1. “The Undefeated” packs a Chicago theatre:

“Sarah Palin Movie Debuts to Empty Theater in OrangeCounty” was the headline at Atlantic.com. But as Christian Toto of the Washington Times has pointed out, this was based on the experience of a lone political blogger at a single midnight showing of the film, the story was picked up by politico.com and the Los Angeles Times. Not many political documentaries would clock well at the witching hour.

Other outlets have taken their potshots as well. Entertainment Weekly proclaimed, “Sarah Palin’s ‘The Undefeated’: We saw it so you don’t have to.” Huffington Post chimed in, “Box Office Bomb: Sarah Palin and the Failure of ‘The Undefeated.’”

But we aren’t talking Captain America or Harry Potter here. A conservative political documentary requires a different measure of success. And this indie underdog film has been scoring unexpected successes – and fans – in decidedly liberal places.

After a five-city expansion, the film made its Chicago debut Saturday to a packed house at the GeneSiskelFilmCenter. Yes, I said, “Chicago.”

2. Roger Ebert showed both Governor Palin and ”The Undefeated” respect in his review:

What astonished me is that the primary targets in the film are conservative Republicans. Yes, there are the usual vague references to liberals and elitists (although I heard the word “Democrat” only twice). But the film’s favorite bad guys seem to be in the GOP establishment. This seems odd, considering that the target audience is presumably Republicans.

Toward the end the right-wing tub-thumper Andrew Breitbart opens up with both barrels on establishment Republicans, and is particularly angry about conservatives in Washington, who he describes as eunuchs.

3. Member of Left-wing media declares “Caribou Barbie” narrative dead:

Sunday’s left-leaning Chicago Sun-Times led its story coverage with a post-film recap called, “Film Drives a Stake into ‘Caribou Barbie’ for one Dem.” The “one Dem” was Eddie Bryant, a retired 67-year old Union Pacific employee of African American-descent. “People say this lady is brainless,” said Bryant. “She’s not only smart, but she’s a clean-government person. I gained respect for her.” And Bryant’s not the only one.

Legendary film critic Roger Ebert, a passionate political liberal, called the film “A Documentary for Palin Lovers.” A powerful industry voice, Ebert could have maligned the film; he didn’t. If Hollywood hasn’t uttered a collective “wow” by now, it should. 

After years of Palin-bashing, these cracks in the mainstream media plaster would seem to be an anomaly. But they are not. Even last week’s Newsweek cover story on Palin had a kinder, gentler take on the former governor giving conservatives a serious case of whiplash.

Much more here, including an in-depth interview with the film’s writer/director.

[I]n finding artistic and commercial renewal across the pond, Mr. Allen often has flattered European vanities by ogling the sights of their storied capitals with his camera. Unfortunately, in “Midnight,” he also has pandered to European stereotypes of the Ugly American.

[...]

The cross-cultural comedy concerns a burned out Hollywood screenwriter named Gil (Owen Wilson) who hopes a trip to France will inspire him to finish his novel. Gil fantasizes about Paris in the 1920s, a time when artistic giants such as Ernest Hemingway, Cole Porter and F. Scott Fitzgerald roamed its streets.

One mysterious car ride later, Gil finds himself magically transported back to the Lost Generation golden age of his daydreams.

“Midnight in Paris” taps into a timeless American attraction to the City of Light as a cultural beacon, a place even ordinary artists can visit and emerge reborn. Throughout the film, Mr. Allen treats the city’s creative minds, native and transient alike, as intellectual titans.

Yet, in paying tribute to the artistic and historical glories of Paris, Mr. Allen gratuitously sneers at his own country. Mr. Wilson’s character is engaged to a shallow, materialistic American played by Rachel McAdams, a shrew whose parents are even more distasteful to Mr. Allen.

They belong to the tea party, for crying out loud.

Full article here.

See how this works?

On a regular basis, your hard-earned money is used against your own political interests; all thanks in part to a legalized money-laundering scheme created and sustained by your own government. Read on…

Terrific work from Kerry Picket in the Washington Times:

In late 2010, General Motors agreed to sponsor a propaganda film celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP made film titled (translated to English) “The Birth of a Party” or “The Great Achievement of Founding the Party” is set to premiere all over the Communist nation on June 15 reported China AutoWeb last September. …

The United States government currently own 33% of the GM company following the auto-bailouts of 2009, and GM CEO Daniel Akerson describes China, as the “key to [GM's] success.” (h/t The Detroit Bureau)

Presently, GM’s business in China is selling more autos in the Asian country than in the United States. The Washington Post noted last week that China was GM’s solution to help the car-maker recover from bankruptcy[.] …

Along with concern over China’s ownership of trillions of dollars of U.S. debt, it is truly troubling that an American company financially supported now by the U.S. taxpayer is happily promoting Communist propaganda that glosses over the atrocities of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. What’s next for GM? Selling military vehicles for the Chinese to threaten their own people with?

