North Carolina GOP Leads Attack on Wind Power and Other Renewable Energies

Wind turbines going up in North Carolina mountains

Editorial, NewsObserver.com /NC

April 12, 2014 - Duke Energy’s troubles with coal ash illustrate the hazards of burning fossil fuels and disposing of the byproducts. But another hazard lies in efforts to snuff out a trend that’s decreasing North Carolina’s dependence on fossil fuels: the state’s rising production of renewable energy.

That trend has been fed by a state law requiring utilities – which now effectively means Duke Energy – to get a portion of their electric power from renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and livestock waste methane. The Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards law (commonly known as Senate Bill 3) requires that renewable energy sources account for 3 percent of a utility’s sales this year with the standards rising to 12.5 percent of total retail sales by 2021.

The requirement creates a market for renewable energy sources and has accounted for a boom in the solar energy industry in North Carolina. But building one market takes from another, and the fossil fuel industry is mounting an effort to reduce or repeal the standards.

In North Carolina, that effort has been led by state Rep. Mike Hager of Rutherford, a former Duke Energy employee and the Republican majority whip. His push is supported by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, which is backing similar rollback legislation around the nation, and Americans For Prosperity, the super PAC funded by the Koch brothers, who operate oil refineries and own some 4,000 miles of oil pipelines.

Hager opposes the requirement that utilities purchase power from renewable sources on the grounds that it’s a subsidy. But as the renewable energy industry grows, it requires less support. And to keep it growing, investors must be assured that there will be a stable market.

Hager’s attempts to limit or repeal the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards were defeated last session. He won’t be taking aim at renewable standards when the next session opens in May. “There are other more pressing issues that are more important to the economy,” he says.

Many conservatives oppose renewable energy standards because they think they inflate the cost of energy. Hager says he’s open to including renewable energy in the state’s energy plans if the alternative sources can contribute to savings. “I’m not anti-renewable,” he says. “The vision is to reduce utility costs in North Carolina.”

R. Bruce Thompson, of the Raleigh law firm Parker Poe, is representing the American Wind Energy Association and monitoring threats to the renewable energy standards. “The thing that worries us is when you see groups like Americans For Prosperity continue to hammer (on the law),” he says.

In 2007 North Carolina became the first state in the the Southeast to adopt renewable energy standards. The law has produced positive results not only in cleaner, safer energy, but also in generating jobs and tax revenue. The Research Triangle Institute estimates that North Carolina’s clean energy and energy-efficiency programs spurred $1.4 billion in project investment statewide between 2007 and 2012.

The state’s solar energy industry is the most dramatic example of renewable energy’s growth. North Carolina was second in the nation behind California for solar-power capacity added in 2013. But wind energy may be the best example of how the law is diversifying energy production and stimulating North Carolina’s economy by tapping a limitless resource.

The wind power on the state’s coast is considered one of the best “wind resources” in the East. It is attracting investment to the economically depressed counties of northeastern North Carolina and some mountain counties. The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy says proposed wind farms represent more than $1 billion in investment in North Carolina. In some counties, wind farms are already the largest taxpayers.

As advances in technology drive down the cost of wind power, it could expand here rapidly as it has in other states. In nine states, wind power meets more than 12 percent of the energy needs. The further growth of renewable energy here requires that the legislature stay the course. Lawmakers should stand behind the renewable energy standards that are producing alternatives to the pollution caused by burning fossil fuels.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/04/12/3776836/nc-must-continue-its-support-for.html#storylink=cpy

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Five Ways to Bridge the Jobs vs. Environment Gap

By Jeremy Brecher

Progressive America Rising via Common Dreams

April 29, 2013 - It happens over and over again. A company proposes some big project, environmentalists oppose it, but unions say it will create jobs. Or a government agency proposes new regulations, environmentalists say it will halt pollution, but unions say it will destroy jobs. The result is billed as a conflict of “jobs vs. the environment.” The Keystone XL Pipeline, the “beyond coal” campaign, the fracking battle, and EPA regulation of greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act have all been treated as examples of that story. For those who want to overcome this division – to tell a different story -- here are five levels at which it can be challenged:

1. Recognize the common interest in human survival and in sustainable livelihoods. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, if God had intended some people to fight just for the environment for the economy and others to fight just for the economy, he would have made some people who could live without money and others who could live without water and air. There are not two groups of people, environmentalists and workers. We all need a livelihood and we all need a livable planet to live on. If we don’t address both, we’ll starve together while we’re waiting to fry together.

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‘Fracking’: Myth Meets Realties

 

A natural gas rig side by side with homes in Washington County, PA | B. Mark Schmerling

Fractured Lives

Detritus of Pennsylvania's Shale Gas Boom

By Edward Humes

Progressive America Rising via Sierra Club

The supple hills of southwestern Pennsylvania, once known for their grassy woodlands, red barns, and one-stoplight villages, bristle with new landmarks these days: drilling rigs, dark green condensate tanks, fields of iron conduits lumped with hissing valves, and long, flat rectangles carved into hilltops like overgrown swimming pools, brimming with umber wastewater.

Tall metal methane flaring stacks periodically fill the night with fiery glares and jet engine roars. Roadbeds of crushed rock, guarded by No Trespassing signs, lie like fresh sutures across hayfields, deer trails, and backyards, admitting fleets of tanker trucks to the wellheads of America's latest energy revolution.

 
This is the new face of Washington County, the leading edge of the nation's breakneck shale gas boom. Natural gas boosters, President Barack Obama among them, have lauded it as a must-have, 100-year supply of clean, cheap energy that we cannot afford to pass up. However, recent data suggest that supplies of shale gas may last for only 11 years and that the extreme measures needed to recover it may make it a dirtier fuel than coal. But that hasn't slowed the dramatic transformation of gas-rich regions from rural Pennsylvania to urban Fort Worth, Texas.

Driving this juggernaut is the amalgam of industrial technologies collectively known as "hydraulic fracturing," or "fracking," which releases the gases (the main component of which is methane) hidden deep within layers of ancient, splintery shale. With five major shale "plays" concentrated in eight states, and more under development, America has been transformed from a net importer of natural gas into a potential exporter.

