Neutral

I am 100% pro choice however the expenditure of public funds is problematic given the way the question is asked. For example Planned Parenthood does receive public funding for things such as verifying the pregnancy status of female soldiers as part of the deployment process. This question should be reworded so that it adequately reflects this distinction thus warranting a different response. Women should have the right to choose without government coercion, inter-meddling, etc..

Strongly Agree

A woman's right to choose should not be curtailed in any manner. The 13th Amendment clearly states that no person shall be an involuntary servant of another. The recent attempt to roll back the clock on our Ninth Amendment rights and liberties should not stand. The Ninth Amendment states: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people". Moreover the 13th Amendment states: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction". Before we even get to the obvious issues normally raised in the abortion debate I don't even see a constitutional basis for outlawing abortion. While in law school I had the honor to be taught about the federal court system by Professor Cyril Chesnut Means Jr., professor emeritus of constitutional law at New York Law School. Professor Means was an expert on abortion law and had represented multiple abortion doctors in New York prior to the Roe decision. As a lawyer who had represented multiple New York hospitals in the 1990's and was privy to multiple medical disclosures I find it odd that the prospect of having doctors dropping a dime on other doctors in states which now seek to restrict abortions will not have a completely adverse impact on those state's healthcare systems in general. Moreover, due to the advent of DNA testing forcing women to carry unwanted fetuses to term will forever have undesired impacts upon those women who already face difficult decisions. Lastly based upon the numbers of abortions performed under Roe I have estimated that the number of adoptions in the US would require 1 out of every six people to adopt a child or become a ward of the state. Is this actually something the US Supreme Court considered when it rendered it decision which seemingly was only rendered based upon religious grounds?

Strongly Disagree

No it isn't. The decline in people regularly attending worship services is because they have shifted their worship to red and blue politicians as their saviors. Sad but true! I am here for an intervention! Politicians are not Saviors!

Neutral

My personal position is that I never reward bigotry which is actually one of the reasons like minded people formed the Keystone Party. Should the government force people who are utter bigots to provide services to people thus artificially keeping them in business? Nope - I'd like to see them fail of their own stupidity in a free market system.

It shouldn't control the government and the US Supreme Court! Never in a million years did I ever think the US Supreme Court would become a blatant ecclesiastical court. For instance the US now has stricter abortion rules than Argentina. Yes the Argentina the Pope is from. Think of that for one minute!

C & D. I take a realist approach which is enumerated by John Joseph Mearsheimer the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. Professor Mearsheimer repeatedly points to the paradoxes created by the Industrial Military complex which lead foreign policy decisions in this country (case in point Ukraine). It is high time we stop talking about US foreign policy and our endless intrusions in terms of "time" as opposed to the cost in lost lives. If people say I would have blood on my hands as a result of my positions on abortion I would argue that the loss of innocent lives in the name of jingoistic rhetoric far exceeds that issue. Coincidentally had former Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson actually simply been able to debate the US would have been out of Afghanistan 4 years earlier and with thousands of fewer lives lost.

Neutral

I don't believe boycotts and sanctions ever result in effective policies changes. Typically they result in the opposite effect by galvanizing those effected and polarizing the issue. My current view is a two party state solution however for a two party state solution to actually work borders need to be respected by both parties. Lastly I view full equality for all people as a fundamental human right - including all refugees. I still hold out hope for the next Yitzhak Rabin.

Disagree

Is there a Chinese Communist Party or merely a totalitarian regime which emulates the positions of what has become an oligarchy class of US overseers? I'm still amazed that Trump proclaimed that the US may someday have a President for life when Xi Jinping was given that title in 2018. The best way to not be threatened by China is not to become the same as them! I don't have enough space here to even begin that analysis.

Stop perpetually bombing the crap out of people! My guess is that we "create more terrorists" by our actions.....

Interesting question. This is the same slippery slope involved in the issues of abortion and whether private individuals can discriminate and the impact. My feeling is that if we can't force people to carry babies to term we similarly need to recognize that people are able to make their own vaccination decisions. This also implicates the issue related to whether people (here employers) can make decisions about whom they employ. Once again to be consistent people can determine who they want on their property and as the late economist Milton Friedman once said "people vote with their feet". Therefore since no one is guaranteed a job a refusal to obtain a vaccination could be grounds for termination. This private contract to work and the relationship between employers and employees should not be via coerced government action. Should the government be in a position to require vaccinations? The government oversteps bounds all of the time. Again individuals should be able to make the best decisions for themselves. Candidly I would prefer to see more effort going into more effective vaccines which candidly would moot these preposterous divisive issues in their entirety. I spent a lot of time discussing this when interviewed during my attorney general run in PA and ultimately we moved to the pragmatic approach I had expressed. Coincidentally Covid is not a conspiracy. Get vaccinated.