Be sure to the full piece here.

Jon Voight in today’s Washington Times:

You will be the first American president that lied to the Jewish people, and the American people as well, when you said that you would defend Israel, the only Democratic state in the Middle East, against all their enemies. You have done just the opposite. You have propagandized Israel, until they look like they are everyone’s enemy – and it has resonated throughout the world. You are putting Israel in harm’s way, and you have promoted anti-Semitism throughout the world.

Read the full piece here.

NEA chairman Rocco Landesman, who was confirmed by the Senate on August 7 and began serving the day after his agency organized its now-infamous conference call, may be an excellent Broadway producer. But he’s still struggling to find his voice as a public servant.

Rocco Landesman

As evidence, let me cite his statement on the conference-call matter, issued yesterday. For readers who might be jumping into this discussion for the first time: This call, organized and participated in by the NEA using agency (in other words “taxpayer”) resources, asked some 75 artists to use their talents to promote a huge portion of President Obama’s domestic agenda. Two days later, 21 arts organizations endorsed Obama’s health-care plan. According to the Washington Times, those groups received $2 million in NEA grants during the four months leading up to the call.

Instead of issuing an apology for his agency’s role in this controversy, Landesman uses his statement to “clarify the issues” regarding the call. “Here are the facts,” he writes, and then presents an actual list (“Fact 1,” “Fact 2,” … “Fact 6”). This is amazing. It reads like a schoolboy defending some indefensible behavior. Rest assured, no form of apology appears anywhere.

I won’t pain you with each “fact,” just one that is particularly appalling.  It reads, in part:

Fact 3:  This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false.

Just a glace at the transcript of the call reveals Landesman to be flat-out wrong.

You can read the piece in full here.

Americans for the Arts has recently sent a request to Big Hollywood to retract the statement that they were a participant in the August 10th National Endowment for the Arts conference call: [emphasis added]

Robert Lynch President and CEO, Americans for the Arts

“Immediate corrections about Americans for the Arts need to be made to stories that you have published in various newspapers, blogs, television, and radio programs.

“Americans for the Arts was not a participant on an August 10, 2009, conference call involving the National Endowment for the Arts. …

“The Washington Times later published an unconfirmed invitation list to the August 10 conference call, speculating that actress Kerry Washington had participated on the call. The affiliation next to Ms. Washington’s name is incorrect. Ms. Washington is not, nor has ever been, a board member of Americans for the Arts.”

During the conference call in question, it was suggested by a participant that the moderator, Michael Skolnik, send a contact list for all those that were on the call. We were then requested by Skolnik to send our contact information for a contact list that would be distributed later in the week:

SKOLNIK: Mark, great suggestion and we will.  If anyone has not e-mailed directly –this is Michael again — please do so, and I’ll give you my e-mail address. I think I’ve heard from most of you.  But just in case you’ve spoken to Yosi or someone else, please e-mail me with your contact information. I’ve put together a large list of the people.  So my e-mail is … I will definitely distribute an e-mail list by the middle of this week.

Two days later, on August 12th, Skolnik sent the following email [click to enlarge] to the group. In the email, at the end of the first paragraph, he states, “please find attached a contact list for those who were on the call.” 

In the attachment was a full list of those that participated on the conference call. Included in the list was Kerry Washington. Her bio reads:

actress/arts activist. She sits on the board of The Creative Coalition and Americans for The Arts (arts and arts education advocacy organizations) and serves on the board of two organizations committed to the use of theater arts for social change: V-day and The People Speak.

[ed. note: below is a document created from the original spreadsheet Michael Skolnik attached to his email.]

 –

You already know the background: an NEA spokesman participated in a conference call designed to encourage artists to further Obama’s legislative agenda. This was revealed back in August at Big Hollywood. What is new today is the full transcript of the call — and how clearly the NEA was involved in urging artists to propagandize for Obama.

Naturally, the NEA and the Obama administration denied this. According to the Los Angeles Times (in a blog post, of course, and not an actual newsprint story), the NEA denied any purpose to further a legislative agenda:

The NEA issued a statement saying that it took part in the conference to help inform arts organizations about opportunities to sponsor volunteer service projects themselves, or have their members take part in other volunteer efforts. “This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda, and any suggestions to that end are simply false,” the statement said.

