January 6, 2024 • 63 mins
S. Marshall Wilson is a Husband to a valiant Woman, a Dad to nine, a retired combat veteran US Army Infantry Officer, a former Christian missionary in the Peruvian Amazon, and a teacher. He served as a Delegate from south Berkeley County for two terms (2016-2020) and stood for election as Governor of West Virginia in 2020. Marshall earned an Executive Master of Arts in National Security Affairs from the Institute of World Politics in Washington, DC and teaches in the 'Military Operations' Master of Arts program at Liberty University. Marshall is a staunch advocate for the establishment of Constitutional governance in West Virginia to secure the Natural Rights of each individual citizen. He also studies, both formally and informally, philosophy, history, and current government operations to increase and improve his capabilities to strengthen the resolve and capabilities of citizens he serves. Marshall's intent is to reform the Executive Branch of West Virginia State Government to function according to its constitutional mandate and, so secure your Natural Rights and "the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity (descendants)." (US Constitution, Preamble) If you agree with the principles to which Marshall has sworn his life, and if you recognize the disaster of the repeated, ongoing, intentional failure of our government to serve those principles, please help us to establish Constitutional governance in West Virginia and so build a bastion of Liberty, Justice, Prosperity, and Security where our children can raise their children in freedom.
Call him at (304) 702-0082
Email: nfo@marshall4wv.com
https://www.facebook.com/MarshallforWV
https://twitter.com/marshall4wvgov
https://www.instagram.com/marshall4wv https://www.youtube.com/c/MarshallForWV
Taproot Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJyG3...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(00:00):
["Movement of the East Coast"]
Well, good evening, everybody.
(00:21):
It's 6.30 on the East Coast, 3.30 on the West Coast,
which can only mean one thing.
There are three hours behind us,
and it's time for the Bobcast MOV
with Rick, T, and Bob.
Hey, let me tell you what.
Marshall.
We have a great guy on.
We have a great guy on tonight.
I met this guy at a, this gentleman,
at a town hall meeting for a friend of mine,
(00:43):
ours, Roger, Chad Conley.
And this is Mr. Marshall Wilson.
He's the constitutional party candidate for governor
and state of West Virginia.
Yes, sir.
The more I sat there and listened to that,
the more I sat there and listened to that guy,
I was like, wow.
So what we're going to do now, before we get anything else,
we're going to let him introduce himself, tell us
(01:05):
a little bit about himself, about the constitutional party,
and then we'll go from there.
So the floor is yours, sir.
Welcome to the Bobcast MOV.
Well, I'm not really sure what I need to do with the floor.
I'm pretty good at mopping it.
But anyway, I can't tell you what an honor it is to be here,
Ms. T. I understand you're just getting started with the program,
(01:25):
and I'm sure you're going to bring some real class to what's
going on around here, and I'm grateful for that.
Well, it needed it.
So, you know.
So my name's Marshall Wilson.
My name's Marshall Wilson.
I'm the husband of a valiant woman.
My wife, Julie, is one of the strongest and smartest people
I know, and more importantly than that,
(01:45):
one of the most ethically based, more intent
on doing what's right than anyone I've ever known.
I have nine kids.
We have nine kids.
Not real sure how that happened, but we like most of them
most of the time.
I'm a retired combat veteran US Army infantry officer.
I was a missionary in the Amazon jungle.
(02:06):
I hold a master's degree in national security.
I'm an ordained minister.
I am about halfway through a PhD program in public policy
focused on national security.
I've served two terms as a West Virginia delegate
from South Berkeley County, so you can look me up
on the legislative website and also maybe
find some news articles about me.
(02:27):
But I wouldn't take too much the news articles say about me.
I take those with a grain of salt.
They've said some pretty interesting things about me.
But my entire purpose in life is to ensure
that my nine kids can raise their kids in a free country.
That's it.
That's the only reason I get out of bed.
That's the only reason I still exist.
(02:48):
I wouldn't have any purpose in my life if it weren't for that.
And frankly, that's been pretty much my purpose all the way
along, 20 years in the infantry.
I took an oath to uphold a constitution
against all enemies foreign and domestic.
No one has relieved me of that oath.
As far as I know, they never will.
My intent is to continue following that oath
(03:10):
no matter where it takes me, no matter what it costs me.
And I will take a bullet to the face
to secure your individual natural rights as they're
recognized under the US Constitution.
Because if you're not free, my kids can't be free.
My entire purpose is to make sure they are.
I see that's one thing that Rick says all the time.
Rick was in the United States Navy.
(03:32):
And Rick says the same thing all the time.
He says, nobody relieved me of that taking the oath
to defend the cause.
Rick, I'm fortunate to be married to a woman who gets it,
too, because my wife's a retired Navy officer.
And she is very true to her oath.
And she does not back down from anything ever,
(03:52):
including me.
Now, see, that's something else right there.
So if you would kind of explain a little bit about,
for those who don't know anything about the constitutional
party, I know it's a, you know, Rick, aren't you
a member of the constitutional party?
Or were you at one time?
I was, yeah, for about eight years.
OK, that's what I thought.
(04:12):
I remember seeing that.
So if you could explain a little bit of, I mean,
some of the people don't know what the constitutional party is.
And if you could.
OK, well, just to start, I'm not being pedantic here.
I just appreciate when people let me know when
I've got something a little off.
So it's the Constitution Party, not the Constitutional Party.
(04:32):
That's not a big deal.
I just thought you wanted to know.
I got Teresa's nickname wrong, too, so.
So the Constitution Party is a very small group of people
here in West Virginia who are absolutely dedicated to ensuring
that we can go forward with constitutional governance.
They want to reestablish constitutional governance
(04:54):
in West Virginia.
I think this is critical.
And the reason that I think it's critical is because,
and first of all, I want to say I described them
as a very small group, not to put down the Constitution Party,
but rather to say that these people are really dedicated.
And they're very serious about it.
And we're going to grow the party.
(05:15):
And we're going to grow the effect of the party
through this campaign.
And as we go forward, because I know from being inside the capital
that no one else is focused on the Constitution.
No one else is focused on establishing
constitutional governance or protecting
your individual natural rights or securing the blessings
(05:36):
of liberty to your posterity.
No one is.
But these people are.
That's why I'm a member of the Constitution Party.
That's awesome.
T, do you have any questions?
Yeah, so who can vote for you in the primary?
Well, there is no primary for the Constitution Party.
And the reason is because we are not
(05:57):
what's called a major party.
So the only parties that have primaries
are the Republicans and the Democrats.
The other parties choose their candidates either
by what's it called a convention, by acclamation.
There are other ways of doing it.
But the Democrats and the Republicans
are the only ones who actually have a state held primary.
(06:19):
And that's kind of interesting, because they're
the only parties that the taxpayers actually pay
for their candidate selection process.
I thought that was kind of interesting.
So they're pretty special.
You get to pay for their candidate selection process,
whether you're a member or not.
And whether you support their candidates or their process
or their party or not.
But there you go.
Right.
(06:39):
Yeah.
So you have to have so many signatures to get on the ballot.
Is that where you have to?
Yes, thank you for bringing that up.
So the law states, West Virginia law states,
that for a party that doesn't have ballot access,
one of these minor parties I was just talking about,
except the libertarians have ballot access,
but they're still considered a minor party,
(07:02):
just because of their size in West Virginia.
But anyway, to put a candidate on the ballot,
what you have to do is collect a number of signatures equal
to 1% of the total number who voted for that specific seat
last election.
So I believe it's 7,840 is the actual number.
(07:24):
That's 1% of the total number who voted in the guvatorial
election in 2020.
But we just rounded it up to 8,000.
I don't see any reason to stop short.
And not only that, we want to make sure that we have enough.
So we're going to go ahead and keep pushing past the 8,000.
But what we're looking for is 8,000 by January 25th,
so that we can demonstrate that we actually
(07:46):
are a viable campaign.
People can look to us and say, these guys are actually
getting the job done.
My name will be on the ballot if we have 8,000 signatures,
when we have 8,000 signatures.
My name will be on the ballot in the general election.
So in other words, you'll have a Republican candidate,
you'll have a Democrat candidate,
and you'll have Wilson on there as the Constitution
Party candidate, once we have these 8,000 signatures.
(08:10):
How far along are you?
I believe last time, let me look real quick.
It's on our website.
If you go to Marshall, just spell just like the county.
It's actually my given name.
Go to Marshall, numeral4wv.com.
You don't want to go to forwv.com,
because some clever guy turned that into a porn site, which
(08:33):
you want to is go to Marshall, just like the county,
numeral4wv.com.
That's our website.
And if you click on, yeah, if you look right there
on the home page, there's a big red rectangle.
And it says we have 2,835 validated signatures out
(08:54):
of the 8,000 that we need.
So we have 8,000 by January 1.
Is that correct?
No, sir.
No, sir.
The actual deadline, according to West Virginia
Law, is August 1.
So I'll definitely be on the ballot.
We'll definitely have it by August 1.
But internally, our team has set this deadline of January,
(09:16):
because we don't want to lose momentum.
We want to have focus.
But really, what it comes down to is,
we want to be able, at the end of January,
to say we are absolutely on the ballot.
We are a valid campaign.
It's not like we're just, you know,
we're just some guys out here shaking sticks or hollering
and, you know, howling at the moon.
(09:37):
We're actually going to have a candidate for governor
on the ballot in November.
And of course, we will.
I mean, we have 2,000, almost 3,000 now, 2,835 at this point,
that are validated.
And we're constantly gathering more.
We've got people gathering more right now, as we're speaking.
I've got two signature sheets with 20 of them on it sitting
(09:58):
right here in front of me.
So the count's always going up.
So we'll get there by August.
What we want to do is get there a lot sooner than that
so we can focus on, we can move past collecting signatures
and move on to actually campaigning to win.
Yeah.
Right.
Rick, do you have anything?
Do you have any questions or anything, Rick?
No, I'm pretty well caught up.
(10:19):
I'm OK.
Do you have any more questions?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I've got all kinds of questions.
OK.
Give me a second.
First of all, what sets you apart from the other gubernatorial
candidates?
I am the only one who wants to establish
constitutional governance.
That's it.
(10:40):
That's the whole thing.
I will absolutely lay down my life.
I spent 20 years in the infantry proving it.
I will lay down my life for the US Constitution
and for the West Virginia Constitution, which recognizes
the US Constitution as the supreme law of the land.
So that's it.
If you want constitutional governance,
I am the only candidate that you can count on.
(11:03):
Seems to be getting trampled on a whole lot.
Oh, it's gone far beyond that.
I mean, it's shredded.
It's gone far beyond that.
So you all probably know this.
I teach in a master's level program.
I'm on hiatus from it right now, but I teach in a master's level
program.
And one of the things that I do is
(11:23):
it's called military operations.
I teach command leadership.
I teach military analysis.
And I also teach asymmetric warfare at a master's level.
But one of the things that I always do
is I take everything we're doing, the military is doing,
all the way back to the Constitution
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and say every single thing that we do
has to be justified by constitutional governance.
Because the military is a branch of the government.
As a matter of fact, it's the branch that really
needs to be under control.
And so anyway, like I say, I have 20 years in the infantry.
I teach this stuff.
And my absolute intent is to make sure
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that the government is dismantled to the point
that it only accomplishes its single individual task.
And the only task that the government has
is to secure your natural rights and I can prove it.
Are you ready for this?
The Declaration of Independence, the American Declaration
of Independence says, we hold these trees to be self-evident.
(12:27):
That all men are created equal.
That they're endowed by their creator, not by government,
by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness, that to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just power from the consent of the government.
Given that, what's the purpose of government?
(12:47):
To secure these rights.
That's it.
It exists for no other reason.
And they don't.
And they try very hard to take it away from us
because it interferes with their power,
with their power level struggle.
So I was at a.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
No, I'm not hearing you.
(13:09):
So go ahead, please.
Oh, you're not hearing me?
You OK?
No, it's my fault.
Go ahead, please.
I'm listening.
That's OK.
I was at a town hall meeting with Roger Conley the other night.
And I met Chris Warner, Mac Warner's brother.
He's running for Secretary of State.
Sure.
He got talking about stuff.
(13:29):
We got to talk.
No?
No, you don't.
Don't you think that's exactly what we need in West Virginia
is just for a certain few families to just kind of move
in and take over everything and hold control of that forever?
