Buffy and the Peeps
[Guest post by DRJ]
Remember the NEA telephone conference call that encouraged artists to help promote Obama Administration policies (prior posts here, here and here)? Pursuant to an FOIA request, Judicial Watch has obtained former NEA communications director Yosi Sergant’s correspondence … and it leads to the White House:
“The documents consist of internal NEA correspondence, including emails involving disgraced former NEA Communications Director Yosi Sergant, who resigned over the scandal, and former actor and current Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Kalpen Modi. The emails newly document detailed White House involvement in the controversial conference call. (The Corporation for National and Community Service, which runs the AmeriCorps program, also was represented during the call.)”
Here are excerpts from 4 emails listed at the JW website:
August 10, 2009, 10:23 am: Email from Yosi Sergant to Kalpen Modi: “[The call is] organized by me…I’d ask you to come on and give the exact spiel you gave on Saturday. Walk them through the WH Arts Policy. They won’t know it. Then I will take them into United We Serve and the NEA.” August 10, 2009, 10:29 am: Email from Kalpen Modi to Yosi Sergant: “Oy. This would be awesome to be a part of. Let me know if you think it’s going long, or maybe I can get someone from here to do it if I can’t because of the Social Security mtg.” August 10, 2009, 11:04 am: Email from Kalpen Modi to Yosi Sergant: “Let me see if we can move Social Sec by a few mins. Agreed, it would be great to be on the call and helpful for us also.” August 10, 2009, 1:37 pm: Email from Yosi Sergant to Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement: “We have an important call at 2pm for UWS (United We Serve) and the Arts with my peeps. Indie producers around the country. Kal can’t join the call. Any chance you can hop on for 5 minutes and intro with Nellie and I?”
More at the Judicial Watch link.
H/T Washington Examiner.
— DRJ
You don’t need FOIA requests to learn the connection between Obama and the present NEA chief. There is a trail of slobber from the Oval Office to his office.
Mike K (2cf494) — 10/30/2009 @ 6:11 pmI’m shocked, shocked to learn the White House has taken over funding for the arts. Is nothing sacred to these apostates.
ropelight (73157f) — 10/30/2009 @ 6:24 pmFirst time to this blog & I really like it.
It does appear that the NEA is lining up behind Obama as our news media has done. Are there any independent bureaucrats in our federal govt.?
Just read a new political thriller where some small town in America finally takes a stand against federal tyranny & ends up starting the 2nd American Revolution. It’s insightful cause it’s about current issues (corrupt politicians, high taxes & similar people like we find at the NEA). It’s a great read if you want to know what’s in store for us over the nxt 3 yrs.
CabotAR (a73230) — 10/30/2009 @ 6:28 pmhttp://www.booksbyoliver.com
Anyone surprised by these findings probably still beleives in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth-Fairy.
AD - RtR/OS! (d702e6) — 10/30/2009 @ 6:53 pmIt is getting crowded under the back of the bus. Has the MSM started to cover this yet?
JD (e1e93d) — 10/30/2009 @ 7:17 pmThe Yosi one should have this sort of thing lined up well in advance… I think he might suck at this sort of job maybe someone should show him how to send meeting requests in Outlook. He wouldn’t last long in the real world with this hey I have a meeting in like half an hour and I don’t have everything lined up business. And he’s actually senseless enough to say hey VIP Buffy person guess what I suck and I don’t have my shit together for this meeting can you bail me out? Not even a phone call he puts his ineptness in an email. Loser.
happyfeet (f62c43) — 10/30/2009 @ 7:33 pmKal Penn should have stayed on House M.D.. Not that this will hurt his Hollywood career, so long as he doesn’t name names.
Kevin Murphy (3c3db0) — 10/30/2009 @ 7:47 pmWhat about Santa?
EricPWJohnson (a90a13) — 10/30/2009 @ 8:23 pmSomeone get that CabotAR spam, pls?
John Hitchcock (3fd153) — 10/30/2009 @ 9:04 pmJD,
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 10/30/2009 @ 9:26 pmThe MSM is still foaming at the mouth about the eeeeeeevil Faux News. It has no time for
insulting the one they hope to get a bailout fromany distractions from their noble efforts to save democracy.Bradley, I think the MSM is beginning to quit fawning over Teh Won, based on a few snippets of on-air time I’ve found online. “Government by the (page) numbers” gives just such an example.
John Hitchcock (3fd153) — 10/30/2009 @ 9:39 pmThese are sad, funny glimpses into the secret dialogs of very insecure and unimportant people who are heavily invested in the notion that they’ve become important “players” in the Age of Obama. They love to hear their own voices announcing their titles and areas of responsibility, and it’s fair to presume that there were many, if derivative, thrills of excitement running up many legs of the participants.
