Black Liberation Theology and Republican Hypocrisy

The right wing political tacticians are testing the waters to see if the strategy and tactics of the 2008 election they lost can be retooled.  There were lines drawn, ethical boundaries which to his credit John McCain would not cross.  Not so much his fake family values Vice Presidential candidate, popsie half-term governor Sarah Palin, the queen of twit and quit.
Let examine what the two main areas are that the right is trying on for size, calling Obama a Muslim, and black liberation theology.  But if he was Muslim, that's fine; we have no religious test for office.

We have liberation theology, and we have faux pundits like Sean Hannity trying to link the president to Islam through religious figures like Louis Farrakhan.  Herman Cain, the right wing's token negro and full time Uncle Tom has come out and condemned Obama as well for his affiliation with Reverend Wright's church .........why does Cain get a pass for the same thing?
It is true that President Obama grew up exposed to a greater first hand knowledge of Islam, living in other parts of the world during a part of his childhood.  At no time did he join that religion, and if knowing about it, more so than any of the other candidates,which is likely to be incredibly helpful in his role as President, is wrong, are we to condemn everyone who has a familiarity with other religions? to be consistent, we then have to condemn everyone who has studied world religions or taken comparative religion classes.  Those are required at some religious affiliated institutions of higher learning, and they are elective classes used to fulfill humanities requirements in others.
What the tame conservative liar Cain DOESN'T happen to mention, which makes him a flaming hypocrite as well as an apparent serial sexual harasser and possible adulterer, is that he himself is prominently affiliated with and claims to have been strongly influenced by a black liberation theology church with ties to Islam, Malcolm X.  That would be the prominent Antioch Baptist church in Atlanta, Georgia, under the leadership and preaching of Rev. C.M. Alexander.  According to this bio, Cain is an associate minister of the Antioch Baptist church (my emphasis added - DG):

Cain also serves as an associate minister at Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta, which he joined at the age of 10.^[37] The church is part of the National Baptist Convention^[38] and is politically liberal and theologically conservative; the church's senior pastor, Rev. Cameron M. Alexander, does not share Cain's political philosophy.^[39][40]

So apparently Herman Cain is all too familiar with being a long time, active member of a church that preaches black liberation theology, while disagreeing with the senior pastor.  Except in this case it was the senior pastor who repudiated the politics of Herman Cain, unlike Obama repudiating the views of Rev. Wright.

I don't recall ever seeing or hearing a single right wing pundit criticize Herman Cain or question him about his religious association with a church that has been prominent for black liberation theology.
Newsvine's Bonos Rama did an excellent article on Herman Cain and his religious views, which make Cain's puppet speech recently criticizing Obama all the more clearly hypocritical.  From the newsvine piece:
If it is true that a person can be held responsible for the words of their preacher and can be said to embrace their preacher's philosophies by sitting in a pew, why has no one on the right spoken out about Herman Cain's pastor, Reverend C.M. Alexander? Reverend Alexander is affiliated with the extremely liberal Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta, Georgia. The main page of Antioch's web page mentions how Alexander was drawn to liberation theology:

Like early African American preachers, Alexander is drawn to the power of those texts. Indeed, during slavery, black prophetic preachers saw the Bible as a tool for social justice. Rejecting the racist politics of the white church, which erroneously taught that God ordained slavery, early black preachers chose to worship a God of liberation.

The church's website also mentions that Alexander considers Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X to be one of his influences:

Influenced by civil rights luminaries like Malcolm X, Mary McCloud Bethune, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays and Rosa Parks, Alexander says he’s always been involved in civil rights in one way or the other.

http://www.antiochnorth.org/ourpastor.htm
Now, Malcolm X was an avowed racist who taught that white people were a race of devils, and also proclaimed the following:

"The common enemy is the white man."
and
"I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American.... No I'm not an American, I'm one of the 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy.... I'm speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of a victim. I don't see any American dream; I see an American nightmare."

So why has Cain been sitting in this church for years, listening to his preacher, who espouses liberation theology and counts Malcolm X as his influence -- and IS HIMSELF A MINISTER IN THAT CHURCH? If the right is correct and sitting in a church makes you responsible for all of the philosophies espoused by its preacher, and if liberation theology is, as they claim, racist, then Cain should have to answer for sitting in a church that espouses the philosophies of Malcolm X and liberation theology. So why has the right given him a pass on this?
******************
President Obama seems to have conducted himself in a manner far more consistent with family values than Herman Cain has.  President Obama has done more to clarify how his views differ from those of Reverend Wright than Herman Cain has.  And as for being 'anti-American', as distinct from being legitimately critical of some aspects of America, including government, I would point out that Rev. Wright has a very distinguished CV in terms of performing his patriotic duty, one that is rather more distinguished than that of Herman Cain:

In 1961 Wright left college  and joined the United States Marine Corps and became part of the 2nd Marine Division attaining the rank of private first class. In 1963, after two years of service, Wright joined the United States Navy and entered the Corpsman School at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center.^[11][12] Wright was then trained as a cardiopulmonary technician at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Wright was assigned as part of the medical team charged with care of President Lyndon B. Johnson (see photo of Wright caring for Johnson after his 1966 surgery). Before leaving the position in 1967, the White House Physician, Vice Admiral Burkley, personally wrote Wright a letter of thanks on behalf of the United States President.^[13][14][15]

I think that service gives Wright the right to have a constructively critical opinion of some aspects of the United States.  Further black liberation theology is just one subset of a larger theology of Christian Social Justice that is not race specific.
Apparently the right is only concerned with anti-white racism; anti-black racism is perfectly acceptable in religious bigotry in their candidates.


I don't have a problem with Mitt R-money's religion; I have a problem with Mitt R-money being a liar, and espousing disaterous economic policies, I have a problem with him not standing up for what is right against Rush Limbaugh, and for his past apparent racism and bullying.  And he was cruel to his dog.. I believe R-money is, as Rick Parry called him, a vulture capitalist, or more correctly a vampire capitalist (sucks all the resources out of companies until they are dead). I think Herman Cain is simply a pig with incredibly poor ideas about economics who should learn to keep his hands to himself, along with his more private body parts, and who should be less of a flaming hypocrite. He will never be president of the United States; I doubt he could get elected local dog catcher, and that is unlikely to change. His time to be the token black person the GOP trots out to replace Michael Steele, is likely to be short lived until they can find some other black conservative to take his place.

To give you an example of what is so objectionable about Mitt R-money and Herman Cain, and what THEY think is ok, Big money man Ricketts, who is spreading around big amounts of cash all over Wisconsin on behalf of Scott Walker, and who put up millions for the campaign to smear Obama, including the criticism of his association with Reverend Wright, is seeking corporate welfare for the upgrades and repairs to the stadium where his baseball team plays THAT HE OWNS.  Because while he spends his own money to play politics in the millions of dollars, he wants the city to subsidize his business assets.  From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The Ricketts family, the eighth ownership group  in the 136- year history of the Cubs, acquired a 95 percent controlling interest in the team, Wrigley Field and 25 percent of Comcast Sportsnet Chicago in 2009. Joe Ricketts' children -- Pete, Tom, Laura and Todd -- are on the board.   

