If the NEA conference call is any indication, the answer is no.

Wicks, who works in the Obama White House as the Deputy Director of the Office of Public Engagement, helped orchestrate, and took part in, the infamous NEA call which asked the artistic community to sell their souls for a partisan political agenda.

You know, in the name of art.

One year ago on September 23rd, KMOV Channel 4 in St. Louis reported that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCullough and St. Louis Circuit attorney Jennifer Joyce joined a high-profile group of law enforcement officials (including Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer) threatening to invoke “Missouri ethics laws” against anyone the prosecutors determined had spread misleading information about Obama.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Said McCullough:

“If they’re not going to tell the truth, somebody’s got to step up and say, ‘That’s not the truth. This is the truth.’”

The KMOV report stated:

“They will be reminding voters that Barack Obama is a Christian who wants to cut taxes for anyone who makes less than $250,000 a year. They also say they plan to respond immediately to any ads and statements that violate Missouri’s ethics laws.”

Is it too much to assume that perhaps Wicks convened with McCullough and Joyce to ask for their assistance in stamping out dissent?

KMOV reported:

“The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign.”

The campaign is asking. The only assumption with which we’re left is that Wicks, as the head of the Missouri campaign, was directly involved with the attempt to misuse St. Louis prosecutors against the people they serve – especially considering the precedence established by the NEA call. Wicks’s modus operandi is enlisting others to do Obama’s dirty work, disrespecting the skills and responsibilities of professionals and artists by co-opting their talents in the name of partisan politics.

These tricks bring to mind one of my favorite monologues from Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter):

“Growing up in the rural part of Georgia, I’ve been around compost all my life. I’ve seen it tilled and hoed and spread across fields far and wide, but until today, I’ve never seen it tied up and gift-wrapped in such a neat and tidy and pretty a package. Congratulations! You’re a very clever girl–but it’s still compost.”

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

More: Reporter John Mills’ response

Coincidence? Buffy Wicks ran Obama’s Missouri campaign and two of St. Louis high-profile prosecuting attorneys, both Democrats, threatened to target anyone who dared to spread misinformation about the then-candidate, known as “Obama’s Truth Squad.”

If the NEA conference call is any indication, the answer is no.

Wicks, who works in the Obama White House as the Deputy Director of the Office of Public Engagement, helped orchestrate, and took part in, the infamous NEA call which asked the artistic community to sell their souls for a partisan political agenda.

You know, in the name of art.

One year ago on September 23rd, KMOV Channel 4 in St. Louis reported that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCullough and St. Louis Circuit attorney Jennifer Joyce joined a high-profile group of law enforcement officials (including Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer) threatening to invoke “Missouri ethics laws” against anyone the prosecutors determined had spread misleading information about Obama.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Said McCullough:

“If they’re not going to tell the truth, somebody’s got to step up and say, ‘That’s not the truth. This is the truth.’”

The KMOV report stated:

“They will be reminding voters that Barack Obama is a Christian who wants to cut taxes for anyone who makes less than $250,000 a year. They also say they plan to respond immediately to any ads and statements that violate Missouri’s ethics laws.”

Is it too much to assume that perhaps Wicks convened with McCullough and Joyce to ask for their assistance in stamping out dissent?

KMOV reported:

“The Barack Obama campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading TV ad during the presidential campaign.”

The campaign is asking. The only assumption with which we’re left is that Wicks, as the head of the Missouri campaign, was directly involved with the attempt to misuse St. Louis prosecutors against the people they serve – especially considering the precedence established by the NEA call. Wicks’s modus operandi is enlisting others to do Obama’s dirty work, disrespecting the skills and responsibilities of professionals and artists by co-opting their talents in the name of partisan politics.

These tricks bring to mind one of my favorite monologues from Julia Sugarbaker (Dixie Carter):

“Growing up in the rural part of Georgia, I’ve been around compost all my life. I’ve seen it tilled and hoed and spread across fields far and wide, but until today, I’ve never seen it tied up and gift-wrapped in such a neat and tidy and pretty a package. Congratulations! You’re a very clever girl–but it’s still compost.”

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

More: Reporter John Mills’ response

Savor that bit of irony for a moment.

The Left is seeking to employ sexism as a way to take down yet another young woman. A rationale after Ike Turner’s own heart! Leftist ideology replaces “barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen” as the modern-day female prison; step out of line and you will be virtually and emotionally abused by the burdensome patriarchal undercurrent that powers this political rationale. They’re only for choice if that “choice” is the genocide of the female sex; they’re only for female empowerment if it doesn’t disrupt the fragile liberal status quo – and Giles is the most recent example.

