Statesman Journal – April 2024

I competed the Statesman Journal’s Candidate questionnaire. Several of their questions came from a very “progressive” viewpoint. I countered their attempt to drive the narrative with TRUTH.

What are your priorities for Oregon and the country?

My highest priorities as a Patriot Servant Leader for the people of Oregon Congressional District 6 are “God, The Constitution and You.” I will not attempt to legislate God into the laws of our great nation, but God is the ethical and moral compass that will I will use while representing you. The Constitution is the Law that will guide my decision making processes as I consider legislation crossing my desk in Washington DC. You are the heart and soul of this Nation and We can not recover the USA for US without You. That is why Russ Is For US.

Of course immigration, the border, national debt, the federal budget and inflation are posing critical threats to our country. The truth of this is in front of us every day. You also have specific desires. I could promise you that I will fix two or three of those things and then never see them cross my desk as your Congressman. That is why I believe that it is more important for you to know what drives my decision making process The ethics and logic I will apply when working as your legislator in Washington DC can be found at RussIsForUS.com/god-the-constitution-and-you.

In addition to having legislative priorities, I plan to work to have a return to Family Values and Improve Constituent Education regarding government processes and current legislation.

What will you do to expand access to affordable housing?

I like the intent of this question, but it implies an answer that does not solve an “assumed” problem.

“Access to affordable housing” is the product of a strong / stable economy and a good cultural work ethic. The definition of “affordable housing” is purposely malleable like most terms used in our social support programs. By making the concept vague and elusive the program can morph to whatever shape meets the needs of the agencies that drive it. That does not serve the people who need housing.

When our economy was booming inexpensive housing was completely “accessible.” Investors built quality buildings with smaller housing units and were still able to realize a gain on their investment charging modest rents. New “starter” homes were often priced within the reach of a single family income and a lower class family could even afford steak once in a while. So the real question is, “How do we get our economy back the that level of stability and prosperity?”

I have two solutions that will address this issue. The explanations are a bit longer than can be included here, but they can be found on my web site at:

RussIsForUS.com/what-if

RussIsForUS.com/virtual-rally#thegiant

What is your plan for addressing Oregon’s homelessness crisis?

Only about 2-3% of today’s homeless people are homeless due to mental and/or physical issues that prevent them from sustaining a household. The other 97% are mostly victims of economic hardship caused by rogue and tyrannical government policies, individuals gaming the system or people with drug addiction(s). The 2-3% that have genuine permanent issues which cause their homelessness have been a part of every society since the beginning of time. We have systems and programs in our communities that help them the best we can, and protect citizens in case these people “get out of hand.” Unfortunately these systems have currently been abused and overloaded by the other 97%. As a result confidence in the programs and services that we had has diminished. When we solve the issues that put the other 97% on our streets, the programs that care for the actual infirm in our society will easily recover. Creating additional systems, programs and facilities to solve this issue will be inefficient, create dependency in those who need treatment, and encourage abuse of the system.

Most of the issues leading to our large homeless population today have resulted from bad government policies. As a result, they can mostly be ended by replacing those bad policies with good policies. One example is the drug addiction issue. The current Presidential Administration has opened our borders to a continuous flow of drugs and “unvetted persons.” They then exacerbated the issues we have with drug addiction by preventing law enforcement from enforcing our immigration, drug and civil order laws. Unfortunately, it is not just our homeless who are suffering from the insanity of these policies. My heart goes out to those of you who have lost family members as a result of these or other nation destroying communist-like policies. I am sorry for your loss.

To help our fellow countrymen who are victims of economic hardship caused by rogue and tyrannical government policies we need to do two things:

1. recover our economy; and,
2. get the federal government out of the “social programs” business.

