What is your relationship with the various police agencies?

Policing is a critical core competency of the government. The problems with our policing agencies stem from the laws that our government makes then requires them to enforce. They should be required and empowered to enforce only laws that protect the Natural Rights of individual citizens.

Are you for or against mandatory vaccinations for COVID-19?

You can view more information related to my stance on Emergency Preparedness by clicking here The government has no authority to compel you to take any medical treatment.

Are you for or against mandatory testing for COVID-19?

You can view more information related to my stance on Emergency Preparedness by clicking here

Medical testing is a form of medical treatment. The government has no authority to compel you to take any medical treatment. As a corollary, the government has no authority to shut down private entities.

I am curious to hear your stance on the groups forming around our nation such as ANTIFA and Black Lives Matter.

The government exists to uphold your individual Natural Rights to include private property.

The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects citizens’ right to peaceably assemble.

Riots are not peaceable assemblies, and destruction of private property is an infringement of the rights of the property owners that must be controlled and punished.

What are you going to do about the homeless vets?

(In spoken language, transcribed from video response.) "My understanding is that we have a number of homeless people and I want you to understand, you’re speaking to a Veteran. I’m a Combat Veteran. I’m a retired Army Officer and I think you probably already know that. I think we need to help all of the homeless people. The way that we help all of the homeless people is by upholding and defending their individual natural rights. And I think that what we really need to do is bring the community in, and get the community to help out by providing opportunities for people who are homeless. One of the things is, getting to the root of why an individual is homeless and each story is individual. I actually used to run a homeless shelter in Longview, TX for women and children. As a single father of nine, I was pretty close to homeless myself a few times with a whole pile of kids. What I intend to do is revamp all of DHHR to focus on people who actually have needs. And to use the money that they have to actually address the needs in a strategic way. I love Veterans, I am one. I love hanging out with a bunch of grumpy old guys who’ve seen things that most people can’t imagine. There’s nothing I enjoy more than that. But, I don’t think we can single out our Veterans. I think we need to focus on doing all we can to help anyone who’s in that position. And, frankly, I think priority needs to go to people who have kids. Homeless kids is where we need to focus. I don’t mean to sound harsh or crass or like I don’t care, what I’m getting at is that had I become homeless in the situation that I was in, that would have been a result of my decisions and the decisions of others whom I allowed to have influence in my life. Whereas, when a kid becomes homeless, the kid is homeless absolutely because of decisions usually of people who had the responsibility to make sure the kid had everything they needed. So, I would start with the children. We’ve got a lot of kids in this state who are really hurting; who are in bad positions. I think the kids are the priority. I don’t mean to sound heartless about anyone else, but I do think that’s where we need to start. It will begin with totally auditing DHHR. And, of course, as you’ve heard me mention about 15,000 times, I intend to audit the entire Executive Branch of the government. Each office, each department for finances, budgetary issues, for operational issues and for personnel issues. And once we’ve done that, we’ll have some idea of what actually needs to be done to make our government functional. And, not just functional, but to function according to the Constitution. So that it actually does it’s job."

What are you thoughts on the COVID-19 color coded maps being used by the current WV Governor?

You can view more information related to my stance on Emergency Preparedness by clicking here The maps and the metrics are based on no data. As a matter of fact, they’re structured simply to compel testing. What should have happened is, we should have had an All Hazards Operations Plan, structured years ago, frankly, but, at least since this governor came in. That plan should have included details for the potential of pandemic and, given that potential, have priorities in place for appropriate response. "

Where do you stand on a parent's right to direct a child's education? Where do you stand on inclusion of special needs children in the general education classroom? In your opinion, what is the difference in the following terms: Autistic child Child with autism

You can view more information related to my stance on Education by clicking here I believe that a parent has an absolute right to direct his child's education, including the right to determine whether a child should be held back or not. Each Special Needs student is unique, so the answer to that question is unique for each.
The difference in the terms is that one emphasizes the child while the other emphasizes the issue.