Not really.
But that's the same thing.
I don't mean this.
I mean, he's a very nice guy, very nice guy.
(13:49):
He's a very nice guy.
He's going to be on the podcast.
What Rick, three weeks?
I don't know.
Sometimes.
Three weeks.
What if we get it scheduled for the next 50 years?
When do we get him to commit to it?
Well, he asked me.
So, you know, but anyway, we were talking about jobs
and we were talking about the government overreaches
and stuff like that.
(14:10):
And, you know, as governor of the state of West Virginia,
you see all these businesses that are going elsewhere
besides here.
Now, I do know we got LG the other day.
That's interesting because we were talking actually
about, I know Roger was, about why we're not getting any
money and, you know, spreading the lever around.
(14:31):
So what do you think is our biggest obstacle?
As a state, if any.
Government?
OK.
All right.
That's what I want to hear.
So what happens is, governments,
government sets up all these impediments to everything.
So you live in your life.
Do you start in a business?
Do you run in a business?
To other businesses coming here, they set up all these
(14:53):
impediments, taxes, regulations, silly relationships
that you've got to have with people who shouldn't be
involved at all.
But they have some little button or lever of power
in the government that they can use to destroy your life.
Right?
So what they do is they set all this up.
And then if you show up and you kowtow and you play the game
(15:15):
the way they want you to, then what they'll do is they'll not
only bring you in, they'll give you tax credits and let you
have special bits of land and let you have certain
considerations.
They'll actually take $300 million of taxpayer money
and give it to you, even if you're aligned with the
Communist Chinese Party, or the Chinese Communist Party.
(15:36):
Like what's his name?
Bill Gates up in the Northern Panhandle.
Sure, they want businesses here.
They want businesses here that are aligned with their
ideology, who play their game, who kowtow to them, and who
make sure that the plate gets passed a little closer to
them.
What I want is for the government to leave business
alone, to stop taxing them into oblivion and to let you
(15:58):
start a business, stop making it so hard and so costly to
start and maintain a business.
The economy will grow on its own.
It doesn't need the government to subsidize this and all
that.
It doesn't need all that.
People will make money.
People will build businesses.
People are creative and hardworking and intelligent, and
(16:19):
they don't need the government saying, hey, if you go do
this, we'll give you money so that you can then do that, and
you can then make money, and then you can give more of it
back to us.
What they need to do is leave people alone.
And I actually had words with Chris on that specific point
talking, I believe, about form energy, or it might have been
(16:40):
about this other thing that you just mentioned.
He posted on Facebook how proud he was of the economic
growth that the government had created.
And my response was, first of all, government doesn't
create economic growth.
Government can only kill economic growth.
What you're saying is that they have chosen to not kill this
(17:03):
particular economic growth, or they've chosen to kill off
other economic growth to make that economic growth possible.
That's what you're really saying.
So economic growth is supposed to be a jungle.
It's not supposed to be someone's backyard garden.
It's not supposed to be under control.
It's supposed to grow organically.
And there are systems that are interconnected and
(17:26):
interdependent that no person or group of person can possibly
contain, control, or predict.
What you need to do is you need to leave people alone and let
them figure out how to make money.
You need to leave businesses alone and let them figure out
how to do their jobs.
Now, you can't let them kill people.
You can't let them deprive other people of their rights,
(17:49):
encroach on their land, or whatever else like that.
You can't let them poison people by dumping stuff all over
the place.
Obviously, those things need to be controlled.
But as far as controlling the economic activity, as long as
they're not robbing anyone, it's none of the government's
business.
If I want to start a business to sell left-handed pink widgets,
they don't need to come in here and describe to me what a
(18:10):
left-handed pink widget is.
I just need to make left-handed pink widgets.
And as soon as I've got a market that I developed a market
where people are buying left-handed pink widgets, by God,
I'll sell some left-handed pink widgets.
And if the government doesn't like it, they can go jump off
a cliff.
Tease already on the other side.
I'm sick to death of the government or any agent of the
(18:33):
government saying, hey, look at the great economic growth we
made.
You don't create wealth.
The government does not create wealth.
Wealth is created by individuals who invest themselves.
And by themselves, I mean their effort, their time, their
capabilities, their creativity, their hard work.
That's what creates wealth, not the government.
(18:55):
The government can do nothing except steal wealth and then
redistribute it.
And it needs to stop, period.
So I'm sorry.
I mean, how do you get the people to follow your,
if you become governor, I'll say when, because how do you
(19:17):
bring it together to these people and say, look, this is
how it's got to be.
And get them to follow in line with that ideology instead
of saying, OK, well, first.
Yeah, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I keep stepping on you, man.
I mean, go ahead.
No, I was done.
I was done.
OK.
So here is basically my strategic plan.
My strategic vision is to restructure West Virginia's
(19:40):
government, at least the executive branch of the
government, so that it functions strictly according to the
West Virginia and US constitutions as well as the
principles of liberty upon which both of those
documents are founded.
Now, the principles of liberty, I have a lot of people get
upset and they're like, well, you define it one way, I define
another.
I'm simply reading the document that defined it for our
country.
(20:01):
We hope you treat it as a government.
That would say, here, your individual natural rights.
We're done here.
That's the only reason it exists.
What I will do, based on that, to achieve that strategic
vision, is I have a strategic plan.
And basically, my cat's coming in here to check us out.
I hope you don't mind.
Anyway.
My city brother.
(20:22):
My dog and his cat are there all the time, so.
So the basic idea is that I will do what I've done in the
army, and I understand it doesn't work the same in the
government as it does in the army.
I get that.
I've been in the government.
But what it comes down to is I will audit every single
department, every single bureau, every single office, every
(20:44):
single function of the executive branch, every single one.
And I will audit them for constitutionality,
legality, operations, personnel, and of course,
fiscal responsibility.
And then I will also, on top of that, is like the icing on
the cake, I will also audit them for customer focus, customer
(21:09):
service, because you own them.
You, the people, own the government.
And it needs to serve you under the Constitution,
according to constitutional principles.
In other words, you don't just get whatever you want from
the government, except some people do, and that needs to end.
So what needs to happen is, I will go in and I will do this
(21:29):
audit.
Obviously, I'm not going to do it all by myself.
First of all, I don't know where you're going.
I'm going to need forensic accountants.
I'm going to need people who actually know what they're
looking at, right?
So my expertise is in, if you can call it that, I don't
believe anybody has any real expertise, at least the way
people claim it.
But my background, my education, my training, my
(21:49):
experiences in security operations.
So I will go into the, I personally will be one of the
main auditors on the emergency operations programs in this
state.
I wrote the emergency operations plan, the All Hazards
Operations Plan.
I was one of the three people who wrote Louisiana's after
Hurricane Katrina.
I worked in emergency operations as a National Guard
(22:11):
Officer in Maryland.
I ran their tactical operations center during
no storms and stuff like that.
So I know how it's supposed to work.
But if you're talking about banking operations, I need
some help.
I need some people who actually know how those things
work.
And I will find the right people and get them involved.
But I actually want to start, and of course, recently,
they broke this department up into three new departments so
(22:31):
that each one of them can grow with its own budget.
Because that's what we need is more government.
But anyway, DHHR, my full insight based on my experience
with the leadership of DHHR as a delegate, sitting in
committees and asking them questions and having them
refuse to answer questions because, you know, delegate,
you really wouldn't understand the answer anyway.
And you don't have any expertise in this.
(22:53):
And y'all, look, just trust us.
There are babies who need us to do more stuff for them.
So give us more money.
And I say, well, that may be true.
But we need to know what you're doing with money for God.
And their response is, well, you wouldn't really
understand.
Well, as the governor, as the chief executive, the chief
of the executive branch, I have the authority to walk
(23:15):
into each department and say, let me see your stuff that
they refuse to show us in the legislature.
And I will audit every single line.
Anything that I find that's unconstitutional, I will issue
or that's illegal or that's not strictly in line with the
laws that establish that department or branch or
whatever, or department or office or whatever, I will
(23:38):
actually issue an executive order to correct that.
Now, that's something else people don't understand.
An executive order is in order from the chief executive to
members of the executive branch.
The chief executive has no authority, none, to issue any
kind of an order to the people.
The people are the sovereign authority, not him.
(24:00):
He's just their little manager of one third of the
government, that's all.
He's not a king.
He's an employee that we hire to manage one third of our
government, not to tell us what to do.
So what I would do as your governor is I would go in and
I would audit every single department, every single
(24:23):
office, every single function of the executive branch to
ensure that it actually functions according to the
legalities, the constitution, good operational
practices, good fiscal practices, and also good
personnel practices.
And then I will compel them to become more user friendly
for your benefit because they work for you.
(24:45):
If what I find is unconstitutional, then I will
direct them to change.
If that comes up with a legal challenge, because there's a
law that says you have to do this, I will go to the
Supreme Court, West Virginia Supreme Court, and ask them
to make a ruling on whether or not this law, this positive
law, actually matches constitutional law.
(25:07):
Because as we all know, any positive law, that's a law
that's written by a legislature or by people, any
positive law that doesn't comport with constitutional
law is invalid.
It just is.
Wow.
Right.
I absolutely will question everything that I find that
I believe is unconstitutional.
(25:28):
In addition to that, if I can't get the finding that I
need there, and I still believe it's wrong, I will go to
the legislature and I will actually propose my own
legislation.
A lot of people don't know the government does that, the
governor does that pretty regularly.
And the funny thing is, with Jim Justice, our Republican
governor, working with the Republican supermajority in
(25:51):
the legislature, anytime he showed up and said, hey, I
need more money for this program or whatever, he
called in a special session and they pushed that thing
right through.
Now, keep in mind, I was a Republican delegate.
I sat in the discussions with the caucus and I said, this
is a bad idea and the response I got was the governor
wants it.
My response is, I don't care.
(26:13):
It's right.
That's so bad.
That's crazy.
Now, it's exactly how they do business.
Every day, all day long, constantly.
I've been there.
I've been in the middle of it.
So do you know how workmen?
Sir?
How workmen?
(26:33):
No, sir.
I don't believe I do.
Mr. O'Reilly, forgive me for not recognizing your name.
The reason I'm asking you is, you're singing my song, let
business do their thing, unfetter them from red tape and
governmental overreach.
I want to unfetter everybody from red tape and
governmental overreach.
(26:54):
Every single person.
Listen, if you've got a business and you think that
short, ugly, loud Irishmen are unpleasant and you don't
want them in your business, and I walk up to your door and
you say, I don't want you here.
My response is, yes, sir, have a good day.
Now I might go down to the local short, ugly Irish guy
hall and let all of my, you know, my kinsmen know that
(27:16):
you've got a problem with us.
But you know, I'm not going to go to the government and ask
them to make a law to shut you down.
That is actually at the root of a lot of the problems we
have in our society.
First of all, we conflate society with government.
They're not the same thing.
And then we want the government to run the
(27:36):
society and the nation.
The government doesn't exist to run the society and or the
nation.
So what are we talking about here?
Well, society is just us.
It's an amorphous, incongruous thing.
It's hard to define.
It's just us hanging out together, right?
Now, I personally, because of my devoted Christian beliefs
(27:57):
and because of the way I was raised, and you know, I
believe that the people who are in the community, the
people who believe that if I see my neighbor suffering, it
is not just a nice thing for me to do.
It is my duty, my honor bound duty to find something to do
to help them if I can.
Right.
I actually consider it sinful to refuse to help someone
(28:18):
when I know that there's good to be done.
Okay.
But the government, that's a societal need.
All this time you hear about social programs, absolutely.
It's society that needs to deal with that.
Not the government.
Social programs should not be governmental programs.
They're not the same thing.
It's the wrong tool.
So what tool is the government?
(28:39):
It's a sword.
Government exists and creates no wealth.
Government has one topic, one tool, excuse me, government has
one purpose, which is to secure the natural rights of each
individual citizen, and it does that with a sword.
Now, what do I mean by that?
Well, basically the idea is that the only language the
(29:02):
government speaks is law.
Right?
Would we agree with that?
Right.
That's the only language the government speaks.
If the government says do something, it's a law.
Right?
Right.
Okay.
So what does the language of law sound like?
Well, it's either do this or I will shoot you or don't do this
because I will shoot you if you don't stop, whatever it is.
(29:25):
You know, either don't drive down the road too fast or I will
shoot you or give your money to someone that we've decided needs
your money more than you do or we will shoot you.
