Ten Buck Fridays Week 4 Winner: Van Irion

by Maggie @ Maggie’s Notebook

RightKlik announced at midnight EDT Van Irion of Dandridge, Tennessee the winner of Ten Buck Friday donations with 42.3% of the vote for Week 4. Irion is running for the U.S. House seat in Tennessee’s 3rd district vacated by Republican Zack Wamp who is running for governor. Irion is facing 10 Republicans in the August 5th primary – one the GOP favorite, and it’s not Irion. See two excellent videos below of Irion speaking at the Bradley Country Court House addressing how he will adhere to the U.S. Constitution.

Van Irion

Van Irion (pronounced ear-ee-on) is a conservative Republican, a Christian and a patent and constitutional attorney who owns his own law firm in Eastern Tennessee. He has been married to Dawn Erickson Irion for 14 years and has two young daughters, ages 11 and 8. He served 4 years in the U.S. Air Force as an Air Traffic Controller, and is a veteran of Operation Desert Shield.

He has a Biochemistry degree from the University of California and a Law Degree from McGeorge School of Law. He formerly founded a biotech company to research treatments for stroke and acute injury and served for many years as a volunteer fire fighter and EMT.

Below you will find links to Irion on the issues, and endorsements. Ten Buck Fridays obviously believes he is conservative, so I want to talk about his principal opponent on the ticket for the August 5th primary, Robin Smith. Smith is a former Tennessee GOP chair. She is apparently endorsed by the GOP. Smith received an endorsement from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and made the statement that this endorsement removes all doubt of which candidate has the support of conservatives – meaning she does.

Irion answered this by providing links to the U.S. Chamber’s lobbying for the “$800 billion Federal Bank Bailout” and for “illegal alien amnesty.” Irion’s complete statement is here, and includes more on illegal aliens.

Note the TEA Party endorsements for Irion, along with Congressman Ron Paul, two former Reagan staffers – Doug MacKinnon and Nancy Theis, the Republican Liberty Caucus, the National Fiscal Conservative PAC, Tennessee Valley Sportsman, Tennessee Republican Liberty Caucus, the Chattanooga Tea Party, the Bradley County Tea Party, the American Patriot Taxpayers (East Tennessee Tea Party), Anderson County TEA Party, Roane County Tea Party, Tennessee Tea Party Coalition, the Smokey Mountain Tea Party Patriots, Midsouth Tea Party, blogger melissa Couthier, The Tenth Amendment Center’s Lesley Swann, Mari Robbins – member of the Greeneville, Northeast, and Tri-Cities Tea Parties and Campaign for Liberty, David Gidcumb – Board of Directors Chattanooga Pachyderm Club and Board of Directors Tennessee Repubican Liberty Caucus, Dana Cody – President and Ex. Director, Life Legal Defense Foundation, Barbara Meyer – former Executive Director, Pregnancy Crisis Center and Dr. Stephen Wilson – Candidate for US Senate, 1994 Tennessee Republican Party.

There are a couple of other interesting endorsements. A Republican who is running for the same seat in Congress on the Indpendent ticket, Mark DeVol, says he will drop from the race if Van wins the primary. Frank Cowan is a Republican who dropped from the race to endorse Irion.

He is far behind in fundraising and the GOP supports Robin Smith. Irion has supported Ten Buck Fridays on his website. Visit him on Twitter and Facebook.

The Van Irion Family

On the issues:

Irion has signed a “death tax repeal” pledge.

Second Amendment: Is a strong supporter of second amendment rights. On June 26th he blogged about the case in front of the Supreme Court, and said they got it right, but just barely, and was disturbed they “did not outright rule in gun owners’ favor.” More on the Second Amendment here, where Irion asks “what part of ’shall not be infringed’ is unclear?

Bailouts: Against all of them. There is no company too big to fail. Read the article – believes what many of us have believed all along.

Abortion: Is strongly pro-life. Irion does pro-bono work for Life Legal Defense Foundation. Read it here.

Taxes: Wants to abolish the IRS and adopt the FairTax. Read how the FairTax would “heal our economy.”

Military and Peace through Strength: Wants the military to have clear ‘military’ goals. Believes the Federal government’s duty is providing for the common defense of the U.S. Adequate funding of the military must be a priority.

Healthcare: “Any federal intrusion is unconstitutional. He acknowledges 80 years of “government interference.” Wants to repeal ObamaCare, and asks you to be a plaintiff in a class action suit found at

Obama Class Action (OCA). He is litigating the case pro bono and covering all court costs personally. See this page for “Frequently Asked Questions” about the lawsuit. Find the page to join the lawsuit along with “over 32,000 other here. No monetary gains are expected from this suit. You are lending your voice to the effort to repeal ObamaCare.

Illegal Immigration: I am impressed that Irion uses the words “illegal Immigration,” rather than an “immigration.” I always use the words “illegal migrants,” because they are not immigrants. Irion has some interesting statistics on this page and believes illegal immigration should not be tolerated.

10th Amendment: Irion says we have allowed our government to grow like a cancer, invading every aspect of our lives. We need to seize control and shrink the cancer.

Read more about jobs, the economy, the federal reserve, the national debt and liberty. Use the “issues” pulldown menu.

An interesting story is Van takes a pitchfork with him wherever he goes. According to his interview with The Daily Caller, “farmers use pitchforks to clean their manure of their stalls, and I tell people everywhere I go that I’m gonna take the pitchfork to the House foor and clean the manure out of the Capitol.”

Ten Buck Fridays Week 4 Winner: Van Irion

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