White House Caught Using The National Endowment for the Arts for Propaganda

A transcript of a conference call with the National Endowment for the Arts reveals that an official at the White House “Office of Public Engagement” encouraged a group of artists to produce works that supported President Obama’s agenda.

Andrew Breitbart´s BigGovernment.com posted on Monday a 44-page transcript of the sixty-minute conference call on August 10 hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts, the White House “Office of Public Engagement” and a nationwide initiative to increase volunteerism launched by President Obama himself called “United We Serve.”

What all this means is that the White House has been using the National Endowment for the Arts to demand that they publicly support President Obama and his agenda. In exchange, the NEA gets all their grant money from the federal government.

The website offers a preview this morning on BigGovernment.com, citing the notorious and likely illegal politicization of the NEA, bullying artists receiving grants into works supporting the administration’s legislative priorities. It is clear now that the National Endowment for the Arts and the White House did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address politically controversial issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable after reading the transcript and watching the video.

“We’re going to need your help, and we’re going to come at you with some specific ‘asks’ here,” said Buffy Wicks, deputy director of the “White House Office of Public Engagement.” “But we know that you guys are ready for it and eager to participate, so one we want to thank you, and two, I hope you guys are ready.”

In the transcript and video, Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, clearly identifies this arts group as a pro-Obama collective and warns them of some “specific asks” that will be delivered later in the meeting. Here are some of her comments:

“I just first of all want to thank everyone for being on the call and just a deep deep appreciation for all the work you all put into the campaign for the 2 plus years we all worked together.” Later on he continues: “We won.” Wicks also states “I’m actually in the White House and working towards furthering this agenda, this very aggressive agenda.”

Wicks was one of several officials on the call, along with then National Endowment for the Arts Director of Communications Yosi Sergant and Michael Skolnik, political director for hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons- seeking focused efforts by the artists in health care, energy and environment, education and community renewal.

Yosi Sergant was reassigned by the National Endowment for the Arts last week. On the call Sergant said that the effort was the first of a “brand new conversation.” He told the artists to pick a topic (health care, education, the environment) and apply their artistic creative communities’ utilities to bring them to the table.

According to the newly-released transcript, Skolnik told the artists that he had “been asked by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA” to participate about a month prior to the call.

“You are the thought leaders,” Skolnik told the artists, “You are the ones that, if you create a piece of art or promote a piece of art or create a campaign for a company, and tell our country and our young people sort of what to do and what to be in to; and what’s cool and what’s not cool. 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.”

In a statement to FOXNews.com earlier this month, National Endowment for the Arts officials denied that the call was intended to promote a legislative agenda.

“This call was not a means to promote any legislative agenda and any suggestions to that end are simply false,” the statement read. “The NEA regularly does outreach to various organizations to inform of the work we are doing and the resources available to them.”

White House spokesman Shin Inouye echoed the National Endowment for the Arts’ statement, saying it was not intended to promote any legislative agenda.

This new information, and the conference call arranged by the National Endowment for the Arts with a representative of the White House for potential grantees or actual grantees of the federal government getting subsidies, is incriminating. If the White House indeed worked to see how the arts community could help advance the president’s agenda, we are facing serious legal offenses.

Every government employee involved in this conference call should be fined and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. A full Congressional investigation should be carried out and Americans should be aware of how their money is being spent by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Given that the National Endowment for the Arts prides itself in being the single largest funding source for the arts in the country, such arm-twisting by agency officials, however masked in fulsome compliments to creators’ genius, is disturbing. It clearly sets a political agenda for the very people who are likely to be applying for National Endowment for the Arts and other government grants.

As the tapes of the calls have now made public with the several incriminating sound bites, legal sources have informed that this action is indeed a violation of the law. This is just the latest in the videotapes exposing ACORN.

The Americano / Agencies

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