Superheroes, Energy and the Environment

And now, the superheroes shall comment on the candidates' energy and environmental plans, and give a point for Obama, Romney or Undecided. Like last time, which I forgot to mention, some of these statements are direct or slightly altered quotes. Try to figure out which ones in the comments!

Batman

"In good energy production as in good driving, one must never sacrifice safety for speed."
Point for: Obama

Captain America

"I've been fighting to keep America in one piece. We don't need pollution dissolving it from the inside out."
Point for: Obama

Blue Beetle

"When your investing yourself in new technologies, it will take time to hammer out all the kinks. You have to be patience and keep trying, otherwise you'll never see any payoff. I don't think Romney gets that."
Point for: Obama

Shadowcat
"Romney can't be allowed to revive unsafe drilling. Drilling isn't good for the environment, no matter how safe they try to make it they're still handling toxic chemicals. Despite what they might tell you, they can't just reach into the earth and pull these things out."
Point for: Obama

Hellboy

"I like Obama's All-of-the-Above plan. You gotta be prepared to use everything and do everything you can when you're faced with monstrous problems."
Point for: Obama

The Question

"There are always oil companies trying to cut as many corners as possible. BP is the norm, not the exception, and letting these companies go back to doing as they wanted will only result in more oil spills and countless damage."
Point for: Obama

Spider-Girl

"I'm the one "inheriting" the environment. You think I'm just going to let Romney's people muck up the place and leave me to live in it, let alone clean it up?"
Point for: Obama

Plastic Man

"As a being of living plastic, I can tell you plastic can last a really long time, over 3000 years if you're lucky like me! So I have to say we've got to clean up stuff like that or it will just pile up all over the place!"
Point for: Obama

Aunt May

"Clean air is absolutely wonderful, isn't it? It sounds like President Obama want to help make as much of it as possible."
Point for: Obama

Gran'ma Ben

"You just can't go dumping things anywhere you please. There are people and animals living everywhere, so you're going to be dumping things in somebody's living space, even if it ain't your own."
Point for: Obama

Mr. Incredible
"We can't just leave a trail of destruction behind us. We have to set a good example for the kids and keep moving technology forward."
Point for: Obama

Dr. Deseret

"We must be have a good stewardship of the Earth. If removing some resources from the land causes irreputable damages, I want no part of it."
Point for: Obama

Crimson Avenger

"Killing people with a slow death caused by pollution is still killing people. Cleaning things up is the only way to stop this, not letting them create more unfettered pollution."
Point for: Obama

Big Bertha

"Which one of you is going to lower my gas bill?"
Point for: Undecided

Linda Park-West

"Nothing Romney's suggesting will accomplish what he says it will."
Point for: Obama

The Savage Dragon
"Green jokes aside, having fought nuclear powered villains, I can safely say you have to treat that stuff very carefully. Trying "alternate" approaches to nuclear energy reactor designs just sounds dangerous to me."
Point for: Obama

Tigra

"As someone who enjoys her wilderness, I don't want to see it be destroyed for things that we could get a safer way."
Point for: Obama

Green Lantern

"I'm literally green energy. If I could hook myself up to the grid and help, I would."
Point for: Obama.

Luke Cage

"You ever heard of the Broken Window Theory? It's reasons like that that we need to keep things clean, not let companies do things with less concern for the environment."
Point for: Obama

Superman

"As someone with super smell who flies all over the world, I can tell you first hand that reducing carbon emissions really makes a difference, not just for me, but for the people that live there. I see through people all the time looking for villainous devices, I can tell how healthy the general population of a given area is."
Point for: Obama





Conclusion

Issue	Obama/Biden	Undecided	Romney/Ryan
Economy	19	1	0
Energy & Environment	19	1	0

And again it looks like most of the heroes are in favor of Obama's plan. Do you agree with that? If you think any of the heroes have been misrepresented, let me know in the comments!
So join us next Monday, when I try to answer the question, are Superheroes Liberal?
~James

Energy and the Environmental Plans

For this week's issue, we look at candidates' Energy and Environmental Plans, and since the VPs are in support of their running mate's policies, I've omitted their sections, which I'll do for future posts unless they have some significant contribution. Again, all information and videos are taken directly from the candidates' websites, either in part or in whole, unless otherwise noted, with minimal alteration to clarify and streamline information.

Barack Obama
Summarized from Obama's Website

•   President Obama has made protecting the environment a priority, moving America toward energy independence and cleaner air and water, all of which has helped create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the clean energy industry.
• President Obama has enacted the largest expansion of land and water conservation and protected wilderness in a generation in addition to creating the America's Great Outdoors initiative to develop a community-led conservation and recreation agenda for the 21st century
• President Obama is committed to putting an All-of-the-Above Energy Strategy in place to develop every available source of energy in America while ensuring  Americans never have to choose between protecting the environment and strengthening the economy.
• President Obama has announced the opening of public lands for investments in clean energy and has committed his administration to approve projects by the end of 2012 that will increase renewable generation capacity to power 3 million homes as well as have taken major steps to develop offshore wind resources, including the approving country's first ever offshore wind farm which will provide clean electricity to power more than 200,000 homes and taken steps to streamline future offshore wind projects. Obama's administration has also approved the construction of 16 commercial-scale solar facilities, five wind and eight geothermal projects on public lands that are expected to power a further 1.3 million homes and support 12,500 jobs.
• President Obama has made an agreement with auto manufacturers to improve the overall fuel economy of America's automobiles to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, almost double the 27.5 miles per gallon standard that was in place when Obama took office. The Obama administration's groundbreaking standards for cars and light trucks will save American families an average of $8,200 in gas costs per vehicle by 2025, and the standards will also cut vehicles' greenhouse gas pollution in half, reducing a major cause of climate change.
• President Obama has set a 10-year goal for America to develop and deploy cost-effective clean coal technology and to have several commercial demonstration projects running within four years. The Recovery Act invested substantially in carbon capture and sequestration research, including 22 projects across four different areas of carbon capture-and-storage research and development. Under President Obama, America has implemented numerous initiatives to improve miner health and safety, and 2011 saw the second-fewest miner deaths on record.
• Under President Obama's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency has issued the first-ever national standards for mercury emissions and other dangerous toxins  from coal- and oil-fired power plants. These new safeguards are helping to clear our skies, preventing 11,000 premature deaths, 4,700 heart attacks and 130,000 new cases of asthma each year.
• Obama's New Energy for America plan will help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future, save more oil than America currently import the Middle East and Venezulea combined within 10 years, put 1 million plug-in hybrid cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon on the road by 2015 that we will work to make sure are built in America, create a new $7,000 Tax Credit for purchasing Advanced Vehicles, ensure 25 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2025 and implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