And a lot of people seem to think that I'm exaggerating, but
think about it.
All right.
So the government comes to your door and they say, give us 30%
of your paycheck so we can give it to people we think needs it
(29:45):
more than you do.
And you say, no, thank you.
And they say, no, no, no, we're serious.
And you say, well, I'm serious too.
I'm not interested in giving you my money.
I don't trust you to give it to the people who actually need
it.
I don't trust you to use it.
And they say, well, here's the problem.
We have guns.
And you say, no, no, no, we're having a discussion here about
(30:07):
what's right and wrong.
You know, can you explain to me why it's right for you to do
this?
And they have no justification for it.
And you say, can you explain to me why it's effective for you
to do this?
And they certainly have no justification for that.
They can't answer that question at all because it's not effective.
And then you say, okay, well, how do you do this?
(30:28):
How do you justify doing this?
And they say, you're not listening.
We have guns.
And you say, no, thank you.
And they say, well, okay, we're going to take you to jail now.
And you say, you know what, I'm not interested in going to jail.
Thank you anyway.
And they say, well, we're taking you.
And you say, no, thanks.
And then what do they do?
They grab a gun.
(30:48):
And they pointed at you.
Now look, I spent a lot of my life as a soldier.
All right.
I pointed a lot of guns at a lot of people.
There is a justification for government to do that.
And the only justification for government to do that is to secure the natural rights
of citizens.
(31:10):
That's the only valid reason for the government to exist, for the government to take any action.
And certainly for the government to point a gun at somebody.
It's the only justification.
And that's on all levels.
Yes, sir.
Everything.
The only purpose it has.
You know, that's it.
That's the only reason it exists.
As a city councilman, I've always told people, I said, you know, I'd be up, we'd be talking
(31:34):
about something.
And I would say, you know, I work for you.
You don't work for me.
You know, you tell me what you need to do.
But then, you know, I used to do that for a while.
But after a while, I got schooled on, you know, Bob, if they don't like something you did,
they'll be here.
But if they're not here, you might take that as the idea of, well, you're doing something
(31:57):
right because they're not here.
Silence implies consent.
You know.
Silence implies consent.
Well, that's not actually true.
Of course, you know, most people take it that way.
But it might be that silence implies that they've just given up on you.
They're done talking with you.
You're useless.
(32:18):
You know, you're not listening anyway.
Most sane people would just give up on you.
And frankly, that's one of the things that I've learned traveling around this state.
You know, like I said earlier, I've served two terms as a delegate, and then I ran for
governor in 2020 as the independent candidate.
And by the way, I got 2% of the vote as a write-in candidate.
So that was pretty amazing.
(32:38):
Yeah, I kind of wonder about that.
We got over 15,000 write-in votes.
And I'm still struggling to get, well, I'm not struggling.
We're making progress.
But, you know, I kind of figured that once I announced that I was running, there's 15,000
people that say, let me sign your petition.
We don't have to write you in next time.
But maybe I just need to get hold of it.
You know?
But the thing is, people have given up.
(33:00):
They're just like, the government is so corrupt and so lost that we're just waiting for it
all to collapse.
That's going to happen pretty quickly.
It seems like.
Well, here's the deal.
I mean, I've got kids.
I can't afford to give up.
I cannot allow any of my grandkids to ever look me in the eye and say, you know, why did
(33:21):
you let this happen to me?
One of two things is going to happen.
Either we're going to turn this thing around.
And by the way, my studies in graduate school, we're all focused on how free societies devolve
into totalitarianism so that I could try to find a way to reverse the process.
Because that's where we're headed.
All right?
(33:42):
I want to reverse the process.
I want to build a place, a sanctuary for free men.
Of course, when we use it this way means the creature man, which includes women, Miss T.
I know you know that.
She said we're going to.
Thanks, warrior, for free men.
A very bastion of liberty is what I intend to do here.
(34:02):
All that sweet.
That's sweet.
That's my granddaughter, Riley.
Yeah, that's sweet.
But you know, my kids show their love by making fun of me, but I deal with it.
My daughter does.
My daughter does.
Yeah.
And the other thing is, yes, dear, when my wife says something, my man to get sugar.
(34:23):
Yes, dear.
That's two favorite words I've learned.
It being we were married 43 years yesterday.
Congratulations.
That's something to be proud of.
They were my two favorite words yesterday.
So that's what you have the last words.
T. Do you do you have any more questions?
Well, I do.
(34:44):
Yes.
So the whole burning question across the state of West Virginia right now is, would
you put mayonnaise on a pepperoni roll?
Oh, good Lord.
I don't need I don't eat mayonnaise anyway.
Period.
Certainly not on a pepperoni roll.
I want to tell you a quick.
(35:06):
I'm going to tell you a quick pepperoni story.
I was here.
I was at a conference in Begley.
And this guy, the instructor was the emergency management director for the state of California.
Really nice guy.
So we're all sitting there talking and he goes, well, I want to go try these pepperoni
(35:28):
rolls that you guys keep talking about.
So when he came, we lost him.
We lost him.
Wait till he gets back here.
Yeah.
Thank you, T. You're welcome.
Man, where do you have a pepperoni roll?
(35:50):
Did you see that on the whatever?
Oh, yeah.
They were putting mayonnaise on everything and then mustard on a doughnut.
Oh my God.
JR would flip out.
I'd like to have two jelly filled and two mustard filled.
(36:14):
No, thank you.
No, no, no, no.
Oh, come on, Marshall.
Hit the button.
Well, anyway, while we're waiting for Marshall, Robert.
Yes.
Look out, Bobby.
Hold on.
Some ladies driving me nuts.
Oh, okay.
Oh, anyway, thank you because this is something we need to do because tonight's Bob Cass is
(36:41):
brought to you by affordable lawn works LLC called Mike Dean for any of your snow removal,
lawn care needs.
Just a great guy who's trying very hard.
He's just a great kid and his number is there 3049912859 get a hold of Mike and he'll come
over and give you a good estimate.
(37:03):
He does good work.
He does my yard so I don't have to and he does several businesses.
So you know, go see Mike and tell him you're her to learn the Bob cast and that way you
can come over and pat me on the back because I like that.
So anyway, it looks like he ran.
So I think anyway, the story, the story behind what I was going to tell you.
(37:24):
This instructor went to sheets and Beckley and he went inside and he goes, he made the
ultimate mistake.
He said, are these anything like hot pockets?
And he told me he goes to look on that lady at the counter.
(37:45):
The look on her face was priceless.
I said, you're trying to get run out of the state of West Virginia.
He goes, I didn't know.
You don't ever call up.
That is our sacred food, Bob.
That is our sacred food.
It's sacrilegious.
I think.
Yes, yes.
But anyway, so while we're doing this and everybody were waiting on Marshal to get back
(38:06):
on, he must have hit a button.
Yeah, like I mentioned kind of yes, you know, a little bit ago, uh, man to never married
43 years ago yesterday.
Oh, and somebody asked me, they said, you mean somebody put up with you that long?
I think there was alcohol involved.
I can't find a man to put up with me that long, Bob.
(38:27):
30 days max.
30 days.
I went the other day to, uh, I went the other day to the store and I told the lady, I said,
they were getting ready to close and she let me get milk and stuff.
I said, do you realize what would have happened if I did not come home with milk?
She goes, what?
I had walked outside and the dog would have said, well, it'd be your normal two day stay
(38:48):
server of this big extended.
She started laughing.
I'm like, man, I'm telling you what, that woman's brittle.
And the guy the other day, T, you walked out and he goes, hello, Mr. Mercer.
And I said, hello, is your wife still beating you?
And I said, pretty much every day.
(39:11):
There he is.
Oh, we're back.
Got no picture on him yet.
Let's see.
Got no picture, Marshall.
There's another.
There he is.
Okay.
There we go.
Let's get rid of this.
(39:32):
There we go.
All right.
I'm sorry.
We weren't just we weren't talking about you or anything.
We were just telling, I was telling them the pepperoni roll saying we're this instructor
from California.
He went to lunch.
He went to Sheets and Beckley.
Right.
And he was talking to him and he said, now these pepperoni rolls, are they like hot
(39:54):
pockets?
And he said, Bob, the look on the lady's face behind the counter was priceless.
I mean, that was almost sacrilegious right there.
But anyway, so we were just talking about a few things.
We figured you'd hit a button somewhere.
I thought he got mad because, you know, he's a whole man, except for any roll thing.
(40:18):
I tell you what, Missy, my standard response to getting mad is not to go away.
It's to engage more fully.
Uh-oh.
Yeah.
So you know what?
Thank you, Katie, Trinerie.
We appreciate that.
She's.
Yes.
Thank you, Miss Katie.
(40:38):
She is Rashid Yost's representative.
You know Rashid O'Donogh.
Katie Trinerie is Rashid Yost's representative?
I think, I think, I mean, I just, I think it is.
I think she is.
I just got her friend request the other day and I just assumed that's who that was because
(41:05):
we're trying to get her on just because I've never met her for it before obviously, but
we're trying to get all levels.
We've got so many, you know, and I'm glad you're on.
You're the first, you're the first and I'm glad that you're the first one to be on our
show.
I am honored because we are absolutely tearing up.
(41:25):
We're booked now to April.
Once we get everybody on the calendar, we're booked up to April with congressional people,
governors, secretary of states, auditors, magistrates, you know, and I want everybody to be able to
hear everybody and hear their side of it and understand it.
You know, there are more choices out there than R and D and I.
(41:51):
So that's why, that's why Rick and I, and we did this before T came on.
We said we've got to, we've got to start getting the word out about different things that people
need to hear.
And this is one of them.
And this is one of the things that people, and I don't mean to cut in your time, but
this is one thing that people love about the Bobcast.
(42:12):
They find out things that they would never know was going on because Rick and I try very
hard to make sure that we tell everybody what's going on.
And I've got a lot of people, because I get frustrated real easy with technical issues.
I'm not a technical man.
That guy right there, Rick, if it wasn't for him, there'd be no Bobcast.
I don't say that just to say it.
(42:35):
I pay him very well to say those things.
Because he absolutely is a space age whiz kid.
And people would expect me to do something fancy.
We were doing something, we were doing something there and he goes, you know, I just realized
(42:56):
that I don't know what you do and you don't know what I do.
And I went, so he sent me a real long thing about what he does.
And I'm like, no, I just get on here, run my yeah, I have to bring tea on because Rick's
sitting there going, shut up, Bob.
And I do that too.
(43:18):
So anything else that you'd like to say?
You're full of questions.
I'm full of questions.
I'd like to.
I love it.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
So you want to make this a better place for our children, your children, everybody's children
(43:40):
in the state of West Virginia.
Right now, I think everybody feels that the school system needs a lot of improvement.
And you as governor, how would you go about improving the school system in the state of
West Virginia?
Thanks for asking that.
And keep in mind that there are legislative constitutional public policy, county and internal
(44:06):
policy issues that are involved here.
So when I talk about that, when I talk about the general overarching things I'd like to
do, I want you to understand that I know that all of these things need to be addressed.
It's not like I'm just going to walk in as the governor and say, make it happen.
I know that it doesn't work that way.
What I meant a while ago when I said that I can audit all of these departments, but it's
(44:27):
not like in the Army where I can just order the change.
There are procedures you have to go through.
And I intend to do that.
So the first thing is that I would like to state that the State Department of Education
should not be a directorate.
It should be a consultancy.
It should exist to provide resources, operations, training, help to the school systems to do
(44:51):
their job, not sit there in Charleston and issue edicts about how Ms. Smith should handle
the kids in her class.
They don't know the kids in her class.
They don't know the situation.
They need to be there to support her when she says, hey, I need help with this particular
issue.
Or actually not even directly for them.
(45:12):
They shouldn't be directly involved with individual teachers or the classrooms at all.
They shouldn't issue edicts about how those things are run.
So basically the way that I see it is the parents are responsible for the children's
behavior and performance, the students' behavior and performance.
Parents are responsible for that.
Now, the older students are assumed more and more responsibility for their own behavior
(45:33):
and performance.
But effectively, on the adult level, the parents are responsible for that.
Teachers are responsible for effectively providing a thorough and efficient education on whatever
subject they've been hired to teach or directed to teach in their classroom and to maintain
a level of control in the classroom that allows them to thoroughly and efficiently, to provide
(45:59):
the thorough and efficient education.
