The Tax Man Cometh.
Papers filed with the Federal Election Commission revealed that presidential candidate Al Sharpton is being audited by the IRS. The audit covers several years during the 1990’s. The document provides a rare peek into the rather mysterious world of Mr. Sharpton’s finances, and how it is he manages to put bread on the table.

We learn that last year Mr. Sharpton reported having earned $381,900, which is broken out as follows:

$120,000 from “Reverend Al Productions” for speeches and sermons;

$ 78,000 from the National Action Network, a non-profit organization founded by Mr. Sharpton;

$ 75,000 from the publisher of his book “Al on America.”;

$ 30,000 from SPN Broadcasting, described as a suburban Detroit firm;

$ 25,000 from PepsiCo for his work as a member of the company’s “black advisory board.”;

$ 25,000 for “consulting services” provided to Global Hue, Inc., a marketing company;

$ 25,000 for “consulting services” provided to Hawkins Food Group (here is a pic of Mr. Sharpton, Mr. Hawkins and others – scroll to 2nd photo), and

$ 3,900 (at least) from Inner City Broadcasting.

This is not Mr. Sharpton’s first encounter with the IRS.

He was indicted in 1989 for income tax fraud and stealing money from charitable donors, but he was acquitted of the charges in a jury trial.

In 1993, he pleaded guilty of failing to file a tax return in 1986.

In a December 2000 Deposition [depositions are given under oath], Mr. Sharpton testified that he had not filed a tax return since 1998.

Read about the tax audit here (Newsday may have already taken the article down) and here.

So, with reported earnings of almost $400K, Mr. Sharpton does pretty well for himself. I note that he received a hefty $120,000 for speeches and sermons. I believe that it is fair to ask what particular academic or other credentials “Reverend” Sharpton has to be giving sermons. Although biographical information on Mr. Sharpton is scarce, he credentials as a “Reverend” are clear. He was “licensed and ordained” at age 10. I am green with envy. I wish I could have been licensed as a lawyer (no ordination necessary, thank you) at age 10. I could have saved myself all the needless expense and work getting an education.

As for Mr. Sharpton’s education, we are told that he “attended Brooklyn College” between 1973 and 1975. No transcript was included with the biographical information. It is more likely that he honed his skills that qualify him to be president by serving as James Brown’s road manager from 1973-1980 (maybe he took those classes at Brooklyn College on those occasions when the Godfather of Soul’s tour hit New York City).

I also find myself being not just a little curious about why PepsiCo has something called a “black advisory board,” and what type of services Mr. Sharpton rendered for his $25,000. We’ll never get a look at Mr. Sharpton’s records concerning his consulting income, presumably including those records relating to his services to PepsiCo, Global Hue, and the Hawkins Food Group. His campaign reported that the records were lost in the fire at the headquarters earlier this year at the National Action Network headquarters in Harlem. I’m sure that those three companies have records, and I’m sure that the IRS knows how to get them. Oh, and one wonders why he would have used the offices of a non-profit organization to house the records of his profit-making activities, and one also wonders if he administered or conducted any of his profit-making activities from the non-profit organization’s office. If so, I can only presume that he reimbursed the National Action Network for the use of its facilities.

Not filing tax returns in 1986, 1998, and 1999? I guess he just plain forgot.

Mr. Sharpton’s income may well soar in the future if he is successful in his $1 billion defamation suit against HBO. The suit arises from HBO’s broadcasting in 2002 of an old FBI tape showing Mr. Sharpton participating in a discussion with an FBI informant and an undercover agent about laundering money from mafia-connected drug deals. Mr. Sharpton has claimed that he was “play acting” on the tape in order to extricate himself from the meeting. He also claims that HBO has one or more additional tapes that are exculpatory, and he has demanded that they be aired as well. When asked why he didn’t report the money-laundering meeting to the police, he stated that he did not do so because the police would not have believed him (scroll down to “Rev. Sharpton Tells the Rest of the Story”). I cannot imagine why.

And now he wants to be President of the United States. It would be funny, if it weren’t so damned pathetic.

Zogby Blog has Moved.
Zogby has moved off BlogSpot and now has nice new digs. Please check it out and adjust your bookmarks and links accordingly.

Sunday’s Choice.

Here’s the dilemma. Stay inside and blog, or be outside with a bunch of friends bobbing about in the pool and sipping vodka and seltzler with chunks of lemon?

Thinking…………

Pool wins.

Maybe I’ll be back later tonight. Depends on how much pool and how much vodka.

Enjoy the day.

Academia – Why am I not Surprised?
TJ tells a perfectly vexing story about a “professor” who obviously doesn’t understand the difference between “teaching” and “preaching.”