The Cubs team, which claimed back-to-back World Series titles in 1907 and 1908 and hasn't won the championship since, is seeking support for a proposal to relax Wrigley's landmark status and boost its advertising and sponsorship revenue.

The possible changes range from more outfield signs to street closings every game day to make space for street fairs. The stadium is among the city's top tourist attractions.The team also wants to use about $200 million in projected growth from existing amusement taxes to construct a building near the stadium to house its offices, a restaurant, parking, hall of fame, pro-shop and ticket windows.

Because this is how Republican policies work - spend money to end government spending for others, while hijacking as much public money for personal profit and advantage as possible, without regard to the hardship taking money from the pockets of ordinary, 99%er citizens might cause.  The right are hypocrites, supporting hypocrite policies and hypocrite politicians.  It's a bonus for them when they can throw in a little racism, religious bigotry and general intolerance and divisiveness.  THIS is why I oppose the right.  This is why YOU should oppose the right too.

World Bank definition of corruption - use of public office for private gain.  Sounds like Ricketts to me; he appears to be paying for the election of public officials to contribute to his private gain.

Republicans, Rutting Like Pop Go the Weasles, on the Taxpayer Nickel

Minnesota celebrated the Ides of March with this article in the STrib about the peccadilloes at the Capital building, encompassed in THIS DOCUMENT.

Not only were the Republicans taking our money for not getting any important legislation done, causing the government stoppage last summer - and taking paychecks while they did nothing during it - now they want to ......oh, now what was it that Rush Limbaugh called it so very recently that conservatives did NOT criticize him for except with the mildest reproofs for the words slut and prostitute?

Oh, yes. I remember now.  Limbaugh made a very large, ugly noise about a female law student wanting to be paid to have sex, lots and lots and lots of sex.  Rush suggested a lack of ability to walk as a result, and he also called for on-line videos of it. 

He was insisting that Sandra Fluke was trying to get paid with tax payers money for having sex.

Now, of course she wasn't.  She was trying to get urgent and serious health care that involved hormone replacement therapy in the form of birth control pills for a friend who had a problem with cystic tumors on her ovaries, her GAY friend who was not likely to be at risk for conception in her romantic relationship, her gay friend who lost her ovary because of a lack of pharmaceutical coverage.

But isn't that exactly what Michael Brodkorb is doing, after actually having staffer sex - making a grab for taxpayer money?  Someone alert the media over at Clear Channel and Premier Radio!!!!  Dittoheads! Alert! Alert! By all means call your fearless leader, Viagra swilling Rush Limbaugh IMMEDIATELY!  I'm sure that the Rushjob and all of you dittohead conservatives are TERRIBLY CONCERNED about the abuse of the taxpayers when it is a conservative trying to get paid for his private sex life, right?

Oh, my! what a resounding NO that appears to be, when it is a conservative, a Republican.  Oh, my! What a resounding lack of the same treatment from conservatives for a man instead of a woman, a man WHO ACTUALLY HAD LOTS AND LOTS OF ILLICIT, ADULTEROUS SEX,  compared to the abuse given to a woman who hadn't done what Limbaugh accused her of doing.  Give males preferential treatment much, conservatives?   Double-standard much, ditto-heads?

I'd like to believe that you simply agree that what Limbaugh did was so wrong that Republicans don't care to repeat it, but that doesn't appear to be the case.  Republicans are still waging culture war on women, while giving men a free pass, regardless of men being the superior or the subordinate.

So, according to the STrib, Brodkorb is admitting what he did, which is wrong, and which actually WAS reasonable and legitimate grounds for firing him. 

The Republicans are claiming that wasn't why he was fired, he was fired because his position was eliminated - I'll skip the easy ugly word play - but they don't seem to deny that his position was eliminated precisely because he had an adulterous affair with Amy Koch, who then resigned her position, but continued to take money after.....what was that phrase that Limbaugh kept going back to over and over - after getting paid by taxpayers while apparently having wild adulterous sex with her subordinate co-worker for a period of time.

popsie

weasel

Having sex with your boss is wrong, and it does not appear that Brodkorb is alleging it was non-consensual, which would of course be a hard claim to sell.   So this is NOT sexual harassment being alleged for the payout and the payoff to Brodkorb.

Amy Koch is not admitting who her partner was, but she's been outed.  I'd like to know why she's still on the job after that kind of misconduct.  Presumably sleeping with your staffer violates the Human Resources rules in the legislature the same way it usually does in the private sector or union jobs in the public sector.  She should be removed from office through the ethics violation procedure, not simply self-demoted.

It is wrong for superiors to have sex with their subordinate employees because there is a conflict of interest in the supervision of that employee, there are questions about raises and job evaluations being compromised by a physical sexual relationship.  There are issues of favoritism, to the subordinate, that differ from the treatment of other employees, and there are issues of unequal power in the relationship.  There is the inappropriateness of sex in a workplace relationship.

And now there is the risk of a payout of $500,000 plus legal fees, plus the costs to the taxpayer for the legislature lawyering.

Michael Brodkorb, in a rare display of exactly how sleazy he is, is claiming that he was treated differently from ALL THE OTHER staffers and elected politicos who were going at it like minks on the desks and behind every marble column lining the hallways.

Really?  I don't approve of this rampant illicit tax-payer funded, tax-payer-$-risking illicit sex, no matter what partisan affiliation the participants espoused, and no matter if they had a spouse or not.  Because hopefully, those who are doing so will stop, if they have not already ceased their misconduct.

But NONE OF THEM were fired because their bosses were the leader of the Senate who voluntarily stepped down.  Those nameless, faceless, oversexed others MAY very well be guilty of misconduct, but apparently they are more discreet, they did not make it the same problem.  Wrong is wrong.  But someone else being wrong, someone else DOING wrong, doesn't excuse Michael Brodkorb.

He was an at-will hire, he can be fired for cause, or not for cause.  He was fired because his assignment was ended, in part through his own damned fault, for behaving badly.

We should all be extremely grateful that the legislature presumably provides health care coverage that includes contraception and STD testing, unlike college students, unlike so very many ordinary citizens, unlike at least some of the women victimized by Rush Limbaugh.

I suppose we should be grateful he had fewer involvements than Herman Cain; that was expensive, but not that I recall $500,000 worth.

Brodkorb is trying to do through legal means what would under other circumstances amounts to extortion.

