Categories
West Virginia Politics WV Elections 2020

Interview with S. Marshall Wilson-Independent Candidate for Governor-West Virginia

Learn about S. Marshall Wilson’s stand for constitutional freedoms and other key points of his platform.
Note: S. Marshall Wilson is a write-in candidate.
Marshall Wilson’s website
Other candidates for Governor are:
Danny Lutz Jr-Mountain Party
Erika Kolenich-Libertarian
Ben Salango-Democrat
Jim Justice-Republican

Listen to the Podcast

Article-S. Marshall Wilson Interview Excerpts

Hey, Richard, it’s a real honor to be here. Thanks for making time for me and thanks for putting up with me trying to get here and get ready and get linked up and everything, and of course, I’d like to introduce my son Joe, this is Josiah, and we are actually at the Capital right now, we have just taken part in the protest against the governor’s completely unethical mandates on public school sports, and of course, the real issue here is that they’re not evenly applied. They’re not fairly applied, and then of course, none of the restrictions that we’re placing on public school students apply to the Greenbrier for some reason, and no one can explain to me why that is.

So Joe and I came to the Capital, we drove five hours to get here this morning, so we could be here for this protest, and I managed to get away from that just in time to get in the car and call you.

Richard: Okay, great. Well, thanks for being on today. Yeah, well, you mentioned about the COVID 19, we’re certainly going to talk about that. In general. Could you share the three most important points of your platform for governor as to why you’re running for governor? Absolutely. Thank you, sir. Of course, you know, I’m a sitting delegate from South Berkley County, and I have stood up for the Constitution, not only of this state, but of the United States, for the past four years as a delegate and before that for 20 years as an infantry officer in the army I’ve upheld and defended the Constitution. And frankly, that is my platform, is the Constitution, as you and I both know, all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So the first thing I want to do is restructure the executive branch of our state government to function according to the Constitution because as the chief of the executive branch, the governor. I have the authority to do that.

The next thing that I want to do is I want to establish, not just effective and focused government, focused on serving the people under the Constitution upholding their rights, but actually I want to teach the executive branch, customer service. I want to teach them that they’re here to serve you, and that it’s not enough to just tell you four times that you’ve done your paperwork wrong and then demand that you pay a fee to register all four times, but rather actually sit down with you and say, Well, Mr. Urban, we understand what you’re trying to accomplish here. We would like to help you with that. We’ll help you to succeed rather than just simply telling you, to teach it a little bit of customer service. And finally what I want to do is to teach this concept so firmly in the executive branch that no future governor or a candidate for governor for the next few generations will arrogate to himself the position of thinking that he’s in charge of the state. We don’t want any tyrannies here. We fought a war against the British over that, and I don’t see any reason we should establish a new tyranny here in West Virginia. And I want my kids to raise their kids in a free, just, prosperous and secure land, so I’m going to do everything that I can to establish that here, and then to establish it in such a way that the people of this state who are from whom the entire authority of the government is drawn, the people understand how critically important, it is to maintain that constitutional governance, and they will fight for it, they will elect people who will uphold it, and then they will hold those people accountable for generations to come.

That is my hope, that’s my intent. And given the opportunity, I think that I can actually accomplish those things.

Richard: Thank you for that.

So with the whole thing about the lock-downs and these different mandates, you just talked about the constitutional freedoms, how do you feel about that, will we need to restructure our laws to facilitate that, like I know Wisconsin, although now the governor made another decree over there, they expired the mandates after 60 days, do we need to look at our laws again?

S. Marshall Wilson: Absolutely, and I thank you for bringing that up. A couple of things here. First of all, the people need to need to enforce the mandate of following the Constitution on their government officials, on their elected employees. I’ve already mentioned that. That’s the most critical part, because the people actually have the power, the other thing is that the legislature as the direct representative of the people needs to do its job, and as you say, restructure things, rewrite legislation so that these things are straightened out. For instance, and I’m glad you brought this up, but for instance, one of the things is that the governor has been able to perform a certain way because he’s able to twist the verbiage in the emergency powers section of the state code. So that needs to be re-written so that it can never be misunderstood that same way again.

What I’m getting at is that basically the way that our code is written when it comes to emergency powers, once the governor declares an emergency, he’s effectively accountable to no one, unless the legislature calls themselves back into special session.

So my recommendation would be that there’d be a requirement in the law that within 30 days of the governor declaring an emergency, the legislature must come into special session. Something along those lines. And then also, there should be a definition, most laws, you have very specific definitions written at the beginning of the bill that defines all the terms in the bill. Nowhere in West Virginia code that I’ve found is the term emergency defined, however, in my work as an emergency planner for the National Guard for years, the definition that we used was imminent, critical… An emergency situation where you have an imminent… In other words, it’s coming. There’s no way, no two ways about an imminent destruction of key critical infrastructure, which is roads, bridges, buildings, things like that, or massive loss of human life, or massive destruction of private property such as people’s homes and things like that…..

Richard: Speaking of mandates, one thing I want to ask you about, what’s your take or opinion on the forced vaccination mandate for West Virginia, like No vaccination, No school? What would you do about that?

S. Marshall Wilson: The government has no business telling you what medicines to give your children. The government has no business interfering between you and your doctor. You and your doctor decide what’s best for you and what’s best for your kids, period.

Richard: So would you get rid of or suggest… I know the legislature would have to do that, removing all mandates?

S. Marshall Wilson: Thank you for brining that up. Thank you for recognizing that. Of course, the legislature has to involved, the governor doesn’t have the authority to make those changes, but as the Governor, I would absolutely support the removal of those mandates.

Richard: Okay, so you support the removal of the mandates. Would an interim step be having religious and conscientious exemptions or just remove the mandates altogether? Well, absolutely. Well, I would work removing the mandate altogether, but absolutely whatever steps we can make in that direction are an improvement, of course.

The government and has very limited powers, and has usurped a lot of authority that doesn’t belong to it, and as your governor, it will be a foundational principal, a guiding principle of everything that I do to devolve all of that authority back to where it belongs, namely to the people…..

Richard: How do you feel about school choice, choice in education?

S. Marshall Wilson: I mean, if you look at my record, I could say the same thing about health liberty, if you look at my record as a delegate, you’ll see that I absolutely supported it. When Senate Bill 451 was under consideration, I stood on the house floor for almost three hours and offered, I believe it was 15 or 16 different amendments, offering different levels and different types of school choice. So I went away from an unlimited number of charter schools, basically, anyone who wants to start one as long as they can meet the academic standards, they can have a charter school, all the way down to finally, Okay, we can only have five of them.