As a young woman, I can say that sexist behavior so often perpetrated by the left is a major reason why I and many other women left the Democratic party. It’s gross to know that a bunch of crusty, old, pee-paw Democratic operatives are, at this second, scouring the web for nudie Giles shots as a way to discredit her and O’Keefe’s work.

The reasoning of these ACORN supporters is that the message is only as valid as the messenger is pure. By that “logic,” nothing is reasonable, including that statement.

Thankfully, fellow conservative bloggers like RS McCain, Little Miss Attila and others recognized early on and by way of SEO made sure that their mentions of search terms involving Giles and bikinis brought searchers to their blogs, effectively lampooning those of ill will.

The heat on James O’Keefe and Giles has been such that now ACORN is targeting them for allegedly violating the state’s two-party consent laws in regard to recorded conversation; however the law appears to be murky with differentiating between audio and video recordings. Two citizen journalists exposed a taxpayer-funded group who gave advice on how to skirt the IRS and enslave children in a sex trade and the Baltimore’s city state’s attorney may target the journalists – and not those all-too-willing to facilitate the sexual abuse of minors. I’ve a feeling that if “Dateline NBC” taped their “To Catch a Predator” in Maryland, the pedophiles would be exalted as victims and the show’s producers as bad people for exposing the criminality.

No one on the Left has remarked how awful it was that not a single ACORN worker reached out to Giles and offered to help get her out of a life of prostitution instead of helping to place her into a brothel; or how her “pimp” wasn’t reprimanded for the sexist way in which he used his girlfriend to further his political agenda. The ACORN women have filed suit against O’Keefe and Giles for the “extreme emotional distress” caused when these women were forced to face the their own corrupt characters on tape. Were I Giles, I’d counter-sue for the “extreme emotional distress” brought on by the realization that taxpayer-supported, systematic sexism (by way of facilitating the sexual slavery of women) is considered less of an infarction in this country than two-way consent.

That tells you where women lie in ACORN’s priorities; we’ll see where they lie with the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office.

That is was an investigation and not an ACTUAL “pimp and ho” who walked in to these offices is a weak defense at best and completely irrelevant to the conclusion. The end would remain unchanged regardless whether or not the means were known as subterfuge or real; the sad part is that were this an actual prostitution duo wanting to import children in for a brothel, that brothel would likely exist by now.

A defense fund was established for Giles; she’ll need all the help she can get. I love how they’re calling ACORN’s bluff and willing to drag them into a full-on trial where ACORN’s every misdeed since their inception will be scrutinized.

Initially you could type “ACORN” into the search field on Serve.gov and various listings from planting trees to volunteering to get out the vote in Ohio, for ACORN, would appear in the results. It’s important to note that several ACORN positions were listed directly on the federally-funded Serve.gov – not just on the AllforGood.org website.

The act of removing these listings indicates that Serve.gov knew it was a) wrong to use a federal website to funnel volunteers to campaign for the president and DNC and, 2) bad for them to be seen further associating with ACORN in light of the recently released videos combined with ongoing investigations.

This doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that the administration is finished with trying to recruit Americans for do-gooder volunteer opportunities that are subterfuge for unpaid political promotion; they’ve just realized that perhaps advertising it on a site for which we all pay perhaps isn’t the slickest way to go about it.

We’ve heard the audio from the now-infamous NEA call that asks for sympathetic artists to allow their skills to be co-opted by the administration so that they may push their agenda in a subtler manner. On the call we heard people like Buffy Wicks and Nell Abernathy mention Serve.gov and United We Serve together when discussing the topic of volunteer recruitment.

The White House has not offered an apology nor explanation as to why taxpayers were paying for a federal website to push an agenda that half the country opposes.

This, coupled with the NEA scandal, shows that this administration hasn’t abandoned its goal of using subterfuge to raise synthetic support for its agenda and will use any means possible.

Initially you could type “ACORN” into the search field on Serve.gov and various listings from planting trees to volunteering to get out the vote in Ohio, for ACORN, would appear in the results. It’s important to note that several ACORN positions were listed directly on the federally-funded Serve.gov – not just on the AllforGood.org website.

The act of removing these listings indicates that Serve.gov knew it was a) wrong to use a federal website to funnel volunteers to campaign for the president and DNC and, 2) bad for them to be seen further associating with ACORN in light of the recently released videos combined with ongoing investigations.

This doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that the administration is finished with trying to recruit Americans for do-gooder volunteer opportunities that are subterfuge for unpaid political promotion; they’ve just realized that perhaps advertising it on a site for which we all pay perhaps isn’t the slickest way to go about it.

We’ve heard the audio from the now-infamous NEA call that asks for sympathetic artists to allow their skills to be co-opted by the administration so that they may push their agenda in a subtler manner. On the call we heard people like Buffy Wicks and Nell Abernathy mention Serve.gov and United We Serve together when discussing the topic of volunteer recruitment.

The White House has not offered an apology nor explanation as to why taxpayers were paying for a federal website to push an agenda that half the country opposes.

This, coupled with the NEA scandal, shows that this administration hasn’t abandoned its goal of using subterfuge to raise synthetic support for its agenda and will use any means possible.

The National Endowment for the Arts denies that it was working with White House officials to promote the president’s agenda through the arts via this taxpayer-funded organization:

This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false. The NEA regularly does outreach to various organizations to inform of the work we are doing and the resources available to them.”

Unfortunately, the transcript of the actual call does not corroborate the NEA’s statement. BigGovernment.com obtained the full transcript of the conference call on which White House official Buffy Wicks (of the Office of Public Engagement and head administration official for Serve.gov; Wicks previous worked with WakeUp Walmart and was a lobbyist for the United Food and Commercial Workers’ Union), and others – including lead organizers with Rock the Vote and Current TV – discussed ways to co-opt the art community for political purposes and manipulate those around them so as to push things like Obama’s health care legislation. It’s a call that call participant Patrick Courrichie says raised the hair on his arms.

The call’s players, taken from their self-introductions from the transcript:

Michael Skolnik (filmmaker, political director for Russell Simmons), Mike de la Rocha, Rebecca Krause-Hardy, Hunter Heaney (c0-founder of the Voice Project), Tom Bazis from Education Dynamics, Constance Schwartz(MGMT), promoter Rachel Furman, Mobolagji Akatunday (head filmmaker and outreach for Current TV), Bim Ayandele (reputation manager with Winner and Associates in Los Angeles), Jeff Kemerling, Joshua Fine with Baron Fine LLP in Los Angeles, Saskia Brown with Current TV, Nic Adler (owner of the Roxy in LA), Sean Bonner (co-founder, CEO, Bode Media Inc.), Sharon Lewis, Lynn Hastey from Green Galactic, Sean Akatunday, Lori Bull with Obama poster artist Shepard Fairey, Rob Stone (founder Fader Magazine and Cornerstone Promotions), Justin Runner, Nicola Vassell (Deitch Projects), Nell Abernathy with United We Serve, and Yoshi Sergant of the NEA, and White House official Buffy Wicks. The Washington Times, which got a partial list of those on the conference call, says it has identified a few of the participants as writers for the Huffington Post:
Participants took the NEA’s request seriously as many were suddenly very vocal in social networks with their support of the president’s health care proposal following the call:

There’s even a new Twitter profile related to the new allegiance of artists who want to work with the NEA and the government to promote Obama’s agenda. The push has metastasized across Twitter already with the #unitedweserve tag as well as “Rebuilt Together” profiles that document service in various cities.

Were this an effort spearheaded by the people to serve each other it would be different; instead it is a calculated move by the White House to exploit the artistic community, co-opt the talents of artists who rely on NEA funding to promote a one-sided agenda, and use the NEA to do it. What would the outcry be if a Republican president had attempted such?

I am afraid for our arts community – not only because this action begs the question as to whether  artists not compliant with such an initiative would be blacklisted from further NEA funding; it also distorts the purpose of a taxpayer-supported outfit designed to enhance the artistic community, not make it a subservient branch of this administration as a way to lure back some of that campaign fervor.

It’s ironic: the government called tea partiers and town hall participants “astroturfed,” yet here again is an egregious example of this administration producing a synthetical movement.

The full transcript of the call is here; the more outrageous excerpts are quoted here.

MR. SKOLNIK: All right. So we will

5 begin. As people join us, I’ll ask them to mute

6 their phones periodically just so we can hear

7 everybody. This is Mike Skolnik. I am based in

8 New York. I am a film maker for the past ten years

9 but currently serve as the political director for

10 Russell Simmons.

11 I have been asked by folks in the White

12 House and folks in the NEA about a month ago in a

13 conversation that was had. We had the idea that I

14 would help bring together the independent artists

15 community around the country.