I say bring it.  If he wants to play that game, do it.  I hope very much that the Republicans will not shield any more of their own from the consequences of their misconduct, and I wouldn't expect them to shield any Democrats.  Rather, I'd be expecting them to exploit any Democratic misconduct.

Some people feel that the Republican Party was really who hired and employed Michael Brodkorb.  I suppose we could expect them to pay for a settlement with the legal extortioner Brodkorb, except that the party of fiscal responsibility wasn't responsible, and is in the hole a few million dollars, not to mention the stiffing of the counties for those recount expenditures back in 2010, courtesy of power puppeteer Tony Sutton, who should depart into well deserved disgrace and oblivion.

That terrible raging concern you have to PRESERVE marriage by restricting legal relationships to one man and  one woman, denying anyone who is same-sex oriented the same loving committed LEGAL relationship?  That would better be served in our legislature by married people not committing adulter, and costing us up the sweet wazoo.

Botched and irresponsible fiscal dealings; family values boasting adulterers and fornicators; and of course the party of good government proving that they can't keep government running after the shut-down last summer, and that they cannot manage their employees, their Human Resources tasks either.  The Republicans are NOT the party of family values, they are the party of bigotry, hatred, and hypocrisy.  The Republicans are NOT the party of fiscal responsibility, they are the party of financial disaster and spending money they do not have.  The Republicans are NOT the party of good government; they've botched one thing after another.  They have failed to address the issues for which they were elected, notably jobs; and they have waged an unpopular culture war that parallels the one on the national scene that has earned the right such high disapproval ratings (except for the extremist fringies).

Michael Brodkorb is a sleazy, grasping, greedy gigolo who is trying to rip off the tax payers, the citizens, the residents of Minnesota.  Amy Koch is best left to Rush Limbaugh to characterize.  Tony Sutton is incompetent, and the GOP should get their outrageous salary back from him for his failures, and use it to pay the GOP debt.  The Republicans in the legislature should straighten up and start doing a better job than they have treated us all to - on our own nickel - since 2010 for the remaining time they have in office before they are kicked out in the November election.  At that time I expect them to take their ALEC-legislating corrupt selves off our public stage, get off their backs on their desks and sofas in their Capital office and meeting spaces, and take themselves OUT of our government.  YOU HAVE FAILED.

Unless they have the decency to do so sooner, but there isn't much indication of that happening; only more of the same old same old.

WE should not be out of pocket one nickel.  We should not be spending tax payer dollars that could better be spent to serve the citizens of Minnesota.  It is not the politicians and staffers who are screwing each other; WE are the ones being screwed, and that is what has to stop.  Or at the very least, they should provide us contraceptives and other reproductive care the way they do themselves, that allow the legislators and the staffers to have lots of wild sex on the taxpayer $, services that should be available as a public health concern, to benefit us, with our own money.

And the hypocrite windbag Limbaugh is silent on the topic.  Such sweet silence, and all the quieter without the noise from those advertisers marketing those goods and services. 

New Developments in Libya

I wonder if this is something that 'we need a leader, not a reader' anti-intellect candidate Herman Cain will notice?  Or is it yet another instance where he will be caught unprepared and inadequate when faced with a challenging (rather than softball) question?  I'm betting that if he hasn't yet, Cain will be paying someone soon to read for him.  Or to him.

From MSNBC news and news services:

Libyan commander: Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam arrested

Younger Gadhafi captured with two aides while trying to cross into Niger, commander says 

NBC, msnbc.com and news services

updated 2 hours 28 minutes ago

 breaking news

TRIPOLI, Libya — Moammar Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam was captured in a southern Libyan city along with two of his aides who were trying to smuggle him out of the country, a militia commander said on Saturday.

Bashir al-Tlayeb of the Zintan brigades said that Seif al-Islam was caught in the desert town of Obari, near the southern city of Sabha about 400 miles south of Tripoli. He didn't elaborate on how Seif al-Islam was captured, but said that he was brought to the city of Zintan, the home of one of the largest revolutionary brigades in Libya.
Al-Tlayeb said that it would be up to the Libya's ruling National Transitional Council to decide on where the former Libyan leader would be tried.
However, NBC News reported that according to sources, al-Islam would be tried in Libya, not handed over to the International Criminal Court.
Al-Tlayeb also said that there was still no information about wanted former intelligence director Abdullah Senoussi or where he is located.
Libya's interim justice minister told Reuters that the younger Gadhafi was in good health.
Interactive: Gadhafi's children (on this page) Seif al-Islam is the last of Moammar Gadhafi's sons to remain unaccounted for.

Secret negotiations over a surrender?

Born in 1972, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi is the oldest of seven children of Moammar and Safiya Gadhafi.
He drew Western favor in previous years by touting himself as a liberalizing reformer but then staunchly backed his father in his brutal crackdown on rebels in the regime's final days.
Seif had gone underground after Tripoli fell to revolutionary forces.
Story: Libya: Gadhafi son offers to surrender to Hague The International Criminal Court had earlier said that it was in indirect negotiations with a son of the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi about his possible surrender for trial.
This is a breaking news story. Please check again for more updates.
NBC News, msnbc.com staff, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Is This Right Wing Racism?

Herman Cain has been promoting lies, including the most convincing kind of lies, the ones that have some grain, some detail, of truth in them.

From the Guttmacher Institute:

Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States

August 2011

INCIDENCE OF ABORTION

• Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and about four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.[1] Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.[2]
• Forty percent of pregnancies among white women, 67% among blacks and 53% among Hispanics are unintended.[1] In 2008, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million in 2000. However, between 2005 and 2008, the long-term decline in abortions stalled. From 1973 through 2008, nearly 50 million legal abortions occurred.[2]
• Each year, two percent of women aged 15–44 have an abortion. Half have had at least one previous abortion.[2,3]
• At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and, at current rates, one in 10 women will have an abortion by age 20, one in four by age 30 and three in 10 by age 45.[4,5]

However, Cain is not the only prominent figure on the right to repeat these lies.

Only Cain himself can know if he sincerely believes these lies.  Whether he believes them, or as he has demonstrated on a number of occasions --- like his foreign policy statement about China intending to become a nuclear power, which they did decades ago back in 1964,  or his misinformation about homosexuality as a choice - he is simply Michele Bachmann-like sloppy about facts, the result is to create racially based ill will where there is no valid basis to do so.

 We should not be demonizing Planned Parenthood. we should instead be helping to provide women with effective contraception, and the education to use it consistently to find better alternatives to control their reproductive decisions and their reproductive health.

Herman Cain seems to be playing the so-called 'race card' here, and it seems to be the Joker - the trickster, the dishonesty card.

If he gets this kind of thing wrong, and so many other items of information wrong, how can he presume to be qualified to serve as President?  How can any of the candidates currently in contention for the GOP nomination?

