Archive for the ‘health care’ Category
Astroturfing the NEA: Winner & Associates in on the Scheme?
Posted by Rusty Shackleford in News, Obama, Politics, health care on September 22nd, 2009
Color me unsurprised to find out that an employee of Winner and Associates — who you’ll recall we revealed were behind the astroturfing campaign to discredit Sarah Palin — was in on the National Endowment for the Arts phone call outlining how the Obama Administration would use that government organization to push its agenda.
From a list of those participating in the conference call:
After we uncovered the link between Winner and Associates, David Axelrod, and the smear campaign against Sarah Palin designed to look as though it was coming from the “grass roots” we begged — literally begged! — the MSM to look into whether the large campaign consulting firm was subcontracted by David Axelrod for work on the Obama campaign. As I noted at the time, I’m just a blogger and don’t really have the resources necessary to conduct a thorough investigation.
As Ace notes here, once Ethan Winner confessed that he was behind the video, the MSM concluded that there was nothing more to investigate. This despite the fact that I showed that at least two other Winner and Associate employees — a subdivision of the largest advertising agency in the world — participated in the astroturfing campaign during normal business hours.
Three employees, one of them the President of the subdivision and another a VP, claimed they were doing this on their own time — which we showed could not have been the case — and on their own dime. On their own dime? Maybe, but it still seems unlikely.
And now we have another Winner and Associates guy at the NEA conference call? He’s also listed as one of the founders of Generation Obama.
Are you going to now tell me that his relationship with Generation Obama is purely on a volunteer basis? And that his involvement with what appears to be a move to make the NEA push Obama’s agenda is being done pro-bono?
Winner and Associates: the largest PR firm in California, but all their major work is done for free!
Something. Doesn’t. Add. Up.
More over at Ace’s.
UPDATE:
We found out, when earlier this year, one of our Senior Associates, Bim Ayandele, was asked by the Obama Administration to help with the launch of the White House’s Office of Public Engagement (OPE).
And who runs the White House Office of Public Engagement? Buffy Wicks, who set up the NEA phone call.
Thanks to Stable Hand.
UPDATE 9/22/2009: It looks like Bim Ayandele uses twitter. His tweets after the August 10th NEA conference seem to suggest that he’s involved in an orchestrated astroturfing campaign.
Follow the link and take a close look at the time stamps. He’s pushing Health Care and anti-Tea Party propaganda on company time during normal business hours.
Also not that none of his tweets prior to the conference call were political in nature. After the conference call nearly all of them are. Yet we are to believe that a paid political consultant with a firm that specializes in damage control and grassroots organizations just happened to be in on a non-partisan call for artists?
Artists who, after the call, “spontaneously” begin to support Obama’s health care plans?
Give. Me. A. Break.
This has all the signs of astroturfing. Will post updates at link above.
PS– Here’s the original Ethan Winner produced video mashed with an official David Axelrod/Obama produced video.
[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]
UPDATE NEWBIE: Its the Cover-up
Update by Howie:
Hmmm right after I started following Bim’s twitter feed. He took down his icon.
click for larger
Odie must have frightened him. He is kinda scary in a harmless comic book kind of way. I mean not as scary as Bim’s thug icon but pretty scary.
Oh and Bim, its called the Google cache.
Update II: Awww, you put it back, there you go Bim……if you’re going to be a thug, be a proud thug.
Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda: The ABC’s of the NEA Conference Call
Posted by Mike Flynn in ACORN, Obama, Politics, health care on September 21st, 2009
Today, Big Hollywood released a full audio recording and transcript of the NEA conference call. A full review of the call reveals several new and more troubling aspects to what transpired on the August 10th phone call. What is inescapable is that the origin of the call reaches into the highest offices of the White House. It is clear, from the transcript, that the call was orchestrated by the Office of Public Engagement, whose Director, Valerie Jarrett, is among the closest advisors to President and First Lady Obama. It is also apparent that Ms. Jarrett’s office directed the involvement of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for National and Community Service, two independent federal agencies. (This is important, as neither is officially part of the executive branch.)
At the very beginning of the call, the general ‘moderator’ of the call, Michael Skolnik, political director for Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons, explains the genesis of the call:
I have been asked by people in the White House and folks in the NEA about a month ago in a conversation that was had. We had the idea that I would help bring together the independent artists community around the country.
This is important, because in the immediate aftermath of the breaking story, the NEA has tried to state that a ‘third party’ organized the call. This clearly isn’t true. The e-mail invitation to the call was sent from Mr. Sargent’s government-provided NEA e-mail address. In addition, as the transcript reveals, Mr. Sloknik was “asked†by the White House and NEA to organize the call.
Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda: The ABC’s of the NEA Conference Call
Posted by Mike Flynn in ACORN, Obama, Politics, health care on September 21st, 2009
Today, Big Hollywood released a full audio recording and transcript of the NEA conference call. A full review of the call reveals several new and more troubling aspects to what transpired on the August 10th phone call. What is inescapable is that the origin of the call reaches into the highest offices of the White House. It is clear, from the transcript, that the call was orchestrated by the Office of Public Engagement, whose Director, Valerie Jarrett, is among the closest advisors to President and First Lady Obama. It is also apparent that Ms. Jarrett’s office directed the involvement of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for National and Community Service, two independent federal agencies. (This is important, as neither is officially part of the executive branch.)
At the very beginning of the call, the general ‘moderator’ of the call, Michael Skolnik, political director for Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons, explains the genesis of the call:
I have been asked by people in the White House and folks in the NEA about a month ago in a conversation that was had. We had the idea that I would help bring together the independent artists community around the country.
This is important, because in the immediate aftermath of the breaking story, the NEA has tried to state that a ‘third party’ organized the call. This clearly isn’t true. The e-mail invitation to the call was sent from Mr. Sargent’s government-provided NEA e-mail address. In addition, as the transcript reveals, Mr. Sloknik was “asked†by the White House and NEA to organize the call.
Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda: The ABC’s of the NEA Conference Call
Posted by Mike Flynn in ACORN, News, Obama, Politics, health care on September 21st, 2009
Today, Big Hollywood released a full audio recording and transcript of the NEA conference call. A full review of the call reveals several new and more troubling aspects to what transpired on the August 10th phone call. What is inescapable is that the origin of the call reaches into the highest offices of the White House. It is clear, from the transcript, that the call was orchestrated by the Office of Public Engagement, whose Director, Valerie Jarrett, is among the closest advisors to President and First Lady Obama. It is also apparent that Ms. Jarrett’s office directed the involvement of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for National and Community Service, two independent federal agencies. (This is important, as neither is officially part of the executive branch.)
At the very beginning of the call, the general ‘moderator’ of the call, Michael Skolnik, political director for Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons, explains the genesis of the call:
I have been asked by people in the White House and folks in the NEA about a month ago in a conversation that was had. We had the idea that I would help bring together the independent artists community around the country.
This is important, because in the immediate aftermath of the breaking story, the NEA has tried to state that a ‘third party’ organized the call. This clearly isn’t true. The e-mail invitation to the call was sent from Mr. Sargent’s government-provided NEA e-mail address. In addition, as the transcript reveals, Mr. Sloknik was “asked†by the White House and NEA to organize the call.
Mr. Skolnik goes on to comment to the participants:
…about the role that we played during the campaign for President and also during his first 200 some odd days of his presidency and the President has a very clear arts agenda and has been very supportive of using art and supporting art in creative ways to talk about some of the issues that we face here in our country and also to engage people.
Throughout the call, the speakers, all public officials, except Mr. Skolnik, make references to the campaign work done by call participants. The call is conducted with the presumption that all participants were active supporters during the Presidential campaign. This is troubling since the call was organized by a non-partisan government agency.
Especially since Mr. Skolnik goes on to comment:
And I think all of us who are on this phone call were selected for a reason…You  are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be in to; and what’s cool what’s not cool.
He then adds:
…the goal of this phone call [instigated at the request of the White House and NEA] is to get involved in things that  we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support the President’s initiatives…â€
If the call ended here, it would be troubling enough. To recap quickly, there were 21 different artist organizations on the call, all of whom, it seems, were active in the Obama presidential campaign. Sixteen of the organizations had recently—within the previous 150 days—received grants from the NEA. To sum up, the White House and NEA had organized a call of 21 artistic groups who had been active in the presidential campaign, most of whom had recently received federal support, to explore ways they could become involved in supporting the President’s agenda.
The most troubling aspect of the call came with the introduction of Buffy Wicks, with the White House Office of Public Engagement. Ms. Wicks is a long-time progressive activist. Prior to working for the Obama campaign, she was political director  for WakeUpWalmart and a lobbyist for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Both of these organizations funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to ACORN, to help support their organizing and protest campaigns. Ms. Wicks also worked on the Howard Dean campaign in 2004 and was a legislative aide to Rep. Bob Filner, one of only 75 Congressmen to vote in favor of ACORN continuing to receive federal funds. Ms. Wicks is also the lead White House official on United We Serve, the parent organization of the Serve.Gov web portal.
She described her White House role at the Office of Public Engagement:
We have about 20 folks and we work under Valerie Jarrett, she’s one of our fantastic leaders, and Tina Chen.
It is sometimes hard for outsiders to navigate the DC nomenclature. Here’s a quick synopsis: Ms. Wick’s mention of Valerie Jarrett indicates to all participants on the call that this discussion has Ms. Jarrett’s stamp of approval. As one of the more important advisors to President Obama, the message to call participants cannot be more clear.
Ms. Wick begins her discussion—again on a call organized by the non-partisan NEA and the White House with a shout-out to the recently-concluded campaign:
I, first of all, want to thank everyone for being on the call and really just a deep, deep appreciation for all the work you all put into the campaign for the two plus years we all worked together…And, you know, we won and that’s exciting, and now we have to take all that energy and make it really meaningful.
Ms. Wicks main focus, however, is on the Serve.Gov portal, and the United We Serve program. They are leading initiatives of the Obama Administration to promote ‘national service.’ As Dana Loesch has reported at Big Government, the Serve.Gov portal funnels volunteers to programs supported by ACORN and other leftist organizations. Ms. Wicks seems to acknowledge this by noting during the call (emphasis added):
We wanted to connect folks with local non-profit organizations in their community. We wanted them to connect with local city council members or local elected officials. We wanted to connect them to federal agencies, with labor unions, progressive groups, face groups, women’s groups, you name it. [you name it, as long as it is part of the center-left movement.]
Throughout her time on the call, Ms. Wicks lays out the vision for the President’s ‘national service’ initiative. Remember, this is a government-sponsored initiative, complete with non-partisan federal agency oversight and taxpayer-funded web resources. There are three main problems with the vision articulated by Ms. Wicks. To summarize:
1. The volunteer initiative are focused on only four areas, as explained by Ms. Wicks:
One is health care. Obviously, that is a big issue…Second was energy and environment…Third was education…and then the fourth category was community renewal.
Americans coming to the Serve.Gov portal would be steered into one of these four areas. Repeatedly throughout the call, it is mentioned that these are the four categories for the national service campaign. Americans who responded to the President’s call to volunteer would be ‘nudged’ into one of these areas. Each of these has an obvious political component towards the President’s legislative initiatives.  Â
2. The initiative seems to mimic a campaign operation. As explained by Ms. Wicks:
And then another tool we’ve been working on is on the ground presence. We obviously don’t have the kind of field staff that we were used to in terms of producing events and encouraging local contacts, but we’re partnering with national organizations, local affiliates across the country and with Americorps members, we have been able to generate this sort of on-the-ground enthusiasm…
This is really close to propaganda. It is hard to see why a focus of a ‘national service’ initiative should actively concern itself with an ability to mobilize large numbers of grass-roots activists for individual events. It is interesting that Ms. Wicks sees this as something to make up for their lack of the large ‘field staff’ that you would have in a presidential campaign.
