Sharpton Shakes Down Post

[Manedwolf]

Just as I thought. He needed money. Same cheap shakedown artist he's always been.

Sharpton Calls On FCC To Investigate News Corp

DANA LINTON | wpix.com

February 22, 2009

NEW YORK (WPIX) -- Outrage and protests continue to mount over The NY Post's controversial cartoon interpreted by many as comparing President Obama to a chimpanzee that was shot and killed by police in Stamford, Connecticut last week.

Reverend Al Sharpton on Sunday called for a special City Council hearing, urging the city to refrain from advertising in The Post.
     
The civil rights leader, along with other local lawmakers, is also asking for the FCC to review the waiver extended to News Corp and Rupert Murdoch, which allows them to own more than one television station and newspaper in the same city.     
     
"I think that they have sadly tried to reduce this to some personal fight than to really understand the level of offense," Sharpton at a press conference on Sunday.  "It seems that we cannot have a true level of democracy in terms of how the newspapers and airwaves are used in this city."
     
The New York Post issued an editorial on its website last Thursday saying the cartoon was meant to mock the federal economic stimulus bill, and apologized to those who were offended by it.
     
The chairman of the NAACP, Julian Bond, spoke out about the cartoon on Saturday, and called for the firing of both the cartoonist and the editor-in-chief of the New York Post.

"This is tastelessness taken to the extreme and its something you expect from this publication," Bond said.  "But for the publication to suggest that the only people who object to it are constant critics of the New York Post is beyond ridiculous."

The editorial cartoon, which was included in Wednesday's edition of the NY Post, depicts a picture of police shooting a chimp, with the caption: "They'll have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill."
     
The cartoon has sparked a massive debate about race relations in this country, with members of the NAACP saying they believe the cartoon is an invitation to assassinate the President.

Bet he'll quiet if he gets a check.

http://www.wpix.com/print_landing?Sharpton-Calls-On-FCC-To-Investigate-New=1&blockID=220606&feedID=1404&

[makattak]

The cartoon has sparked a massive debate about race relations in this country, with members of the NAACP saying they believe the cartoon is an invitation to assassinate the President.

Wow...

When I commented on this previously, I said that either the writer was making a (bad) joke about the stimulus bill being so bad a monkey must have written it OR that he said Obama was a monkey who needed to be shot.

I thought no one in their right mind could think the cartoonist was actually calling for the latter.

Apparently I was wrong.

[Sawdust]

Does *anyone* with a modicum of intelligence really take Sharpton and Bond seriously?

What spanners...

Sawdust

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i'm not seeing the shakedown angle anywhere,  other than the post title

[Manedwolf]

i'm not seeing the shakedown angle anywhere,  other than the post title

1. Find source of manufactured outrage.
2. Threaten to sic authorities on company for something something that will hurt their revenue stream.
3. Get curiously quiet and back off after company agrees to fund a "charity."
4. Profit!

Jackson and Sharpton have been doing this their entire lives. Where do you think they get money from? Jackson tried to do this to DS Arms over "gun violence", as well, they were protested against and "invited to make a donation to a cause".

[Balog]

You forgot the ? step Maned. 

[Manedwolf]

You forgot the ? step Maned. 

Oh, right, yeah. Gnomes. 

[Balog]

Interesting, apparently 3?'s in a row are a smiley, with no additional formatting. Did not know that.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i still don't see where he or anyone else has hit em up for money.  your imagination doesn't count.  its the "it coulda happened that way syndrome"

[Manedwolf]

i still don't see where he or anyone else has hit em up for money.  your imagination doesn't count.  its the "it coulda happened that way syndrome"

Okay, then, you either don't follow the news of what he's been doing his entire career on this exact same track, or you're being deliberately obtuse.

Again.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i've been following the reverend play to pay since before you were born    still trying to see the shakedown angle here.    if there is one show it  or hang out your shingle as the gypsy who predicts the future

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Do you expect them to say so in a news article?

Is your position that because it isn't spelled out in a news article it isn't real?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

my position is that no one, other than maned , has mentioned a shakedown . you think the post wouldn't tell on sharpton? that would be their front page.  they like the controversey it sells papers.

can you come up with anyplace claiming shakedown?  prison planet?  wnd?  newsmax?  maned on the cutting edge? scoop em all?

[Manedwolf]

Yeah. Puddin' stick is right.

Don't know what the problem is, there, but it doesn't exactly make for pleasantness.

[K Frame]

"Is your position that because it isn't spelled out in a news article it isn't real?"

What, you're Headless the Prognosticator, Al Sharpton's all seeing soothsayer of unpublished truths?

Who knows what Sharpton's next actions are going to be.

I said before, and I'll say it again, this was a huge mistake on the Post's part, and the editor should have his ass kicked.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

My point is that this is something that you wouldn't see in print whether true or not.  The fact that it isn't spelled out in a news article is not evidence that it isn't happening.

Frankly, given Sharpton's history, a shakedown or personal reward of some sort is the most likely situation.  We'll never know for sure either way, and expecting someone to prove it is just plain dumb.  That doesn't change the reality of it.

[Perd Hapley]

my position is that no one, other than maned , has mentioned a shakedown . you think the post wouldn't tell on sharpton? that would be their front page. 

"Sharpton attempts shakedown of allegedly racist business" wouldn't be an attention-grabbing headline.  It's old news. 