Perched atop the 7,000-foot-deep Marcellus Shale formation, which undergirds most of Appalachia, Washington County not only boasts enormous reserves of methane but also leads the state in producing far more frack-worthy "wet gas" products: propane, butane, ethane, and other valuable chemicals that can mean the difference between a money pit and a money gusher. Although central Pennsylvania has more wells, this wet gas makes Washington County, in industry parlance, a "honeypot."

The lure of million-dollar payouts has led many farmers, homeowners, school boards, and town commissions to lease out their subterranean energy wealth. Royalty payments on leases so far have topped half a billion dollars statewide--money that, for some, is literally saving the farm.

"An unprecedented economic impact," Matt Pitzarella has called it. He's spokesman for the leading driller in this part of the state, Texas-based Range Resources, which in 2004 fracked the first successful Marcellus Shale wells--at the time a shot in the dark and now believed to be tapping the second-largest natural gas field in the world. Pitzarella ticks off stories of poor families who hit the gas-lease lottery and are now able to afford college tuition, new cars, and home makeovers.

But unlocking half-billion-year-old hydrocarbon deposits carries a price, and not everyone shares in the bonanza. For every new shale well, 4 million to 8 million gallons of water, laced with potentially poisonous chemicals, are pumped into the ground under explosive pressure--a violent geological assault. And once unleashed, the gas requires a vast industrial architecture to be processed and moved from the wells to the world. Imagine the pipes, compressors, ponds, pits, refineries, and meters each shale well in Pennsylvania demands, planted next to horse farms, cornfields, houses, and schools. Then multiply by 5,000.

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The Clean and Green Jobs Solution

North Carolina Sees New Jobs,

Rapid Growth in Renewable Energy 

 

By Stirling Little 
 Progressive America Rising via The Daily Tar Heel 

Renewable energy has emerged as a growing industry in the state, according to a recent report by the N.C. Sustainable Energy Association.

The report identified more than 1,800 renewable energy projects in the state this year.

About 1,100 firms were involved with renewable energy activities in 2010, according to the association.

Erik Lensch, president of Argand Energy Solutions, a solar energy company based in Charlotte, said his company has been a part of the industry’s recent expansion.

“We have doubled (in size) every year since 2008,” he said. “We just kicked off a $3 million project this week, our largest ever.”

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We Need a Green Industrial Complex, Not Military

Solar Peace, or Blood for Oil:

The Need to Broaden the Peace Movement

An Opening in Obama's SOTU Speech

By Tom Hayden
Beaver County Peace Links via TomHayden.com

Jan.27, 2011 - In his State of the Union address, President Obama opened a door through which the peace, labor and environmental movements should march, towards an energy future not dependent on resource wars.

This is our generation’s “Sputnik moment,” adding, “our Apollo project.”

Obama called for one million electric cars on the road in four years, eighty percent of our energy needs met by clean energy in two decades, high-speed rail by 2035 and, starting immediately, 100,000 math and science teachers.

“To help pay for it,” the president added, “I’m asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies.”

There’s a fight that should be fought, a fight in which progressives can only gain ground.

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Green Energy-Manufacturing Policy Dept: 10 Things to Know about BP Spill

10 Things You Need

(But Don't Want) To Know

About the BP Oil Spill

 

By Daniela Perdomo

AlterNet, May 30, 2010

http://www.alternet.org/story/147014/

It's been 37 days since BP's offshore oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Since then, crude oil has been hemorrhaging into ocean waters and wreaking unknown havoc on our ecosystem -- unknown because there is no accurate estimate of how many barrels of oil are contaminating the Gulf.

Though BP officially admits to only a few thousand barrels spilled each day, expert estimates peg the damage at 60,000 barrels or over 2.5 million gallons daily. (Perhaps we'd know more if BP hadn't barred independent engineers from inspecting the breach.) Measures to quell the gusher have proved lackluster at best, and unlike the country's last big oil spill -- Exxon-Valdez in 1989 -- the oil is coming from the ground, not a tanker, so we have no idea how much more oil could continue to pollute the Gulf's waters.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster reminds us what can happen -- and will continue to happen -- when corporate malfeasance and neglect meet governmental regulatory failure.

The corporate media is tracking the disaster with front-page articles and nightly news headlines every day (if it bleeds, or spills, it leads!), but the under-reported aspects to this nightmarish tale paint the most chilling picture of the actors and actions behind the catastrophe. In no particular order, here are 10 things about the BP spill you may not know and may not want to know -- but you should.

1. Oil rig owner has made $270 million off the oil leak
Transocean Ltd., the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP, has been flying under the radar in the mainstream blame game. The world's largest offshore drilling contractor, the company is conveniently headquartered in corporate-friendly Switzerland, and it's no stranger to oil disasters. In 1979, an oil well it was drilling in the very same Gulf of Mexico ignited, sending the drill platform into the sea and causing one of the largest oil spills by the time it was capped... nine months later.
This experience undoubtedly influenced Transocean's decision to insure the Deepwater Horizon rig for about twice what it was worth. In a conference call to analysts earlier this month, Transocean reported making a $270 million profit from insurance payouts after the disaster. It's not hard to bet on failure when you know it's somewhat assured.

2. BP has a terrible safety record
BP has a long record of oil-related disasters in the United States. In 2005, BP's Texas City refinery exploded, killing 15 workers and injuring another 170. The next year, one of its Alaska pipelines leaked 200,000 gallons of crude oil. According to Public Citizen, BP has paid $550 million in fines. BP seems to particularly enjoy violating the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, and has paid the two largest fines in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's history. (Is it any surprise that BP played a central, though greatly under-reported, role in the failure to contain the Exxon-Valdez spill years earlier?)

With Deepwater Horizon, BP didn't break its dismal trend. In addition to choosing a cheaper -- and less safe -- casing to outfit the well that eventually burst, the company chose not to equip Deepwater Horizon with an acoustic trigger, a last-resort option that could have shut down the well even if it was damaged badly, and which is required in most developed countries that allow offshore drilling. In fact, BP employs these devices in its rigs located near England, but because the United States recommends rather than requires them, BP had no incentive to buy one -- even though they only cost $500,000.

