US vs THEM

I just spent 3 weeks in Tucson, AZ visiting a friend. The good liberal
that I am, I was hesitant to even think about a trip to Arizona now in
the middle of a national controversy and travel boycott about a racial
profiling law couched in anti-immigrant clothes (as if that makes it
okay) going into affect there in July.

We have our own problems in WI with new anti-immigrant laws being
proposed, so even the thought of leaving in the middle of this new
mess in the legislature had me personally nervous, but curiosity
killed the cat and I'm no pussy... cat, so the offer to go see for
myself What's the Matter with Arizona? proved too enticing and I took
my friend up on the invitation.

First of all, Tucson in summer is Hell. The Sonoran Desert in the
middle of the summer is heat that cannot be described to a human who
has never experienced it.

Most of my days were spent running from air conditioning to the
swimming pool to air conditioning to air conditioning and back to the
pool, etc with an occasional STUNningly beautiful trip up 10,000 feet
Mount Lemmon to enjoy the cool air (90) and light breeze (with more
intense sun...). I made the mistake one day of thinking to myself
"Walgreens is only a short walk (less than half a mile), think I'll go
get a soda". Only to find myself in scorching hot sun and 107 degree
heat gasping for air by the time I got there, skin burned and
exhausted... My friend had to pick me up to get me home. Lol!

I mention the pool because it was there that I began to notice
perfectly sweet rational and even liberal people I really liked turn
into raving irrational racist lunatics before my eyes whenever their
minds turned to any thoughts abouts immigrants.

Actually in AZ these normal nice people would call them "those damn
immigrants". Even a random statement like "My husband had to go to the
ER last week.". Would turn into a rant about it taking 3 hours to be
seen because "those damn immigrants swarm the place in groups and its
so busy WE can't be seen by a doctor."

On the plane down I met a lovely woman who was a doctor in Phoenix.
When I mentioned I needed a simple medical procedure that any doctor
could do, she cautiously said "Well whatever you do, DON'T go to an ER
anywhere in AZ, they're horrible and you'll never get seen for
something that simple.". The tone made me double take her with a
questioning look and clearly more aware of her inability to SAY what
she meant, she said "Well, you know with all the uninsured in AZ,
EVERYONE (said with almost a wink) on the planet ends up there.". At
the time I didn't understand, but my pool conversation gave me a new
clarity on the issue. At the pool my new friend whom I already really
liked went on... I was too stunned to speak... Especially in a
language that I was unfamiliar with (hate speech), and a place I
didn't know...

"Well, you know, THEY just come here with no money and sick and the
doctors don't have a choice... And they bring all these sick kids in
and it just clogs up the system...".

Still speechless, I said nothing (rare for me), but at this point I
think I was supposed to voice some agreement about what a "problem
those damn immigrants are...", but not having any and shocked by the
callousness of wanting to deny sick children medical attention, I
stayed silent.

Not hearing what must be some standard response in agreement by fellow
Arizonans, the East Coast raised woman stopped for a minute as if she
had for the first time actually listened to what she was saying and
said, "Well, of COURSE an ER is based on need first and sick children
should always have the right to be seen by a doctor, its just that
there's SO many of THEM, that US Americans can't even use our OWN
hospitals!"

This was a perfectly lovely, sweet, rational woman raised on the East
Coast who stated without prompting she'd voted for Obama, who'd lost
her mind over "those damn immigrants".

So next incident was a woman who lived next to my friend who was a
tiny, but tough old broad :), working in a local hotel in Tucson. Out
of the blue she's walking into her apartment and says hello to me.
Nice woman, kind and generous and friendly to all her neighbors
regardless of race. Next thing I know she goes on a rant about "those
damn immigrants" and how they can't speak English and yet somehow get
jobs at the hotel and she's giving them instructions they can't
understand and they act like they do and then get it wrong. She would
say things like "There's this one woman, Maria I think is her name,
she's actually a nice lady, but can't speak a word of English and I
can't for the life of me figure out how she got an AZ drivers license.
How does she read the street signs? What's wrong with these people...
Getting licenses like that and can't even speak English".

Then she went even farther, "Most people think its just the Mexicans
that are causing problems, but at the hotel, we have AFRICAN
immigrants and KOREAN immigrants and they don't speak English either!
All these Americans out of work and all they do is hire all these
immigrants! They have this Mexican woman at Walmart who doesn't speak
a word of English.". I interrupted her here saying "Well, considering
this is Tucson, that may not be a bad business decision". She nodded,
kind of, and went on and on about the Korean woman at the hotel ("Nice
lady, but why does she have a job and nice American kids don't").