Romney's Rebuttal (Summarized From Romney's Website)

• The most active regulation group in the federal government is the Environmental Protection Agency, with Obama's war on carbon dioxide, the most far-reaching environmental regulatory scheme in American history is the highest-profile effort by the EPA, who continue to issue new regulations touching on countless things that continue to drive up costs, hinder business investments and destroy jobs. In August 2011 Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal announced the results of an "unprecedentedly ambitious government-wide review" of regulations that if implemented would result in a total annual savings of approximately $2 billion, small compared to the over $9 billion in new regulatory costs proposed or implemented by the Obama administration.
• The first three years of the Obama administration have witnessed energy and environmental policies that have stifled the domestic energy sector. President Obama and the regulatory bodies under his control have taken measures to limit energy exploration and restrict development in sectors like oil and coal in ways that sap economic performance, curtail growth, and kill jobs. As the Obama administration wages war against oil and coal, it has been spending billions of dollars on alternative energy forms and touting its creation of “green” jobs. But these “green” technologies are typically far too expensive to compete in the marketplace since they generate little profit, which unsurprisingly has failed to create an economic boom.

 Mitt Romney
 Summarized from Romney's Website

• Romney will make efforts to safeguard the environment, but not at the cost of American jobs. The first step will be to stream line regulations to facilitate rapid progress in the development of our domestic reserves of oil and natural gas and allow for further investment in nuclear power. Other steps include creating one-stop shop to streamline permitting process for approval of common activities, implement fast-track procedures for companies with establish safety records to conduct pre-approved activities in pre-approved ares with minimal oversight, ensure environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process, edit the Clean Air Act to remove all oversight on carbon dioxide production, Expand NRC capabilities for the approval of alternate nuclear reactor designs and streamline the process to ensure that licensing decisions for reactors on or adjacent to approved sites, using newly approved designs, are complete within two years. 
• According to Romney, America has been blessed with a cornucopia of carbon-based energy resources, an development of them has been a pathway to prosperity in the past and should be in the future, so he'll conduct a comprehensive survey of America's energy reserves, start using America's energy reserves, expand opportunities for resource developers to forge partnerships with neighboring countries, support the construction and fast tracking of pipelines to bring Canadian oil to America, reduce regulation of shale gas development and extraction trough processes like hydraulic fracturing. The failure of windmills and solar plants to turn significant profits also requires the need to move alternative energy funding to basic research utilizing long term, apolitical  funding mechanisms like ARPA-E.

 Obama's Rebuttal (Summarized from Obama's Website)

• Romney's rhetoric that he wants to make America energy independent by 2020 doesn't match his actual policies, which would do nothing to help America achieve that goal. Romney is calling for more drilling and fracking with fewer safeguards. Romney wants to maintain the $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies for oil and gas companies that are making near-record profits, while eliminating a clean energy tax credit that supports tens of thousands of jobs. Romney's plan to "drill, baby, drill" while cutting critical investments in wind, solar and biofuels will do nothing to reduce America's dependence foreign oil and end thousands of jobs across the country. Romney has made it clear that he opposes the wind production tax credit and all incentives for clean energy, which would pull the rug out from under our growing clean energy sector, which supports thousands of jobs across the country.

Conclusion
In summary, Obama wants to back green technologies and reduce America's use of oil, while Romney wants to get as much business going as possible with as few restrictions as possible. Well, maybe this time we'll see a less one-sided result from the superheroes on Friday.
~James

What Ideologies Are Superheroes? - Socialism

Most superheroes go around risking life and limb to save people they don't know from immense dangers. But does that singular defining trait among all superheroes make them all fall into one singular ideology? You've no doubt heard political pundits say things like "Obama's a socialist" or "He's really more of a Libertarian", but do you know what those ideologies mean? Do they apply to superheroes? Are all Superheroes Socialists? Or Maybe Liberals? Or maybe there's no single answer. After all, there are heroes who have significant nationalist ideologies as part of their beliefs. So in this series of articles I'm going to look into an ideology, summarizing it, and commenting on whether or not it applies to the idea of superheroes and maybe some specific superheroes, if I find any that apply. The ideologies I'll be looking at over the next few weeks are: Socialism, Liberalism, Conservatism, Libertarianism, Utilitarianism, and Authoritarianism.
First up, are Superheroes Socialist? Why is Socialism first? Because that's the one that been coming up a lot lately, I'm sure it's the one people are asking the most about.

 What is Socialism?
 While Socialism has referred to different but similar ideologies over time, today it is predominately used to signify opposition to capitalism and the promotion of an alternate system based on social ownership and cooperative management of the means of production with the goal of restructuring or maintaining economic production toward producing goods and services directly for use (as appose to for profit, so the producers aren't looking to generate capital), along with the end of capitalist practices. In its most developed form it calls for the end of the use of a monetary system. Socialism may also focus on social ownership, where business are owned in cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises, as oppose to private or corporate ownership.
There are several varieties of socialism, and they generally differ in which type(s) of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely market socialism (where any generated profit is given directly to the employees or a public finance system) vs economic planning (where resources are allocated according to a set plan instead of sold), how management is organized with businesses, and the state's role in building and maintaining the socialist structure.
The economic system would have an organization that would direct production to satisfy economic demands and human needs, so goods and services would be produced for use, and accounting would be based on physical quantities or a direct measure of labor-time.
While socialism is a central part of communism, communism advocates the creation of a centrally planned economy directed by a single-party state that owns the means of production. Yugoslavian, Hungarian, East German and Chinese communist governments have instituted various forms of market socialism, combining co-operative and state ownership models with the free market exchange and free price system (but not free prices for the means of production).

Are Superheroes Socialist?
In short, no. Socialism is more focused on economic supply and money than saving people from immediate danger. While there are some socialist superheroes, they are predominately national superheroes from countries with heavy socialist commitments, like DC's The Great Ten, so socialism doesn't preclude superheroes, but superheroes are not by default socialists. If you know of any other socialist superheroes (or villains, or anything else for that matter), leave a comment!

Alright then, join us Wednesday when we start talking about Energy and the Environment!
~James

Superheroes and Economics

And now, for the first time, the superheroes shall comment on the election, and give a point for Obama, Romney or Undecided.