SeizeBP.org estimates that BP makes $500,000 in under eight minutes.

3. Oil spills are just a cost of doing business for BP
According to the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, approximately $1.6 billion in annual economic activity and services are at risk as a result of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Compare this number -- which doesn't include the immeasurable environmental damages -- to the current cap on BP's liability for economic damages like lost wages and tourist dollars, which is $75 million. And compare that further to the first-quarter profits BP posted just one week after the explosion: $6 billion.

BP's chief executive, Tony Hayward, has solemnly promised that the company will cover more than the required $75 million. On May 10, BP announced it had already spent $350 million. How fantastically generous of a company valued at $152.6 billion, and which makes $93 million each day.
The reality of the matter is that BP will not be deterred by the liability cap and pity payments doled out to a handful of victims of this disaster because they pale in comparison to its ghastly profits. Indeed, oil spills are just a cost of doing business for BP.

This is especially evident in a recent Citigroup analyst report prepared for BP investors: "Reaction to the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is a buying opportunity."

4. The Interior Department was at best, neglectful, and at worst, complicit

It's no surprise BP is always looking out for its bottom line -- but it's at least slightly more surprising that the Interior Department, the executive department charged with regulating the oil industry, has done such a shoddy job of preventing this from happening.

Ten years ago, there were already warnings that the backup systems on oil rigs that failed on Deepwater Horizon would be a problem. The Interior Department issued a "safety alert" but then left it up to oil companies to decide what kind of backup system to use. And in 2007, a government regulator from the same department downplayed the chances and impact of a spill like the one that occurred last month: "[B]lowouts are rare events and of short duration, potential impact to marine water quality are not expected to be significant."

The Interior Department's Louisiana branch may have been particularly confused because it appears it was closely fraternizing with the oil industry. The Minerals Management Service, the agency within the department that oversees offshore drilling, routinely accepted gifts from oil companies and even considered itself a part of the oil industry, rather than part of a governmental regulatory agency. Flying on oil executives' private planes was not rare for MMS inspectors in Louisiana, a federal report released Tuesday says. "Skeet-shooting contests, hunting and fishing trips, golf tournaments, crawfish boils, and Christmas parties" were also common.

Is it any wonder that Deepwater Horizon was given a regulatory exclusion by MMS?

It gets worse. Since April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, the Interior Department has approved 27 new permits for offshore drilling sites. Here's the kicker: Two of these permits are for BP.
But it gets better still: 26 of the 27 new drilling sites have been granted regulatory exemptions, including those issued to BP.

5. Clean-up prospects are dismal
The media makes a lot of noise about all the different methods BP is using to clean up the oil spill. Massive steel containment domes were popular a few weeks ago. Now everyone is touting the "top kill" method, which involves injecting heavy drilling fluids into the damaged well.
But here's the reality. Even if BP eventually finds a method that works, experts say the best cleanup scenario is to recover 20 percent of the spilled oil. And let's be realistic: only 8 percent of the crude oil deposited in the ocean and coastlines off Alaska was recovered in the Exxon-Valdez cleanup.
Millions of gallons of oil will remain in the ocean, ravaging the underwater ecosystem, and 100 miles of Louisiana coastline will never be the same.

6. BP has no real cleanup plan
Perhaps because it knows the possibility of remedying the situation is practically impossible, BP has made publicly available its laughable "Oil Spill Response Plan" which is, in fact, no plan at all.
Most emblematic of this farcical plan, BP mentions protecting Arctic wildlife like sea lions, otters and walruses (perhaps executives simply lifted the language from Exxon's plan for its oil spill off the coast of Alaska?). The plan does not include any disease-preventing measures, oceanic or meteorological data, and is comprised mostly of phone numbers and blank forms. Most importantly, it includes no directions for how to deal with a deep-water explosion such as the one that took place last month.

The whole thing totals 600 pages -- a waste of paper that only adds insult to the environmental injury BP is inflicting upon the world with Deepwater Horizon.

7. Both Transocean and BP are trying to take away survivors' right to sue
With each hour, the economic damage caused by Deepwater Horizon continues to grow. And BP knows this.
So while it outwardly is putting on a nice face, even pledging $500 million to assess the impacts of the spill, it has all the while been trying to ensure that it won't be held liable for those same impacts.
Just after the Deepwater explosion, surviving employees were held in solitary confinement, while Transocean flacks made them waive their rights to sue. BP then did the same with fishermen it contracted to help clean up the spill though the company now says that was nothing more than a legal mix-up.
If there's anything to learn from this disaster, it's that companies like BP don't make mistakes at the expense of others. They are exceedingly deliberate.

8. BP bets on risk to employees to save money -- and doesn't care if they get sick
When BP unleashed its "Beyond Petroleum" re-branding/greenwashing campaign, the snazzy ads featured smiley oil rig workers. But the truth of the matter is that BP consistently and knowingly puts its employees at risk.
An internal BP document shows that just before the prior fatal disaster -- the 2005 Texas City explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 170 -- when BP had to choose between cost-savings and greater safety, it went with its bottom line.

A BP Risk Management memo showed that although steel trailers would be safer in the case of an explosion, the company went with less expensive options that offered protection but were not "blast resistant." In the Texas City blast, all of the fatalities and most of the injuries occurred in or around these trailers.
Although BP has responded to this memo by saying the company culture has changed since Texas City, 11 people died on the Deepwater Horizon when it blew up. Perhaps a similar memo went out regarding safety and cost-cutting measures?
Reports this week stated that fishermen hired by BP for oil cleanup weren't provided protective equipment and have now fallen ill. Hopefully they didn't sign waivers.

9. Environmental damage could even include a climatological catastrophe
It's hard to know where to start discussing the environmental damage caused by Deepwater Horizon. Each day will give us a clearer picture of the short-term ecological destruction, but environmental experts believe the damage to the Gulf of Mexico will be long-term.
In the short-term, environmentalists are up in arms about the dispersants being used to clean up the oil slick in the Gulf. Apparently, the types BP is using aren't all that effective in dispersing oil, and are pretty high in toxicity to marine fauna such as fish and shrimp. The fear is that what BP may be using to clean up the mess could, in the long-term, make it worse.