It didn't stop there... Over and over I was either accosted with this
new language of hate or over heard it.

What's amazing to me is we were only one hour from an artificial
border drawn by the Spanish and English invaders on this land a
hundred years ago.

The people who lived on this land were neither Spanish nor English and
the only difference between them and us is which invading country
spent more time occupying what side of that artificial border. The
Mexicans are really Native Americans for the most part. Their land
invaded, their culture co-opted and even their language changed. They
had no border between these lands and they moved freely before
Europeans started drawing lines.

So here these INVADERS come in, speaking different languages and stop
on Native American lands and make it so no one understands anyone
anymore and draw artificial lines and build cities in endangered
deserts and then have the NERVE to tell them THEY are the "immigrants"
who are a nuisance like pests.

More than 50% of Tucson is latino by my visual estimate. Spanish is
the main language spoken by most residents (no kidding, the Spanish
settled there...). All signs are in Spanish and English no matter
where you go. The Mexican food is to die for... The Latino community
IS Tucson.

For Americans from all over the nation to have invaded Arizona
"because the dry heat is healthy" and then turn around and be
surprised that there are a lot of Mexicans an hour from Mexico is
ludicrious!!!

As my friend from Tucson says, "Welcome to Tucson, I warned you..."

--
Sent from my mobile device

Healthcare By the Numbers URGH!!!

This all seems like it should be so simple!

Let's run some numbers and think about this a minute.

I'm going to do this with an example so you have the ability to do the math on your own. Let's say you make $50,000 annually. You pay $300 monthly for family coverage, another $100 monthly for dental with $2000 annual dental costs between deductibles and co-payments for the family, you have a $3000 max family high deductible plan, and your employer pays 80% of your health care premium. (Note these aren't my personal numbers. Only for illustration, but pretty close to the quotes I've gotten from insurance companies this year).

Right now (yes, conservatives, you too...), go add up your health care expenses for the year, and include in that your dental and medical premiums (out of your paycheck), your co-payments, your deductibles and make sure you include the maximum out of pocket you may have to pay in any given year. ASSUME (cause eventually you will hit those maximums) this year you get hit by a car, or you get diagnosed with cancer, or your child steps on a pin and needs surgery to remove it (actually happened to me last year), etc and you HAVE to pay the full deductibles and co-payments. (If you don't have insurance, go to any health insurance website and try to get a quote, so you can see what your medical expenses would be if you could afford them or were eligible for them OR go add up all your bills for the year whether or not you paid them).

1. Next step is a little trickier... If you know what your employer spends on health care (80% is pretty common, so use that figure if you don't know), figure out how much your employer spends on your health care each year. Simple formula would be employer cost=your premium/your percentage of premium-your premium. So if your health and dental premium is $400 and your employer pays 80% of your premium, the formula is x=400/20%-400=$1600.
2. Multiply your premium times 12 and your employer's premium times 12 (in the example about that would be $4800 and $19,200.)
3. Now divide your total health care costs by your annual salary. Total health care costs/annual salary 9800/50000*100=19.6%
4. This is the percentage of your pay that goes to health care annually...19.6% in this example.
   

Think about that number a while. Post your number to the comments below. My personal number is actually 18.2% (for health insurance alone without my dental premiums, deductibles and co-pays).

The health care plan on the table includes a 2.3% increase for people making over $200000 single/$250000 couples and that PAYS for the entire plan and leaves some money on the table to shore up Medicare.

With a Medicare tax increase of say 7.6% across the board to individuals and businesses as FICA is currently charged, the government could easily afford to expand Medicare to all Americans(take your FICA on your paycheck and double it for this example $3800 increase in FICA annually).

The person in this example would get an instant $6000 raise annually. The company would have another $15,400 in the bank to either reinvest in the company, increase employee pay, business owners/shareholders could even take it as profit (not advisable... ;). Most likely, some combination of all of the above!

Now multiply that by 10 employees, how about 100 employees, how about 1000 employees, how about 200 million? $3,080,000,000,000

That's over $3 trillion back into the hands of American individuals, businesses and shareholders IN JUST THE FIRST YEAR!

Talk about stimulating the economy!

