Archive for the ‘Van Jones’ Category
Burt’s Eye View: Catching Up With the News
Posted by Burt Prelutsky in Obama, Politics, Van Jones on October 8th, 2009
I wasn’t surprised that Rep. Joe Wilson felt compelled to apologize to President Obama for calling him a liar. I also wasn’t surprised to hear that within 24 hours, thousands of liberals had sent in over $200,000 in contributions to Wilson’s opponent in next year’s election even though they knew nothing about him except that he was running against Wilson. I was heartened to hear that once the word got out, Wilson received a million bucks. But, frankly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the other 434 members of the House had censured, expelled or ridden Rep. Wilson out of Washington, D.C., on a rail. I mean, where the heck does this guy get off speaking the truth in the hallowed halls of Congress?
Speaking of Congress, although the research isn’t yet complete, the early indicators are that, rumors to the contrary, you can not get swine flu from exposure to Henry Waxman.
Scientists at London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine confirmed that 50 years of research found that, aside from price, there was no nutritional difference between conventionally-grown foodstuffs and the ugly, under-sized items you find in the organic section at the supermarket.
Comedian Jeff Foxworthy made his name explaining how you could tell if you were a redneck. I trust you understand that fame and fortune such as he achieved aren’t my motivation. But merely as a public service, I thought I’d point out how to recognize if you’re a racist. For instance, if you think that Jesse Jackson is an extortionist; that Al Sharpton is a con man; that Louis Farrakhan, Jeremiah Wright and Van Jones are three of a kind; and that the Black Congressional Caucus, ACORN, the SEIU, the Black Panthers, Eric Holder and Barack Hussein Obama, present a clear and present danger to our Republic, you are what passes for a racist in 2009.
Frankly, I keep waiting for Obama to doff the mufti and start appearing in some nicely tailored uniform for, clearly, the cult of personality has been introduced successfully for the first time ever in our nation’s history. If you disagree, what would you call that red, white and blue Obama symbol that has pretty much supplanted the presidential seal in the past year? And outside of such places as the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Mussolini’s Italy, Nazi Germany and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, have you ever seen so many posters and pictures of a national leader?
Perhaps because I don’t watch very much TV, I’ve only recently become aware of a TV commercial which could easily have been written and produced by the White House, possibly under the auspices of the NEA. In the commercial, a black deliveryman for Miller High Life shows up in a private box at the race track and confiscates all the beer from the rich white people and then hands the bottles over to the regular folks at the track, all the time muttering that the people who actually paid for the stuff don’t deserve it because they’re “hoity-toity.”
I realize it’s only a commercial, but if we have redistribution of wealth and health care, can redistribution of brewskis be far behind on that great-come-and-get-it-day?
Like everyone else, I noticed that in his address to Congress, Obama, who had been insisting all along that there were about 45 million people in America without health insurance, was suddenly, without explanation, referring to 30 million. It seems to me that if he can miraculously make 15 million people just disappear, all he has to do is give two more speeches to completely eliminate the problem.
Finally, I recently saw ObamaCare summed up rather succinctly by a picture of an elderly American set adrift on an ice floe. Of course, knowing David Axelrod, Rahm and Ezekiel Emmanuel, John Holdren, Cass Sunstein and the AARP, as I have come to know them, I’m sure they’ll find a swell way to sell it to us. My guess is that they’ll simply call their final solution to the problem of all those pesky old folks wanting medical attention Obama’s Magical Ocean Cruises.
ACORN Paycheck Aside, Patrick Gaspard is a Radical
Posted by Kyle Olson in ACORN, Obama, Van Jones, Wade Rathke on October 5th, 2009
Several days ago, Capital Research Center’s Matthew Vadum published research here indicating an ACORN alumni in the White House (other than the president): Political Director Patrick Gaspard. As I did three weeks prior at ACORNcracked.com, Matthew used a Wade Rathke blog as the source, which Rathke, the founder of ACORN, immediately changed after Vadum’s report, citing “memory tricks.” Politico led the way in poo-pooing the connection once Rathke played cover-up.
Rathke said it not only on his blog, but also at a book signing in New Orleans, which was recently covered in the Fox News Special: The Truth About ACORN.” While we attended that book signing and were not able to get that portion on tape, the Fox documentary crew did. Sadly, the remarks apparently ended up on the cutting room floor.
The fact is, Patrick Gaspard, Obama’s “Glue Man,” is more important than Van Jones ever hoped of being. The fact is, one of the most critical and influential jobs in a White House, the Director of Political Affairs, is occupied by a former SEIU health care lobbyist and ACORN organizer. To be exact, he was Executive Vice President–the #2–at SEIU 1199 in New York City.
After Gaspard was appointed to the White House, Carribbean Voice quoted him as saying, “I grew up in 1199…and I will always be an 1199er wherever I am.” SEIU’s luxury is that now taxpayers are paying for it.