On the longer-term side of things, there are signs that this largest oil drilling catastrophe could also become the worst natural gas and climate disaster. The explosion has released tremendous amounts of methane from deep in the ocean, and research shows that methane, when mixed with air, is the most powerful (read: terrible) greenhouse gas -- 26 times worse than carbon-dioxide.

Our warming planet just got a lot hotter.

10. No one knows what to do and it will happen again
The very worst part about the Deepwater Horizon calamity is that nobody knows what to do. We don't know how bad it really is because we can't measure what's going on. We don't know how to stop it -- and once we do, we won't know how to clean it up.

BP is at the helm of the recovery process, but given its corporate track record, its efforts will only go so far -- it has a board of directors and shareholders to answer to, after all. The U.S. government, the only other entity that could take over is currently content to let BP hack away at the problem. Why? Because it probably has no idea what to do either.
Here's the reality of the matter -- for as long as offshore drilling is legal, oil spills will happen. Coastlines will be decimated, oceans destroyed, economies ruined, lives lost. Oil companies have little to no incentive to prevent such disasters from happening, and they use their money to buy government regulators' integrity.

Deepwater Horizon is not an anomaly -- it's the norm.

Daniela Perdomo is a staff writer and editor at AlterNet. Follow Daniela on Twitter. Write her at danielaalternet [at] gmail [dot] com.

© 2010 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/147014/

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Make Green Economy A 'War' Mobilization

Photo: Reich with Obama

It's a Depression:
Focus on Workers,
Not on Wall Street

Robert Reich
robertreich.blogspot.com

April 3, 2009 - The March employment numbers, out this morning, are bleak: 8.5 percent of Americans officially unemployed, 663,000 more jobs lost. But if you include people who are out of work and have given up trying to find a job, the real unemployment rate is 9 percent. And if you include people working part time who'd rather be working full time, it's now up to 15.6 percent. One in every six workers in America is now either unemployed or underemployed.

Every lost job has a multiplier effect throughout the economy. For every person who no longer has a job and can't find another, or is trying to enter the job market and can't find one, there are at least three job holders who become more anxious that they may lose their job. Almost every American right now is within two degrees of separation of someone who is out of work. This broader anxiety expresses itself as less willingness to spend money on anything other than necessities. And this reluctance to spend further contracts the economy, leading to more job losses.

Capital markets may or may not unfreeze under the combined heat of the Treasury and the Fed, but what happens to Wall Street is becoming less and less relevant to Main Street. Anxious Americans will not borrow even if credit is available to them. And ever fewer Americans are good credit risks anyway.

All this means that the real economy will need a larger stimulus than the $787 billion already enacted. To be sure, only a small fraction of the $787 billion has been turned into new jobs so far. The money is still moving out the door. But today's bleak jobs report shows that the economy is so far below its productive capacity that much more money will be needed.

This is still not the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it is a Depression. And the only way out is government spending on a very large scale. We should stop worrying about Wall Street. Worry about American workers. Use money to build up Main Street, and the future capacities of our workforce.

Energy independence and a non-carbon economy should be the equivalent of a war mobilization. Hire Americans to weatherize and insulate homes across the land. Don't encourage General Motors or any other auto company to shrink. Use the auto makers' spare capacity to make busses, new wind turbines, and electric cars (why let the Chinese best us on this?). Enlarge public transit systems.

Meanwhile, extend our educational infrastructure. So many young people are out of work that they should be using this time to improve their skills and capacities. Expand community colleges. Enlarge Pell Grants. Extend job-training opportunities to the unemployed, so they can learn new skills while they're collecting unemployment benefits.

Finally, accelerate universal health care.

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It's the War Economy! -Make Your Flyers

A Progressive
9-Point Voter
Guide on Economy

By AlterNet
http://alternet.org

October 9, 2008 - A Gallup poll released this week showed that a majority of Americans -- 53 percent -- are angry about the financial crisis. And 41 percent are afraid. The system, Americans believe, has failed them.

It only takes a glance at the morning news -- or a look at rising food and gas prices -- to see that these fears and frustrations are not without good reason. Every day, more and more people lose their homes and their health care and see their retirement funds erode. Or rather, they watch as these things get taken from them.

It's infuriating to watch and painful to experience, and it's understandable to be mad as hell. It's OK because when a large enough number of people get angry enough, that's when things start to change.

So, our question to you is, Are you mad enough yet? Because this crisis is about all of us. Are you sure your 401K is secure? Do you know how many of your tax dollars are being spent in Iraq -- a country that's sitting on an $80 billion surplus? Have you considered how you'll pay for your health care if Medicare goes broke?

The answers to these questions aren't pretty. Fortunately, Nov. 4 gives us a chance to change things.

But first we have to know where the candidates stand on the issues that matter the most, like the economy, the environment, health care, immigration and reproductive justice. It's no small task to get reliable information on anything, let alone politics, in an age of campaign attack ads, media bias and outright corruption. That's why AlterNet has put together some handy election guides to help you learn what you need to know about Barack Obama and John McCain before you make a trip to the ballot box. The guides aren't meant to be exhaustive, but they do cover a lot of ground. For the next two weeks, we'll be rolling out an election guide each day, starting today, with the economy.

We hope they're helpful, and we want to hear what you think. Let us know in the comment boards or by e-mailing us at feedback@alternet.org. -- The Editors


Election Guide to the Economy

The country is in a unique moment in its economic history, facing a deep, structural energy crisis, stagnant wages for most, and spiraling costs for health care, education and food.

The housing market isn't expected to hit bottom until the middle of next year, and the fallout from the housing crash now threatens the global economy -- so much so that on Sept. 20, the Bush administration proposed an unprecedented bailout of many of the biggest players on Wall Street, which came on the heels of the government's multibillion-dollar rescues of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG.

There's now a consensus among economists that we have entered a recession. It marks the first time in the post-war era that the country has entered into a downturn before median family incomes had fully recovered from the previous recession. Over the past business cycle, poverty increased by more than 10 percent, and the number of people with employer-based health care dropped by about 8 percent.

The past year has been especially painful for America's working majority. In August, companies' payrolls shrank for the eighth consecutive month, resulting in a five-year high in unemployment.

