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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Beto! Beto! Beto!

Beto! Beto! Beto!

by | 86 Comments

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After some false starts, jackal Midnight Lurker managed to get photos to one of us for posting. Here’s the scoop:

The crowd was huuuuuuge!

I took these at a rally in Denton, Texas today. Tried to pick the best ones. After days of rain, today it was hot as hell. Humid. I’m guessing two thousand easily showed up. The little patio bar was maxed out and people were lining the fences. Huge turnout. Traffic was jammed around the area. We had trouble getting him out and to the next gig.


Great speech. People were cheering. Great mix pf people too. Beto sweated right through his shirt and kept going. He even stopped mid-speech when the EMS showed up after somebody fainted to make sure they were okay. People love him.


He shook my sweaty hand with his sweaty hand and said, “Good work.”


I’m still blushing.

Thanks, ML.  Here are even more photos.  Open thread!

Reader Interactions

86Comments

  5. 5.

    Yutsano

    @The Midnight Lurker: WOW that is something! You can almost feel the energy through the pictures. And even in the reddest areas in horrible weather Beto is still getting crowds like that. I honestly wonder if November is going to be a massive tsunami of blue even in places like Mississippi.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    I saw one of those BETO signs a few blocks away, in a yard in NoVA. He’s got lots of fans. :-)

    Here’s hoping that he can win, and help other Democrats in Texas as well.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    Kay

    Wow. That’s a lot of people. It must be fun for Texas Democrats to have this phenom to follow.

    This made me laugh:

    Kate McGee
    ‏@McGeeReports
    Obama asks two students if they’re a couple and they get very uncomfortable “did I just make this awkward?”

  10. 10.

    Davebo

    I’m seeing lots of Beto signs here but it’s inner loop Houston so who knows how it plays out. One was cute because it had a homemade sign next to it saying “Don’t steal my Beto sign again. Stealing signs is un-American!”

  12. 12.

    Jane2

    @The Midnight Lurker: He’s remarkable, not because he “looks” like a Kennedy, but because he actually takes positions that may not be popular with the audience of the moment while managing to include those who don’t agree with him. I recently saw the Robert Kennedy series on Netflix, and was struck by how he did the same thing – spoke clearly on issues. That’s all too rare these days.

    The Texas I hope to visit again after Trump is the Texas that isn’t blindly for Cruzy/Trump, and I hope Beto wins.

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    I love the idea of a populist, engaging political candidate igniting a grassroots movement that gets folks involved and overcomes the entrenched order. Go Beto, bring this home!

    As much as I adore the Santorum concession, I could die happy upon watching the Cruz edition.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    After former Democratic President Barack Obama made a quiet stop in Columbus on Thursday night, the wealthiest Republican supporter in the state told a small audience at a Downtown event that he is fed up and has quit the Republican Party.
    “I just decided I’m no longer a Republican,” said L Brands CEO Leslie H. Wexner, speaking during a panel discussion about civility at Miranova’s Ivory Room billed as a “Columbus Partnership and YPO Leadership Summit.”
    “I’m an independent,” he said. “I won’t support this nonsense in the Republican Party. I’ve been a Republican since college, joined the Young Republican Club at Ohio State.

    I’m glad because he throws great wads of money at GOP candidates, but OTOH I know how this goes and how it goes is the “former Republican” then insists that Democrats have to turn into conservatives, just because Republicans went insane and he has nowhere else to go. They always let you know this is an “any port in a storm” situation and they wouldn’t be caught dead with you otherwise :)

  19. 19.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @trollhattan: Well, it’s clearly not Beto. See? Beto Beto Beto! No problems.

    Go Beto, and Democrats across the country! November’s coming…

  20. 20.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    I’m glad he’s running. I still don’t know if he can win in Texas, or if it’s going to be another two or four or six years before any Democrat can win statewide there. But he seems to be the guy who could pull it off this year if anybody can, and even if he falls short, he may well help bring a lot of other Democrats farther down on the ballot over the line. Whether he wins or loses, he’s going to have a whole lot of people who are going to remember this, and who will be willing to put their backs into campaigns for him down the road.

  23. 23.

    Sandia Blanca

    Great photos, Midnight Lurker! Is Denton normally a little bit blue? I’m in Austin, and every block looks like they’re having a Beto sign contest! But we are bright blue, so not necessarily a good indicator for the state.

  26. 26.

    Patricia Kayden

    @waratah: His speech supporting the NFL players’ right to protest was heartfelt and powerful. I hope so many voters come out to vote for him that all those suppression tactics completely fail.

  27. 27.

