani files here.
Chobani was back in the news this week because he received a Global Citizen Awardalong with the ‘maverick’s’ widow. I suspect if someone researched the Atlantic Council you would find George Soros lurking somewhere in its background!
The gang is all here…..
I laughed to see the headline at Breitbart, thanks to Richard @highblueridge for sending it:
Chobani CEO Pleads with Corporations to Hire Refugees: U.S. Needs ‘Humanity First’ Immigration Policy
LOL! Humanity first! really!
Is it humane to bring more low-skilled workers to the US, yanking them from their cultural comfort zones around the world so they can work menial jobs in the food industry (think Meatpackers! and of course Yogurt manufacturers) via refugee contractors (aka head hunters) who then help the refugees sign up for all of their welfare services (because wages aren’t high enough, they need to be subsidized by you!).
You have to hand it to them! They have figured out a great business model.
I swear that these big global companies must send everyone to some sort of Public Relations 101 class where they are taught to fit the word “humanity,” “humanitarian,” or “humanitarianism” in to every public utterance they make.
Note that the word ‘humanity’ is never applied to impoverished, job-seeking, Americans!
Read my lips: It is about cheap compliant labor!
(With the Democrat’s side-benefit being that they get more socialist-leaning voters from the refugee arrivals.)
Then, you can have even more fun if you follow the link to the CNN report about Ulukaya’s big award—awarded to him by no less than another of our old favorites from the Obama Administration—Samantha Power (see my many postson what one writer called Hillary, Susan Rice and Power—Obama’s “humanitarian Vulcans!”).
US yogurt billionaire’s solution to immigration: ‘Humanity first’
(CNN) Hamdi Ulukaya, who built yogurt empire Chobani after immigrating to the US in the mid-90s, is challenging Americans to rethink the way they view immigration.
“I have nothing against America first, but ‘humanity first too,'” said Ulukaya in an exclusive interview with CNN on the sidelines of an event for his nonprofit, called Tent Partnership for Refugees.
Staying out of politics but taking a whack at Trump (ROFLMAO):
Above the political fray? Here is Ulukaya at the Clinton Global Initiative with refugee contractor Lavinia Limon. It was her resettlement agency responsible for the refugees being placed in Twin Falls. Did they have a deal even before his plant was built? Imagine where we would be today if Hillary or John McCain had ever become President!
Ulukaya has sought to keep his mission of assisting refugees above the political fray.But on occasion he has denounced the administration’s immigration policies and the way it enforces them. The issue is deeply personal for Ulukaya — a self-made billionaire who grew up tending goat and sheep in rural Turkey.
Ulukaya started recruiting immigrants and refugees to work at Chobani in 2010 — a strategy that drew vicious attacks from far right-wing conspiracy theorists who have spread lies about the company, including allegations Chobani embarked on a secret plot to increase America’s Islamic population.
About 30 percent of Chobani’s employees are immigrants or refugees. He says his employees and suppliers are worried.
[….]
Ulukaya, who launched Tent in 2016, has successfully urged companies to develop solutions by “mobilizing resources, innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit of the business community.”
“They [companies] all know that if you don’t find the way to solve this problem, or make it easier, this human tragedy is going to turn into one of the biggest problems for our children going forward,” he said.
This week, Tent added 20 brands to a growing list of partners pledging to hire refugees or help them build a better life. The latest companies to commit to the cause include Hilton, pasta maker Barilla, Microsoft and Uniqlo. In total, Tent has secured promises from more than 100 companies.
Samantha Power, one of Obama’s “Humanitarian Vulcans” responsible for the destruction of the Libyan state and consequently the migrant invasion of Europe. https://refugeeresettlementwatch.org/2012/05/31/white-houses-power-doing-rinkey-dink-do-gooder-stuff/
[….]
“Even if governments were stepping up to do the right thing, which many, including the US government, are not, the crisis is too big for government,” said Samantha Power, the former US ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017, as she presented Ulukaya the Atlantic Council’s Global Citizen Award this week.
[….]
In 2005, Ulukaya bought a defunct food factory in upstate New York with a small business loan to start making cheese. He eventually grew that into Chobani, which has become the top-selling Greek yogurt brand in the US. Several years after opening his factory, he started hiring refugees who lived in nearby areas.
He tapped the refugee community again in Idaho when Chobani opened a plant in Twin Falls, which is close to the dairy farmers who supply the raw material for his yogurt. Because of his efforts to hire and help refugees, Ulukaya has become the target of far-right websites and bloggers. One site accused Chobani of “call[ing] on [the] biggest American companies to join [an] Islamic surge.”