Whoever ends up occupying the White House in January 2009 will be faced with the epic task of restoring Americans' sense of economic security. What will the next president do about energy? About the mortgage meltdown? What kind of trade policies will he put into place?

Read below for the answers. We've compiled these brief issue overviews to help you make an informed choice in November.




1. SPIRALING INEQUALITY AND ASSAULTS ON UNIONS

The past three decades have produced a historic concentration in American wealth. Economists estimate that 80 percent of the country's inflation-adjusted income growth since Ronald Reagan was elected has gone to the top 1 percent of the income ladder, and the incomes of all but the top 10 percent have actually declined since 1973.

A large body of data across different countries finds a strong correlation between the portion of the work force that's organized into "collective bargaining units" -- unions -- and wage inequality, and that's true in the United States, where the decline in unionization since the 1970s has corresponded with a dramatic increase in inequality.

Slightly less than 10 percent of the private sector work force is organized, but, according to the American Dream Survey (PDF) -- a study of non-managerial wage earners who make up about 80 percent of the working population -- "most American workers believe joining a union can help them achieve the American Dream," and 59 percent would be inclined to join a union if they were protected from retaliation from employers.

That's the leading barrier to labor organizing. According to American Rights at work, a pro-labor group, almost half of all employees report some form of illegal behavior by employers to discourage workers from organizing during votes supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.


Solution: Raising the minimum wage (see below), strengthening workers' rights to bargain collectively and reforming U.S. trade policy (see below) are all key to "flattening" the nation's income distribution.


Obama's position: Obama was a co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for working people to join a union. He has called for increasing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation so it grows with the cost of living.


McCain's position: John McCain voted against the Employee Free Choice Act and for the National Right to Work Act, a bill that, despite its deceptive name, would have crippled union organizing. He has said, "I think the unions have played a very important role in the history of this country to improve the plight and conditions of laboring Americans. I think that like many other monopolies, in some cases, they have serious excesses."


Learn more: Barack Obama's economic plan, John McCain's economic plan, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Economic Policy Institute, American Rights at Work




2. HOUSING AND DEBT CRISIS

According to a forecast by Credit Suisse, a financial services group, 6.5 million U.S. houses may go into foreclosure by 2012 -- a figure that "could put 12.7 percent of all residential borrowers out of their homes." To put that number in context, the number of homes currently in foreclosure is 1.2 million, and that's an all-time high. The bank notes that although the percentage of subprime loans that will go belly-up is very high -- over half! -- the total number of non-subprime loans will be larger. They project that almost 4 million other borrowers won't be able to maintain their mortgages. This has a ripple effect throughout the economy, with construction and a number of service industries taking a hit.

Solution: Homeowners in trouble need the ability to renegotiate costly adjustable-rate mortgages before their debt burdens force them out of their homes. They require direct assistance in some cases, and the mortgage industry needs tighter regulation to reign in the "securitization" of mortgage debt. The 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act should also be amended to increase consumer protections.

Obama's position: Barack Obama has called for the following: Create a new Federal Housing Administration Housing Security Program. The senator supports the efforts of Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., to create a new program that will offer incentives to lenders to buy or refinance existing mortgages and convert them into stable, 30-year fixed mortgages with a federal guarantee provided for the resulting loans. Obama called this a "backstop," not a "bailout."


Ask lenders to write down loan amounts for more conventional borrowers. Lenders should take action to restructure loans as early as possible when borrowers are at risk of financial trouble or when housing prices plummet. To alleviate lender concerns over tax and legal issues, the senator's plan also calls for legislation that would clarify the ability of servicers to act on behalf of the loans' investors/owners.


Close the bankruptcy loophole for mortgage companies. Under current Chapter 13 rules, judges cannot modify the terms of home mortgages, even if the loan is unfair or predatory. Making this change could prevent as many as 600,000 foreclosures.


Create a new mortgage interest tax credit, which will assist homeowners who do not itemize their taxes. This would involve a 10 percent universal mortgage credit that would effectively cut 10 percent off the interest rate paid by 10 million mostly low-income homeowners.


Obama has also called for bankruptcy reform and tighter regulation of lenders.

McCain's position: John McCain's position on the housing crisis is less clear. In late March, he said, "It is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers." Two days later, he released a statement saying, "The fact is that there are about 4 million homeowners in danger of losing their homes. We have a responsibility to take action to help those among them who are deserving homeowners." Also in late March, McCain defended himself from Democrats' criticism by saying he'd leave all options on the table. "I will consider any and all proposals based on their cost and benefits," he said during a campaign stop in Orange County. He later offered the McCain "HOME Plan," which would allow those with good credit holding a subprime loan for a house in which they live the ability to retire their mortgage and replace it with a lower-cost, government-backed loan. According to McCain's own estimates, 200,000 to 400,000 homeowners would be eligible for the program, but critics have raised doubts about the number because many people holding subprime loans have credit problems.


Learn more: Brookings Institution, Center for Economic and Policy Research


3. EXCESSIVE EXECUTIVE INCOMES

According to Sam Pizzigati, "Last year top CEOs in the United States continued to pocket outlandishly large paychecks, $10.5 million on average. That's 344 times the pay of an average U.S. worker -- and 10 times the pay gap that existed 30 years ago." According to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies and United for a Fair Economy, American taxpayers subsidize executive pay to the tune of about $20 billion each year. Last year, a Financial Times/Harris poll revealed that 77 percent of Americans think chief executives "earn too much." But shareholders have little say in how much top executives are paid, as CEOs generally work with a friendly board of directors, and corporations are able to write off unlimited amounts of executive pay as long as it is classified as "performance-based."


Solution: Close tax loopholes that effectively subsidize executive pay and give shareholders the ability to block outlandish compensation packages.

Obama's position: Obama supports closing one tax loophole related to executive pay, and he sponsored a bill that would give shareholders a nonbinding "advisory vote" on executive pay packages. An advisory roll, however, falls far short of an effective veto for excessively lavish compensation packages.

McCain's position: McCain has called for shareholders to have veto power over executive compensation packages, but he has not proposed legislation that would do so. A top adviser to McCain told Reuters that "the senator wants to shine a light on the issue (of bloated executive pay) and is not offering specific new proposals to rein it in."