I also offered an amendment that would allow a home schooler to get a credit on taxes owed. So only if you actually owe taxes, but on taxes owed for approved expenditures for home schooling. So if you buy a curriculum and you use it for your kids in home schooling, you can be reimbursed for that through a tax credit on taxes owed. And the reason that’s acceptable to me is because the constitution of the state says the state must provide a free and efficient education for your kids. If you’re not using the state’s facilities and resources and you’re using your own, then fine, you get a tax rebate.

That was the only one that even came close to passing. And it was defeated 50 to 49.Because one delegate who would have voted for it wasn’t around, it would have been 50 to 50. It still would have been defeated. So I think I offered 15 different amendments over the course of three hours in support of school choice, or I like to call it an education liberty.

Richard: I think that’s important. A very important area. And speaking of education, so what’s your opinion about the Common Core standards? Could you talk about West Virginia, the standards we have or don’t have?

S. Marshall Wilson: I think the place that I would start with that is that we the people, the West Virginia get to decide what our standards are, and I think that we should decide those standards via people who are accountable to the people rather than the State Board of Education, which is apparently according to a court case that took place, a judge’s ruling a few years ago, the State Board of Education has been established as a fourth monolithic, unaccountable branch of government, which is completely unacceptable. It should be accountable to the people who pay the taxes that make it possible and whose children it serves. That would be the first thing. Secondly, I think that all education, the operation should be disseminated rather than centralized. I think that every school system should be accountable directly to the people in that county, and each school should be accountable to the people in that community, and that the curricula should be the decision of the local school system and the local schools, based on standards that are established by the state board of education with input from the legislature, with the people’s representatives, if that makes sense.

I’ve heard this state-wide, some parent will get mad and go see the administrator, and administrators will actually… And I’m just telling you what teachers have told me, will literally change students’ grades, or will order the teacher to change grades. That’s completely unacceptable. The student gets the grade they earned on. I’m going to tell you straight up, I earned some grades that I wish I hadn’t. But that taught me to do what I had to earn better grades. And that’s what needs to happen. The teachers need to run their classrooms. Now, I’m not saying that every teacher is a perfect angel or a wonderful person, some of them have issues, and those issues need to be dealt with. But that doesn’t mean that when we have students who have issues, that those issues don’t mean be dealt with.

I needed somebody to tell me, ‘Look, we’re here to learn. If you’re not here to learn, Go sit in the hallway’…..

Richard: What’s your opinion about so-called Red Flag laws and the Second Amendment rights?

I am a staunch supporter of Second Amendment rights, I have an A plus from the WVCDL. I am one of the primary reasons that the parking lot bill got passed through the House, the bill that says that if you go to work and you happen to have a gun in your car, as long as you leave the Gun, your car and you lock your car in the parking lot. There’s no issue.

I mean, that’s just common sense…..

So the progressives offer this idea of the government confiscating all property and then charging the people, the citizens, rent on their own property after they confiscated it.

Well, that idea didn’t fly, so what they did was they took another shot at it and instead called it property tax. You get to keep your property, you still have the title to, it unless you don’t pay the tax. Then we take your property away from you. So the property is confiscated if you don’t pay the tax. Well, sounds an awful lot to me like I’m actually renting my property from the government. In other words, they actually manage to confiscate our property by saying that they own it if we don’t pay rent, in other words, the property tax on it. So I believe that the property tax is one of the most unethical immoral things that’s ever been done to the people of the United States.

Alright, let’s talk about income tax.

First of all, income tax was not legal under the Constitution until the 16th Amendment allowed for the establishment of an income tax, and of course that was to pay for our wars overseas.

So the idea that you are going to charge someone in such a way as to punish them for producing more and earning more and creating more wealth is counter-productive in ways that it’s difficult to even explain. It’s a terrible idea. Frankly, in my estimation, if we were to do this thing right, there would be a flat consumption tax across the board. That’s it. Flat consumption tax.

Richard: You mean sales tax. Is that a consumption tax?

S. Marshall Wilson: Effectively, yes, a flat sales tax. The idea being that what you’re really paying for is the opportunity to engage in a free and secure market. So, the government, if it does its job, maintains the institutions that allow for a Free and Secure market and for the privilege of engaging you pay a few cents on the dollar in it. Other than that, I don’t believe there should be other taxes. There shouldn’t be property taxes, there shouldn’t be income tax. The other taxes as far as I’m concerned are completely unethical.

Richard: I notice most of the property tax, and then here in Jefferson County we have the so called excess levy, but most of it goes for the schools, so how would the schools be funded or wouldn’t they? Or a lot of it goes for schools.

S. Marshall Wilson: Now, if the people of a certain area determine that they want to tax themselves to maintain the schools, they have every right to do that. But really what it comes down to is this state government has a lot of money, the problem is it wants to spend the money on things that are none of its business. So if we can pare the government down and focus it on its constitutional duties, there will be plenty of money to maintain its constitutional duties.

Richard: So one thing I wanted to address, I know it comes up and I saw the video on your website; people might say, ‘Oh, well, you know Mr. Wilson’s running as independent. If I vote for him, that’s like voting for Ben Salango’. I don’t agree with that, but anyway. Say whatever you’d like about that.

S. Marshall Wilson: Absolutely, thank you. So, a couple of things here. First of all, the primary argument I hear is that I’m stealing votes from the Republicans.

Okay, well, a couple of things about that. First of all, it’s not just Republicans who are voting for me. I have the endorsement of the Constitution Party.

Alright, that’s one thing. A lot of libertarians have told me they’re voting for me, because they recognize that my constitutional stance is actually what allows the people to have their rights, allows the people to exercise their rights freely is a constitutional government.

And the Libertarians recognize that when I uphold and defend the Constitution that will allow them to live the way they want to live. A lot of patriotic Democrats in this state; where I grew up in South Louisiana, there were a lot of people who are Democrats, they were good people, they paid their taxes, they served in the military, they went to church, they took care of their kids, helped them with their school work, good people who were Patriots and are dumbfounded by what’s happening with their party today, especially on the national level.

A lot of those people are voting for me rather than the Democratic candidate, and a lot of people have contacted me across the state. And then a lot of Republicans who believe in the Constitution, who are dumbfounded that their party managed to choose Jim justice as the candidate, especially since his unconstitutional mandates, are voting for me, have stated their support.

So given all of that, I want to say that’s a false argument in the first place. It’s also false because the votes do not belong to the candidate, they don’t belong to the party, they belong to the individual voter.

If I earn a vote from a voter, I have not stolen it from anyone. That person has the right to vote for whoever they want. And finally, I’d like to say that if the Democrat does win, and Jim Justice does lose, who’s at fault here? Is it me for running, which is my right as a citizen, or is it the Republicans for putting forward such a terrible candidate? It’s obviously on them. It’s obviously on them. Had they put forward a better candidate I wouldn’t be here right now……

Richard: To conclude how you’re differentiating yourself from the other candidates and why should the voters of West Virginia vote for you?