From Factcheck.org:

Cain’s False Attack on Planned Parenthood

Posted on November 1, 2011

Herman Cain has offered an alternate version of history in claiming that Planned Parenthood’s founder wanted to prevent “black babies from being born.” We find no support for that old claim. Cain also states that the organization built 75 percent of its clinics in black communities, but there’s no evidence that was true then. And today, only 9 percent of U.S. abortion clinics are in neighborhoods where half or more of residents are black, according to the most recent statistics.
The GOP presidential candidate made these comments back in March, telling an audience at the conservative Heritage Foundation that “[w]hen Margaret Sanger — check my history — started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world.” He called it “planned genocide.”
In an interview on “Face the Nation” on Oct. 30, Cain did not back down from those allegations. Here’s his exchange with host Bob Schieffer:

Schieffer: … you said that it was not Planned Parenthood, it was really planned genocide because you said Planned Parenthood was trying to put all these centers into the black communities because they wanted to kill black babies –
Herman Cain: Yes.
Scheiffer: — before they were born. Do you still stand by that?
Cain: I still stand by that.
Schieffer: Do you have any proof that that was the objective of Planned Parenthood?
Cain: If people go back and look at the history and look at Margaret Sanger’s own words, that’s exactly where that came from. Look up the history. So if you go back and look up the history — secondly, look at where most of them were built; 75 percent of those facilities were built in the black community — and Margaret Sanger’s own words, she didn’t use the word “genocide,” but she did talk about preventing the increasing number of poor blacks in this country by preventing black babies from being born.

Cain isn’t the first to believe that birth control advocate Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) wanted to stop the birth of black babies. Just do an Internet search and see what happens. Sanger made more than her share of controversial comments. But the quote many point to as evidence that Sanger favored something akin to “genocide” of African Americans has been turned on its head.
Sanger, who was arrested several times in her efforts to bring birth control to women in the United States, set up her first clinic in Brooklyn in 1916. In the late 1930s, she sought to bring clinics to black women in the South, in an effort that was called the “Negro Project.” Sanger wrote in 1939 letters to colleague Clarence James Gamble that she believed the project needed a black physician and black minister to gain the trust of the community:

Sanger, 1939: The minister’s work is also important and he should be trained, perhaps by the Federation as to our ideals and the goal that we hope to reach. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.

Sanger says that a minister could debunk the notion, if it arose, that the clinics aimed to “exterminate the Negro population.” She didn’t say that she wanted to “exterminate” the black population. The Margaret Sanger Papers Project at New York University says that this quote has “gone viral on the Internet,” normally out of context, and it “doesn’t reflect the fact that Sanger recognized elements within the black community might mistakenly associate the Negro Project with racist sterilization campaigns in the Jim Crow south, unless clergy and other community leaders spread the word that the Project had a humanitarian aim.”
It goes on to characterize beliefs such as Cain’s as “extremist.” The project says: “No serious scholar and none of the dozens of black leaders who supported Sanger’s work have ever suggested that she tried to reduce the black population or set up black abortion mills, the implication in much of the extremist anti-choice material.”

Herman Cain, You Are TOO IGNORANT to Be President

from Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC.com :

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

So........how simple, how transparent, how much EASIER is this 9 9 9 plan of Herman Cain? NOT AT ALL. It is superficial, and ill conceived, and the numbers don't add up - yet again, more Republican math failures, with dumb ideas masquerading under the bogus label of common sense solutions. 

Let me point out that O'Donnell has put in his time in and around Congress; he was a key aide and senior advisor to Senator Moynihan for six years, and the staff director for an additional two years was the staff director of the Senate Committee on Finance.  So, O'Donnell knows his subject, clearly better than either Herman Cain, or Cain's chosen advisers.

from the Wikipedia entry on O'Donnell:

From 1992 to 1993, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, then chaired by Senator Moynihan. And then from 1993 to 1995, he was staff director of the United States Senate Committee on Finance, once again under Senator Moynihan’s chairmanship. He thus led the staff of the Senate's tax-writing committee during the consideration of President Bill Clinton's first budget, which Congress enacted in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993.

Herman Cain doesn't understand his own economic policy; he is far too easily stumped by simple, softball questions.

We're Republicans; We Don't Need to Know Nuthin'!Herman Cain: More Republican Pro-Ignorance, Anti-Education Politics and Economics

Herman Cain has touted how smart his economic advisers are.  Initially he kept their identities 'secret'.

Now we know why they were such a big secret; it's because his economic advisers aren't economists at all, much less economists recognized for their knowledge and understanding of economics and our economy.

Real economists, of the variety who are sought to advise Congress and the President - and usually CEOs of very large companies - are expected to be conversant with macro and micro economics.

So....who does Herman Cain have filling that role?

According to Bloomberg News and the San Francisco Chronicle:

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan stems from basic economic principles and didn't need a professor to develop it, said the suburban Cleveland investment adviser who did.

Rich Lowrie of Gates Mills, Ohio, who is Cain's senior economic adviser, developed the plan with Cain based on "pro- growth economics" and in consultation with economists including Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, whom he calls friends.

"When people say, 'Well, you're not an economist, you've not even set foot in a faculty lounge, what could you possibly know about economics?' I'm not holding myself out to be that," Lowrie, 47, said in a telephone interview yesterday from Cleveland.

Now it would be one thing if either Cain, or Lowrie, were whiz-bang success stories, but they are not either of them successful on the order of magnitude of someone who IS an exceptional self-made man - someone like Warren Buffet.  And his performance as CEO of Godfather's Pizza didn't create a lot of jobs - quite the opposite, per this Bloomberg Businessweek article,

The new CEO initiated deep cuts to bring down expenses. He closed 20 percent of the company's 640 restaurants and fired 300 to 400 people.

...it's not at all clear that Cain's efforts made that much of a difference in Godfather's fortunes. He says the company was losing $8 million a year when he took over and turned a profit of $4 million two years later. You'll have to take his word for it. Cain, who declined to be interviewed, has not released details of the company's performance under his leadership. Publicly available figures show Godfather's sales fluctuated from about $225 million to about $275 million during his time there, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, never surging. Godfather's didn't go out of business; neither did it become a major combatant in the pizza wars, and Pillsbury sold Godfather's to Cain and a group of investors in 1988. In a November 1987 interview with Restaurant Business, Cain predicted Godfather's would "exceed 1,000" restaurants within three years and take on its larger rivals.

By the time Cain left the company in 1996 to head the National Restaurant Assn., the industry's powerful lobbying group, the number of Godfather's restaurants had dwindled to the low 500s. Today, Godfather's Pizza is the nation's 10th-largest pizza chain by sales, according to PMQ Pizza Magazine. The company's current officials would not reflect on Cain's leadership there—or say whether they are rooting for their old boss in 2012. Godfather's "takes no position on political candidates," the company said in a statement. "But we do make great pizza."

The bottom line: Though Cain says he would revive the economy as he did Godfather's Pizza, it's not clear the chain improved much when he was CEO.

