The Godfather: How Herman Cain is Trying to Kill the Middle Class

            As of now, Herman “Deep Dish” Cain is being heralded as the frontrunner in the GOP’s race for the White House. His unlikely rise through a field of more qualified politicians, as well as his defeat over stage IV colon and liver cancer, makes him shine like gold in a room filled with rusted tin cans. In addition to this, Cain has a serious set of cajones in dealing with anyone who tries to bring him down with paltry facts. This is perfectly evidenced during the New Hampshire debate when Bloomberg TV questioner Julianna Goldman brought up a study that found that Cain’s “9-9-9” tax plan wouldn’t keep the country economically stable. Cain’s response?  "The problem with that analysis is that it is incorrect," he said.

            The problem with that diagnosis is that Cain is the one who’s incorrect. His economic plan would, in practice, effectively destroy the middle class and keep the Occupy Wall Street protests going until the end of time.

            The plan itself calls for 9 percent tax on wages, 9 percent tax on businesses and a 9 percent federal sales tax. It’s short, sweet and to the point (Jon Huntsman even ventured the guess that it was based off the price of a pizza). The problem with this plan is that it makes those already burdened with high taxes (the middles class) have to shoulder more, while effectively ending taxes on inheritance and capital gains (otherwise known as taxes on the rich). The flat-tax plan, as Cain calls it, is far from fair. It would “drastically increase taxes on the working poor and middle class, and reduce taxes going forward on the rich,” said USC tax law professor Edward Kleinbard in Tax Notes. Kleinbard goes on to say that 90 percent of taxpayers would find themselves with a “vastly increased tax bill” thanks to the 9-9-9 plan.

            Cain'sbusiness flat-tax actually works out to be an increased payroll tax on workers, and Kleinbard cites that the three 9s working together would be the equivalent of a 27 percent uncapped payroll tax. The only benefactors from Cain’s plan are the already wealthy, the less than one percent of Americans who control more than half of the investment income. With Cain in charge, almost a quarter of a million millionaires would find themselves no longer having to pay federal income tax. You heard me right. No income taxes on the super rich whatsoever.

            Then comes the inheritance tax, or lack thereof. Currently, estate can reach up to 35 percent on estates of $5 million or more. Under President Cain’s plan, this would be reduced to zero. This means that the super rich would pay absolutely nothing in income tax and then get to deliver a tax free inheritance to the beneficiaries. Not a bad deal for less than one percent of Americans.

            Under Cain’s plan there is also no method to raise more revenue. He seems perfectly content to sacrifice 99 percent of the American workforce; just so a few billionaires can keep every penny of their estates and inheritances. It’d be a shame to see those trust funds taxed unfairly, or at all.

            The scary part is that Herman Cain actually is the GOP frontrunner, at least for the time being. He may know how to run a chain of pizzerias, but this guy has no clue how to run a country. 

Sarah Palin, the Ultimate Political Cock Tease: How She and the Rest of the GOP Might Just Assure Obama a Second Term

            And so ends the inevitable truth that we all knew was coming. On Wednesday Sarah Palin officially announced that she was not running for president in 2012. This comes as no great surprise to anyone who had been watching the race; Palin hadn’t done a single thing toward making a run outside of collecting donations and forming an exploratory committee.

            After what she called “much prayer and serious consideration,” Palin said that her “family comes first.” Many thought she would come around and make the run, but Palin must have known all along she wasn’t going to try. She would have had to give up her cozy multi-million dollar deal with Fox News in order to campaign and come back into a public forum and debate an armada of challengers (instead of just Biden).

            Her announcement came almost immediately after New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced that he would not be running for president either. The loss of these two would-be challengers – while not ultimately surprising – continues to leave the GOP field weak for contention. As of now, the GOP’s sideline looks a lot stronger than its starting lineup. Pawlenty, Barbour, Huckabee, Daniels and the other other Bush are among those not running. This list also includes every sitting Republican Senator and the self congratulating young architects of the House Republicans. Even Florida Senator Rick Rubio says he wants nothing to do with a GOP ticket.