S. Marshall Wilson: The primary thing is because I will uphold and defend the Constitution of West Virginia and of the United States no matter what it costs me. The reason is because I love my kids, I want them to live in a free, just, prosperous and secure land, and if I manage that, then you’ll reap the same benefits.

On top of that, I do not believe that the government owns you or has any authority over you, other than if you try to deprive someone else of their natural rights. That’s the only time the government should get involved. I will work hard to make our government effective, functional, efficient and humble. I want our government to be humble. I want the people who work in our government, in the departments of our government, to recognize that you the people are in charge. And that we’re here to serve you.

Richard: Do be advised, all the voters, that you can write in S. Marshall Wilson on the ballot. If you would, please put the S on there. S. Marshal Wilson.

Richard: Is that required or that won’t matter?

S. Marshall Wilson: According to the Secretary of State, they will look for anything that looks like my name and count that, but frankly, just to be sure, just to remove any doubt, let’s put in the S period, if you don’t mind. My website is www.marshallforwv.com.

Interview with S. Marshall Wilson-Independent Candidate for Governor-West Virginia

Learn about S. Marshall Wilson’s stand for constitutional freedoms and other key points of his platform. Other candidates for Governor are:
Danny Lutz Jr-Mountain
Erika Kolenich-Libertarian
Ben Salango-Democrat
Jim Justice-Republican

Categories
West Virginia Politics WV Elections 2020

Interview with Danny Lutz Jr-Mountain Party Candidate for Governor-West Virginia

Learn about the platform and views of Danny Lutz Jr, the Mountain Party Candidate for Governor of West Virginia.
Danny Lutz Jr’s website
Other candidates for Governor are:
Marshall Wilson-Independent
Erika Kolenich-Libertarian
Ben Salango-Democrat
Jim Justice-Republican

Listen to the Podcast

Danny Lutz Article-Selected Excerpts from the Interview

Well, good morning, all. I’m Danny Lutz running for the governorship of West Virginia on the mountain party ticket. We’re an affiliate of the Green Party of the United States, and the question probably in most people’s minds, why run? Well, I’m going to steal a phrase from one of my dear friends who has since departed, his name is Carl Hess; he wrote this line for Barry Goldwater in 1964; “I want to offer a choice, not an echo.” I want to offer the people of West Virginia a plan that will enable them to enter the 21st century on a competitive basis. I’m not hearing that from any of the other candidates.

Richard: So what would you say are three of your main platform points that you would like to share?

Danny Lutz: My number one point is broadband. Until we have broadband accessible to everyone in West Virginia who wants it, we will not progress. I have been in touch with Intelsat and Space X, and they have assured me that six months from the date of an agreement, a contract, as they said, they could have a turnkey operation available to every West Virginian, every business, every church, every school, every organization that wants the broadband service, and I emphasize that adjective turnkey, they said it would be ready to operate within six months……

A second point, and it can be summed up in one word, water. Most people don’t think about it, but West Virginia is the birthplace of most of the rivers in the East, that is east of the Western Continental Divide.

We supply some of the water for ourselves, the District of Columbia and parts of 12 other states. That is a mandate to stewardship.

We have got to assure that the water that leaves West Virginia is as clean as when it came out of the earth, because water is life, and with that, I’ve also got a program that I would like to implement. It would be a pollution control credit system. Before anyone can discharge any contaminant into the air, the water or the soil, they have to get a credit for a certain amount of that. Now the state of West Virginia will create these credits under my program, and then they will be distributed to each household in West Virginia where there is a registered voter, and then it will be up to the entity desiring to discharge the pollution or contaminant to purchase these credits for the best deal they can make. The households could hold the credit, they could sell the credit. They could swap the credit for something that want. They could trade it. Whatever the best deal is they could make. My opinion is that each of these credits should be worth between $2500 and $4500 apiece. So if a household had only 10 credits. That could be as much as a $25,000 income boost. And seeing how 45% of the people of West Virginia, for whatever the reason, do not work, this would be an annual income supplement, not a guaranteed annual income, not a welfare program. This is pure capitalism. That is, the household have a good that the industrial users need and they make the best deal they can for it. You can’t get purer capitalism than that. And it will be something I think that the other states would implement. California is doing a modified version of this and Virginia is looking at a modified version, especially with regard to carbon dioxide.

In addition to firms like Rockwool, fracking companies would be required to purchase these credits before they could discharge or inject their waste water, sewage waste and other sources and contaminants……

Another point that I have that I want to develop involves the coal industry. West Virginia has coal, and we have it, not in the abundance that we used to have it, but we have, in addition to the coal, we have some of the largest recoverable deposits of rare earth elements in North America, and that’s the elements between Element number 57 and 71. And they are used in all kinds of high technological applications for, you name it. We can recover these, and some of them are worth as much as $70,000 a kilogram. They’re in the shales that are on top of the coal that’s being stripped off. They’re in the coal itself, and they’re in the shale deposits that are beneath the coal. And those tailings have been pushed into ravines, smoothed over and patched up. And called reclamation. The coal ash and the GOB piles, just are in waste piles. We have a fortune that we can recover……

Something else along this line, mechanization is coming in leaps and bounds, I was reading an article in yesterday’s, Washington Post, about, with the COVID 19 problem that a lot of firms are looking at robots to do the cleaning instead of people. They are saying some of the robot cleaners can do it a third as fast as a human person doing the cleaning. Well, if a company employs a machine to replace one or more people, why shouldn’t they contribute a portion of the savings that they’re going to realize to, A) Help to re-train these people to do something else, to assure that they can have medical and healthcare, B) To assure that they do not have to choose between whether to put food on the table for their families or to buy prescriptions to cure their ills. This is something that we’ve got to consider, because once again, going back to that figure… The last one I had, 45% of West Virginians do not work, whether it’s because they’re disabled, whether because they’re unemployed or because they’re on social security or retired, whatever…….

I would like to re-create an equivalent of what used to be the civil defense program, for West Virginia. Now, I don’t wanna go back to duck and cover drills and stuff like that, and having signs up on the highway is saying in the event of an enemy attack, this highway may be closed to all but military traffic, etcetera. I don’t wanna go back to that, but what I want to go to is to a civilian, a civil defense program that will inventory our resources so that we have stockpiles of food, stockpiles of potable water, and medical supplies for basic medical needs, and have them within 30 minutes of any West Virginian and have a program developed to deal as these pandemics arise, and I think there’s going to be more of them, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of COVID because it appears to have a fantastic replicating ability, and it could even mutate into something we haven’t anticipated yet, so I’d like to see that kind of a program developed whereby it wouldn’t be just say, stay your house and wear a mask. It would involve a health care program, that is a health services program that would enable people, to get the health service they need and to get the instructions for coping with such organisms as they need them and in a timely fashion. And a usable way…..