So, Cain clearly has a track record of making claims about his own wonderfulness that he doesn't back up with facts and figures, and he makes big promises about what great things he is going to do........and then makes equally big excuses about why he didn't do those big things after all.  But new management does appear to have been more successful with the same company than Cain while he was in charge.

And that isn't the only problem with Herman Cain's record of leadership.  He doesn't appear to have done all that well at another company where he was a top executive either, Aquila Energy, according to this review of his executive credentials:

Herman Cain's spot on the board of directors at Aquila, a high-flying energy company that crashed to earth, may be a blotch on his record.
The Kansas City-based company and Cain faced allegations that employee retirement funds were heavily invested in company stock when the company was changing to investments to "high risk enterprises." The complaint states, "...the risk profile of the Aquila Fund drastically transformed from a conservative utility investment to a high risk growth stock."
The company settled the suit for $10.5 million.

And then there were the factually erroneous economy-related statements made at the debates hosted by the Washington Post / Bloomberg earlier this month, where Herman Cain was busted by the WaPo fact checkers.

In one of the most entertaining articles I've come across in researching this post, "Republican Debate: Viewer's Guide to Economic Jargon", maybe both Cain and his non-economist economic adviser should review it, along with anyone who skipped any study of economics in college, or who may have forgotten the econ classes, if they were too long ago.  Because ONLY if we have consensus about the terminology and the concepts can we begin to form any kind of consensus.

By Bloomberg News, Published: October 11 (ed note - prior to the debate)

Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. presidential debates are an occasion for voters to size up the would-be leaders of the world’s largest economy.
To do so, though, viewers will need to translate the jargon, acronyms and bureaucratic talk that become a native language on the campaign trail.

Share

This presidential campaign has developed its own lexicon.
What happens if you dial 9-9-9? Who’s Ponzi? How do you get a
tax holiday? What’s a permitorium? Want to dance the Operation Twist?
Here’s a viewers’ guide to 25 words and phrases likely to be heard at Tuesday night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post Republican presidential debate at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. Coverage begins at 7 p.m. New York time on Bloomberg Television, and the debate will be streamed live
beginning at 8 p.m. on Bloomberg.com and washingtonpost.com.
This debate will focus on the economy, debt, deficits, taxes, trade and jobs.
CRONY CAPITALISM: Critics on both ends of the political spectrum
have decried what they call government’s penchant for helping favored companies. On the political left, the criticism is that the government propped up financial institutions such as Citigroup Inc. during the financial crisis of 2008, while doing little to buffer homeowners and workers suffered. Some Republicans have seized on that term and used it against President Barack Obama, arguing that his 2009 economic-stimulus plan poured funds into politically connected companies, especially in renewable-energy technology and the auto industry.
CURRENCY MANIPULATION: Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has said he would officially label China a “currency manipulator” and impose duties on its goods until that nation raised the value of its currency to “fair value.” China takes steps in the market to hold down the value of its currency, giving its exporters a cost advantage over companies in other countries and contributing to the U.S. trade deficit. The U.S. Treasury Department releases a report twice a year in which it is supposed to identify any country that it believes is manipulating its currency. Treasury hasn’t labeled any country a manipulator since 1994. Under current law, there are no consequences for a country named a manipulator.
DEBT LIMIT: The debt limit is the total amount of money the federal government can borrow to meet its obligations, including interest on the debt, Social Security and Medicare benefits, military salaries, tax refunds and other payments. The debt limit allows the government to finance existing legal obligations that Congress and presidents have made in the past.
Since 1960, Congress has raised the threshold 78 times, including 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democrats. On Aug. 2, Obama signed into law a bill to instantly give Treasury $400 billion in additional borrowing power.
DEFICIT: Deficits are the government’s total expenditures that
exceed the annual revenue it receives. Deficits differ from debt, which is the accumulation of yearly budget shortfalls. At 8.5 percent of gross domestic product, the $1.3 trillion budget deficit that the Congressional Budget Office projects for 2011 will be the third-largest shortfall in the past 65 years. This year’s deficit stems in part from the financial crisis and its effect on the economy, according to CBO. Although economic output began to expand again two years ago, the pace of the recovery has been slow and the economy remains in a “severe slump,” the CBO said.

The office of President of the United States  requires the skills of someone who both has experience and knowledge.  The track record behind Cain, including his cutting jobs, his failure to grow the business to the numbers he promised, and his problems with bad choices relating to risk at the energy company Aquila in his corporate background, combined with his disdain for a more expert adviser on economic issues, does not meet those criteria, in my opinion.  He appears to have inflated and hyped his credentials, while showing a uniquely right-wing attitude that one doesn't need an education or expertise in a subject, that dumb is good enough.

It isn't good enough, not nearly good enough, and that was never more true than in our current national and global economic crises.

Factcheck.org Weighs in on Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Plan with a big FAIL

In a few respects this duplicates my earlier post on the problems with Cain's 9-9-9 plan, but it is worth sharing here for the additional depth it goes into in examining the plan and its impact.

From the weekly upate courtesy of Factcheck.org:

Cain’s ‘Fiscal Hocus Pocus’

Posted on October 13, 2011

A former chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation calls Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan “a terrific example of fiscal hocus pocus” that would have the effect of “drastically increasing taxes on the working poor and middle class.” Edward Kleinbard, now a professor of law at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, published a research paper through the university on Oct. 12. It is so far the most detailed look at the 9-9-9 plan by any independent tax expert, and it will provide ammunition for both liberal and conservative critics.
Cain claims that his plan is “simple, transparent, efficient, fair, and neutral.” We noted after the most recent GOP debate that, in fact, his plan is “murky” rather than transparent, and that Cain’s consultant on the plan hadn’t produced any study of how it would impact different income groups.
Some analysts have estimated that Cain’s plan wouldn’t produce as much income as the taxes it would replace, and one liberal analyst has even said it would cut revenues in half. Kleinbard disagrees. “I cannot promise that the Plan is wholly revenue neutral compared to current law, but in fact it should raise a great deal of revenue,” he writes. That will bolster Cain’s conservative critics who argue that creating both a 9 percent national sales tax and a 9 percent flat tax on personal income would lead to higher taxes. “You know, you can drain out more blood with two needles than with one,” says Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.
Furthermore, Kleinbard concludes that Cain’s proposed sales tax would amount to “a disguised one-time 9 percent tax on existing wealth — no doubt much to the surprise of Mr. Cain and his followers.” That’s because an asset worth $100 on the day before the tax becomes effective would return only $91 to the owner the day after (the $100 sales price minus the $9 tax). Kleinbard calls this “a one-time 9 percent haircut on existing wealth,” and it may give conservatives fresh reason to object to Cain’s plan. The tax would apply to real estate (including personal residences), stocks, bonds, gold or any other asset that is bought and sold, with the sole exception of “used goods” which Cain now says he would exempt. (Cain adviser Gary Robbins told us that existing homes would be exempted as “used goods,” a point Cain also made in a CNBC interview a day after the debate.)
On the other hand, Kleinbard’s analysis also supports liberal critics who argue that any sales tax or flat tax tends to reduce taxes for upper-income persons while raising them for lower-income persons.

