Fantasy Politics USA

Fox News found a group willing to debate for them, the Republicans. 10 of the Republican candidates will join Fox News tonite at 9 pm eastern time. If you want to send the candidates a message you can through Fox technology, by clicking here. Also they have a way to text message your vote for who you think won the debate, ala American Idol style. The text messages will be accepted 9 pm to 12:30 am. The text message number is 36988. Then in the body of the message type the candidate’s number. Unlike American Idol the vote here is free.
The codes to enter for each candidate are:

R1 — Sam Brownback
R2 — Jim Gilmore
R3 — Rudy Giuliani
R4 — Mike Huckabee
R5 — Duncan Hunter
R6 — John McCain
R7 — Ron Paul
R8 — Mitt Romney
R9 — Tom Tancredo
R10 — Tommy Thompson

The codes are case-insensitive, so r7 will work as well as R7.
I would put my money on Ron Paul winning the text messaging poll.
Go to Fox News for more details and enjoy the debate.
Alan Cosgrove

Friends of Mike Bloomberg have been talking to the Washington Times and told them Bloomberg has set aside 1 billion dollars of his 5.5 billion dollar personal fortune to run for President. Bloomberg has told friends he will run on a third party ticket if he thinks he can influence the debate, and win the election. The one billion dollars puts him well ahead of any other candidate in fund raising, so he can focus more on campaigning than on fund raising. With a billion dollars he can spend as much as he wants. He could hire an entire army of petition gatherers, which will be necessary to get him on ballots in some states. He has actually upped the ante from earlier when he told another associate that he would be willing to spend 10% of his income, $500,000 to run as a third party candidate. Former Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner calls him, “H. Ross Perot on steroids.” The Bloomberg team has been studying the 1982 campaign of H. Ross Perot, and has met with senior officials of the Perot campaign. Also on CBS’s Face The Nation last week Republican candidate Chuck Hagel mentioned the possibility of a Hagel – Bloomberg team, but if Bloomberg is putting out a billion dollars it should be a Bloomberg – Hagel ticket. There is a lot of dissatisfaction among Republicans and Democrats about their candidates, enough so that actor Fred Thompson is seriously considering jumping in on the Republican side. The Democrats have Hillary in the lead with negatives second only to Newt Gingrich, and a Senator with only two years experience is a Democratic superstar candidate. With all this weakness and dissatisfaction coming from the two main parties, this might be our chance to get out from under the two party system, and have an Independent President.
Alan Cosgrove

Mike Gravel spoke this morning at Washington’s National Press Club. Anti-war activist’s Code Pink and Veterans for Peace along with Cindy Sheehan all showed up for his talk. He is calling for Congressional action to end the war, and has proposed daily votes in the Senate until the president’s veto of a withdrawal date is overridden. He also wants to propose a law that would make it a felony to not follow his withdrawal plans. “I have devised a very tough law. It’s a withdraw law. And this tough law clearly says that if the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Treasury fail to obey this law, they commit a felony, and the penalty for committing this felony is five years in jail without the possibility of parole,” Gravel said. While he is willing to charge the President with a felony, impeachment is not on his plate. “I just don’t think those are very good tactics,” Gravel said. “Impeachment will come, don’t worry about that. Just concentrate on one thing at a time, people losing their lives. So when you use your energy working on impeachment, they’ll still be dying.” On his plan Gravel says, “It’s guaranteed to work; to end the war by Labor Day and to have our troops home, all of our troops home, by Christmas.” The anti-war crowd of about 40 liked that idea. Sheehan asked Gravel about a third party Gravel – Kucinich ticket, but Gravel dismissed that idea saying he has no plans of losing the Democratic nomination. “I will get the Democratic nomination,” he declared . After their little meeting at the press club, the crowd marched from the White House to the Capital building. They could call this Gravel’s ‘I have a dream’ speech.
Alan Cosgrove

NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly, said it is “highly unlikely” that Fred Thompson would return on “Law and Order” next season. Reilly said he doesn’t have any insight into whether or not Thompson is running, but it looks like another step in that direction. “It’s pretty clear that Fred is going to be leaving the cast of the show no matter what,” Reilly said. Even if Thompson decides against running in 08 it would be hard to get back on “Law and Order.” Filming for the next season might start early because of a threatened strike by writers this fall. Thompson has been pretty busy with talking engagements and blogging. Thompson has not commented on this report yet.
Alan Cosgrove

Rudy Giulianai is running as America’s mayor, because of the strength he showed after the 9/11 attacks. But now his post 9/11 leadership has some holes in it. A closer examination of events showed that he took over and limited the influence of federal agencies. As a result thousands that worked at the ground zero cleanup have become deadly sick. So Giuliani’s triumph came at the cost of human lives. The reports show that the city had safety plans that were never enforced. In order to prove the city was not crippled by the attacks the mayor allowed workers to work at ground zero without proper protection. At the same time the mayor’s office threatened to fire or penalize workers if the work slowed. But reports show the dust was dangerous, and since then over 2000 firefighters working at ground zero have been treated for respiratory problems. 70% of the workers at ground zero screened at Mount Sinai Medical Center have trouble breathing. Officials estimate that health care cost from the ground zero victims could reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, where all there with expertise to help immediatley after the attacks, but Giuliani’s team pushed them aside and took over operations. One Army Corps official said Mr. Giuliani acted like a “benevolent dictator.” Giuliani assigned all clean up to a city office called the Department of Design and Construction, and according to the departments commissioner Giuliani never let FEMA or the Army Corps in to try to help. The disregard for safety at the cleanup has been criticized by union’s, doctors, and occupational safety experts. But at the same time safety was thrown out the window as long as there was a possibility that a life could still be saved in the rubble. It wasn’t until late October until some of the ground zero workers were wearing respirators that were required by OSHA. But even when Giuliani showed up he failed to wear one. On paper they said the right things, but in reality they did the wrong things, and a s a result we now have all these respiratory problems. Giuliani’s administration privately worried about the possibilities of lawsuits and Giuliani signed a bill that capped the city’s liability at $350 million. After Giuliani left office, FEMA appropriated a special 1 billion dollar insurance company to help ground zero victims. So America saw Giuliani at the funerals of fallen heroes, but they never saw him at a 9/11 hearing on health. To get the stock market going again, and to clean up this mess up was at the cost of many brave lives because safety was put on the sidelines so America could look strong again.
With these kind of reports going around then it is no surprise to hear the latest poll by The New York Daily News that shows new Yorkers by an overwhelming margin support current mayor Mike Bloomberg over Rudy Giuliani as the next President. The poll asked who would make a better President, and the results show that 46% choose Bloomberg while only 29% choose Giuliani. This is coming from the folks that know better. Nationally Giuliani is known as the mayor that cleaned up New York, but at home it is a different story. Bloomberg hasn’t entered the race, but recently he has dropped a few clues and updated his websight. The poll showed that Giuliani had the least amount of support from the black community, but that is no surprise since he wasn’t very friendly to the black community while he rushed to clean up crime. That must be the way Giuliani rolls. He gets the job done, but he doesn’t care about who gets hurt on the way. We are all just little worker bees to help him look good.
Alan Cosgrove