Batman

"Rules and Regulations exist for a reason. Give a bad guy an opening, an opportunity, and he'll take it as for everything he can. And I think the actions by certain individuals recently prove that there's always somebody willing to take everything he can."
Point for: Obama

Captain America

"I was born during the Great Depression, and I remember how we got out of it. Hard work from everyone, and Roosevelt's New Deal: Relief for the unemployed and poor; Recovery of the economy to normal levels; and Reform of the financial system to prevent a repeat depression. That's what we need again, and it sounds like that's what Obama wants to deliver."
Point for: Obama

Blue Beetle

"I can't believe Romney would do all that to the people of Massachusetts and think doing the same thing to all of America would help! What psycho-nutjob supervillain does that?"
Point for: Obama

Shadowcat
"Obama is pulling this country around, and Romney wants to reset everything to 2008? No thank you!"
Point for: Obama

Hellboy

"Don't ever expect somebody else to save the world for you. If you see something evil jump out in front of your team and eat somebody, you beat that evil down 'till it spits your friend out. I respect Obama for jumping in there and doing the hard work to beat down on something as big as this."
Point for: Obama

The Question

"There's no conspiracy here about who Romney's looking out for. He's almost tripping over himself about how much he wants to help corporations."
Point for: Obama

Spider-Girl

"My father once told me there's no way to get a good story, to do a good job, without embedding yourself in the dirt. It doesn't sound like Romney's willing to do that, while Obama already has."
Point for: Obama

Plastic Man

"Man, all this stuff is over my head. And considering how high my head can go, that's saying something!"
Point for: Undecided

Aunt May

"Mitt Romney's desire to drastically reduce social programs is worrying, and as someone who uses some programs and helps people who rely on others, I just can't stand for it."
Point for: Obama

Gran'ma Ben

"I ain't incline to trust a man who says we have to move backwards, not forwards."
Point for: Obama

Mr. Incredible
"Mr. Romney, are you saying we shouldn't help people? We're suppose to help people! Don't you believe in things like Help thy Neighbor?"
Point for: Obama

Dr. Deseret

"A major part of Mormon faith is helping the less fortunate. Cutting back on government programs goes against this teaching."
Point for: Obama

Crimson Avenger

"A person must be prepared to live with the consequences of their actions. From Romney's actions is Massachusetts, I don't think he really does."
Point for: Obama

Big Bertha

"No matter what happens, you should stick with the people that will stick with you. That's why I'm sticking with Obama, cause he's sticking with the people."
Point for: Obama

Linda Park-West

"As a reporter I have to remain impartial, but as a voter I'm concerned that Romney just wants to make it easier businesses to do whatever they want."
Point for: Obama

The Savage Dragon
"President Obama has been doing good work ever since he was elected to the Illinois Senate, so whatever he says we have to do to fix the economy, I'll help him however I can."
Point for: Obama

Tigra

"Sometimes doing the right thing means doing the hard thing. Romney just sounds like he wants to do the easy thing."
Point for: Obama

Green Lantern

"People are in trouble right now. We've got to help them anyway we can. Obama's got a plan for that. Romney, not so much."
Point for: Obama.

Luke Cage

"This ain't the time to be walking away from commitments. Brother has to support Brother, now more than ever."
Point for: Obama

Superman

"Walking away from the problems, saying you'll leave it to others to solve for themselves isn't leadership. It's running away. I can't support a man who says he would won't support others."
Point for: Obama





Conclusion

Issue	Obama/Biden	Undecided	Romney/Ryan
Economy	19	1	0

Well, it looks like most of the heroes are in favor of Obama's economic plan. Does everyone agree with that? If you think any of the heroes have been misrepresented, let me know in the comments!
So join us next Monday, when I try to answer the question, are Superheroes Socialists?
~James

The Economics Plans

And now it's time to get down to business. And we're starting with the big issue, the economy. So, let's start with the candidates' positions. All information and videos are taken directly from the candidates' websites, either in part or in whole, unless otherwise noted, with minimal alteration to clarify and streamline information.

Barack Obama
 Summarized from Obama's Website

• At the time Obama took office, the economy was losing more than 700,000 jobs per month. He quickly passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which cut taxes for small businesses and 95% of working families and included emergency funding to support about 300,000 educator jobs, over 4,600 law enforcement positions and investments in the clean energy sector that supported 224,500 jobs through 2010. Through May 2012 the economy has added 4.4 million private sector jobs over 28 consecutive months of job growth.
• Obama wants to grow high-technology US manufacturing capacity and supply clean energy projects with American-made parts and equipment, which is why he's provided tax incentives to and made investments in clean energy technologies like wind turbines and advanced car batteries
• Obama launched the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, a national effort to invest in technologies that will create high-quality manufacturing jobs and enhance America's global competitiveness.
• Obama signed the America Invents Act, historic patent reform legislation that will help American entrepreneurs bring inventions to market sooner, helping to create new businesses and new jobs by cutting wait times by two-thirds and help small business innovators move ideas from lab to market.
• Obama made the tough and politically unpopular decision to extend emergency rescue loans to the American auto industry, saving more than 1 million jobs and preventing the loss of over $96 billion in personal income - and the collapse of manufacturing in the Midwest. GM and Chrysler were required to cut labor costs and overhaul their business models in exchange for emergency loans, guaranteeing their accountability to taxpayers - and both repaid their outstanding loans years ahead of schedule. Today, Chrysler, GM and Ford are all profitable for the first time in years, adding shifts and facilities across the country. The industry has added 230,000 jobs since June 2009, and GM is once again the top-selling automaker in the world, posting it's largest-ever annual profit in 2011.
• Obama passed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to hold Wall  Street accountable, prevent future financial crises, and end the era of "too big to fail". Wall Street reform ensures that if a financial company fails, it will be Wall Street that pays the price and not the American people, and sets ground rules for the riskiest financial speculation. Obama also enacted a Credit Card Bill of Rights to Protect consumers from unfair and deceptive practices, like over-the-limit charges and hidden costs.

Romney's Rebuttal (Summarized From Romney's Website)