3. The initiative seems not only focused on very specific issue areas, but, as noted above, the possible channels for ‘volunteering’ have a strong leftist bent. As Ms. Wicks explained, their strategy is to match up volunteers with either government agencies, elected officials, labor unions or progressive groups. Not only are they restricting the issues promoted at the government-operated Serve.Gov, they are restricting the manners in which one can engage those issues.
When Ms. Wicks is finished with her call, she turns the call over to Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach of the Corporation of National and Community Service, the independent agency that is the parent of the President’s “United We Serve†initiative. In starting her remarks, this official from an independent, non-partisan federal agency describes her role as follows:
This will sound very familiar to many of you, we’ve basically been working to do this using the same tools we found so successful in the campaign,
She went on to note:
So our primary goal here is to ask those people and arm them with the skills and tools they need to really do what they’re already doing but do it as effectively as possible…
After a bit more rhetoric, Ms. Abernathy turns the call over to Mr. Sargent, but states that she will stay on the call until the end. Mr. Sargent procedes to urge the artists to engage on the President’s initiatives:
This is all being sorted out. We are participating in history as its being made. So bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak with each other safely and we can really work together to move the needle and get stuff done.
When Mr. Sargent is finished, he turns the call back over to Mr. Skolnik. After closing remarks, there follows a period of Q & A. One of the callers asks about the relationship between Serve.Gov, the government-run portal for national service and Organizing for America, the Obama campaign arm now housed at the DNC. Ms. Abernathy, a public official with the independent federal agency, the Corporation for National and Community Service interjects herself into the question. It is worth reviewing her extended remarks:
Yeah, I can address that a little bit, and the reason only a little bit is largely because of my role at a federal agency, I’m precluded from going too far down the specific steps what people can do to advocate…We use the techniques, organizing strategies, because basically they’re both run by people from the campaign…So, if you’re interested in getting involved with OFA that’s run through the DNC now, I could probably put you in – I could help you with who to contact. I could get that information to Michael [Skolnik] and he could get it out.
Mr. Skolnik immediately follows up by noting that:
Well, I can speak to that because fortunately, or unfortunately, I don’t work for the government…
Mr. Skolnik then speaks of very political matters. Ms. Abernathy, who is clearly still on the call, doesn’t stop him, in spite of the fact that she is a government official and that government entities organized the call.
Throughout the call, the government officials hint strongly to the artists—most of whom are federal grant recipients—that they are needed to promote the Administration’s national service initiatives. There is a lot of rich detail in the full audio recording, but the basic facts are simple—and troubling. To summarize:
The White House and NEA organized a call of former Obama campaign supporters from the art community, most of whom recently have received federal funding.
- These artists are reminded of the great work they did during the campaign and urged to do similar work to promote the President’s agenda.
- They are also asked to support the President’s initiative for ‘national service.’ They are told that their art can inspire people to participate.
- The ‘national service’ agenda will funnel people into four critical areas: health care, environment, education and community renewal
- The organizations recommended to those wishing to volunteer will be government agencies, politicians, labor unions and progressive groups
Within two days of the conference call, all 21 artistic organizations participating released statements endorsing the President’s health care reform initiative.
The lead White House official heading up the effort is a long-time leftist activist, with deep ties to ACORN and a major labor union.
The NEA, The White House, The Lies and The Cover-Up
Posted by Patterico in ACORN, News, Politics, health care on September 21st, 2009
Big Hollywood today reveals the extensive proof that shows the White House used the National Endowment for the Arts to push a political agenda favorable to President Obama. But it gets worse: the Administration lied about it, and tried to cover it up.
You already know the background: an NEA spokesman participated in a conference call designed to encourage artists to further Obama’s legislative agenda. This was revealed back in August at Big Hollywood. What is new today is the full transcript of the call — and how clearly the NEA was involved in urging artists to propagandize for Obama.
Naturally, the NEA and the Obama administration denied this. According to the Los Angeles Times (in a blog post, of course, and not an actual newsprint story), the NEA denied any purpose to further a legislative agenda:
The NEA issued a statement saying that it took part in the conference to help inform arts organizations about opportunities to sponsor volunteer service projects themselves, or have their members take part in other volunteer efforts. “This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda, and any suggestions to that end are simply false,” the statement said.
The White House similarly denied any desire to further a legislative agenda:
Responding by e-mail Wednesday, White House spokesman Shin Inouye said the Aug. 10 teleconference “was not meant to promote any legislative agenda — it was a discussion on the United We Serve effort and how all Americans can participate.”
Oh really?
If Big Media had been paying attention, it could have demonstrated these denials to be rank lies. But Big Media fell asleep, leaving isolated organs of conservative media to pick up the ball and run it down the field. So, now, today, the full transcript is revealed, showing how badly Big Media missed the story.
The newly revealed full transcript of the call clearly demonstrates that the NEA participated in an unseemly (and possibly illegal) effort to influence artists to propagandize on behalf of the president’s political agenda. Let’s look at some aspects of the call that make it clear that, as Patrick Courrielche says with admirable restraint: “The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address issues under contentious national debate.”
Michael Skolnik
One of the first speakers on the call was Michael Skolnik, the “political director” for Def-Jam co-founder Russell Simmons. Skolnik made it quite clear that the artists were gathered together because of their support for Obama’s agenda. Skolnik said that he had been “asked by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA” to “help bring together the independent artists community around the country.” He told the callers that “the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call” included the effort “to support some of the president’s initiatives” and “to push the president and push his administration.”
The Obama Hope poster
Skolnik cited the famous Obama Hope poster as “a great example” of “the role that we played during the campaign for the president.” He told callers that “the president has a clear arts agenda” and that “all of us who are on this phone call were selected for a reason” — namely, “you are the ones that lead by example in your communities. You are the thought leaders. You are the ones that . . . tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be into; and what’s cool and what’s not cool.” (A fuller version of Skolnik’s quotes is set forth here for context.)