[my emphasis]

Conservatives always knew that the left made a concerted effort to dominate in the entertainment field because it’s such a fabulous way to plant the seed of an agenda. Sugar helps the medicine go dow, as does seeing it on the silver screen or hearing it in a catchy pop hook.

I want to start off by saying a few

3 things, and then we will have some people in

4 Washington from the NEA and United We Serve speak

5 to us, and then we’ll have a chance for questions

6 and comments and discussions afterwards. I think

7 this it’s clear, and I heard somebody from Shepard

8 Fairey’s team introduce themselves, and I think

9 Shepard and the Hope poster obviously is a great example,

10 but it’s clear as an independent art community as

11 artists and thinkers and tastemakers and marketers

12 and visionaries on this call, the role that we

13 played during the campaign for the president and

14 also during his first 200 some odd days of his

15 presidency and the president has a clear arts agenda

16 and has been very supportive of using art and

17 supporting art in creative ways to talk about some

18 of the issues that we face here in our country and

19 also to engage people.

Irony is the new art: it used to be rebellious to create artistry in protest of the Man; in this new era of hope and change it’s only rebellious if you don’t pay homage to the Man by using your talents to promote the Man’s agenda. Whatever happened to art? Art can be political but when it becomes politicized the purity is ruined.

20 And I think all of us who are on this

21 phone call were selected for a reason, and you are

22 the ones that lead by example in your communities.

23 You are the thought leaders. You are the ones that, if

24 you create a piece of art or promote a piece of art

25 or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and

8
1 our young people sort of what to do and what

2 to be in to; and what’s cool and what’s not cool.

The transcript of the conference call doesn’t corroborate the NEA’s statement. Read below, my emphasis again in bold:

3 And so I’m hoping that through this group

4 and the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call,

5 is through this group that we can create a stronger

6 community amongst ourselves to get involved in

7 things that we’re passionate about as we did during

8 the campaign but continue to get involved in those

9 things, to support some of the president’s

10 initiatives, but also to do things that we are

11 passionate about and to push the president and push

12 his administration.

13 And the first thing that I thought we

14 could all come together on and begin this

15 collective of artists around the country was United

16 We Serve or is United We Serve and United We Serve

17 is the president’s call to the country to get

18 engaged in meaningful community service, and I

19 wanted to give you all the opportunity to hear more

20 about the United We Serve from the folks who are

21 running it as well as hear from the National

22 Endowment for the Arts and Yosi Sergant,

“Pushing the president and his administration” is not the purpose of the NEA. Their purpose is to push the arts, not the administration. It’s shameful that the White House coordinates a phone call with artists dependent upon the NEA for funding and asks them to sell out, basically.

9 MS. ABERNATHY: Thanks, Michael, and

10 thanks everyone for getting on the call. We

11 actually were lucky enough to get someone who I’m

12 going to introduce first which is Buffy Wicks with

13 the Office of Public Engagement, who I’m sure many

14 of you know from the campaign. She was a huge

15 champion of getting the arts community involved on

16 the campaign and also has been one of the people

17 who spearheaded this initiative from the beginning.

18 So I’ll let Buffy say a few things first, and then

19 I’ll get into the we’s about this.

Cue Buffy Wicks of the Office of Public Engagement:

15 it’s like, yeah, I know change doesn’t come easy,

16 but then now that I’m actually in the White House

17 and working towards furthering this agenda, this

18 very aggressive agenda, I’m really realizing that,

19 and I’m also appreciative of the way in which we

20 did win and the strategy that the campaign shows,

21 which is really to engage people at a local level

22 and to engage them in the process, because we need

23 them and we need you, and we’re going to need your

24 help, and we’re going to come at you with some

25 specific asks here.

There’s more:

14 this energy that’s out there, how do we translate

15 folks who have just been engaged in electoral

16 politics and engage them in really the process of

17 governing, of being part of this administration in

18 a little bit of a different way because politics is

19 one thing and governing is something totally

20 separate, we really saw service as the platform by

21 which we can do that.

How can these artists say no to a federal tax-payer-supported entity that funds the majority of their community?

We wanted folks to connect

4 with local nonprofit organizations in their

5 community. We wanted them to connect with local

6 city council members or local elected officials.

7 We wanted them to connect with federal agencies,

8 with labor unions, progressive groups, face

9 groups, women’s groups, you name it.