• President Obama has repeatedly called to cut spending and raising taxes. But before President Obama increased the size of the federal government by increasing things like regulation, our existing tax rates were more or less adequate to pay for the smaller government we had, while President Obama seeks to make his changes permanent, which would increase the tax burden for everyone. Obama's desire to foster long-term changes to the tax code is particularly troublesome. When President Obama complains about banks refusing to lend and businesses refusing to hire, he should consider the impact of his own policies on that state of affairs. No discussion of President Obama's tax policies would be complete without a reference to Obamacare and its $500 billion in tax increases. Whenever President Obama discusses the need for more tax revenues that Obamacare is reason as it proves to be a major shake up to the economy.
• The most active regulation group in the federal government is the Environmental Protection Agency, with Obama's war on carbon dioxide, the most far-reaching environmental regulatory scheme in American history is the highest-profile effort by the EPA, who continue to issue new regulations touching on countless things that continue to drive up costs, hinder business investments and destroy jobs. In August 2011 Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal announced the results of an "unprecedentedly ambitious government-wide review" of regulations that if implemented would result in a total annual savings of approximately $2 billion, small compared to the over $9 billion in new regulatory costs proposed or implemented by the Obama administration.
• President Obama has sat on the sidelines while America's major trading competitors have been moving forward. The European Union has successfully signed agreements with nine countries and pursued negotiations with sixteen others. China has signed agreements with four countries and pursued negotiations with fifteen others. In August 2011, a group of Asian nations, including many with whom President Obama has stalled progress on trade, announced their goal to create the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement, which would include China but not the United States. President Obama has also failed in commercial relations with China, which has adopted a deliberate policy of building up its own economy by misappropriating western technology, blocking access to its market and manipulating its currency. The Chinese government facilitates this behavior by forcing American companies to share proprietary technology as a condition of doing business in China. Instead of responding forcefully, the Obama administration has acted like a supplicant.
• The first three years of the Obama administration have witnessed energy and environmental policies that have stifled the domestic energy sector. President Obama and the regulatory bodies under his control have taken measures to limit energy exploration and restrict development in sectors like oil and coal in ways that sap economic performance, curtail growth, and kill jobs. As the Obama administration wages war against oil and coal, it has been spending billions of dollars on alternative energy forms and touting its creation of “green” jobs. But these “green” technologies are typically far too expensive to compete in the marketplace since they generate little profit, which unsurprisingly has failed to create an economic boom.
• President Obama's approach to human capital is to let government take the lead, with the government pouring money into retraining programs, $18 billion in 2009 for 47 programs administered by nine different federal agencies and while seven programs account for three-fourths of the spending, 44 of the programs all have some sort of overlap with one another. Only 5 programs have had their results thoroughly evaluated since 2004, and we know little about the effectiveness, and one of the 47 programs, the Workforce Investment Act Adult and Dislocated Workers program, produced only “small to nonexistent” results. This is the kind of government waste, political horse-trading, and administrative chaos that has brought discredit on the federal government. We cannot afford to squander taxpayer money in this way. President Obama’s job retraining record is a live, ongoing demonstration of why federal spending in so many areas needs to be scaled back. 
• Since President Obama assumed office federal spending has accelerated at an unprecedented pace compared to recent history, from $3.5 trillion in federal spending in 2010 to a possible $5.6 trillion in a decade. This is entirely based on Obama's choice. One way to gauge if a government is living within its means is spending as a percentage of GDP. Since the 1950s, federal spending as a percentage of GDP has averaged 20%. When President Obama took office, it shot up to 25%, a level not seen since World War II. President Obama's insistence on a "balanced approach", a combination of spending cuts and taxes increases, would create a baseline level of spending higher than when he took office. Obama wants to move America in the direction of more taxes and more spending at a time when both are smothering the economy.

Joe Biden
Biden is a vocal supporter of Obama's economic plan, and a key member in helping Obama build it, so much so that it is called The Obama-Biden Plan on Change.gov. (From this article by Steve Clemons for the Atlantic)

