From New York Times today:

Sarah Palin, in what was billed as her first speech overseas, spoke on Wednesday to Asian bankers, investors and fund managers.

A number of people who heard the speech in a packed hotel ballroom, which was closed to the media, said Mrs. Palin spoke from notes for 90 minutes and that she was articulate, well-prepared and even compelling.

“The speech was wide-ranging, very balanced, and she beat all expectations,” said Doug A. Coulter, head of private equity in the Asia-Pacific region for LGT Capital Partners.

“She didn’t sound at all like a far-right-wing conservative. She seemed to be positioning herself as a libertarian or a small-c conservative,” he said, adding that she mentioned both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. “She brought up both those names.”

Read the whole thing here.

The participant list prepared for the White House/NEA/Ministry of Propaganda organizational conference call included autobiographical blurbs to apparently help the call’s organizers identify the participants since none of the “artists” involved could be considered a household name.  That is unless your household is comprised entirely of unemployed, surly twenty-somethings whose worldly possessions consist of an i phone, a Vaio, a skateboard and, perhaps a few cans of spray paint.

The conference call and other efforts now emerging were organized by the National Endowment for the Arts at the behest of the White House to try and coordinate and focus the existing pro-Obama passion of the artistic community to directly promote administration political objectives.

This effort is justifiably being criticized as a misuse of government resources and a creative example of adapting the Chicago pay-to-play style to the federal scene.  What is an alternative artists supposed to think when the largest artistic grant-dispensing agency of the federal government comes-a-calling asking for help?  It is only natural that one would expect a quid pro quo when it comes to doling out cash for all manner of non-traditional, (read: incomprehensible) art, while the chap who cleverly mocked up the Obama/Joker poster will probably not be in line to cash in at the federal trough.

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In a Gallup poll released this week, more than half of those surveyed said the government has gone too far:

Americans are more likely today than in the recent past to believe that government is taking on too much responsibility for solving the nation’s problems and is over-regulating business. New Gallup data show that 57% of Americans say the government is trying to do too many things that should be left to businesses and individuals, and 45% say there is too much government regulation of business. Both reflect the highest such readings in more than a decade.

The biggest question is whether or not those pulling the strings in Washington will take note and tone it down a notch. My guess is that they will do all they can within the pre-election season window, and then start focusing back on the polls once we get closer to November 2010.

But let’s get back to the question. Has the government “done too much?” On George Stephanopoulos’ show last Sunday, President Obama shrugged off a question about those who question his policies,  saying, “My critics say everything’s a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy.”

Cato’s David Boaz did a little digging and found that, well, technically, the president is telling the truth. He’s not taking over the entire economy. No, only “health care, energy, local schools, banks, insurance companies, automobile, companies, compensation at financial firms, newspapers and the Internet.”

What, too much?

Three state legislators have asked Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (D) for the suspension of all state funding and contracts with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) pending a review of the group’s activities. The trio includes Representative Ron Stephens (R-Highland), Senator Dave Luechtefeld (R-Okawville), and Senator Kyle McCarter (R-Lebanon):

“In light of the multiple news reports exposing ACORN’s questionable behavior, as well as video evidence showing ACORN employees offering tax assistance to open brothels and tips on how to launder money into a congressional campaign account, Illinois government needs to take a good, long look at the business it does with this organization,” Stephens said. “We need to see what this group is really up to and whether or not any contracts and connections they have with the state are worthy of the use of public money.”

Stephens said the organization has received grants from various state agencies. Stephens said he and some other legislators are still gathering information on how much money the organization has received.

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From the New York Post:

Despite a string of scandals that recently led Congress to cut off its federal funding, ACORN still stands to make millions of dollars off its support for Brooklyn’s controversial Atlantic Yards project, The Post has learned.

The left-wing organization — longtime boosters of the $4.9 billion NBA arena and residential- and office-tower project — says it expects to be tapped to market and help decide who gets to live in the coveted, but long-delayed, 2,250 affordable-housing units planned for Atlantic Yards.

This, after Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner helped bail ACORN out of financial trouble last September with a $1 million loan and a $500,000 grant, according to memos.

Although contracts are not yet been signed, Ismene Speliotis, executive director of ACORN’s New York chapter, told The Post her organization “expects to play a role in the marketing and lease-up” of the Prospect Heights project’s affordable housing to be underwritten by the city.

The work would include community outreach and screening people to determine qualified applicants, and then scandal-scarred ACORN would be entrusted with overseeing a lottery system to choose who gets the housing. Ratner’s firm is expected to manage the housing. (more…)

Since first reporting that Serve.gov was listing activist positions with ACORN it seems now that all ACORN listings have been scrubbed from the taxpayer-funded site without any explanation as to why they were on it in the first place. The government was using our taxpayer dollars to advertise for volunteer opportunities to promote the president’s partisan agenda via a corrupt organization under investigation for voter registration fraud, among other things.