The White House similarly denied any desire to further a legislative agenda:

Responding by e-mail Wednesday, White House spokesman Shin Inouye said the Aug. 10 teleconference “was not meant to promote any legislative agenda — it was a discussion on the United We Serve effort and how all Americans can participate.”

Oh really?

If Big Media had been paying attention, it could have demonstrated these denials to be rank lies. But Big Media fell asleep, leaving isolated organs of conservative media to pick up the ball and run it down the field. So, now, today, the full transcript is revealed, showing how badly Big Media missed the story.

The newly revealed full transcript of the call clearly demonstrates that the NEA participated in an unseemly (and possibly illegal) effort to influence artists to propagandize on behalf of the president’s political agenda. Let’s look at some aspects of the call that make it clear that, as Patrick Courrielche says with admirable restraint: “The NEA and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address issues under contentious national debate.”

Michael Skolnik

One of the first speakers on the call was Michael Skolnik, the “political director” for Def-Jam co-founder Russell Simmons. Skolnik made it quite clear that the artists were gathered together because of their support for Obama’s agenda. Skolnik said that he had been “asked by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA” to “help bring together the independent artists community around the country.” He told the callers that “the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call” included the effort “to support some of the president’s initiatives” and “to push the president and push his administration.”

The Obama Hope poster

Skolnik cited the famous Obama Hope poster as “a great example” of “the role that we played during the campaign for the president.” He told callers that “the president has a clear arts agenda” and that “all of us who are on this phone call were selected for a reason” — namely, “you are the ones that lead by example in your communities. You are the thought leaders. You are the ones that . . . tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be into; and what’s cool and what’s not cool.” (A fuller version of Skolnik’s quotes is set forth here for context.)

A bit later in the call, Buffy Wicks spoke up. Wicks is the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and served as the head of Obama’s Missouri campaign, and also as the campaign’s California Field Director.

Far from taking issue with Skolnik’s highly politicized description of the purpose of the call, Wicks added to it. Like Skolnik, Wicks indicated that she was talking to a hand-picked group of Obama-supporting artists. She told the assembled listeners that she has “really just a deep, deep appreciation for all the work that you all put into the campaign for the two plus years that we all worked together.” She said: “we won and that’s exciting, and now we have to take all that energy and make it really meaningful.” Why, I feel certain that she is not talking about promoting any legislative agenda, don’t you?

Buffy Wicks

Wicks said that “change doesn’t come easy, but then now that I’m actually in the White House and working towards furthering this agenda, this very aggressive agenda” she realized that there is a need to “engage people at a local level and to engage them in the process.” Towards that end, she told the artists, “we need you, and we’re going to need your help, and we’re going to come at you with some specific asks here.”

In discussing the “specific asks” she veered deeply into policy. Wicks identified four main areas where people can engage in “service.” Two of them seem relatively innocuous: education and community renewal. But the first two she mentioned are clearly two of Obama’s biggest hot-button issues: health care and “energy and environment” (as in cap and trade). Speaking of “context,” Courrielche reminds us that the “context” surrounding this call was that it took place in early August — at a time when Congress was headed into a recess, and it appeared that the Obama administration was losing the debate on health care.

Wicks discussed so much policy with the artists that she even felt the need to apologize:

I know I’m throwing a lot of government stuff at you guys, so bear with me. It’s the world we live in now. We’re actually running the government.

What does this have to do with art?

Wicks discussed how the administration sees “service” as a “platform” by which the administration can take “folks who have just been engaged in electoral politics” and “engage them in really the process of governing.” The “service” certainly sounded like obeisance to leftist causes; Wicks described how she wants folks “to connect with federal agencies, with labor unions, progressive groups, face groups, women’s groups, you name it.” Yes, you name it! As long as it’s a leftist group, it can be part of “service”!

Finally, we get to the comments of Yosi Sergant, the (former) Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts. (Sergant was later reassigned after Glenn Beck played portions of the phone call on his TV show. Sergant is still with the NEA in some other capacity.)

Yosi Sergant

Like Wicks and Skolnik, Sergant saw the call participants as Obama supporters. He says that the call itself is

reflective of all the hard work that went down during the campaign, all the time and energy that each and every one of you put in, myself included, it’s paying off.

This is what we fought for. We fought for a chance to be at the table and not only at the table but we’re setting the table.