Wade Rathke, current organizer with SEIU Local 100 (in New Orleans) and ACORN International (now “Community Organizations International”), called Gaspard a “great friend” on his ChiefOrganizer.org blog. Additionally, Rathke theorized how Gaspard was likely instrumental in working with SEIU to bring “big health care operators” to the table. [Figuring once scrutiny came to someone high-level in the White House, the evidence would be changed, we turned Rathke's blog posting into a PDF.]
That is curious, given the Obama Transition team’s pledge that Gaspard would refrain from issues he had lobbied previously. According to the Washington Post, a transition spokesman said, “Patrick and Mark [Gitenstein] have jobs on the campaign that are general in nature, but per the unprecedented ethics policy laid out earlier this week they will recuse themselves from the fields of policy or agencies they lobbied in the previous 12 months.”
So we are to believe the Political Director of the White House—one of the most important players in the administration—is sitting on his hands while Obama attempts to salvage his biggest “reform” yet, and likely ever? Ethics schmethics.
When Sean Bell was shot by New York City police in 2007, Al Sharpton reached out to Patrick Gaspard (while he was at SEIU 1199) to formulate a response. According to Politicker NY, “In December 2006, Mr. Sharpton asked Patrick Gaspard to help him assemble an emergency meeting of about 300 activists, black nationalists, union and political leaders to decide on an appropriate response to the police shooting…”
Sharpton used the SEIU 1199 office to hold a protest organizational meeting. According to The Observer, the union was represented by Gaspard at the meeting.
The People’s Organization for Progress, along with the New Black Panther Party, organized protests against the New York City police department, carrying signs saying such things as “KILL THE PIGS THAT KILL OUR KIDS.”
In October 2007, under Gaspard’s eye, the union hosted an event at its headquarters to mark the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Che Guevara “by the military dictatorship of Bolivia under the direction of the CIA.”
“The bitter truth for U.S. imperialism forty years later is that Che’s example and ideas are more powerful and resonant than ever among oppressed peoples of the world, especially the Americas,” an announcement of the event read. Yes, under Gaspard’s watch and likely authorization, the union hosted a celebration of Che Guevara’s life. See an accouncement flier for a similar event.
Other participants included Communist Party USA, Freedom Socialist Party, People’s Organization for Progress, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Action and many others.
SEIU 1199, in 2007, was a signatory on a petition to “free Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
Shortly after that, SEIU 1199 hosted the “International Secretary of the Hands Off Venezuela Campaign and Latin America correspondent for Marxist.com.” SEIU 1199, under Gaspard’s leadership, has filled a radical role in New York and national politics.
Gaspard has contributed to the Working Families Party, a political party founded—and still co-chaired—by ACORN.
He is still listed as a member of the advisory board to the Center for Working Families. The CWF’s address is the same as New York ACORN.
In 2004, Gaspard worked for America Coming Together, a George Soros-funded 527 organization that worked in swing states to elect John Kerry president. According to Michelle Malkin’s new book, Culture of Corruption:
During the 2004 election cycle, he had led the radical, left-wing, George Soros-funded group, America Coming Together (ACT) as national field director. SEIU poured $23 million into ACT in a costly, unsuccessful attempt to put Democratic Senator John Kerry in the White House. Under Gaspard’s tenure at ACT, the get-out-the-vote group employed convicted felons as canvassers and committed campaign finance violations that led to a $775,000 fine by the Federal Elections Commission–the third largest civil penalty levied in the panel’s history.
So, ACORN connection or not, Gaspard is a radical. Whether or not he drew a paycheck from ACORN is a distinction without a difference. And we shouldn’t allow a whitewash of the evidence to negate the rest of Gaspard’s background.
ACORN and SEIU: Anatomy of a Shakedown
Posted by Anita MonCrief in ACORN, Featured Story, Obama, Politics, Van Jones, Wade Rathke on September 27th, 2009
Across America community organizations operate in impoverished, disadvantaged, low-income or minority communities. No matter the phrase used to describe the special interest, a group exists to represent it. Often these organizations initially have good intentions and seek to give back and serve the community in which they operate. When government money, power and influence become part of the equation however, lofty principles tend to fall by the wayside. Other organizations are created to cause chaos and disrupt the system.
The Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was perceived by many as a well-intended organization, but it appears that the association that Wade Rathke founded was increasingly driven to cause chaos and disrupt the system whenever it could.
BEFORE the Dale Rathke embezzlement finally became last year, John Fund, in “Grapes of Rathke: ACORN, a liberal activist group, comes under scrutiny. About time,” reported:
“Current and former Acorn employees say the problems in Kansas City and St. Louis are no accident. ‘There’s no quality control on purpose, no checks and balances,’ says Nate Toler, currently head organizer of an Acorn campaign against Wal-Mart in Merced, Calif. In 2004 he worked on an Acorn voter drive in Missouri, and says Acorn statements aren’t to be taken at face value: ‘The internal motto is “We don’t care if it’s a lie, just so long as it stirs up the conversation.”
