So what do you call it when the federal government steers money to a major broadcast network so that the major broadcast network will stump for the federal government’s agenda? 

That’s precisely what’s happening over at NBC this week.  According to the Associated Press: 

NBC gives new meaning to the phrase “green screen” next week, spreading a pro-environmental message across five of its prime-time entertainment programs.  “30 Rock,” where Al Gore takes a cameo role, leads the way. Environmental themes were also added to the scripts of “The Biggest Loser,” “The Office,” “Heroes” and “Community.”  NBC Universal’s three-year “green” campaign has largely focused on off-camera issues like making company facilities more eco-friendly. News and information programs have also been enlisted to do stories on environmental issues, but except for one “30 Rock” episode two years ago, the campaign hasn’t touched the prime-time lineup. 

Now, it’s clear that NBC has pushed this “green agenda” for years.  And that makes sense – General Electric owns NBC, and General Electric is at the forefront in terms of producing “green products” like energy efficient lightbulbs.  In May 2005, GE launched its $90 million “Ecomagination” advertising campaign, designed to demonstrate “GE’s commitment to address challenges such as the need for cleaner, more efficient sources of energy, reduced emissions and abundant sources of clean water,” according to GE CEO Jeff Immelt. 

But something’s different this year.  Now it’s not merely that NBC employees are supposed to recycle their paper.  It’s not just that the news division focuses on stories about water and air quality.  It’s that mainstream, prime-time programs have had their stories changed in order to accommodate these liberal messages.

So what changed?  Couldn’t have anything to do with the Obama Administration’s stimulus plan, which pledged to spend billions on “green jobs,” could it?  GE backed the stimulus package to the hilt, with Immelt leading the way:

A balanced package of targeted tax relief combined with the swift infusion of capital into sustainable infrastructure like renewable energy, transportation and healthcare can add new jobs and, equally important, save existing jobs that otherwise are in real danger … We at GE will continue to support and advocate swift passage of legislation that is acceptable to the Senate, the House, and the Administration, and that can be promptly signed into law by the President.” 

According to the 2008 GE Annual Report Letter to investors:

In the U.S., stimulus will target clean energy and smart grid technology. GE is well positioned to capitalize on these investments. We have a $7 billion renewable energy business with solid positions in wind and solar energy. We are deploying smart grid technology with key utility customers such as Pacific Gas and Electric Company, American Electric Power, and Florida Power & Lighting. This is an approximately $635 million business today, but will grow substantially in the next few years.

While certain sectors of GE took a major hit in 2008, the energy sector grew by 19%, and according to CNN.com, “Those units are expected to perform even better if GE is able to successfully bid on some of the government’s stimulus contracts.  Immelt said on the conference call that stimulus should help speed up more than $100 billion of infrastructure projects in the company’s pipeline, including implementation of smart grid technology and health IT projects.”  Which also helps explain GE’s support for the Obama health care plan.

And GE’s newly-enthused infusion of green propaganda into its mainstream shows couldn’t have anything to do with President Obama’s back-room deal with the pharmaceutical companies, could it?  Big Pharma, as it is called, recently cut a deal with the Obama Administration that would limit its liability to $80 billion over the next ten years, so long as Big Pharma spends $100 million on pro-health care plan advertising – basically, a payoff for NBC and other mass media from the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry.

Obama’s warm relationship with Jeff Immelt also couldn’t be the reason he refuses to do anything about the massive charges of financial fraud leveled at GE in August, could it?  In August, GE agreed to pay a $50 million fine for SEC accounting violations.  “GE bent the accounting rules beyond the breaking point,” explained Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.  In Obama’s America, that type of malfeasance usually ends in executive heads rolling.  In this case, it has ended with Immelt presiding over a bunch of green entertainment shows.

There is both a qualitative and a quantitative difference to what NBC is doing this year with its Go Green campaign.  Prime-time broadcasting reaches a far greater audience than NBC News programming, and it can be far more effective in paving the way for social change. 

