White House Says the NEA Call Was All Just a Misunderstanding

You guys have it wrong. They just want to encourage artist to engage in their art.

An August 10, 2009 National Endowment for the Arts conference call in which artists were asked to help support President Obama's agenda -- a call that at least one good government group called "inappropriate" -- has prompted the White House to issue new guidelines to prevent such a call from ever happening again.

"The point of the call was to encourage voluntary participation in a national service initiative by the arts community," White House spokesman Bill Burton told ABC News. "To the extent there was any misunderstanding about what the NEA may do to support the national service initiative, we will correct it. We regret any comments on the call that may have been misunderstood or troubled other participants. We are fully committed to the NEA's historic mission, and we will take all steps necessary to ensure that there is no further cause for questions or concerns about that commitment."

NEA Conference Call

Biggovernment.com has a recording of the NEA call where White House personnel specifically ask the art community, who receives funding from the government, to create art that promotes Obama's policies.

Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement:

• “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+ years we all worked together.”
• “We won.”
• “I’m actually in the White House and working towards furthering this agenda, this very aggressive agenda.”

• “We’re going to come at you with some specific asks here.”
• “I hope you guys are ready.”

Yosi Sergant, former Communications Director of the National Endowment for the Arts:

• “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.”
• “And then my ask would be to apply artistic, you know, your artistic creative communities utilities and bring them to the table.”
• “Again, I’m really, really honored to be working with you; the National Endowment for the Arts is really honored.”
• “You’re going to see a lot more of us in the next four and hopefully eight years.”

Three days after the conference call a coalition of arts groups, led by Americans for the Arts, a participant on the conference call per the meeting contact list and recipient of NEA grants, sent out a press release with the heading “Urgent Call to Congress for Healthcare Reform,” which called for the creation of “a health care reform bill that will create a public health insurance option.” Eleven days after the conference call, Rock the Vote, another participant on the call, announced a health care design contest. “We can’t stand by and listen to lies and deceit coming from those who are against reforming a broken system,” they stated in their announcement. “Enough is Enough. We need designs that tell the country YES WE CARE! Young people demand health care.”

Debating the role of government is and has been the goal of bringing this conference call to light. The NEA tainted the creative process by encouraging the art community to address highly controversial political issues. ‘How?’ you may ask. The NEA is the largest single funder of the arts in the United States. This government agency has the power and ability to fund arts organizations and recently expressed a desire to return to funding individual artists, bringing more from the group into the pool of potential grantees.

The NEA did encourage a handpicked, pro-Obama arts group to address issues under contentious national debate. That fact is irrefutable.

This practice has never been the historical role of the NEA. The NEA’s role is to support excellence in the arts, to increase access to the arts, and to be a leader in arts education. Using the arts to address contentiously debated issues is political subversion. And the fact that the White House played a role in encouraging the arts to address contentious issues should also be considered a government overreach.

Breitbert Gives a Hint

Breitbert has been saying that he has more bombshell's to drop and today his has given a hint as to what is to come. Seems it has something to do with the NEA.

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.

Yosi Sergant, Obama Aide, Asked To Resign: Glenn Beck Strikes Again

Before it's all over, Glenn Beck is going to need to enter the witness protection agency. From the HuffPo:

Glenn Beck has struck again.

Yosi Sergant, who recently popped up on Beck's radar for his involvement in a conference call on national service, has been asked to resign as communications director by the National Endowment for the Arts, sources familiar with the move tell the Huffington Post.

At issue was an August conference call in which the NEA encouraged select artists to participate in an administration project dubbed "United We Serve" and led by the first lady.

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.

I didn't hear about this on Beck's show, I read about it at Big Hollywood.