As various charges and complaints have materialized over the years, it seems that ACORN uses the communities in which they are located as staging grounds for national power grabs. With multiple states and entities receiving federal funds, ACORN plays to win. Aiding ACORN are groups like DEMO’s, the Democracy Alliance, Soros Open Society Institute, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). The Washington Examiner has covered ACORN’s: “Muscle for the Money” program:
“ACORN’s so-called ‘muscle for money’ strategy extorts ‘donations’ from targeted government and corporate officials by offering them Mafia-like protection from protests by the group’s own paid thugs, many of them convicted felons. ACORN has also blocked bank mergers until the targeted financial institutions agreed to change their lending policies to ACORN’s satisfaction.”
While it is easy to see the benefit for ACORN to go after Sherwin Williams or Jackson Hewitt, it was their 2007-2008 ventures with SEIU against the Carlyle Group that deserve a closer inspection. In 2007 SEIU began a series of “grassroots” actions designed to pressure the Carlyle Group to the bargaining table.
“The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) staged a protest outside the Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters of The Carlyle Group as part of the union’s bid to organize Manor Care, the Toledo-based nursing home giant Carlyle is buying for $6.3 billion.”
It seems that, at the beginning of the campaign, SEIU wanted a slice of the $6.3 billion that was on the table from the sale of Manor Care. For SEIU and ACORN, organizing in poor communities takes a little bit of finesse and a lot of political theater. When SEIU could not muster up the required public outrage, they switched tactics. SEIU released a press statement, in late 2007, warning of the possible health risks posed by the Carlyle Group:
“To highlight the health risks that could go undetected if Carlyle refuses to disclose information about its sewer sludge business, SEIU held a demonstration today outside Carlyle’s Washington DC offices with demonstrators dressed in hazmat suits. This week SEIU began contacting environmental groups, and state and municipal governments that contract with Synagro to raise concerns about Carlyle’s lack of transparency and to encourage these groups to join the call for Carlyle to disclose potential risks of its sewer sludge business.
The focus on Carlyle’s sewer sludge business is part of a larger national effort by SEIU to hold Carlyle accountable for the impact of its actions on taxpayers, workers, and communities. More information is available at www.CarlyleExposed.org
Turning up the heat appears to be textbook “muscle for the money,” yet it wasn’t enough to produce the desired results, so SEIU raised the prospect of possible terrorism and threats to national security:
“Global buyout firm the Carlyle Group’s announcement that it seeks to acquire Booz Allen’s government consulting business should raise serious questions about the ramifications for national security and demands immediate government oversight to ensure adequate controls exist should the deal be completed…
“We shouldn’t allow the unchecked greed of buyout billionaires like David Rubenstein to put our communities at risk,” said Stephen Lerner, Director, and SEIU Private Equity Project. “With billions of taxpayer dollars at stake in these contracts, accountability and transparency is a primary concern since the Carlyle Group operates behind a veil of secrecy.”
Veil of secrecy? Interesting. On cue, enter ACORN and Barack Obama. After staged demonstrations across the country and several tactical changes, SEIU hires ACORN as a “consultant” to protest the Carlyle Group. ACORN readily accepts the money, but has one problem – how to turn the people out, to make them care about the issue. Using the same tactics that Stanley Kurtz detailed in his article about ACORN and the Community Reinvestment Act, ACORN spins the fight against the Carlyle Group as rich (whites) versus poor (blacks):
“White financiers are all flooding up to the Waldorf Astoria this morning for the opening of today’s Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst confab!…
ACORN and The Working Families Party and their coalition are calling for a protest at noon.
‘The Carlyle Group is the poster child for an industry that has made billions by fleecing taxpayers and loading up companies with unsustainable levels of debt,’ said Dan Cantor, Executive Director of the Working Families Party.
‘David Rubenstein made $260 million last year, yet he paid taxes at a lower rate than the doorman at this hotel. Not only that, companies like Carlyle don’t pay their fair share in corporate taxes.’ said Pat Boone, President of NY ACORN.
As the recent Van Jones exposes on Glenn Beck have illustrated, most roads lead back to radical organizations formed in the 1970’s and tie in with the current administration. While ACORN broke up business meetings in New York and DC, they developed a catchy slogan to sum up their “battle”
“Chanting, ‘It’s Not Fair, Pay Your Share’, protestors entered the ballroom while two protest leaders dropped a banner from the balcony above the ballroom that read ‘Why does David Rubenstein pay taxes at a lower rate than an NYPD officer?’
Over on Capitol Hill, then Senator Obama, acting in a manner that would quickly become one of the trademarks of his administration, employed ACORN tactics to project his power into the situation:
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), on October 10, dispelled the idea that Congress would get around to addressing the hotly debated tax bill this fall when he issued a statement through a spokesman: “Given the difficulty in getting any legislation through the Senate and the little time left this year for moving other issues important to the American public, it is unclear whether there is sufficient time to address the appropriate tax treatment of private equity firms.”