When the federal government engages in social programs it is violating the 10th Amendment of The Constitution For The United States of America. The real problem with federal social programs is that the government lacks humanity and sufficient oversight. Caring for the infirm in society was always the responsibility of the community until someone figured out that profit and power could be derived from “performing community service” and invented socialism/communism. When people are taken care of by their community they are cared for in body and spirit. The compassion they feel from the people helping them makes them want to recover. When people receive “feigned benevolence” from a detached government entity they become entitled and dependent on a heartless pittance that is taken away the moment they receive any money from actual work. As a result they have little desire to improve their living conditions.

What specific proposals would you work on to help mitigate the effects of climate change?

The biggest issue with climate change is those who believe that it is an existential threat to the planet. The climate has been changing since there was climate on planet earth and it will continue to do so with, or without, human interference.

The most important action I could initiate to “help mitigate the effects of climate change” would be to get the federal government out of the business of climate change. Nearly every action the federal government has initiated to “mitigate climate change” has damaged our economy, wasted our resources, and done very little to “mitigate climate change.”

There are a few facts that help bring the carbon scare into perspective:

• Carbon is the most abundant element on the planet (and in the universe);
• You are mostly composed of carbon so therefore anyone seeking to “reduce carbon” is thereby seeking to reduce you;
• Plants convert the evil climate change molecule carbon dioxide into pure oxygen which is essential to human life.
  • A 50 foot square (average home sized) lawn generates enough oxygen for a family of four;
  • If you gave every man woman and child on the planet an acre of land the space required to do so would be approximately the size of Alaska.
  • There are more uninhabited acres of plant life on the planet than acres inhabited by humans.
  • Due to tree planting, habitat and wetland renewal, reforestation, building more neighborhoods with landscaping, and auto emissions controls, the amount of carbon the “western world” has been generating per year has been on a steady decline for 30 years.
• As a result of humans generating more carbon dioxide (food for plants), plant growth in wild areas has increased more than proportionately.

Would you take any steps to change reproductive health care laws? If so, what specifically?

As a Federal Legislator it would violate the 10th Amendment of The Constitution For The United States of America to enact any legislation regarding “reproductive health.”

The issue regarding this question that needs to be addressed at a national level is the manipulation of our language to conform with communist ideologies. “Reproductive health” is not the only term/word in our language in recent years that has been high jacked in an effort to control how we view things. The term “reproductive heath” has had a meaning for as long as there has been medical science. It means “the health of the reproductive organs of human beings.” However, in recent years, there has been an effort to change the meaning of this term to mean “abortion” which usually has no relationship to “reproductive health” in any way. In fact, abortion usually damages “reproductive health” both physically and mentally. Legislating a correction to this attack on our language at the federal level would also be a constitutional violation. The best we can hope for is to initiate education to correct the redefining of important terms/words in our language.

We can not sit idly by while outside forces attempt to turn honorable things like Patriotism, Nationalism, Christianity and prayer in to hateful and negative things. It is completely ludicrous that leaders in our society would attempt to re-label criminals as victims and victims as criminals. I ask you to stand up with me and stop tolerating this destruction of our language and education and thereby our society. Speak truth when you hear falsehoods, and correct false language when you hear it. When you hear someone use the term “reproductive health” instead of the word “abortion” ask them if it is actually abortion they talking about. Make them clarify their terminology.

So what steps would I take to change “reproductive health care laws?” First, I would seek to ensure that anything called a “ reproductive health care law” actually relates to the care and improvement of the health of the reproductive organs of any human directly affected by the law. Any action called “health care” that involves damaging the person(s) receiving the care is not health care at all. Next, I will seek to educate the people about the manipulation of language to insure that they are not coerced into supporting something they actually hate because the words being spoken to them do not mean what they think. Finally, as a citizen of the State of Oregon I will support state legislation to limit abortions.

Would you take any steps to address immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border?

To be clear, our illegal immigration issue does not just exist at the our Southern border. We have invaders crossing our Northern border and our federal government is using your tax dollars to fly them in directly from several countries. Due to the huge number of illegal entries, this can not be called “immigration” it is an invasion.