A bit later in the call, Buffy Wicks spoke up. Wicks is the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and served as the head of Obama’s Missouri campaign, and also as the campaign’s California Field Director.
Far from taking issue with Skolnik’s highly politicized description of the purpose of the call, Wicks added to it. Like Skolnik, Wicks indicated that she was talking to a hand-picked group of Obama-supporting artists. She told the assembled listeners that she has “really just a deep, deep appreciation for all the work that you all put into the campaign for the two plus years that we all worked together.” She said: “we won and that’s exciting, and now we have to take all that energy and make it really meaningful.” Why, I feel certain that she is not talking about promoting any legislative agenda, don’t you?
Buffy Wicks
Wicks said that “change doesn’t come easy, but then now that I’m actually in the White House and working towards furthering this agenda, this very aggressive agenda” she realized that there is a need to “engage people at a local level and to engage them in the process.” Towards that end, she told the artists, “we need you, and we’re going to need your help, and we’re going to come at you with some specific asks here.”
In discussing the “specific asks” she veered deeply into policy. Wicks identified four main areas where people can engage in “service.” Two of them seem relatively innocuous: education and community renewal. But the first two she mentioned are clearly two of Obama’s biggest hot-button issues: health care and “energy and environment” (as in cap and trade). Speaking of “context,” Courrielche reminds us that the “context” surrounding this call was that it took place in early August — at a time when Congress was headed into a recess, and it appeared that the Obama administration was losing the debate on health care.
Wicks discussed so much policy with the artists that she even felt the need to apologize:
I know I’m throwing a lot of government stuff at you guys, so bear with me. It’s the world we live in now. We’re actually running the government.
What does this have to do with art?
Wicks discussed how the administration sees “service” as a “platform” by which the administration can take “folks who have just been engaged in electoral politics” and “engage them in really the process of governing.” The “service” certainly sounded like obeisance to leftist causes; Wicks described how she wants folks “to connect with federal agencies, with labor unions, progressive groups, face groups, women’s groups, you name it.” Yes, you name it! As long as it’s a leftist group, it can be part of “service”!
Finally, we get to the comments of Yosi Sergant, the (former) Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts. (Sergant was later reassigned after Glenn Beck played portions of the phone call on his TV show. Sergant is still with the NEA in some other capacity.)
Yosi Sergant
Like Wicks and Skolnik, Sergant saw the call participants as Obama supporters. He says that the call itself is
reflective of all the hard work that went down during the campaign, all the time and energy that each and every one of you put in, myself included, it’s paying off.
This is what we fought for. We fought for a chance to be at the table and not only at the table but we’re setting the table.
He said more than once that “this is a community that knows how to make a stink.” The NEA official then virtually ordered the presumably willing participants to create art that would support the president’s views on the policy areas previously identified by Wicks:
We are participating in history as it’s being made. So bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely and we can really work together to move the needle and to get stuff done. Pick — I would encourage you to pick something whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service.
My ask would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities’ utilities and bring them to the table.
I guess it worked. As Big Hollywood has previously reported:
Within 48 hours of this phone call, 21 arts organizations endorsed President Obama’s health-care reform plan. Within days, Rock the Vote started an all out blitz that included a “health care design contest.â€
In perhaps the most fascinating exchange, a caller named Liz Ban asked:
I think for the people that are on the inside of government to talk for a minute about Organizing For America and the differences between Organizing For America and Serve.gov and what we can do to help on critical advocacy issues like health care reform, cap and trade policy, if that should help move policies through the government, because this is a really important role that our creative community can also play.
That question is answered by Nell Abernathy, the director of outreach for United We Serve, a federal agency run through the Corporation for National and Community Service (this is apparently the “corporation” to which Sergant referred). As you read Abernathy’s words, you can easily picture the wink and the nod as she explains that the federal agencies can’t explicitly advocate specific policy changes:
Yeah, I can address that a little bit, and the reason only a little bit is largely because in my role at a federal agency, I’m precluded from going too far down the specific steps what people can do to advocate. But we have to, for these legal reasons, remain really separate what we do here from what OFA is doing, and so they’re basically two separate goals with the same idea. We use the same techniques, organizing strategies, because basically they’re both run by people from the campaign. But Serve.gov and the United We Serve initiative is based on the direct service addressing needs through volunteering today bipartisan support ideas than OFA, which is obviously advocating for policy change on these specific issues.
Got that? It’s “two separate goals with the same idea” and “both run by people for the campaign” but [wink wink] we can’t advocate policy change because [wink wink] we’re a federal agency.
Luckily, Mr. Skolnik jumps in to cut through the B.S., which he’s allowed to do because he doesn’t work for the government:
Well, I can speak on that because fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t work for the government. This is Michael, again, but I can speak a little bit on that, and then I’ll wrap this up.
I think that’s a good point, Liz. Organizing For America, which was created after the campaign which now houses, as we said, in the Democratic party and is run by Mitch Stewart, who is part of the campaign, he’s the executive director, it is what the Democratic party has created to help advocate on behalf of the president, on behalf of the president’s policies to get them passed in government.
So what I had hoped in bringing this group together with the great hosts, which again, I want to thank for reaching out to their communities was that we could begin to bring together our community in the same enthusiasm, with the same enthusiasm and with the same energy that we all saw in each other during the campaign, and we could continue to work together on issues as important as United We Serve and Service and begin here and continue to work together on other issues that we feel are important, as we mentioned some of them, health care and others . . .
Whoops! United We Serve is the federal agency that Ms. Abernathy had just said [wink wink] had to remain separate from policy, and here is Skolnik mushing the two together.
Why This Story Is Important
It would be a mistake to dismiss this story as unimportant because there is no jaw-dropping angle like ACORN staffers’ apparent complicity in trafficking in under-age children for prostitution. Consider what is happening: the NEA is encouraging artists to create propaganda for a president’s policy initiatives. This is a corrosive precedent — and what’s more, it illustrates the overarching danger of the Obama administration: government, by increasingly taking over various aspects of American society, threatens to bend society to the will of a single man.