Laughing again! So will Chobani threaten to sue CNN for bringing all this up again???
Do not miss my postabout how the Tent Foundation hired the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (one of nine federal resettlement contractors) to write a refugee hiring guide.
***Go hereand have a look at the global corporations supporting the movement of refugee laborers around the world. Notice Twitter is one of Tent’s corporations. And, I am sure you will find others that you might not have suspected.
P.S. Why has no one written a book on Samantha Power, a dangerous woman who will be back if the Dems regain the Oval Office?
As a non-profit federal grantee they need to be especially careful about lobbying and getting in to electoral political activities. See here.
If the Refugee Admissions Program survives, the most important reform we need is a prohibition (in the law itself) on federal refugee contractors***, like HIAS, from political organizing and advocacy/lobbying while being funded by you and me, the taxpayers.
Better still, take all nine contractors out of the resettlement business completely!
HIAS received over $186 million from the federal Treasury since 2008, here. And, they have been organizing rallies like this one (with Keith Ellison) against President Trump.
Now this….
This is a screenshot so link is not hot. Go here: https://www.hias.org/election-campaign?utm_source=hias.org&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=election_campaign&utm_content=09_28_18
***Here below are the nine federal refugee resettlement contractors.
You might be sick of seeing this list almost every day, but a friend once told me that people need to see something seven times before it completely sinks in, so it seems to me that 70, or even 700 isn’t too much!
And, besides I have new readers every day.
The present US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed if the system of paying the contractors by the head stays in place and the contractors are permitted to act as Leftwing political agitation groups, community organizers and lobbyists paid on our dime!
And, to add insult to injury they pretend it is all about ‘humanitarianism.’
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of their income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees into your towns and cities and get them signed up for their services (aka welfare)! And, get them registered to vote eventually!
What is Monday? It is the beginning of the federal fiscal year. It is the first day of FY19. It is the day when the writing will be on the wall for many refugee resettlement offices around the country.
Dumb way to run an organization! Did no one in the refugee industry ever question a business model where some non-profits are 97% and up federally funded?
Why? Because in 1980 Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act of 1980 in to law and set up a house of cards that needs to fall now. Originally (supposedly!) designed as a public-private partnership, the federal government and ‘humanitarian’ non-profit groups were to share equally in the costs of admitting tens of thousands of refugees to the US each year.
But, over the years, because Congress has been so remiss in overseeing the program (the Rs want cheap labor!), those non-profit groups (aka federal contractors) have gotten fat and confident (like Aesop’s grasshopper) on ever larger amounts of federal funding and too lazy to raise sufficient amounts of private money to see them through if for any reason the number of paying clients/refugees declined.
(An aside: The inability to raise enough private money is also indicative of the fact that there isn’t enough interest by average Americans in financially supporting the program in the first place.)
So here we are with one story after another about what Monday will bring to dozens of resettlement contractors around the country.
From Austin, Texas we learn that a Catholic contractor—Caritas—is closing its refugee program.
EXCLUSIVE: As refugees dwindle, Caritas will end resettlement program
Since 1974, the organization has helped thousands of people fleeing war or persecution find a new life in Austin. But after 44 years, Caritas is ending its refugee resettlement program and as of Monday, it will no longer serve new refugees.
“It’s really a tragedy that this program has to go away,” said Jo Kathryn Quinn, executive director for Caritas.
[….]
For the past two years, Caritas has seen a sharp decline in the number of refugees arriving in Austin, and the development has made the program “financially unsustainable,” Quinn said. Between 2010 and 2016, Caritas resettled an average of 576 refugees each year. Since last October, Caritas has resettled 151 refugees, but the nonprofit has not received any new refugees since April.
“Having zero refugees arrive in two months was unheard of for us,” Quinn said. “It was the final alarm bell that told us that we couldn’t continue this way.”
[….]
In June, Caritas’ board of directors voted to close the program at the end of the fiscal year at the recommendation of the nonprofit’s executive leadership.
When fewer refugees arrive, less federal money comes in to support them as well. Refugees receive a one-time amount of $1,125 from federal funds for resettlement needs, including housing and food, said Adelita Winchester, Caritas’ director of integrated services. Caritas would supplement federal funds with about $1 million annually in philanthropic donations,Winchester said. [The reporter has missed an important piece of information. The refugee gets $1,125 and Caritas gets another $1,125 for themselves per refugee.—ed]
“We didn’t have any excess philanthropic dollars to shift to aid this program,” Quinn said.
