Free Republic

Assembly Bill 2223 by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), is an abortion bill misleadingly labeled “Reproductive health,” which actually seeks/sought to legalize infanticide to expand the killing of infants past the moment of birth up to weeks after, the Globe reported.

Dubbed the 'People's Convoy,' a small group of truckers that rolled through Oakland to protest a lawmaker's sponsorship of a pro-abortion bill and a Covid vaccine mandate bill, were pelted with eggs by upset residents. California assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, 44, represents the state's 15th District, which encompasses some well-known suburbs including Berkeley and Oakland. On Friday, her home was surrounded by police after it was targeted by a convoy of 20 drivers in 18-wheelers pressuring her to resign. Earlier in April, Wicks, who's held office since December 2018, sponsored a bill that would require all workers in California to receive...

The dreams of the “People’s Convoy” quickly died in the Bay Area after a critical tactical error: turning onto a street with a Safeway and a group of bored kids. The trucker convoy, which aimed to emulate the disruptive Canadian protests against COVID-19 restrictions, has failed spectacularly at every turn. During a few weeks of driving around Washington, D.C., the convoy was held up by a single bicyclist, and some convoy members said they were having difficulty finding places for bathroom breaks and, as a result, were forced to urinate in their pants. After an anemic showing in Washington, the...

How far down does the slippery slope go? A newly proposed bill in the California State Legislature could expand the ghastly practice of abortion to include infanticide – the killing of a newborn child – for several weeks, months, or even years after a child is born.

California would mandate that all businesses require their employees and independent contractors to receive the COVID-19 vaccine under legislation announced Friday by Democratic state lawmakers that was immediately criticized by Republicans as government overreach. Employees or contractors who qualify for medical or religious exemptions would have to be regularly tested under a planned amendment to the bill. New employees would have to get at least one dose by the time they start work and the second dose within 45 days of being on the job. Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks introduced her bill months after delaying an original proposal last fall. The...

Four weeks ago, Big Hollywood posted audio of a conference call in which Obama administration officials asked "grant recipients to plug Barack Obama’s domestic agenda." At least six federal laws and regulations were violated when then–NEA communications director Yosi Sergant and White House Office of Public Engagement deputy director Buffy Wicks tried twisting the arms of artists and arts groups interested in getting federal arts grants to produce government propaganda. To protect the scandal from expanding further, the White House threw Sergant under the bus, denied that they were involved issued new guidelines for the NEA and promised that it...

Priorities USA Action, the super PAC that helped give President Obama air cover during his hard-fought reelection campaign, is set to announce a new leadership team Friday that will begin refashioning the group to serve as an ally for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she jumps in the 2016 race. The personnel changes come as Priorities seeks to position itself as the main advertising vehicle to support a Clinton candidacy, a move sought by Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who helped provide the super PAC with its initial seed money in 2011.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW? [taken from October 2010 articles/blog posts]NASA's Islam Outreach Minister Charles BoldenGOP lawmakers are critical of Charles Bolden for leaving last week on a trip to China just as the agency he leads begins pursuing an ambitious new agenda. It is the latest in a series of controversial moves that some speculate could result in Bolden's ouster. A law signed a week ago gives NASA four months or less to develop a dozen different plans for the future, including a detailed report on how it would replace the retiring space shuttle.It's an ambitious schedule, one that NASA...

I posted last week on how the White House, starting last May, organized a grassroots lobbying campaign with the arts community in support of ObamaCare. Yosi Sergant, a former White House staffer who had recently moved over to the National Endowment for the Arts, was ultimately scape-goated and lost his job. But there should be no doubt that the White House, through the Office of Public Engagement, was completely behind this entire effort. The White House continues to deny any wrongdoing, but after Sergant’s resignation ABC News reported that the Administration would be publishing new guidelines to avoid any further...

Yesterday, I posted about the NEA conference call’s clear and obvious violations of the Anti-Lobbying Act (19 U.S. Code §1913), which explicitly provides: “No part of the money appropriated by any enactment of Congress shall, in the absence of express authorization by Congress, be used directly or indirectly to pay for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or other device, intended or designed to influence in any manner a Member of Congress, a jurisdiction, or an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy, or...

Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood is out today with new details on the National Endowment for the Arts scandal, including a full transcript and audio recording, as well as a CliffsNotes summary by John Nolte, of the notorious Aug. 10 conference call in which administration officials urged artists to help promote President Obama's legislative agenda. Formally, the call was led by Michael Skolnik, who is not a government employee. But Skolnik declares at the start of the call that he is acting on behalf of the administration:I have been asked by folks in the White House and folks in the NEA about...

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.

******************************************************* Introduction On May 12th, more than 60 artists and creative organizers engaged in civic participation, community development, education, social justice activism, and philanthropy came together for a White House briefing on Art, Community, Social Justice, National Recovery. This meeting combined the interests of several groups addressing intersecting issues. All are interested in the power of the arts to build communities and create change. Arlene Goldbard requested a meeting with community cultural development practitioners and thinkers to talk about how the remarkable mobilizing power of community arts can be used by the Obama administration as a tool and a pathway...

This is it; the story we were speculating about today. Well, this is the "pre-story" and the rest breaks tomorrow at noon (don't know EST or PST) But, there is even a larger issue that hasn’t yet received much attention in the press. Among the Obama Administration officials on the call were Buffy Wicks, Office of Public Engagement and the lead White House official on the President’s Serve.Gov initiative to promote national service. Also on the call was Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Serve.Gov. One of their mail goals on the call, it seems, was to encourage artists to...

On August 25th 2009, Big Hollywood’s Patrick Courrielche broke the story of a conference call he attended with other “rising artist and art community luminaries”: On Thursday August 6th, I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts to attend a conference call scheduled for Monday August 10th hosted by the NEA, the White House Office of Public Engagement, and United We Serve. The call would include “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...

Ace links to another blog, that speculates the Breitbart breaking story will be about NEA. From Patterico's Pontifications comes this: If I were a betting man, I’d be betting big that the upcoming bombshell will relate to the NEA. You read it here first. But I think Breitbart’s overarching target is even bigger than that: the national media as a whole. Just as the media was caught flatfooted by the ACORN scandal, so too will they be rocked back on their heels by the next bombshell. Kudos to Andrew Breitbart. He’s making it fun to be a conservative again.