…U.S. Senator Barack Obama, for instance, issued this statement on news of Reid’s stance: ‘If there was ever a doubt that Washington lobbyists don’t actually represent real Americans, it’s the fact that they stopped leaders of both parties from requiring elite investment firms to pay their fair share of taxes, even as middle-class families struggle to pay theirs.’
Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union put in its two cents, staging another protest against the Carlyle Group on Oct. 10, this time using a street theater performance complete with wheel barrows, a fat-cat corporate tycoon character and money sacks.”
Publicly, the Carlyle Group seemingly did not bow to pressure from the union or ACORN, but some may consider their “across the aisle” support of Obama as a major concession. As a “financial kingmaker,” the group seems to have added a much needed legitimacy to the young and inexperienced candidate. A conclusion could be drawn that SEIU and others were willing to sacrifice leverage at the bargaining table for leverage in the White House:
In seizing control of Congress last year and hoping to win the White House next year, Democrats have presented themselves as the champions of change, the party that will shake up politics and return tax balance so that America has the resources it needs to deal with its problems.
Good stuff, that. Solidly in line with the party’s tradition. Ditto proposals pending in the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees to boost taxes on the hedge fund and private-equity business, arguably one of the highest-paid, least-taxed industries around.
So . . . what should we make of the thick wads of campaign cash from that same industry going to Chicago’s top-ranking congressional Democrats: presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the No. 4 House Democrat?
…Another D.C. lobbying group, Public Citizen, has identified more than a dozen industry chieftains who have bundled together at least $50,000 each in contributions to Mr. Obama’s campaign. Included are two principals in Carlyle Group, a Washington private-equity firm.
While the Carlyle Group appears on the surface to be a victim of SEIU and ACORN’s shenanigans, their ties to the current administration have been carefully crafted. The group not only donated heavily to the Obama campaign, but two of Obama’s tech and telecom policy team were employees of the Carlyle Group, including William Kennard.
In addition to these connections, Carlyle president David Rubenstein – who sits on the board of the University of Chicago – did acquire Booz Allen Hamilton and Obama apparently decided to keep the special interests in the “family“:
“Mike McConnell will return to work for Booz Allen Hamilton, where he will direct the firm’s strategy in obtaining and implementing government contract…You see, at the very same time that he will be working at Booz Allen Hamilton on obtaining government contract related to ongoing Total Information Awareness operations in our government, Mike McConnell will retain a position in the government at the request of President Obama.”
A cursory look at these connections leads one to ponder if what we have here is a shakedown between friends. Did SEIU want in on a new deal that involves their “turf” and instead see an opportunity to acquire more power by enlisting the help of ACORN? Did ACORN deliver the ground troops and have Barack Obama apply the pressure on Capitol Hill? Either way, and unfortunately for Barack Obama, trouble usually follows his shady friends and his dealing with the Carlyle Group have caused some ACORN sized headaches. The Carlyle Group’s involvement in a pension scandal was the most recent:
“Among the money managers named in the indictment are the politically connected private equity players Carlyle Group and Quadrangle Group, whose co-founder Steven Rattner, leads the Obama administration’s auto-industry-bailout efforts.”
If the Sopranos and Obama’s treatment of the ACORN scandals are any indication, “muscle for the money” seems to come with a certain amount of “protection” whether it be silence from the administration, theJustice Department, or the main stream media, or just a slap on the wrist for one of their cronies. ACORN, SEIU and Obama may have moved on to the next target. but continue to use race and class as tactics and people as pawns in their power grabs. Now, however, more and more Americans are realizing it.
NY Times Editor: Paper Was Too Slow to Cover ACORN Scandal
Posted by Publius in ACORN, Featured Story, Van Jones on September 27th, 2009
From New York Times Public Editor Clary Hoyt:
ON Sept. 12, an Associated Press article inside The Times reported that the Census Bureau had severed its ties to Acorn, the community organizing group. Robert Groves, the census director, was quoted as saying that Acorn, one of thousands of unpaid organizations promoting the 2010 census, had become “a distraction.”
Clark Hoyt
What the article didn’t say — but what followers of Fox News and conservative commentators already knew — was that a video sting had caught Acorn workers counseling a bogus prostitute and pimp on how to set up a brothel staffed by under-age girls, avoid detection and cheat on taxes. The young woman in streetwalker’s clothes and her companion were actually undercover conservative activists with a hidden camera.
It was an intriguing story: employees of a controversial outfit, long criticized by Republicans as corrupt, appearing to engage in outrageous, if not illegal, behavior. An Acorn worker in Baltimore was shown telling the “prostitute” that she could describe herself to tax authorities as an “independent artist” and claim 15-year-old prostitutes, supposedly illegal immigrants, as dependents.
