In a candidate-filled week, last night the Pickens County Tea Party held a candidates forum for the state race competitors that focused on a more national theme than the local races. Although invited, it was noted that none of the incumbents ventured out to face constituents in Pickens County last night.Fielding questions regarding taxes, their Constitutional beliefs, FDA funding, amnesty, sharia law, BLM and land-grabbing, trade laws, foreign policy and wiretapping, the field, while expectedly conservative, did have some varying trains of thought on the current political environment in the United States.

Ken Herron, seeking to take the 14th district from Tom Graves, said his stance on foreign aid is that we need to give the country in question what they need rather than sending money.

“If there’s a country where people are starving…lets give them some food. If there [are] countries with tremendous unemployment lets help them learn how to make something,”

he said.

“I lived a year in Egypt. I don’t know why we give, what, $16 billion dollars a year to Egypt. They looked like they were doing pretty good,”

he continued.

Opposing incumbent Doug Collins in the 9th district, Bernard Fontaine spoke about the abolishment of the 16th amendment and how you must replace it with something and the something he believed would work would be fair tax.

“The tax is not the thing to use to do social engineering to where you’re paying money to people who do nothing and other people are being bled to death…Before that amendment was even placed we had taxes. We could still have the fair tax without the 16th amendment,”

he asserted.

Former Flowery Branch City Council member Amanda Swafford made her initial appearance, throwing a Libertarian candidate hat in the ring for Saxby Chambliss’ U.S. Senate seat in the November 14 election. In this initial appearance, Swafford answered a question regarding FDA (Food and Drug Administration) funding by stating their existence is unconstitutional.

Citing the commerce clause’s use to defend its existence, Swafford quickly dismissed that idea stating,

“Government’s primary responsibility, in my view, is to preserve the individual freedom of an individual even to the detriment of other noble goals. The FDA contributes to delays in the market and restrains the free market from being accessible to those that need it.”

Another U.S. Senate candidate who’s appeared in Pickens County made his return last night. Derrick Grayson answered questions in his particular way of questioning government’s overreach and his opposition to it. When fielding a query about the Cliven Bundy ranch vs. the Bureau of Land Management debacle, he outlined Harry Reid’s involvement. Grayson reported that by failing to place a lien on the man’s property they took action contrary to established practice.

“What lies beneath…there was an underhanded deal with Harry Reid’s son to have solar panels via the Chinese placed on that land. You can’t build those solar panels when you got a bunch of cows grazing on that land. That’s what it’s all about but I need you all to understand something. Infrastructure has already been put in place. Indefinite detention is a provision that allows for the government to arrest what they would term ‘domestic terrorists’. These protestors were called domestic terrorists by Harry Reid. Get ready. They’re coming,”

he predicted.

Also present, Steve Handel, husband to Karen Handel who is also attempting to take Chambliss’s place, spoke on her behalf, outlining her platform and background.

To watch the forum to get each candidates perspective, please see the video following the pictures.