Rune

Hyatt Corp. is certainly glad that the Conservative Political Action Conference, which it hosted at its Orlando hotel, is over, a three-day jamboree that featured a stage design that some observers said resembled a Norse rune used by the Nazis.

After the CPACers left town, Hyatt moved to rebound from the PR hit by releasing a statement saying it abhors symbols of hate. That's refreshing.

“We take the concern raised about the prospects of symbols of hate being included in the stage design at CPAC 2021 very seriously as all such symbols are abhorrent and unequivocally counter to the values of our company,” said Hyatt in an understatement of the year.

Hyatt then passed the buck to the American Conservative Union, which ran CPAC and managed all aspects of event logistics.

ACU chair Matt Schlapp said it's “outrageous and slanderous” to say the CPAC staging looked like a Nazi symbol.

In another statement, Hyatt said it only became aware of concerns about the Nazi staging after CPAC already had begun.

Fearing an uprising, Hyatt was reluctant to pull the plug on the shebang. “With CPAC’s denial of any intentional connection to hate symbols and our concerns over the safety of colleagues in what could have been a disruptive situation, we allowed the event to continue,” said Hyatt.

The decision to let the show go on probably was wrong but Hyatt already had its hands full trying to enforce its mask and social distancing mandates with the crowd that views any COVID-19 precaution as a political act rather than a health measure.

Hyatt said staffers “occasionally faced hostility from attendees” who did not support its COVID-19 policies. “While individuals are entitled to their opinions, in a Hyatt hotel we expect guests to follow our policies. Further, we are extremely disappointed by the disrespect many individuals involved in the event showed to our colleagues.”

CPAC is usually held in suburban Washington but this year it followed Donald Trump to the Sunshine State.

You can bet Hyatt Orlando isn’t going to host CPAC 2022.

Muzzling the press. Liberal California Democrats Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney fired off a ridiculous Feb. 22 letter to cable and satellite TV companies (AT&T, Apple, Comcast, Charter, Verizon and Roku among them) accusing them of playing major roles in the spread of dangerous misinformation and poisoning the political discourse.

Their sin: they carry Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network, which in the minds of Eshoo and McNerney are purveyors of misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories and lies.

“Some purported news outlets have long been misinformation rumor mills and conspiracy theory hotbeds that produce content that leads to real harm,” they wrote. “Misinformation on TV has led to our current polluted information environment that radicalized individuals to commit seditious acts and reject public health best practices.”

Eshoo and McNerney want to know what actions have the TV companies taken against Fox, Newsmax and OANN for using their platforms to distribute disinformation.

They also want to know if the TV companies plan to continue carrying Fox, Newsmax and OANN after their contracts expire.

The California Representatives are out of bounds. Who gave them the right to serve as national censors and determine what people watch on TV?

Conservatives would surely follow suit and demand the TV companies turn off CNN and MSNBC. That also would be nuts.

Solid information is the way to counter disinformation, not ham-handed attempts to remove Fox, Newsmax and OANN from TV sets.