Mitt Romney
 Summarized from Romney's Website

• Romney seeks to reduce taxes, spending, regulation and government programs while increasing trade, energy production, human capital and labor flexibility. Romney wants to relinquish power to states instead of trying to come up with a solution to every problem.
• Romney is calling for fundamental changes to how the federal government believes economic growth and prosperity are achieved, how jobs are created, and the government's role in these endeavors. It is a deeply conservative policy and major departure from the policies of the current administration.
• Romney says he wants to change the tax code to focus on jobs and growth by bringing down marginal rates in an effort to stimulate entrepreneurship, job creation and investment while still raising enough revenue for a smaller, smarter, simpler government where less people have more power to bring about faster change for the things they want. The Principle of fairness must be preserved in federal tax and spending policy and not single out anyone no matter how much they earn.
• Romney believes America's individual tax code applies relatively high marginal tax rates on a narrow tax base, which discourage people from working and being entrepreneurial, as well as building savings and investments, and with 54% of private sector workers employed outside corporations, individual rates also define the incentives for job-creating businesses. Romney wants to implement lower marginal tax rates that he hopes will secure economic gains from tax reform for all Americans, make a 20% cut in marginal rates across the board, maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends and capital gains, eliminate taxes for taxpayers with Annual Gross Incomes below $200,000 on interest, dividends and capital gains, eliminate the Inheritance Tax and repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax.
• Romney says the US's 35% corporate tax rate, which is among the highest of such taxes in the industrial world, is reducing the ability of America's businesses to compete in the global economy and to invest and create jobs at home, which hurt US wages, so Romney intends to cut corporate taxes to 25%, strengthen and make permanent the Research & Experimentation Tax Credit, switch to a territorial tax system and repeal the corporate Alternative Minimum Tax.
• Romney believes that regulations are a hidden tax on Americans, with the Small Business Administration giving an estimate of the administration of America costing $1.75 trillion annually, and that this is because federal agencies can issue whatever regulations they desire, and that most operate with little to no presidential oversight, resulting in an economy subject to the whims bureaucrats pursuing their own agendas who cannot be held accountable. A new regulation can suddenly transform a profitable investment into an unprofitable one by raising safety standards or minimum wages, or render employees unproductive due to things like federally mandated safety seminars, all of which produces uncertainty.
• Romney will treat regulatory costs like other costs and will establish firm limits for them and will act quickly to tear down the vast edifice of regulations on the economy and also seek to make structural changes to the federal bureaucracy that ensure economic growth and maximizing revenue remains front and center when regulatory decisions are made. Romney will also repeal and eliminate many existing laws, including Obamacare, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act, the Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act, and all other Obama-era regulations. Romney will also ensure environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process and that companies will be given longer lead times to comply with any environmental regulations. Romney says that moving forward might sound like a great idea, but regulatory costs need to treated like the real costs they are, and that he'll impose a regulatory cap of zero dollars on all federal agencies, require congressional approval of all new "major" regulations and reform the legal liability system to prevent spurious litigation. 
• Romney believes that free trade is essential to restoring economic growth, and that there is a need to open new markets beyond American borders on terms that work for America. As such, Romney will reinstate the president's Trade Promotion Authority, complete negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, pursue new trade agreements with nations committed to free enterprise and open markets and create the "Reagan Economic Zone" which would codify the principles of free trade at the international level and provide a way to punish countries that violate free trade policies. Romney also sees China as a major player, and that his first priority must be to put on the table all unilateral actions within American power to ensure that the Chinese adhere to existing agreements, and that if America wants to see the Chinese play by the rules then Americans must be willing to say "no more" to China. Romney also wants to increase CBP resources to prevent the illegal entry of goods into our market, increase USTR resources to pursue and support litigation against unfair trade practices, use unilateral and multilateral punitive measures to deter unfair Chinese practices, designate China a currency manipulator and impose countervailing duties and discontinue US government procurement from China until China commits to GPA.
• Romney will make efforts to safeguard the environment, but not at the cost of American jobs. The first step will be to stream line regulations to facilitate rapid progress in the development of our domestic reserves of oil and natural gas and allow for further investment in nuclear power. Other steps include creating one-stop shop to streamline permitting process for approval of common activities, implement fast-track procedures for companies with establish safety records to conduct pre-approved activities in pre-approved ares with minimal oversight, ensure environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process, edit the Clean Air Act to remove all oversight on carbon dioxide production, Expand NRC capabilities for the approval of alternate nuclear reactor designs and streamline the process to ensure that licensing decisions for reactors on or adjacent to approved sites, using newly approved designs, are complete within two years. According to Romney, America has been blessed with a cornucopia of carbon-based energy resources, an development of them has been a pathway to prosperity in the past and should be in the future, so he'll conduct a comprehensive survey of America's energy reserves, start using America's energy reserves, expand opportunities for resource developers to forge partnerships with neighboring countries, support the construction and fast tracking of pipelines to bring Canadian oil to America, reduce regulation of shale gas development and extraction trough processes like hydraulic fracturing. The failure of windmills and solar plants to turn significant profits also requires the need to move alternative energy funding to basic research utilizing long term, apolitical  funding mechanisms like ARPA-E.
• Romney extensive experience in both business and government, has a keen understanding of labor relations. He recognizes, as he himself has written, that “[a]t their best, labor unions have always fought for the rights of workers, and generations of Americans have been better off for it.” But he also recognizes that the interests of union management can diverge from those of the very workers they purport to serve. Romney's first step to improving labor policy will be to ensure that labor laws create a stable and level playing field on which businesses can operate by doing things like removing government hand outs. As businesses hire, they should not have to worry that any federal agencies will rewrite laws without warning, and as such Romney will appoint experienced individuals with respect for the rule of law that he can personally vouch for to NLRB, amend NLRA to explicitly protect the right of business owners to do with their capital as they see fit without government intervention, and reverse all executive orders issued by President Obama that worked in favor of organized labor instead of business owners. But Romney believes in the right of workers to join a union or to not join a union, which means hearing from both the union about the potential benefits and from management about potential costs, and being able to act on that decision in the privacy of the ballot booth. Romney will amend NLRA to guarantee the secret ballot in every union certification election, amend NLRA to guarantee that all pre-election campaigns last at least one month to ensure both sides are able to organize themselves, and support states in pursuing Right-to-Work and other "pro-choice" laws. Currently unions can use their funds to pay for lobbyist, with each election cycle unions spend hundreds of millions of dollars. In non-Right-to-Work states individual workers have little choice in what their dues fund, even if they do not support the union and its political agenda, which might create an enormously powerful interest group whose influence and priorities differ from those of the businesses - and thus with the needs of the economy, and so Romney will stop Unions from using dues to fund political actions.
• Romney sees two important objectives that America can pursue immediately to build on its workforce. The first is retraining American workers to ensure that they have education and skills to match the jobs  of today's economy. The second is to attract the best and the brightest from around the world to work in America. Romney doesn't believe the government is well equipped to retrain workers, and so he will dismantle the federal network of retraining and call for private businesses to handle retraining through education centers and on the job training while encouraging states to pursue a system of Personal Reemployment Accounts for unemployed individuals, similar to the program Romney created in Massachusetts when he was governor. To ensure that America continues to lead the world in innovation and economic dynamism, a Romney administration would press for an immigration policy designed to maximize America’s economic potential. The United States needs to attract and retain "job creators" from wherever they come. While lawful immigrants comprise about 8 percent of the population, immigrants start 16 percent of our top-performing, high-technology companies, hold the position of CEO or lead engineer in 25 percent of high-tech firms, and produce over 25 percent of all patent applications filed from the United States. As such, Romney will raise visa caps for highly skilled workers and grant permanent residency to eligible graduates with advanced degrees in math, science and engineering.
• After three years of President Obama, many now question whether we can ever return to fiscal sanity, let alone fiscal strength. A point of no return may well be approaching — a decade of huge deficits could drive our principal payments and interest rates beyond our reach while starving the economy of the capital it needs to grow. Mitt Romney has spent his career executing turnarounds in the private sector, the Olympics, and state government. He will bring to Washington the turnaround philosophy it so badly needs with clear and realistic goals because optimistic projections cannot wish a problem away, they can only make it worse. Romney's goal will be to bring federal spending below 20% of GDP by the end of his first term, in line with the historical trend, close to the tax revenue generated by the economy when healthy, and require spending cuts of approximately $500 billion per year in 2016 assuming a robust economic recovery with 4% annual growth, the reversal of the Obama-era defense cut, return non-security discretionary spending to below 2008 levels with a Day One bill that cuts non-security discretionary spending by 5% across the board and pass the House Republican Budget proposal created by Paul Ryan, "The Path to Prosperity" that would roll back President Obama's government expansion. Romney will build a simpler, smaller, more single-minded, easier to control government by repealing Obamacare, selling Amtrak, reduce and remove subsidies for The National Endowment For The Arts And Humanities, The Corporation For Public Broadcasting, The Legal Service Corporations, Title X Family Planning Funding and reduce Foreign Aid in all forms. By implementing Block Grants states and organizations would have more autonomy to spend the money they receive from the federal government as they desire, which would promote, innovation is areas such as Medicaid and Worker Retraining. Romney also wants to improve government efficiency and effectiveness by creating stricter enforcement and harsher penalties for improper payments, reducing federal employee compensation by up to 40% to match the private sector, reduce the federal workforce by 10% using attrition to make many federal employees to the work of 2 people, repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, and consolidate agencies and streamline processes to cut cost and improve results in everything from energy permitting to worker retraining to trade negotiation.