It would also be a mistake to dismiss the story as old just because the basic contours of the story were revealed in August. Since then, the NEA and the Obama administration have denied pursuing a legislative agenda in the call; today it is clear that they lied. What’s more, they tried to cover it up with the reassignment of Sergant. And the media played right along, for the most part acting as though that was the end of it.
The most obviously interesting question in all this going forward is whether laws were broken with this call.
Regardless of the answer to that question, this is an important story with implications that go beyond the NEA. Here’s the bottom line. Before today, Obama took over car companies and used his power over those companies to further his agenda of producing cars he believed consumers should own. Today, he increases government power over artists, to harness their creative powers to the “service” of his political agenda. What will come tomorrow, when Our Leader takes over health care, new industries, or God knows what else?
Demand Congressional Investigation: NEA Conference Call Broke Laws
Posted by Ben Shapiro in ACORN, News, Obama, Politics, health care on September 21st, 2009
In the aftermath of the Andrew Breitbart/James O’Keefe/Hannah Giles-broken ACORN scandal, President Obama and his allies in Congress have distanced themselves from the community organizing goliath. Congress has cut off funds, and Obama has refused to speak about the matter. End of story, right?
Wrong.
There’s only one problem: the ACORN mentality – pinpointing and mobilizing particular groups in support of a radical-left agenda – is no longer restricted to government-funded private non-profits like ACORN. The ACORN mentality now dominates the government itself. Taxpayer dollars are being used by elected officials to encourage the deification of President Obama and his agenda. And one of the chief organs of the government propaganda machine is the National Endowment for the Arts.
Let’s start from the beginning. On August 25, artist Patrick Courrielche told the story of a conference call he attended on August 10. That conference call was hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The goal of the conference call: “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.â€Â The call would push “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!â€Â (more…)
Demand Congressional Investigation: NEA Conference Call Broke Laws
Posted by Ben Shapiro in ACORN, News, Obama, Politics, health care on September 21st, 2009
In the aftermath of the Andrew Breitbart/James O’Keefe/Hannah Giles-broken ACORN scandal, President Obama and his allies in Congress have distanced themselves from the community organizing goliath. Congress has cut off funds, and Obama has refused to speak about the matter. End of story, right?
Wrong.
There’s only one problem: the ACORN mentality – pinpointing and mobilizing particular groups in support of a radical-left agenda – is no longer restricted to government-funded private non-profits like ACORN. The ACORN mentality now dominates the government itself. Taxpayer dollars are being used by elected officials to encourage the deification of President Obama and his agenda. And one of the chief organs of the government propaganda machine is the National Endowment for the Arts.
Let’s start from the beginning. On August 25, artist Patrick Courrielche told the story of a conference call he attended on August 10. That conference call was hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The goal of the conference call: “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.â€Â The call would push “a group of artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, taste-makers, leaders or just plain cool people to join together and work together to promote a more civically engaged America and celebrate how the arts can be used for a positive change!â€
If this sounds suspicious to you, that’s because it is. Never before has the NEA explicitly urged artists to tackle particular social issues like health care. But that is how this Administration works.
The people behind the conference call, Courrielche reported, were Yosi Sargent, Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts; Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for United We Serve; Thomas Bates, Vice President of Civic Engagement for Rock the Vote; and Michael Skolnik, Political Director for Russell Simmons. Sargent sent the actual email invitation. When The Washington Times called Sargent for confirmation, Sargent denied involvement with the email. He claimed that Skolnik had sent the invitation.
He lied.
The email came directly from Sargent – which is to say, from the NEA itself. Most astonishingly, the email contained a copy of a notice from United We Serve. That notice read: “A call has come in to our generation. A call from the top. A call from a house that is White. … President Obama is asking us to come together … Now is the time for us to answer this call.â€Â Sargent has since been “reassigned†at the NEA.
Two days after the conference call, on August 12, 21 separate arts organizations came out and endorsed Obama’s health care plan. One of the endorsing organizations, the non-profit “charitable organization†Americans for the Arts, denied any presence on the conference call.
Like Sargent, they too were lying.
According to The Washington Times, both a participant on the call and a partial list of participants confirm that Americans for the Arts board member Kerry Washington was on the call. In the past, Washington has testified before Congress as a representative of the Americans for the Arts Artists Committee.
Kerry Washington
Americans for the Arts is a 501(c)3, which means that legally, it must remain apolitical and cannot endorse candidates. It has an associated 501(c)4, ArtsVote or Arts Action Fund, a non-profit political action wing that can stump for causes, not for candidates. Naturally, the two wings are closely associated; the CEO of both is Robert Lynch, who participated in a subsequent NEA call that occurred on August 27. The 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 have the same Washington D.C. and New York addresses. And Lynch, naturally, supports President Obama to the hilt.
In fact, the private organizational participants sponsoring the call comprise what can best be described as ACORN For The Arts. Each and every organization was deeply involved with President Obama as a candidate, and each and every one pledges allegiance to him now that he occupies the Oval Office.
Americans for the Arts: There is no hard line between the Americans for the Arts 501(c)3 and the Arts Action Fund 501(c)4 websites. In visiting this page, readers find a “Headline of the Week†currently entitled “New Report Shows Cost of Healthcare Critical to Arts Nonprofits.â€Â There is also a legislative message: “Tell your Senators and Representatives to support a funding increase for the National Endowment for the Arts to help support our nation’s cultural treasures and the arts in under-served communities.â€Â There is also an immigration-related message: “There are currently two challenges affecting the international arts community: unreasonable delays by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on foreign artists obtaining U.S. entry visas and the lack of funding for cultural exchange programs.â€Â This is a lobbying organization, pure and simple. And it is a leftist lobbying organization.
