Do you see any problem with 0bama’s Buffy Wicks?

(Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement [)( Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, Christina M. Tchen Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Michael Strautmanis, Chief of Staff to the Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Engagement, Brian Bond, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Buffy Wicks Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement]) is engaging taxpayer-funded NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) for pro 0bama art to push his agenda? EXPLOSIVE NEW AUDIO Reveals White House Using NEA to Push Partisan Agenda by Patrick Courrielche **NEA conference call full audio and transcript here** Should the National Endowment for the Arts encourage artists to create art on issues being vehemently debated nationally? That is the question that I set out to discuss a little over three weeks ago when I wrote an article on Big Hollywood entitled The National Endowment for the Art of Persuasion?” The question still requires debate but the facts do not. The NEA 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. President Obama with the NEA’s Yosi Sergant But some have claimed that the invite and passages, pulled from the conference call that inspired the article, were taken out of context. Context is what I intend to establish here. On August 10th, the National Endowment for the Arts, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and the Corporation for National and Community Service hosted a conference call with a handpicked arts group. This arts group played a key role in Obama’s arts effort during his election campaign, as declared by the organizers of the call, and many on the call played a role in the now famous Obama Hope poster. Much of the talk on the conference call was a build up to what the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was specifically asking of this group. In the following segment, 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. Buffy Wicks Play 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.” Later in the call, “specific asks” were delivered by Yosi Sergant, then Communications Director of the National Endowment for the Arts. What were the “asks”? They were for this pro-Obama arts group to create art on several hotly debated political issues, including health care: Yosi Sergant Play 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.” As someone that has been creating arts initiatives and marketing campaigns for over 14 years, I feel like I have a good sense as to how a pro-Obama arts group, when requested by the NEA to address politically contentious issues, could so easily turn very partisan. Consider: 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.” These may both be coincidences and I am not suggesting that the NEA or these groups definitiv

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