Obama's Rebuttal (Summarized from Obama's Website)
Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts promising more jobs, less debt, and smaller government. Here’s what Massachusetts got instead:

• As the nation’s economy grew and the median income rose, under Romney, Massachusetts plummeted from 36^th to 47^th out of 50 states in job creation, and the median income declined.
• Romney increased taxes and fees by $750 million per year, primarily on hospitals, nursing homes, motor vehicles, buying a house, people with disabilities and marriage, which saw an average increase of $1,227 per person, while cutting taxes for the wealthy by over $75 million.
• Romney increased Massachusetts' debt by more than $2.6 billion, resulting in more debt per person than any other state, and attempted to hide a $1 billion deficit, all of which resulted in the state's debt liability increasing every year Romney was in power.
• Romney outsourced state jobs overseas, calling companies who did so "pioneers". Romney advocate eliminating all taxes on companies' foreign profits, which would encourage companies to send jobs overseas. Romney has vetoed bills that would ban state contractors from outsourcing state work overseas, and has outsource jobs in child support enforcement, food stamps, and unemployment insurance overseas.
• In the Manufacturing sector, jobs declined at twice the national rate and was the third worst overall in the country, loosing more than 40,000 manufacturing jobs. Massachusetts' economic growth trailed the rest of the country every year Romney was governor, all while Romney vetoed more than $100 million in funding for economic development projects and the promotion of manufacturing. When Romney took office the unemployment rate in Massachusetts had been below the national average for almost a decade, but by the time he left unemployment was higher than the national average for the first time since 1995.

Paul Ryan
Paul Ryan played a key role in creating and promoting the "Path to Prosperity" republican budget proposal, and the majority of Romney's economic plan is taken directly from the proposal. (From this article by Steve Clemons for the Atlantic) Democratic opponents say that some of the items in Ryan's austere budget plan that Romney has declined to elaborate on that include items that would carve into social programs that protect the poor, such as food stamps and Medicaid health insurance, is uncompromisingly cruel and based on an ideology of tax cuts and reduced regulation that, under former President George W. Bush, caused America's current economic woes. (From this article by Nick Carey for Reuters)


Conclusion
Okay, so it looks like the Presidential and VP candidates for both parties are together on the economy, divide will purely be down party lines. From the looks of things, Obama wants to keep the government focused on creating jobs, keep Wall Street from being able to manipulate the markets to make themselves rich off the backs of other and keep Americans goal oriented, While Romney wants to reduce taxes, spending, regulations, oversight and general government involvement in addition to repealing just about every bill passed under the Obama administration to set government policy back to pre-2008 statue. Given the stark difference between the two plans I don't see any fence sitting on this issue, so tune in this Friday to see the superheroes responses.
~James

Barack Obama's Superpower Choices

Hey Everybody!
Just an interesting bit of news, Barack Obama recently did an interview where he was asked what superpower he'd want if he could choose. For the whole story, check out this post from io9. Here's hoping the other candidates get asked that question as well.
~James

And the American Super Team is...

And here it is, after much finagling and tweaking, the superhero team that I believe would be an accurate reflection of America is complete. Before starting, I'd like to give a shout out to Adherents.com and ComicBookReligion.com for their detailed list of comic characters and their religions, which helped make this a fair bit easier, given how ambiguous religion is/was treated in the comic book industry. Adherent.com in particular has some very detailed articles on various heroes', villains' and even creators' denominations, so give it a check. 

So with no further delay, in no particular order, here is the team! Warning! Some Spoilers Ahead!

 

Batman

Real name: Bruce Wayne
First Appearance: Detective Comics #27 (1939)

Occupation: Businessman/Philanthropist/Vigilante
Religion: Episcopalian / Catholic (lapsed)

Operates in: Gotham City

Bio: When Bruce was a little boy, we witnessed his parent's murder at the hands of a mugger, so he swears an oath to rid the city of evil. Using his family's fortune, he begins rigorous training to be in peak form and wears a bat-themed costume to strike fear into the heart of evil. He now protects Gotham City as Batman, maintaining his public identity as the head of Wayne Industries.

Reason for inclusion: The first reason for Batman's inclusion is because, as I mentioned earlier, this whole blog was inspired by an article on how Batman would respond to Occupy Wall Street, so to do this without him seems a little unjust. In addition to that, Batman, or rather Bruce Wayne, fulfills the Upper Class requirements. Plus Batman makes any list he's on at least twice as awesome. ;)

Captain America

Real name: Steve Rogers
First Appearance: Captain America Comics #1 (1941)

Occupation: Soldier
Religion: Protestant

Operates in: All over the place

Bio: Born in 1922, Steve Rogers attempts to enlist during the onset of WWII, but is rejected because of his scrawny physique. His resolution to serve however gets him noticed by a General who convinces him to be a test subject for a new Super Solider Serum, which turns Rogers into the planed Super Solider. Rogers is given a patriotic uniform, including the shield, the codename Captain America, and is sent on mission fighting Nazis. One mission near the end of war sees Rogers plunged into the North Atlantic as he brings down a Nazi Missile, only to be found decades later preserved in a block of ice. Re-awoken, he rejoins the fight against evil, where his strength and leadership have made him one of the most respected heroes of the Marvel Universe.

Reason for inclusion: Steve Rodgers fulfills one of the two military background positions needed, and his later commitment to making the Captain America identity a symbol of American Ideals and not the American Government after the Watergate scandal and the conflicts that arise from this make him an interesting figure in the context of this experiment.

Blue Beetle

Real name: Jaime Reyes
First Appearance: Infinite Crisis #3 (2006)

Occupation: Student
Religion: Catholic

Operates in: El Paso, Texas

Bio: A fairly average teen who one day finds a Blue Beetle scarab that had crashed to Earth. The scarab fuses to Jaime's spine and gives him an advanced exoskeleton and the ability to fly, among other powers.

Reason for inclusion: He fulfills one of the three Hispanic positions, which given the number of Hispanics in the country, there are surprisingly few Hispanic superheroes. He also fulfills the position of Texan, and he's a pretty cool character to whom my description does not do justice.

Shadowcat

Real name: Katherine Anne "Kitty" Pride
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #129 (1980)

Occupation: Teacher
Religion: Jewish

Operates in: Westchester County, New York

Bio: A mutant who developed the ability to "phase" through solid objects, she joined the X-Men as it's then youngest member but has since aged and matured through her adventures, and has become one of the teachers for the next generation of mutants.

Reason for inclusion: Kitty fulfills the sole Jewish position. There aren't very many very prominent Jewish superheroes (although there are loads more than Latter Day Saints, probably because Marvel and DC are headquartered in New York, but I'll talk about that later), so I though it best to go with one of the more prominent, kick-ass ones, who also happened to be one first superheroes to openly identify with an actual religion.

Hellboy

Real name: Anung un Rama
First Appearance: San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 (1993)

Occupation: Paranormal Investigator
Religion: Catholic

Operates in: Around the world

Bio: Accidentally summoned from Hell as an infant by Nazi occultists in 1944, he was quickly discovered by Allied Forces, among them Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who adopted Hellboy and later formed the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense with the assistance of various governments from around the world. As Hellboy grew up he became one of the most valuable members of the BPRD in their fight against dark forces.