            Obama is hurting right now, and if the GOP put in even half an effort they’d stand a good chance to unseat him. They’d even have numbers in the House and be close to having a majority in the Senate again. However, Republicans have fielded their thinnest group in years to try to ascend the White House. We are left wondering why no one in the GOP seems to care about this election. Maybe they’d just rather let Obama win so that he can keep shouldering the blame for the problems that they all helped create. Or maybe we’ve reached the point where even politicians really don’t care about who becomes president. 

Can LeBron be King Again?

            Never before has an entire nation rallied around the miserable defeat of a team like we all did watching the Miami Heat fall to the Dallas Mavericks in the 2011 NBA Finals. We cheered and jumped for joy at the sight of LeBron James and company walking off the court in utter disgrace: another moment of coming up short for the King.

            It’s unlikely that the hatred surrounding James will have dissipated in just a year. And we are all still quick to point out his shortcomings: he has no fourth quarter; he never comes up clutch, etc. And it’s undeniable that he stood no chance of winning the league MVP this past year (he was the bad mouthing pariah who ditched his home team for warmer weather and super friends going against a young and humble hometown hero in Derrick Rose). But now, one year removed from everything, can LeBron James carry the Miami Heat to where they need to be?

            He can only if he does carry them, like he carried the Cavaliers for seven years. He’s no longer on a team of nobodies, and if free agency ever begins the Heat can only improve. They’re still weak at the point and center positions, but James has consistently made up for that. He has the sheer power of any center in the league and the passing skills of any point guard (he often runs the point, as a matter of fact). He’s a rock on defense (have you seen the chase down block from behind?) and a stone cold killer on offense. Except for his less than average performance in the Finals, James put up astounding numbers in the playoffs, knocking out the Sixers, Celtics and Bulls. It wasn’t that he lacks the ability. Most likely, the hatred and loathing finally caught up with him. It’s his misfortune that it caught up then.

            This season, James should be able to get past all that. Up until last year, he was adored worldwide. He was idolized by a legion of fans who all wanted to “Believe.” He was 250 pounds of sheer God-given talent who could not be stopped. He wasn’t human. He was Jordan incarnate. Then he made the move to South Beach, and all that glory went out the window. He was no longer adored. He was no longer a hometown hero. He became an outcast, and thieving freak who deserved nothing more than to be beaten and ridiculed. And so he was.

            James has a sterling opportunity now to get past all that. The hatred will be slow to disappear, but James and Heat can now begin to really take off. It’s unlikely that they’ll stumble out of the gates again whenever this season kicks off. Assuming they make at least a few decent free agency signings, the Heat will still be heads and shoulders above everyone in the league. James can begin to ignore all those hateful wishes of failure he hears day in and day out. Because by now he’s heard them all, and they’ve already become reality. He can now begin to play basketball the way he was born to play and without distraction.  

            James has been beaten twice in the playoffs now. He’s constantly put himself in the shadow of Michael Jordan, and that may have lead to his failures. But now that all his enemies have wished him beaten and seen it happen, James can begin to move past it. He doesn’t have to care what any fan (or anti-fan) thinks of him anymore, because they’ve got what they wanted. And the player who doesn’t care, who is immune to the outside world, is 100% lethal in the NBA.

            I’ve tried my hardest to hate LeBron James. But try as I might, I cannot hate the player the way I hate the individual. He is simply too good to hate forever. I’ve never been able to take down the number 23 Cavs jersey that hangs in my bedroom because that is the LeBron James I remember; the inhuman being that defied all conventions. The Decision is over, and James can finally begin to get back to the way things used to be. He is honestly too good for American sports fans to despise him forever. Even Kobe could get past the rape allegations because he was the best at the time and figured out that people love a winner. And that’s LeBron right now. He may be a bad person, but he’s too goddamn good at basketball to be hated forever. And as much as it pains me to say it, he’s still the best player on the best team. Someday, maybe in 2012, the Heat will win the Finals. And if LeBron plays the way he’s meant to, he’ll win league and Finals MVP. But first he has to stop worrying.