What is your stance on indoctrination of our children in schools?

I want to focus the mission of the WV Public Education system integrators six core competencies: 1. Listening Comprehension 2. Reading Comprehension 3. Critical Reasoning 4. Problem Solving 5. Written and Oral Communications 6. Mathematics There is no call for political, religious, or social indoctrination or engineering.

Won't voting for you just result in a Democrat winning the election?

Because the Party leadership endorsed Justice, you now have him as your candidate.
Since the primary, Justice has destroyed businesses and lives with his unconstitutional dictates thereby alienating vast swaths of his base.

A pseudo-Republican is actually immensely worse than a declared Democrat because the Republican Party now owns Justice’s every word and action.

In addition to that (I witnessed this as a member of the House.), the Republican Caucus will resist a Democrat intensely, but will kowtow to a pseudo-Republican resulting in a greater destruction of all Republicans claim to hold dear with the added travesty of assisting the “Republican” Governor to accomplish this destruction.
The People are disgusted with the Parties.

I am not a Republican.

Which party did you originally belong to? Democratic or Republican?

I registered as a Republican when I turned 18 because of their message of Liberty, small government, and lower taxes. I became an Independent in December of 2019 after I had spent almost a year as a member of the Berkeley County Republican Executive Committee attempting to address with the WVGOP Chair and State Executive Committee their many failures to uphold WVGOP stated principles and to pursue WVGOP stated goals. It became clear to me that I must become independent in order to pursue Constitutional principles and to uphold the individual Natural Rights of *all* WV citizens.

Where do you stand on signing a bill, if passed, to allow the legalization of Marijuana?

If Legislature passes it, I'll sign it.

Where do you stand on right to work laws?

You can view more information related to my stance on the Economy & Jobs by clicking here Right to Work was passed before I served in the WV Legislature. I support Right to Work because I believe in Liberty. On a daily basis, people everywhere who benefit from opportunities that I have won by hard struggle and sacrifice but are taking actions that I consider unacceptable - that disappoint or anger me. A vast number of them who benefit from my struggle and that of my brothers and sisters use the opportunities that we have purchased with our sweat and sacrifice to build great lives and to benefit greatly with only rare thoughts on designated holidays about our sacrifice and their opportunities that result from it. I don't hold it against them. I am simply grateful that my family and I are free. I realize the benefits that I have experienced throughout my life as a result of labor movements, and I am grateful for them, but I will not be compelled to join one to exercise those benefits just as I do not wish to compel anyone else to join the military as a pre-requisite to enjoying the benefits of the struggles and sacrifice of combat veterans.

Are you for or against Prevailing Wages?

I oppose "Prevailing Wage" because it increases the costs of taxpayer-funded projects.

What is your stance on eliminating personal property tax? Also your stance on lowering/eliminating income tax and looking at other alternative options for state revenue?