Because that is the constitutional mandate for public education in West Virginia, that
the students of this state be provided a thorough and efficient education in a system of free
schools.
Now, of course, we realize nothing is really free.
What that really means is that you, the taxpayer, are paying for it, and therefore it's accountable
to you for its performance.
(46:20):
So the parents are responsible for the kids' behavior and performance.
Teachers are responsible for maintaining control of their classroom and providing a thorough
and efficient education on their assigned subjects.
Part of maintaining control of that classroom is that they have to be able to remove disruptive
students from that classroom.
They have to.
I've talked to teachers all over the state, and I've said, well, why don't you just remove
(46:43):
that guy?
And they say, well, we can't.
We're not allowed to.
They have to be allowed to, which means that there has to be another place for those students
to go.
Now, when I was in school, I was that disruptive kid.
I always had something to say.
I always had a joke or, you know, was always questioning everything the teacher said.
And that was not conducive to either my learning or to anyone else in the class learning.
(47:05):
And ultimately, about the eighth grade, the principal had had coffee or lunch with my dad
and had words with him, and then my dad came home and, you know, strangely enough, my behavior
changed pretty rapidly.
My dad's a combat veteran Marine and a Baptist preacher.
So, you know, he knew which levers to work on.
(47:26):
So my behavior changed.
I'm not going to tell you my attitude changed right away, but it did over as I grew up.
So the teachers have to have that tool because they're not there to babysit.
They're not there to teach your kids what to how to behave, but they're also not there
to teach our kids what to believe.
This is critical to me.
(47:46):
They're not there to teach worldview.
They're there to teach the academic subject.
All right.
So the local administrators have to be able to to manage their schools without any parents
from some bureaucrats sitting somewhere in the middle of nowhere who thinks they know
more than they do.
She's always educated.
Go ahead.
I was just saying, educated professional adults, they need to be allowed to do their job.
(48:11):
Now they need to be held to the standard, which is that they actually provide the education
to the students.
Now, whether the students receive it or not, you know, that's that's a different question,
but it has to be made available to them.
It has to be presented in a way that that it's available to the students.
So local administrations have to run the local schools, local school boards, county school
(48:34):
boards have to run the local administrations.
And those local school boards, those county school boards are accountable directly to the
people who elect them.
Period.
Period.
So when you show up at a board of education meeting, you know, their regular meetings and
you show up and you're in the audience and you stand up and ask a question, they need
to understand that they're actually answering their boss, that they're speaking directly
(48:57):
to their employer, that there's not someone at the state or someone in the legislature
or someone at the federal government who is going to contradict your word as you tell
them how you expect your school to be run.
They will understand that this school belongs to you.
Your children attended.
Your friends teach there.
Your friends work there.
Your tax dollars supported.
(49:19):
And you wanted to represent, you know, you wanted to represent the, or to actually meet
the standard.
That standard is to put a thorough and efficient education in academic topics that need to
be accountable to you.
That's simple.
So I was told, I was told the other day that the legislature is working on, because I was
(49:40):
talking to some people about the way the disrespect that's shown to the teachers anymore in the
classroom.
And you know, I was told that the legislature is working on that right now.
They're working on something.
And I said, you know, if I had a disrespect that a teacher back in the day, I mean, it
(50:03):
didn't, it never happened.
You just don't do it.
Now parents, the teachers are scared to death at times.
I don't know about here specifically, but the teachers are scared to death because they,
you know, they can't touch the kid.
But you know, I mean, when I get on the board of education, I'm going to be all up in that,
(50:26):
you know, well, I'm not sure that teachers should necessarily have to touch students
to straighten them out.
I think they should just be able to tell them to leave.
And if the student has a problem with leaving, there should be a place for them to go to,
you know, when I was in high school, we called the time to more in school suspension.
And I probably spent more than my fair amount of time.
(50:49):
And I deserved it.
And it taught me.
I learned that.
Okay.
Students were able to learn their academic subjects, but it is not the teacher's job
to stop presenting academic information to them and coach me on my life.
Now, if that coaching needs to happen, it doesn't need to happen in the classroom.
(51:09):
There needs to be an outside the classroom path for that to happen.
Unfortunately, I lived in a small town and the principal really, really cared about his
students and he went to see my dad and then he called me into his office and he said,
look, you can do things with your life.
Stop doing this.
We are behind you.
(51:30):
We're on your side.
Now, you know, that's, I think most educators are probably in that position.
But the point is they can't do that.
They can't reach out to the kid as a human being.
The student is a human being and say, look, we're behind you, but we need you to get in
line with what we're doing here so we can all accomplish our goal, which is to get you
(51:51):
a thorough and efficient education.
Fortunately, the educators when I was in school were able to do that and they did.
They cared a great deal.
Not only about me, but about all the other students.
Unfortunately our state's like 49th and 50th and like math and eighth grade.
What was the 49th and eighth grade English or something like that?
(52:12):
And it seems like West Virginia always falls in that percentile and we need somebody to
do something about it.
I mean, I'm not saying me.
I'm just saying we need somebody to say, hey, you know, we've got the kids are our future.
The future of this great country.
And we've got to start teaching them civics again.
Right now we got to start teaching them now because if we don't, we're done.
(52:34):
We've got a great civics teacher out here at the school that my kids go to.
I think a lot of him and he and I have had some talks on the outside, you know, just
man to man, just his friends talking.
And he is he's held me accountable for a couple of things that I've said.
And and he's taught a couple of my kids.
And I got to tell you, there are some folks out there who really want to do the job.
(52:58):
There are some people, some real adults who are educated and who care about the kids and
want to do the job.
It's the system.
No, when I was in the delegates, you know, that was during the time that we had the two
teacher strikes.
So I was there.
And you know, one of the things that that was going on was they were demanding a pay
raise.
Well, first of all, they hadn't had a pay raise since the 70s.
(53:19):
Now they got a bonus one year, which was called a pay raise, but it wasn't an actual increase
in their rate of pay.
So it wasn't a pay raise.
It was it was, you know, a bonus check.
So since the 70s, guys, do you know how much cost of living is increased since the 70s?
So you know, I was dollars.
A few.
Yeah.
So I was all for it.
(53:41):
I was concerned about was that we're also concerned about issues with PEIA.
Well, first of all, the law says that PEI has to be funded.
That's it.
It has to be funded.
Yeah.
So there was never any question about whether or not it would be funded.
It was simply figuring out in the budget where that funding would come from be funded.
(54:01):
So it was going to be funded.
The other thing is that the cost of PEI was increasing and then PEI was playing a part
in all these requirements or these regulations on their members.
Well, that was that was established by the PEI board.
The legislature had nothing to do with that.
And they were doing that based on the market, based on how much it was costing to care to
(54:24):
people.
So I think as I was right in the middle of this and I kept asking, what's the real issue?
And although people came in and said, look, we need to make more money, ultimately, after
talking with them for 20 or 30 minutes, we get to the point where they said, look, it's
insulting to be paid what we're being paid.
(54:45):
It's insulting that Jim Justice wants to offer us a 1% pay raise.
But what's really insulting is we like children.
So I'm not saying that they don't need to be paid commensurate with their authority.
They should for their responsibility and authority.
They absolutely should.
But they also should be treated like adults.
(55:05):
They should make this.
They deserve our utmost respect.
They deserve our utmost respect.
Well, I mean, it's not an easy job.
And I want to be fair about this.
The thing is that in every profession, there are people who do the job and there are people
who don't.
And there need to be, there's a differentiation.
(55:27):
You don't treat people who are killing themselves the right way the same way you do the person
who sits in a chair all day and stares at the wall.
I don't think there are many of them, but there has to be a way to differentiate between
who is excelling, who's meeting the standard, and who's failing to meet the standard.
And then there has to be a procedure to bring everybody along to meet the standard, and
(55:49):
then you incentivize excellence.
That needs to happen.
Most people want to do a good job.
But if you keep constantly pressing, you're putting your thumb on their head and pressing
them down and saying, no, you have to excel like this, that's not what excellence looks
like.
You know, that's cookie cutter.
And know when you're talking about a classroom full of people, human beings, human beings
(56:14):
are not cookie cutter.
The individual instructors, the teachers in the classroom are not, they're not bots,
and the students are not robots.
You can't just program something from a, you have to set principles, priorities, and
(56:35):
standards, and then you have to step like human beings deal with them.
And you keep it on, you know, you don't let people curse.
But they can't meet the standard.
Yes, sir.
I'm sorry.
No, you're fine.
I was just, I told Rick when I told him, I said, you got to hear this guy.
(56:56):
He's like smart.
It kind of reminds me of Rick.
I mean, just you're so articulate and you say, you know, you say it with belief.
You say it with belief.
I'm terrible at it.
Absolutely.
I said, this kid's free.
This is the only way to leave a legacy of liberty to my students.
(57:18):
And that is to engage and to stand up for these principles everywhere and anytime that
I can.
And that's what you say.
Well, listen, it's 730 and I just want you to know, Marshall, that we appreciate you
being here, man.
You've been so insightful.
You've been so insightful.
(57:40):
And we're proud to have you as our first guest.
I mean, it was just as far as in the election cycle.
But we appreciate you and we wish you the very best of luck.
And if there's anything at all that the Bobcats can do to help you out, hey, we're here.
So, you know, we appreciate you and good luck to you, sir.
(58:02):
Can I talk to you to hold up?
Absolutely.
That was going to be the next question.
So it's Marshall for WV Marshall for WV numeral four dot com.
Marshall for WV dot com is our website on there.
We've got a contact page.
We've got a page where you can figure out how to either print off signature forms for
(58:25):
the petition, request them from the team and we will mail them out to you.
And then please just get as many signatures as you can and send to the address that you'll
find at pay.
A little box, a little rectangle down toward the bottom of the page.
There's a PO box.
Send those in there.
We've got Oles Woodham.
She does a great job, much better than I would do.
(58:48):
We've also, if it's okay with you, we'll probably post at least a megs herbs, maybe not, maybe
the whole episode on the website.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
You've got a bunch of my statements.
Anything you might want to know.
If I didn't answer, then you want to know there's a way to get a hold of me so you can
(59:10):
ask questions so I can address them.
I am profoundly honored by this time and this opportunity to talk with you all.
We are well.
Really?
I've been working on Todd Williams and I've been working right now through the holidays
and probably we intend to crank up and start cranking out like I was asking you.
(59:33):
I think we've got episodes in the can.
Awesome.
Awesome.
They're each about an hour long and we talk about various things like in one episode we
go back to Greek philosophy and we figure out where the idea of personal entity came
from, we trace it through the podcast, we trace it through the Christian ethics and you've
(59:54):
got rational thought.
The philosopher is the Judeo-Christian ethic and then the rule of law, you put those three
together, those three pillars are the foundation of Western civilization and basically the
ideals of Western civilization were the closest to being upheld in human history when the
(01:00:17):
former slaves were given full citizen right to vote.
That is as close as any country has ever come to reaching those ideals and when you take
that as a model for what we're actually trying to accomplish here, extending all rights,
all protection of the people.
(01:00:39):
That's what we're really working on here.
Awesome.
That's right up here at Alley Rick.
It's indeedy.
We're going to have all of this information, all your contact information will be on our
website and on our YouTube channel as well.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
This will be on YouTube in about an hour Marshall because.
(01:01:00):
Oh great.
Well, we'll link to it.
Rick goes in and does closed captions and stuff like that and you kind of make sure everything's
the way it's supposed to be.
Plus we're on every podcast site and outlet.
So they'll hear the audio version on the IHAR Spotify.
(01:01:25):
All their mother 100, our own.
We're there and everybody gets to meet Miss T. She'll be all over the country and they'll
say who's that?
No, y'all should end with Miss T's name so that you can talk about how she prevents the
(01:01:46):
tedium in the podcast.
You know what I'm saying?
That's the fact.
Because Rick's not like her father.
All right.
Well, listen, it's been a pleasure, sir.
And we wish you the very best and we're like I said, if there's anything we can do, everything
will be on our website and on our podcast sites and it can be found anywhere that we
(01:02:10):
can be found.
If you're in the town, let us know.
If you're coming into town sometime, let us know and we'd be glad to come out and hang
out with you.
Okay, well there's a calendar on our website too.
So you can just go to the website, click on calendar and it shows where I'm going to
be and when and all that kind of stuff.