Richard: So on the point you mentioned about forcing people to do things… One issue I’m been working on is our forced vaccination system. As you know, West Virginia was one of only two states where they have the policy, no full vaccination, no school, no exceptions, except for extremely hard to get medical exemptions, which are only about 100 granted per year, if that. Point being, a few other states have now adopted that, as you know, like New York state and California, unfortunately, but is that a good policy? Shouldn’t people have freedom to choose before they’re forced to inject dangerous substances? What’s your take on that?

Danny Lutz: Well, I’m torn, I’d like to share with you an anecdote, if you will, from my own experience. In 1955, the Salk vaccine for polio came out. And two years later, in the Jefferson County school system, they had a program where they brought all the students into what was then the county building on the corner of Congress and George streets, and they got a polio vaccination, I think it was a three shot type. My mother had heard about what turned out to be a bad batch of the Salk vaccine, which had caused polio, so she wouldn’t let my sister and I take the Salk vaccine. I don’t know whether that saved me from getting polio or not. It probably wasn’t an issue because none of the students with whom I was in school, came down with polio. And then, seven years later, when the Sabin live vaccine came, they called it the serum on sugar, we did take that because that had been tested and was proven. Where, for instance, it’s a disease like small pox, has pretty well been eradicated from the Earth, because of vaccination.

Richard: Well, there’s some debate about that, meaning not that it doesn’t have any effect, but that most diseases, even small pox, some places use quarantine, like Leicester, if I pronounce it correctly, England, and they were successful using other methods, and that many diseases like diphtheria, the instance, and even measles the instances of disease had gone down more than 90% before the vaccine was introduced. So it’s not an A then B thing, it’s like because of improvements of sanitation, like no more horse manure in the streets and things like that, even before vaccines were introduced a lot of diseases had decreased.  So, to just say, oh, it’s because of the vaccine is overly simple…..

Richard: Well, would you, in a nutshell, allow people to have exemptions for religious or conscientious reasons.  That would be a simple thing.

Danny Lutz: I would allow the consideration of contentious religious objection to vaccines.  But once again, I would also like to keep track of the people who, and of course, the health department would have these records, keep track of the people who have made such and received such an exemption, so that if a disease should break out among these people or a community where these people reside, that we could get the handle on it……

Richard: As governor, would you promote having time limits on these kind of mandates, or you think that the way it is now is fine?

Danny Lutz: As governor, because as governor, I realize I know enough about this to get into trouble, I would be surrounding myself with the best expertise I could, and if they said it’s time to cut… To cut it out, then we would cut it out, if they say, Hey, you’re gonna have to continue this in another six months, then that’s what I would do, and it’s the same way with education, I know enough about education and education theory to get into trouble.  So I would be relying upon the people who have made a lifetime study of education, tell me what the best thing to do is.  There are certain things that I can do fairly well, but a lot of things I’ve got to rely upon good information and heaven help the person who gives me bad information…..

Richard: I noticed that the Mountain party, when you’re talking about the family, but like I noticed they’re saying they are for the LGBTQ equality and these kind of things. So are you okay with that?

Danny Lutz: You probably won’t be able to put this on the air this way, but the way most of us in a Mountain party feel what two consenting adults do inside their own four walls, between their eyebrows and their knee caps is strictly between them. Don’t take it outside and ram it down somebody else’s throat. And don’t inculcate it in the children unless it’s their lifestyle, they’re eligible, they’re old enough to understand and eligible and able to choose. It’s an individual liberty thing there, as far as we are concerned, between the eyebrows and the knee caps and inside four walls… We’re not going to dictate that.

Richard: In some sense I agree with that. Those kind of thing. But those things also affect society profoundly in the sense that as we know, there are states where the examples where people are fined because they have a problem with baking a cake or doing photography for a same sex wedding. So there are those areas where it gets out into society and then where the state can, and in some states does force people and say, “Oh no, no, you don’t like to serve that clientele. Sorry, you must” So you get into that area, you know what I mean?

Danny Lutz: I see where you’re coming from. And if I could play dictator, we might have fewer lawyers litigating such cases, because if I walk into, and I am heterosexual, I might add. But if I was homosexual and I walk in to a bakery and order a wedding cake and tell them that I want two male figures on top of it; let’s say I can’t do that. I’d just walk out the door. It’s not worth the fight. It’s not worth taking up public resources to litigate something like that. It is not worth the aggravation and the heartache that it’s going to cause a number of people in a particular incident. What’s wrong with simply walking away from what you don’t like unless it’s going to physically harm you? And I’m taking that position with a lot of things. That’s why I’m hard on pollution, but soft on individual liberties. Let people live their lives as they want to, but don’t put smoke down their throat.

Interview with Danny Lutz Jr-Mountain Party Candidate for Governor-West Virginia

Learn about the platform and views of Danny Lutz Jr, the Mountain Party Candidate for Governor of West Virginia. Other candidates for Governor are: Marshall Wilson-Independent Erika Kolenich-Libertarian Ben Salango-Democrat Jim Justice-Republican

Categories
West Virginia Politics WV Elections 2020

Interview with Michael Folk-Republican Candidate for West Virginia Governor

Listen to the Podcast

Richard:  Good morning, and welcome to this edition of the Richard Urban Show, where we present news and views from God’s point of view. Today we are happy to have Mike Folk on. He’s a Republican candidate for governor of West Virginia. So please introduce yourself.

 “Hello, I’m Mike Folk. I grew up in Berkeley, County on a farm in Swan Pond. I went to local schools, local college actually too Shepherd University. Studied education and economics; ended up finishing my degree in economics. Worked for a year in the financial industry. Had all my series 763, all your different financial licenses. And then I went to graduate school at WVU. Went into teaching, a little bit, both at the high school and college level, while also flying and working for my dad’s, aviation business. My dad had a heart attack between my junior and senior year, so I was the guy involved in hiring a pilot to take his place for the seasonal business. But then I Left shepherd University, Shepherd College at the time, and went to work in Mac trucks in Hagerstown for a year, their engine plant. I really just didn’t really like being inside all day and had fell in love with flying. So I went in the pursuit of an airline career, became an airline pilot. And I got married just a little bit before my 30th birthday to my wife, Stella and we now have five children. My wife was a school teacher for about 12 to 14 years. And, so you haven’t heard any politics in there yet.”