Cool Stuff.
I have to be away from the keys a bit, so here is some stuff I liked. I hope you will too..

Rachel Lucas writes a screamingly funny letter to her dog. I admit it. I had to Google “Grackle.”

The Country Store has a great, old picture of John Kerry (looking like a real doofus) with John Lennon. It would appear that this photo appears on a John Kerry campaign flyer. Why?

Zogby is featuring a picture and description of a Bill Clinton Action Figure. He even shows you where you can beat the rush and order yours today.

Bogie is blogging on the TypePad Beta Test Site. Overall, it looks good. Drop by for a visit while TypePad works out some of the kinks (the comments don’t seem to work too well).

Maybe I’ll catch ya later.

Jersey Oenophiles Phile Suit.
So, you are sitting at your computer in New Jersey, and you decide that you want to buy some wine to have delivered as gifts to your friends in New Jersey.

One of your friends is a true blue Jersey Guy – so much so that he even prefers to drink wine from one of Jersey’s couple dozen wineries. You locate the Jersey winery online, and with a couple mouse clicks the wine will be on its way.

Your other friend prefers California wine from a small vineyard he visited several months ago. You’re in luck. The vineyard has a website. You locate your friend’s favorite vintage, and when you click to make the purchase, a window pops up informing that you that direct shipments of wine into New Jersey are prohibited by New Jersey law. Sorry, pal.

It’s true. New Jersey’s alcoholic beverage laws prohibit direct shipments of wine to consumers from out of state wineries.

Recently these laws have come under attack by a California winery and four New Jersey residents, all of whom are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The lawsuit, like several others pending in other states, claim that the New Jersey laws violate the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, which states that it is the federal government and not the states that has the power to regulate interstate commerce.

Out of state wineries, particularly those that are not large enough to sell through New Jersey licensed distributors, want a share of the approximately 10 million bottles of wine Garden Staters buy each year.

New Jersey’s wine distributors oppose changing the law, lest they lose the revenue that would sail through cyberspace to out of state wineries, which, some estimate, could be as much as $500 million to $1 billion annually. It is also urged that lifting the prohibition of direct shipments from out of state would deprive the New Jersey of tax revenue, hurt local businesses, and result in illegal sales to minors.

It’s been quite a while since I spent any time reading the Commerce Clause cases in which constitutional issues of great import are spawned by things like apples and mud flaps on trucks. I also don’t know whether there are any recent decisions by the Supreme Court that may be dispositive of the issue, although I doubt it, because apparently similar cases in other federal districts have produced disparate decisions.

It seems to me that those who oppose New Jersey’s laws may have the better argument. Jersey’s laws do seem to be grounded solely on protecting its economic interests. And, while the argument that out of state direct shipments will lead to illegal sales may have some sex appeal in suggesting a legitimate state interest, it does not square with the laws’ permitting in-state wineries to sell wine online.

Soooo, I think I’ll have a nice glass of merlot and watch what happens.

Oh, yeah. That wine will be from some place other than New Jersey. As much as I love the Garden State, Jersey wine ….. oy!!!

Rita, the Weather Babe.

We all know that Rita at Res Ipsa Loquitur, is multi-talented. For instance, we know that she’s a lawyer and now college student (again), an algebra whiz, and the winner of an Excel “attagirl” sticker. We also are aware that she is pretty handy with a shootin’ iron and grown’ ‘maters. But we (at least I) did not know that she is also a weather maven.

In the wee hours of this morning Rita reported that she saw “a nasty looking bow echo on the radar headed our way,” signifying the possibility of a tornado. Bow echo??? Huh? I’m damned impressed.

I’m more than impressed; I’m envious. The truth is that I do not believe I have ever managed to be able to stay focused on a weather report for more than ten or fifteen seconds. As soon as the weather person walks up to the map and starts pointing out the “high pressure trough sweeping in from the northeast, bumping into the low pressure front…” blah blah blah, I mentally go to another place. Believe me. I try to pay attention, but it just doesn’t work. In fact, I used to think that nobody (except meteorologists and maybe pilots and sailors) paid attention to, or understood, any of that. Obviously, I was wrong. Rita has this shit wired!

I’m not worthy.

First Geese. Now, Bears are in the Bull’s-eye. The Jersey Bear Hunt.
I suppose it is a natural consequence of New Jersey’s being the most densely populated state in the Union that the rights of people and animals vying for the same limited space sometimes collide. As noted here, New Jersey recently gassed a couple thousand Canada Geese when the other less drastic measures failed to convince the birds to leave the State’s parks and recreation areas, where they regularly were depositing literally tons of goose doody.

So now, it’s the bears. It seems strange, even to me – a lifelong Jersey resident, that in this highly industrialized, seemingly always-too-crowded state, we would have a farookin’ BEAR problem. Perhaps that’s because I have never run into one on my street.

