Yikes..where are the Beto fans? He, above all

[Laura PourMeADrink]

others, had the courage to simply stand for what is right.

[Skittles]

1. I am here, have always been for Beto

to me he is still *THE* best candidate

[Laura PourMeADrink]

5. I have this dream that somehow, someway he will emerge.

I saw him on CNN and was so impressed. He cut through all the political bs and just simple said...yes, we should vote for the inquiry. No politics just heart. Stand up and declare ! Totally underestimated..the effect of just saying AYE!!!

[Turin_C3PO]

6. No, we shouldn't have a vote.

Trump doesn’t get to dictate the rules to the legislative branch.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

9. OMG if I hear one more time we follow what trump

Thinks/wants/expects us to do or we are trying to out monster the monster.....Ted Kennedy must be turning over in his grave.

[Skittles]

10. I agree

I am SICK of it

[Laura PourMeADrink]

13. +1,000,000

[Turin_C3PO]

11. There's no point to holding a vote.

An impeachment inquiry is already ongoing and when the investigation is over and articles of impeachment are drawn up, THEN they’ll go on record with yay or nay. He will be impeached.


You say you don’t want us to do things based on what Trump wants but holding a vote would be doing just that, giving him what he wants.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

18. THIS!!!

Bernie/Elizabeth or Elizabeth/Bernie 2020!!
Either way, they're stronger together!!
Welcome to the revolution!!!

[Skittles]

12. me too

Trump would be freaked out jut by Beto's height alone

[Laura PourMeADrink]

14. How tall is Beto?

[MustLoveBeagles]

15. 6'4"

[Laura PourMeADrink]

16. Wow

[Skittles]

17. Trump would have to wear Melania's shoes to be taller than Beto

[MustLoveBeagles]

25. He'd just break them and she'd be pissed!

[aikoaiko]

2. His demands to take away people's guns is effed up.

He is paying the price.

[Celerity]

3. and then taking a completely disingenuous cheap shot at Buttigieg about it, yep

Beto is well, well off my list of possible primary support. I so hope Biden or Warren or any other possible winners of the primaries do not pick him for VP, that is electoral suicide IMHO.

[aikoaiko]

4. That was very strange, indeed.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. I missed that. Heard his call for outlawing guns

But missed the Buttigieg diss.

[Celerity]

8. Beto O'Rourke: Buttigieg Opposes Gun Confiscation Because He's 'Afraid to Do the Right Thing'

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287300633

Democratic presidential candidates Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg sparred over the merits of mandatory gun confiscation during a gun control advocacy event in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

During a one-on-one with Today Show anchor Craig Melvin, Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., was asked a question about mandatory assault weapon “buybacks,” to which he responded that “as a policy, it’s had mixed results. It’s a healthy debate to have, but we’ve got to do something now.” Buttigieg went on to say the issue could potentially distract Democrats from areas where they could make real advances in gun control.

Buttigieg has called for a ban on the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles, but has joined the rest of the Democratic primary field in resisting O’Rourke’s call for a “mandatory buyback,” which would require gun owners to sell their semi-automatic rifles to the government and hold those who refuse criminally liable.

Later in the event, Beto O’Rourke, who has made past headlines with his outspoken support of mandatory gun confiscation, challenged Buttigieg as a candidate “worried about the polls” ...

--- SKIP ---

“I was really offended by [Buttigieg’s] comments. I think he represents a kind of politics that is focused on poll testing and focus group driving, and triangulating, and listening to consultants before you arrive at a position,” he continued. “I think our politics has to be about doing the right thing, saying the right thing.”

[dalton99a]

19. What he said about Buttigieg is accurate.

[Celerity]

24. bullshit

Not one of the other of our candidates has signed onto Beto's mandatory buyback/criminalisation scheme, which is electoral suicide. If Beto wants to be the big player off of this, then why did he not go after the entire rest of the field? Call them all basically cowards like he did with Buttigieg? Every other candidate agrees with Pete on this subject, yet he goes after only Pete.

Plus he has a go at Pete for a lack of courage (he called him afraid), when Pete and Gabbard are the only 2 combat veterans in the whole field. I do not see any history of Beto putting his life on the line for his nation.

Pete has not changed his positions on anything of import from the start, and comes from the background of being a mid-sized town mayor and having extremely limited financial resources until well into this year campaigns. He certainly did not have the means to run some labyrinthine poll-driven, focus group manufactured schema before he tossed his hat into the ring.