Kleinbard: The 9-9-9 Plan functions as an effective 27 percent payroll tax on wage income. By imposing an effective 27 percent flat tax on wage income, the 9-9-9 Plan would materially raise the tax burden on many low- and middle-income taxpayers, who today face little or no tax under the income tax, and a 15.3 percent effective payroll tax burden.

How would the plan amount to a 27 percent tax on wages? Kleinbard explains:

• Cain’s proposed 9 percent tax on business transactions — which does not exempt wages paid by businesses — would cause businesses to pay 9 percent lower wages, and thus effectively become an invisible tax on wage earners.
• The 9 percent tax on personal income would take another bite of the same wage income after it is received.
• The 9 percent national sales tax that Cain proposes would eventually take a third bite of that income at the time it is spent to buy goods or services.

Kleinbard’s arithmetic is a bit more complex and sophisticated than this rough summary, but he arrives at a 27 percent figure for wage and salary income, and a 17.2 percent rate on self-employed business owners (who could pay themselves in tax-free dividends rather than wages, avoiding the effects of the 9 percent personal income flat tax.)
Kleinbard figures that a family of four earning $120,000 would pay (directly or indirectly) $800 more in federal taxes under Cain’s plan than under current law. At lower income levels the increase in percentage terms would be even higher, and at low wage levels it would be “dramatic.”
One note of caution: Kleinbard has recently testified before the Senate Finance Committee that the U.S. has “no practical choice” but to raise taxes back to levels of the 1990s, at least until entitlement spending can be reined in. He said he favors allowing the Bush tax cuts on individuals to expire next year and imposing a new top rate in the range of 42 to 44 percent on incomes over $2 million. He also contributed $5,250 to Democratic candidates and party committees between 1989 and 2006 (and none to Republicans) when he was a partner in the New York law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton prior to joining the JCT staff in 2007. Whether any of that colors his analysis of Cain’s plan, we will leave to our readers’ judgment.
The JCT is a House-Senate committee upon which Congress relies for professional analysis of the effects of proposed changes to the tax system. Its staff is not divided into Republican and Democratic factions, and (like that of the Congressional Budget Office) is nonpartisan.

Nein! Nein! Nein!, Herman Cain, to Your 9-9-9; We Get It! And We DON'T Want It!

Nein! nein! nein! - No! No! NO! Appears to be the overwhelming response from economists and the electorate. This is a dumb idea, and the public seems to have caught on that it is against their interests to embrace this plan. I suspect that the public, even those low information voters, are wising up that Herman Cain is not the biz wiz he has been hyped to be.

The following is from MSNBC.com, and I post it here because it includes an excellent sampling of the economists who have spoken out in careful and thoughtful criticism after analyzing 9-9-9.  I find the unscientific poll at the end of particular interest, in view of the numbers participating:

Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan is simple:

Most will simply pay more

Jim Young / Reuters

"If the public understands it, they will support it and demand it. That is going to be the difference. It is not a complicated piece of legislation," Herman Cain says of his "9-9-9" tax plan.

By John W. Schoen, Senior Producer

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to include the dropped word "income" in the paragraph about households who pay no income tax. The link also has been updated to provide more recent data.
When it comes to Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's proposed 9-9-9 tax plan, there’s one thing all sides agree on: it’s very simple.
If you're a corporation, own a small business or count yourself among the richest Americans, you'll simply love it. If not, you'd simply pay a lot more in taxes.
Everyone hates the current tax code. A Congressional supercommittee is attacking the mess as part of a broad proposal to balance the federal budget. President Barack Obama wants to pay for his jobs stimulus package by raising taxes on the wealthiest households. Corporations are agitating for a “tax holiday” to bring home over a $1 trillion in profits stashed overseas to avoid the IRS back home.
Now Cain, who has recently surged to the front of the pack of GOP presidential contenders, is drawing attention to a radical idea. Rather than slog through the political morass of overhauling the existing system, just scrap it entirely. No more deductions, exemptions, incentives and tax loss carry forwards
In its place, Cain wants the government to pay its bills with three sources of revenues held to single-digit rates: a 9 percent tax on all consumer purchases, a 9 percent “business” tax and a 9 percent income tax.
Cain claims the plan is already generating popular support among voters, which will make it much easier to implement in the political quagmire that has numerous tax reform proposals.

“I can be walking through the airport going through security and a TSA agent will say, ‘Hello Mr. Cain: 9-9-9,” Cain recently told CNBC.

“If the public  understands it,they will support it and demand it. That is going to be the difference. It is not a complicated piece of legislation.

But the odds are much higher that, when the public understands it, the vast majority of taxpayers will be horrified to realize they face a huge tax increase. That assessment comes from Bruce Bartlett, a senior official in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, who described the plan as a “distributional monstrosity.”
“The poor would pay more while the rich would have their taxes cut, with no guarantee that economic growth will increase and good reason to believe that the budget deficit will increase” Bartlett recently wrote in the New York Times. “Even allowing for the poorly thought through promises routinely made on the campaign trail, Mr. Cain’s tax plan stands out as exceptionally ill conceived.
The reason the plan would hit poor people much harder that the wealthy is also simple. The current tax code provides a series of deductions, credits and exemptions that ease the tax burden on all households, but they have a greater positive impact those at the bottom of the income ladder. As a result, some 47 percent of U.S. households pay little or no income taxes. They would now suddenly be hit with what amounts to a tax bill that represents 27 percent of their income, according to USC law professor Edward Kleinbard, who published a paper this week calling the 9-9-9 plan “a terrific example of fiscal hocus pocus.”
“It is presented as a low-tax panacea, but it actually would raise the tax bills of many Americans very substantially,” he said.
Though he's gained political momentum by hammering away at the plan's simplicity, Cain has had a harder time explaining how the plan would benefit the average household. In a recent appearance on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd, Cain explained that a family with annual income of $50,000 would come out ahead under the 9-9-9 scheme. But as my NBC News colleague Domenico Montanaro found upon closer examination, the numbers Cain offered just don't add up.
The plan would certainly benefit some households. Owners of small businesses would be among the biggest winners, said Kleinbard, because they could pay themselves with dividends (which would no longer be taxed) instead of wages. That would effectively reduce their tax rate to about 18 percent.
Kleinbard also found that the plan would have some significant unintended consequences, including what amounts to a phantom tax on existing savings. For example, if you bought a new car with money you’d stashed in a savings account, accumulated from earnings, investment gains or interest or dividends that you’ve already paid taxes on, you’d now have to pay yet another 9 percent on the new car.
That phantom tax, which would apply to any purchase made with existing wealth, “may come as a big surprise to Mr. Cain and his followers.”
Cain and advisors who have reviewed the plan insist that it would collect enough money to replace the current tax code and not add to the federal budget deficit. But until Cain presents a more detailed proposal, those estimates are all but impossible to verify.
That uncertainty has drawn fire from the political right. Many support the idea of a flatter, more regressive tax than the current system. But they worry that Cain‘s plan could make it easier for the government to raise revenues.
“The challenge is creating a (business tax) and a sales tax and keeping the income tax  having three taxes all of which can grow,” Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, told MSNBC. “It’s like having three needles in your arm taking blood out. It’s much more dangerous than just one.”
Critics of Cain’s plan argue that he’s hoping that widespread dissatisfaction with the current system will prompt voters to overlook the plan’s numerous pitfalls.
NYU law professor Daniel Shaviro thinks part of the popular appeal of Cain’s plan is that it appears to hold tax rates to single digits – even though the cumulative tax paid by most households would amount to 27 percent. Borrowing from Cain, Shaviro offers and even simpler solution to make existing tax code much more palatable
“Replace the 35 percent annual income tax with a 3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3-3 monthly tax on annual income,” he recently wrote on his blog. “After all, who's counting if the 12 monthly taxes actually add up to 36 percent annually?”