Business owners (of all sizes and types) would benefit the most, they'd be able to invest in new employees and expand their businesses almost instantaneously. Individuals would have new job opportunities (eliminate job locking because you can't leave or you'd lose your health care), entrepreneurial ability (again, not stuck in your job, so you can start that dream business), more money in their pockets immediately (note, more taxable dollars as well, so the government could lower tax rates with the influx of new income) AND they would no longer have to worry about all those medical bills driving them into bankruptcy even when they DO have coverage.

It seems to me that the blow back over universal health care is purely and totally one of a lack of the ability in this country for individuals to do the math.

This is the ONLY fiscally conservative answer to the problem of health care in this country.

I URGE each and every one of you (regardless of political views) to sit down and do your own math.

Granted the plan on the table doesn't do any of this... That said, it's a start in the right direction and at this point, we need to take what we can get!

One other point I'd like to make on health care. This has to do with the polling. Polling seems to be in the low to mid 40's in support of this bill. What that doesn't say is WHY people don't support the bill. Considering about 60% of the US public wanted universal healthcare (and thought that's what they were sending Dems to Congress and the White House to do) about a year ago. I think it's safe to assume that at least half those "opposed" to the legislation are "opposed" because they don't think it goes far enough.

Polls can be misleading is all I'm saying...

The Afghan War, Opium and the DJIA-2009 Chart

In 2003, I started making this chart after a conversation my husband and I had about the fall of the stock market and the odd coincidence with the Opium drug trade being stopped in Afghanistan under the Taliban just before 9-11. We did it as a joke, one of those 'wonder what would happen if..." kind of things late at night bored with a computer in front of us. So we went to the US State department website and pulled the figures back to 1993 then plotted them along with the Dow Jones Industrial average from the last trading day of each year.

The results stunned us, but we thought, well, it must just be a coincidence...

So in about 2004, I sent the chart to my Senator and asked "What do you think about this? Is there anything to it?" Not only didn't I get a reply, but the State Department immediately pulled their drug estimates on Afghanistan opium production from their website. We had to start going to the UNODC which had similar figures and was still posting them to get the information.

In 2005, I started writing a blog.

In 2006, I first got the nerve to post 3 years of collecting data on my blog.

In 2007, I posted the updated figures only to have the chart "disappear" from my blog and have to repost it. That year there was also a story on the news about the new "epidemic" of heroin in the suburbs of Milwaukee that blamed it all essentially on a black guy who was the contact (not the war, not the huge increase in supply, but one black guy...).

In 2008, I posted again noting "The 2008 figures in particular are a bit stunning not just for the fact that the drop in the DJIA is significantly more than the drop in the Afghan opium projected figures."

I wrote a piece a few weeks back about this as well. Read through it. It's got a lot of new information. Interesting to note that one of my readers was a bit skeptical about the role of corruption in the Afghan government. Hmmmm.....

And so here it is, the Afghan Opium production charted with the DJIA annually since 1993.

Clearly, 2008 is a BIG change in the general trend of the chart...an anamoly. Considering that December 2008 was the height of the worldwide financial crash and the market was in a panic independent of rationality, we could draw a line from 2007 to 2009 and you'd see the trend is still pretty accurate. Instead I've added a log line to the chart so you can see the trend mathmatically.

Think we've been way off base and are grasping at straws (or should I say poppies)? This article in The Guardian titled Drug Money Saved Banks in Global Crisis Claims UN Advisor was the first I've found that out and out finally recognizes that the banks are laundering the drug money and the result is that it now directly affects our financial markets worldwide. It's interesting to note that the British government was in control of the worldwide opium market for a hundred years (google Opium Wars).

The winter report is out as well and as predicted, the supply is so huge and stockpiles so large that prices are falling. No surprise there, the basic economic of supply and demand...

So what IS the objective in Afghanistan Mr. Obama? We'd all like to know.

(Note this chart is hard to read on this page, but if you click on it, you'll get a much more readable copy. I will also email it to you with all the sourcing if you send me your email address.

Notes on the data presented:

^ http://www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2002/html/17947.htm -- Information was found at this web address. All US information has been removed from the US Dept of State website with no explanation and I did not save the original reports (something I've corrected withthe UN report now included in the figures).

*Potential Yield estimate from the U.S. White House; UN estimate is approx. 3,600 metric tons

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/28/afghanistan.drugs.reut/index.html

**Potential Yield estimate of production thru Sept 2002 based on the 2002 number divided by two for charting purposes

***Close last trading day of December annually unless otherwise** noted

~http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afghanistan_2005/annex_opium-afghanistan-2005-09-09.pdf

87% of the world's opium production in 2004 and 2005 came from Afghanistan eradication efforts led to an estimated 5% reduction in opium production from 2004 to 2005, but the reason for lower amounts of final product are believed to be on the processing and crow yield side more than the growth side of production.