So you keep an eye on me and grab hold of me if you can.
(01:02:32):
Great.
We will do that, sir.
All right, T, Rick, Marshall, guys have a great evening.
Listen everybody out and that watches, thank you very much.
Thank you for sticking with us and we're going to have fun in the near future.
T's over there thinking of things right now.
She's like, how can I just, you know, one of my got myself into.
(01:02:55):
All right, listen, we're going to wrap it up and if anything else you guys need, please
let us know.
Okay.
All right, take care.
All right, guys.
Rick, you guys take care.
Good night, y'all.
Where'd it go?
Oh, there it is.
(01:03:15):
Take a step.
We don't have that anymore, do we?
No.
(00:00):
["Movement of the East Coast"]
Well, good evening, everybody.
(00:21):
It's 6.30 on the East Coast, 3.30 on the West Coast,
which can only mean one thing.
There are three hours behind us,
and it's time for the Bobcast MOV
with Rick, T, and Bob.
Hey, let me tell you what.
Marshall.
We have a great guy on.
We have a great guy on tonight.
I met this guy at a, this gentleman,
at a town hall meeting for a friend of mine,
(00:43):
ours, Roger, Chad Conley.
And this is Mr. Marshall Wilson.
He's the constitutional party candidate for governor
and state of West Virginia.
Yes, sir.
The more I sat there and listened to that,
the more I sat there and listened to that guy,
I was like, wow.
So what we're going to do now, before we get anything else,
we're going to let him introduce himself, tell us
(01:05):
a little bit about himself, about the constitutional party,
and then we'll go from there.
So the floor is yours, sir.
Welcome to the Bobcast MOV.
Well, I'm not really sure what I need to do with the floor.
I'm pretty good at mopping it.
But anyway, I can't tell you what an honor it is to be here,
Ms. T. I understand you're just getting started with the program,
(01:25):
and I'm sure you're going to bring some real class to what's
going on around here, and I'm grateful for that.
Well, it needed it.
So, you know.
So my name's Marshall Wilson.
My name's Marshall Wilson.
I'm the husband of a valiant woman.
My wife, Julie, is one of the strongest and smartest people
I know, and more importantly than that,
(01:45):
one of the most ethically based, more intent
on doing what's right than anyone I've ever known.
I have nine kids.
We have nine kids.
Not real sure how that happened, but we like most of them
most of the time.
I'm a retired combat veteran US Army infantry officer.
I was a missionary in the Amazon jungle.
(02:06):
I hold a master's degree in national security.
I'm an ordained minister.
I am about halfway through a PhD program in public policy
focused on national security.
I've served two terms as a West Virginia delegate
from South Berkeley County, so you can look me up
on the legislative website and also maybe
find some news articles about me.
(02:27):
But I wouldn't take too much the news articles say about me.
I take those with a grain of salt.
They've said some pretty interesting things about me.
But my entire purpose in life is to ensure
that my nine kids can raise their kids in a free country.
That's it.
That's the only reason I get out of bed.
That's the only reason I still exist.
(02:48):
I wouldn't have any purpose in my life if it weren't for that.
And frankly, that's been pretty much my purpose all the way
along, 20 years in the infantry.
I took an oath to uphold a constitution
against all enemies foreign and domestic.
No one has relieved me of that oath.
As far as I know, they never will.
My intent is to continue following that oath
(03:10):
no matter where it takes me, no matter what it costs me.
And I will take a bullet to the face
to secure your individual natural rights as they're
recognized under the US Constitution.
Because if you're not free, my kids can't be free.
My entire purpose is to make sure they are.
I see that's one thing that Rick says all the time.
Rick was in the United States Navy.
(03:32):
And Rick says the same thing all the time.
He says, nobody relieved me of that taking the oath
to defend the cause.
Rick, I'm fortunate to be married to a woman who gets it,
too, because my wife's a retired Navy officer.
And she is very true to her oath.
And she does not back down from anything ever,
(03:52):
including me.
Now, see, that's something else right there.
So if you would kind of explain a little bit about,
for those who don't know anything about the constitutional
party, I know it's a, you know, Rick, aren't you
a member of the constitutional party?
Or were you at one time?
I was, yeah, for about eight years.
OK, that's what I thought.
(04:12):
I remember seeing that.
So if you could explain a little bit of, I mean,
some of the people don't know what the constitutional party is.
And if you could.
OK, well, just to start, I'm not being pedantic here.
I just appreciate when people let me know when
I've got something a little off.
So it's the Constitution Party, not the Constitutional Party.
(04:32):
That's not a big deal.
I just thought you wanted to know.
I got Teresa's nickname wrong, too, so.
So the Constitution Party is a very small group of people
here in West Virginia who are absolutely dedicated to ensuring
that we can go forward with constitutional governance.
They want to reestablish constitutional governance
(04:54):
in West Virginia.
I think this is critical.
And the reason that I think it's critical is because,
and first of all, I want to say I described them
as a very small group, not to put down the Constitution Party,
but rather to say that these people are really dedicated.
And they're very serious about it.
And we're going to grow the party.
(05:15):
And we're going to grow the effect of the party
through this campaign.
And as we go forward, because I know from being inside the capital
that no one else is focused on the Constitution.
No one else is focused on establishing
constitutional governance or protecting
your individual natural rights or securing the blessings
(05:36):
of liberty to your posterity.
No one is.
But these people are.
That's why I'm a member of the Constitution Party.
That's awesome.
T, do you have any questions?
Yeah, so who can vote for you in the primary?
Well, there is no primary for the Constitution Party.
And the reason is because we are not
(05:57):
what's called a major party.
So the only parties that have primaries
are the Republicans and the Democrats.
The other parties choose their candidates either
by what's it called a convention, by acclamation.
There are other ways of doing it.
But the Democrats and the Republicans
are the only ones who actually have a state held primary.
(06:19):
And that's kind of interesting, because they're
the only parties that the taxpayers actually pay
for their candidate selection process.
I thought that was kind of interesting.
So they're pretty special.
You get to pay for their candidate selection process,
whether you're a member or not.
And whether you support their candidates or their process
or their party or not.
But there you go.
Right.
(06:39):
Yeah.
So you have to have so many signatures to get on the ballot.
Is that where you have to?
Yes, thank you for bringing that up.
So the law states, West Virginia law states,
that for a party that doesn't have ballot access,
one of these minor parties I was just talking about,
except the libertarians have ballot access,
but they're still considered a minor party,
(07:02):
just because of their size in West Virginia.
But anyway, to put a candidate on the ballot,
what you have to do is collect a number of signatures equal
to 1% of the total number who voted for that specific seat
last election.
So I believe it's 7,840 is the actual number.
(07:24):
That's 1% of the total number who voted in the guvatorial
election in 2020.
But we just rounded it up to 8,000.
I don't see any reason to stop short.
And not only that, we want to make sure that we have enough.
So we're going to go ahead and keep pushing past the 8,000.
But what we're looking for is 8,000 by January 25th,
so that we can demonstrate that we actually
(07:46):
are a viable campaign.
People can look to us and say, these guys are actually
getting the job done.
My name will be on the ballot if we have 8,000 signatures,
when we have 8,000 signatures.
My name will be on the ballot in the general election.
So in other words, you'll have a Republican candidate,
you'll have a Democrat candidate,
and you'll have Wilson on there as the Constitution
Party candidate, once we have these 8,000 signatures.
(08:10):
How far along are you?
I believe last time, let me look real quick.
It's on our website.
If you go to Marshall, just spell just like the county.
It's actually my given name.
Go to Marshall, numeral4wv.com.
You don't want to go to forwv.com,
because some clever guy turned that into a porn site, which
(08:33):
you want to is go to Marshall, just like the county,
numeral4wv.com.
That's our website.
And if you click on, yeah, if you look right there
on the home page, there's a big red rectangle.
And it says we have 2,835 validated signatures out
(08:54):
of the 8,000 that we need.
So we have 8,000 by January 1.
Is that correct?
No, sir.
No, sir.
The actual deadline, according to West Virginia
Law, is August 1.
So I'll definitely be on the ballot.
We'll definitely have it by August 1.
But internally, our team has set this deadline of January,
(09:16):
because we don't want to lose momentum.
We want to have focus.
But really, what it comes down to is,
we want to be able, at the end of January,
to say we are absolutely on the ballot.
We are a valid campaign.
It's not like we're just, you know,
we're just some guys out here shaking sticks or hollering
and, you know, howling at the moon.
(09:37):
We're actually going to have a candidate for governor
on the ballot in November.
And of course, we will.
I mean, we have 2,000, almost 3,000 now, 2,835 at this point,
that are validated.
And we're constantly gathering more.
We've got people gathering more right now, as we're speaking.
I've got two signature sheets with 20 of them on it sitting
(09:58):
right here in front of me.
So the count's always going up.
So we'll get there by August.
What we want to do is get there a lot sooner than that
so we can focus on, we can move past collecting signatures
and move on to actually campaigning to win.
Yeah.
Right.
Rick, do you have anything?
Do you have any questions or anything, Rick?
No, I'm pretty well caught up.
(10:19):
I'm OK.
Do you have any more questions?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I've got all kinds of questions.
OK.
Give me a second.
First of all, what sets you apart from the other gubernatorial
candidates?
I am the only one who wants to establish
constitutional governance.
That's it.
(10:40):
That's the whole thing.
I will absolutely lay down my life.
I spent 20 years in the infantry proving it.
I will lay down my life for the US Constitution
and for the West Virginia Constitution, which recognizes
the US Constitution as the supreme law of the land.
So that's it.
If you want constitutional governance,
I am the only candidate that you can count on.
(11:03):
Seems to be getting trampled on a whole lot.
Oh, it's gone far beyond that.
I mean, it's shredded.
It's gone far beyond that.
So you all probably know this.
I teach in a master's level program.
I'm on hiatus from it right now, but I teach in a master's level
program.
And one of the things that I do is
(11:23):
it's called military operations.
I teach command leadership.
I teach military analysis.
And I also teach asymmetric warfare at a master's level.
But one of the things that I always do
is I take everything we're doing, the military is doing,
all the way back to the Constitution
(11:45):
and say every single thing that we do
has to be justified by constitutional governance.
Because the military is a branch of the government.
As a matter of fact, it's the branch that really
needs to be under control.
And so anyway, like I say, I have 20 years in the infantry.
I teach this stuff.
And my absolute intent is to make sure
(12:06):
that the government is dismantled to the point
that it only accomplishes its single individual task.
And the only task that the government has
is to secure your natural rights and I can prove it.
Are you ready for this?
The Declaration of Independence, the American Declaration
of Independence says, we hold these trees to be self-evident.
(12:27):
That all men are created equal.
That they're endowed by their creator, not by government,
by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness, that to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just power from the consent of the government.
Given that, what's the purpose of government?
(12:47):
To secure these rights.
That's it.
It exists for no other reason.
And they don't.
And they try very hard to take it away from us
because it interferes with their power,
with their power level struggle.
So I was at a.
Go ahead.
I'm sorry.
No, I'm not hearing you.
(13:09):
So go ahead, please.
Oh, you're not hearing me?
You OK?
No, it's my fault.
Go ahead, please.
I'm listening.
That's OK.
I was at a town hall meeting with Roger Conley the other night.
And I met Chris Warner, Mac Warner's brother.
He's running for Secretary of State.
Sure.
He got talking about stuff.
(13:29):
We got to talk.
No?
No, you don't.
Don't you think that's exactly what we need in West Virginia
is just for a certain few families to just kind of move
in and take over everything and hold control of that forever?
Not really.
But that's the same thing.
I don't mean this.
I mean, he's a very nice guy, very nice guy.
(13:49):
He's a very nice guy.
He's going to be on the podcast.
What Rick, three weeks?
I don't know.
Sometimes.
Three weeks.
What if we get it scheduled for the next 50 years?
When do we get him to commit to it?
Well, he asked me.
So, you know, but anyway, we were talking about jobs
and we were talking about the government overreaches
and stuff like that.
(14:10):
And, you know, as governor of the state of West Virginia,
you see all these businesses that are going elsewhere
besides here.
Now, I do know we got LG the other day.
That's interesting because we were talking actually
about, I know Roger was, about why we're not getting any
money and, you know, spreading the lever around.
(14:31):
So what do you think is our biggest obstacle?
