Hunky-Hunky Storm Troopers Part II

I got separated from my peeps tonight and like any good girl scout was taught, decided to just stay in one place and let them find me. The place I chose was next to a super hot policeman. We chatted.

He is a suburban cop, ex-Army who was pulling 12 hour shift. The "intel" Denver got a long time ago was that there would be about 100-200K protesters, all WTO style. So they started training in December for this -- secret service, Denver police and all the surrounding suburban police forces. Hunky-hunky cop, of course, after working day after day of 12 hour shifts was maybe a little more candid about how annoying secret service was than he would normally be. He said at most, they had a protest with about 4K protesters and by the time they reached downtown it dwindled to 1,000. We talked about how it seems a lot more likely that this sort of anti-capitalism crowd would end up in Minneapolis instead of Denver.

Found my people, then off to a party where a friend of friend reporter told me that while most cities get about $15 million for extra security during a convention, Denver got $260 million -- all taxpayer funded, mind you.

Who gave this "intel" that 200K protesters would come to Denver? FBI? Homeland Security? How come Denver got so much extra money? These are questions I hope some reporter asks.

On the flip side, a high level guy at a state level was on a shuttle bus with me, drinking a styrofoam cup full of scotch. The bus driver, a guy who didn't really speak a lot of English, was non-verbally protesting the cup. Not wanting the poor driver to go to jail, I chugged the scotch with the guy to get rid of it. (hence the typos and why I will write all the important stuff about Obama tomorrow)

Anyhow, high level state guy, full of scotch, was telling me about all the threats against Obama and Obama supporters that never get reported in the media as the media doesn't want to hype them and give weirdos a voice.

I watched Season 1 of 24. I know that this is no security cake walk -- Obama running for president.

Which is why I think it raises a lot of questions. Did Denver really need 20 times more money than is normally allocated or was this a ploy to buy some new equipment and get training on the federal dime. Or will an Obama campaign and presidency simply just cost more in security?

OK, Scotch is hitting. More tomorrow......