You can view more information related to my stance on Taxes by clicking here Thank you for asking about property tax. It’s an interesting story, if you go back to the beginning of the 20th century you’ll see where the progressives, so-called progressives, proposed having the government confiscate all private property, specifically real property meaning land and buildings, and also durable goods, such as vehicles, boats, that sort of thing, and then leasing them back to the people who previously owned them. So, the government literally owns everything. Of course, when they first proposed those ideas they got a lot of push back, so they simply switched tactics and changed it from the government owning it to you owning it, but having to pay a property tax on it. And if you don’t pay your property tax of course the government will then confiscate that real or durable property which you are being charged taxes on. In any other business, other than government, that would be called rent, which means that the government holds title to the property you believe you hold title to, and that’s both your real property and your durable goods, and they’re charging you rent for it. The fact is that that is completely immoral, absolutely unethical, and it is problematic in a lot of other ways. The fact of the matter is that the Constitution of the United States was written as a foundation for a government that would uphold and defend your individual natural rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the critical component of the pursuit of happiness is how to dispose of your private property. Effectively, the most valuable bits of private property that we have are real and durable property. We’ve been denied real title to it and the government is actually confiscating your property, which is the opposite of the job it is supposed to do. The job the government is supposed to do is of course is to uphold and defend your individual natural rights, including your right to private property and instead you have an oppressive government which is confiscating your private property which you have earned by the investment of your time, your effort, your capabilities, in other words yourself. So, in effect, the government is confiscating yourself from you. It needs to end, it is terribly immoral. You also asked about income tax. The simple fact of the matter is, you earn your income by the investment of yourself, your time, your effort, your capabilities, your creativity, therefore it belongs to you. The government has no right to confiscate it. Let’s talk about the business inventory tax which is another horrifically destructive tax that we in the State of West Virginia have. You have a business that purchases materials or goods and then turns around and sells them. When they purchase them, they pay sales tax on it. When someone purchases it from them, they pay sales tax on it. So the thing is being taxed twice. But it’s even worse than that, because while it’s sitting on a shelf waiting to be sold, the business is paying inventory tax on it. It is terribly destructive to business and it needs to end. So this leaves us with the ultimate question, which is how should the government fund itself if not through income taxes and property taxes and business inventory taxes. Well, the simple fact of the matter is the only service that the government provides effectively that is taxable, as far as I’m concerned, is that it upholds and defends our individual natural rights and it maintains the institutions that allow us to freely exercise our individual natural rights. So, what does that mean? To me, in my mind, a sales tax, a consumption tax, is the only valid and moral tax that there is because effectively you’re paying a fee for the right to engage in that market, that free and secure market, that government is maintaining the freedom and security of. So if a consumption tax is the only valid tax, there is one other benefit to that which is that you as an individual citizen or you as a business owner can choose to limit the amount of tax that you pay by limiting your engagement in the free marketplace. Now, of course, there are certain things you have to engage in the marketplace for such as food and medicine. I don’t believe food and medicine should be taxed. At all. There should be no sales tax on food and medicine. That’s one of the things that I think West Virginia does right. So, effectively, a tax on engaging in the free marketplace in my mind is the only valid, the only moral, and the only ethical tax there is. I would love to change that, I would love to act like Jim Justice does and issue an edict that changes all of this, but that’s unconstitutional, it’s unacceptable, and so you will have to engage in this process via your elected representatives, your delegates and your senators, to change the legislation and thereby change the paradigm of taxation in the State of WV.

Will you fix PEIA for state and county employees? I pay more and seem to be covered for less.

I am convinced that PEIA is unsustainable and that it needs to be dismantled and, effectively, I believe that all of the funds that go into maintaining PEIA, whether they are payment of, as law requires, the 80% of the premiums by the taxpayers of the state of WV, and then also any other funds that go into maintaining the PEIA board, the PEIA bureaucracy…all of that money needs to be taken and put directly into the public employees’ paychecks and then the public employees will be able to band together and get group insurance policies as an organization, whether that’s through the unions or through private organizations they’ve found. I actually proposed legislation to take this action and I will include the link below so you can read the legislation I proposed, but, effectively, every single penny that is going toward maintaining PEIA, whether that’s having the offices cleaned, or buying new carpet, or paying the salary of the PEIA board employees, or anyone else that's involved in this, all of that money should go directly into the paychecks of the public employees. Thank you. Link to the bill I wrote to dismantle PEIA and to give the public employees control over their own healthcare: http://wvlegislature.gov/.../RS/bills/hb2213%20intr.pdf

What about the opiod epidemic?

First of all, stop putting people in jail for having a problem. Secondly, the people who sell these poisons to children need to be tried for attempted murder. This is attempted murder - you’ve got a poison, you know a child is going to ingest it, you sell it to the child, and you lie about the impact that poison will have on that child’s life. That person should go to jail for attempted murder.