It is rot.

[liskddksil]

32. Pete was the one taking cheap shots about "Shiny objects", Beto just responded nt

[Celerity]

39. nope

During a one-on-one with Today Show anchor Craig Melvin, Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., was asked a question about mandatory assault weapon “buybacks,” to which he responded that “as a policy, it’s had mixed results. It’s a healthy debate to have, but we’ve got to do something now.” Buttigieg went on to say the issue could potentially distract Democrats from areas where they could make real advances in gun control.

Buttigieg has called for a ban on the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles, but has joined the rest of the Democratic primary field in resisting O’Rourke’s call for a “mandatory buyback,” which would require gun owners to sell their semi-automatic rifles to the government and hold those who refuse criminally liable.

[wildflower]

40. Right, see my post #35

[MustLoveBeagles]

20. Beto is very passionate about this topic and I admire him for it

It just seems like guns are more important than people in this country. I'm in agreement with him about this but know it's costing him support. That said, I think his comments about Buttigieg were a mistake. I wish he hadn't gone there.

[wildflower]

35. This is what upset Beto:

Last edited Tue Oct 8, 2019, 11:16 PM - Edit history (1)

At the gun safety forum, which was attended by March for Our Lives and Gabby Giffords, there was a discussion of mandatory buybacks and Pete said this:

"We have a way sometimes, as a party, in my party, of getting caught, just when we've amassed the discipline and the force to get something done right away, a shiny object makes it harder for us to focus."

After the forum Beto said to reporters, "What Pete has been saying is that a mandatory buybacks is the shiny object that has been distracting us. How in the world can you say that to March for Our Lives? I was really offended by those comments ."

[MustLoveBeagles]

46. Thank you for posting the context of his remarks

[Celerity]

69. I 100% agree with Buttigieg

It is the same with those who want to jump right to MFA and fail to get the ACA shored up, and the Public Option in place.

Beto wants to go right to mandatory buybacks and then, if people do not comply, you go in with armed LEO's and take them via the threat of deadly force. That is an instant concrete manifestation of every RW wacko's paranoid fantasy for decades about the 'gubmint' taking their guns (and then sticking the right wingers in camps.) It will blow out hundreds of elected Democratic pols nationwide and will turn violent in many places.

I am anti-gun. I would, if I could, snap my fingers and make the 2nd amendment disappear, and then do an Australian or UK or Swedish, etc etc style outlawing. But that is not reality in gun-grazed, gun-saturated 'Murica, unfortunately.

[dalton99a]

22. And Buttigieg as VP pick wouldn't be electoral suicide?

[Celerity]

26. non sequitur

Also, why don't you enlighten me why it would be electoral suicide.

[liskddksil]

28. Beto responded to Pete's and Sen. Schumer's

cheap shots and Pete's offensive comment about "Shiny Objects" in front of Moms Demand Action and March for Our Lives. Beto doesn't attack 1st, but will respond when necessary.

[Celerity]

31. sorry, but Buttigieg and all the others know an electoral loser of a stance when they see it

During a one-on-one with Today Show anchor Craig Melvin, Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., was asked a question about mandatory assault weapon “buybacks,” to which he responded that “as a policy, it’s had mixed results. It’s a healthy debate to have, but we’ve got to do something now.” Buttigieg went on to say the issue could potentially distract Democrats from areas where they could make real advances in gun control.

Buttigieg has called for a ban on the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles, but has joined the rest of the Democratic primary field in resisting O’Rourke’s call for a “mandatory buyback,” which would require gun owners to sell their semi-automatic rifles to the government and hold those who refuse criminally liable.

[liskddksil]

36. LOL we've made so many advances on gun reform from Columbine to the night Beto uttered "Hell Yeah"

Beto just ruined 20 years of progress with his mean statement. Sarcasm.

[Celerity]

48. I find nothing funny or worthy of sarcasm about any of this

I certainly never engaged in a paradigm construction of Beto as 'mean.' Mean implies that he would have some sort of whip hand over Buttigieg, which he most assuredly does not. There is a difference between that and a cheap shot that accuses Pete of lacking courage and also ignores every other candidate of ours' similar (to Buttigieg's) stances, all of which disagree with this particular policy of O'Rourke's.