Rock the Vote: The Rock the Vote website is currently wholly a lobbying effort for Obama’s health care plan. The website actually comes up on Google as “Rock the Vote on Health Care.â€Â And the front page features Zach Braff and Donald Faison of Scrubs pushing for Obama’s health care plan, as well as a giant slogan reading “YES WE CARE: DEMAND HEALTH CARE.â€Â There was also explicit rallying for Obama: “September 17, 2009: This morning at 11:00 a.m. ET, President Obama will be at the University of Maryland in College Park to talk about health reform.â€
Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons: Simmons is a contributing editor at The Huffington Post, where he is a huge Obama supporter – his admiration borders on the creepy. Obama, Simmons wrote, “is the candidate for the furthering of [the raising of consciousness] – his spiritual concern underlies a deep compassion and also a toughness that comes from being in touch with and at ease with yourself.â€Â Clearly, a man who is a critical and objective artist with regard to the Obama Administration.
The government involvement here is what is truly stunning. Not only did the government sponsor a conference call specifically dedicated to recruiting artists to the Obama re-election and political strategy campaign – and not only did they co-sponsor the call with Obama partisan organizations — they list lobbying organizations on their website for United We Serve (Serve.gov). As Dana Loesch of BigGovernment.com reported, ACORN is included in the “non-partisan†organizations listed by Serve.gov, among the other participants like the AARP grassroots advocacy organization (which asks you to “Be a part of a team of grassroots advocates that encourage elected officials to address the issue of health care reform…â€).
All of this – particularly the government-sponsored conference call itself – is in blatant violation of the Anti-Lobbying Act (19 U.S. Code §1913), which explicitly provides: “No part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress shall, in the absence of express authorization by Congress, be used directly or indirectly to pay for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or other device, intended or designed to influence in any manner a Member of Congress, a jurisdiction, or an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy, or appropriation, whether before or after the introduction of any bill, measure or resolution proposing such legislation, law, ratification, policy or appropriation …â€
Violation of this law, in turn, violates 31 U.S. Code §1352, which bans use of “funds appropriated by any Act [from being] expended by the recipient of a Federal contract, grant, loan, or cooperative agreement to pay any person for influencing or attempting to influence an officer or employee of any agency, a Member of Congress, an officer or employee of Congress, or an employee of a Member of Congress in connection with any Federal action …â€
According to a government guide put out by the National Institutes of Health Ethics Program (which is a governmental agency: ethics.od.nih.gov), the Anti-Lobbying Act prevents government employees from engaging in “substantial ‘grass roots’ lobbying campaigns … expressly urging individuals to contact government officials in support of or opposition to legislation …. Provid[ing] administrative support for lobbing activities of private organizations …â€Â Every provision was violated by this conference call, which urged artists to support the president’s agenda – and which connected potential voters to private lobbying organizations indirectly, as banned by the Act itself.
Violation of the Anti-Lobbying Act carries punishment: “Any person who makes an expenditure … shall be subject to a civil penalty of not less than $10,000 and not more than $100,000 for each such expenditure.â€Â And that’s not all: “An imposition of a civil penalty under this subsection does not prevent the United States from seeking any other remedy that the United States may have for the same conduct that is the basis for the imposition of such civil penalty.â€Â In other words, criminal prosecution is available here.
Every government employee involved in this conference call should be fined and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. We need a full Congressional investigation – we already know that it infects members of the White House staff, including Buffy Wicks. The transformation of our government into a self-entrenched continuous campaigning machine must be stopped now.
Propaganda, Health Care and ACORN: Full Context of NEA Conference Call Reveals Disturbing Pattern
Posted by John Nolte in ACORN, Obama, Politics, health care on September 21st, 2009
At first glance, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) conference call of August 10th, 2009sounds innocent enough because it’s supposedly been organized by Michael Skolnik, political director for Russell Simmons and someone not officially associated with any government agency. Skolnik appears to be acting independently as a concerned citizen and to have taken it upon himself to gather together a group of artists and art organizations hoping to move them towards “national service.†And how nice of the White House, the federal government and the NEA to make the time to participate in the call and aid this group of American artists motivated to help their country and community.
But this is only how things appear.
All evidence points to the fact that the conference call was a ruse, a front for a White House using Skolnik as a kind of beard in order to put an innocent spin on their abuse of the NEA and two non-partisan volunteer organizations (United We Serve – an initiative overseen by The Corporation for National and Community Service – a federal agency, and the White House’ Office of Public Engagement).
The goal: To motivate a group of hand-picked pro-Obama artists (grant recipients or those wanting grants) to push the President’s flagging agenda, especially health care — and to funnel this promotion through the ACORN related- Serve.gov website.
***
Documentation gathered by Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche and the Washington Times, coupled with a newly revealed audio recording of the full conference call, points to eight troubling facts that put the full context of the call in a very disturbing light. (more…)
Propaganda, Health Care and ACORN: Full Context of NEA Conference Call Reveals Disturbing Pattern
Posted by John Nolte in ACORN, Politics, health care on September 21st, 2009
At first glance, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) conference call of August 10th, 2009 sounds innocent enough because it’s supposedly been organized by Michael Skolnik, political director for Russell Simmons and someone not officially associated with any government agency. Skolnik appears to be acting independently as a concerned citizen and to have taken it upon himself to gather together a group of artists and art organizations hoping to move them towards “national service.†And how nice of the White House, the federal government and the NEA to make the time to participate in the call and aid this group of American artists motivated to help their country and community.
But this is only how things appear.
All evidence points to the fact that the conference call was a ruse, a front for a White House using Skolnik as a kind of beard in order to put an innocent spin on their abuse of the NEA and two non-partisan volunteer organizations (United We Serve – an initiative overseen by The Corporation for National and Community Service – a federal agency, and the White House’ Office of Public Engagement).