“I finally, in the 08-012 time frame, I started getting a little frustrated with some things, that were going on at the national level. We know who was the head of it all at that time. Some guy named Obama and so in 2012 I ran for office for the House of Delegates, and served six years in the House of Delegates. Two years in the minority, four years in the majority.”

“We got some good things done but I think there’s a lot left to be done, particularly when we have a governor who… It doesn’t matter what you do, you run against the incumbent, you gotta tell the differences. And so, he was elected as a Democrat, switched to Republican. But really, in my opinion hasn’t really changed his principles much. So that’s why I decided to run, to try to give West Virginians what I believe is; Phyllis Schlafly, if you ever heard of her, wrote a book, she was a Goldwater girl she wrote a book, to give the people a choice, not an echo which I believe that the other major opponents are really just an echo of the past, and even though they’ve changed their stripes for the lack of a better way of putting it, there’s still the same failed policies that have led West Virginia to some pretty bad places.”

Richard:  Okay, thank you. So what would you say the three main things you would emphasize in helping West Virginia as you’re running for Governor?

“Well, obviously, the paradigm has shifted a little bit, even in the last three months with budget issues. In 2017 when we had the last major budget problem when Justice first took office, under his budget proposal we were looking at a $450 million deficit. In reality that was only about a $100 million deficit. The reason it was $450 million in his budget is because he raised government spending by $350 million and a lot of chroniistic type plans that were gonna benefit him and his cronies. And so in that case, I’m well suited to balance the budget without raising taxes. Because I at the time when the government was claiming that West Virginia, he was using the analogy that West Virginia was kind of like a patient on life support, and the only way to save the patient was to raise taxes. And he kept saying, that over and over. So a group of us got together and I was the lead sponsor. My wife actually made up a nice spreadsheet for the budget, to prove that we could balance the budget without raising taxes. And at that time still give the teachers a 2% pay raise.”

“So one thing is, that’s going to be critical is the budget, the next thing is going to be education. There’s a lot of serious issues in education, a lot of them have resulted from Common Core and getting away from, and some people say this is cliché, but getting away from the basics. We’ve done too much social engineering, let’s put it that way, in education and gotten away from learning the basics and leaving the social stuff to the home, the family and the church.”

“Education I think is an important part. In West Virginia the biggest part about education is it’s very top-heavy, very Charleston-centric. We call it building six down there. And then, the third thing is, and this really has come to the forefront during this whole pandemic, is constitution. We shouldn’t be suspending the Constitution, and this is important in West Virginia, or anywhere in the country, but we’ve basically thrown the constitution [under the bus], and particularly the state constitution under Article 3 Section 10, which the title of is safeguards for life, liberty and property. And then, the exact wording in that article says, “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, in the judgment of their peers.””

“We’ve had thousands of small businesses that have been shut down around the state in a very illogical and unconstitutional way. The person that has the small shop, it sells clothing, clothing store and shoe store, for instance, was shut down. But the huge Walmarts where you can still buy clothing and shoes, was allowed to stay open. And so, you had these mass amount of people going to the Walmarts to the Lowes to the other stores.”

“So if the intent was to prevent people from congregating, shutting down small businesses was the exact opposite of what should have been done and in reality, it was literally a power grab by the Governor and this whole thing, especially after the first couple of weeks of realizing that this wasn’t as bad as they thought it was gonna be.”

Richard: something that’s dear to my heart is the issue of our policy on forced vaccination, or you might say, if you don’t get every vaccine that’s mandated in West Virginia, you can’t send your child to public school. How do you feel about that? Is that a good policy, is that a bad policy?

“Well, I think you know my history on that. I was a lead sponsor, to get rid of mandatory vaccinations. Look, if vaccinations are done properly, and when I say done properly, I’m talking about developed, brought to market, but we know since the 1986 federal law that exempted all vaccine manufacturers from any liability there have been a multitude. I mean, I could tell you and I are a little older. So when we were growing up? There might have been a handful of vaccinations that you would get maybe three or four. Small pox, polio. I think that’s probably all I ever got that I can recall right off top of my head, I might have missed one, but we didn’t get a chicken pox vaccination and if we got a measles vaccination, it wasn’t a combination of three vaccines. It wasn’t the MMR. I believe in an informed consent and let people make their decisions. The reality is that, especially it’s an interesting conversation right now, because they’re talking about having the governors mandate this potential vaccine that’s coming out for this COVID-19, which is actually SARS COV-2. It’s the second SARS virus. The first one was the 2003 SARS virus…But yeah, I don’t wear a mask in public. It’s crazy. The craziest thing I’ve seen is when people are driving down the road and they have a mask on or they’re out in the sun, sun shine, out by themselves, and they have a mask on. That makes no sense.”

Richard:  Okay, thanks for sharing. so one thing I’ve been also interviewed some of the candidates for the Commission of Agriculture. And they’re telling me about some of the very cumbersome regulations. I know you’re a farmer. Do you have any comment about that, or maybe what could be done to improve the situation for smaller farmers?

“Well, when I was growing up in Berkeley County, Jefferson County as an example, literally had six or seven butcher shops. Were you could market your cattle, your hogs. And now we’ve consolidated industry so much and it’s usually because of the burdensome regulation because a small Mom-and-Pop that might employ two or three people can’t keep up with those regulations, that these massive processing facilities can. And I think having a diverse food supply, at the local level, and less nationally, would benefit all of society greatly.”

Richard: when we’re looking at the long term of idea of helping society, helping with the whole family breakdown or opioid situation, and this is not maybe so much a political but more a philosophical question. Our organization deals with emphasizing that youth should stay absent before marriage. That that’s the best standard for school-age children. Would you agree with that kind of approach? And that will help stabilize families and make them more successful.

“Anything we can do to help the nuclear family stay together will take care of a lot of these ancillary issues. The black community, as an example, Candace Owens, in front of the Congress testified. That’s the number one issue in that community that destroys families, is the number of single parent households. So I think all of those things together will produce the outcomes that we had a generation ago, or two generations ago.”

Richard: comparing yourself to your opponents, why should the voters choose you? What’s most outstanding in comparison?

“I’m definitely more like the average voter than these two guys are. Both these guys are pretty wealthy guys compared to me. Justice inherited hundreds of millions of dollars and in fact, even Woody, 20 years ago or so inherited about a million dollars. So I’m more like the average everyday citizen with a family trying to raise a family, trying to make ends meet. But at the same time I have experience in the legislature, particularly from the budget perspective and the constitutional perspective. Whether it’s defending your second amendment, your First Amendment, the pro-life issues. I’ve got 100% pro-life, 100% pro-second amendment voting record. I’ve actually developed my own state budget. I don’t think either one of those guys has.”