Well, it turns out that there are an estimated 3,300 black bears in the state. The population increased from an estimated 2,600 last year. (Obviously bears are doing more than just shitting in the woods). While black bears have been seen in 15 of the state’s 21 counties, the greatest concentration is in the northwest quadrant of the state.

Unfortunately for residents and for the bears, there have been an increasing number of bear-human confrontations, including a bear’s swatting a two year old while he sat on the front porch of the family home. More tragic, was the mauling of 5 five month old in New York State last August.

Citing “public safety” concerns, the state’s Fish and Game Council has decided to authorize the first bear hunt in New Jersey in more than thirty years. Seventy percent of the approximately 2,300 residents who submitted comments, reports and data in connection with the public hearings concerning the hunt favored permitting the hunt to take place.

Not surprisingly, animal rights groups that three years ago successfully pressured the state to cancel a planned hunt, oppose this year’s hunt and have threatened legal action.

The state plans on issuing 10,000 (yes, 10,000!) permits to hunt bear for a six-day period in December that coincides with the state’s traditional deer hunting season. Bear hunters must attend a training seminar, and only shotguns with slugs or muzzleloaders will be permitted. The hunt will be monitored through a system of tagging to avoid overkilling.

The state claims that there are no good alternatives to the hunt, and I did not see any offered by the anti-hunt people, other than simply asserting that reducing the population will not stop the bear-human confrontations.

I know people who have seen bears around their homes with some regularity, and most of them are afraid to allow their small children to play in the yard unattended. I think most people would agree that the bears typically are only seeking to rummage through garbage, or are just “passing through.” However, I can understand the concern of those who regularly find bears on their property. Recently, this problem came to a rather nasty head when police filed criminal charges against a resident who shot a bear that he claimed was threatening his family. The debate raged, much of it not very civil.

I don’t pretend to have an answer, but there is one thing I know for damned sure. With 10,000 people hunting bears and God knows how many thousands hunting deer all at the same time in a small section of our state, it will not be safe for bears, deer or PEOPLE. During that week in December, I plan on staying away from any piece of ground that contains more than one tree.

Sauna Pants.

The Ultimate Insult, who introduced us to “Wing Sings,” now brings us Sauna Pants.

Quite simply, sauna pants are to haberdashery what Wing’s singing is to music.

Enter the Sauna Pants site, and select “English.” Scroll down for a description of the product. Here is just a wee sample:

“WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF SAUNA PANTS !!!
AFTER YOU READ THIS MESSAGE, YOU’LL SURPRISE AND REALIZE THE FACT THAT YOU HAVE TAKEN ROUGHLY, AND SO, YOU’LL EXAMINE YOURSELF AGAIN.
BUT, ANYWAY, I’M SURE THAT THE READING WILL MAKE YOU FRUITFUL.
DIDN’T YOU TAKE YOUR TESTICLES ROUGHLY WHEN YOU ENJOYED HOTBATH, SAUNA, HOTSHOWER, FAR-INFRARED RAYS? NEWSPAPER SAYS THAT THE TESTICLES OF THE WORKERS AROUND THE KILM, FURNACE, OVEN AND MELTING TANK ARE WEAKEN SLOWLY DAY BY DAY.”

I have no doubt that you have taken roughly, so what the hell are you waiting for?

You absolutely must, I say, MUST check this out.

What is it About Blogging?

Let me begin by saying that I am on the wrong side of 50. I have had the good fortune of being fairly well educated. Hell, one of my degrees (plus a passing grade on a bar exam) even permits me to practice law. I think I’m a fairly reasonable sort.

So, with that said, why do I catch myself quietly rejoicing to see that, at least for now, I have transcended the status of “Flappy Bird” in N.Z. Bear’s Blogosphere, and I am now one of the “Adorable Little Rodents?” Why is it that I unhappily catch myself wondering whether I have any shot in the foreseeable future at becoming a “Marauding Marsupial?” I take no pleasure in admitting to myself that it somehow matters that any notion of my becoming a “Large Mammal,” or a “Playful Primate” seems hopelessly remote, or that my becoming a “Mortal Human” or a “Higher Being” seems about as likely as a powerball win.

Flappy Bird? Adorable Rodent? Marauding Marsupial? What’s going on here? I’m a grownup, for Chrissake!

So, this morning I made a very grownup decision to cease expending any energy thinking about such silly things. Grownups, especially ones with some gray in their hair (luxuriant though such hair may be), should not bother themselves with such trivia.

Links schminks. Hits schmits, I say.

Then, later this morning I saw that N.Z. Bear also now ranks blogs by traffic.

Hmmmmm.

Never mind.