It may seem like only a minor issue when it’s seen as a few messages about recycling, but it will seem far less mild when the Obama Administration rolls out its cap and trade plan – a plan which will benefit GE enormously.  Jeff Immelt has already called the cap and trade plan “is the most effective way to create a market and go … let’s get it done.”  Under Obama’s budget, “climate revenues” were slated to receive $646 billion over eight years, so it’s no wonder Immelt labeled the Obama Administration a “financier” and a “key partner.”  As Timothy Carney of the Washington Examiner explains:

In the fourth quarter of 2008 as the company’s stock fell 30 percent, GE spent $4.26 million on lobbying — that’s $46,304 each day, including weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 2008, the company spent a grand total of $18.66 million on lobbying.  Reviewing their lobbying filings, you might think you were looking at Al Gore’s agenda. GE’s specific lobbying issues included the “Climate Stewardship Act,” “Electric Utility Cap and Trade Act,” “Global Warming Reduction Act,” “Federal Government Greenhouse Gas Registry Act,” “Low Carbon Economy Act,” and “Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act.”  This isn’t altruism or public relations. GE has started a joint venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which invests in — and hopes to manage the trade in — greenhouse gas credits.

How can the quid pro quo here not be seen as a soft payola scandal?  Clearly GE is directing NBC to push the Obama green agenda using all of its available outlets in order to both flog GE products and in order to incentivize the Obama Administration to continue directing a river of cash to GE. 

Neither CBS nor ABC is pushing the green message, unlike the volunteerism message all the networks inserted in their programming several weeks back.  This is a company-specific decision made by an executive board looking for more payoffs from a willing Administration.  At the very least, NBC should run a disclaimer under the screen: “This segment brought to you by President Obama and his environmental agenda.”

Andrew Breitbart immediately emailed the author of the piece, Blake Gopnik, to point out that Big Hollywood had not been properly attributed on criticism of the piece.  Here’s Andrew’s email: 

“Ben Shapiro at Big Hollywood broke this story with a legitimate report. Not blog opinion. To credit Free Republic or conservative opinion sites is either bad journalism or… bad journalism. Even at Free Republic they cite Shapiro and Big Hollywood. The story was cited properly all over the Internet, why the Washington Post breach? We have been at the forefront of reporting on what the MSM won’t regarding this admin. We had the ACORN story, the NEA propaganda conference call. All hard news stories. And so is this. Shapiro is a Harvard law grad. He is hardly worthy of this kind of brush off. We’d like to see a correction as soon as possible.” 

And here is Gopnik’s response:  

I’m sorry, Andrew, but there WAS NO STORY OR SCANDAL HERE, at all, until the White House (seemed to have been) forced to withdraw the painting by conservative Web sites. We were well aware of the earlier comments regarding “Watusi,” but actively chose not to cover them in any way, because they were so ill-founded. Any writer with any real expertise in art would have known that Thomas’s riff on Matisse was always meant to be obviously legible as such, and was read as such from the beginning — there was never any fakery or plagiarism involved. Accusing Thomas of “plagiarism” here is precisely like accusing the Beatles of “plagiarism” for having recorded “Roll Over Beethoven” — after making the “discovery”, in 2009, that there was this other guy named Chuck Berry who’d written a song that sounded almost the same.           

Yours, 

Blake Gopnik
Chief Art Critic
The Washington Post 

I will freely admit that I am no expert art critic.  I am, however, a lawyer.  And I can read.  These constitute two skill sets that apparently elude Mr. Gopnik.  Gopnik admits that the White House was “forced to withdraw the painting by conservative Web sites,” which is more than he did in his Washington Post piece.  But at the same time, he says that everyone knows that Thomas’ piece is a “riff on Matisse.”  Everyone, it seems, except the New York Times, which originally reported the Obama White House Art.  In the pages of the Times, Holland Cotter, the Times’ art critic, described Thomas’ painting as “an out-and-out steal of a Matisse collage. Thomas just shifts the pieces around, cools the colors down, and adds a title that refers to a Chubby Checker song.”  I guess Cotter is as uneducated as I am.  (The New York Times, by the way, was just as bad as the Washington Post – in their coverage of the White House takedown, they selectively edited out Cotter’s line about “Watusi (Hard Edge)” as an “out-and-out steal of a Matisse collage” while keeping his description about Chubby Checker.) 

Whatever Gopnik knows about art, his claims about the nature of artistic plagiarism demonstrate total and utter ignorance of basic copyright law.  “Accusing Thomas of ‘plagiarism’ here is precisely like accusing the Beatles of ‘plagiarism’ for having recorded ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ — after making the ‘discovery,’ in 2009, that there was this other guy named Chuck Berry who’d written a song that sounded almost the same,” Gopnik patronizingly remarks in his email.  Except that the Beatles, presumably, complied with U.S. copyright law, which requires that re-recordings of songs acquire what is termed a “mechanical license” — a process which calls for the re-recording artist to both notify the original artist of the song and to pay a royalty for using it.  Alma hasn’t paid a dime to the Matisse estate to my knowledge. So it ain’t quite the same thing, there, Blake.  

