NEA White House Scandal

White House Initiated Phone Call of NEA to Support Obama Administration

You Satisfied With WH Response to 'Inappropriate' NEA Call?

An August 10, 2009 National Endowment for the Arts conference call in which artists were asked to help support President Obama's agenda -- a call that at least one good government group called "inappropriate" -- has prompted the White House to issue new guidelines to prevent such a call from ever happening again.
"The point of the call was to encourage voluntary participation in a national service initiative by the arts community," White House spokesman Bill Burton told ABC News. "To the extent there was any misunderstanding about what the NEA may do to support the national service initiative, we will correct it. We regret any comments on the call that may have been misunderstood or troubled other participants. We are fully committed to the NEA's historic mission, and we will take all steps necessary to ensure that there is no further cause for questions or concerns about that commitment."

Read The Full Article

The National Endowment for Obama

YOSI SERGANT: WHO IS HE?? - The organizer of the original call between White House, NEA the National Endowment of the Arts, and the artists they fund… to request Propaganda Art…

NEA and White House Conspires to Transmit Propaganda!

Seg 1 - Taped Conference Call of the National Endowment for the Arts

Seg 2 - NEA Teaming Up with White House to Push Obama Agenda

Seg 3 - Government Tax Dollars Being Used for Gov. Propaganda

Full NEA Conference Call Transcript and Audio

President Obama Said He Knew Nothing About This Call and Progam??? Hmmm… Doesn’t Sound Too Plausible Now That We Know his Right Hand Gal… the “other half of his brain”… buddy Valerie Jarrett was part of it.

VALARIE JARRETT - WHITE HOUSE INSIDER VALERIE JARRET – MICHELLE OBAMA’S BEST FRIEND AND PRESIDENT OBAMA’S GAL FRIDAY. STATED VAN JONES IS WHO WE NEED, RECRUITED VAN JONES. PARENT ASSOCIATED WITH BILL AYERS.

Valerie Jarrett: The Next Van Jones?

Jarrett’s role in recruiting Van Jones

Jarrett, Axelrod, and the Michelle Obama horror health care story you won’t hear about

What the NYT’s 8,100-word Valerie Jarrett profile didn’t tell you

Obama File 84 Why Was Obama's "Brain" Valerie Jarrett So Happy to Hire Communist Van Jones? Was it Fate?

Where is Michelle? – Hanging With Cronie Valerie Jarrett

Here are a few Obama Art for Propaganda Samples:

1. Hollywood & MoveOn.org’s insurance industry-bashing video

2.

Related Resources:

The Goal…

Making the Connections… (Part 1)

American Progressivism

Culture of Corruption

Source: Knowledge Creates Power & the Daily Thought Pad

Yosi Sergant: Who Is He??

“Barack Obama is a figurehead of a movement, I would call it the progressive movement. My ‘Goal’ is to get Obama elected. I use 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 an Obama saying ; ‘We are the change we have been waiting for’” …Yosi Sergent, LA Weekly Article, September 2008

NEA and White House Conspires to Transmit Propaganda!

$2 million behind National Endowment for the Arts politics push

On August 12, a group of 21 arts organizations endorsed President Barack Obama's health reform plan only 48 hours after a conference call in which a top National Endowment for the Arts official asked arts groups for help in advancing the administration's policy agenda, including health care.

One reason the arts organizations may have been so swift to follow the administration's suggestion is that 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. According to a Washington Times analysis of NEA records, more than $1 million of that total came from the stimulus package. (see timeline)

The explosive questions are obvious and so far the administration is not talking:

Is it ethical, or even legal, for a federal official from a grant-making agency to ask grant recipients to endorse the administration's political agenda? Is the White House crossing a line when a West Wing political appointee is on the call? Did political considerations infect the grant-making process at NEA?

Digging deeper into the grants only reveals more disturbing questions. Among the recipients of the grants, in this case, $50,000 from the stimulus package, is a group named Americans for the Arts. According to federal records published at OpenSecrets.org, Americans for the Arts has already dedicated $250,000 to lobbying expenses this year alone. The president of Americans for the Arts is an Obama donor and the affiliated political action committee gave $48,000 to congressional Democrats in the last election cycle. According to NEA records analyzed by The Washington Times, donors to the PAC received more than an additional $500,000 in stimulus funds.

Did Congress intend for stimulus money to land in the coffers of politically connected lobbyists? What protections did the administration put in place to assure that stimulus money was not steered to its political allies? Have other lobbyists been funded through stimulus programs administered by different federal agencies?

Since The Washington Times began writing about the NEA's shady conference call, NEA Director of Communications Yosi Sergant has been removed from his position and reassigned according to an agency spokeswoman. Kalpen Modi, an official with the White House Office of Public Engagement, remains in his position.

It is far from clear, that Mr. Sergant and Mr. Modi were acting alone in arranging what appears to be a back door effort to transform art promotion into political capital. Indeed, The Washington Times has uncovered an example of how the NEA's newly confirmed chairman may be involved.

In the weeks after the Sergant-Modi conference call, NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman had a conversation with Bob Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. The Washington Times learned of the conversation because Mr. Lynch posted a podcast about it on ArtsUSA.org, the Americans for the Arts web site. According to Mr. Lynch, the conversation included a discussion of health care reform.

Since controversy erupted however, ArtsUSA.org has removed the link to the podcast from its blog just as the NEA tried to remove its fingerprints from the conference call.

The roots of the effort to turn the National Endowment for the Arts into a political tool of the White House go back to just days after Barack Obama's 2008 election. Here's how events unfolded:

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White House Enlisting the National Endowment of the Arts

Seg 1 - Taped Conference Call of the National Endowment for the Arts

Seg 2 - NEA Teaming Up with White House to Push Obama Agenda

Seg 3 - Government Tax Dollars Being Used for Gov. Propaganda

The White House is enlisting hand-picked members of the National Endowment of the Arts to produce art to help the White House push the Obama Agenda. This is a group that depends on them, in large part for finances. I believe we used to call that coercion for propaganda?!?

Posted: Knowledge Creates Power – Cross-Posted: Daily Thought Pad