Who is the Republican Savior?

            Lately, the GOP has been turning to any new face to be the savior to the Republican Party. In the beginning it was Romney, with his savvy business skills and presidential smile. Then came Bachmann with a win in the Ames straw poll. After that came Perry, who was a late addition to the race but who stampeded to the front in record time. These days, Republicans don’t know who to turn to. Some say Herman Cain, especially considering his victory in the Florida straw poll. Others say Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who still insists that he’s not committed to running. But who really is the GOP savior? For a group of people so dedicated to the cause of making Obama a one term president, Republicans and the tea party alike have done themselves no favors with this flavor of the week nonsense.

            Romney still seems like the smart money in this race, but that’s only if Christie keeps his word and steers clear of this mess. The two of them would clash all over the East Coast while Perry could clean up in central and western America, thereby winning the nomination. Christie also doesn’t fit in well with this current group of GOP hopefuls. He believes that “climate change is real” and “human activity plays a role in these changes.” He also nominated a Muslim to be a judge, one who defended 9/11 terror suspects (who were later cleared) and simply said he “tired of dealing with the crazies” and that “this Sharia law business is crap.” Not your typical dialogue for a GOP savior.

            Perry meanwhile has suffered a small series of setbacks. After have convinced the American people that he has what it takes to run this country, he was beaten like a dog during a televised debate. Whereas candidates like Romney and Cain presented actual economic plans for their hypothetical presidencies, Perry has simply pointed fingers and claimed that he wasn’t as gifted a smooth talker as Romney. All that he has proposed is “low taxes” with no actual plan (which is still better than Bachmann’s “no taxes” plan, if you could call it that). Perry still has a lot of work to do before he can call himself the savior.

            Bachmann has apparently lost momentum just as soon as she gained it. She’s been suspiciously quiet these past few weeks, aside from her comments on taxes (and retraction, saying that people would have to give something back to keep the government running). Perhaps her lack of Constitutional knowledge caught up with her. Maybe it’s all the stupid things she says in general. Or maybe she’s just hunkered down and licking her wounds, watching and waiting to come out swinging for real when the Primaries start.

            Romney has a long history as a chronic flip-flopper, most notably with his stance on healthcare. He was also once a supporter of abortion rights and gay rights, two things that most GOP contenders have been getting very hot and bothered about. But he has the strongest rhetoric to keep his head above water.

            Regardless, there is no clear Republican savior for this race simply because there is no savior to the Republican Party. They are a tired group of people who have split into factions: the tea party, the Fox News conspiracy theorists and the unclaimed. Each faction has their own idea of what a savior is and what that savior should look like, but none of those versions match up. They’re all too drastically different, and no one is willing to compromise. And if they can’t, they’re not only doomed in this race. They’re doomed forever. 

Class Warfare: The Quest for Kennedy's Seat

            When will people learn? The Kennedys are gone, lost to the ages. Jack and Bobby were gunned down long ago, and a lifetime of guilt claimed Teddy. It’s been a long time since we heard the Boston accent in the White House and we might not ever again.

            When Ted Kennedy died in 2009, Democrats all over Massachusetts wept but never worried; they had the audacity to believe that no Republican could ever win in that state, let alone take over for the last lion of the Senate. But that arrogance is exactly what did them in; Martha Coakley didn’t even bother campaigning. She simply yawned and honestly believed that being a Democrat in Massachusetts would carry her to the Senate. But then Republican Scott Brown, the proverbial underdog with a zero percent chance, pulled the rug right out from under Coakley and the Democrats. He won because he wanted it more and never pretended that he was entitled to it.