“Justice has signed a few. Of course the first one that I proposed, which became a blueprint for what ultimately became law, that was, if you recall, that’s when Justice vetoed the budget on the silver platter with the cow pie. That year Justice, never signed a budget. It became law without his signature. A lot of you probably weren’t even aware of that yourself. He vetoed the one on the silver platter with the cow pie, then we went back in special session. In June of 2017, we gave him a budget but he wouldn’t sign it. He let it become law. Because after a certain period of time, it becomes law, automatically. That’s how that budget became law. So I think I have a better ear to the ground of the everyday citizen in West Virginia. And I’ll take that to the office if elected.”

Richard: Okay, well thank you very much. Any other closing thoughts?

“Just get on my Facebook. If you’re on social media. ‘Michael folk for West Virginia governor’ and my website is fokk4wv.com, and check me out if you haven’t.”

Interview with Michael Folk-Republican Candidate for West Virginia Governor

Learn more about Michael Folk, his stand for constitutional values, fiscal responsibility and sound education for our children.

Categories
West Virginia Politics WV Elections 2020

Interview with Doug Six-Republican Candidate for Governor-West Virginia

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Welcome to this edition of the Richard Urban Show, where we present news and views from God’s point of view. Today, May 22, we’re happy to have Doug Six, a Republican candidate for Governor of West Virginia on. So please introduce yourself.

“Thank you very much for having me on. I’m Doug Six, a Republican candidate running for governor of the state of West Virginia. I’m not a polished politician so I will stumble around, probably answering questions and giving you my views on things, but please take those as being my true views,” Six said.

“I am a God fearing young man, live in the country, believe in our rights as citizens of United States and especially our rights as citizens of the state of West Virginia.  I’ve got 32 years of business experience, under my belt. I’ve been in the real estate business, engineering, surveying, areal mapping work for other companies both in Petersburg, WV, Moorefield, WV, and over in Virginia, I’m 61 years old, live on a farm and enjoy the rural lifestyle of our state. I believe our state has so much to offer for every individual out there, who wants to come to our state to live. And my campaign is probably 98% self-funded, I do have a few folks that have made some donations but other than that, it is all self-funded by myself and my wife. Other than that, I’ll let you ask some questions,” Six added

Richard: What would you say your three main campaign points are or three of your top campaign priorities, or priorities for our state? Put it that way.

“Priorities for our state, first off. My priority for our state is to bring our state back into where it should be up in the top, top states in our nation and to be able to do that we need to bring our jobs back, which everybody talks about and believes but we need to diversify but I’m a firm believer in our resources that we have in our state. For the last 20 years, I’ve dealt with coal oil and gas, and believe that those are very good sound industries that would allow us to branch out and diversify from there, but my family has been in the timber and lumbering business for over 40 years within the state,” Six said.

So the jobs and our resources are two of the things that would be on the top of my list.  The third thing is that I’m a very open individual. I believe in an open office setting. I believe that our individual voters within our state need to have access to their representatives every day of the week. If they’re good enough to vote you in to promote their thoughts and their wants and desires, you should have at least enough courtesy to listen to what they have to say.  So I do run an open-door policy.  I would continue that.  I would like to set it up to where either every two months or every three months, that I would, within those three months visit each county and allow the individuals in the county the time to spend with me and ask questions and find out what’s going on.   Probably the largest thing I see in our state that is hurting us right now is that none of us are going to be able to predict where the corona virus is going to leave our state financially.  Probably the governor is the only one that has a handle on that at this time.   That is going to be a major project for whomever is elected.  They will need to go through and find out where we stand, find out how we’re going to spend the monies that our state has, or is going to receive. I believe those monies need to be spent directly into programs and projects for our citizens,” Six added.

Richard: Could I interject one question about the COVID-19? So do you feel the governor’s handled it well? Many people, myself included, feel there’s been a lot of Constitutional violations, it’s somewhat random, it’s way overblown. Many small businesses could or will go out of business or have gone out of business. Is this really necessary or is it appropriate, or has there been overstep, is it about right, or what do you think?

“Okay, I can criticize our governor in many different ways for the way he’s handled the virus. However, none of us, other than him know the information that has been given by the President or the counselor or the group that is put together to the handle the Corona Virus,” Six answered.

“I do not agree that our state shut down. I do not believe and I’m saying that now based on what I know now, I do not believe we needed to shut down, I believe we needed to target areas, and target parts of our citizens to make sure that they were protected. I believe it’s going to create major problems for our entire nation and in our state. It has taken away our freedoms, and we gave up our freedoms very easily. The press went out and put the fear in everyone to the point that they just holed up and we kind of gave up our freedoms without a fight, and now we see that we’re going to have to fight to get those back,” Six added.

Richard: Okay, that’s a clear answer. I would have to agree with that as well, on the issue of the government reach or possible overreach. I noticed you have some background in the poultry industry, I believe. Do you think that there are too many regulations for small farms that get in the way of meat packing or poultry or do you think it’s about right, or do they more favor the larger producers or what’s your opinion on that issue?

“My opinion on that issue is that regulations stifle the growth of every industry. Regulations are put into place, normally to protect the public, but however, there are small groups of individuals that cause the regulations to be created, and it does not benefit the majority of the public.  It only benefits a small sector,” Six said.

Regulations are not to be used as something that would stifle the growth of our current businesses and and/or future businesses.  And those that are a good example would be, one of our DEP [Department of Environmental Protection] our DEP needs to be not and as much an enforcer, but an enabler that says, “In order to make this happen, this is what we see you need to do.  Let’s work together to make it better for everyone and not stop progress because one small group of individuals believe that we should do that.

Richard: I didn’t get, which position you’re referring to, or which department?

“Just, all of the departments need to be more open to helping the businesses. We don’t need to be stifling any business in our state, because we need every one of those.  We need every job.  Yes, there are essential jobs within our state, but in my opinion, everyone who has a job, it’s essential, it’s essential to their lifestyle.  It’s essential to their family.  It’s essential to keep them in a positive path to their future.

Richard:  It seems like they’re definitely some significant regulatory barriers in the agriculture area. I was talking to one candidate about the prime act. You can’t, apparently, sell any of your personal processed meat, it’s illegal.  You can process it, but if you want to sell it you have to ship it to some plant, possibly over state lines.

“It’s a very cumbersome group of individuals or a group that is out there, the USDA, that at times, they tend to have overreach that, again, it’s like everything else, instead of being an adversary, they need to be a friend of business, they need to work out the issues.  And I am a firm believer that if businesses understand that they can work through issues, they will do that,” Six said.

