DOWNLOADS: (156)

PLAYS: (963)

Embed

Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) has an A rating from the National Rifle Association but he says that Democrats are at fault for not passing more gun control legislation.

During a Tuesday interview on MSNBC, host Thomas Roberts asked Kingston if he looked at the recent massacre of 20 school children in Connecticut and felt "a sense of guilt" over his tough stance against gun control.

"Where I think we have the guilt is we see a huge problem like this -- and it's a problem that's happening in other countries as well -- and we look for something that, okay, what can prevent it?" Kingston explained. "And I think that's where we need to go with this discussion is, yes, put gun control -- more gun control -- on the table. But, also, don't forget the mental health element. Don't forget, is there a home situation that we need to learn more about? Was this young man addicted to violent video games? Was there a Hollywood influence? I think that we can't just stop at guns."

Roberts observed that many pro-gun Democrats had recently changed their tune and that the Republicans were in danger of being the party of "the people that defend Glocks" if they continued to oppose meaningful gun restrictions.

"What also is disturbing though is people would say, do the Republicans -- I mean, here we have a town, which was controlled in the House by Democrats, in the Senate by Democrats and the White House by Democrats for two years and nothing took place for stricter gun control laws," Kingston insisted. "So, for the partisans in our country to already start injecting politics in here, that saddens me further."

"Now, we have to remember that Connecticut has the the fifth toughest gun control laws in the country, including an assault weapon ban that bans 35 different weapons," he added. "The weapon that was used was not an assault weapon, therefore it wasn't banned."

The MSNBC host pointed out that Kingston had gotten an A rating from the NRA because he had voted against gun regulations for years -- including opposing the Brady Handgun Bill, supporting a partial repeal of the D.C. firearm ban, opposing restrictions on semi-automatic assault weapons and voting to decrease waiting periods.

"None of the policy issues which you just ticked off would have prevented [Connecticut shooter] Adam Lanza from doing this," the Georgia Republican opined. "And it's very sad that we want to cloud the issue by making NRA the policy as opposed to Adam Lanza and what triggers this off."

"We need to just be complacent in the fact that we can send our children to school to be assassinated?" Roberts wondered.

"I think if we want to have a reasonable discussion, we have to look at what happened in Germany with all the gun control laws, it didn't prevent anything," Kingston asserted. "What happened in Connecticut, the fifth toughest gun control law in the country? It did not prevent anything. So, what I'm saying, you can't just stop at guns. You have to look at mental health. What about having a toll-free number for people who have somebody like an Adam Lanza in the house, where there may be some red flags that they could say, 'I'm concerned that my son may have a tendency towards violence or insane acts. What do I do?'"

"I think at this point we need to come together as a nation instead of start pulling off in separate camps."

DOWNLOADS: (273)

PLAYS: (4951)

Embed

Good for MSNBC's Tamron Hall for giving the appropriate response to some of Rep. Jack Kingston's nonsense while trying to explain the games the Republican House is playing with refusing to pass a temporary extension of the payroll tax holiday.

After being asked by Hall about Sen. Scott Brown's statement that House Republicans are standing in the way of getting a deal done on the extension and playing politics to the detriment of the economy, Rep. Jack Kingston made this ridiculous remark.

KINGSTON: Here's the reality that we're in. The House is ready to compromise with the Senate. We have not voted on anything and left town. Our bill passed on a bipartisan basis last week. It has been rejected by the Senate. They've given us a two month extension. We don't think that's a good deal for the economy or the American people.

And what we're saying it, you know what? Let's go to conference. We've got ten days to work this out. And I would like to say I think the President should attend, because, what would happen if he showed some leadership and brought Mr. Boehner and Mr. Reid down to the White House, pulled out some eggnog, maybe some rum and cigars, pulled out It's a Wonderful Life DVD and said, alright guys, let's work this out for the American people...

To which Hall rightfully replied, “Are you kidding me?... You are talking about movies and eggnog and nonsense.” Hall went on to ask Kingston if he was really concerned about allowing the payroll tax holiday to expire or not.

Kingston proceeded to tie himself up on knots trying to explain what they were doing and avoiding directly answering her questions about the criticism that Republicans are making of their cohorts in the House with the games they're playing right now.

I can't believe Republicans are doing themselves any favors right now with trying to make these convoluted arguments about Congressional procedures and conference meetings, which frankly is going to go right over the heads of the average voters out there.

Kenneth already explained most of the details of what's been going on over the last couple of days. And Steve Benen has more why no one should take Kingston or any of the rest of them seriously on these "conferees." -- What the GOP conferees have in common:

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (156)

PLAYS: (720)

Embed

The Rev. Al Sharpton filling in for Cenk Uygur today did a pretty good job of making Rep. Jack Kingston tie himself into knots trying to explain his support for keeping things like tax loopholes for hedge fund managers in place and for defending tax cuts for the wealthy as supposedly creating jobs.

He let him get away with a few things, like pretending that some "fair tax" or flat tax would do nothing but benefit the wealthy, but all in all he did a better job of holding his feet to the fire on some of their tired and nonsensical talking points than you normally see from most of the hosts on MSNBC or anywhere else for that matter.

