Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones and congressional opponent Kevin Kiley are both a disgrace
Both 3rd Congressional District Republican candidates Kevin Kiley and Scott Jones straight up lied during Tuesday night’s debate hosted by KCRA 3 and CapRadio.
Neither could even say whether Joe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States — a prevarication that Donald Trump and many mainstream Republicans have repeated since Biden beat Trump in the 2020 election,
“Well, it depends what you mean by legitimate,” said Kiley, a Trump-endorsed Rocklin assemblyman.
“There’s a political answer, but there’s my honest answer, and my honest answer is I don’t know. It depends who you watch, which newscast you watch,” said Jones, the Sacramento County sheriff. The legitimacy of our elections most certainly does not depend upon which cable news host you prefer because facts are not a matter of taste.
Kiley even falsely claimed that The Bee Editorial Board is as confused as he is about whether Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election over Donald Trump.
Kiley said that “the Electoral College voted, and that’s how we determine the powers of the presidency in our system.” But, he said, “even very left-leaning outlets like The Sacramento Bee editorial page has said the election system was tarnished in 2020 because of a lot of things that went on.”
There is no hint of a whisper of a kernel of truth to that statement. And yes, the truth can be known.
We’re not unsure about the outcome, and never were. Biden is the president, as everyone of good faith has long since acknowledged.
Jones said he knows “there’s a lot of people that are confused enough and don’t know the answer to that question that we should look into this. We can solve this election integrity problem, but there’s not the political will to do it.”
In reality, what’s lacking is the political will to acknowledge that the only “election integrity” problem is that Trump Republicans have decided that any election they lose must by definition lack integrity.
On the mass murders that now happen with nauseating regularity, Kiley could only say that “radical policies are ruining the quality of life in California. … Now my heart and prayers go out to the victims, the families, the communities, everyone affected by this unspeakable tragedy. All we’ve seen over the last week is cynical politicians trying to make this a political issue rather than search for real solutions” like looking for early warning signs of potential mass murderers, instead of, God forbid, taking guns away from those who’ve already proven to be dangerous.
Jones essentially said that massacres just can’t be helped: “To blame a gun is much like blaming a car when a drunk driver kills somebody. Sure, like a car operator, we can make sure that folks are licensed, that makes sure that they have adequate training to operate a weapon.”
As we’re sure the sheriff knows, gun owners, unlike motor vehicle operators, are no longer
licensed, and no longer have to have any training, which has made our gun problem considerably worse.
Democrat Kermit Jones, a doctor and Navy vet, was the only one of the three 3rd Congressional District candidates who dared to say that Biden won in 2020. He did not lie on Tuesday night, and that set him apart.
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This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 7:30 AM.