Limbaugh: White House Using Fed Arts Agency to Push Obama Agenda

From El Rushbo:

Do you remember that NEA phone call? I think it was back in August, the 21st or the 25th, and it featured basically a coordination from the White House to the National Endowment for the Arts to promote Obama’s health care and parts of his domestic agenda. One of the artists on that call got hold of Breitbart and said they’re turning the National Endowment for the Arts and www.Serve.gov, the latest website out of the White House, into political instruments, and there are four pieces written on this at BigGovernment.com. But all it really exposes up ’til now is that the NEA was lying about their coordination with the Obama White House on spreading propaganda. This is the thing that George Will had a comment on This Week, said some laws were broken in this call. Then after some attention was focused on this they announced that the National Endowment for the Arts director of communications Yosi Sargent had been reassigned. They said he was fired but he was actually just reassigned. (more…)

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Tags: Andrew Breitbart, big government, Buffy Wicks, George Will, national endowment for the arts
Posted Sep 21st 2009 at 4:00 pm in Art, Culture, News, Politics | 231842No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/sullivan/2009/09/21/limbaugh-white-house-using-fed-arts-agency-to-push-obama-agenda/Limbaugh%3A+White+House+Using+Fed+Arts+Agency+to+Push+Obama+Agenda2009-09-21+23%3A00%3A35Sullivan

Pregame Report: The NEA Conference Call

On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”:

On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “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!” 

The email invite came directly from Yosi Sergant, then-Director of Communications at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and it advised this hand-picked group that the call was about laying “a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.” 

Courrielche describes the call this way: (more…)

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Tags: 'Health Care Reform, big government, Buffy Wicks, Dana Loesch, George Will
Posted Sep 20th 2009 at 6:43 pm in Art, Politics | 230454221 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mflynnjnolte/2009/09/20/pregame-report-the-nea-conference-call/Pregame+Report%3A+The+NEA+Conference+Call2009-09-21+01%3A43%3A02Mike+Flynn+and+John+Nolte

George Will: Did the White House Initiate the NEA ‘Propaganda’ Call?

George Will in today’s Washington Post:

“Did the White House initiate the conference call-cum-political pep rally? Or, even worse, did the NEA, an independent agency, spontaneously politicize itself? Something that reads awfully like an invitation went from Sergant’s NEA e-mail address to a cohort of “artists, producers, promoters, organizers, influencers, marketers, tastemakers, leaders or just plain cool people.” …

“The NEA is the nation’s largest single source of financial support for the arts, and its grants often prompt supplemental private donations. He who pays the piper does indeed call the tune, and in the four months before the conference call, 16 of the participating organizations received a total of nearly $2 million from the NEA. Two days after the call, the 16 and five other organizations issued a plea for the president’s health-care plan. … (more…)

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Tags: Art, artists, George Will, nea, Obama
Posted Sep 18th 2009 at 7:36 am in Art, Politics | 22847434 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/09/18/george-will-did-the-white-house-initiate-the-nea-propaganda-call/George+Will%3A+Did+the+White+House+Initiate+the+NEA+%27Propaganda%27+Call%3F2009-09-18+14%3A36%3A50Big+Hollywood

A Head Rolls at the NEA: Communications Director Asked to Resign — UPDATE: ‘Reassigned’ Not ‘Resigned’

UPDATE: Wash. Times is reporting Sergant has not resigned from the NEA, but was reassigned. He “is no longer Director of Communications.”  END UPDATE. 

From the Washington Times:

Yosi Sergant has been asked to resign from his post as Communications Director for the National Endowment for the Arts[.]

Big Hollywood’s  Partrick Courrielche broke the story of these – to say the least – controversial NEA conference calls on August 25th, calls obviously designed to promote President Obama’s domestic agenda, especially health care.  

The Washington Times picked up on the story, contacted NEA Communications Director Sergant and asked him about the calls. He denied the NEA was responsible for sending out the conference call email invitations: (more…)

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Tags: culture war, George Will, Glenn Beck, Huffington Post, Michael Skolnick
Posted Sep 10th 2009 at 10:18 am in Art, Featured Story, News, Politics | 22182630 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/09/10/breaking-nea-asks-communications-director-yosi-sergant-to-resign/A+Head+Rolls+at+the+NEA%3A+Communications+Director+Asked+to+Resign+--+UPDATE%3A+%27Reassigned%27+Not+%27Resigned%272009-09-10+17%3A18%3A24John+Nolte

What Did Kumar Know, and When Did He Know It?

Meet the face of Obama’s Ministry of Propaganda: Kal Penn.  Best known for being one of the hapless stoners in the sex-bong-fart franchise “Harold & Kumar,” Penn was brought on to the Obama Administration to be the President’s Associate Director of Public Engagement.  After failing to grab more than a headline or two in the five months since his hiring, he has entered the fray in a big way as the White House representative to a National Endowment for the Arts conference call promoting the Obama administration’s political agenda.

Patrick Courrielche reported on the call this morning:

Kalpen Modi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, was to represent the White House and key representatives from the National Endowment for the Arts were also to participate.

Did you catch that? Kalpen Modi is the given name of the actor known as Kal Penn. (more…)

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Tags: "I Pledge" Video, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, Art, ashton kutcher, George Will
Posted Sep 8th 2009 at 5:39 pm in Art, Celebrity News, Featured Story, Media Criticism, News, Politics | 22029089 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/amarlow/2009/09/08/what-did-kumar-know-and-when-did-he-know-it/What+Did+Kumar+Know%2C+and+When+Did+He+Know+It%3F2009-09-09+00%3A39%3A17Alexander+Marlow

WHO SET UP GOVERNMENT ‘PROPAGANDA’ CONFERENCE CALL? Newly Revealed White House, NEA Audio Contradict

Another conference call has materialized, revealing a concerted effort by government to use the arts to address political issues.

Lee Rosenbaum, a blogger for Artsjournal.com, posted her experience with a meeting that occurred on August 27th and confessed that she also felt “uneasy” about the government’s arts effort.  The meeting invitation (viewable here) went out to all “member local, state, and regional arts agencies, community-based arts organizations, and national partners of Americans for Arts.” Americans for Arts is a non-profit arts organization that has received substantial grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

As with my conference call, the art group was invited to the meeting to work together to “tackle some of the nation’s toughest issues: education; health; energy and the environment; community renewal; and safety and security.” Also like my call, it included a private citizen moderating the phone call with key White House representatives participating. Kalpen Modi, Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, was to represent the White House and key representatives from the National Endowment for the Arts were also to participate.

Even more disturbing than learning that the White House and NEA are using the arts to address specific issues, is to learn what was discussed on this new conference call. Rosenbaum mentions that there was much talk of “leveraging federal dollars” to get artists and cultural organizations involved in social-service projects.  (more…)

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Tags: Americans for Arts, Barack Obama, Boston Globe, conference call, Foxnews.com
Posted Sep 8th 2009 at 9:09 am in Art, Featured Story, Politics | 219566318 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/09/08/update-the-nea-and-mainstream-media-remain-silent/WHO+SET+UP+GOVERNMENT+%27PROPAGANDA%27+CONFERENCE+CALL%3F+Newly+Revealed+White+House%2C+NEA+Audio+Contradict2009-09-08+16%3A09%3A03Patrick+Courrielche