The White House is attempting to mimic Leni Riefenstahl by rounding up those in the arts and entertainment industry and using them as the vehicles through which President Obama can peddle his agenda.

The National Endowment for the Arts denies that it was working with White House officials to promote the president’s agenda through the arts via this taxpayer-funded organization:

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.”

Unfortunately, the transcript of the actual call does not corroborate the NEA’s statement. BigGovernment.com obtained the full transcript of the conference call on which White House official Buffy Wicks (of the Office of Public Engagement and head administration official for Serve.gov; Wicks previous worked with WakeUp Walmart and was a lobbyist for the United Food and Commercial Workers’ Union), and others – including lead organizers with Rock the Vote and Current TV – discussed ways to co-opt the art community for political purposes and manipulate those around them so as to push things like Obama’s health care legislation. It’s a call that call participant Patrick Courrichie says raised the hair on his arms.

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At first glance, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) conference call of August 10th, 2009sounds innocent enough because it’s supposedly been organized by Michael Skolnik, political director for Russell Simmons and someone not officially associated with any government agency. Skolnik appears to be acting independently as a concerned citizen and to have taken it upon himself to gather together a group of artists and art organizations hoping to move them towards “national service.” And how nice of the White House, the federal government and the NEA to make the time to participate in the call and aid this group of American artists motivated to help their country and community.

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.

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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. (more…)