Do you favor Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan?

   22.8% Yes, it's a simple and fair alternative  (33,140 votes)

   51.4% No, it's just a giveaway to the rich (74,690 votes)

   25.8% Won't know until more details are presented (37,584 votes)

We get it Mr. Cain, and we don't want it; your pizza, er, your economic plan, won't get past the door.  Go back to the food service industry.

Gross Understatement"I don't have the facts to back this up": Herman Cain

Mr. Cain, you don't have the facts to back up a lot of what you believe.

You are speaking in every media venue that will have you, and you are running not just for any office, but for the most powerful office in the country, possibly in the world.  You have a duty, if you wish to be considered for candidacy to FIND THE DAMN FACTS before you form or express an opinion.  Shame on you and on those who stupidly also support you without those facts.

Being Gay is a choice?

No.  Here is the response from gays within your own party, Herman, the Log Cabin Republicans (my emphasis added- DG):

For Immediate Release

Log Cabin Republicans to Herman Cain: We Can Show You the Science

(Washington, DC) - Log Cabin Republicans invite GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain to meet to discuss the science of sexual orientation and the benefits of repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ after his having made such remarks on ABC’s The View today.

“If Herman Cain truly wants to see the science proving that sexual orientation is not a choice, Log Cabin Republicans would be happy to show it to him,” said Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper. “The claim that a person chooses to be gay or lesbian has been discredited by every major professional medical organization, starting with the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association. An individual’s orientation is no more a choice than the color of his skin or whether he is left-handed, and too many people have been hurt because of failed attempts to change the way they were born.”

“I would also be happy to discuss my experiences as a current Army reserve officer and combat veteran, and the testimony of military leadership that the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ strengthens our armed forces and furthers America’s national security interests. It is unfortunate that Mr. Cain chose to divert attention away from a solid platform of greater liberty and smaller government by indulging in anti-gay rhetoric. Log Cabin Republicans sincerely hope that Herman Cain is open to hearing the evidence and changing his mind on these issues.”

But better than I could point out Cain's other inconsistencies and hypocrisies and failures to base his position on facts (or reason), and there are MANY of them is.......who else, but the inimitable satirists on the Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2012 - Rising Cain
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Oh, well - at least Herman Cain (or Herbert Cain, as 'Sandra'/ Sarah Palin likes to call him - another person who doesn't have much acquaintance with facts - has replaced both Palin and Bachmann as the token Right Wing minority first tier candidate. Because with statements like this, we can hardly take him as anything but a token.

I think this one might be my favorite though, of all of the many inconsistencies and fact-free  claims of Herman Cain:

I was particularly struck by Cain's observations, about 6 minutes into the interview, that tries to argue that Hank Williams Jr. did not intend to make a comparison between Obama and Hitler because he did not name Obama specifically. Williams in the interview makes it very clear that he is referring to a specific event and specific people, including Obama. Further, he references Obama by name in other parts of that same interview as the person to whom he refers. This is not just being disconnected from fact and reality, it is intellectually dishonest. Don't even get me started on all the problems with his 9-9-9 economic proposals for which Cain is reluctant to provide any names for consultants.

Herman Cain Lies About 'Obama Health Care', Fact Checked by Politifact.com

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In the context of President Obama requesting the SCOTUS to rule on the legality of the Health Care legislation, the right continues to blythely lie about the provisions.   Here are  of Cain's false statements, pandering to the willfully ignorant base in Florida, where Politifact.com began.  It is almost identical to the death panel statements which earned Sarah Palin the Lie of the Year Award, back in 2009.

GOP Presidential contender and straw poll winner, Herman Cain was busted by Politifact.com for making false claims during the Fox News Debate in Florida:

"If we had been on 'Obamacare' and a bureaucrat was trying to tell me when I could get that CAT scan, that would have delayed my treatment."

Herman Cain on Thursday, September 22nd, 2011 in the Fox News Google debate in Orlando

Herman Cain said government bureaucrats will determine when you get a CAT scan once the new health care law begins

Herman Cain said at a Republican presidential candidates' debate last week that he would be dead if his cancer had occurred while "Obamacare" was in effect.

Cain had made the statement previously, so Chris Wallace of Fox News asked him about it at the debate sponsored by Fox News and Google in Orlando, Fla.

Wallace: "Mr. Cain, you are a survivor of Stage 4 colon and liver cancer. And you say if 'Obamacare' had been -- (Here Wallace was interrupted by sustained cheers and applause) and we all share in the happiness about your situation, but you say if 'Obamacare' had been in effect when you were first being treated, you'd be dead now. Why?"
Cain: "The reason I said that I would be dead on 'Obamacare' is because my cancer was detected in March of 2006. And from March 2006 all the way to the end of 2006, for that number of months, I was able to get the necessary CAT scan tests, go to the necessary doctors, get a second opinion, get chemotherapy, go to get surgery, recuperate from surgery, get more chemotherapy in a span of nine months.