As a state, if any.
Government?
OK.
All right.
That's what I want to hear.
So what happens is, governments,
government sets up all these impediments to everything.
So you live in your life.
Do you start in a business?
Do you run in a business?
To other businesses coming here, they set up all these
(14:53):
impediments, taxes, regulations, silly relationships
that you've got to have with people who shouldn't be
involved at all.
But they have some little button or lever of power
in the government that they can use to destroy your life.
Right?
So what they do is they set all this up.
And then if you show up and you kowtow and you play the game
(15:15):
the way they want you to, then what they'll do is they'll not
only bring you in, they'll give you tax credits and let you
have special bits of land and let you have certain
considerations.
They'll actually take $300 million of taxpayer money
and give it to you, even if you're aligned with the
Communist Chinese Party, or the Chinese Communist Party.
(15:36):
Like what's his name?
Bill Gates up in the Northern Panhandle.
Sure, they want businesses here.
They want businesses here that are aligned with their
ideology, who play their game, who kowtow to them, and who
make sure that the plate gets passed a little closer to
them.
What I want is for the government to leave business
alone, to stop taxing them into oblivion and to let you
(15:58):
start a business, stop making it so hard and so costly to
start and maintain a business.
The economy will grow on its own.
It doesn't need the government to subsidize this and all
that.
It doesn't need all that.
People will make money.
People will build businesses.
People are creative and hardworking and intelligent, and
(16:19):
they don't need the government saying, hey, if you go do
this, we'll give you money so that you can then do that, and
you can then make money, and then you can give more of it
back to us.
What they need to do is leave people alone.
And I actually had words with Chris on that specific point
talking, I believe, about form energy, or it might have been
(16:40):
about this other thing that you just mentioned.
He posted on Facebook how proud he was of the economic
growth that the government had created.
And my response was, first of all, government doesn't
create economic growth.
Government can only kill economic growth.
What you're saying is that they have chosen to not kill this
(17:03):
particular economic growth, or they've chosen to kill off
other economic growth to make that economic growth possible.
That's what you're really saying.
So economic growth is supposed to be a jungle.
It's not supposed to be someone's backyard garden.
It's not supposed to be under control.
It's supposed to grow organically.
And there are systems that are interconnected and
(17:26):
interdependent that no person or group of person can possibly
contain, control, or predict.
What you need to do is you need to leave people alone and let
them figure out how to make money.
You need to leave businesses alone and let them figure out
how to do their jobs.
Now, you can't let them kill people.
You can't let them deprive other people of their rights,
(17:49):
encroach on their land, or whatever else like that.
You can't let them poison people by dumping stuff all over
the place.
Obviously, those things need to be controlled.
But as far as controlling the economic activity, as long as
they're not robbing anyone, it's none of the government's
business.
If I want to start a business to sell left-handed pink widgets,
they don't need to come in here and describe to me what a
(18:10):
left-handed pink widget is.
I just need to make left-handed pink widgets.
And as soon as I've got a market that I developed a market
where people are buying left-handed pink widgets, by God,
I'll sell some left-handed pink widgets.
And if the government doesn't like it, they can go jump off
a cliff.
Tease already on the other side.
I'm sick to death of the government or any agent of the
(18:33):
government saying, hey, look at the great economic growth we
made.
You don't create wealth.
The government does not create wealth.
Wealth is created by individuals who invest themselves.
And by themselves, I mean their effort, their time, their
capabilities, their creativity, their hard work.
That's what creates wealth, not the government.
(18:55):
The government can do nothing except steal wealth and then
redistribute it.
And it needs to stop, period.
So I'm sorry.
I mean, how do you get the people to follow your,
if you become governor, I'll say when, because how do you
(19:17):
bring it together to these people and say, look, this is
how it's got to be.
And get them to follow in line with that ideology instead
of saying, OK, well, first.
Yeah, go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I keep stepping on you, man.
I mean, go ahead.
No, I was done.
I was done.
OK.
So here is basically my strategic plan.
My strategic vision is to restructure West Virginia's
(19:40):
government, at least the executive branch of the
government, so that it functions strictly according to the
West Virginia and US constitutions as well as the
principles of liberty upon which both of those
documents are founded.
Now, the principles of liberty, I have a lot of people get
upset and they're like, well, you define it one way, I define
another.
I'm simply reading the document that defined it for our
country.
(20:01):
We hope you treat it as a government.
That would say, here, your individual natural rights.
We're done here.
That's the only reason it exists.
What I will do, based on that, to achieve that strategic
vision, is I have a strategic plan.
And basically, my cat's coming in here to check us out.
I hope you don't mind.
Anyway.
My city brother.
(20:22):
My dog and his cat are there all the time, so.
So the basic idea is that I will do what I've done in the
army, and I understand it doesn't work the same in the
government as it does in the army.
I get that.
I've been in the government.
But what it comes down to is I will audit every single
department, every single bureau, every single office, every
(20:44):
single function of the executive branch, every single one.
And I will audit them for constitutionality,
legality, operations, personnel, and of course,
fiscal responsibility.
And then I will also, on top of that, is like the icing on
the cake, I will also audit them for customer focus, customer
(21:09):
service, because you own them.
You, the people, own the government.
And it needs to serve you under the Constitution,
according to constitutional principles.
In other words, you don't just get whatever you want from
the government, except some people do, and that needs to end.
So what needs to happen is, I will go in and I will do this
(21:29):
audit.
Obviously, I'm not going to do it all by myself.
First of all, I don't know where you're going.
I'm going to need forensic accountants.
I'm going to need people who actually know what they're
looking at, right?
So my expertise is in, if you can call it that, I don't
believe anybody has any real expertise, at least the way
people claim it.
But my background, my education, my training, my
(21:49):
experiences in security operations.
So I will go into the, I personally will be one of the
main auditors on the emergency operations programs in this
state.
I wrote the emergency operations plan, the All Hazards
Operations Plan.
I was one of the three people who wrote Louisiana's after
Hurricane Katrina.
I worked in emergency operations as a National Guard
(22:11):
Officer in Maryland.
I ran their tactical operations center during
no storms and stuff like that.
So I know how it's supposed to work.
But if you're talking about banking operations, I need
some help.
I need some people who actually know how those things
work.
And I will find the right people and get them involved.
But I actually want to start, and of course, recently,
they broke this department up into three new departments so
(22:31):
that each one of them can grow with its own budget.
Because that's what we need is more government.
But anyway, DHHR, my full insight based on my experience
with the leadership of DHHR as a delegate, sitting in
committees and asking them questions and having them
refuse to answer questions because, you know, delegate,
you really wouldn't understand the answer anyway.
And you don't have any expertise in this.
(22:53):
And y'all, look, just trust us.
There are babies who need us to do more stuff for them.
So give us more money.
And I say, well, that may be true.
But we need to know what you're doing with money for God.
And their response is, well, you wouldn't really
understand.
Well, as the governor, as the chief executive, the chief
of the executive branch, I have the authority to walk
(23:15):
into each department and say, let me see your stuff that
they refuse to show us in the legislature.
And I will audit every single line.
Anything that I find that's unconstitutional, I will issue
or that's illegal or that's not strictly in line with the
laws that establish that department or branch or
whatever, or department or office or whatever, I will
(23:38):
actually issue an executive order to correct that.
Now, that's something else people don't understand.
An executive order is in order from the chief executive to
members of the executive branch.
The chief executive has no authority, none, to issue any
kind of an order to the people.
The people are the sovereign authority, not him.
(24:00):
He's just their little manager of one third of the
government, that's all.
He's not a king.
He's an employee that we hire to manage one third of our
government, not to tell us what to do.
So what I would do as your governor is I would go in and
I would audit every single department, every single
(24:23):
office, every single function of the executive branch to
ensure that it actually functions according to the
legalities, the constitution, good operational
practices, good fiscal practices, and also good
personnel practices.
And then I will compel them to become more user friendly
for your benefit because they work for you.
(24:45):
If what I find is unconstitutional, then I will
direct them to change.
If that comes up with a legal challenge, because there's a
law that says you have to do this, I will go to the
Supreme Court, West Virginia Supreme Court, and ask them
to make a ruling on whether or not this law, this positive
law, actually matches constitutional law.
(25:07):
Because as we all know, any positive law, that's a law
that's written by a legislature or by people, any
positive law that doesn't comport with constitutional
law is invalid.
It just is.
Wow.
Right.
I absolutely will question everything that I find that
I believe is unconstitutional.
(25:28):
In addition to that, if I can't get the finding that I
need there, and I still believe it's wrong, I will go to
the legislature and I will actually propose my own
legislation.
A lot of people don't know the government does that, the
governor does that pretty regularly.
And the funny thing is, with Jim Justice, our Republican
governor, working with the Republican supermajority in
(25:51):
the legislature, anytime he showed up and said, hey, I
need more money for this program or whatever, he
called in a special session and they pushed that thing
right through.
Now, keep in mind, I was a Republican delegate.
I sat in the discussions with the caucus and I said, this
is a bad idea and the response I got was the governor
wants it.
My response is, I don't care.
(26:13):
It's right.
That's so bad.
That's crazy.
Now, it's exactly how they do business.
Every day, all day long, constantly.
I've been there.
I've been in the middle of it.
So do you know how workmen?
Sir?
How workmen?
(26:33):
No, sir.
I don't believe I do.
Mr. O'Reilly, forgive me for not recognizing your name.
The reason I'm asking you is, you're singing my song, let
business do their thing, unfetter them from red tape and
governmental overreach.
I want to unfetter everybody from red tape and
governmental overreach.
(26:54):
Every single person.
Listen, if you've got a business and you think that
short, ugly, loud Irishmen are unpleasant and you don't
want them in your business, and I walk up to your door and
you say, I don't want you here.
My response is, yes, sir, have a good day.
Now I might go down to the local short, ugly Irish guy
hall and let all of my, you know, my kinsmen know that
(27:16):
you've got a problem with us.
But you know, I'm not going to go to the government and ask
them to make a law to shut you down.
That is actually at the root of a lot of the problems we
have in our society.
First of all, we conflate society with government.
They're not the same thing.
And then we want the government to run the
(27:36):
society and the nation.
The government doesn't exist to run the society and or the
nation.
So what are we talking about here?
Well, society is just us.
It's an amorphous, incongruous thing.
It's hard to define.
It's just us hanging out together, right?
Now, I personally, because of my devoted Christian beliefs
(27:57):
and because of the way I was raised, and you know, I
believe that the people who are in the community, the
people who believe that if I see my neighbor suffering, it
is not just a nice thing for me to do.
It is my duty, my honor bound duty to find something to do
to help them if I can.
Right.
I actually consider it sinful to refuse to help someone
(28:18):
when I know that there's good to be done.
Okay.
But the government, that's a societal need.
All this time you hear about social programs, absolutely.
It's society that needs to deal with that.
Not the government.
Social programs should not be governmental programs.
They're not the same thing.
It's the wrong tool.
So what tool is the government?
(28:39):
It's a sword.
Government exists and creates no wealth.
Government has one topic, one tool, excuse me, government has
one purpose, which is to secure the natural rights of each
individual citizen, and it does that with a sword.
Now, what do I mean by that?
Well, basically the idea is that the only language the
(29:02):
government speaks is law.
Right?
Would we agree with that?
Right.
That's the only language the government speaks.
If the government says do something, it's a law.
Right?
Right.
Okay.
So what does the language of law sound like?
Well, it's either do this or I will shoot you or don't do this
because I will shoot you if you don't stop, whatever it is.
(29:25):
You know, either don't drive down the road too fast or I will
shoot you or give your money to someone that we've decided needs
your money more than you do or we will shoot you.
And a lot of people seem to think that I'm exaggerating, but
think about it.
All right.
So the government comes to your door and they say, give us 30%
of your paycheck so we can give it to people we think needs it
(29:45):
more than you do.
And you say, no, thank you.
And they say, no, no, no, we're serious.
And you say, well, I'm serious too.
I'm not interested in giving you my money.
I don't trust you to give it to the people who actually need
it.
I don't trust you to use it.
And they say, well, here's the problem.
We have guns.
And you say, no, no, no, we're having a discussion here about
(30:07):
what's right and wrong.
You know, can you explain to me why it's right for you to do
this?
And they have no justification for it.
And you say, can you explain to me why it's effective for you
to do this?
And they certainly have no justification for that.