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/crop_monitoring.html#afg

2006 figures so far are estimated to be at or above the levels in 2006 depending on whether or not any eradication efforts are carried out or successful (coincidentally, the stock market is also expected to rise during the year). http://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/Afg_RAS_2006.pdf

New estimate is that over 90% of the world's opium production came from Afghanistan

http://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/AFG05%20_full_web_2006.pdf

http://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_opium_survey_2009_summary.pdf

Why the Roberts Decision Yesterday Was Correct (even if it sucks)

Th panic over the Supreme Court decision yesterday granting full free speech rights to corporations was the correct decision for them to make no matter how much it sucks...

On a true free speech level, and considering current laws and precedents, the ruling is actually more consistent with the constitution and the decision of 1844 when corporations were declared equal to 'persons' having nearly the same constitutional rights.

People are getting upset with the WRONG point of the decision.

Over the years, the courts have expanded on that decision of corporate citizenship in a consistent manner perhaps more than any other ruling of the court in its history.

The court just expanded that ruling further yesterday and it's not inconsistent with the constitution if you let the 1844 ruling stand.

The problem isn't yesterday's decision, it's one made over 150 years ago!

That's where the fix belongs and anything else is just a stop gap until the corporate personage ruling is stripped via constitutional amendment.

We can complain and argue all we want. Under current constitutional law, a corporation equals a human being when it comes to constitutional protections and that's where the core problem lies.

From Wikipedia today: Since the 1800s, legal personhood has been further construed to make it a citizen, resident, or domiciliary of a state (usually for purposes of personal jurisdiction). In Louisville, C. & C.R. Co. v. Letson, 2 How. 497, 558, 11 L.Ed. 353 (1844), the U.S. Supreme Court held that for the purposes of the case at hand, a corporation is “capable of being treated as a citizen of [the State which created it], as much as a natural person.” Ten years later, they reaffirmed the result of Letson, though on the somewhat different theory that “those who use the corporate name, and exercise the faculties conferred by it,” should be presumed conclusively to be citizens of the corporation's State of incorporation. Marshall v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 16 How. 314, 329, 14 L.Ed. 953 (1854).

If you don't like it, here's a suggested fix that will take 2/3rd's votes in both Houses of Congress and adoption by 3/4's of the state legislatures... I'm not necessarily advocating for this, the cost could be terrible, but it's really the only solution for those of you who are freaking out right now ;).

"Corporations are entities licensed by Federal, State and Local Governments and not personages equal to the same constitutional rights of a human being, but subject to the laws, regulations and controls government entities pass in conjunction with the privilege of a corporate charter."

Anyone up for the battle of a lifetime?

As for the conversation (argument?) it sparked, we are US citizens who do have the right to vote (well except for the 5.3 million currently barred under the antiquated Jim Crow statutes of felon disfranchisement) and making excuses that we are all too stupid to see through the b.s. of the corporations is pretty ridiculous and cynical.

I WANT the corporate logos on the candidates' commercials and pins on their lapels, and sponsorship notices as PUBLIC as they can be so I can be BETTER informed as to who's bankrolling them!

You think if Ben Nelson had written all over his campaign "This candidate brought to you by United Healthcare" the DNC would have bothered to spend a dime on his election?

You think if his primary opponent had "This candidate brought to you by Citizens for Universal Healthcare (made that up ;)" the voters could have made an INFORMED choice about who they were casting their ballot for?

I think the problem with our elections is not that corporations are bankrolling candidates. THEY ARE ALREADY. They just do it now through nebulous groups like the Tea Partiers and the Swift Boaters. "The problem is that we DON'T KNOW what corporations are bankrolling who!

MORE SPEECH IS ALWAYS BETTER!

I say bring it out in the open. I WANNA KNOW!

Surprised by the Surprise: Obama and the Afghan War

I guess I'm the only person in America who's not surprised that President Obama (still love typing that) is going to continue the war in Afghanistan. I feel like the only person who actually listened to him during his campaign in 2008...

I am surprised that we are still in Iraq. I'm surprised that Guantanamo is still not closed. I'm surprised that Don't Ask Don't Tell is still getting people fired in the military.