He said more than once that “this is a community that knows how to make a stink.” The NEA official then virtually ordered the presumably willing participants to create art that would support the president’s views on the policy areas previously identified by Wicks:

We are participating in history as it’s being made. So bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely and we can really work together to move the needle and to get stuff done. Pick — I would encourage you to pick something whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the corporation has identified as the areas of service.

My ask would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities’ utilities and bring them to the table.

I guess it worked. As Big Hollywood has previously reported:

Within 48 hours of this phone call, 21 arts organizations endorsed President Obama’s health-care reform plan. Within days, Rock the Vote started an all out blitz that included a “health care design contest.”

In perhaps the most fascinating exchange, a caller named Liz Ban asked:

I think for the people that are on the inside of government to talk for a minute about Organizing For America and the differences between Organizing For America and Serve.gov and what we can do to help on critical advocacy issues like health care reform, cap and trade policy, if that should help move policies through the government, because this is a really important role that our creative community can also play.

That question is answered by Nell Abernathy, the director of outreach for United We Serve, a federal agency run through the Corporation for National and Community Service (this is apparently the “corporation” to which Sergant referred). As you read Abernathy’s words, you can easily picture the wink and the nod as she explains that the federal agencies can’t explicitly advocate specific policy changes:

Yeah, I can address that a little bit, and the reason only a little bit is largely because in my role at a federal agency, I’m precluded from going too far down the specific steps what people can do to advocate. But we have to, for these legal reasons, remain really separate what we do here from what OFA is doing, and so they’re basically two separate goals with the same idea. We use the same techniques, organizing strategies, because basically they’re both run by people from the campaign. But Serve.gov and the United We Serve initiative is based on the direct service addressing needs through volunteering today bipartisan support ideas than OFA, which is obviously advocating for policy change on these specific issues.

Got that? It’s “two separate goals with the same idea” and “both run by people for the campaign” but [wink wink] we can’t advocate policy change because [wink wink] we’re a federal agency.

Luckily, Mr. Skolnik jumps in to cut through the B.S., which he’s allowed to do because he doesn’t work for the government:

Well, I can speak on that because fortunately or unfortunately, I don’t work for the government. This is Michael, again, but I can speak a little bit on that, and then I’ll wrap this up.

I think that’s a good point, Liz. Organizing For America, which was created after the campaign which now houses, as we said, in the Democratic party and is run by Mitch Stewart, who is part of the campaign, he’s the executive director, it is what the Democratic party has created to help advocate on behalf of the president, on behalf of the president’s policies to get them passed in government.

So what I had hoped in bringing this group together with the great hosts, which again, I want to thank for reaching out to their communities was that we could begin to bring together our community in the same enthusiasm, with the same enthusiasm and with the same energy that we all saw in each other during the campaign, and we could continue to work together on issues as important as United We Serve and Service and begin here and continue to work together on other issues that we feel are important, as we mentioned some of them, health care and others . . .

Whoops! United We Serve is the federal agency that Ms. Abernathy had just said [wink wink] had to remain separate from policy, and here is Skolnik mushing the two together.

Why This Story Is Important

It would be a mistake to dismiss this story as unimportant because there is no jaw-dropping angle like ACORN staffers’ apparent complicity in trafficking in under-age children for prostitution. Consider what is happening: the NEA is encouraging artists to create propaganda for a president’s policy initiatives. This is a corrosive precedent — and what’s more, it illustrates the overarching danger of the Obama administration: government, by increasingly taking over various aspects of American society, threatens to bend society to the will of a single man.

It would also be a mistake to dismiss the story as old just because the basic contours of the story were revealed in August. Since then, the NEA and the Obama administration have denied pursuing a legislative agenda in the call; today it is clear that they lied. What’s more, they tried to cover it up with the reassignment of Sergant. And the media played right along, for the most part acting as though that was the end of it.

The most obviously interesting question in all this going forward is whether laws were broken with this call.

Regardless of the answer to that question, this is an important story with implications that go beyond the NEA. Here’s the bottom line. Before today, Obama took over car companies and used his power over those companies to further his agenda of producing cars he believed consumers should own. Today, he increases government power over artists, to harness their creative powers to the “service” of his political agenda. What will come tomorrow, when Our Leader takes over health care, new industries, or God knows what else?

But this is only how things appear.

All evidence points to the fact that the conference call was a ruse, a front for a White House using Skolnik as a kind of beard in order to put an innocent spin on their abuse of the NEA and two non-partisan volunteer organizations (United We Serve – an initiative overseen by The Corporation for National and Community Service – a federal agency, and the White House’ Office of Public Engagement).