As far as visual art, slight modification won’t obviate copyright infringement claims.  Just ask Shepard Fairey, the idiot artist who created the Obama Hope poster by ripping off an Associated Press photograph.  AP sued Fairey under the Copyright Act, explaining that “the Infringing Works copy all the distinctive and unequivocally recognizable elements of the Obama Photo in their entire detail, retaining the heart and essence of The AP’s photo, including but not limited to its patriotic theme … the striking similarity between The AP’s copyright image … of President Obama and the poster that Fairey made based on that image … is patently obvious.” 

There were strong legal grounds for the AP’s suit against Fairey – grounds which would be similarly applicable to Matisse’s work.  Under 17 U.S.C. §106, for example, the owner of copyright in a work as the exclusive right to “prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work.”  Under 17 U.S.C. §501, “Anyone who violates any of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner … is an infringer of the copyright.”  So Gopnik’s supposed defense of plagiarism in art in the Washington Post piece as “common practice in art for hundreds of years” doesn’t make it okay.  

The story of the Obama White House and “Watusi (Hard Edge)” was originally a story about the White House’s incompetent vetting process and inane taste in art.  Now it has become something more: the latest and most patently obvious attempt by the mainstream media to shield a president from any criticism, however minute – and their willingness even to endorse artistic plagiarism to do it.

The White House explicitly denied that the painting was being removed because of its obvious similarity to the Matisse piece.  And the Washington Post writers cover for the White House in typical press lackey fashion:

Stephens’s explanation makes sense because it is inconceivable that the White House’s art experts would imagine Thomas’s painting was fraudulent or a copy … Elaborations on earlier artists’ work, even full appropriation, have been common practice in art for hundreds of years. 

Right.  And Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services because Obama didn’t like his red glasses.  It had nothing to do with his tax cheating. 

Since when does the White House announce when it moves art?  They don’t issue a press release every time they replace a painting.  In fact, the White House didn’t announce when it sent a bust of Winston Churchill back to Britain – the media had to find out on its own.  This is a clear response to the Big Hollywood piece, as well as scrutiny from other diligent bloggers like Michelle Malkin. 

The idea that the Obama White House is infallible when it comes to vetting either its art or its nominees is bizarre and unsupported by facts.  This is an Administration that has placed known tax crooks in high financial positions.  This is an Administration that made an open Communist Green Czar, and a pedophilia-phile Safe Schools Czar.  Believing that the Obama Administration failed to do basic research on the art it hangs on its walls makes perfect sense.  And no amount of obfuscation from the Washington Post is going to rectify the obvious cover-up attempt by the White House.

Want to know the Obama Administration’s idea of what constitutes art?  There’s no better place to look than the newly-reconstituted White House art collection.  So what’s there?  How about this gem:

Yes, it is boring and banal.  It does look like your three-year-old’s recent construction paper cut-out from pre-school – the one she made with the rounded scissors.  It’s Watusi (Hard Edge), by black painter Alma Thomas.

Now here’s Henri Matisse’s The Snail (1953).

Notice any similarities?  How about now:

That’s right.  It’s a direct copy of the Matisse picture rotated 90 degrees and the colors inverted.  What magnificent art.

Sort of reminiscent of the Shepherd Fairey plagiaristic “art” poster for Obama, ripped off directly from an AP photo:

But let’s not assume that all Obama’s art is this bad.  Let’s look at it.  How about this masterpiece by Ed Ruscha, appropriately entitled “I Think I’ll…”:

Isn’t that magnificent?  It certainly sums up Obama’s thinking process, which is based on considering all the options, then eating a cup of applesauce and taking a nap while waiting for mommy (read: Valerie Jarrett) to make a decision.

Or how about another Alma Thomas piece, “Sky Light,” which could more appropriately be titled “inverted ant races on your broken television set”:

Then there’s “Berkeley, No. 52,” by Richard Diebenkorn (1955), which aptly sums up how the world must have looked to Obama while attending a liberal college and doing cocaine:

And, in case we forgot that the Obama’s are black, the text of “Black Like Me” on a piece of canvas (Glenn Ligon’s “Black Like Me No. 2”):

It’s as though the Obamas decided to do a poll as to what Americans would least like to post in their living rooms, then adopted all the top choices, with special credit to black artists based on their race.  No doubt, Malia and Sasha will have an entire wing of the White House dedicated to their Play-Doh sculptures.  And the New York Times will praise their artistic flair.