I said before, and I'll say it again, this was a huge mistake on the Post's part, and the editor should have his ass kicked.

I agree.

[Balog]

And accusing someone when you have no proof sounds like a recipe for lawsuit.

[Jamisjockey]

i still don't see where he or anyone else has hit em up for money.  your imagination doesn't count.  its the "it coulda happened that way syndrome"

Its pretty standard operating practice.  They go after a corporation, and then make a backroom deal that if they fund the plight  of the poor African-Americans, they'll go away....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/aug/02/the-civil-rights-shakedown-myth-or-reality/

Snip
But there is plenty to wonder about. In November 2003, according to the New York Post, Mr. Sharpton picketed a DaimlerChrysler air show, threatening a boycott. After the company began sponsoring NAN's annual conference in 2004, however, the reverend bestowed an award on it for corporate excellence. General Motors and American Honda also began giving to the group after similar threats.

Mr. Sharpton is not alone. Critics of Jesse Jackson claim he has perfected the art of the shakedown. Suspicions persist, for instance, about motives behind repeated generous contributions from mortgage giant Freddie Mac to Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition. As the National Legal and Policy Center has reported, "Jesse Jackson's relationship with Freddie Mac began in 1998 when Jackson accused Freddie Mac of racial discrimination and encouraged major shareholders to sell their stock. Freddie Mac began financial support for Jackson's organizations and his criticism of Freddie Mac stopped." Freddie Mac donated $150,000 to a Rainbow/PUSH conference earlier this month, even as Congress was debating a bailout of the struggling firm and Fannie Mae, a bailout that the Congressional Budget Office says might cost taxpayers as much as $100 billion.

A 16-year crusade against Anheuser-Busch for not having enough minority beer distributors ended with Mr. Jackson's sons being awarded a lucrative Chicago distributorship. Businesses that Mr. Jackson has criticized, including Toyota and NASCAR, have become sponsors of his annual Wall Street Conference.
snip

[Perd Hapley]

And accusing someone when you have no proof sounds like a recipe for lawsuit.

So, the NY Post should sue Sharpton et al?   

[MechAg94]

I think the NYP is working on the problem.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06152008/news/regionalnews/rev__al_soaks_up_boycott_bucks_115554.htm

REV. AL SOAKS UP BOYCOTT BUCKS
BIZ GIANTS PAY OR FACE RACE RALLIES
By ISABEL VINCENT and SUSAN EDELMAN

June 15, 2008

Anheuser-Busch gave him six figures, Colgate-Palmolive shelled out $50,000 and Macy's and Pfizer have contributed thousands to the Rev. Al Sharpton's charity.

Almost 50 companies - including PepsiCo, General Motors, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Continental Airlines, Johnson & Johnson and Chase - and some labor unions sponsored Sharpton's National Action Network annual conference in April.

Terrified of negative publicity, fearful of a consumer boycott or eager to make nice with the civil-rights activist, CEOs write checks, critics say, to NAN and Sharpton - who brandishes the buying power of African-American consumers. In some cases, they hire him as a consultant.

The cash flows even as the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn has been conducting a grand-jury investigation of NAN's finances.

A General Motors spokesman told The Post that NAN had repeatedly - and unsuccessfully - asked for contributions for six years, beginning in August 2000.

Then, in December 2006, Sharpton threatened to call a boycott of the carmaker over the closing of an African-American-owned GM dealership in The Bronx, and he picketed outside GM headquarters on Fifth Avenue.

Last year, General Motors gave NAN a $5,000 donation. It gave $5,000 more this year, a spokesman said, calling NAN a "worthy" organization.

In November 2003, Sharpton picketed DaimlerChrysler's Chicago car show and threatened a boycott over alleged racial bias in car loans.

"This is institutional racism," he bellowed.

In May 2004, Chrysler began supporting NAN's conferences, which include panels on corporate responsibility and civil rights and a black-tie awards dinner to honor Martin Luther King Jr. Last year, Sharpton gave Chrysler an award for corporate excellence.

In 2003, Sharpton targeted American Honda for not hiring enough African-Americans in management.

"We support those that support us," wrote Sharpton and the Rev. Horace Sheffield III, president of NAN's Michigan chapter, in a letter to American Honda. "We cannot be silent while African-Americans spend hard-earned dollars with a company that does not hire, promote or do business with us in a statistically significant manner."

Two months after American Honda execs met with Sharpton, the carmaker began to sponsor NAN's events - and continues to pay "a modest amount" each year, a spokesman said.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

the idea of al sharpton shaking down the post is so laughable it would be rejected if proposed in a work of fiction as too bizarre.  could only come from folks who don't read/know the post.

[grislyatoms]

Oops, yes...

See what happens when I am left to my own devices!

[Balog]

You meant to post that in the "Working with groups" thread didn't you Grisly? 

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

and that article came from?..... wait for it.........
the post!  the rev pay to play holding a rally is what they hope for  its like him paying for a multi million dollar publicity blitz for them.

and those companies that pay out?  they do it for 2 reasons  either its cheaper to pay than to fight him or its truly hush money to keep him quiet and folks from looking too cloae at em.  i know a big company  more than 250,000 employees that had a number of accounts in dc. in 1993 outa 33 accounts in dc they had exactly 0 black managers. a fact they went to great lengths to keep nonpublic and that the union used to bend them over. hence my use of the term hush money. i woul;d hate to face a dc jury and try to talk my way outa that one....