But for days, as more videos were posted and government authorities rushed to distance themselves from Acorn, The Times stood still. Its slow reflexes — closely following its slow response to a controversy that forced the resignation of Van Jones, a White House adviser — suggested that it has trouble dealing with stories arising from the polemical world of talk radio, cable television and partisan blogs. Some stories, lacking facts, never catch fire. But others do, and a newspaper like The Times needs to be alert to them or wind up looking clueless or, worse, partisan itself.
Read the full article here.
Our President is a ‘Symbol-holic’
Posted by Dwight Schultz in Featured Story, Obama, Politics, Van Jones on September 23rd, 2009
The Obama administration betrayed our Eastern European allies on the symbolic 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Many in the media have chalked this up to historical ignorance, just as they claimed that “too great a workload” was responsible for his disgraceful but symbolic insult when, after receiving a pen holder fashioned from the timbers of the HMS Gannet that served for a time as an anti-slave ship, he slighted Gordon Brown with gave a gift of 25 DVDs .
However, Obama is animated by seemingly crude gestures made powerful by his position. He and his motivated White House staff, without explanation, used a black painted piece of plywood to cover up the letters IHS (Latin for “Jesus Savior of Men”) when he spoke at a Jesuit University (Georgetown), but while speaking abroad, our president deftly referred to the Koran as “ holy,” a descriptive primarily used by followers who believe in the Islamic faith. Why?
These choices are thoughtful, not thoughtless, and symbolic of current White House ideology. When Obama was simply a candidate, and not yet our chosen leader, he had already attempted to use a circular symbol suspiciously reminiscent of the presidential seal to signify that the prize was all but attained before the fact. It was adolescent pop psychology, symbolic and laughable, but a telling trait that should have warned us that we were dealing with a symbol-holic, and a degree of hubristic thinking that had danger written all over it.
Human symbols are the glue for his “green” and very radical political testament. It’s humorous to listen to the apologists excuse the appointment of Van Jones as a failure of vetting procedures. Jones is a soul mate, not a soul mistake. He’s a beloved symbol and a disciple who habitually uses the required neo-com radical lingo. Catch phrases such as “redistribution of wealth” or “redistributive justice” are the common symbolic logos of all of Barack’s brothers and sisters like Carol Browner, Cass Sunstein, John Holdren, and Valerie Jarrett.
Manipulating words for symbolic effect is an important aspect of Barack’s background skills. He proclaimed September 11th “a national day of service and remembrance” … service first and remembrance second. Service is an unnecessary little addition to that horrible anniversary that we certainly did not need, but for it to precede remembrance in the spoken or written phrase is an affront to our national dignity. Can you imagine every news report mentioning Joe Biden first whenever referring to our national leadership? It would be demeaning to the president.
Obama symbolically and purposefully diminished the real meaning of that day, the remembrance part, for his egotistical linguistic and ideological needs. In America we don’t have a problem with service, our problem is remembering certain truths that are self evident and remembering those who first enunciated those truths to the astonishment of the entire world.
Obama has traveled that world denigrating his own country wherever and whenever possible; bowing to a Saudi king and listening to communist Daniel Ortega savagely berate the US for an hour with nary a word offered in defense of the American people are just two examples. He also smiled warmly in the direction of Hugo Chavez, a porcine tub of human excrement who happens to be presently allied with holocaust deniers and killers of our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If Obama treats his own country with such obvious disdain, can we really be surprised by the way he treats new Eastern European allies? Betraying them on the 70th anniversary of the Polish invasion was not a mistake any more than the gift of 25 dvd’s was a mistake. It was for Barack a perfect degree of respect! They will deny it, but reneging on our missile treaty agreement on this specific historical date will always remind us of the harm done to our new relationships, and of those who so arrogantly chose to abuse symbolic remembrance.
Radical: Who is Yosi Sergant, Why Did the NEA ‘Reassign’ Him?
Posted by Stage Right in Featured Story, Politics, Van Jones on September 22nd, 2009
Other than the National Endowment for the Arts’ already tenuous reputation, the only casualty in the NEA conference call episode has been Yosi Sergant, the former Director of Communications for the public agency charged with funding arts organizations in America.
On September 10, the NEA announced that Sergant would be re-assigned with this curious statement accompanying the move:
“On August tenth, the National Endowment for the Arts participated in a call with arts organizations to inform them of the president’s call to national service. The White House office of public engagement also participated in the call, which provided information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects. 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.â€
This statement leads any objective and reasonable observer to wonder why Mr. Sergant would be “re-assigned” if there was nothing wrong with this purely “information/outreach” conference call. As has often been the case with this, the most open and transparent administration in history, it is very difficult to get a straight answer. We can’t even learn WHAT Sergant’s new position is, let alone why he was asked to step down from his role as Communications Director.