In essence, the Obamas are elitists who think that the inscrutable is deep, and that the incompetent is profound.  Sadly, President Obama’s presidency is the same as his art: something that outsiders assume has substance, even in the absence of substance.

[Ed update: first two images are now in the correct order.]

Now we have new evidence that the White House itself has been using its sway to recruit artists – not just to support President Obama’s “volunteerism” initiatives, but to support basic planks of his political agenda, including health care.  In fact, the White House has been tapping its extragovernmental political allies to work with artists with the tacit promise that NEA funds will be in the offing for those who join the Obama Administration political program. (more…)

Ready? Here we go.

WH_COUNSEL_MEMO_GUIDELINES_FOR_PUBLIC_OUTREACH_MEETINGS

First, the White House suggests that all NEA employees “avoid even the appearance of impropriety.” According to the White House, “President Obama has pledged to restore Americans’ trust in their government. Strict adherence to the rules is not enough – we need to avoid even the appearance of politicization in order to ensure people’s faith in the actions of the Administration. This means always asking whether an action under consideration could be construed as inappropriate.” Good advice, to be sure. But this would be too little too late – and it also conflicts with the facts. The clear implication here is that no laws were violated.

As I have posted before, I believe several laws were violated. And there is no question that the call was blatant partisan outreach for President Obama. Michael Skolnik, who was a co-host of the call, mentioned that he was “asked by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA about a month ago” to host the call. He then proceeded to lionize Obama supporters: “I think Shepard [Fairey] and the Hope poster obviously is a great example, but it’s clear as an independent art community as artists and thinkers and tastemakers 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.” He went even further: “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 we can … get involved in those things, to support some of the president’s initiatives, but also do to things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration.” That does more than create appearances of impropriety.

That is impropriety.

Next, the White House suggests that the NEA “continue to ensure that decisions are merit-based.” The memo explicitly states that “it is the policy of this Administration that those funding decisions be free of political interference or even the appearance thereof.” Appearances like 21 organizations coming out two days after the call in favor of Obama’s health care plan – and the shady coincidence that 16 of the groups and affiliated organizations received $2 million in grants in the 150 days before the call.

Nonetheless, let’s give the White House the benefit of the doubt. They state that they want to ensure that agencies “serve the needs of the American public without regard to party.” Immediately thereafter, the White House then states, “This does not mean that government officials are not permitted to meet with individuals or select groups as agency needs and the public interest demand.” Of course, what the White House thinks the “public interest” demands is silence from those damn “teabaggers.” So any artist who forwards that agenda is properly targeted for help under this standard. Here’s the thing about art: nobody needs it, in the strictest sense. With that said, the White House’s definition of “public interest” needs is malleable in the extreme.

But the White House is not done. Next, the White House suggests that the NEA “engage only in authorized activities.” They state, “Each federal agency is limited in its power to act by its authorizing statute” – surely a shocking statement from an Administration that insists it has the power to create czars willy-nilly without authorizing statutes. The White House explicitly mentions avoiding Hatch Act violations (as discussed in my last piece) and violations of the Ethics in Government Act (an act dedicated largely to revealing the financial associations of federal employees).

What precisely is the NEA’s purpose? The NEA was chartered in 1965 under 20 US Code §954. It is supposed to provide aid or loans to groups or individuals to enable them to create “projects and productions which have substantial national or international artistic and cultural significance … meeting professional standards or standards of authenticity or tradition, irrespective of origin, which are of significant merit and which, without such assistance, would otherwise be unavailable to our citizens for geographic or economic reasons …projects and productions that will encourage and assist artists and enable them to achieve wider distribution … projects and productions which have substantial artistic and cultural significance …” In other words, blah, blah, blah.

Significantly, however, nowhere in the authorizing act does Congress suggest that the purpose of the NEA is to provide funding, conference call rah-rah boosting, or emotional support for artists seeking to promote a particular president’s agenda. Even community service is not mentioned, despite the fact that hosts of the call repeatedly stated that the NEA was to be involved in the president’s new “service” initiative.