            With 2012 looming eerily closer, campaigning for the Doomed Season has begun. But it is not the Presidential election that has people talking right this minute; it is the fight for the seat that so many people still believe belongs to a Democrat. Elizabeth Warren, the Special Advisor for the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, (what a mouthful, right?), has announced that she will be running for the spot currently held by Brown. But the issue is not whether who will win or who will lose; it’s the consistently arrogant consensus from the Democrats that Brown never really held the seat at all. To them, it’s still Kennedy’s seat and Brown was just a fluke.

            I’ve never been a supporter of Scott Brown. In my opinion he’s a politician who believes he has that presidential look and who doesn’t fully understand the immense responsibility that the Senate is supposed to hold. But at the end of the day, he won, fair and square. And truth be told, he not only earned the seat over Coakley but he also deserved it. He campaigned harder and fought tooth and nail to win a seat that no one said he could. The trouble is that no one will give him credit where credit is due.

            Elizabeth Warren may well win the seat back for the Democrats. She has name recognition in a state that overwhelmingly elects Democratic Senators. She has the resume to back up what she’s preaching, and she understands the economy and political world far better than Brown does. But at the end of the day, the seat is not rightfully hers just because she’s a Democrat. Ted Kennedy is dead, and while his legacy lives on, the seat is no longer his. There will always be the stigma attached for any Senator, knowing that that was the seat that the last Kennedy brother held before he died.

But to continue saying that the seat belongs to Kennedy is doing a great disservice not only to Scott Brown, but to the democratic system itself. Scott Brown won the same way the John Kennedy won the White House; through perseverance and an unwillingness to surrender. And in this democracy we call home, if someone gets 50% plus one, they win. And like it or leave it, Scott Brown won.

Chances are good that Scott Brown will be a one term Senator, that he will always be remembered as the fluke who somehow temporarily took Kennedy’s seat. But regardless of what he accomplishes or fails to accomplish, he deserves more respect than he’s getting. And more respect than he’ll probably ever get.

A nomenclature doesn’t entitle you to anything. Hopefully Elizabeth Warren learns this lesson, or else she’ll end up no better than Coakley. And this leads to this inherently entitled question: would it still be remembered as Kennedy’s seat if a Democrat had won? Or is this simply a narcissistic question of self worth?

Truth be told, there are no lions left here. 

The Lone Ranger: How Rick Perry's Stance on Social Security Will End His Run

            Just by looking at him, Rick Perry seems like an utterly average guy; you could almost confuse him with fellow presidential contender Mitt Romney. Whereas Michele Bachmann seems insane in both speech and appearance, Perry gives off the façade of somebody who is cool, calm and collected. But the governor from Texas is something much more diabolical than what he appears. He may look like Romney, and he may even have a comforting accent, but Perry is a very different kind of candidate. He has the wildest dreams of Bachmann but stands a better chance to be elected, simply because more people think he is sane. And therein lays the problem.

            For some reason, Perry is widely considered a front runner in the narrowing Republican field. He, Romney and Bachmann round out the top three candidates, with Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman somewhere on the fringes. What really separates Perry from Romney is there view of the economy, specifically Social Security. Perry has threatened to abolish social security, and while he could never actually succeed at doing so, people are eating it up.

            Perry has gone on record as saying that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme,” which goes to show more than anything that Perry has no idea what a Ponzi scheme actually is. Perry seems to gladly neglect the fact that those who receive Social Security have already paid into it and are just collecting the money they put in. While certainly some Americans would see an immediate benefit from no longer paying Social Security (they’d no longer be paying the 6.2% income tax), the economy as a whole would suffer. If the program were to suddenly end (in the event of President Perry) the effect would become a Ponzi-like scheme; people who have paid into the program wouldn’t get anything out of it. The effect on the economy would be the same as when any major fraud collapses; poverty would surge (in this case, among retirees).

            Perry may be toted as a legitimate contender right now, but his stance on Social Security will be the death of his presidential dreams. Already, other Republican candidates are ganging up on him, pulling the carpet out right from under him. Romney and Huntsman will hit him hard and often on this, much like the Democrats did in 2004 to Howard Dean and his antiwar stance. They will cast him as someone who cannot beat Barrack Obama, like Dean was cast as someone who couldn’t beat George Bush. Voters will then have to turn to the smart money, Mitt Romney (or whoever is left).

