Sharpton’s MSNBC Shakedown

Sharpton White House

If you have been keeping track of the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the resisting arrest death of Eric Garner in State Island, New York you know that the “Rev.” Al Sharpton has been busy revving up the racial hatred, dividing communities and waging war on police – all to keep his corporate shakedown machine humming.

In 2008 alone, Anheuser-Busch, Colgate-Palmolive, Macy’s and Pfizer collectively contributed hundreds of thousands to the Al Sharpton’s charity Education Reform Now – funds that immediately found their way into his National Action Network (NAN) . . .

. . . While dozens of more companies “sponsored” his NAN annual conference including PepsiCo, General Motors, Wal-Mart, FedEx, Continental Airlines, Johnson & Johnson and Chase Bank.

Sharpton threatened all of these companies with boycotts and racist accusations that would ensue unless these companies made amends for race crimes ranging from their store locations (Macy’s, Wal-Mart), business practices (Chase Bank, General Motors) or the racial makeups of their corporate board (PepsiCo, Fed-Ex, Johnson & Johnson).

A NEW DAY

Now new details have emerged concerning the way Sharpton landed his own MSNBC cable show called “PolticsNation”.

According to a piece published in Washingtonian Magazine ostensibly about the David Gregory/Chuck Todd dust up over the host seat on NBC’s “Meet the Press” – revealed that the “PoliticsNation” show was a byproduct of a deal that Comcast cut with Sharpton to convince “regulators and lawmakers” that Comcast’s buyout of the NBC network “would not stifle competition.”

The deal would also quieted claims that minorities should be given visible and prestigious positions in the network following the Comcast takeover. Comcast’s strategy was simple and in tune with Sharpton’s way of doing business – hand out cash and make politically astute donations.

Miraculously, Sharpton let loose with a letter writing campaign to federal decision makers and regulators supporting the Comcast deal to take over and start programming NBC Universal.

According to the Washingtonian Magazine article, the strategy paid off when in “January, 2011, Washington approved the (Comcast/NBC buyout) deal.” In return, “Al Sharpton – who had virtually no professional broadcast experience but did have a long history of legal entanglements and ethical quandaries — landed a prime-time show on MSNBC.”

This would not only mainstream Reverend Al’s invective and vitriol, it would give him a “high-production value” forum to preach his poison with an air of “credibility” that might help him rebrand himself as a legitimate commentator rather than the race bating hustler who has used the grievance industry to gather power and become rich.