The goal: To motivate a group of hand-picked pro-Obama artists (grant recipients or those wanting grants) to push the President’s flagging agenda, especially health care — and to funnel this promotion through the ACORN related- Serve.gov website. 

***

Documentation gathered by Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche and the Washington Times, coupled with a newly revealed audio recording of the full conference call, points to eight troubling facts that put the full context of the call in a very disturbing light.

1. The NEA did not want it known they had any part in organizing the call. When the Washington Times asked Yosi Sergant, the NEA’s then-Director of Communications (he was “reassigned” on Sept. 10th after the story broke) about the call, he claimed the NEA was only a participant and that Skolnik had set up the call.

2. We know Sergant lied to the Washington Times. The NEA did send the email invite for the conference call. Worse, Sergant himself sent it, letting this group of artists and art organizations know the call would focus on “core areas of recovery,” starting with “health care.”

3. We know that United We Serve  (with the ACORN-related Serve.gov website) claims they were merely a participant in a conference call arranged by someone they referred to as an “individual interested” in their group. It seems obvious they mean Michael Skolnik.  

4. Michael Skolnik was not merely an “individual interested” in United We Serve, but in fact was asked by the White House and the NEA to round up artists on their behalf. We know this because in the newly revealed audio of the call, Skolnik says so.  

5. The conference call audio makes clear that everyone addressing the artists and art organizations are fully aware they’re speaking to pro-Obama partisans; the same artists who helped the president win the 2008 election.

6. While addressing this group of Obama supporters, United We Serve, The Office of Public Engagement and the NEA repeatedly focus on four areas where “national service” is most needed … and health care always comes first.  

7. We know that both Nell Abernathy of United We Serve and Buffy Wicks with The Office of Public Engagement heard and did not dispute Michael Skolnik’s opening statement asserting he had brought these artists together at the request of the White House and NEA, and that one of the goals of the call was to “push the president and push his administration.”

8. The remainder of this piece will prove a pattern shared by all three “guest” speakers: Sergant, Wicks and Abernathy:

• As mentioned above, all know this is a gathering of pro-Obama supporters.
• All make clear they want these pro-Obama artists and art organizations to funnel their activism through Serve.gov, which we now know filters activists to ACORN.
• When it comes to specific areas of activism, health care comes first.

***

THE PLAYERS:

Michael Skolnik – call moderator, political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.

Nell Abernathy – Director of Outreach for United We Serve, an initiative overseen by The Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency.

Buffy Wicks — The Office of Public Engagement (White House).

Yosi Sergant – Communications Director for the NEA, now “reassigned.”

***

THE CALL: [all emphasis added]

0:00 – 8:30: This time is eaten up with everyone involved getting settled into the call. Jokes are made about how many people are on from Los Angeles. This fact will be pertinent in establishing that Buffy Wicks and Nell Abernathy were on the call from the beginning.

Michael Skolnik

Michael Skolnik — 8:40 – 12:50:

Skolnik’s opening statement sets the stage for the call; why the call was arranged and what the goals are.

Skolnik states openly that the White House and NEA asked him to round everyone up… 

I have been asked by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA about a month ago in a conversation that was had.  We had the idea that I would help bring together the independent artists community around the country. 

Skolnik believes that only those who campaigned for President Obama are on the call:

 [I]t’s clear as an independent art community as artists and thinkers and taste-makers and marketers and visionaries on this call, the role that we played during the campaign for the president and also during his first 200 some odd days of his presidency and the president has a clear arts agenda and has been very supportive of using art and supporting art in creative ways to talk about some of the issues that we face here in our country and also to engage people.

Skolnik lays out the goals for the call, ending with, “push the president and push his administration.” 

And I think all of us who are on this phone call were selected for a reason, and you are the ones that lead by example in your communities. You are the thought leaders. … 

And so I’m hoping that through this group and the goal of all this and the goal of this phone call, is through this group that we can create a stronger community amongst ourselves to get involved in things that we’re passionate about as we did during the campaign but continue to get involved in those things, to support some of the president’s initiatives, but also to do things that we are passionate about and to push the president and push his administration.

Skolnik then introduces Nell Abernathy with United We Serve – Serve.gov, who immediately hands the call over to Buffy Wicks with the White House Office of Public Engagement.

***

Buffy Wicks

BUFFY WICKS – 13:00 – 21:42 

Buffy Wicks also believes that the only people participating in the call are partisan artists and art organizations who helped elect Obama: 

I, first of all want to thank everyone for being on the call and really just a deep, deep appreciation for all the work that you all put into the campaign for the two-plus years that we all worked together. 