"If we had been on 'Obamacare' and a bureaucrat was trying to tell me when I could get that CAT scan, that would have delayed my treatment. My surgeons and doctors have told me that because I was able to get the treatment as fast as I could, based upon my timetable, and not the government's timetable, that's what saved my life, because I only had a 30 percent chance of survival. And now I'm here five years cancer-free because I could do it on my timetable and not on a bureaucrat's timetable. This is one of the reasons I believe a lot of people are objecting to 'Obamacare,' because we need to get bureaucrats out of the business of trying to micromanage health care in this nation."
 "Obamacare," in case you haven't figured it out yet, is the Republicans' often mocking name for the health care law that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010. Some of the changes resulting from the law have already taken effect, including sons and daughters under 26 being allowed to be covered by their parents' health insurance. But many major provisions don't begin until 2014.
Here's the general way the new law works: The major health insurance systems are left in place, especially the health insurance coverage people get through work and Medicare. For people who have to buy insurance on their own, the government adds new regulations for health insurance companies to follow. States will create "exchanges," which are virtual marketplaces where people will be able to comparison shop for insurance. The law says that everyone must have insurance or pay a tax penalty. (That's called the individual mandate, and it's being challenged in federal courts.) People who make modest incomes will qualify for tax breaks to help them buy insurance, and very poor people will be eligible for Medicaid.

What the law is not is a single-payer system, as in Canada, where the government picks up the bills; nor is it a nationalized system like Great Britain's where the government owns hospitals and employs doctors. So if those are the systems Cain had in mind, that's not what the new health care law is. (We asked Cain's campaign what the basis was for his statement, but we didn't hear back.)

Even for people over age 65 in Medicare -- the part of the health care system that most resembles a single-payer plan -- private physicians would still make decisions about scans and treatments.
Still, opponents of the health care law have argued that it will eventually result in bureaucrats making decisions that affect treatment, particularly for Medicare recipients. But those claims have been rated False on our Truth-O-Meter when they have asserted that bureaucrats will make decisions about individual cases.

For example, PolitiFact Georgia looked at a statement from Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., who said that under the health care law, "a bunch of bureaucrats decide whether you get care, such as continuing on dialysis or cancer chemotherapy."

Gingrey said the bureaucrats are part of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB.
The board is a new part of the health care law, and it was created in response to criticism that Congress has been unable to make the politically risky and technically complex decisions needed to slow the growth of costs for Medicare.

Under the health care law, if Medicare spending growth is projected to exceed certain targets, the IPAB must come up with plans to slow the increase. If Congress does not act on the recommendation within a set time frame, the IPAB's plans are automatically implemented.

Both sides of the aisle have problems with the board. Some worry it will be too hard for Congress to overrule IPAB recommendations or that the board will stifle innovation. In recent months, several members of Congress from both parties have signed on to repeal the board.

But saying that the IPAB will determine the course of treatment for individual cases is an entirely different matter -- and it's factually incorrect. Even people who oppose the IPAB agree that it will not intervene in the cases of individual patients but will rather determine how much the government pays health care providers for various services. It can also reduce payments to hospitals with very high rates of readmission or recommend innovations that cut wasteful spending. (See PolitiFact Georgia's fact-check for more details on the IPAB.)

But we should point out here that the IPAB applies to Medicare. Medicare is a government-run health insurance program for those over age 65. When Cain was diagnosed with cancer in March 2006, he would have been 60 -- too young for Medicare. So the IPAB wouldn't even have applied, even if it had been in effect at the time.
We don't know the personal details of Cain's health status or how he is insured. But it's impossible for us to see how a government bureaucrat could have delayed Cain's care. Cain said at the debate that, "If we had been on 'Obamacare' and a bureaucrat was trying to tell me when I could get that CAT scan, that would have delayed my treatment." But there is no part of the health care law that allows a government bureaucrat to weigh in on an individual's course of treatment -- not Cain's nor anyone else's. We rate his statement False.

And here is the second of Cain's 'Obamacare' lies, factcheck failed by Politifact.com.    (bolder larger type in the body of the article is my emphasis added - DG):

Says "in Canada, the number of CT scan machines per 1,000 people is like one-tenth of what we have here in this country. That's why people have to wait."

Herman Cain on Thursday, March 17th, 2011 in an interview

Oh Canada! Cain says nation way behind U.S. in CT machines

Health care in the United States is costly for patients. But it might prove even more costly for elected officials next year.

Both Republicans and Democrats hope to wield public concerns over health care as a potent weapon in the upcoming presidential and congressional elections, and some early candidates have already started swinging away.

Former Godfather's Pizza CEO and conservative activist Herman Cain set up a presidential exploratory committee in January and last month attacked President Barack Obama’s health care initiative. He described the health care plan approved by Democrats in the House and Senate as socialized medicine that increases wait times for diagnostic tests.

Cain, a cancer survivor, said longer waits could put cancer patients like him in danger by delaying discovery.

Cain told The Root, a black perspectives online magazine: "In Canada, the number of CT scan machines per 1,000 people is like one-tenth of what we have here in this country. That's why people have to wait."

That’s a huge difference, so PolitiFact decided we’d pass this statement through our own diagnostic equipment to see whether Cain’s prognosis is accurate.

Computerized tomography scanners are X-ray machines that emit several beams from different angles simultaneously to produce detailed images of any part of the body. CT scanners are used to look for bleeding in the body, tumors and other internal damage.

Unfortunately Cain would not tell us how he determined the number of CT scanners in Canada and the United States. In fact, neither he nor anyone from his staff would say anything to us beyond, "I don’t think we’re going to comment."
But PolitiFact did find data quantifying the number of CT scans per capita.

Canada had 12.7 CT scanners per 1 million residents in 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The United States had 34.3 per million in 2007, the last year the organization had data for the United States.

Canada has fewer CT scanners per capita than Greece and Portugal, two countries on the verge of bankruptcy, and it certainly has fewer than the United States, but not "like one-tenth." It’s more like one-third.

Even though Cain’s numbers were not factually accurate, his general opinion that decreased diagnostic capacity puts patients at risk still deserves scrutiny.

Canada spends less on medical treatment and therefore does have less capacity, said Edwin Meyer, founder of Buffalo-based Cross Border Access, a company that helps negotiate hospital billing rates for Canadians coming to the United States for medical services.

Canada does a good job prioritizing who needs service right away and by doing so keeps costs for patients low, Meyer said.

But a person with a non-life-threatening injury that keeps them out of work and causes constant pain may not receive diagnostic services and surgery right away.

"People that are in need but stable can end up waiting a long time," Meyer said.

While the United States has better capacity in general, many Americans, like the uninsured, do not have access to this capacity, said William Custer, a professor at the Institute of Health Administration at Georgia State University.

The high number of CT scanners has also helped to drive up the cost of health care in the United States, but Custer said there is little evidence that this more costly service leads to better health outcomes.

Ultimately, you can’t judge a national health care system on medical capacity alone, he said.

"They make trade-offs and we make trade-offs," Custer said. "It’s a matter of taste."

If Cain had said Canada has one-third the number of CT scanners of the United States, he would have been correct and then we could have examined whether this lack of capacity really does make Canada’s system inferior.

That’s not what he said, though, and it doesn’t take a 3-D X-ray imager to know that one-tenth is different than one-third.

Prognosis: False.