I am NOT surprised we are going to send more troops into Afghanistan. Not only that as a peacenik Obama supporter, I'm conflicted in my own right as to whether or not this is a good idea.

Keith Olbermann seems stunned and furious tonight and made a great case for Obama changing his mind now. Others are sort of reporting it as if it's a new war. Peace networks are getting ready to hit the streets. All of those are valid reactions to this new escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

What does not surprise me is that we are escalating in Afghanistan and I have two reasons that it could be a less horrible disaster than the liberal peace community (of which I'm a proud life long member) is about to make a really good case for...

First, why am I not surprised? It's pretty simple actually. I listened to almost every campaign speech I could in 2008 by Obama. He must have said on a daily basis for a year something on the line of 'We are fighting the wrong war. We need to get out of Iraq and go back to Afghanistan and finish the job there including catching Osama Bin Laden.' I bet you could find a version of that phrase in almost every speech on the campaign trial... I heard it and voted for President Obama anyway. Apparently others went "la la la la la" every time he said it.

This escalation is a campaign promise pure and simple.

So I'll let the rest of the world argue about and make a fantastic case for all the reasons we shouldn't go back into Afghanistan (as Obama promised us before we voted for him, that he would).

Here are two (the only two I can think of) good ones to just trust Obama as the man we elected to make this decision: opium and real peace

Many of you have followed over the years my posts on the Afghanistan opium and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In addition I started tracking heroin abuse in the US over the past few years. What I've found is astounding in the least and I encourage you to not only watch for the post again in January this year, but to also Google and find my previous work on this issue.

The part of that project that really bothers me is that the Taliban stopped opium production in its tracks in 2001. Around 700 mt came out of the country that year under Taliban rule. Since then the amount of opium poppy produced in Afghanistan has increased nearly 1000% to around 7000 mt!

The world only consumes about 5000 mt with the average addiction levels. Afghanistan doesn't produce all the opium that's produced world wide. We've seen a proportional increase in addiction levels in the US as the price has plunged due to overwhelming supply, and in search of new markets, the dealers have moved it into the suburbs... Teenage children in the US are dying of heroin addiction now more than ever in history. It's every where. It's cheap and it's easier to get than a bottle of beer or a cigarette. I KNEW some of these children. Lives cut short before they are even of age due to a war being lost for the last 7 years thousands of miles away from the place they first put that needle in their arm...

Still, the world is not consuming the enormous supply that is coming out of Afghanistan to the point where now the UNODC is now saying that about 2000 mt are being STORED around the world annually... Think about that. The UN Office of Drug Control knows that heroin is being stored somewhere in the world, and how much, but doesn't know where??? Apparently it also keeps really well. Nice feature for the drug dealers huh? This means that even the worst case scenario for the drug dealers is that Afghan production is stopped all together again and yet, they will have at least a year of heroin for ALL the drug addicts in the entire world stored up to continue the trade.

Every year, that stock pile gets bigger. The President of Afghanistan's brother is reported to be the most powerful opium dealer in the country. The president himself basically appointed by the Bush Administration is barely legitimate with two questionable elections this year is perilously close to a dictator.

Real peace in Afghanistan is a pipe dream right now. Literally centuries of war and hostile occupation has left that country devastated.

I could be convinced though that if the mission outlined tomorrow is not to fight a war, but to restore the country not to the current leadership or the war lords or the drug cartels, but to the everyday people of that country, and to stop the production of opium and replace it with other more profitable crops, it might be a legitimate effort.

To teach them how to take control, rid the fields of opium, and then leave in a very deliberate and highly outlined way is really the ONLY way the mission is worth it.

Our children deserve a world not flooded with low priced easy to get heroin.

The Afghan people deserve a chance to restore their own country as they see fit without the influence of corrupt leaders and superpowers who don't understand the history of struggle they've suffered.

If President Obama outlines a very narrow short term mission with two goals, to restore legitimate rule to the people and rid the country of opium production, only then could I see this mission being valuable. If he comes out tomorrow night sounding like a Bush Admin official, I don't care what this has to do with a campaign promise, he's going to have me marching in the streets in protest of this expensive, and deadly conflict.

We can only hope at this point that he gets this right. Too much is at stake.

Note I have the hard data on all of this if anyone wants it, let me know or go to the UNODC website....

Updates on the Fight at the Tea Pary Rally in Milwaukee Today

I posted this blog earlier today and more information has come in, so I want to make sure I keep the facts current.