Reason for inclusion: Hellboy fulfills one of the immigrate positions, and the single Over 65 Male (he's pushing 70 in canon and still kicking ass) and single Other/Misc race positions, because I didn't want to show favoritism to any race, and having Hellboy down under "Other" makes me laugh. Not to mention the awesome factor. If you haven't, go watch the Hellboy movies, then read the comics.

The Question

Real name: Renee Montoya
First Appearance: Batman #475 (1992)

Occupation: Former Police Detective
Religion: Catholic; LGBT

Location: The Outer Banks of North Carolina

Bio: A police detective for the Major Crimes Unit of Gotham City, Renee Montoya had frequent encounters with supers, especially Batman. After being outed as a lesbian, she later resigns from the police force, disgusted by its corruption and encounters the original Question. He agrees to train her, and after his death she takes up the mantle of The Question.

Reason for addition: Montoya fulfills the single LGBT position. There might be more famous LGBT superheroes (Northstar comes to mind, but he's Canadian, or Montoya's former girlfriend Batwoman), but few have had to travel the path Montoya has because of it.

Spider-Girl

Real name: Anya Sofia Corazon
First Appearance: Amazing Fantasy v2 #1 (2004)

Occupation: Student
Religion: Unknown

Operates in: New York, New York

Bio: On her first day of high school Anya encounters a mage from the mystical Spider Society, who offers her superpowers in exchange for working as their Hunter. She accepts and gains an organic blue exoskeleton that gives her superpowers and operates under the codename Araña. After several adventures, she loses the exoskeleton and her powers when it is ripped from her by a supervillian. However she continues to remain active in superheroics, and is later given a copy of Spider-Man's powers after taking the moniker of Spider-Girl.

Reason for inclusion: Anya fulfills the second of three Hispanic positions and one of the two New York positions.

Plastic Man

Real name: Patrick "Eel" O'Brian
First Appearance: Police Comics #1 (1941)

Occupation: Former Crook
Religion: Christian (d.u.)

Operates in: Capital City

Bio: Patrick "Eel" O'Brian was a career criminal, specializing in safecracking, until one break in at a chemical plant when the gang was surprised by a night watchman. During the escape Eel was shot in the shoulder and doused with an unknown chemical, only to be left behind by the rest of his crew and left to fend for himself. Suffering from increasing disorientation as he flees, Eel eventually passes out in the foothills, only to awaken and find himself being tended to by a monk in a monastery, who believes O'Brien has the capacity for great good and turns away police looking for him. This act of faith and kindness fans O'Brien's longstanding dissatisfaction with his criminal life and his desire to reform. During his recovery he discovers his body has become like rubber, and begins using his abilities to fight for law and order.

Reason for inclusion: Plastic Man fulfills the former/reformed criminal position

Aunt May

Real name: May Reilly Parker-Jameson
First Appearance: Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962)

Occupation: Housewife/Volunteer
Religion: Protestant

Operates in: New York/Boston

Bio: After the death of her brother-in-law and his wife, May and her husband Ben adopt their young son Peter and raise him in their home in Queens. Years later, when Peter was in his teens, Ben was killed by a thief in a home robbery. Peter tries to help out as best he can, and eventually becomes a freelance photographer specializing in photos of Spider-Man. May later begins doing volunteer work at a homeless shelter, where she meets meets business man John Jonah Jameson Sr. The two begin a relationship and eventually wed, moving to Boston to get away from all the superhero chaos in New York.

Reason for inclusion: With the need to fill two positions for elderly women and few recognizable candidates, Aunt May instantly comes to mind. Given that she can keep the likes of Wolverine in line, I don't think anyone can argue her abilities.

Gran'ma Ben

Real name: Rose "Gran'ma" Ben (formerly Harvester)
First Appearance:  Bone #3 (1991)

Occupation: Farmer, Village Elder, Former Queen
Religion: Unknown

Operates in: Barrelhaven, The Valley

Bio: A tough-as-nails farmer who races against cows on foot as a hobby, and always wins. An immensely strong person, both physically and mentally, it is revealed that she is the former Queen of Atheia who escaped to Barrelhaven with Lucius Down in order to protect and safeguard her granddaughter Thorn.

Reason for inclusion: Remember what I said above about Aunt May? Yeah, with such a limited selection, I kinda had to cheat with a character that isn't an American citizen. But if you've read Bone, you'd probably agree with my decision. And if you haven't read Bone, what are you waiting for? Go do it now! Also she covers the Farmers and Governmental positions.

Mr. Incredible

Real name: Robert "Bob" Parr
First Appearance: The Incredibles (2004)

Occupation: Professional Superhero

Religion: Episcopalian

Operates in: Metroville

Bio: A professional superhero who was forced into retirement after a wave of personal injury lawsuits by the public against numerous supers. Years later, Bob receives a mysterious package asking if he want to return to being a superhero, a chance Bob jumps at, despite his years out of the games.

Reason for inclusion: Bob fulfills one of the overweight positions. There should be more overweight heroes on the list, but most of the existing ones are middle aged white guys, and there's a limit to how many of them we can have, so I went with probably one of the more recognizable ones.

Dr. Deseret

Real name: Dr. Denholm
First Appearance: Captain Confederacy v2 #2 (1991)

Occupation: Doctor
Religion: Latter-day Saint

Operates in: The Country of Deseret

Bio: In a world where the Confederacy won their independence, preventing manifest destiny from coming to pass and resulting in a collection of loosely associated countries instead of the United States of America as we know it today. In the country of Deseret, founded by Latter-day Saint and where present day Utah and Nevada are, Dr. Deseret is the nationally appointed super-hero.

Reason for inclusion: Dr. Deseret fulfills the position of Mormon. There are very, very few confirmed Mormon superheroes, all of them rather obscure and not in anything I've read, so I decided to go with one who, having been appointed as the national hero of a LDS country, would probably follow closely with major LDS mentality related to various topics. So she'll basically be standing in for the Mormon population as a whole.

Crimson Avenger

Real name: Jill Carlyle
First Appearance: Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. #9 (2000)

Occupation: Former Lawyer
Religion: Unknown

Operates in: All over America

Bio: Jill Carlyle was a lawyer, until she lost a case where the defendant was clearly guilty. She obtained a pair of Colt pistols that belonged to the first Crimson Avenger, and uses them to exact vengeance on the criminal. Carlyle then discovers that the guns are cursed, that if somebody uses them for revenge they will cursed to track down and kill those who have taken innocent life. She is marked by this curse with an ever-bleeding bullet hole in her chest, and must relive the death of her "assignments" before gaining their skills and memories.

Reason for inclusion: Carlyle fulfills one of the two African descendant positions, and I wanted someone interesting with a Upper Middle class background to fill the position, so I choose her.