The White House’s concluding paragraph is truly a doozy: “We should consider this call to be a reminder and a teaching moment.” (If I had a penny for each “teaching moment” this Administration had provided, I could pay off the entire national debt personally. It’s time for the Obama Administration to stop providing “teaching moments” and start behaving in competent fashion.) But the White House continues: “It was organized with the best of intentions to promote community service and volunteerism, something the Administration does with many constituencies and something we will continue to do. The misunderstandings that flowed from the call should serve as a less going forward of the need to take extra care to ensure it complies with these general principles.” There was no misunderstanding here. The problem for the Obama Administration is that the American people understood precisely what was going on.

Finally, the White House concludes with these stirring words: “At all times Administration employees should be focused on the twin goals of furthering their agency’s mission and serving the public trust.” Wrong again. The purpose of federal employees is solely to fulfill the law by doing their jobs. The public trust doesn’t come into it – especially not the Obama Administration’s definition of public trust, under which the public trust is best protected by shilling for President Obama himself.

Here’s the bottom line: the proof is in the pudding. We must now carefully watch each and every distribution of NEA cash to each and every artist. We must analyze where our tax dollars are going. If the White House really wants transparency, they must immediately start a website that posts online the basis for each and every NEA grant and loan. Anything less is a boondoggle.

Violation of this law, in turn, violates 31 U.S. Code §1352, which, if read broadly, bans the use of federal funds for lobbying by the recipients: “funds appropriated by any Act [may not be] 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 …”  

But that’s not all.  The conference call also violates the Hatch Act – in particular, 5 U.S. Code §7323(a)(4), which prohibits federal employees from “knowingly solicit[ing] or discourag[ing] the participation in any political activity of any person who – (A) has an application for any compensation, grant, contract, ruling, license, permit, or certificate pending before the employing office of such employee …”  

And then there are regulations of the Office of Management and Budget.  At least one organization represented on the conference call – Americans for the Arts — has charitable 501(c)(3) status.  Under OMB Circular No. A-122, Attachment B, Section 25, federal moneys going to 501(c)3s cannot be used for “(1)Attempts to influence the outcomes of any Federal, State, or local election, referendum, initiative, or similar procedure, through in kind or cash contributions, endorsements, publicity ,or similar activity; … (3) Any attempt to influence: (i) The introduction of Federal or State legislation; or (ii) the enactment or modification of any pending Federal or State legislation through communication with any member or employee of the Congress or State legislature (including efforts to influence State or local officials to engage in similar lobbying activity), or with any Government official or employee in connection with a decision to sign or veto enrolled legislation; (4) Any attempt to influence: (i) The introduction of Federal or State legislation; or (ii) the enactment or modification of any pending Federal or State legislation by preparing, distributing or using publicity or propaganda, or by urging members of the general public or any segment thereof to contribute to or participate in any mass demonstration, march, rally, fundraising drive, lobbying campaign or letter writing or telephone campaign …”  The responsibility falls on the federal agencies to implement the OMB circular.  If any of the 501(c)3s on the call received federal moneys at any time near the conference call, the federal agency authorities who approved such disbursements violated this circular. 

Also, many of the groups on the line were 501(c)(4) organizations, tax-exempt civic organizations who are generally allowed to lobby.  Except if they receive federal funds, that is: “An organization described in section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 which engages in lobbying activities shall not be eligible for the receipt of Federal funds constituting an award, grant, or loan.” (P.L. 104-99 §129.)  “Lobbying activities” are defined narrowly – they apply to contact with federal officials.  But that, of course, is the whole point here: these artists are supposed to provide the groundwork for such contacts, which is barred by law.  

It gets even worse.  Under 18 U.S.C. §371, it could be found that this call was designed to defraud the United States: “If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”  Courts, in fact, have found that action designed to accomplish political activities with federal funds falls under this statute: in 1980, the 8^th Circuit held in United States v. Pintar that where individuals conspired to use a federal program “to accomplish political objectives … unrelated to legitimate [agency] business,” they had defrauded “the United States of its right to have programs of an agency financed … by the United States Government … administered, honestly, fairly, without corruption or deceit.” 

Undoubtedly, there is more to come here.  At the very least, a bevy of federal laws have been violated.  Any failure by the Congress of the United States to initiate a full-scale investigation must be considered action designed to enable the misuse of taxpayer funds in violation of federal law.

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.”  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!”