We can assume Wicks was on at the beginning of the call and heard everything Skolnik said about the goal of the call being to “push the president and push his administration” because she references her “L.A. peeps.” She wouldn’t know her “L.A. peeps” were on the line unless she was on to hear everyone introduce themselves before Skolnik spoke: 

I was the field director in California so I hear my L.A. peeps out there, so it’s exciting to hear those voices. 

Ms. Wicks talks about how everyone can bring others into the United We Serve-Serve.gov effort and make them a “part of this administration”: 

And as part of my role here is working on service, and so when we were thinking about how do we take a lot of this energy that’s out there, how do we translate folks who have just been engaged in electoral politics and engage them in really the process of governing, of being part of this administration in a little bit of a different way because politics is one thing and governing is something totally separate, we really saw service as the platform by which we can do that.

Wicks then talks about the four main areas she wants everyone to focus on, starting with health care: 

So we focus on the four main areas: One is health care. Obviously, that’s a big issue.

After going through her laundry list, Ms. Wicks then refers everyone to the central clearing house for “national service,” the Serve.gov website that funnels activists to ACORN:

So those are the four areas that we focused on, and we’re managing the whole thing through Serve.gov, which is a new Web site that Nell and I can talk to you about here in a second.

***

NELL ABERNATHY – UNITED WE SERVE: 21:50 – 28:30

Again, the context here is that Ms. Abernathy is sure she’s speaking only to a group of pro-Obama supporters: 

This will sound very familiar to many of you, we’ve basically been working to do this using the same tools we found so successful in the campaign. 

Ms. Abernathy then directs everyone to the ACORN-related Serve.gov website: 

So accessibility has been a main thing for us and we created Serve.gov, which is a Web site very similar to some of the Web tools we used on the campaign in that you can go in and type your zip code and in return service opportunities would come up.

Ms. Abernathy doesn’t discuss any specific issues. Instead she says Yosi Sergant of the NEA will talk about “specific ways WE feel the art community is critical to this…”: 

I think Yosi is on and is going to talk about some of the specific ways which we feel the art community is critical to this; both what’s already going on and some opportunity for future partnership.

We also know Ms. Abernathy has been on the call since the beginning because, like Buffy Wicks, she references the Los Angeles callers – therefore she heard Skolnik’s opening statement: 

I want to echo again what Michael said about feeling truly humbled in the presence of some of the real taste-makers across the country.  And I lived in L.A. for a long time, so I have a particular soft spot for you folks out there.

***

President Obama with Yosi Sergant

Yosi Sergant: –28:45 – 39:00

Sergant also believes he is talking to people and organizations who support and helped to elect President Obama — and he’s excited about the opportunity they now all have to “set the table”:

Hello everybody.  It’s really good to hear so many familiar voices.  Welcome to your government. …

The very fact that the telephone call is happening to me is a really bold statement.  And I think it’s reflective of all the hard work that went down during the campaign, all the time and energy that each and every one of you put in, myself included, it’s paying off.

This is what we fought for.  We fought for a chance to be at the table and not only at the table but we’re setting the table.

Sergant spends nine minutes ginning up this pro-Obama group to get involved in national service, gives them examples of how to go about it, and then, like everyone else, pushes the ACORN-related Serve.gov site:

The Corporation for National Services is available to all of you to turn on your community, to act as the message spreaders of this program. So how do we do that?  There are three really quick and easy steps.  One would be to look at Serve.gov.  What Serve.gov really is, is it’s a place where people can go and find out about service opportunities in their neighborhoods. 

At the end of his pitch Sergant then gets to what appears to be the specifics Ms. Abernathy and Ms. Wicks referred to earlier: 

Pick — I would encourage you to pick something whether it’s health care, education, the environment, you know, there’s four key areas that the Corporation [The Corporation for National and Community Service]has identified as the areas of service.

Always, health care first.

But let’s back up a few seconds and look at the full context of how Sergant frames getting to the specifics; he speaks of how this is just the beginning, of still trying to figure out what things look like legally, and of learning the language in order to “speak with each other safely.”:

 Really I want to emphasize, and I know that other people have brought it up already, but I want to just hearken back to it really quickly in that this is just the beginning.  This is the first telephone call of a brand new conversation. We are just now learning how to really bring this community together to speak with the government. What that looks like legally, we’re still trying to figure out the laws of putting government Web sites on Facebook and the use of Twitter.

 This is all being sorted out. We are participating in history as it’s being made. So bear with us as we learn the language so that we can speak to each other safely and we can really work together to move the needle and to get stuff done. 