I was a healthcare attorney for years. I spent a lot of time dealing with the issue of private and uninsured patients. Candidly balancing the two issues I would leave healthcare as it is now. Strangely Trump literally stole all of Gary Johnson's positions on healthcare and integrated them into the ACA. This program is actually a tax "credit" and candidly I like the government giving taxpayers "credit" against what they would otherwise owe on their taxes.

Neutral

Not in the manner it is currently done. The entire tax code creates inequity in and of itself. So redistributing "income" is a boogie-man claim. Wealthy people live off of ASSETS not income. Once again this question is based upon a "republican/democratic" assumptions which are simply untrue! The greatest way to redistribute wealth in this country are based upon hard work, education and innovation. Our tax code as written has to do with any of those issues.

Strongly Agree

The government wastes Billions or even Trillions of dollars annually! The amount of waste that has beset this country could actually result in more than enough of a savings to actually fully fund things like social(ist) security fully as well as multiple other social programs! It is appalling to me that the largest growth industry in the US seems to be based upon which politicians are best at personally ripping off the taxpayers of this country.

I only have 5000 words? The entire tax code is in and of itself an utter sham. Check out my website and videos that I will have on this subject. Let me say just a few words here about this. After studying the tax code including virtually all aspects of it it is entirely broken. Government largesse needs to be reduced and a variety of alternate means exist to fund the government which are never addressed. Coincidentally I favor a true free market system. not the abhorrent joke of a system we continue to punish innovators and working families alike with. Time for voters to consider alternate means the government can raise revenue without discouraging people! Check out my website and videos for more and FOLLOW ME on this.....to spread the word!

Strongly Disagree

No I'm an open border advocate. End the mindless war on drug policy which perpetually destabilizes countries in Central and South America. Take all of the money spent on this nonsense and spend it on rehab for those who want it. Violence will decrease in Central and South America as it did in Portugal when they adopted that approach. The result will be fewer people coming to escape violence to begin with. I was able to cross borders in Europe freely. #bogusnonsense

Strongly Disagree

Not enough room exists to even begin to express my views on this issue. This ties in multiple issues which can't be addressed here. There shouldn't be a need for sanctuary cities to begin with.

Any non-violent person who wishes to work. I again happen to be a "free market advocate". To further answer the question about china above - to compete we need cheap labor. Anyone wishing to work here is not being exploited! They were likely exploited in their country of origin.

Strongly Disagree

No! As a former FOP lawyer who saw some of the worse police abuse situations NO! There should be a 3 prong approach. 1) Abolish qualified immunity. 2) Require officers to obtain "private insurance" and 3) allow the FOP to be underwriters of those policies. Bad cops will no longer be able to obtain insurance and this will be a start to cleaning up police misconduct when they can't be hired. Good grief....

Strongly Agree

I would take this a step further and integrate a "non-police" intervention option. Not every issue requires a police response. We have a national 911 program. Perhaps we need an 811 for people who need assistance from "peace officers" to do simple things like coordinate the exchange of insurance info at traffic accidents. Did selling loose cigarettes really warrant the death of Eric Gardner? Good grief no.... PS: Republicans and Democrats fight this but it hasn't been done properly yet.

There are too many now that are improperly enforced. We need more? Strange fact - Statistically former felons who have had their gun rights restored are less likely to commit a crime than an average person in the general population. So much for the Constitutional prohibition on ex-post facto laws. I once represented a gun owner (now deceased) who was barred from owning a firearm and was picked up as a disqualified person via the PIC system. The only problem was that he already had a handgun conceal carry and had been carrying for years and years without incident. His crime? An erroneous conviction on his PIC record for gambling (playing cards on a train) and a DUI some 30 years before. In the intervening time he was actually a congressional appointee to serve on the panel for appointment to our US military academy's, served in the US military but couldn't possess a firearm legally? What nonsense.... These are the people we are expanding restrictions on? If we want to save lives lets spend all of the money we spend on this nonsense attacking the Coke and Pepsi company over the number of diabetes deaths annually!

Strongly Disagree

The second amendment is within the bill of rights for a reason. So is freedom of speech. We have restricted speech in certain circumstance but when have we held people vicariously liable for the bad things others have said? Never. So why is this Constitutional right less important?

Moderate

I am a staunch fiscal conservative but simultaneously a classical (as opposed to a modern day) liberal. A classical liberal means one who is deeply protective of individual liberties. This compound question therefore should be broken down into two parts but again these questions were written only with the mindset of accommodating bogus Republican and Democratic viewpoints. That is the #1 problem in American politics today!

Listen to my actual interviews from my campaign for PA Attorney General. Do not believe a single word of the article written in Philadelphia Magazine for that election. I was never contacted by the reporters and they did absolutely nothing to ask me my views. I actually thought of filing suit after learning of their Alex Jones reporting style however I do hope they clean up their act this time around and actually ask for my positions and source data. PS: had they asked about my view on Covid I would have told them my sources were information from the CDC, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal; not as they suggested crazed right wing podcasts (which are actually the types of misinformation I am constantly fighting to eradicate as an educator). Good grief!