Richard: One issue that I’ve been working on West Virginia is the issue that we’re one of the fewer states that has no exemptions for vaccinations for school children, meaning if you don’t vaccinate your children, if you feel you want to skip a vaccine for whatever reason, religious reason personal reason, any reason, that’s absolutely not allowed in West Virginia. There’s medical exemption, supposedly. But I know I’m talking to a lot of people and they’re very hard to get. So short question is: Do you support this kind of system of forced vaccination or no school or do you think there should be exemptions or is the whole system ripe for an overhaul? What’s your opinion on that?

“I believe that the vaccinations were put into place for a reason.  Do I support all the current vaccinations that our children have to receive?  I believe, probably the current vaccinations because they’ve grown in such a large number, there are certain vaccinations that probably should be up to the parents. You know, vaccinations were brought into our system because of very deadly diseases.

We do not want to go backwards to let those diseases come back into our system at all. But, again, I believe your child’s rights should be your child, you should have the right to determine if your child has those vaccines,” Six answered.

Richard: Well, I’ve been working on that issue and I’ve researched it for decades now. Literally those kind of bills don’t get traction. Well, I would say what happens is, they’re almost always squashed in committee. So usually people have conflicts of interest in my opinion, or analysis, for example, doctors have belonged to certain medical associations. They don’t want these things to see the light of day. I think they should be discussed as you said.

“That, or a lot of things that should be discussed that don’t get discussed. And the corruption within our government is, runs, very high right now.  And we need to get rid of [break in audio]. That’s very high on my list,” Six said.

Richard:  Definitely conflicts of interest are a huge issue.

Richard: One thing I wanted to ask about is, when you think about the long-term effects of things like poverty, or opioid use or so many other things like outside of marriage pregnancy, all those things. I’m wondering, should we have an approach,  And this isn’t maybe so much a government thing but something I’m wondering what you personally think, where we encourage youth to stay abstinent before marriage, Our non-profit does that. Is that something that should be encouraged, or not or what do you think?  Meaning, stay abstinent, because then if they have a stable family that addresses many of the issues that we see now a days. What do you think?

“I totally agree with what you’re saying, okay, because we can continue to subsidize our programs, but we’re putting that emphasis after everything’s already happened, instead of going back. It’s kind of like whipping the tail of the snake to kill it. You never do. You have to go to where the problem, the root of the problem is.  And what you’re saying, about we need to promote our youth not to be as promiscuous as they are,” Six said.

Richard: Well, I think we’re coming more toward the conclusion. I just want to ask how would you compare yourself to the other Republican gubernatorial candidates? How would you differentiate yourself?  Why would the voters choose you versus, say, the other five or so?

“I guess that I would say that you could choose me if you really want a change.  If you want a change from a politician that knows the system, and knows how to work the system and will work the system for their benefit and not your benefit, then you probably should vote for one of the other candidates,” Six said.

“If you want someone that’s going to back you as a citizen of our state and try and help our state bring itself up and try to make our state a better place to live as far as, it’s hard to make it a better place to live. Our state’s a beautiful state,” Six added.

“But as far as being a productive individual in our state, if that’s what you want, and you want to see our state become productive and not go down the same path, I am the individual.  I’m honest.  I’m trustworthy and I will be very accountable to each and every individual in our state, not just a few. So, that’s kind of where I’m at,” Six concluded.

Richard: Thank you for sharing. Anything else you’d like to share with the viewers, in conclusion?

“Just please, make sure that you go and vote. It’s very important.  It doesn’t matter who you vote for. Do not give up those rights. Those rights have been fought for for many, many years and are being continued every day.  Our servicemen fight for those rights.  So please take those rights seriously, and go and vote,” Six said.

Richard: Okay, thank you very much. Do vote, June 9th.  There are many, of course the gubernatorial primaries, but also you have no less than three Supreme Court justices out of five.   That’s unprecedented.  And your school board, magistrates and sheriffs.  So those candidates, except the sheriffs, will be elected on June 9th only.

Interview with Doug Six-Republican Candidate for Governor-West Virginia

Learn more about Doug Six, his promotion of local business, his views on constitutional rights and his campaign for West Virginia governor.

Interview with Jody Murphy-Democratic Candidate for West Virginia Governor

Learn more about Jody Murphy, his plan for economic development in West Virginia and other issues facing West Virginia.

Categories
West Virginia Politics WV Elections 2020

Interview with Charles Robert Sheedy Sr-Republican Candidate for WV Governor

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Welcome to this edition of the Richard Urban Show. I’m your host Richard Urban coming to you from historic Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and today, May 21, we’re very happy to have on the show Mr. Charles Sheedy, running for governor on the Republican ticket here in West Virginia. So please go ahead and introduce yourself.

“I thank you very much for having me on. My name is Charles Sheedy, Sr. I am a Republican candidate for the governor of West Virginia, I am a lifelong Republican, not a party switcher. My staff includes my wife, who’s my campaign manager and our public relations official, which is our golden retriever Susie. You may have seen us traveling around the state. We travel around the state, in our camper trailer and that enables us to be in touch with the people and get to know a lot of other travelers out there on the road also. We tend to stay at private campgrounds.  That keeps us in connection with the small business owners of these properties, also.  I embrace term limits, lower taxes and definitely want pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-God.” Sheedy said.

“So if you think that government is small now, it needs to be smaller. We have been campaigning now for over a year and a half, just about two years now. I decided to run in October of 2018. I’m not accepting corporate contributions or endorsements of any type. I feel that those lead to corruption. I am not a businessman or a politician. I’m a retired working man, retired combat veteran. I served with US Army, U.S. Army Reserves and went to the Army National Guard and retired from there in 2013. I’m also retired from the West Virginia Department of Highways. I worked there for thirty years and I have very intimate knowledge of state government and how things work; not the way they’re supposed to, but the way that they do work,” Sheedy continued.

Richard: I think you’ve already did cover your main three points that you’re emphasizing in your campaign. You mentioned several things, do you want to emphasize perhaps the three that are most important and dear to you?

“Definitely. Term limits, smaller government and lower taxes,” Sheedy answered.

Richard: Okay.  One of the issues that’s being discussed is the business and inventory tax and the personal property tax, so what would you do about those issues?

“The business inventory tax that does nothing but hurt our small businesses. I realized that it helps our county governments, but at the same time that is killing small business right now with this Coronavirus small businesses are hurting very badly. Some of the small businesses are going to go under. Some of them may try to come back. I see some of them not even attempting to come back. Because what happens is if we get hit with a second wave of this Coronavirus then they’re going to be in just as bad of shape, if not worse, than they already are,” Sheedy said.

“These people that own their own small businesses. My step-daughter and her husband, in Morgantown, they own Creek Roofing and Siding, which is a small business, they are hurting tremendously. They have building payments they have to make. They have inventory taxes that they have to pay” Sheedy explained.