Initially you could type “ACORN” into the search field on Serve.gov and various listings from planting trees to volunteering to get out the vote in Ohio, for ACORN, would appear in the results. It’s important to note that several ACORN positions were listed directly on the federally-funded Serve.gov – not just on the AllforGood.org website.

The act of removing these listings indicates that Serve.gov knew it was a) wrong to use a federal website to funnel volunteers to campaign for the president and DNC and, 2) bad for them to be seen further associating with ACORN in light of the recently released videos combined with ongoing investigations. (more…)

According to an ad today in the Washington Post, ACORN Chief Organizer Bertha Lewis is looking for a “social media organizer” to take to the Web and do some damage control on the Twitter front. Duties include:

Helping to create or upgrade a presence for Bertha Lewis, ACORNs Chief Organizer, on various social media, including: Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc.

Establishing a presence for ACORNs campaigns for example campaigns to stop foreclosures and to fight for immigrants rights on various social networking websites.

Developing new and innovative methods for the use of social networking technologies, including video, to enhance community organizing.

Isn’t the left supposed to the standard bearer for social media? Have the tides turned?

H/T Charlie Spiering at the Washington Examiner

Color me unsurprised to find out that an employee of Winner and Associates — who you’ll recall we revealed were behind the astroturfing campaign to discredit Sarah Palin — was in on the National Endowment for the Arts phone call outlining how the Obama Administration would use that government organization to push its agenda.

From a list of those participating in the conference call:

After we uncovered the link between Winner and Associates, David Axelrod, and the smear campaign against Sarah Palin designed to look as though it was coming from the “grass roots” we begged — literally begged! — the MSM to look into whether the large campaign consulting firm was subcontracted by David Axelrod for work on the Obama campaign. As I noted at the time, I’m just a blogger and don’t really have the resources necessary to conduct a thorough investigation.

As Ace notes here, once Ethan Winner confessed that he was behind the video, the MSM concluded that there was nothing more to investigate. This despite the fact that I showed that at least two other Winner and Associate employees — a subdivision of the largest advertising agency in the world — participated in the astroturfing campaign during normal business hours.

Three employees, one of them the President of the subdivision and another a VP, claimed they were doing this on their own time — which we showed could not have been the case — and on their own dime. On their own dime? Maybe, but it still seems unlikely.

And now we have another Winner and Associates guy at the NEA conference call? He’s also listed as one of the founders of Generation Obama. (more…)

Scott Johnson at Powerline was alerted to this this morning. We’ll tell the story in pictures.

NEA homepage:

Closer look:

Select “Health Insurance” and you’re sent directly here: (more…)

‘This is about the election,’ where you’d get into violations of the Hatch Act, it’s not illegal. But it doesn’t look good — it looks terrible. It’s inappropriate.”

Jake Tapper of ABC News:

White House officials say they are enacting specific steps to make sure such a call never happens again.

Today White House officials are meeting with the chiefs of staff of the executive branch agencies to discuss rules and best practices in this area, a conversation during which they will be told that that while White House lawyers do not believe that the NEA call violated the law, “the appearance issues troubled some participants,” Burton said. “It is the policy of the administration that grant decisions should be on the merits and that government officials should avoid even creating the incorrect appearance that politics has anything to do with these decisions.”

After listening to the transcript and the audio posted at the conservative website BigHollywood.Breitbart.com — secretly recorded by Los Angeles filmmaker Patrick Couriellech — Melanie Sloan, executive director of the good-government group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told ABC News that the call was “disturbing.” (more…)

My sources in the progressive movement say Buffy Wicks handled the Obama campaign in Missouri last year. Obama lost in Missouri and activists in that state and people within the Obama campaign placed the blame for the defeat squarely on her shoulders. 

After failing to win Missouri for Obama, Wicks had a very hard time finding a job but somehow she landed a job in the Obama White House. It’s unclear how she did that.

 Wicks has indirect ties to ACORN. She worked with ACORN but apparently not for ACORN. A HuffPo writer lavishes praise on her for her abilities as an organizer.

  (more…)

… and will your state government give them the power to do so?

Kansas’s Democratic governor has just announced he’s thinking better of his decision to use the state’s resources to help the Service Employees International Union target home care workers as new union members.

SEIU — part private sector union and part government union — grows by getting friendly Democratic governments to allow the union to collectively bargain for independent home care workers paid by state agencies.