If the NEA and the White House are shocked that Mr. Sergant would blur the lines between arts advocacy and politics then they are doing their best Claude Rains impersonation. Yosi Sergant is all about art and politics. The only reason anyone knows Yosi Sergant’s NAME is because of his devastatingly effective work rallying artists to the Obama cause and using their artistry to promote the image, the essence, the idea of Obama.
After the election and during the transition, Mr. Sergant continued rallying artists in support of the President-elect. As curator of Manifest Hope:DC a Washington version of the exhibi, he first assembled in Denver for the Democratic National Convention, Sergant rallied support from sponsors to present the Obama Art Fest exhibit at M Street location in Georgetown. Who were two of the main sponsors of this Obama Art Orgy? MoveOn.org’s PAC and the SEIU. That’s right, the same union tough-guys who like to intimidate folks at heath care town halls also like to go to gallery’s in Georgetown and sip cosmos out of recyclable cups.
According their website,  MANIFESTHOPE: DC showcased the works of over 150 different artists advocating improvement in three key areas: HEALTH CARE REFORM, WORKERS’ RIGHTS, and THE GREEN ECONOMY.  Sound familiar?  Yup, that’s right, the theme of the artists work at ManifestHope seems eerily similar to the agenda of the August 10 conference call.
One other fun-fact from the irony department: Â One of the judges of the exhibit, along with Spike Lee and Shepard Fairey was none other than recently-resigned Van Jones. Â Follow this link to view some examples of the non-conformist artists work. Â (Isn’t it great how they’re all such free thinkers and don’t follow the herd?)
If the Administration wanted to know what type of soldier Sergant would be at the NEA they should have just read his interviews over the past year, it’s pretty clear. You see, in the left-leaning arts and performing arts world Sergant is a bit of a rock star. He is the first among them to rise up and organize artists to push a political agenda and message all the way to the White House therefore, he was adulated from left to very left all over the Internet and his quote trail is easy to follow:
“My goal is to get Obama elected. I use the mechanisms I know, which are basically artistic. Look how important the grass roots are. Look at the effect they can have. I drank the Kool-Aid. I am alive with it, I believe…”
And once he was elected did the Administration really think that Sergant would settle into a boring PR position at a funding agency and not use his skills to rally artists around the president’s agenda? Â It would be like assigning Mary Matalin a job as spokesperson for the Post Office, she’d be effective, but eventually she’d start using her position to bash Democrats, it’s what she does, it’s who she is.
And so it was with Yosi Sergant.  Before he started in his official capacity at the NEA, he assembled meetings of “hip-hop” artists and graffiti artists to meet with the administration as well as the first, White House Poetry Jam in May.  Sergant considered himself a hip-hop artist.  He said, “Spray-paint brought me to the NEA and I won’t forget that.† He also told Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop – Won’t Stop blog:
“I think we can revolutionize the way that Americans think about art.â€
That’s a terrific sentiment Mr. Sergant. Â Trouble is: Â That’s not the NEA’s job. Â The NEA gives out grants to arts organizations. Â They do not revolutionize the way Americans think about ANYTHING. Â They fund theatres and museums and let the theatres and the museums do the “revolutionizing”. Â And since the NEA re-assigned you after the news of your phone calls came to light, I would have to assume that NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman agrees.
Radical: Who is Yosi Sergant, Why Did the NEA ‘Reassign’ Him?
Posted by Stage Right in Featured Story, Politics, Van Jones on September 22nd, 2009
Other than the National Endowment for the Arts’ already tenuous reputation, the only casualty in the NEA conference call episode has been Yosi Sergant, the former Director of Communications for the public agency charged with funding arts organizations in America.
On September 10, the NEA announced that Sergant would be re-assigned with this curious statement accompanying the move:
“On August tenth, the National Endowment for the Arts participated in a call with arts organizations to inform them of the president’s call to national service. The White House office of public engagement also participated in the call, which provided information on how the Corporation for National and Community Service can assist groups interested in sponsoring service projects or having their members volunteer on other projects. 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.â€
This statement leads any objective and reasonable observer to wonder why Mr. Sergant would be “re-assigned” if there was nothing wrong with this purely “information/outreach” conference call. As has often been the case with this, the most open and transparent administration in history, it is very difficult to get a straight answer. We can’t even learn WHAT Sergant’s new position is, let alone why he was asked to step down from his role as Communications Director.
If the NEA and the White House are shocked that Mr. Sergant would blur the lines between arts advocacy and politics then they are doing their best Claude Rains impersonation. Yosi Sergant is all about art and politics. The only reason anyone knows Yosi Sergant’s NAME is because of his devastatingly effective work rallying artists to the Obama cause and using their artistry to promote the image, the essence, the idea of Obama.