            Once there’s blood in the water, the other sharks will surge. There is no honor among presidential candidates.

            Whereas Perry seems to be the new poster boy for the ultra conservatives, Romney can gain serious ground by hammering him on Social Security. If he does, Perry will lose every vote of anyone who is even 10 years away from retirement. Perry will no doubt retain some of his supporters, but if the other Republicans keep at him, the fan base will deplete to the point where they will take the smart money over the easy money.

            But for now, audiences love the easy money in Perry. At the GOP debate, they roared for Perry’s record of putting more inmates to death than other governor in recent history. That’s a pretty strange thing for someone who is so adamantly pro-life to do. But Perry doesn’t have to make sense to be liked. He just had to retain the far right long enough. And maybe he will, but I doubt it.

            When you come out swinging at Social Security, chances are you’re going to miss.

The Lost Decade

            Yesterday was the first real day of football, but the moment was not as joyous as it should have been. Looming just days ahead is the ten year mark of 9/11, the single most destructive yet defining moment for our generation. The costs have been high and the consequences calamitous, but we have nothing to show except a few piles of rubble that we never got around to cleaning up; industrial reminders of what we lost so long ago.

            We had terrible fears stemming from that day. We believed that the end times were upon us. We huddled in our houses, too afraid to open the blinds. We believed the worst was yet to come, and we were certain that it would never be safe to travel again. All that we knew for certain was that the towers were gone, reduced to blood and burning steel that never really went away. We, as a nation, did not believe that we could pick ourselves up.

            But time went on, as it always does, and eventually those crushing fears turned into massive hopes. Hopes of unity within our country. Hopes that our strength would send a message to all evil doers around the globe. Hopes that, in time, the world would become safe again.

            Perhaps we were naïve in both our fears and hopes. Slowly we began to get back on airplanes and fly to all corners of the globe. Likewise, our dreams of unity began to fade. We all adopted a business as usual attitude for 364 days out of the year, the lone exception always being the anniversary of the day the towers fell.

            Ten years is a long time. In that time, we have successfully started two wars that seem to have no end in sight and a bill that has become increasingly harder to ignore; we have helped dispose of a handful of Middle Eastern dictators that we said was in the name of democracy; we have seen the genocide rage in Darfur and we have turned a blind eye. We have seen sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives sent to die in the desert for wars they didn’t ask for and didn’t quite understand. What have we learned in that lost decade?

            We learned that nothing has changed. More attack attempts came: an underwear bomber, a car filled with explosives left in Times Square, but we moved on because no one was hurt and failures are often easy to forget. Our politicians have brought us down into a hellish reality that we may never escape from; a world of two vindictive ideologies that will not rest until the other is destroyed for no good reason at all. We are impatient again. We are just as prejudiced as before, maybe even more so, and we still have no problem killing each other.

            All that we have to show is a largely unplaced hatred for anyone farther west than France. We have an ungrounded suspicion that all Muslims are up to something so sinister that they deserve to be sent to Guantanamo right now, no questions asked. We cannot go to the airport without random security checks and TSA pat downs. Throughout this decade in despair, we have not changed for the better. We watch TV, go on Facebook and order takeout to forget that we ever lost anything. Somebody else would eventually come along and start the long process of sweeping up debris.

            Eventually, even the rubble that was the towers and our loved ones became garbage, and had to be hauled out of sight and buried.

            Osama bin Laden is gone, and so are ten long years. But we are no different than we were on September 10, 2001. We are the same consumers who don’t look at price tags before we put something in our shopping carts. We are the same people who blame one president and exonerate another. We are the same people who demand blood for blood. We are still the same Americans.

            Maybe in another decade we will be able to fully absorb and understand what 9/11 meant. Or maybe we won’t. If that’s the case, at least we can adequately distract ourselves.