    Patricia Kayden

    @scarshapedstar: That actually would be great. He’d make a great candidate against Trump. Not necessarily a high hurdle but I could see him following in President Obama’s rock star footsteps.

  32. 32.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    BJ hivemind. Do you any of you know what a “mall queen” is? For the life of me I can’t find the definition on the internet and was wondering what it meant exactly. I heard it on an old episode of SVU.

  35. 35.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Jay:
    Perhaps? The comment was directed at Mariska Hargitay’s character by a young black guy.

    Btw, was that video supposed to be serious? And 1993? I know a decade’s mainstream culture tends to bleed a few years into the next but that was vintage 1984. Was Canada stuck in some kind of time warp?

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??:

    Er, that “Robin Sparkles” video is from the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Robin Sparkles was a fictional character (more fictional than the real characters on the show), and the video is a spoof/​satire of ’80s videos.

  43. 43.

    Suzanne

    Mmmm. Beto.
    Hello, gorgeous.

    Really think that after nominating a black dude and a white lady that it’s time to double down and nominate Kamala. And don’t bring up race or gender at all. Let it just hang out there and let the douchebags be the first to bring it up.

  44. 44.

    Ruckus

    @Jane2:
    I thought Bobbie Kennedy would have made an extremely good president. He was better spoken than his brother and I liked his positions even better. Another dark night in our history that was. If Beto is anything like Kennedy, that is a fine thing indeed.

  46. 46.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    Yes. They hate the party they paid for and asked for, and now they want the rest of us to feel that bad as well. I got news for Wexner. We didn’t like your party before you left, we aren’t swinging right just to make your socks go up and down. You want to join the party that actually likes people, welcome. Come on in and stuff envelopes. Or is that too much for you?

  52. 52.

    Aleta

    2 min video of Botham Jean leading singing in church

    DJ Wade-O @djwadeo
    Botham Jean leading worship. This is who Amber Guyger killed.
    https://twitter.com/djwadeo/status/1040693828540424193

    (CNN) The mother of Botham Shem Jean says her son has become the target of a smear campaign since an off-duty Dallas police officer killed him in his own apartment more than a week ago.

    As hundreds gathered Thursday to pay tribute to Botham Shem Jean. the beloved man from St. Lucia, a search warrant for his apartment was made public.

    The search warrant indicates that officers went inside the apartment looking for drugs the night of Jean’s death, his mother, Allison Jean, said during a news conference Friday with her attorneys. She accused authorities of defaming her son.
    “The Dallas Police Department investigators were interested specifically in finding information that could help assassinate his character,” attorney Lee Merritt told reporters.

    “Twenty-six years on this earth he lived his life without a blemish. It took being murdered by a Dallas police officer for Botham Jean to suddenly become a criminal.”
    The document does not indicate to whom the items belonged. It’s unknown if a search warrant was also executed at the officer’s apartment.

    The document states that officers found several items in the apartment, including two fired cartridge casings, a metal marijuana grinder and 10.4 grams of marijuana.

  54. 54.

    Aleta

    2 min video of Botham Jean singing in church
    DJ Wade-O @djwadeo
    Botham Jean leading worship. This is who Amber Guyger killed.
    https://twitter.com/djwadeo/status/1040693828540424193

    (CNN) The mother of Botham Shem Jean says her son has become the target of a smear campaign since an off-duty Dallas police officer killed him in his own apartment more than a week ago.

    As hundreds gathered Thursday to pay tribute to Botham Shem Jean. the beloved man from St. Lucia, a search warrant for his apartment was made public.

    The search warrant indicates that officers went inside the apartment looking for drugs the night of Jean’s death, his mother, Allison Jean, said during a news conference Friday with her attorneys. She accused authorities of defaming her son.
    “The Dallas Police Department investigators were interested specifically in finding information that could help assassinate his character,” attorney Lee Merritt told reporters.

    “Twenty-six years on this earth he lived his life without a blemish. It took being murdered by a Dallas police officer for Botham Jean to suddenly become a criminal.”
    The document does not indicate to whom the items belonged. It’s unknown if a search warrant was also executed at the officer’s apartment.

    The document states that officers found several items in the apartment, including two fired cartridge casings, a metal marijuana grinder and 10.4 grams of marijuana.

  60. 60.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Aleta: Call me cynical but my first thought was that these items were planted, either by his killer or her fellow police officers who responded to her 911 call. Reefer madness anyone? Everyone “knows” males of “that” colour are turned into rampaging beasts by even a whiff of the dreaded weed.