Pick — I would encourage you to pick something ….

***

Rock the Vote health care art

Conference Call Rewards:

Sergant then turns the call over to Thomas Bates from “Rock the Vote,” who offers up an example of local environmental activism involving a garbage sculpture. Within days after this call Rock the Vote would launch a “health care design contest.”

A mere two days after the call a group of 21 art organizations endorsed health care reform.

Of those 21 organizations, “16 of the groups and affiliated organizations received nearly $2 million in grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in the 150 days before the conference call.”

***

At the end of the call, things open for a Q&A. One of the artists listening in, a Ms. Manne, asks a specific question about specific partisan policies:

I think for the people that are on the inside of government to talk for a minute about Organizing For America and the differences between Organizing For America and Serve.gov and what we can do to help on critical advocacy issues like health care reform, cap and trade policy, if that should help move policies through the government, because this is a really important role that our creative community can also play.

Even though she and everyone else have spent the last 40 minutes ginning up a group of Obama-supporting artists to rally around health care, Nell Abernathy begs off answering a specific policy question, but *wink* – *wink* can get that information to their “beard,” Mr. Skolnik: 

Yeah, I can address that a little bit, and the reason only a little bit is largely because in my role at a federal agency, I’m precluded from going too far down the specific steps what people can do to advocate.  …

I could get that information to Michael and he could get it out. We can’t sort – [A]s a representative of the Corporation, I’m not capable of giving you more guidance than just sending you to the right person.

QUESTION: If Ms. Abernathy is “precluded from going too far down the specific steps to advocate” with the questioner, Ms. Manne, why is it okay for Ms. Abernathy to do exactly that with Skolnik? If her role at a federal agency makes that kind of partisan behavior inappropriate on this call, how is it appropriate to “get that information” to Skolnik off the call? 

Skolnik then wraps up the call and closes with one last push towards health care and United We Serve/Serve.gov:

So what I had hoped in bringing this group together with the great hosts, which again, I want to thank for reaching out to their communities was that we could begin to bring together our community in the same enthusiasm, with the same enthusiasm and with the same energy that we all saw in each other during the campaign, and we could continue to work together on issues as important as United We Serve and Service and begin here and continue to work together on other issues that we feel are  important, as we mentioned some of them, health care and others[.]

***

When you are the NEA, United We Serve and The White House Office of Public Engagement – when you are required to represent the government in a non-partisan capacity, it can only be a partisan act to take part in a conference call set up by the White House and the NEA with the idea of bringing together pro-Obama supporters from the artistic community to push priority number one: health care.

At the beginning of the call, Skolnik, the supposed independent moderator, admits he was asked by the White House and NEA to round everyone up and makes clear that one of the goals of the call is to “push the president and push the Administration.”

In this environment, it doesn’t matter if the word “reform” is used after the words “health care,” or not. It doesn’t matter if the phrase “public option” is used or not. George Will put it best:

“[T]he Obama administration is tightening the cinch on subsidized artists, conscripting them into the crusade to further politicize the 17 percent of the economy that is health care.

Almost as disturbing is how eager these artists are to be turned into propagandists.

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:

Backed by the full weight of President Barack Obama’s call to service and the institutional weight of the NEA, the conference call was billed as an opportunity for those in the art community to inspire service in four key categories, and at the top of the list were “health care” and “energy and environment.” The service was to be attached to the President’s United We Serve campaign, a nationwide federal initiative to make service a way of life for all Americans. 

It sounded, how should I phrase it…unusual, that the NEA would invite the art community to a meeting to discuss issues currently under vehement national debate. I decided to call in, and what I heard concerned me. 

Within 48 hours of this phone call, 21 arts organizations endorsed President Obama’s health-care reform plan. Within days, Rock the Vote started an all out blitz that included a “health care design contest.” 

The NEA’s Yosi Sergant

On August 27th, two days after Courrielche’s piece published on Big Hollywood, the Washington Times picked up on the story, contacted Sergant and asked him about the call. Sergant claimed to be only a “participant in a call” and then lied outright claiming the conference call email invites were sent by a “third party,” not the NEA.

Courrielche’s  August 31st follow-up piece, which included copies of Sergant’s email invite, proved the complete opposite was true.

The next day, September 1st, the Washington Times posted copies of Sergant’s invites from Courrielche’s Big Hollywood piece along with their own transcript of Sergant denying he sent the invites. They titled their piece: “Official Dishonesty From the NEA.”

On September 6th, columnist George Will brought the story into the mainstream media when, on “This Week,” he wondered aloud  just how many laws the August 10th conference call had broken.