For me and my understanding of law, “Immigration” means “The orderly, legal, accepted and registered relocation into a country that is not the location of your current citizenship followed by assimilation to the culture of the country you immigrate to. “ The United States Of America is a Nation of people who Immigrated under this definition and gains strength from proper immigration. The people currently invading our nation have proven that they have no intention of performing an “orderly, legal, accepted and registered relocation.” A very large number of them also have no intention of “assimilating to our culture.” This is a major issue for national security, our economy and our culture which I explain at RussIsForUS.com/immigration.

When someone enters our country without following our immigration laws they are committing a crime. It does not matter if they have never broken any previous law in their life. Once they cross our border without authorization, they become a criminal under the laws of The United States Of America. They are NOT “new comers”, “immigrants”, “asylum seekers”, “migrant workers”, nor “scared huddled masses.” By virtue of breaking our law and crossing our border illegally, they are “criminals.” Again, I will not participate in the destruction of our culture and nation through the distortion of our language.

To save our country from the damage that will result from this invasion we need to take immediate action:

1. The border wall needs to be completed.
2. All border crossing for the purpose of an unscheduled “immigration” must be categorically denied.
3. The international rules of asylum state that you must request asylum from the first country you enter when leaving the country you are seeking asylum from. Therefore, any person crossing our border attempting to claim asylum from a country other than the one they are crossing from must be categorically denied seeking that asylum in the United States of America.
4. In order to recover from the invasion of over 15 million people in the last three years, and 50 million over the last 60 years, we must put a moratorium on all legal immigration that is not for verifiable asylum until we can sort out what we have.
5. We must make it uncomfortable for the existing invaders to stay in our country. When we do this, many will leave on their own, and the influx of invaders will stop. This will not be an instant, nor easy, fix but we need to start as soon as possible.
   1. We must stop all federal aid to any person who is not in the country legally. I will also seek to stop federal aid to any person or entity who is providing aid and comfort to people who invaded our borders.
   2. We must make e-Verify a requirement for all employers (government and civil) before hiring any person for any job anywhere in the country including hiring 1099 contractors.
   3. We must deport all un-documented aliens when they are identified through a criminal investigation regardless of their guilt or lack thereof in the investigated matter.
   4. We must start a vigorous program of deportation of the most recent border invaders to send a strong signal to those behind them that we will not longer tolerate this invasion.

What would you do to help prevent the spread of wildfires in the West?

Like many other issues, the one thing that would make the most difference on this issue is to the get the federal government out of the business of micro-managing our lives, and in this case our lands.

There are many things that lead to wildfires. Some of them are natural, and some are man made. While some of our recent wildfires have resulted from natural events, nearly all of them were exacerbated in some way by man made issues. A majority of those man made issues are the direct result of failed management by both federal and state entities. You may be aware of some of these issues, but not others. You may also be aware that some of the potential causes of wild fires are being called “conspiracy theory” by “progressive democrats” and federal agencies.

Without addressing any specific causes or their reality, I will return to my base philosophy and the truth of the matter. First, the people know what is better for them than any federal agency located thousands of miles away. Next, Logging has been a staple of the Oregon economy since its inception. The Logging Industry is filled with caring stewards of the lands they manage. They know the land, and they know how to manage forests. They would never do something to damage the long term productivity of a forest. Much like a farmer would never dump billions of pounds of salt on his field.

The federal government’s attempts to manage forests and weather are also a violation of the Tenth Amendment of The Constitution For The United States Of America. I will do everything I can to get the federal government out of these areas.

However, that will not solve the issue completely. We must work together (RussIsForUs.com/together) to stop tyrannical and incompetent state controls on our foresters. I believe that the government should not own lands beyond its needs for administration, national security and the protection of national and cultural artifacts. When we return our forests to caring stewards who manage them in order to retain their own livelihood the threat of wildfires will be greatly reduced.

What would you do to address the issue of gun violence? Would you be supportive of additional gun control measures?