    Actually, even if they are his, her story still doesn’t hold together but it provides the fig leaf a white Texas jury needs to acquit. She made an honest mistake and was confronted by a big, black man driven violently mad by pot. What option did the little lady have? Not Guilty!

  61. 61.

    Aleta

    @TS (the original): I’d like to see the application for the warrant and the name of the judge. And whether it was issued in the other county. The police dept needs to do a quick turn around and be honest about what happened at each level, and apologize for every misstep. (Not optimistic, but they’re going to get tangled up in cover up if they don’t.)

  62. 62.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @NotMax:

    No, Perry is on Cox here, 9:00 a.m. and 11:30 p.m. M-F. Already irregular sleep pattern further irregulated by the time change. Plus no DVR has really set me back: now everything is “appointment TV,” and not in a good way.

    Trip has been good so far. I’ve been doing a surprising amount of errand-running and logistical stuff. I did luck out and get a Chevy Malibu as my rental car I had reserved whatever the cheapest category is. Subcompact? Clown car?

    It got up to 104° today, but there really is something to that “dry heat” thing. Which is not to say I spent any extra time lollygagging around outside. Supposed to be down in the mid-90s by the end of this coming week.

    Night, all. ?

  63. 63.

    Aleta

    @Sloane Ranger: “my first thought was that these items were planted”
    Because of the country we live in now, we have to assume they might have planted evidence. Even if they didn’t, we wouldn’t know for sure, because of all the past cover-ups. We have no idea how common is this is as part of ‘police procedure.’

  65. 65.

    opiejeanne

    @Aleta: What is a metal marijuana grinder? Is it a coffee grinder or perhaps a spice grinder oe even a pepper grinder when it’s at home?

  69. 69.

    opiejeanne

    @Aleta: If it’s not too hot and you’re in the shade. At about 104 is when my skin actually hurts in direct sunlight. I survived 23 years in an area that had regular summer/fall temps of 112, probably higher now.

  71. 71.

    Aleta

    @opiejeanne: Now that you mention it … on a report, a kitchen grinder can be turned into an illegal ‘drug apparatus.’ I never thought of that.

    I hate when my skin hurts in the sun. It seems I feel it more often now; I wondered if it was due to increasing UV.
    Caused by the heat in the air makes sense. It was much hotter here this summer.

  75. 75.

    prostratedragon

    @opiejeanne: There actually are herb grinders marketed for mj use now. These sinister items are sold openly on Amazon for instance (search “herb grinders” and they come up) and reviewed in places like wirecutter (a NYT company it says).

    But these tools can also be used for non-mj herb and spice preparation. If Mr. Jean had one he could as easily have been using it to keep a St. Lucian kitchen.

    Also, I don’t recall that using or possessing small amounts of mj is a capital crime, even in Texas, or that the punishment is meted out ex ante and on the spot by the police. The enshrinement of this kind of nasty, juvenile behavior and thinking needs to stop. (Contents under pressure here: the Jason Van Dyke murder trial is about to start where I am, and it has not been easy the last week to watch him and his wife parading through the media as if there were something the public needed to hear from them.)

  78. 78.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Sloane Ranger: The police officer’s honest mistake involved going to the wrong apartment on THE WRONG FLOOR. Sure Jan.

    I’d like to believe that her story is so preposterous that she’ll be found guilty but who knows?

  80. 80.

    Karen S.

    @Aleta:
    Because of the country we live in now? This is how it’s been for black folks in the U.S. for a long time before now. The police have always been crappy to us.

  81. 81.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @Lars Olaf: Or, with higher grade marijuana, a grinder can be used to grind up buds so they burn more quickly and evenly.

    But fuck that we’re even talking about the purported contents of this poor man’s apartment building. This kind of shit (out-of-control-cop kills someone, and because cops can do no wrong, all the other cops cover up another murder instead of solving it) is so fucked up. It makes you wonder what percentage of murders in this country are committed at the hands of the police!!!

  82. 82.

    Doug R

    @Steeplejack (tablet):

    Er, that “Robin Sparkles” video is from the sitcom How I Met Your Mother. Robin Sparkles was a fictional character (more fictional than the real characters on the show), and the video is a spoof/​satire of ’80s videos.

    However, the actress who plays her is Canadian Cobie Smulders
    You might have seen her in an Avengers movie or two.

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @Aleta: Watching that made me feel sick. Literally. I am torn between feelings of rage, sadness and disgust at what happened. This guy was a real thug, alright.

  86. 86.

    Zinsky

    I live in Minnesota and I sent Beto’s campaign $100 this week. I hope to do it again before November. Spread your money around wisely for this election, Balloon Juicers!

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