Big Bertha

Real name: Ashley Crawford
First Appearance: West Coast Avengers v2 #46 (1989)

Occupation: Fashion model
Religion: Unknown

Operates in: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Bio: Ashley Crawford is a mutant with the ability to make herself super strong and durable by becoming extraordinarily obese. She responded to an ad to form a superhero team and eventually joined the Great Lake Avengers.

Reason for inclusion: Ashley fulfills another of the overweight positions, being a rare overweight female, although it is kind of a cheat since it's part of her power and she can expel the excess fat at any time.

Linda Park-West

Real name: Linda Park-West
First Appearance: Flash v2 #28

Occupation: Reporter
Religion: Unknown

Operates in:Keystone City

Bio: Linda Park is a reporter who regularly dealt with the Flash. After being helped deal with being possessed by an 800-year-old bard by Wally West, the two began dating and eventually married after he revealed his identity as the Flash. Linda later became pregnant with twins, giving birth to a girl and a boy, Iris and Jai. She has since returned to journalism.

Reason for inclusion: Linda fulfills the Asian decent position, being a Korean-American. I also wanted to include another parent to the list (there are only 8 on the list by my count, 9 if you include Aunt May) and another Badass Normal (of which there are 4 not counting Batman) to add a little balance to the supers.

The Savage Dragon

Real name: Kurr
First Appearance:  Graphic Fantasy #1 (1982)

Occupation: Police Officer/Special Operations Striceforce
Religion: Atheist

Operates in: Chicago, Illinois

Bio: The Dragon was found in a burning field by Lt. Frank Darling of the Chicago PD. Chicago was under assault by villainous "superfreaks", and Darling asks the amnesiac Dragon to join the police. Dragon at first refuses, but after witnessing how brutal the superfreaks are he changes his mind and become one of the most valuable assets to the police.

Reason for inclusion: The Savage Dragon fulfills both the Atheist positions (even once declared himself as such right to God's face no less) and the Chicago position. Plus he's the longest running comic to be written and drawn by the same person, his creator Erik Larsen.

Tigra

Real name: Greer Grant Nelson
First Appearance: Claws of the Cat #1 (1972)

Occupation: Professional Superhero
Religion: Mystically empowered

Operates in: All over America

Bio: Greer Grant was a sophomore at the University of Chicago who dropped out to marry her policeman boyfriend. However, after her husband was killed on the job, she had to take a job as an assistant to a former professor, Dr. Tumulo, who was working on an experimental treatment to make people physically enhanced to peak performance. Not trusting the project's financial backer, Greer convinces the professor to preform the experiment on her, where she gains superhuman physical and mental capabilities. After the backer has the lab destroyed Greer sets out to expose the backer, but he commits suicide rather than be apprehended. Greer takes the codename The Cat and begins a career as a superhero, later encountering a community of advanced sorcerer scientist cat people who had been hiding in society, which includes Tumulo, and after being mortally injured Tumulo summons a gathering of Cat people and offer her a chance to survive, for the Cat people to transform her into their legendary warrior Tigra. She accepts, and becomes a super-powered human-animal hybrid. She has since effectively abandoned her previous life as Greer Grant, and has since had many adventures with numerous heroes, later becoming one of the more frequent members of the Avengers.

Reason for inclusion: Tigra fulfills the Other Religion position, since like the Other Race, I wanted one that was ambiguous.

Green Lantern

Real name: Kyle Rayner

First Appearance: Green Lantern v3 (1994)

Occupation: Graphic Artist
Religion: Catholic (lapsed)

Operates in: All over the Universe

Bio: Kyle Rayner was a struggling-but-gifted freelance graphic artist who lived and worked in Los Angeles. After the Green Lantern Hal Jordan, grief-stricken over the destruction of his home town of Coast City, went on a mad rampage killing various members of the Green Lantern Corps and their overseers, the Guardians of the Universe, Rayner was found by the last surviving Guardian, Ganthet. Ganthet gave Kyle the last working Green Lantern power ring that would allow him to conjure any form of matter or energy through sheer force of will.

Reason for inclusion: Kyle Rayner fulfills the last Hispanic position.

Luke Cage

Real name: Lucas Cage (born Carl Lucas)
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1 (1972)

Occupation: Private Detective
Religion: Christian (d.u.)

Operates in: New York

Bio: As a youth Carl Lucas was regularly involved with organized crime, but tried to distance himself after seeing the damage his actions were causing. However, he was framed for possession of cocaine by a criminal friend of his who mistakenly believed Lucas had been responsible for relationship falling apart. Lucas is taken to prison, where he is forced to volunteer for an experiment that would hopefully grant a human immunity to all afflictions, but a sadistic guard tampers with the experiment hoping to kill Lucas. Lucas instead gains superhuman strength and bullet proof skin, and uses the opportunity to escape. He decides to use his new powers for profit, assumes the name Luke Cage and founds the Heroes for Hire Detective Agency, helping anyone who can meet his price. But after several encounters with various heroes and villains, especially the hero Iron Fist who would become a close friend, Cage's demeanor softens and he becomes a superhero in his own right and is eventually cleared of any charges as Carl Lucas, after which he legally changes his name to Lucas Cage.

Reason for inclusion: Luke Cage fulfills the remaining African decent position.

Superman

Real name: Clark Kent/Kal-El
First Appearance:  Action Comics #1 (1938)

Occupation: Reporter
Religion: Methodist / Kryptonian religion

Operates in: Metropolis

Bio: Born Kal-El on the planet Krypton, before being rocketed to Earth as an infant by his scientist father Jor-El, moments before Krypton's destruction. Discovered and adopted by a Kansas farmer and his wife, Jonathan and Martha Kent, the child is raised as Clark Kent and imbued with a strong moral compass. Very early he started to display superhuman abilities, which upon reaching maturity he resolved to use for the benefit of humanity.

Reason for inclusion: Could I really do this without including possibly the biggest American icon in comics? His humble upbringing, strong moral code and his influence on the culture of not just America, but the world make him an such an important player in this discussion.



Okay, so that's the 20 heroes that represent America. That took a bit longer to work out than I had planned, and it's not perfect (4 more of the characters should be overweight), but I'm content that it's close enough with enough of a mix of famous and lesser heroes and of Marvel, DC and other publishers. So with all that in mind, I think for future posts I'll divide them into two parts: the Candidates' positions, which I'll post on Wednesdays, and the Supers' positions, which I'll post of the following Friday, which should give all of you the opportunity to comment, discuss and debate. And if you have any comment on the list, pro, con or other wise, post them! So, next Wednesday I will have a post up on the Candidates' positions on the Economy, followed by the supers positions on the positions up on Friday, so tune in for that!

~James