Sure, it’s a bad deal for taxpayers: rates go up and their side of the “negotiating” table is run by a union toadie. It’s gotten so bad that unions even try to organize foster parents. But it’s a good deal for the union, which then gets to feed off the taxpayer trough, and for the politicians who get coveted union financial and logistical support during elections. SEIU, in particular, has worked this scheme in several states — including in Illinois with its ACORN-founded Local 880 and its game of footsie with disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

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There are two things fundamentally wrong with the Obama administration’s efforts to turn the arts into a vehicle for political advocacy.  First, it is an egregious abuse of power both in terms of misappropriation of public resources and a chilling of the free expression of ideas at the core of artistic vitality.  The second problem is that the resulting art as propaganda usually stinks.

You don’t have to be an ancient history professor to know that government controlled (or heavily influenced) art is, on the whole, lousy.  There are still artists alive today who either toiled in or toiled against the socialized artistic regimens of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.  Some laudable efforts undertaken by the WPA aside, there is no shortage of examples of art and architecture that glorifies the state and crushes the human spirit.  The funny thing is that the critics who most abhor the impact on art of the Nazis and Soviets and the works they produced are proud liberals who saw how it helped quash the concepts of non-conformity and innovation that are the life blood of artistic progress.

 When Obama’s leftist appointees at the National Endowment for the Humanities came up with the idea that they would recruit fellow-travelers in the arts community to harness their “talent” to promote the One’s political agenda they were hardly charting new territory.  Most every regime in history has done the same thing.  Allegorical painting is the most common example used by popes and princes to glorify their side of the political story.  Chairman Mao’s Red Brigades used drama and opera as tools of the state propaganda machine, and made ruthlessly sure that you didn’t experience any alternative theater on the side.

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Full transcript here.

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…)

Today, Big Hollywood released a full audio recording and transcript of the NEA conference call. A full review of the call reveals several new and more troubling aspects to what transpired on the August 10^th phone call. What is inescapable is that the origin of the call reaches into the highest offices of the White House. It is clear, from the transcript, that the call was orchestrated by the Office of Public Engagement, whose Director, Valerie Jarrett, is among the closest advisors to President and First Lady Obama. It is also apparent that Ms. Jarrett’s office directed the involvement of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for National and Community Service, two independent federal agencies. (This is important, as neither is officially part of the executive branch.)

At the very beginning of the call, the general ‘moderator’ of the call, Michael Skolnik, political director for Hip-Hop mogul Russell Simmons, explains the genesis of the call:

I have been asked by people 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.

This is important, because in the immediate aftermath of the breaking story, the NEA has tried to state that a ‘third party’ organized the call. This clearly isn’t true. The e-mail invitation to the call was sent from Mr. Sargent’s government-provided NEA e-mail address. In addition, as the transcript reveals, Mr. Sloknik was “asked” by the White House and NEA to organize the call.

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Kerry Picket at the Washington Times reports today:

The Obama administration apparently met with 60 artists and creative organizers as early as May 12 according to an online document (downloadable)by the Pratt Center for Community Development, State Voices, Arlene Goldbard, and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.  Other artists(link1 link 2)have corroborated this meeting happened. (h/t machogirl from FR)

Here are the bullet points from an online document called a “White House Briefing” report, though that has not yet been confirmed: (more…)

From National Right to Work:

Most readers are already aware of a growing scandal involving the pro-forced unionism Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in New York, Baltimore, Washington, and now, California. For those who missed it, ACORN representatives were caught on camera giving advice to undercover journalists on how to open an illegal brothel, launder its profits, and commit a host of other illegal activities.

According to The Washington Examiner, teacher union officials have contributed over 1.3 million dollars (in mostly forced union dues) to ACORN since 2005.

We decided to do a little digging into union financial disclosure forms on the Department of Labor’s website. After examining union financial records, it turns out that officials of several high-profile unions diverted large sums of mostly forced union dues dollars to the same ACORN offices in Washington and New York that are implicated in the hidden camera scandal.

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In the aftermath of the Andrew Breitbart/James O’Keefe/Hannah Giles-broken ACORN scandal, President Obama and his allies in Congress have distanced themselves from the community organizing goliath.  Congress has cut off funds, and Obama has refused to speak about the matter.  End of story, right?

Wrong.

There’s only one problem: the ACORN mentality – pinpointing and mobilizing particular groups in support of a radical-left agenda – is no longer restricted to government-funded private non-profits like ACORN.  The ACORN mentality now dominates the government itself.  Taxpayer dollars are being used by elected officials to encourage the deification of President Obama and his agenda.  And one of the chief organs of the government propaganda machine is the National Endowment for the Arts.

Let’s start from the beginning.  On August 25, artist Patrick Courrielche told the story of a conference call he attended on August 10.  That conference call was hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve.  The goal of the conference call: “to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.”  The call would push “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!” (more…)