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.”  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.”  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.”  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.”  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.”  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.”  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.”

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.”  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…”).

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 …”

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 …”

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 …”  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.”  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.”  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.

Originally launched in 1963 as a male version of the Barbie doll, GI Joe’s creators intended for the “action figures” to be a tribute to the armed services (prototypes included “Rocky,” the Army soldier, “Skip,” the sailor, and “Ace,” the pilot). GI Joe wore WWII or Korean War issue uniforms.  For the next five years, GI Joes (including black GI Joe figures in particular areas) would dominate the market. 

During the Vietnam era, Hasbro, GI Joe’s maker and distributor, decided to tone down the action figure’s military theme as a result of the Vietnam War. Instead, Hasbro shifted the marketing to “Adventure Team,” which included turning GI Joes into superheroes and having them fight “The Intruders: Strong Men from Another World.” 

With the coming of Reagan, GI Joe regained his footing. Hasbro began marketing the product again as “GI Joe: A Real American Hero.” The action figure even spawned a successful TV series, which touted GI Joe as “the code name for America’s daring, highly trained special mission force. Its purpose: to defend freedom against Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world.” 

Fast forward twenty years. Hollywood, always eager to capitalize on already-lucrative marketing, is ready to release its version of GI Joe: GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra.  And the creators of the movie are marketing it specifically to the so-called NASCAR crowd. Says Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore, “Our starting point for this movie is not Hollywood and Manhattan but rather mid-America.” 

Or not. Director Stephen Sommers, wary of international audiences, says that GI Joe will be in the mold of the Adventure Team 1970s. “This is not a George Bush movie,” Sommers explains.  “[I]t’s an Obama world. Right from the writing stage we said to ourselves, this can’t be about beefy guys on steroids who all met each other in the Vietnam War, but an elite organization that’s made up of the best of the best from around the world.” 

So GI Joe isn’t a Real American Hero – he’s a UN peacekeeper. This is reminiscent of the determinedly unpatriotic Superman Returns, which deliberately refused to state that Superman was fighting for “truth, justice and the American way.” Even GI Joe is now subject to the dictates of political correctness. We wouldn’t want Europeans thinking that we idolize the men and women of the American military. That would be uncouth. 

This is a reflection of Hollywood’s read on the Obama Administration. When Hollywood tackled GI Joe back in the 1980s, it focused on the GI Joes as Americans through and through – undoubtedly, a stance impacted by the renewed patriotism of the Reagan Administration. But with Obama, it’s different – we’re supposed to think of American soldiers as pieces in a larger coalition. GI Joe is supposed to be GI Hans, GI Vladimir, and GI Cho.  

GI Joe may be a good movie. It may not.  But if the creators’ intentions are reflected in the film, there’s little doubt it won’t be an American movie.

Broke is an ambitious movie, covering ground from the subprime meltdown to the relationship between the stock market and the “irrational exuberance” targeted by Professor Robert Schiller.  For all its ambition, the film does come off as a bit scattered, mixing personal stories with broader (and often vaguer) points about the nature of the financial markets.  If you’re looking for a detailed analysis of real estate finance or an explanation of the mismanagement by the federal government and Wall Street, you’re not likely to find it here – this is more of a media critique, and a critique of the American mindset that we should “get rich quick” through the market rather than doing our research. 

The content of the movie, however, isn’t as important as the mood it creates.  It’s a well-cut movie, a high quality production, and it captures the sense of foreboding we all feel about the chaotic state of our economy.  Broke’s finest moments come from its analogies: a visit to an Asian fish market is likened to stock trading; the stock market’s vagaries are likened (and then differentiated) from playing the lottery.  Broke also convincingly tears down the financial news networks like CNBC, which, as creator Michael Covel sees them, are catering to an audience of news junkies in an attempt to score ratings (a point made in less elegant fashion by Jon Stewart in his grilling of Jim Cramer).  In Covel’s view, Americans have stupidly allowed themselves to become pawns of the “know-it-alls” who tell them where and when to invest – they’ve given up the financial autonomy they truly need to make smart investment decisions. 

Broke isn’t the all-encompassing “recession movie.”  What Broke does do in beautiful imagistic fashion, however, is remind us of the situation we now face, even if it doesn’t offer specifics for how to get out of it other than a blanket warning to face up to our responsibilities as investors.  If we take Covel’s advice on that point, we’ll all be a lot better off.