The goal: To motivate a group of hand-picked pro-Obama artists (grant recipients or those wanting grants) to push the President’s flagging agenda, especially health care — and to funnel this promotion through the ACORN related- Serve.gov website.Â
***
Documentation gathered by Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche and the Washington Times, coupled with a newly revealed audio recording of the full conference call, points to eight troubling facts that put the full context of the call in a very disturbing light.
1. The NEA did not want it known they had any part in organizing the call. When the Washington Times asked Yosi Sergant, the NEA’s then-Director of Communications (he was “reassigned†on Sept. 10th after the story broke) about the call, he claimed the NEA was only a participant and that Skolnik had set up the call.
2. We know Sergant lied to the Washington Times. The NEA did send the email invite for the conference call. Worse, Sergant himself sent it, letting this group of artists and art organizations know the call would focus on “core areas of recovery,†starting with “health care.â€
3. We know that United We Serve  (with the ACORN-related Serve.gov website) claims they were merely a participant in a conference call arranged by someone they referred to as an “individual interested†in their group. It seems obvious they mean Michael Skolnik. Â
4. Michael Skolnik was not merely an “individual interested†in United We Serve, but in fact was asked by the White House and the NEA to round up artists on their behalf. We know this because in the newly revealed audio of the call, Skolnik says so. Â
5. The conference call audio makes clear that everyone addressing the artists and art organizations are fully aware they’re speaking to pro-Obama partisans; the same artists who helped the president win the 2008 election.
6. While addressing this group of Obama supporters, United We Serve, The Office of Public Engagement and the NEA repeatedly focus on four areas where “national service†is most needed … and health care always comes first. Â
7. We know that both Nell Abernathy of United We Serve and Buffy Wicks with The Office of Public Engagement heard and did not dispute Michael Skolnik’s opening statement asserting he had brought these artists together at the request of the White House and NEA, and that one of the goals of the call was to “push the president and push his administration.â€
8. The remainder of this piece will prove a pattern shared by all three “guest†speakers: Sergant, Wicks and Abernathy:
- As mentioned above, all know this is a gathering of pro-Obama supporters.
- All make clear they want these pro-Obama artists and art organizations to funnel their activism through Serve.gov, which we now know filters activists to ACORN.
- When it comes to specific areas of activism, health care comes first.
***
THE PLAYERS:
Michael Skolnik – call moderator, political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.
Nell Abernathy – Director of Outreach for United We Serve, an initiative overseen by The Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency.
Buffy Wicks — The Office of Public Engagement (White House).
Yosi Sergant – Communications Director for the NEA, now “reassigned.â€
***
THE CALL: [all emphasis added]
0:00 – 8:30: This time is eaten up with everyone involved getting settled into the call. Jokes are made about how many people are on from Los Angeles. This fact will be pertinent in establishing that Buffy Wicks and Nell Abernathy were on the call from the beginning.
Michael Skolnik
Michael Skolnik — 8:40 – 12:50:
Skolnik’s opening statement sets the stage for the call; why the call was arranged and what the goals are.
Skolnik states openly that the White House and NEA asked him to round everyone up…Â
I have been asked by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA about a month ago in a conversation that was had. We had the idea that I would help bring together the independent artists community around the country.Â
Skolnik believes that only those who campaigned for President Obama are on the call:
 [I]t’s clear as an independent art community as artists and thinkers and taste-makers and marketers and visionaries on this call, the role that we played during the campaign for the president and also during his first 200 some odd days of his presidency and the president has a clear arts agenda and has been very supportive of using art and supporting art in creative ways to talk about some of the issues that we face here in our country and also to engage people.
Skolnik lays out the goals for the call, ending with, “push the president and push his administration.â€Â
And I think all of us who are on this phone call were selected for a reason, and you are the ones that lead by example in your communities. You are the thought leaders. …Â
And so I’m hoping that through this group and the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call, is through this group that we can create a stronger community amongst ourselves to get involved in things that we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support some of the president’s initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration.
Skolnik then introduces Nell Abernathy with United We Serve – Serve.gov, who immediately hands the call over to Buffy Wicks with the White House Office of Public Engagement.
***
Buffy Wicks
BUFFY WICKS – 13:00 – 21:42Â
Buffy Wicks also believes that the only people participating in the call are partisan artists and art organizations who helped elect Obama:Â
I, first of all want to thank everyone for being on the call and really just a deep, deep appreciation for all the work that you all put into the campaign for the two-plus years that we all worked together.Â
We can assume Wicks was on at the beginning of the call and heard everything Skolnik said about the goal of the call being to “push the president and push his administration†because she references her “L.A. peeps.†She wouldn’t know her “L.A. peeps†were on the line unless she was on to hear everyone introduce themselves before Skolnik spoke:Â
I was the field director in California so I hear my L.A. peeps out there, so it’s exciting to hear those voices.Â
Ms. Wicks talks about how everyone can bring others into the United We Serve-Serve.gov effort and make them a “part of this administrationâ€:Â
And as part of my role here is working on service, and so when we were thinking about how do we take a lot of this energy that’s out there, how do we translate folks who have just been engaged in electoral politics and engage them in really the process of governing, of being part of this administration in a little bit of a different way because politics is one thing and governing is something totally separate, we really saw service as the platform by which we can do that.
Wicks then talks about the four main areas she wants everyone to focus on, starting with health care:Â
So we focus on the four main areas: One is health care. Obviously, that’s a big issue.
After going through her laundry list, Ms. Wicks then refers everyone to the central clearing house for “national service,†the Serve.gov website that funnels activists to ACORN:
So those are the four areas that we focused on, and we’re managing the whole thing through Serve.gov, which is a new Web site that Nell and I can talk to you about here in a second.
***
![OrganizingForHealthCare[1]](http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/files/2009/09/OrganizingForHealthCare11.jpg "OrganizingForHealthCare[1]")
NELL ABERNATHY – UNITED WE SERVE: 21:50 – 28:30
Again, the context here is that Ms. Abernathy is sure she’s speaking only to a group of pro-Obama supporters:Â
This will sound very familiar to many of you, we’ve basically been working to do this using the same tools we found so successful in the campaign.Â
Ms. Abernathy then directs everyone to the ACORN-related Serve.gov website:Â
So accessibility has been a main thing for us and we created Serve.gov, which is a Web site very similar to some of the Web tools we used on the campaign in that you can go in and type your zip code and in return service opportunities would come up.