On September 10th, the Washington Times followed the money trail and published the explosive news that of the 21 arts organizations who endorsed President Obama’s health care reform plan…

“…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.

September 10th was a rough day for the NEA. The same day the troubling money trail was revealed, Yosi Sergant was “reassigned.” The NEA has yet to explain why Sergant was “reassigned.”  This is the only statement they released:

“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.”

That same day, the Washington Times looked at this statement, looked at the evidence, and declared “The NEA Lies Again.”

Patrick Courrielche, who was a participant on the call, agrees:

It just goes against my core beliefs to sit quietly while the art community is used by the NEA and the administration to push an agenda other than the one for which it was created. It is not within the National Endowment for the Arts’ original charter to initiate, organize, and tap into the art community to help bring awareness to health care, or energy & environmental issues for that matter; and especially not at a time when it is being vehemently debated. Artists shouldn’t be used as tools of the state to help create a climate amenable to their positions, which is what appears to be happening in this instance. If the art community wants to tackle those issues on its own then fine. But tackling them shouldn’t come as an encouragement from the NEA to those they potentially fund at this coincidental time. 

In his September 18th Washington Post column, George Will sides with Courrielche: 

“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. …

“[T]he Obama administration is tightening the cinch on subsidized artists, conscripting them into the crusade to further politicize the 17 percent of the economy that is health care.

That Obama administration officials would make even tacit suggestions about potential artistic output to a collection of federal grant recipients is, itself, troubling. That these suggestions matched-up with very specific and time-sensitive legislative priorities should give us all pause.

Buffy Wicks

But, there is even a larger issue that hasn’t yet received much attention in the press. Among the Obama Administration officials on the call were Buffy Wicks, Office of Public Engagement and the lead White House official on the President’s Serve.Gov initiative to promote national service. Also on the call was Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Serve.Gov. One of their main goals on the call, it seems, was to encourage artists to produce works that would reinforce the President’s call for service; specifically through the Serve.Gov web-portal.

As Dana Loesch recently reported at Big Government, the Serve.Gov portal funnels citizens to volunteer or service projects connected with ACORN and other leftist groups. The taxpayer-funded website is evolving into a cyber-recruitment tool for the progressive movement.

So what did happen on that call? Was the NEA coordinating with the White House to push their agenda on a group of artists eager for and reliant upon the NEA for grants, or is the NEA telling the truth that this call “was not a means to promote any legislative agenda”?

Tomorrow at noon ET, explosive new information will answer that question and raise many others.

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:

WASHINGTON TIMES: Hey, I understand that there was a conference call on August 10th that the NEA invited producers, artists, marketers, etcetera.

SERGANT:  The NEA didn’t invite…We were a participant in a call.  It was a third party that did the invitation. 

WASHINGTON TIMES: I see.  I was wondering If you could send me, if possible,  a copy of the invitation?

SERGANT: Umm…It didn’t come from us, so I don’t have it to distribute.  You’d go to them for that.

Courrielche’s follow-up piece proved the complete opposite was true. Not only had the invites come from the NEA but from Sergant himself.

During all this Glenn Beck picked up the story:

–

–

This past Sunday on “This Week,” George Will wondered if the NEA hadn’t broken a few laws. Coerrielche followed this up on Tuesday with a post complete with contradictory audio with Sergant claiming a filmmaker named Michael Skolnick was the “third party” responsible for the conference call, and Skolnick matter-of-factly stating he was asked by “folks” in the White House and NEA to “bring artists together.”

Predictably, the Huffington Post spin on today’s resignation announcement is to make it look like this is some kind of right-wing witch hunt led by Glenn Beck:

Beck attacked Sergant and the NEA on his Fox News talk show, accusing the agency of propaganda efforts similar to those used by Nazi Germany. And now Sergant has been tossed overboard, making him Beck’s second victim in his campaign to rid the administration of perceived radicals, socialists, communists, fascists, anarchists and all other manner of nefarious influences. …

Sergant is, by all accounts, a highly-talented grassroots organizer and promoter, but communications director for the NEA is a position that requires a high level of political dexterity: the arts agency is constantly under fire from extremist activists who see it as propagating a liberal, libertine agenda. The day the culture war is finally declared over, there will still be skirmishes over the NEA.

No one’s arguing there’s a culture war, but if Sergant wanted to be a General on the front-lines he should’ve kept his story straight and not arrogantly assumed every artist puts partisanship above principle.

SECOND UPDATE: Patrick Courrielche responds to the news of Sergant’s reassignment here. END UPDATE.