Learn more: Institute for Policy Studies, United for a Fair Economy



4. OFFSHORING AND TRADE POLICIES THAT FAIL FAMILIES

According to Economic Policy Institute economist Josh Bivens, "Jobs are created by American exports but destroyed by imports; hence, the rising trade deficits cause job loss. This imbalance in the U.S. economy heightens economic insecurity by causing workers to search for new work or accept jobs of lower quality, even though some job loss can be partially offset by other influences, as when manufacturing jobs in the late 1990s were lost to trade while construction jobs boomed." Furthermore, "wages are squeezed as imports from lower-wage trading partners reduce demand for domestic workers. Between 1973 and 2006, growing trade with poorer trading partners lowered wages of U.S. workers without a four-year college degree by 4 percent."


Solution: 1. Pass the TRADE Act, legislation proposed by a group of progressive lawmakers that would require a review of existing trade agreements and a process to renegotiate existing trade agreements. It also calls for new thinking on labor, environment, investment and food safety to be included in future trade agreements, and strengthens the role of Congress in trade policymaking. 2. Pass the NAFTA Accountability Act, legislation proposed in the House at the end of 2007 that would require proponents of the North American Free Trade Agreement to prove their claims that the treaty helps Americans more than it hurts them and would require that the deal be renegotiated if they failed to do so.

Obama's position: Obama has called for amending NAFTA, if necessary, in order to protect American workers, closing tax loopholes that reward companies that offshore jobs, supporting firms that create U.S. jobs and improving transitional assistance for workers displaced by foreign trade.

McCain's position: McCain supports current trade policy. He has argued against agricultural subsidies, a key issue for anti-poverty campaigners in developing countries, but he insists on maintaining the status quo.


Learn more: Obama campaign site, McCain campaign site, Public Citizen, Third World Network



5. DETERIORATING INFRASTRUCTURE

Aging and overburdened infrastructure threatens the economy and quality of life in every state in the nation. The problem was thrown into sharp relief in recent years, with the Northeast blackout of 2003, the failure of New Orleans' levee system during Hurricane Katrina and the collapse of the I-35 overpass in Minnesota that killed 13 people in 2007. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, $1.6 trillion is required to "bring the nation's infrastructure to a good condition."


Solution: Elect officials who will prioritize infrastructure investment over tax savings.

Obama's position: Barack Obama has called for the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank that would invest $60 billion per year over 10 years for transportation infrastructure projects across the nation. His campaign claims, "These projects will create up to 2 million new direct and indirect jobs per year and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity." He has also called for the investment of $150 billion over the next 10 years for new "green" energy infrastructure. He has promised to pay for these programs with savings gained by ending the war in Iraq.

McCain's position: McCain has been largely silent on this issue. He has said that "earmark" reform -- cutting pet projects -- could free up resources to invest in better science education and new teachers. He opposes the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank. Before launching his bid for the White House, McCain sat on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, a key committee dealing with infrastructure issues that has had a key role in determining the government's infrastructural priorities.


Learn more: American Society of Civil Engineers, Apollo Alliance.



6. EQUAL PAY

Women make only 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, and the Institute for Women's Policy Research in Washington, D.C., estimates that, if progress continues at its current rate, it will take until 2057 for the gender wage gap to close.

Solution: Expand enforcement of the Equal Pay Act.

Obama's position: Obama is a strong advocate of gender pay equity. He supports improving women's economic situations at every level, from strengthening the Equal Pay Act to increasing investments in women-run small businesses.

McCain's position: McCain has said publicly that he supports equal pay for equal work, but his legislative record shows otherwise. McCain opposed a recent Senate bill, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, seeking equal pay for women. The bill would have made it easier for women to sue their employers for pay discrimination.


Learn more: 9to5, National Association of Working Women, National Committee on Pay Equity, Women's Institute for Secure Retirement

7. PAID FAMILY LEAVE AND WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY

The United States is the only industrialized country that does not provide workers with paid maternity/paternity leave. This, combined with other discriminatory workplace policies, can make work-life balance nearly impossible for women.


Solution: Create more family-friendly workplace policies and expand the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Obama's position: Obama strongly supports expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act and wants states to adopt paid-leave systems. He has proposed providing $1.5 billion in aid to states to assist in start-up costs for instituting a paid-leave system.

McCain's position: McCain voted to pass the original Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993. Since then, he has remained silent on the issue.


Learn more: National Partnership for Women and Families, Moms Rising, Progressive States Network




8. MINIMUM WAGE

In 2008, the nation's minimum wage was worth about 20 percent less, when adjusted for inflation, than it was in 1979. According to the Economic Policy Institute, "Evidence from an analysis of the 1996-97 minimum wage increase shows that the average minimum wage worker brings home more than half (54 percent) of his or her family's weekly earnings."

Solution: Raising the minimum wage is a crucial step toward pulling working families out of poverty. Of the workers who would benefit from a raise in the federal minimum wage, 53 percent are full-time workers.

Obama's position: Obama has voted for minimum wage increases. He is also a co-sponsor of the Global Poverty Act, which aims to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 -- an outcome that would greatly benefit women, thereby also helping families and communities.


McCain's position: McCain has voted both for and against minimum wage increases. McCain did vote to increase the minimum wage in February 2007; however, historically, he has voted against minimum wage increases.


Learn more: The PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life, Economic Policy Institute



9. TAXES AND DEFICITS

Tax cuts targeted at the wealthiest Americans during a period of runaway spending -- with hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- have resulted in massive federal deficits. In July, the New York Times reported that the Bush White House announced that it would "leave a record $482 billion deficit to his successor, a sobering turnabout in the nation's fiscal condition from 2001, when Mr. Bush took office after three consecutive years of budget surpluses."
Solution: Return the tax rates for top earners to their Clinton-era levels, and offer tax relief to struggling families. Rein in spending, preferably on the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, which are "sunk costs" rather than investments in America's economic future.