By all means, I invite Beto to bring it hard to the debate, have a real-time, real go at Buttigieg over this. It won't end well for the Texan, of that I am quite sure.

[liskddksil]

52. Actually Harris and Booker have expressed support for Beto's plan, but

Beto is the leader on this issue in moving the Overton window of public opinion, as mandatory buybacks are approaching or exceeding 50% support in recent national and Texas state-wide polling with more of the not supportive being not sure than disapproving. Even lesser measures including a ban on future sales of AWB's have now become the compromise position.

[Celerity]

54. thanks for informing me on Harris and Booker, I stand corrected on that point nt

[liskddksil]

56. you're welcome nt

[cwydro]

68. Completely agree.

Unnecessary cheap shot, but I doubt Pete lost any sleep over it.

[jcgoldie]

23. more right wing bullshit

Beto said what needs to be said and he has owned that issue. Kowtow to the NRA all you want I am glad he pulls the debate in the direction of reason.

[Celerity]

29. so you're saying every 1 of our candidates, save Beto, are buying into RW bullshit when they refuse

support his mandatory buyback/criminalisation scheme? Not one of the rest supports it. They know it is an electoral loser.

[jcgoldie]

30. I don't hear them criticizing him for it...

Like I am hearing here.

[Celerity]

34. Maybe you are not looking hard enough, or maybe you are inferring too much into Buttigiegs

actual words.

[jcgoldie]

38. My comments had zero to do with Pete Buttigieg...

It had to do with "His demands to take away people's guns is effed up....He is paying the price."

[Celerity]

41. ok, fair enough

[aikoaiko]

43. Beto's proposal is even more extreme than the solution we used to curb machine gun crime

Last edited Wed Oct 9, 2019, 08:40 AM - Edit history (1)

There is no logic that semiauto rifles are more dangerous than machine guns and yet we can still own machine guns.

We stopped the misuse of lawfully owned machine guns with NFA registration, not confiscation or forced buybacks.

[jcgoldie]

49. The problem is worse than that NRA BS

You don't have a right to a semi-automatic rifle more than school children have a right to life.

[aikoaiko]

62. NRA BS? These were mostly just facts and logic.

We'll have to let SCOTUS rule on the right to own a semi-auto rifle.

Owning rifles doesn't hurt school children. It is the misuse of rifles that can hurt or kill children.

There are tens of millions of AR and AK-style semi-auto rifles out there and they lead to fewer than 500 homicides a year.

Just more facts.

We need more gun control, but we don't need useless laws through fear-mongering.

[jcgoldie]

64. fear mongering

The only purpose for semi-automatic weapons is killing people. You say that "mass shootings are rare" thats complete bullshit. The person fear mongering is the one passing off NRA arguments on DU about taking automatic weapons being some sort of slippery slope to seizing everyone's guns. The reality that law enforcement teaches in most mass shooting drills is that the shooter gets taken out when they reload. If they didn't have the capacity to fire 30 or 40 rounds before doing that, less people and less innocent school children would die. The automatic weapons are precisely what makes them "mass" shootings and not just shootings. In case you haven't been in a school in some time, most teachers don't have "steel doors" to lock. The training is not unnecessary its a fact of life in a country where folks like you think their favorite gun is more important than school kids having a safe environment in which to learn.

[aikoaiko]

66. I'll respond to each point

1. The only purpose for semi-automatic weapons is killing people.

Yes, and justified lethal force is a compelling reason to be able to own an AR15.

2. You say that "mass shootings are rare" thats complete bullshit.

Mass shooting with AR15 and AK-style semi-auto rifles are rare. Less than 500 deaths per year by any kind of rifle, let along the subgroup of AR15 and AK that Beto wants to confiscate.

3. The person fear mongering is the one passing off NRA arguments on DU about taking automatic weapons being some sort of slippery slope to seizing everyone's guns.

Who did that?

4. The reality that law enforcement teaches in most mass shooting drills is that the shooter gets taken out when they reload.

Sometimes they are taken out when they reload. Many kill themselves or surrender when faced with police

5. If they didn't have the capacity to fire 30 or 40 rounds before doing that, less people and less innocent school children would die.

Well, since Beto only wants to confiscate ARs and AKs, you'll be able to achieve the same casualties with multiple handguns. Remember, the largest school shoot to date is the Virginia Tech massacre and that shooter used a 22 lr handgun with magazines of 10 rounds, and a 9mm with magazines of 15 rounds.