After the election and during the transition, Mr. Sergant continued rallying artists in support of the President-elect. As curator of Manifest Hope:DC a Washington version of the exhibi, he first assembled in Denver for the Democratic National Convention, Sergant rallied support from sponsors to present the Obama Art Fest exhibit at M Street location in Georgetown. Who were two of the main sponsors of this Obama Art Orgy? MoveOn.org’s PAC and the SEIU. That’s right, the same union tough-guys who like to intimidate folks at heath care town halls also like to go to gallery’s in Georgetown and sip cosmos out of recyclable cups.
According their website,  MANIFESTHOPE: DC showcased the works of over 150 different artists advocating improvement in three key areas: HEALTH CARE REFORM, WORKERS’ RIGHTS, and THE GREEN ECONOMY.  Sound familiar?  Yup, that’s right, the theme of the artists work at ManifestHope seems eerily similar to the agenda of the August 10 conference call.
One other fun-fact from the irony department: Â One of the judges of the exhibit, along with Spike Lee and Shepard Fairey was none other than recently-resigned Van Jones. Â Follow this link to view some examples of the non-conformist artists work. Â (Isn’t it great how they’re all such free thinkers and don’t follow the herd?)
If the Administration wanted to know what type of soldier Sergant would be at the NEA they should have just read his interviews over the past year, it’s pretty clear. You see, in the left-leaning arts and performing arts world Sergant is a bit of a rock star. He is the first among them to rise up and organize artists to push a political agenda and message all the way to the White House therefore, he was adulated from left to very left all over the Internet and his quote trail is easy to follow:
“My goal is to get Obama elected. I use the mechanisms I know, which are basically artistic. Look how important the grass roots are. Look at the effect they can have. I drank the Kool-Aid. I am alive with it, I believe…”
And once he was elected did the Administration really think that Sergant would settle into a boring PR position at a funding agency and not use his skills to rally artists around the president’s agenda? Â It would be like assigning Mary Matalin a job as spokesperson for the Post Office, she’d be effective, but eventually she’d start using her position to bash Democrats, it’s what she does, it’s who she is.
And so it was with Yosi Sergant.  Before he started in his official capacity at the NEA, he assembled meetings of “hip-hop” artists and graffiti artists to meet with the administration as well as the first, White House Poetry Jam in May.  Sergant considered himself a hip-hop artist.  He said, “Spray-paint brought me to the NEA and I won’t forget that.† He also told Jeff Chang’s Can’t Stop – Won’t Stop blog:
“I think we can revolutionize the way that Americans think about art.â€
That’s a terrific sentiment Mr. Sergant. Â Trouble is: Â That’s not the NEA’s job. Â The NEA gives out grants to arts organizations. Â They do not revolutionize the way Americans think about ANYTHING. Â They fund theatres and museums and let the theatres and the museums do the “revolutionizing”. Â And since the NEA re-assigned you after the news of your phone calls came to light, I would have to assume that NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman agrees.
Planting the Seeds: The Politicized Art Behind the ACORN Plan
Posted by Andrew Breitbart in ACORN, Featured Story, Hannah Giles, News, Politics, Van Jones on September 20th, 2009
Everything you needed to know about the unorthodox roll out of the now-notorious ACORN sting videos was hidden in plain sight in my Sept. 7 column, “Katie Couric, Look in the Mirror.” ACORN was not the only target of those videos; so were Katie, Brian, Charlie and every other mainstream media pooh-bah.
They were not going to report this blockbuster unless they were forced to. And they were. What’s more, it ain’t over yet. Not every hint I dropped in that piece about what was to come has played itself out yet.Stay tuned.
When filmmaker and provocateur James O’Keefe came to my office to show me the video of him and his friend, Hannah Giles, going to the Baltimore offices of ACORN – the nation’s foremost “community organizers” – dressed as a pimp and a prostitute and asking for – and getting – help for various illegal activities, he sought my advice. In the past, Mr. O’Keefe created brilliant social satire that rocked his college campus and even made its way on to the talk-radio and cable-news shows, but the magnitude of his latest adventure had the potential to rock the political establishment.
I was awed by Mr. O’Keefe’s guts and amazed by the footage, but explained that the mainstream media would try to kill this important and illuminating expose about a corrupt and criminal political racket, and that the well-funded political left would go into “war room” mode, with 25-year-old Mr. O’Keefe and 20-year-old cohort Miss Giles in the cross hairs. I felt I had a moral obligation to protect these young muckrakers from the left and from the media, and to devise a strategy that would force the media’s hand. (more…)
Mainstream Media: The Devil Wears Pravda
Posted by John T. Simpson in ACORN, Featured Story, Hannah Giles, Politics, Van Jones on September 19th, 2009
From the riots and chaos of the 1960s to the anti-war rallies of the Bush years, the American Left’s revolution has been widely televised. In fact, the Big Three and Dead Tree Press played a major part in that revolution. From negative field reporting during the Vietnam War to negative reporting on McCain/Palin and the beatification and election of Barack Obama, the MSM has been marching in lockstep and waving the banner for the American Left all the way. RatherGate, anyone? Doesn’t get much more lockstep than a reporter trying to subvert a presidential election to the Left’s advantage.
