Posted on 10/10/2011 10:42:09 AM PDT by Maneesh
Herman Cain isn’t as laughable as I originally affronted. He has been making the media rounds and impressing a few people along the way, even earning himself a flock of supporters. After a recent Fox News presidential debate, a focus group overwhelmingly declared the black Republican and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza victorious. So now that Cain has proven his candidacy as one to be take notice of (but can you blame us for brushing him off at first? Most of president Obama’s would-be contenders were just laughable.), it is only natural that the serious smears of campaign season would arise against him. First up: A business scandal that so closely mirrors the travesty at Enron, it warranted this headline from Mother Jones Magazine: “Herman Cain’s Enron-esque Disaster: The Story the GOP presidential candidate won’t tell you about his years in corporate America.” If our skepticism of him before was baseless, it certainly isn’t now. “Cain clearly believes that his pro-business message is what GOP voters want to hear. So much so, in fact, that on Saturday he officially unveiled his candidacy for the 2012 GOP nomination. But scrubbed from Cain’s official story is his long tenure as a director at a Midwest energy corporation named Aquila that, like the infamous Enron Corporation, recklessly drove into the wild west of energy trading and speculation – and ultimately screwed its employees out of tens of millions of dollars,” Mother Jones reports. According to a massive class action lawsuit against Aquila’s board of directors – including Cain – he allegedly steered employees into heavily investing their retirement savings in company stock, while at the same time shifting their business model from straightforward energy generation to risky energy trading – the kind of corporate greed that infamously brought down Enron, Mother Jones reports. In the suit, it claims that Cain and other top officials violated a 37-year-old federal law that requires employers to responsibly manage the retirement programs for their employees. Their pensions and life savings were lost. Thus far, Cain has been running as the pro-business candidate who successfully turned around the failing Godfather’s Pizza franchise after working in the corporate offices of the Pillsbury Company. His lack of political experience is always countered by touting his decades’ worth of success in business. Positions at Godfather’s, Pillsbury and his post as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City are listed as part of his official campaign biography. His part in the major downfall of Aquila – where he was on the board of directors for much of the 1990s and early 2000s – is nowhere to be found. Yes, it is expected for a candidate to try and hide his skeletons, but he should also expect to eventually be exposed. Herman Cain, you are exposed.
I am no zot. I like Cain but it is best if our nominee is thoroughly vetted. This story has the potential to devastate Cain and ignoring it does not mean that the Obama regime and media will ignore it too.
I am aware that the smears against him have commenced.
The story has been out there for awhile but I have not heard Cain discuss it.
Au contraire. IBTZ.
Did not bother to check your source did you? This is a Leftist propaganda cite pretending to be “news”
bfl
Mother Jones? Cut me a break. And do a better job vetting your sources. Cain had no involvement in basic operations of Aquila, from what I have seen from other posters who bother to do some homework on this subject instead of posting hatchet jobs from far-left wingnut sites.
This is a story from MAY and the reason it never gained traction is because Cain was not directly involved in the Aquila mess.
When the lawsuit was filed, everyone was named. Herman was exonerated and dropped from the suit because it was learned that he had no knowledge of that end of the business. He was on a different board within the company that didn’t have anything to do with stocks, etc.
The Atlanta Post article is based on a MotherJones article whose took a few general details and then made all sorts of claims that weren’t in the lawsuit they referenced. It is typical of liberal writers being lazy.
Here is the link to the lawsuit paperwork. https://motherjones.com/files/1232_cid_3_amended_consolidated_complaint.pdf
I stopped reading at “Mother Jones.”
Truly amazing . . . scandalous stories about the Republican candidates are, daily, surfacing for public scrutiny. Where were all these same investigative reporters when Hussein Obama was running for President during the ‘08 election?
Check the source of your post. The Atlanta Post is a racist, anti-conservative “It’s all Whitey’s Fault” rag.
This thread needs to be pulled.
The vaunted Romney oppo research apparatus must be hard at work for its desperate boss.
I have to disagree. This wasn't a function of the writers being lazy. This was a function of the writers lying by omission to fabricate an attack on a conservative.
Yet still, some chumps on FR fall for it, probably because they want to.
Mother Jones is about two steps below the National Enquirer when it comes to integrity.