6. The automatic weapons are precisely what makes them "mass" shootings and not just shootings.

Oh dear, these are not automatic weapons. Semi-autos fire just like revolvers with a pull of the trigger for each round.

7. In case you haven't been in a school in some time, most teachers don't have "steel doors" to lock. The training is not unnecessary its a fact of life in a country where folks like you think their favorite gun is more important than school kids having a safe environment in which to learn.

My point being that investing in hardened doors with locks and training teachers how to handle emergency situations is much better than terrorizing students with drills that are not likely to be needed. Fear mongering about unlikely events is a problem.

[liskddksil]

27. Kindergartners having mass shooting drills is what is effed up! nt

[aikoaiko]

45. I agree but those drills are totally unnecessary.

Mass school shootings are rare and really only the teachers need to be trained to lock steel doors.

[jcgoldie]

51. fuck.

This comment is an embarrassment. Just fucking horrible.

[aikoaiko]

61. Less than 500 people per year died from shootings involving rifles.

Even fewer involve the rifles Beto wants to confiscate.

He’s proposing a solution that wouldn’t be noticed statistically even if those would be shooters didn’t use a different rifle or handgun to accomplish their tragic goals.

[Hoyt]

33. Ah come on. You fanatic assault weapons gunners are only about 15% of population.

[aikoaiko]

47. Maybe but we know the political pressure points.

[Hoyt]

60. You think you do. The other 85% of us think it's time to quit coddling gunners,

especially those who think their assault style weapons trump everyone else.

[Rstrstx]

59. It's not hurting him in TX, one of the places you'd most expect it

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2019/09/19/beto-o-rourke-joe-biden-bernie-sanders-competitive-against-donald-trump-in-texas-ut-tyler-poll-shows/

[aikoaiko]

63. Which is why I hope he runs for the US senate again when his presidential campaign fails.

[jcgoldie]

21. I agree

Beto is awesome. He stands for what is right. I really love Warren and I think she makes the best president but he is my 2nd choice.

[mahina]

37. I'm a Beto fan

Though I had to choose and chose otherwise.
I’m a Bernie and Joe and Kamala fan too.

Tulsi, no.

[Awsi Dooger]

42. I'm still with Beto

I don't care about details. Elections versus an incumbent are not decided based on policy or details.

I haven't watched one second of one debate because I don't care about details.

Based on the polling I looked at briefly we are in huge danger of really screwing this up and nullifying our small theoretical advantage. I fully expect the party to screw this up during the nominating process. That's partially why I haven't been paying any attention.

Zero margin for error against an incumbent. We need to get lucky as hell. Basically that means Trump needs to keep talking and keep his approval rating exactly where it is now. If so, we might narrowly prevail.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

50. Yes ..if he doesn't get closer to 45% (ironically) and

if we have a candidate who can win everywhere.

Other than that, we're good

[Polybius]

44. I tired of him in early July with the Nike Betsy Ross sneaker fiasco

At the time I was still undecided, but I was looking at him for possible support.

[liskddksil]

53. What a silly reason, sorry nt

[Polybius]

55. I'm super-pro Independence Day

And I really wanted those sneakers. For others it might have been a silly reason, but for me it was different.

[liskddksil]

57. fair enough nt

[essadaw]

58. I'm still 100% behind Beto

He has courage of convictions and strong moral backbone. Great policy positions. And he has the infrastructure and popularity to carry Texas against Trump--game over for Trump. I'm just not hanging out much on this site.

[cwydro]

70. He didn't even win against the unpopular Cruz.

“Carrying” Texas seems unlikely.

[TidalWave46]

65. Beto is one of my favorites.

It's a shame how high the bar was set for him out of the box. His announcement video from a couch didn't match the Kennedy talk. That hurt him from the start.

I love his position on guns. I love that he is fearless in its promotion.

[Hortensis]

67. "above all others had the courage to simply stand for what is right"?

No. But he might illustrate the perils of not soft pedaling some intentions.

Generals don't send messengers to opposing armies telling them when and where and how they're going to deploy. There are big reasons for that.

I say "might" because most observers believe his biggest single mistake was that he didn't set up his $Billion corporation so its sole product (him) would be sweeping the market ahead of the competition. The market was already swept and subdivided by 25 other candidates by the time he got his act sorta together.

Next time.