They can't answer that question at all because it's not effective.
And then you say, okay, well, how do you do this?
(30:28):
How do you justify doing this?
And they say, you're not listening.
We have guns.
And you say, no, thank you.
And they say, well, okay, we're going to take you to jail now.
And you say, you know what, I'm not interested in going to jail.
Thank you anyway.
And they say, well, we're taking you.
And you say, no, thanks.
And then what do they do?
They grab a gun.
(30:48):
And they pointed at you.
Now look, I spent a lot of my life as a soldier.
All right.
I pointed a lot of guns at a lot of people.
There is a justification for government to do that.
And the only justification for government to do that is to secure the natural rights
of citizens.
(31:10):
That's the only valid reason for the government to exist, for the government to take any action.
And certainly for the government to point a gun at somebody.
It's the only justification.
And that's on all levels.
Yes, sir.
Everything.
The only purpose it has.
You know, that's it.
That's the only reason it exists.
As a city councilman, I've always told people, I said, you know, I'd be up, we'd be talking
(31:34):
about something.
And I would say, you know, I work for you.
You don't work for me.
You know, you tell me what you need to do.
But then, you know, I used to do that for a while.
But after a while, I got schooled on, you know, Bob, if they don't like something you did,
they'll be here.
But if they're not here, you might take that as the idea of, well, you're doing something
(31:57):
right because they're not here.
Silence implies consent.
You know.
Silence implies consent.
Well, that's not actually true.
Of course, you know, most people take it that way.
But it might be that silence implies that they've just given up on you.
They're done talking with you.
You're useless.
(32:18):
You know, you're not listening anyway.
Most sane people would just give up on you.
And frankly, that's one of the things that I've learned traveling around this state.
You know, like I said earlier, I've served two terms as a delegate, and then I ran for
governor in 2020 as the independent candidate.
And by the way, I got 2% of the vote as a write-in candidate.
So that was pretty amazing.
(32:38):
Yeah, I kind of wonder about that.
We got over 15,000 write-in votes.
And I'm still struggling to get, well, I'm not struggling.
We're making progress.
But, you know, I kind of figured that once I announced that I was running, there's 15,000
people that say, let me sign your petition.
We don't have to write you in next time.
But maybe I just need to get hold of it.
You know?
But the thing is, people have given up.
(33:00):
They're just like, the government is so corrupt and so lost that we're just waiting for it
all to collapse.
That's going to happen pretty quickly.
It seems like.
Well, here's the deal.
I mean, I've got kids.
I can't afford to give up.
I cannot allow any of my grandkids to ever look me in the eye and say, you know, why did
(33:21):
you let this happen to me?
One of two things is going to happen.
Either we're going to turn this thing around.
And by the way, my studies in graduate school, we're all focused on how free societies devolve
into totalitarianism so that I could try to find a way to reverse the process.
Because that's where we're headed.
All right?
(33:42):
I want to reverse the process.
I want to build a place, a sanctuary for free men.
Of course, when we use it this way means the creature man, which includes women, Miss T.
I know you know that.
She said we're going to.
Thanks, warrior, for free men.
A very bastion of liberty is what I intend to do here.
(34:02):
All that sweet.
That's sweet.
That's my granddaughter, Riley.
Yeah, that's sweet.
But you know, my kids show their love by making fun of me, but I deal with it.
My daughter does.
My daughter does.
Yeah.
And the other thing is, yes, dear, when my wife says something, my man to get sugar.
(34:23):
Yes, dear.
That's two favorite words I've learned.
It being we were married 43 years yesterday.
Congratulations.
That's something to be proud of.
They were my two favorite words yesterday.
So that's what you have the last words.
T. Do you do you have any more questions?
Well, I do.
(34:44):
Yes.
So the whole burning question across the state of West Virginia right now is, would
you put mayonnaise on a pepperoni roll?
Oh, good Lord.
I don't need I don't eat mayonnaise anyway.
Period.
Certainly not on a pepperoni roll.
I want to tell you a quick.
(35:06):
I'm going to tell you a quick pepperoni story.
I was here.
I was at a conference in Begley.
And this guy, the instructor was the emergency management director for the state of California.
Really nice guy.
So we're all sitting there talking and he goes, well, I want to go try these pepperoni
(35:28):
rolls that you guys keep talking about.
So when he came, we lost him.
We lost him.
Wait till he gets back here.
Yeah.
Thank you, T. You're welcome.
Man, where do you have a pepperoni roll?
(35:50):
Did you see that on the whatever?
Oh, yeah.
They were putting mayonnaise on everything and then mustard on a doughnut.
Oh my God.
JR would flip out.
I'd like to have two jelly filled and two mustard filled.
(36:14):
No, thank you.
No, no, no, no.
Oh, come on, Marshall.
Hit the button.
Well, anyway, while we're waiting for Marshall, Robert.
Yes.
Look out, Bobby.
Hold on.
Some ladies driving me nuts.
Oh, okay.
Oh, anyway, thank you because this is something we need to do because tonight's Bob Cass is
(36:41):
brought to you by affordable lawn works LLC called Mike Dean for any of your snow removal,
lawn care needs.
Just a great guy who's trying very hard.
He's just a great kid and his number is there 3049912859 get a hold of Mike and he'll come
over and give you a good estimate.
(37:03):
He does good work.
He does my yard so I don't have to and he does several businesses.
So you know, go see Mike and tell him you're her to learn the Bob cast and that way you
can come over and pat me on the back because I like that.
So anyway, it looks like he ran.
So I think anyway, the story, the story behind what I was going to tell you.
(37:24):
This instructor went to sheets and Beckley and he went inside and he goes, he made the
ultimate mistake.
He said, are these anything like hot pockets?
And he told me he goes to look on that lady at the counter.
(37:45):
The look on her face was priceless.
I said, you're trying to get run out of the state of West Virginia.
He goes, I didn't know.
You don't ever call up.
That is our sacred food, Bob.
That is our sacred food.
It's sacrilegious.
I think.
Yes, yes.
But anyway, so while we're doing this and everybody were waiting on Marshal to get back
(38:06):
on, he must have hit a button.
Yeah, like I mentioned kind of yes, you know, a little bit ago, uh, man to never married
43 years ago yesterday.
Oh, and somebody asked me, they said, you mean somebody put up with you that long?
I think there was alcohol involved.
I can't find a man to put up with me that long, Bob.
(38:27):
30 days max.
30 days.
I went the other day to, uh, I went the other day to the store and I told the lady, I said,
they were getting ready to close and she let me get milk and stuff.
I said, do you realize what would have happened if I did not come home with milk?
She goes, what?
I had walked outside and the dog would have said, well, it'd be your normal two day stay
(38:48):
server of this big extended.
She started laughing.
I'm like, man, I'm telling you what, that woman's brittle.
And the guy the other day, T, you walked out and he goes, hello, Mr. Mercer.
And I said, hello, is your wife still beating you?
And I said, pretty much every day.
(39:11):
There he is.
Oh, we're back.
Got no picture on him yet.
Let's see.
Got no picture, Marshall.
There's another.
There he is.
Okay.
There we go.
Let's get rid of this.
(39:32):
There we go.
All right.
I'm sorry.
We weren't just we weren't talking about you or anything.
We were just telling, I was telling them the pepperoni roll saying we're this instructor
from California.
He went to lunch.
He went to Sheets and Beckley.
Right.
And he was talking to him and he said, now these pepperoni rolls, are they like hot
(39:54):
pockets?
And he said, Bob, the look on the lady's face behind the counter was priceless.
I mean, that was almost sacrilegious right there.
But anyway, so we were just talking about a few things.
We figured you'd hit a button somewhere.
I thought he got mad because, you know, he's a whole man, except for any roll thing.
(40:18):
I tell you what, Missy, my standard response to getting mad is not to go away.
It's to engage more fully.
Uh-oh.
Yeah.
So you know what?
Thank you, Katie, Trinerie.
We appreciate that.
She's.
Yes.
Thank you, Miss Katie.
(40:38):
She is Rashid Yost's representative.
You know Rashid O'Donogh.
Katie Trinerie is Rashid Yost's representative?
I think, I think, I mean, I just, I think it is.
I think she is.
I just got her friend request the other day and I just assumed that's who that was because
(41:05):
we're trying to get her on just because I've never met her for it before obviously, but
we're trying to get all levels.
We've got so many, you know, and I'm glad you're on.
You're the first, you're the first and I'm glad that you're the first one to be on our
show.
I am honored because we are absolutely tearing up.
(41:25):
We're booked now to April.
Once we get everybody on the calendar, we're booked up to April with congressional people,
governors, secretary of states, auditors, magistrates, you know, and I want everybody to be able to
hear everybody and hear their side of it and understand it.
You know, there are more choices out there than R and D and I.
(41:51):
So that's why, that's why Rick and I, and we did this before T came on.
We said we've got to, we've got to start getting the word out about different things that people
need to hear.
And this is one of them.
And this is one of the things that people, and I don't mean to cut in your time, but
this is one thing that people love about the Bobcast.
(42:12):
They find out things that they would never know was going on because Rick and I try very
hard to make sure that we tell everybody what's going on.
And I've got a lot of people, because I get frustrated real easy with technical issues.
I'm not a technical man.
That guy right there, Rick, if it wasn't for him, there'd be no Bobcast.
I don't say that just to say it.
(42:35):
I pay him very well to say those things.
Because he absolutely is a space age whiz kid.
And people would expect me to do something fancy.
We were doing something, we were doing something there and he goes, you know, I just realized
(42:56):
that I don't know what you do and you don't know what I do.
And I went, so he sent me a real long thing about what he does.
And I'm like, no, I just get on here, run my yeah, I have to bring tea on because Rick's
sitting there going, shut up, Bob.
And I do that too.
(43:18):
So anything else that you'd like to say?
You're full of questions.
I'm full of questions.
I'd like to.
I love it.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
So you want to make this a better place for our children, your children, everybody's children
(43:40):
in the state of West Virginia.
Right now, I think everybody feels that the school system needs a lot of improvement.
And you as governor, how would you go about improving the school system in the state of
West Virginia?
Thanks for asking that.
And keep in mind that there are legislative constitutional public policy, county and internal
(44:06):
policy issues that are involved here.
So when I talk about that, when I talk about the general overarching things I'd like to
do, I want you to understand that I know that all of these things need to be addressed.
It's not like I'm just going to walk in as the governor and say, make it happen.
I know that it doesn't work that way.
What I meant a while ago when I said that I can audit all of these departments, but it's
(44:27):
not like in the Army where I can just order the change.
There are procedures you have to go through.
And I intend to do that.
So the first thing is that I would like to state that the State Department of Education
should not be a directorate.
It should be a consultancy.
It should exist to provide resources, operations, training, help to the school systems to do
(44:51):
their job, not sit there in Charleston and issue edicts about how Ms. Smith should handle
the kids in her class.
They don't know the kids in her class.
They don't know the situation.
They need to be there to support her when she says, hey, I need help with this particular
issue.
Or actually not even directly for them.
(45:12):
They shouldn't be directly involved with individual teachers or the classrooms at all.
They shouldn't issue edicts about how those things are run.
So basically the way that I see it is the parents are responsible for the children's
behavior and performance, the students' behavior and performance.
Parents are responsible for that.
Now, the older students are assumed more and more responsibility for their own behavior
(45:33):
and performance.
But effectively, on the adult level, the parents are responsible for that.
Teachers are responsible for effectively providing a thorough and efficient education on whatever
subject they've been hired to teach or directed to teach in their classroom and to maintain
a level of control in the classroom that allows them to thoroughly and efficiently, to provide
(45:59):
the thorough and efficient education.
Because that is the constitutional mandate for public education in West Virginia, that
the students of this state be provided a thorough and efficient education in a system of free
schools.
Now, of course, we realize nothing is really free.
What that really means is that you, the taxpayer, are paying for it, and therefore it's accountable
to you for its performance.
(46:20):
So the parents are responsible for the kids' behavior and performance.
Teachers are responsible for maintaining control of their classroom and providing a thorough
and efficient education on their assigned subjects.
Part of maintaining control of that classroom is that they have to be able to remove disruptive
students from that classroom.
They have to.
I've talked to teachers all over the state, and I've said, well, why don't you just remove
(46:43):
that guy?
And they say, well, we can't.
We're not allowed to.