Obama's position: Obama has called for a withdrawal of most (but not all) troops from Iraq in his first term. According to an analysis of his tax plan by the Tax Policy Center, Obama would cut taxes on the 95 percent of filers who make less than $227,000 per year, and raise taxes on the 5 percent who exceed that number. Compared with current policy, Obama's tax plan would increase government revenues by $627 billion over the next 10 years.


McCain's position: McCain's plan would cut taxes on top earners by $23,000 per year. He would also cut taxes for all other Americans, but his cuts would only be deeper than Obama's for those earning between $112,000 and 227,000 -- about 20 percent of the population. Compared with current policy, McCain's tax plan would decrease government revenues by $595 billion over the next 10 years.


Learn more: Tax Policy Center, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities


© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
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Media Turns Substance into Anti-Obama Mush

Photo: Anti-Obama T-Shirt

Why Obama
Could be
in Trouble

By Robert Parry
Consortium News

August 7, 2008- It might seem unlikely that the United States would elect John McCain to succeed George W. Bush when that would ensure continuation of many unpopular Bush policies: an ill-defined war with the Muslim world, right-wing consolidation of the U.S. Supreme Court, a drill-oriented energy strategy, tax cuts creating massive federal deficits, etc., etc.

But there are reasons -- beyond understandable concerns about Barack Obama's limited experience -- that make a McCain victory possible, indeed maybe probable.

Here is one of the big ones: The U.S. news media is as bad as ever, arguably worse.


On Monday, Obama gave a detail-rich speech on how he would address the energy crisis, which is a major point of concern among Americans. From ideas for energy innovation to retrofitting the U.S. auto industry to conservation steps to limited new offshore drilling, Obama did what he is often accused of not doing, fleshing out his soaring rhetoric.

McCain responded with a harsh critique of Obama's calls for more conservation, claiming that Obama wants to solve the energy crisis by having people inflate their tires. McCain's campaign even passed out a tire gauge marked as Obama's energy plan.

For his part, McCain made clear he wanted to drill for more oil wherever it could be found and to build many more nuclear power plants.

These competing plans offered a chance for the evening news to address an issue of substance that is high on the voters' agenda. Instead, NBC News anchor Brian Williams devoted 30 seconds to the dueling energy speeches, without any details and with the witty opening line that Obama was "refining" his energy plan.

So, instead of dealing with a serious issue in a serious way, NBC News ignored the substance and went for a clever slight against Obama, hitting his political maneuvering in his softened opposition to more offshore drilling.

Williams's quip fit with one of the press corps' favorite campaign narratives, Obama's flip-flopping. But the coverage ignored far more important elements of the story, such as the feasibility of Obama's vow that "we must end the age of oil in our time" or the wisdom of McCain's emphasis on drilling -- and nuking -- the nation out of its energy mess.

And, as for flip-flops, McCain's dramatic repositioning of himself as an anti-environmentalist -- after years of being one of the green movement's favorite Republicans -- represents a far more significant change than Obama's modest waffling on offshore oil.

The Sierra Club, one of the nation's premier environmental organizations, has repudiated McCain and now is running ads attacking his energy plan. But McCain's flip-flops -- even complete reversals -- remain an underplayed part of the campaign story. They just don't fit the narrative of maverick John McCain on the "Straight Talk Express."

Loving the 'Surge'

The major U.S. news media has been equally superficial in dealing with the Iraq War and the "war on terror." It is now a fully enshrined conventional wisdom that George W. Bush's troop "surge" was a huge success and vindicates McCain's early support for it. On Obama's overseas trip, it became de rigueur for each interviewer to pound him for the first 10 or 15 minutes with demands that he accept the accepted wisdom about the "surge" and admit that he was wrong and McCain was right.

Obama's attempts to offer a more subtle explanation of what had occurred in Iraq -- that key reasons for the declining violence actually predated the "surge" -- were treated with bafflement by the interviewers, who simply reframed their questions and came back at him in a show of toughness against Obama's supposed evasions.

CBS News anchor Katie Couric started this pattern, but others fell smartly in line, including NBC's Tom Brokaw on "Meet the Press." Indeed, many of the same media stars who had cheered the nation to war in 2003 (such as Brokaw) were now hectoring Obama, who had spoken out against the invasion in real time.

Conversely, McCain is never challenged about his misjudgment in advocating a rapid pivot from Afghanistan to Iraq in late 2001 and early 2002, before Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda were captured and before Afghanistan had stabilized.

That premature pivot now stands as one of the biggest military blunders in U.S. history, leaving American troops bogged down in two open-ended wars and allowing the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks to regroup and to plot in safe havens inside Pakistan.

However, American voters who rely on the major news media for their information would have no idea about McCain's central role in this fiasco. All they hear about is how McCain was right about the "surge" and how Obama won't admit he was wrong.

Britney/Paris

When American news consumers aren't hearing misinformation, they're almost surely hearing trivia. The TV news shows couldn't resist endlessly repeating McCain's attack ad that compared Obama and his enthusiastic reception in Berlin to misbehaving celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Though the juxtaposition was clearly meant to demean -- and reminded some political observers of the "call me" ads of a sexy white woman whispering to black Tennessee Senate candidate Harold Ford -- McCain's campaign insisted it was all in good fun.

While some pundits did take note of McCain's detour onto the low road, others picked up McCain's campaign theme that Obama is a "presumptuous" elitist who looks down on others.

That powerful attack line, which touches on the grievances of working-class whites who feel that some blacks have gotten unfair advantages from affirmative action, is at the heart of modern American racism. Since the Nixon era, Republicans have played this Southern Strategy with great success, telling whites that they're the real victims.

This Obama-elitist theme reached its apex (or nadir, if you prefer) when the Washington Post's Dana Milbank distorted a reported quote from Obama to a closed Democratic caucus and used it to prove Obama was a "presumptuous nominee." [Washington Post, July 30, 2008]

Jonathan Capehart, Milbank's colleague from the Washington Post's neoconservative editorial page, then took the point a step further on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show, citing Milbank's misleading quote to establish that Obama is an "uppity" black man. Yet, the true meaning of the Obama quote appears to have been almost the opposite of how Milbank used it.