Budget Cuts, Layoffs And Closures Hit Refugee-Serving Organizations
Donna Duvin is executive director at the San Diego office of the national nonprofit International Rescue Committee, or IRC, one of nine federally funded resettlement agencies in the U.S. Duvin said the local office’s VESL funding dropped by 34 percent this year forcing the agency to replace some paid instructors with volunteers and interns.
Red meat for readers! I love running this photo of the IRC’s David Miliband outside their Manhattan office. He is the Brit who is compensated at nearly $700,000 annually as he calls the shots about who will be placed in your towns.
“As the numbers began to fall, the support that we had from the county that passed through dollars from the federal government, those declined as well,” Duvin said.
Duvin said in past years more than three-fourths of the agency’s budget relied on government dollars, causing a loss of millions as the office’s arrivals dipped by 85.5 percent since 2016. She said the budget changes during that time forced the agency to eliminate 15 positions.
Apparently the IRC is trying to raise private money to keep some functions going. LOL! Maybe CEO David Miliband could give up some of his nearly $700,000 in annual salary to keep some low-level staffers in a job!
The IRC is not alone.
A representative for the national resettlement agency Church World Service estimated it lost possibly hundreds of staffers when it closed 10 offices after it was forced to merge operations with other organizations in some U.S. cities. And a spokesman for World Relief said it laid off 140 employees after shutting down five offices across the U.S.
If you are looking for something to do, go to this list from last year of the resettlement agencies working in your towns and cities and call them. See if they are still in operation, or plan to close soon.
Reminder!
The 1980 structure of the US Refugee Admissions Program is still in place and the Trump Administration must push now for a complete reform of the program or in 2021 or 2025, it will be full steam ahead for these contractors. They will quickly staff-up and a new President could say—We must make up for the lost Trump years and quadruple the numbers of refugees coming in.
Sorry Trumpsters but I gotta call it the way I see it—Trump was foolish to agree to Obama’s “dumb” deal (to move up to 1,250 illegal aliens that Australia had sent to detention camps and refused to admit to their mainland) to America as legitimate refugees.
Refugees receive all sorts of welfare goodies and their hands are held through the process of signing them up for those benefits by a resettlement contractor. Then they are free to roam anywhere in America.
Seventeen more single young men (likely all Muslims)—Pakistanis and Rohingya—just left for Yourtown, USA.
Meet your new neighbors!
Manus Island detainees! 17 more are coming to a town near you! But, the State Department will not reveal where they are located, and eventually they will lose track of them!
Why were they in detention on offshore islands in the first place?
About five years ago, the Australian government had a brilliant idea of how to deter illegal boat migration to their country. They made it a policy that anyone trying to break in illegally by boat would be sent to detention and never allowed access to the mainland.
The deterrent worked (too bad the Europeans were too foolish to follow the Aussie lead!) and they have severely limited the number of illegal border jumpers.
However great for them, it stinks for us since the Trump Administration is now bringing those illegals to America and we (citizens!) are not being told where they are being placed.
Here is news on the latest shipment, bringing the number we have ‘welcomed’ to 361!
Seventeen single men being held on Manus Island have flown to the United States under a refugee resettlement deal with Australia.
The 11 Pakistanis and six Rohingyans*** flew out of Port Moresby on Tuesday after almost five years in immigration detention.
Since the US won’t take Somalis, Iraqis and Syrians from the island detention camps, Refugee Action Coalition’s Ian Rintoul, calls the transport to the US a failure.
Their departure takes to 147 the number of refugees who have departed Papua New Guinea to start new lives in America.
Another 214 refugees have been taken from Nauru.
The US has promised to accept up to 1250 people under the refugee deal, but advocates are concerned there are still about 600 detainees being held on Manus Island and another 800 on Nauru.
Advocates are also concerned US officials will not accept Iranians, Somali, Sudanese, Iraqi or Syrian refugees for resettlement because of President Donald Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban” on immigration.
When we bring Muslim Pakistanis, Afghans, and Rohingya, it is not a “Muslim ban.”
Just great isn’t it! More single men who have been held in all male detention for 5 years are now free in America!
Go here for a lengthy archive on the dumb Obama deal.
***I have a whole category here at RRW called Rohingya Reports. I have over 200 posts there and have followed the Burma/Bangladesh Rohingya situation for ten years. Early on when we brought Rohingya to America, the US State Department said we were bringing only women and children. I wondered when the men would follow—now it seems hubbies are on the way!