DOWNLOADS: (220)

PLAYS: (336)

Embed

Chris Matthews brought on Georgia Rep. Jack Kingston to discuss what kind of problems Republicans are going to have after voting for Paul Ryan's budget plan that voucherizes Medicare after their recent loss in New York's 26th congressional district.

Kingston claimed that the Republicans really want to negotiate with the Democrats and that the only problem is that they have refused to put a plan of their own on the table to deal with the rising costs of Medicare. What Kinston neglects to say here is that Democrats have been more than willing to negotiate with Republicans and sadly already passed what amounts to Bob Dole or Mitt Romney's health care plans and the ones who are drawing a line in the sand are Republicans with their absolute refusal to put any type of tax increases on the table or to even start to regulate their friends in the insurance industry.

Kingston and his fellow Republicans in Congress are hoping that the Democrats throw them a lifeline so they don't have the issue to beat them upside the head with in the upcoming election. I don't know what kind of "grand bargain" Biden and his group are working on, but my fears are they're going to do exactly that. They'd be better off to just leave them flailing in the wind on this one until the upcoming election.

What I really get tired of while watching these discussions on television is they never get to just what's really running up our health care costs. What it's going to take for the public to finally get fed up with all of this and demand loudly that we either have a single-payer health care plan for everyone or that these insurance industries are regulated in the same way that they are in some countries in Europe, I don't know.

I'm tired of hearing that we're broke when our politicians refuse to roll back those Bush tax cuts that are driving up our deficit. I'm tired of this starve the beast nonsense where they're going to leave us with nothing but rich and poor because we don't care about taking care of the most vulnerable in society. I'm tired of these politicians who are looking out for their corporate donors pretending that they have a care in the world for their constituents that actually live in their districts. I'm tired of them pretending that government has no role in society when we know that there are a lot of things government does more efficiently than the private sector, like providing health insurance where there is no profit model. And I'm tired of no one advocating for a single-payer model to fix the problems with our health care costs being allowed on the air to counter the likes of Kingston.

DOWNLOADS: (559)

PLAYS: (2393)

Embed

Former CNN host and comedian D.L. Hughley proved that there are still some liberals out there that can embarrass us just as badly as Rep. Jack Kingston did on this weekend's Real Time with Bill Maher. The panel which also consisted of former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell and The National Review's Will Cain started the debate on climate change and whether it's real or not or has been properly labeled, and ended it with both Kingston and Hughley admitting that they did not believe in the theory of evolution.

It's pretty sad that the former Prime Minister's remarks that the over-use of antibiotics and the fact that bacteria evolve is proof that evolution does actually exist and has been proven to be real by scientific study seemed to fall on deaf ears by those two.

Rachel Maddow points out that even the GOP's latest darling Paul Ryan who is the only member of Congress who's written a budget proposal is out there with the wingnuts and buying into Jonah Goldberg's revisionist history book Liberal Fascism. She forgot to mention that he's also a big fan of Ayn Rand.

Maddow: Congressman Paul Ryan is the Republican Party’s budget guy. He has proposed a GOP budget this year that would essentially get rid of Social Security and Medicare in the long run, slashes both programs dramatically and then privatizes them, so goodbye Medicare safety net, goodbye Social Security safety net. The Republicans are proposing to get rid of them.

Republicans like Michele Bachmann, Marsha Blackburn, Jack Kingston, Jim DeMint, these folks have been, recently been very happily arguing to kill Social Security and Medicare, but they are thought of as being on the far right of even their own party.

Paul Ryan proposing to kill Social Security and Medicare is another thing. He’s the only; his is the only budget that the Republicans have proposed for 2010. He’s supposed to be the Republican Party’s big brain on policy. He’s supposed to be a serious guy.

Well in an interview with The Daily Beast yesterday Paul Ryan was asked why if he’s so fiscally conservative he voted for the bank bailouts. In response the Republican Party’s serious, big brain policy guy explained that he voted for the bank bailout because of this.

Get it. See it’s a smiley face but it has a Hitler moustache! Because liberals seem nice but they’re really Nazis—Nazis were liberals and liberals are Nazis! Paul Ryan, the budget guy for the Republican Party tells The Daily Beast that a conservative book of revisionist history about how the Nazis were secretly liberals and liberals today are secretly Nazis, convinced him to vote for the bank bailout, because otherwise we’d have a great depression and then Obama could use that great depression as an excuse to impose his secret Nazi agenda. Obama’s liberal fascism.

And that is both an admission that even the Republicans admit that the bailout staved off the next great depression and a revelation that even the supposedly sane Republicans in Congress right now believe this stuff. Keep that in mind the next time someone proposes a bipartisan compromise with guys like Paul Ryan who proposed to kill Medicare and Social Security and who justify it by their votes on worries that Obama might secretly be Hitler.

DOWNLOADS: (211)

PLAYS: (759)

Embed

Countdown's Worst Persons for Oct. 19, 2009 with winner Tom Donahue of the Chamber of Congress. Runners up Bill O'Reilly and Jack Kingston.

From frankodelic Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog schools four Republicans on global warming. Those would be Jack Kingston, Dan Lungren, Tom Feeney and Lee Terry.