Has a Figure From the National Endowment for the Arts Been Asked to Resign?
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:
Art of Communication
Updating a story we brought you on the grapevine Wednesday, there are conflicting reports about whether or not the National Endowment for the Arts communications director Yosi Sergant has been asked to resign.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}At least one Republican senator had raised concerns in recent days after an artist blogged that the White House and the NEA were steering artists towards creating works on contentious political issues like health care.
The Huffington Post reports today that Sergant, a former Obama aide, was asked to resign as communications director. The NEA offered a curt response telling FOX News that he is still employed. White House spokesman Shin Inouye only offered: "The White House did not ask for him to resign."
Acting Out
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Actor Charlie Sheen is demanding a meeting with President Obama to ask for a new investigation into whether the federal government was behind the 9/11 terror attacks. Sheen's open letter on prisonplanet.com implores the president to be on the "right side of history," arguing that "the official 9/11 story is a fraud." Sheen has been an adamant member of the "truther" movement for years.
The resignation of green jobs "czar" Van Jones this week came after it was discovered he too was a signatory on a 9/11 truth petition calling for the same government investigation Sheen is demanding.
Tale of the Tape
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A Republican state lawmaker in California is in damage control mode, after being caught on tape boasting about his sexual conquests.
Assemblyman Mike Duvall denied having an affair and says he was simply engaging in inappropriate storytelling. That's because an open microphone recorded Duvall telling another lawmaker at a committee hearing about having sex with a lobbyist and another woman, despite being married with two children. Duvall resigned Wednesday, but now says his resignation "is in no way an admission that I had an affair or affairs."
But his conversation caught on tape tells a different story. Duvall brags about a spanking fetish, the type of underwear worn by one of the women and his apparent ability to carry on two extramarital affairs at once.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}— FOX News Channel's Lanna Britt contributed to this report.