The source “Mother Jones” is indeed suspect. However Cain was a director at Aquila and Aquila did energy trading similar to Enron and worse the exact same thing with employee retirement funds. The left dismisses everything on the Fox News website. We should not automatically do the same...the facts here appear to be true. Nothing criminal but enough to link Cain to it and for the people who make decisions on sound bytes this is all it would take.
Mother Jones!! IBTZ!!
Um, "Mother Jones," Enron didn't collapse because of energy trading, they collapsed because they hid their losses in shell companies.
Cain was cleared of this a long time ago. A few leftists and Mother Jones are trying to bring it back.
Far-left, loony mags have run this story, but no one else. Why do you suppose that is, Maneesh?
Of Course the Leftist smear machine will try, it does not mean it will work. Notice no serious news organization has made the same opinion based leap as "the Atlanta post" try to make
Apparently you have no idea what a board of directors does.
His positives outweigh the negatives. This is a non issue.
That wouldn’t surprise me, but at the same time I know this smear has been pushed by both Paul and Perry supporters on Free Republic.
Well well, CaIn has quite a history of screwing employees and hiding relevant information about his past. Not to mention his fast and loose campaign shenanigans.
Bump #10
Read the responses on this thread, troll. This is a hit piece pure and simple.
And no I am no Romney supporter. I live in MA and detest him and do not want him as the nominee.
And I'm hoping you just forgot your /sarc tag. Otherwise, this implies you're believing this crap.
If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Double standards; It's not just for Democrats anymore as it seems.
So since you think this article disqualifies Cain? If you think that, then the dozens of articles at this same website about "Perry the Racist" must also disqualify him then.
So did you read the other articles at this website?
So since you think this article disqualifies Cain? If you think that, then the dozens of articles at this same website about “Perry the Racist” must also disqualify him then.
Why did you completely ignore my post in #10?
Do you have a problem with facts or something?
Wouldn't this passage here tell you it's an old "story?" He's been a candidate for months.
That was the point. People disqualifying candidates left and right, Perry included, because these guys are imperfect. All of them.
Stone's favorite writer turns out to have been a woman who was David Axelrod's mother, and David's acolyte in the "true path of Marx" is President Obama.
As far as the MSM is concerned black guys, like Obama, are just not smart enough to successfully grasp Communist theory, and certainly not Communist intrigue ~ so Axelrod, his mother, Stone and Stalin are guilty, but Obama can't be guilty.
In this case even though Cain had nothing whatsoever to do with the "problem" the MSM will automatically dismiss it as meaningful simply because Cain is black.
Trust me, the force of racial prejudice among the MSM is strong
And so it begins......
Why in the world should Cain dignify this smear with any comment at all?
Notice no serious news agency will publish this crap.
Okay. So now we REALLY hate Huckabee, Pawlenty, Christie, Huntsman, Palin, Bachmann, Gingrich, Perry, Romney, Cain, Paul and Santorum because they are all a bunch of corrupt, low life bass turds. Who da **** DO WE LIKE? I need a break here! Who should I support?
Bump 10 again
If it isn’t true...offer proof. Otherwise, welcome to the Cain vetting process.
The messenger is not the problem.
Some Freepers are just like leftists in their knee jerk responses. I am a life long conservative and like Herman Cain. I want to vette him completely so no surprises come up in the general election.
If this is a non story...terrific. However calling someone a troll for even daring to discuss it is conservative equivalent of a knee jerk liberal where no discussion is allowed.
Maneesh.... keep in mind that paragraph breaks are our friend!!!!
Yeah, I believe it because it’s true. But yes, there was an element of sarcasm. None of our candidates are going to be perfect. We need to be looking for who is best capable of leading us out of this situation and get over hardcore purist positions; otherwise, it’ll be Romney for sure.
Yes actually this HAS been discussed here and elsewhere before. Cain had nothing to do with the collapse of that company.
Have a nice day.
You really have no clue and no class do you? Why are you even on FR if you can’t even bother to use a little common sense?
For Palinistas, Paulinistas, Perrywinkles and those of you in Rio Linda... what this means is:
You apparently missed the Mother Jones headlines about Obama cheating American taxes payers out of almost a trillion dollars in failed stimulus funds... oh wait this is Mother Jones. /sarc.
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