It would be okay except for the fact that the real players — the principals and those who have influence upon them — are similarly shallow and ego-driven, smug incompetents who are even now beginning to shake their heads in puzzlement that in the Age of Obama, all the things denied them in the Age of Bush aren’t descending from heaven as prophesied.
Beldar (b3e390) — 10/31/2009 @ 5:43 amJohn Hitchcock,
That’s a hopeful sign. Refusing to go along with Obama’s attempt to ban Fox from reporting pools is another. But some are still looking for a bailout from The Precious.
Meanwhile, the poor pathetic Tribune Co. is so bereft of any ideas of its own that it’s asking for help with R&D. That stands for “rip off and duplicate.” I am not making this up.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 10/31/2009 @ 7:34 amWelcome to my world, Bradley.
Dmac (a964d5) — 10/31/2009 @ 8:05 amMeanwhile, the poor pathetic Tribune Co. is so bereft of any ideas of its own that it’s asking for help with R&D. That stands for “rip off and duplicate.” I am not making this up.
Comment by Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. — 10/31/2009 @ 7:34 am
Another pithy attempt from the hipster radio assclown Lee Abrams. Tribune had a small but manageable fire a couple years back, and that maroon shows up and tries to put it out with a tanker full of rocket fuel.
Matador (e01f85) — 10/31/2009 @ 9:02 amBeldar:
Spot on. I’ve read most of the exchanges. There’s nothing really surprising there, but it makes for both funny (certainly unintended–these guys take themselves very seriously) and sad reading. Noticed the omnipresence of “cool”: cool kids, cool initiative, cool everything. It’s full of mindless mod lingo, like “sustainable.”
Some of it is unbearably innane and obsequious, to wit the text of the “invitation” to the conference:
“A call has come in to our generation. A call from the top. A call from a house that is White.”
Have fun, like I had, with the diverse textual possibilities of that fragment. How about:
Pansy (0022f5) — 10/31/2009 @ 9:34 am“A call has come in from the rooftop of a house that is White. The caller is Black. The color scheme is a huge historic vindication of the plight of Black in America! How cool is that, kids?”
CabotAR: First time to this blog & I really like it.
It does appear that the NEA is lining up behind Obama as our news media has done. Are there any independent bureaucrats in our federal govt.?
Welcome Cabot Arkansas (I used to live in Beebe) to answer your question, in a word “NO.”
GM Roper (85dcd7) — 10/31/2009 @ 9:35 amI keep wondering when the Tribune Co will finally be shut down and sold for parts?
As for the NEA and the current White House? Merely the tip of what I imagine is (or will be–certainly once the history of this time in US history is fully examined) a huge iceberg of corruption, of both “goddamn America” ideology mixed together with the mentality of used-car salesmen and ambulance-chasing lawyers.
Mark (411533) — 10/31/2009 @ 9:36 amMark,
Stop insulting used-car salesmen and ambulance-chasing lawyers by comparing them to Obama and his bots. 🙂
Any hope for a Tribune Co. revival will hinge on getting rid of Zell and his Zeros, and bringing in a team that actually knows the newspaper industry. Breaking up TribCo into pieces and selling to different investors might just work, especially if they’re locally based. These newspapers need owners on the spot, who can give them close attention.
The owners don’t necessarily have to be in the news business; but they must know how to hire people with the right skills. As Matador pointed out, Zell relied on assclowns like Lee Abrams.
I can’t understand why Zell, an intelligent man in other ways, didn’t quickly figure out he had hired a buffoon. All he had to do was read Abrams’ hilariously semi-literate “think pieces.”
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (0ea407) — 10/31/2009 @ 10:08 amTribco jumped the shark long before Mr. – Homogenous – radio – same – format – in – 250 – markets – Boy showed up. When they sued in court to release Ryan’s divorce records in accordance with their mandate to elect their Precious as IL Senator, that was it for their credibility. “The public’s right to know,” my arse. All Zell and his bootlicker did was shovel more dirt onto the stinking corpse.
Bradley, funny you should mention that strategy – the new owner of the Sun – Times is embarking on just that MO in order to revive that franchise. The city paper downtown will still be a fairly small group of reporters and editors, while their large network of local papers are getting more resources to expand their coverage. Hope it works.
Dmac (a964d5) — 10/31/2009 @ 10:32 amSpeaking of incompetants…
AD - RtR/OS! (a63966) — 10/31/2009 @ 10:56 amLinda Douglas, anyone?
Did anyone else notice that Kalpen Modi was Yosi Sergant’s contact at the White House? The same Kalpen Modi who played Kumar from Harold and Kumar and Dr. Kutner from House? Kal Penn was wrtten out of House so he could work for the White House’s media reations arm. Scary stuff that Kumar is involved in.
Roger (dfa727) — 10/31/2009 @ 11:34 am“Dude! Like, I’m the fuckin’ propaganda minister, or some shit. I, like, tell people what to think, or something.”
Icy Texan (208688) — 10/31/2009 @ 12:40 pm