The Five Hosts: Al Sharptons Tax Issues Bad for Obama
The hosts of Fox News #39; The Five today took on Al Sharpton #39;s tax issues. But aside from calling him crooked and such, a lot of the segment was about the MSNBC host #39;s ties to the...
By: PoliticsReporter
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The Five Hosts: Al Sharptons Tax Issues Bad for Obama - Video
Sharpton Denies Report Saying He Owes Millions In Taxes
Rev. Al Sharpton is on the defense after a New York Times article claimed he owes millions in current and back taxes. Sharpton said the allegations aren #39;t true and he believes he #39;s being unfairly...
By: CBS New York
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Sharpton Denies Report Saying He Owes Millions In Taxes - Video
Once again, the Rev. Al Sharpton has been receiving sloppy wet kisses from prominent politicians and other power brokers; once again, as the New York Times reported on Wednesday, hes been enjoying something like immunity from the sorts of obligation most people see as inevitable, like taxes, rent, and other bills.
The news that Sharpton and his for-profit businesses are in arrears to the feds andNew York stateto the tune of $4.5 million(give or take a million, if you believe his latest prevarications)is nothing but an old, familiar twist on his perennial boast most recently at his60th-birthday party-cum-fundraiser for his so-called National Action Network that, Ive been able to reach from the streets to the suites.
What hes really been able to do, for as long as Ive known and loved him, is to affirm that society is basically a hustle from top to bottom, as he put it to me in 1992 for a profile in the New Yorker.
At the recent fundraiser, an aide to President Obama read a message praising Sharptons dedication to the righteous cause of perfecting our union, and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo hailed him as a civil rights icon, as Times reporter Russ Buettner noted.
Two decades ago, New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and New York Mayor David Dinkins were doing much the same. When George Pataki defeated Cuomo in 1994, Sharpton was one of the first people the new governor received in his Albany mansion after taking office. He plays them like a piano board, former Mayor Ed Koch told me then, as I was riding around with Rev. Al from church pulpit, to street demonstration, to dinners at Juniors and Le Petit Auberge, to his former homes in Queens Hollis neighborhood and Brooklyns East Flatbush.
Sharpton was playing me, too, but not for accolades. I profiled him a second time, for the New Republic, in 1996, and for Salon, in 2002, when he was considering running for president, as he did in 2004.
I was drawn to him again and again not only because he was inexhaustibly fascinating or at least useful to power brokers, penitential white liberals, and editors and readers but because hed come to embody the vast tragedy of black central Brooklyn. Embody and vast fit him perfectly then. And he leavened what he embodied with an absurd but nearly redeeming humor and roguish charm.
Having packed the pews at Mt. Ollie Baptist Church in East New York one autumn Sunday in 1992 with mostly older black men and women whod flocked to hear him preach, Sharpton at one point dropped his regal, admonitory posture to offer this aside: Now, I know, that some of you do say, Oh Lord, the [bad] things I used to do, I aint gonna do no more. Stage pause.
The things you used to do, you caint do no more!
That impish recognition of guilt and compassion for weakness had them rolling in the aisles. I learned to detect the same sensibility even in his cold calculation that society is a hustle from top to bottom. That doesnt exonerate him, but it does have the effect of implicating the rest of us.
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Al Sharptons latest hustle: New lessons, new reports of troubling finances
Al Sharptonhas some words of advice forBill Cosby: start talking. The talk show host thinks Cosby, who faces a growing number of sexual assault allegations, needs to address the controversy before his reputation hits rock bottom.
Im very disappointed with him, Sharpton was heard telling a friend, according toPage Six. He needs to talk to somebody. He needs to talk, Sharpton said repeatedly. He has to answer to someone.
Naturally, Sharpton said he would be happy to host an exclusive sit-down with the sitcom icon on his MSNBC show. I know him. I could make a call, Sharpton said, adding, I dont think [the charges are] racially motivated.
Cosby, who has remained silent on the allegations except for a statement released through his lawyer, doesn't seem likely to talk anytime soon. In an interview with theAssociated Pressat a museum event earlier this month, Cosby was faced with questions about the rape accusations. He told the reporter, "We don't talk about that," and asked him if he would "scuttle" that part of the interview.
TheCosby Showstar also reportedly tried to silenceWendy Williamsin the early 1990s for repeating comments Cosby made in the media about rape during her radio show. Williams recounted the incident duringThe Wendy Williams Showthis week.
Though she says she was simply reading comments made by Cosby himself two decades prior, Cosby called her general manager and demanded to have her fired.
She explained, "My own boss turned on me like a wild pit bull, called me in his office in the middle of... the morning broadcast and Cosby is on the speaker phone." Then, she added, "Cosby dressed me down and called me everything but a daughter of God."
Check out the AP's interview with Cosby below.
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Al Sharpton Is 'Very Disappointed' With Bill Cosby
Sharpton: Ferguson Situation Is #39;Very Tense #39;
Subscribe for more Breaking News: http://smarturl.it/AssociatedPress Civil rights activist Al Sharpton says the situation in Ferguson is #39;very tense, #39; as the community awaits word on whether...
By: Associated Press
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Sharpton: Ferguson Situation Is 'Very Tense' - Video