No. And I also don't have a draw full of Non-Disclosure Agreements. Good grief!

Up to this point this questionnaire unfortunately provides no questions related to criminal justice reform, policing reforms, global warming issues (and my concerns and questions) [Note: I was an environmental science major many years ago], political corruption issues, real questions related to the war on drugs, legalization of drugs, regulatory reform, education, Puerto Rico (and repealing the Jones Act as it applies to their waters), etc.. I'm going to suggest to people that wish to know more about me that you feel free to contact me directly All of these issues are concerning.... I would note that on a personal level I worked my buns off to get everything I have and I will do that for the people of Pennsylvania and the United States. I try to be truthful and honest and that is my sole agenda. I also want people to think! I am an educator after all..... Lastly just remember Bernie Sanders was elected as an Independent (I was selected by a State Party as their candidate). I consider this a similar experience.

Strongly Agree

Absolutely.

Neutral

That's a Republican redefinition of what Critical Race Theory is! What a bogus question! CRT is the theory that laws have intended and unintended consequences which create disparate treatments as a result. A case in point is our tax code which provides deductions for interest expenses for home ownership but none for rent. Generally inner-city minorities (renters) are penalized by not being able to build equity in a home to pay for things such as college education for their children.

I treat all people equally, wish no harm on any person, detest violence, wish all people success, look for the best in all people, believe hearts and minds can be changed to reflect these values, pray for peace, I also question the constant militarization of our children and why we as a country spend so much of our time and money actively promoting violence. My belief system is my own however I have studied every major world religion (as well as a number of minor religions) as a former Philosophy minor. I actively look for friendship and do not understand why people actually seek to harm others. All of this while being a second amendment advocate purely based upon the belief that it is a human right to be able to defend yourself from actual (not perceived) physical harm. I want for nothing and can live quite comfortably and happily without engaging in perpetual conspicuous consumption. My weaknesses are that I enjoy creating artwork which personally provides me a soothing satisfaction. Lastly I wish people would love one another more often as opposed to not. Is this a dating site? I also have a sense of humor.....

Agree

Yes it is a nonsensical argument. Voter rolls are available before elections and are available for review prior to elections in order to challenge off bogus participants. Interesting fact - in the country of Chile a non-citizen can vote and in Argentina 98% of the population votes. Both countries have laws to encourage participation not curtail participation. They do however require merely that you have ID and candidly I am not sure how they maintain their voter rolls.

Lets start with requiring any political party that uses "public assets" for their private political parties (think Republicans and Democrats) to actually reimburse those costs to the the political subdivision where voting occurs. Taxpayers need to pay for the primaries of the blue/red machine? Think of it in these terms - if that were to happen we could have every possible social service you could ever ask for in the US fully funded! Imagine people and not politicians actually receiving government benefits instead of being hoodwinked by politicians! And could they afford that? Has anyone seen the amounts of money that people willfully cough up to the GOP and Dems every year to bolster their political pocketbooks? What a national scandal! This nonsense about ballot integrity is nothing more that the chilling of freedom of speech and really free association..... Good grief this could be an entire white paper on that issue! Debates? Money? I actually have thought of writing a book on this subject.

Neutral

A concept I look at with interest but I'm not certain how that would work. I do agree that in a country which only has seven black billionaires in comparison to over 650 white billionaires there is a problem somewhere.

Hell yes. Let me rephrase this question. Let's take examples of extreme racism in groups such as the Klu Klux Klan, Aryan Nation, etc. and ask if their views pose a threat to the domestic security of the United States. I mean is this even debatable? I have family & friends of all creeds, national origins, races, orientations, genders, gender identities, etc.. Bigotry is detestable. The minute the new leadership of my former party (the Libertarian Party) removed language stating that as part of its platform it verified my view of their inherent racist belief welcoming. Likewise people left the party. Coincidentally many of those people believed the January 6th mob was "based". Seriously? If you don't view this as a threat to domestic "tranquility" to use the actual words of the US Constitution you are more than a bit off.

Neutral

I currently do however I am still interested in hearing more about this issue.

I have an entirely different view from both of these. I would encourage private lawsuits via entities such as the Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, the Environmental Defense fund, etc. to pursue polluters to clean up their acts via "private actions". Environmental laws and regulations are actually pollution permission-slips which allow pollution up to a certain level (based upon preemption and the supremacy clause of the Constitution. We can do a lot better. PS: My home in the Poconos is actually across from a former DEP hazardous waste site. The last thing I want is for anyone to have experienced the trauma of having to deal with a situation like that! Coincidentally I am a cancer survivor. I often wonder if my situation was related to those exposures in my youth.....