Painting Obama as a megalomaniac, Milbank wrote: "Inside [the caucus], according to a witness, [Obama] told the House members, 'This is the moment ... that the world is waiting for,' adding: 'I have become a symbol of the possibility of America returning to our best traditions.'"

However, other people who attended the caucus complained that Milbank had yanked the words out of context to support his "presumptuous" thesis, not to reflect what Obama actually said.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-South Carolina, said Obama's comment was "in response to what one of the [House] members prefaced the question by," a reference to the crowd of 200,000 that turned out to hear Obama speak in Berlin.

According to Clyburn, Obama "said, 'I wish I could take credit for that, but I can't. Because it's not about me. It's about America. It's about the people of Germany and the people of Europe looking for a new hope, new relationships, as we go forward in the world.' So, he expressly said that it's not about me."

A House Democratic aide sent an e-mail to Fox News saying, "Lots of people are reading the quote about Obama being a symbol and getting it wrong. His entire point of that riff was that the campaign IS NOT about him.

"The Post left out the important first half of the sentence, which was something along the lines of: 'It has become increasingly clear in my travel, the campaign, that the crowds, the enthusiasm, 200,000 people in Berlin, is not about me at all. It's about America. I have just become a symbol ...'"

So, it appears that Obama's attempt to show humility was transformed into its opposite, establishing that, as Capehart put it, Obama is an "uppity" black man. [Capehart himself is black.]

A week after Milbank pulled the Obama quote inside out, the Washington Post had yet to run a correction or a clarification. The august Post apparently judges that Obama's supporters don't have the clout to punish a news organization for getting a quote wrong, even if it continues to reverberate through the media echo chamber to millions of Americans.

Putting Obama at Risk

Yet possibly even more offensive than the quote, Milbank's column shoved everything, including the Secret Service security arrangements for Obama, through the lens of proving that the candidate is arrogant.

When Washington police and the Secret Service blocked off roads for Obama's motorcade, that was not simply prudence in the face of extraordinary security concerns for Obama's life; it was proof that Obama already sees himself as a head of state.

"He traveled in a bubble more insulating than the actual President's. Traffic was shut down for him as he zoomed about town in a long, presidential-style motorcade, while the public and most of the press were kept in the dark about his activities."

Milbank groused, too, about the tight security that the police put around Obama's movements on Capitol Hill.

"Capitol Police cleared the halls -- just as they do for the actual President. The Secret Service hustled him in through a side door -- just as they do for the actual President," Milbank wrote.

While Milbank portrayed these security steps as further evidence of Obama's hubris, there is no reason to believe that Obama had any say in the decisions of his security detail to protect the candidate.

Milbank and the Post were behaving as if they were oblivious to the physical danger that surrounds the first African-American to have a serious chance to be elected President of the United States. It was almost as if they were baiting him to order the Secret Service to pull back or face the accusation that he is, as Capehart put it, "uppity."

This pattern of how the major media treats Obama also is not new. Although the McCain campaign and the right-wing media insist that Obama gets easy treatment from the press corps, that amounts to more "working the refs" than a legitimate complaint.

Just because Obama gets more coverage than McCain -- the centerpiece of the Republican complaint -- doesn't mean that the press favors Obama, anymore than the fact that Bill Clinton got lots of coverage in 1998 over the Monica Lewinsky scandal meant that the press was favoring him.

Indeed, there have been repeated examples of media double standards working against Obama.

For instance, during the primaries, the major media obsessed for weeks over controversies that would have blown over for other candidates in days. The stupid remarks by Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright, were endless fodder for news programs, while offensive comments from pro-McCain pastors were just tiny blips and soon disappeared.

Similarly, Obama's lack of a flag-lapel pin became a theme that was used to challenge his patriotism, although neither John McCain nor Hillary Clinton wore a pin. Neither, by the way, did ABC's George Stephanopoulos and Charles Gibson as they moderated the April 16 debate in Philadelphia where Obama was grilled over his lack of a flag-lapel pin.

(The flag-lapel "issue" was first given national prominence by New York Times columnist William Kristol and was given more impetus by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer. To put the issue to rest, Obama finally began wearing a flag pin, though McCain still doesn't wear one regularly.)

Economic Determinism

Every presidential election year, it seems, some economist publishes an article that declares that economic data -- good or bad -- will decide whether the White House will be won by the in-power party or the out-of-power party. For instance, the booming economy of 2000 supposedly assured Al Gore a resounding victory.

In Campaign 2008, this thinking holds that Americans -- faced with severe economic troubles -- will throw the Republicans out of the White House and elect a Democrat.

However, this economic determinism may no longer hold sway in a nation that is as inundated with media as the United States is. The ability to float false "themes" against one candidate or another and have the major media constantly repeat the propaganda is an extraordinarily powerful force in deciding American elections.

As we describe in our book Neck Deep, millions of Americans went to the polls in November 2000 believing a number of false claims that had been circulated about Vice President Gore (including the bogus notion that he had been part of a plan to sell nuclear secrets to China, when those secrets actually had been compromised during the Reagan years.)

Given the persistent superficiality -- and cowardice -- of the major U.S. news media, there's even the larger question of whether a meaningful democracy can survive when the public is so thoroughly misinformed.

Although there are some Internet sites that challenge the major media's errors, the imbalance remains tilted heavily toward the ideological Right. Especially when prestige newspapers like the Washington Post contribute to the distribution of false or misleading information -- as with Milbank's quote about Obama -- the pro-Republican media eagerly amplifies it and most Americans never hear the other side.

Right-wing Internet sites also have proven to be very adept at inserting completely false claims about Obama that stick with many Americans, such as the oft-repeated lie that Obama is a Muslim or that he trained at a radical Islamic madrassah.

To assume that people will somehow see through such distortions has proven to be naïve in the past. More likely, many millions of Americans will head to the polls in November having internalized a hodgepodge of negative themes about Obama. Indeed, a significant number who have absorbed the uglier accusations will have come to hate him.

So, even if a McCain victory guarantees that the United States would solidify the policies of a deeply disliked President, many Americans may set aside what may be good for the country -- or even good for their own pocketbooks -- and vote against Obama, more based on perceptions than reality.

Robert Parry's new book is Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq."

© 2008 Consortium News All rights reserved.
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