More:

9 I can be an agent of change in my community. So

10 that’s why we do this more sustained period of

11 time, and we really view it as an onramp to a

12 lifetime of service.

[...]

23 direction. We worked very closely with our federal

24 agencies here in the government. We worked closely

25 with the Department of Education, Department of

14
1 Energy, the EPA, Department of Labor and others,

2 really sort of industry experts thinking through

3 what are the main issues people are facing, how can

4 we work with local organizations and this federal

5 government to create this sort of change.

6 So we focus on the four main areas: One

7 is health care. Obviously, that’s a big issue. We

8 met with Health and Human Services and thought

9 through there are ways we can have organizations

10 and individuals work with HHS and others to be

11 effective.

[...]

14 Second was energy and environment. And so

15 we worked a lot with the Department of Interior. I

16 know I’m throwing a lot of government stuff at you

17 guys, so bear with me. It’s the world we live in

18 now. We’re actually running the government.

Remember, the NEA still maintains that they weren’t pushing an agenda. Nell Abernathy of United We Serve put in an appearance:

9 MS. ABERNATHY: Thanks so much, Buffy, and

10 thank you, Michael, for organizing this and asking

11 us to be on. For you all, my name is Nell

12 Abernathy. I’m the director of outreach for United

13 We Serve, which is run through the federal agency

14 in Washington, the corporation for national and

15 community service.

From my previous piece on Serve.gov:

Serve.gov is just one of many projects managed by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency which oversees various government service agencies, includingAmericorps, the outfit at the center of the fired IG scandal.

Further excerpts:

7 To a large degree, that’s how I saw the

8 arts community to be so powerful in the campaign

9 helping us to tell the story, telling their own

10 story whether it was the Hope poster which made the

11 whole — our whole mission instantly recognizable

12 and relatable to people, or it was the Will.I.am

13 video that circulated on the Internet but helping

14 people to feel that they are part of a national

15 movement and that their story, their private story,

16 fits into this public space.

It’s as I said, Riefenstahl-esque.

Cue Yoshi Sergant with the NEA:

I think Yosi is on and is going to talk

25 about some of the specific ways which we feel the

22
1 art community is critical to this both what’s

2 already going on and some opportunity for future

3 partnership.

17 MR. SERGANT: Thank you so much. Still

18 trips me out to hear myself introduced that way.

19 Hello everybody. It’s really good to hear

20 some many familiar voices. Welcome to your

21 government.

Does the NEA still want to stick with their statement of not being involved with any agenda? You can read the full transcript and see just how far the NEA goes in directing artists to promote Obama’s agenda.

By typing “ACORN” into the search field entitled “What interests you” at Serve.gov, you’re transported to allforgood.org where you can choose from a list of volunteer opportunities, including “healthcare activist.” This particular “volunteer” opportunity is with the Tuscon ACORN office:

The description after clicking:

They’re unclear regarding financial reimbursement; though past recruitment, like the Craigslist ads in St. Louis, advertised for “paid progressive activists, $90 a day, call Lorna 314-732-0131.”

Your tax dollars at work, America. Living the sweet life on taxpayer dollars while using federal funding to advertise for volunteer opportunities to promote the President’s health care legislation.

Pro-Obama activism is the new welfare.

If health care isn’t your bag, ACORN has other opportunities available via Serve.gov, opportunities like a “community organizing internship,” a “neighborhood canvasser,” or a “tax preparer.” Here’s an opportunity to get out the vote in Ohio. Unlike some listings, this one is directly on the Serve.gov site:

This ad for an ACORN tax preparer is also directly on the Serve.gov site:

So after they assist you in procuring housing for your brothel of underage girls, ACORN can also assist you in skirting your taxes, in keeping with the law of probability.

Serve.gov is just one of many projects managed by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency which oversees various government service agencies, including Americorps, the outfit at the center of the fired IG scandal.

CNCS was established in 1993 “to connect Americans of all ages and backgrounds with opportunities to give back to their communities and their nation.” It also operates the Serve.gov website, which defines itself as:

“your online resource for not only finding volunteer opportunities in your community, but also creating your own. Use Serve.gov to help you do your part. America’s foundation will be built one community at a time – and it starts with you.”

Since when does America’s foundation require rebuilding? The idea that our country requires an overhaul at the hands of an out-of-control federal government is disturbing – especially when our government is using a taxpayer-supported website to match activists to opportunities so as to promote the President’s agenda.