“The inventory tax needs to go away. That has done nothing over years but hurt business opportunities, and the personal property taxes – that needs to go away. Why do you keep paying property taxes on your vehicles year after year after year after year? We are being taxed to death. “Personal income tax in the state.  You did not ask about that, sir, but I am going to tell you about that one. West Virginia pays the highest personal income tax of any neighboring state, and people that are making 18,000 a year, they are paying the highest percentage and you’re paying the maximum amount of personal income tax which that is definitely wrong,” Sheedy said..

Richard: You mentioned reducing the size of government. So when we remove these taxes, which sounds like a good idea, to me, then will we reduce the size, the government? Or would you have more like sales or user taxes or none of the above? You know, what I mean? How would we balance the budget?

“Definitely cut the size of government. Government is so over regulated right now with this Coronavirus updates coming out daily. You’ve got four government regulatory organizations that are fighting over how to reopen everything, they can’t decide on how to open things back up. And this is from a lack of leadership at the executive level. There’s just so many people in charge. The Homeland Security, National Guard, everybody is involved, everybody wants to have their input into everything re-opening back up and it’s just a quagmire and stagnant. That’s in Charleston right now,” Sheedy said.

“If I had been in charge, I would not have done all these executive orders I would have got on and recommended people use common sense, giving the guidelines and shutting the businesses down has just hurt everything,” Sheedy continued.

“Whose fault was it when we were shut down? It was the governor’s executive decision that was shut down. I don’t believe he has the authority to do that,” Sheedy said.

Richard: I was looking at some of the regulations in the West Virginia Constitution, and it seems like a lot of the Constitution issues have been violated, of course, West Virginia and U.S. Constitution, and I’m wondering, in some states, I noticed at least the legislature is reviewing the things and challenging and like they were able to get the courts to stop all the things in Wisconsin. But that doesn’t seem to be happening here. The legislature seems to be taking or having a minimal role. Is it by design or they’re not aggressive enough or maybe we need to review the laws so that this doesn’t happen again. What do you think?

“I don’t think it’s because they’re not being interested. We have a part-time legislature, which is a good thing, it’s a good thing that we only have a part-time legislature, but at the same time, the only one that can call special session on the legislature right now is the governor. Why would he want to do that and create more of a mess? Well, right now you need more of a mess. You need somebody, you don’t need an individual with the ultimate control that the governor currently has. So yes, the Constitution definitely needs to be revisited and amendments made to that so that the legislature can not necessarily meet in Charleston. But do like the state of Alaska does. The state of Alaska, the capital is in Juneau. So the only way in and out there is by airplane or boat.  There are no roads in or out of Juneau. So their legislature can meet electronically. That is something that needs to be looked at in West Virginia also. That way you’re going to eliminate a lot of the excessive payments for legislators to travel back and forth to Charleston,” Sheedy said in response.

Richard: Yeah, you’re right about that. There’s been a lot of these constitutional issues. I’m also wondering what your opinion is on this state-wide issue. I’ve been working with the issue of the forced vaccinations, meaning in West Virginia we have no vaccinations, no school. Do you think that’s the right policy or should we have a choice of what’s injected to our bodies or children’s bodies? What’s your opinion on that?

“I think everybody needs to have a choice. You need the choice to be able to decide what you want done and how you want it done. I am very skeptical of any virus being injected into me now, especially with the advent of microchips. I think they could place a microchip in you without your knowledge. And where is your freedom then? You have none, it is gone.” Sheedy said.

Richard: Yeah, that’s interesting, I was just reading about that. Recently. The technology is advancing. We don’t really know. And, in fact, there are studies that are showing, it’s well-known, that vaccines contain contaminants like the simian monkey virus from the polio vaccine. That’s a fact. So yeah, there’s so many questions about that and it’s a very, very concerning issues and it’s just that West Virginia has been behind the loop in that, or however you want to call it, the fact that we don’t have even any exemptions for a vaccination.  And there are no safety studies that have been done to show whether they are relatively more effective or more fatal. So, yeah, that’s a very concerning issue. And the governor hasn’t taken any leadership at all on that, unfortunately.

“No, he has not.  No leadership at all from the executive branch”

Richard:  So the whole policy, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think. What do you think?

“No, it does not.  It makes no sense at all, whatsoever. I’m the age where I remember plainly the Hong Kong flu that went back, went through back in the 60s, and my mother at the time driving me to the doctor’s office to get it to get a flu shot and I didn’t like shots. Well guess what? I ended up with it anyway. I never got the Hong Kong flu, but I truly believe that in my area right here in our small area of Marshall County, I believe that this actually went through here back in January. I think that I had it because I had a dry cough that went on for almost three weeks,” Sheedy said.

Richard: We know on the Republican side there’s several, about six or seven candidates for governor. How do you differentiate, or compare yourself? What’s unique about your platform compared to others?

“Number one, I’m not a party switcher. I’m a life-long Republican. So I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide, ‘Oh, I think I represent the Republican Party more than the Democrat party so I’m going to switch parties.  I’ve never done that, I’ve always been pro-life, pro God, pro-gun.  I just can’t see taking people’s rights and throwing them away and you’ll never get them back. And that’s where the Democrats are headed right now. Of course, Joe Manchin describes himself as a West Virginia Democrat. Well, there’s no such thing as a West Virginia Democrat.  I’m sorry.   He has aligned himself with Nancy Pelosi, he has aligned himself with Obama.  He aligned himself with Clinton. Took them all around the state.  So there’s no such thing as a West Virginia Democrat.  You’re either a Democrat or a Republican. So that being said, I’m very strong on term limits.  I believe that term limits lead to the inroads of corruption, along with endorsements.  Endorsements may not be money paid, but it is still a commitment that, ‘OK, we backed you; we told our constituents and our members to vote for you.  So now you owe us this’.  Well, that in itself is an inroad for corruption.  That is why I’m not accepting any endorsements,” Sheedy said.

Richard: I think you’ve given voters a clear idea about where you’re coming from on the important issues like First Amendment, Second Amendment, constitutional rights, term limits and endorsements.  To basically conclude, would you like to share anything else with the viewers about yourself or your campaign?

“Check me out on Facebook. I don’t have a web page, but check me out on Facebook. I have two different pages there, I have Charles Robert Sheedy and then I have Charles Robert Sheedy Sr., Republican candidate for governor. On that page, there’s a section down on the right hand side that gives you a little bit of information about me, and if you read through that, then if you have any questions, ask me because I answer my own questions, I don’t have a staff member answer questions for me, I answer my own question,” Sheedy concluded.

Richard: I’m sure that the viewers can find you there, and I hope they’ll take the time to listen to these different issues and make the best choice on June 9th and also we’ll be electing other individuals like three Supreme Court justices, so that’s huge.