Hey, if shakedowns work for Al Sharpton, why not try it on a grander scale befitting a former president? As has been reported (though not by MSNBC), Al Sharpton has made millions shaking down corporations by intimating that he will charge them with racism if they do not pay him off.  (See this New York Post column by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein: "How Sharpton gets paid to not cry racism at corporations.") He, of course, is a tax deadbeat whose records are for some reason kept on very flammable material, since they always seem to go up in smoke. Sharpton was just following a successful scam pioneered by Jesse Jackson.  (Kenneth Timmerman’s Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson is an excellent exposé regarding the myriad ways the Jackson family has benefited by playing the best card game in town, the race card game.) One can expect to see more of the same – albeit in a more refined, less blunt way – led by the...(Read Full Post)