The blog is my first hand experience at a Tea Bagger Rally on Milwaukee's lakefront today. It's a bit disjointed and more information has come in since I wrote the original post (in the heat of the moment) so I want to relay what's come in since and clarify my comments so far.

I want to start by reiterating my belief that the man was in danger by a large group of angry people. I don't know why, I just know that he was being followed by an angry mob. I still don't know the circumstances prior to the portion I saw. All I know is what I actually saw. Other eyewitness accounts are coming in and I'm not sure what happened before the part I reported on.

I also missed Joe the Plumber's actual involvement in it all and I said that in the original blog. I really don't know personally because I didn't see it, but I suspect from the people who've posted on my blog that he may have been trying to calm down the people attacking the guy.

Unfortunately I missed that part of it and only saw him in the middle of the crowd as previously stated.

One commentor on my blog stated: Joe the Plumber joined in and he WAS BREAKING UP THE SQUABBLE! He had a booth set up and when he saw what was happening he got between the squabbling. So don't slur him. He said to me, "we don't need this." I agree.

This suggests JTPe may have seen the portion of this that I saw and was not happy with the way it looked... similar to my reaction. I suspect more on this story will come out today.

I strongly suggest you read ALL the comments and take my perspective into account as it's accurate to what I saw and experienced, but may not tell the entire story since I freely admitted in the post that I didn't see everything.

I want in particular to discuss the free speech issue. No one from government was quelling free speech today and I'm not saying they should have. The people at this rally had every right to say what they thought, and by God, they took full advantage of that right LOL! I would defend their right to speak and would be the first to say something if their right to speak was infringed on by the government. Anyone can make a comment about anything they want as long as they don't explicitly say, "attack that guy" and a group of people attack that guy.

My question goes to responsibility for your speech and this is a careful line to draw. Just because you have the right to say something, should you say it? That's a moral question that each individual in a free society should make. My questions in the previous blog go to that point.

Vicki McKenna's comments today were horrifying. She called for a "revolution", called the crowd the "people's mob" and said

"When someone says bigot, say thank you when someone says nazi laugh,"

actually I think in both cases she said "calls you a" but was trying to get it posted on my FB account so I didn't forget the gist of it...

This was clearly an irresponsible speech that she had every right to give. Shortly thereafter the scuffle ensued. Is there a cause and effect here? I don't know. I only asked the question.

Is the rhetoric around this anti-government movement out of hand? Again, asking the question. What's really important here isn't whether or not I feel it is out of hand, but if the people using this rhetoric are ready to take responsibility for the results of it whatever those results.

Here's some video that basically confirms the portion of my story after came back from getting the sheriffs. It certainly confirms JTP's involvement in some way. It confirms the mood of the crowd (even the guy videotaping is flipping out and justifying the attack on the guy). It also confirms in particular that walking into that group of people (I was near the guy videotapping and he also missed the take down...) and hearing the anger and the horror at the applause when the guy lifted his head and was his face was full of blood would have scared just about anyone rational. That justifies my own horror with the entire incident.

More video apparently exists that could show why the mob was angry and I'll withhold judgement on that until after I see it. I also suspect it will confirm the first half of my story even if the first half of my story may have been the middle of the whole story.

Most importantly, I want to reiterate that I wrote the story as I personally saw it. I was careful to leave out what I didn't see and point out what I didn't know.

I do know that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was able to confirm that there was a fight. Much more will come out around this. I suspect the angry mob will try to justify their behavior in attacking the guy. He was an angry liberal crashing their party after all.

I was terrified by it all. I was appalled at the outcome. I saw the look in the guy's eyes as he realized that the people around him were way outnumbering him, not letting him walk and pushing and surrounding him. This was ugly no matter the final story.

The bottom line is that the guy was pretty spotable with his fuscia backpack. If, as some people are stating, he was out of line, they had one duty and one duty only, to get the police or sheriffs involved. That's what I did. My husband against his better judgement did not try to step in and break it up, but waiting for the authorities to get involved. This is what rational people do. They get professionals only a few feet away, not form an angry mob and attack someone.

I will have more to say on this, but I wanted to make sure I keep my readers up to date on the latest developments. Lots of other bloggers are linking to my original post and I suggest you read their posts on both sides of the story.

Just know that my original report of what I saw is accurate to my perspective as a truly independent and interested observer at the rally. I was not there to cause trouble. I did not and do not know the guy involved in the incident. I was there out of honest curiousity about it all and my opinions on it are my own.