The two things that would severely reduce gun violence are:

1. Strictly enforce severe criminal penalties for persons committing crimes with the use of a firearm as a weapon in the crime.
2. Strictly adhere to the Second Amendment terminology of “…shall not be infringed” and do not limit firearms for law abiding citizens in any way.

Firearms ownership and use should be limited for anyone convicted of a violent crime. There are no other controls on firearms that serve public safety.

How will you work to improve public safety?

I have a bill I plan to propose to deal with public safety. You can see it at RussIsForUS.com/proposed-bills/minimum-prosecution.

The biggest issues we face today regarding public safety are created by marxist/communist philosophies that we have allowed to permeate our society. The ridiculous and society killing notion that someone should not be tried for a crime because of the color of their skin, level of their income, or the fact that they suffer from gender confusion has its roots in marxism. The actual goal of these philosophies is to create so much violence in the streets that you beg the government to step in and stop it (when they actually created the problem in the first place). Of course, in order to make the correction, the government must employ tyrannical communist tactics like curfews, firearms confiscations, illegal property seizures and spying on law abiding citizens. There has already been several cases in the 21st Century where our government either created, or used, a catastrophe to gain power and reduce your freedom.

Another thing that goes a long way to improving public safety is the armoring of law abiding citizens. Over 97% of all mass shootings over the last 68 years have happened in “gun free zones” (See this testimony to the OR Legislature https://bit.ly/gun-free) This only make sense. Much like a burglar will avoid a home that has an alarm sign on the lawn. A mass shooter would never attempt to commit their crime in a place where it is known that people are armed. The fact is responsible law abiding citizens with firearms have stopped 60% of active shooters in recent years (See this report by the Washington Examiner https://bit.ly/4amMQoF).

How will you ensure that quality, affordable health care is available to families?

This question that is phrased to imply the need for a failed/failing solution that does not address the real problems. This issue is very complex and is both affected by and affects other issues. One of the biggest underlying implied falsehoods of this question is the claim the “healthcare is a human right.” Make no mistake, no such right is outlined in our Constitution, Bill of Rights, the Bible, the Torah, nor any other religious text.

That does not mean that I believe people should have as much access to healthcare as possible. It means that I do not believe anyone is entitled to healthcare at someone else’s expense. It may be possible to have a “National Health Insurance” system that operates fairly and equitably, but I would not trust any government to manage it efficiently and without corruption.

The biggest things we can do to improve healthcare access in our country (put in simple terms) are:

1. Recover our Economy – When our economy is booming people have better jobs, better pay, and more ability to pay for their needs.
2. End the federal minimum wage and enact my Minimum Full Time Work Legislation which will force large corporations to stop abusing our lowest level workers (RussIsForUS.com/proposed-bills#minimum-wage). Most of the low level jobs provided by large retail and restaurant corporations are part time. These part time workers do not have to be given healthcare benefits, vacations, personal leave, life insurance, or education benefits like full time workers. This not only degrades their standard of living, it prevents them from being able to afford to purchase their own healthcare. The federal minimum wage violates the 10th Amendment. My Minimum Full Time Work bill is Constitutionally legal because it would be enacted under the “Commerce Clause” and thereby be limited to “companies with an interstate presence by direct ownership, or franchise.”
3. Restore the power of American Small Businesses by reeling in rogue federal administrative agencies who create “Administrative Rules” that have the force of LAW. These administrative rules choke off small business, create obstacles to quality efficient healthcare, and create undue burdens on people at lower income levels. They are created and enacted by unelected bureaucrats who have no commitment to you, do not represent you and have not sworn an other of office to serve you. These are the agencies that have brought you ridiculous things like the six foot covid rule. There are actually so many federal administrative rules that no one really knows the exact number of administrative rules that exists. These rules do not only apply to businesses. They also apply to you. This spider web of legislation without representation is neither within the intent of our Democratic Representative Republic, nor good for civil liberty. That is why I am in this race for you/us. #RussIsForUS RussIsForUS.com/for-you