But there’s another revolution underway in America today, and you sure as hell won’t see it televised or reported on by our new fourth branch of government. It’s not in their interest to do so. Nothing new there. For a long time now, political corruption has been rampant in the Leftist ‘mainstream’ media. In 1998, Matt Drudge made his big mark breaking the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which Newsweek had buried to protect President Clinton. Think Obama’s Tiger Beat would have done that for Bush?
It has only gone way downhill since into Soviet-era Pravda territory. The MSM’s modus operandi today is identical, and I don’t say that lightly. But having listened to Radio Moscow broadcasts on ham radio for years during the Cold War era, combined with some Naval Intelligence training and research into the subject, I deconstructed the Soviets’ propaganda MO down to five simple canons. All five are in direct violation of every principle of objective and unbiased journalism there is:
1. Always make the State and its political leadership appear infallible.
2. Promote the State’s ideology and official policies wherever possible.
2. Demonize political adversaries and dissidents as enemies of the State.
4. Suppress news that reflects poorly on the State or its leadership.
5. If bad news cannot be suppressed, attack and discredit the source.
Those canons apply to any totalitarian dictatorship’s propaganda machinery, really. Just ask the Green protesters in Iran. I referenced the Soviet-era Pravda because I know it all too well. Example. All five canons were applied in the days following the KAL 007 shootdown by Russian fighter jets on September 1, 1983. There was nothing from Radio Moscow for days, then a terse statement of how Russian fighters encountered KAL 007 before it “continued on to the Sea of Japan.” That’s verbatim.
Finally, when the big news and damning facts could no longer be suppressed, Radio Moscow went on an all-out offensive, blaming the Americans for their own rash action in shooting down a commercial airliner and killing all 269 passengers and crew. They even insinuated that the flight number, 007, proved that it was on a spy mission. Don’t expect reason or sanity from propagandists.
Now, take a look at those five canons again and compare the MSM’s response to the Van Jones, Yosi Sergant/NEA and ACORN video sting scandals, all stop-the-presses headline stories. Van Jones, a presidential ‘czar’ whom we discover is a radical racist, self-avowed Communist and 9/11 Truther. Yosi Sergant, communications director at the NEA, an independent federal agency, politicizing NEA by coordinating with the White House and artists nationwide to create art promoting Obama’s political agenda, a direct violation of NEA’s charter. And all with our taxpayer dollars.
Last but not least, six ACORN workers in three different field offices, all most willing to perpetrate housing and tax fraud to facilitate the establishment of brothels with illegal alien child sex rings, and all on our dime. Makes you wonder who they’ve placed already. I can just picture Pinchy doing a Dr. Evil-like “Ssssh!” on that last musing at a Times editorial board meeting. Given the Paper of Broken Records’ non-coverage of Van Jones and Yosi Sergant, I’d say Pinchy has a whole bag of “Ssssh!”
The Pulitzer Committee should add a new award category for Best Non-Coverage of a Major News Story. It would be an Oscar-like Battle for the Gold the first year out. It’s tragic to bear witness to, having been weaned on great American investigative journalism that seems almost nonexistent in the MSM these days. Very sad state of affairs, but We The People need to know who and what we’re dealing with here. This now-endemic political corruption in the MSM goes way beyond just reporting or not reporting the news. It violates the sacred public trust We The People have put in our media watchdogs to investigate and report the truth on our behalf so we can make informed decisions.
That political corruption also introduces severe conflicts of interest when ideology trumps major front page news stories, which has happened far too often lately. Our government should be fearful of a free press, not worshiped by it. That’s more apropos for North Korea, not America. A truly free press is supposed to keep public officials honest and on their best behavior, regardless of party affiliation. Unfortunately today, in Animal Farm-like fashion, our MSM pigs and government farmers are all gorging themselves at the same table and berating all the other farm animals who don’t fall in line.
In closing, I’d like to leave you with some schocka headlines from today’s wild British tabloid-like Pravda that you will never see in our ‘mainstream’ press in this Golden Age of the ObamaMessiah:
Obama Embodies Grand Failure of Great Hopes
Barack Obama and the Banality of Evil
By stark contrast, our own MSM has reversed roles with Pravda in through-the-glass-darkly fashion and morphed into the Dear Leader Soviet-era version. All major MSM outlets suppressed the Jones story until it was no longer feasible, then attacked and discredited those who would dare expose a self-avowed Communist presidential appointee, all the while omitting key elements of the story and praising Jones despite it all in order to make Jones look good and his political opponents nefarious. That’s all five old-school Pravda canons rolled into one story, and that’s just Van Jones. As an American citizen, how much does that suck? Orwell had days like this. Da Svidaniya, Comrades!