They have to be allowed to, which means that there has to be another place for those students
to go.
Now, when I was in school, I was that disruptive kid.
I always had something to say.
I always had a joke or, you know, was always questioning everything the teacher said.
And that was not conducive to either my learning or to anyone else in the class learning.
(47:05):
And ultimately, about the eighth grade, the principal had had coffee or lunch with my dad
and had words with him, and then my dad came home and, you know, strangely enough, my behavior
changed pretty rapidly.
My dad's a combat veteran Marine and a Baptist preacher.
So, you know, he knew which levers to work on.
(47:26):
So my behavior changed.
I'm not going to tell you my attitude changed right away, but it did over as I grew up.
So the teachers have to have that tool because they're not there to babysit.
They're not there to teach your kids what to how to behave, but they're also not there
to teach our kids what to believe.
This is critical to me.
(47:46):
They're not there to teach worldview.
They're there to teach the academic subject.
All right.
So the local administrators have to be able to to manage their schools without any parents
from some bureaucrats sitting somewhere in the middle of nowhere who thinks they know
more than they do.
She's always educated.
Go ahead.
I was just saying, educated professional adults, they need to be allowed to do their job.
(48:11):
Now they need to be held to the standard, which is that they actually provide the education
to the students.
Now, whether the students receive it or not, you know, that's that's a different question,
but it has to be made available to them.
It has to be presented in a way that that it's available to the students.
So local administrations have to run the local schools, local school boards, county school
(48:34):
boards have to run the local administrations.
And those local school boards, those county school boards are accountable directly to the
people who elect them.
Period.
Period.
So when you show up at a board of education meeting, you know, their regular meetings and
you show up and you're in the audience and you stand up and ask a question, they need
to understand that they're actually answering their boss, that they're speaking directly
(48:57):
to their employer, that there's not someone at the state or someone in the legislature
or someone at the federal government who is going to contradict your word as you tell
them how you expect your school to be run.
They will understand that this school belongs to you.
Your children attended.
Your friends teach there.
Your friends work there.
Your tax dollars supported.
(49:19):
And you wanted to represent, you know, you wanted to represent the, or to actually meet
the standard.
That standard is to put a thorough and efficient education in academic topics that need to
be accountable to you.
That's simple.
So I was told, I was told the other day that the legislature is working on, because I was
(49:40):
talking to some people about the way the disrespect that's shown to the teachers anymore in the
classroom.
And you know, I was told that the legislature is working on that right now.
They're working on something.
And I said, you know, if I had a disrespect that a teacher back in the day, I mean, it
(50:03):
didn't, it never happened.
You just don't do it.
Now parents, the teachers are scared to death at times.
I don't know about here specifically, but the teachers are scared to death because they,
you know, they can't touch the kid.
But you know, I mean, when I get on the board of education, I'm going to be all up in that,
(50:26):
you know, well, I'm not sure that teachers should necessarily have to touch students
to straighten them out.
I think they should just be able to tell them to leave.
And if the student has a problem with leaving, there should be a place for them to go to,
you know, when I was in high school, we called the time to more in school suspension.
And I probably spent more than my fair amount of time.
(50:49):
And I deserved it.
And it taught me.
I learned that.
Okay.
Students were able to learn their academic subjects, but it is not the teacher's job
to stop presenting academic information to them and coach me on my life.
Now, if that coaching needs to happen, it doesn't need to happen in the classroom.
(51:09):
There needs to be an outside the classroom path for that to happen.
Unfortunately, I lived in a small town and the principal really, really cared about his
students and he went to see my dad and then he called me into his office and he said,
look, you can do things with your life.
Stop doing this.
We are behind you.
(51:30):
We're on your side.
Now, you know, that's, I think most educators are probably in that position.
But the point is they can't do that.
They can't reach out to the kid as a human being.
The student is a human being and say, look, we're behind you, but we need you to get in
line with what we're doing here so we can all accomplish our goal, which is to get you
(51:51):
a thorough and efficient education.
Fortunately, the educators when I was in school were able to do that and they did.
They cared a great deal.
Not only about me, but about all the other students.
Unfortunately our state's like 49th and 50th and like math and eighth grade.
What was the 49th and eighth grade English or something like that?
(52:12):
And it seems like West Virginia always falls in that percentile and we need somebody to
do something about it.
I mean, I'm not saying me.
I'm just saying we need somebody to say, hey, you know, we've got the kids are our future.
The future of this great country.
And we've got to start teaching them civics again.
Right now we got to start teaching them now because if we don't, we're done.
(52:34):
We've got a great civics teacher out here at the school that my kids go to.
I think a lot of him and he and I have had some talks on the outside, you know, just
man to man, just his friends talking.
And he is he's held me accountable for a couple of things that I've said.
And and he's taught a couple of my kids.
And I got to tell you, there are some folks out there who really want to do the job.
(52:58):
There are some people, some real adults who are educated and who care about the kids and
want to do the job.
It's the system.
No, when I was in the delegates, you know, that was during the time that we had the two
teacher strikes.
So I was there.
And you know, one of the things that that was going on was they were demanding a pay
raise.
Well, first of all, they hadn't had a pay raise since the 70s.
(53:19):
Now they got a bonus one year, which was called a pay raise, but it wasn't an actual increase
in their rate of pay.
So it wasn't a pay raise.
It was it was, you know, a bonus check.
So since the 70s, guys, do you know how much cost of living is increased since the 70s?
So you know, I was dollars.
A few.
Yeah.
So I was all for it.
(53:41):
I was concerned about was that we're also concerned about issues with PEIA.
Well, first of all, the law says that PEI has to be funded.
That's it.
It has to be funded.
Yeah.
So there was never any question about whether or not it would be funded.
It was simply figuring out in the budget where that funding would come from be funded.
(54:01):
So it was going to be funded.
The other thing is that the cost of PEI was increasing and then PEI was playing a part
in all these requirements or these regulations on their members.
Well, that was that was established by the PEI board.
The legislature had nothing to do with that.
And they were doing that based on the market, based on how much it was costing to care to
(54:24):
people.
So I think as I was right in the middle of this and I kept asking, what's the real issue?
And although people came in and said, look, we need to make more money, ultimately, after
talking with them for 20 or 30 minutes, we get to the point where they said, look, it's
insulting to be paid what we're being paid.
(54:45):
It's insulting that Jim Justice wants to offer us a 1% pay raise.
But what's really insulting is we like children.
So I'm not saying that they don't need to be paid commensurate with their authority.
They should for their responsibility and authority.
They absolutely should.
But they also should be treated like adults.
(55:05):
They should make this.
They deserve our utmost respect.
They deserve our utmost respect.
Well, I mean, it's not an easy job.
And I want to be fair about this.
The thing is that in every profession, there are people who do the job and there are people
who don't.
And there need to be, there's a differentiation.
(55:27):
You don't treat people who are killing themselves the right way the same way you do the person
who sits in a chair all day and stares at the wall.
I don't think there are many of them, but there has to be a way to differentiate between
who is excelling, who's meeting the standard, and who's failing to meet the standard.
And then there has to be a procedure to bring everybody along to meet the standard, and
(55:49):
then you incentivize excellence.
That needs to happen.
Most people want to do a good job.
But if you keep constantly pressing, you're putting your thumb on their head and pressing
them down and saying, no, you have to excel like this, that's not what excellence looks
like.
You know, that's cookie cutter.
And know when you're talking about a classroom full of people, human beings, human beings
(56:14):
are not cookie cutter.
The individual instructors, the teachers in the classroom are not, they're not bots,
and the students are not robots.
You can't just program something from a, you have to set principles, priorities, and
(56:35):
standards, and then you have to step like human beings deal with them.
And you keep it on, you know, you don't let people curse.
But they can't meet the standard.
Yes, sir.
I'm sorry.
No, you're fine.
I was just, I told Rick when I told him, I said, you got to hear this guy.
(56:56):
He's like smart.
It kind of reminds me of Rick.
I mean, just you're so articulate and you say, you know, you say it with belief.
You say it with belief.
I'm terrible at it.
Absolutely.
I said, this kid's free.
This is the only way to leave a legacy of liberty to my students.
(57:18):
And that is to engage and to stand up for these principles everywhere and anytime that
I can.
And that's what you say.
Well, listen, it's 730 and I just want you to know, Marshall, that we appreciate you
being here, man.
You've been so insightful.
You've been so insightful.
(57:40):
And we're proud to have you as our first guest.
I mean, it was just as far as in the election cycle.
But we appreciate you and we wish you the very best of luck.
And if there's anything at all that the Bobcats can do to help you out, hey, we're here.
So, you know, we appreciate you and good luck to you, sir.
(58:02):
Can I talk to you to hold up?
Absolutely.
That was going to be the next question.
So it's Marshall for WV Marshall for WV numeral four dot com.
Marshall for WV dot com is our website on there.
We've got a contact page.
We've got a page where you can figure out how to either print off signature forms for
(58:25):
the petition, request them from the team and we will mail them out to you.
And then please just get as many signatures as you can and send to the address that you'll
find at pay.
A little box, a little rectangle down toward the bottom of the page.
There's a PO box.
Send those in there.
We've got Oles Woodham.
She does a great job, much better than I would do.
(58:48):
We've also, if it's okay with you, we'll probably post at least a megs herbs, maybe not, maybe
the whole episode on the website.
Absolutely.
Thank you.
You've got a bunch of my statements.
Anything you might want to know.
If I didn't answer, then you want to know there's a way to get a hold of me so you can
(59:10):
ask questions so I can address them.
I am profoundly honored by this time and this opportunity to talk with you all.
We are well.
Really?
I've been working on Todd Williams and I've been working right now through the holidays
and probably we intend to crank up and start cranking out like I was asking you.
(59:33):
I think we've got episodes in the can.
Awesome.
Awesome.
They're each about an hour long and we talk about various things like in one episode we
go back to Greek philosophy and we figure out where the idea of personal entity came
from, we trace it through the podcast, we trace it through the Christian ethics and you've
(59:54):
got rational thought.
The philosopher is the Judeo-Christian ethic and then the rule of law, you put those three
together, those three pillars are the foundation of Western civilization and basically the
ideals of Western civilization were the closest to being upheld in human history when the
(01:00:17):
former slaves were given full citizen right to vote.
That is as close as any country has ever come to reaching those ideals and when you take
that as a model for what we're actually trying to accomplish here, extending all rights,
all protection of the people.
(01:00:39):
That's what we're really working on here.
Awesome.
That's right up here at Alley Rick.
It's indeedy.
We're going to have all of this information, all your contact information will be on our
website and on our YouTube channel as well.
Fantastic.
Thank you.
This will be on YouTube in about an hour Marshall because.
(01:01:00):
Oh great.
Well, we'll link to it.
Rick goes in and does closed captions and stuff like that and you kind of make sure everything's
the way it's supposed to be.
Plus we're on every podcast site and outlet.
So they'll hear the audio version on the IHAR Spotify.
(01:01:25):
All their mother 100, our own.
We're there and everybody gets to meet Miss T. She'll be all over the country and they'll
say who's that?
No, y'all should end with Miss T's name so that you can talk about how she prevents the
(01:01:46):
tedium in the podcast.
You know what I'm saying?
That's the fact.
Because Rick's not like her father.
All right.
Well, listen, it's been a pleasure, sir.
And we wish you the very best and we're like I said, if there's anything we can do, everything
will be on our website and on our podcast sites and it can be found anywhere that we
(01:02:10):
can be found.
If you're in the town, let us know.
If you're coming into town sometime, let us know and we'd be glad to come out and hang
out with you.
Okay, well there's a calendar on our website too.
So you can just go to the website, click on calendar and it shows where I'm going to
be and when and all that kind of stuff.
So you keep an eye on me and grab hold of me if you can.
(01:02:32):
Great.
We will do that, sir.
All right, T, Rick, Marshall, guys have a great evening.
Listen everybody out and that watches, thank you very much.
Thank you for sticking with us and we're going to have fun in the near future.
T's over there thinking of things right now.
She's like, how can I just, you know, one of my got myself into.
(01:02:55):
All right, listen, we're going to wrap it up and if anything else you guys need, please
let us know.
Okay.
All right, take care.
All right, guys.
Rick, you guys take care.
Good night, y'all.
Where'd it go?
Oh, there it is.
(01:03:15):
Take a step.
We don't have that anymore, do we?
No.
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