Ms. Abernathy doesn’t discuss any specific issues. Instead she says Yosi Sergant of the NEA will talk about “specific ways WE feel the art community is critical to this…â€:Â
I think Yosi is on and is going to talk about some of the specific ways which we feel the art community is critical to this; both what’s already going on and some opportunity for future partnership.
We also know Ms. Abernathy has been on the call since the beginning because, like Buffy Wicks, she references the Los Angeles callers – therefore she heard Skolnik’s opening statement:Â
I want to echo again what Michael said about feeling truly humbled in the presence of some of the real taste-makers across the country. And I lived in L.A. for a long time, so I have a particular soft spot for you folks out there.
***
President Obama with Yosi Sergant
Yosi Sergant: –28:45 – 39:00
Sergant also believes he is talking to people and organizations who support and helped to elect President Obama — and he’s excited about the opportunity they now all have to “set the tableâ€:
Hello everybody. It’s really good to hear so many familiar voices. Welcome to your government. …
The very fact that the telephone call is happening to me is a really bold statement. And I think it’s reflective of all the hard work that went down during the campaign, all the time and energy that each and every one of you put in, myself included, it’s paying off.
This is what we fought for. We fought for a chance to be at the table and not only at the table but we’re setting the table.
Sergant spends nine minutes ginning up this pro-Obama group to get involved in national service, gives them examples of how to go about it, and then, like everyone else, pushes the ACORN-related Serve.gov site:
The Corporation for National Services is available to all of you to turn on your community, to act as the message spreaders of this program. So how do we do that? There are three really quick and easy steps. One would be to look at Serve.gov. What Serve.gov really is, is it’s a place where people can go and find out about service opportunities in their neighborhoods.Â
At the end of his pitch Sergant then gets to what appears to be the specifics Ms. Abernathy and Ms. Wicks referred to earlier:Â
Pick — I would encourage you to pick something whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the Corporation [The Corporation for National and Community Service]has identified as the areas of service.
Always, health care first.
But let’s back up a few seconds and look at the full context of how Sergant frames getting to the specifics; he speaks of how this is just the beginning, of still trying to figure out what things look like legally, and of learning the language in order to “speak with each other safely.â€:
 Really I want to emphasize, and I know that other people have brought it up already, but I want to just hearken back to it really quickly in that this is just the beginning. This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally, we’re still trying to figure out the laws of putting government Web sites on Facebook and the use of Twitter.
 This is all being sorted out. We are participating in history as it’s being made. So bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely and we can really work together to move the needle and to get stuff done.Â
Pick — I would encourage you to pick something ….
***
Rock the Vote health care art
Conference Call Rewards:
Sergant then turns the call over to Thomas Bates from “Rock the Vote,†who offers up an example of local environmental activism involving a garbage sculpture. Within days after this call Rock the Vote would launch a “health care design contest.”
A mere two days after the call a group of 21 art organizations endorsed health care reform.
Of those 21 organizations, “16 of the groups and affiliated organizations received nearly $2 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in the 150 days before the conference call.”
***
At the end of the call, things open for a Q&A. One of the artists listening in, a Ms. Manne, asks a specific question about specific partisan policies:
I think for the people that are on the inside of government to talk for a minute about Organizing For America and the differences between Organizing For America and Serve.gov and what we can do to help on critical advocacy issues like health care reform, cap and trade policy, if that should help move policies through the government, because this is a really important role that our creative community can also play.
Even though she and everyone else have spent the last 40 minutes ginning up a group of Obama-supporting artists to rally around health care, Nell Abernathy begs off answering a specific policy question, but *wink* – *wink* can get that information to their “beard,†Mr. Skolnik:Â
Yeah, I can address that a little bit, and the reason only a little bit is largely because in my role at a federal agency, I’m precluded from going too far down the specific steps what people can do to advocate.  …
I could get that information to Michael and he could get it out. We can’t sort – [A]s a representative of the Corporation, I’m not capable of giving you more guidance than just sending you to the right person.
QUESTION: If Ms. Abernathy is “precluded from going too far down the specific steps to advocate†with the questioner, Ms. Manne, why is it okay for Ms. Abernathy to do exactly that with Skolnik? If her role at a federal agency makes that kind of partisan behavior inappropriate on this call, how is it appropriate to “get that information†to Skolnik off the call?Â
Skolnik then wraps up the call and closes with one last push towards health care and United We Serve/Serve.gov:
So what I had hoped in bringing this group together with the great hosts, which again, I want to thank for reaching out to their communities was that we could begin to bring together our community in the same enthusiasm, with the same enthusiasm and with the same energy that we all saw in each other during the campaign, and we could continue to work together on issues as important as United We Serve and Service and begin here and continue to work together on other issues that we feel are important, as we mentioned some of them, health care and others[.]
***
When you are the NEA, United We Serve and The White House Office of Public Engagement – when you are required to represent the government in a non-partisan capacity, it can only be a partisan act to take part in a conference call set up by the White House and the NEA with the idea of bringing together pro-Obama supporters from the artistic community to push priority number one: health care.
At the beginning of the call, Skolnik, the supposed independent moderator, admits he was asked by the White House and NEA to round everyone up and makes clear that one of the goals of the call is to “push the president and push the Administration.â€
In this environment, it doesn’t matter if the word “reform†is used after the words “health care,†or not. It doesn’t matter if the phrase “public option†is used or not. George Will put it best:
“[T]he Obama administration is tightening the cinch on subsidized artists, conscripting them into the crusade to further politicize the 17 percent of the economy that is health care.
Almost as disturbing is how eager these artists are to be turned into propagandists.