It seems that they would have learned a little something from that terrible loss they inflicted on us. But they didn't. Here come the same fat cat establishment insiders pulling the same dirty tricks again.

Last time, they inflicted us with Bob Dole, that liberal Washington insider in conservative clothing. "It's Bob's turn," was the insider mantra in the Republican Party. Funny thing, that. From out here in the foothills of Appalachia, we thought it looked a lot like a payback by the moneyed crowd for all the help Dole provided them over the years. Certainly, they couldn't believe Dole would win.

Now comes the very same minions of the moneyed crowd pushing Bush Junior on us. And again, they are saying that Republican activists are to dummy up. It's a done deal. All they have to do is to buy a few primary elections, after all. No big deal for them.

Already, they have the media swooning over Junior. There's a little problem, though: Bush gets positive press, as it goes. But, it is press without substance. There are no ideas, no positions, no nothing. Are they intentionally setting him up for a fall? Maybe.

Contrast Bush with the issues identified by Forbes, Quayle, Buchanan and Smith, in that order. These men have ideas of substance. They have a platform. They have something that we can get behind, debate, defend -- or dump on if we do not agree.

But, they do not have media acceptance. That's because they do not have the moneyed crowd's movers and shakers -- those in the background pulling the strings -- behind them. Bush has said nothing of substance yet. He does, however, have the people who count backing him.

The above may sound a bit crass and jaded, but that is the way things work in national politics. For the primary election, anyway.

The presidential primaries are actually an undemocratic mess and not at all difficult to manipulate by a very small group of insiders. The games played in the Ames, Iowa straw poll was a joke in point.

Why in the world should that little straw poll make a difference? After all, this is not even the correct year for a primary election. Many of the votes cast at Ames were bought and paid for by the candidate committees. The straw poll was, therefore, but a diversion. A public relations extravaganza. It means nothing.

Yet, it was published by the media as if it had meaning. Strange.

The same applies to the New Hampshire primary. That is but a media event. In the real scheme of things, it should mean nothing. It's a prelude to the California and other early primaries.

And herein lies another real problem with the presidential primaries: The race can be pretty much decided before half the electorate in the country even get to cast a vote.

Those pulling the strings from the background like it like that, too. The elections costs less that way. The liberal national media also likes it. This system increases media influence.

The losers are half the voters in the country. The primaries are a done deal before they get to vote. Listen to the media; they will tell you so. Consequently, many people do not even bother to vote in the primaries.

Also, as evidenced by Bob Dole last time, the people do not always get the candidate they want. Rather, they usually get who the establishment insiders want them to have.

That's yet another way of stacking the election results. They can force a weak candidate on one party or the other so their favorite son in the opposing party will win. And so it happened.

Will Bush make a good president? We do not yet know what he thinks about the issues and the Bush camp seems to like it that way. Sooner or later, though, he is going to have to actually take a stand on an issue. That will lose votes.

Also, Bush will have to pick a vice presidential running mate. Word on the street has it that he will pick either John Kasich, a social liberal, or Elizabeth Dole, a liberal bureaucrat. That will also lose a lot of votes.

Anyone will beat Gore because no one wants him. Dollar Bill Bradley might give Bush and whoever a real run for their money, though. Some Americans still like socialism.

But, if "Jesse the Body" runs, all bets are off. There is a very strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the political structure in this country right now. Regardless of his politics, Jessie would pull the votes simply because he is open and straightforward -- and not a career politician.

Meanwhile, this mess we call the presidential primary election needs immediate attention. Many voters are disenfranchised and disaffected. That must change. Soon.

As with other elections, the presidential primary election should be held on the same day in every state.

We could have survived our whole week's vacation quite nicely without hearing the irresponsible national media relating their nauseating story of one Buford O. Furrow every single day for the week. But, that's all there was in the way of national "news" for that week where we were.

We meandered out of the foothills of Appalachia down to the real hills of central Appalachia -- down where the turns in the highways are often so sharp you would swear the road is going to cross itself and a full line-up for cable TV only includes about 15 channels.

"Lucky for those kids that idiot cannot shoot," I muttered to no one in particular at our gathering. A couple of men nodded agreement, and that was all that was said about that situation. Someone found the television's off switch.

Later, it seemed there was something dreadfully wrong with this picture. Here's a fugitive from reason who spent time in federal psychiatric facilities. We have a convicted felon who had actually tried to commit himself to a psychiatric hospital last year. He was ordered by a judge in Washington to give up his guns and his probation officer was ordered by the judge to check his home periodically to insure that he complies with the order. But, we come to find out the guy had a federal firearms dealer's license and traded guns and ammunition regularly. Also, we learn, the probation officer never checked to see if he had guns.

Suddenly, this jerk wants to shoot something up, so he checks out a few places and picks the one that seems to be least protected -- the day care center. He has a few guns and many pounds of ammunition in his van. But, he carjacks another car to use for the shooting, leaving the driver alive to give his description to the police. Therefore, he leaves most of his equipment and ammunition in his van.

So, this idiot walks into a day care center with a loaded Uzi and a Glock. He fires off about seventy rounds, but only hits five people -- and then, mostly in the legs. Apparently, he shot the floor more than anything else.

No one was shooting back, but Furrow only hit a target with five or six rounds out of seventy, and that from across the room. With guns that are easy to shoot.

After that, for no apparent reason other than the guy looked a little different in Furrow's eyes, he shoots and kills a mailman. Suddenly he can shoot?

Then, somehow he gets to Las Vegas and gives himself up.

We're supposed to believe all this? Really?

Because, if this thought pattern is established to be true, the problem lies with a psychiatric facility, a judge and a probation officer, all of whom would be very negligent. If this scenario is true, the guy is a total nut case and needed to be locked up. Hell, while trying to commit himself, he even admitted it!

Some called his actions hateful. That's wrong. He's crazy. Deranged. And a miscreant.

It's that, or there is something else afoot here.

Meanwhile, public officials who do not like or trust the American people called for even more gun control. Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks called for nationwide ban on assault rifles and small handguns known as Saturday night specials. Attorney General Janet Reno says gun violence might be reduced if prospective gun owners are required to be licensed and show they can use a firearm safely and legally. And the normal liberal perpetrators in the national media pulled out every shooting file clip they could find in their campaign to trash our right to keep and bear arms.

Out here in the foothills of Appalachia, we see things just a little differently than Washington's chattering crowd. That is, if the judicial system, the psychiatric institutions and the parole/probation officers of the United States are going to allow nut cases like Buford O. Furrow to run our streets without even minimal supervision, that pretty much cements the need for a number of good citizens to remain armed.

And if the national media would quit giving these psychologically disturbed imbeciles so much media coverage, perhaps the other mentally deranged in society would not play copycat.

In the last issue we wrote about the fight against unconstitutional police roadblocks and the good works of an attorney named Pat Barber of Colorado City, Texas. This issue, we have similar good news about the defense of our Fourth Amendment rights. Someone once said "there ought to be a law," and apparently there is going to be. In Kentucky, anyway.

It seems that a number of busy political activists around Kentucky have contacted their State legislators about the continuing annoyance of roadblocks around the State. Roadblocks are necessary to check for drunk drivers, seat belt use, proper child restraint and a number of proactive reasons, the errant police chiefs say with a straight face.

"I think the public safety factor greatly outweighs the minor inconvenience of a stop," Kentucky State Police Major Don Pendleton told a State House committee last week.

That's baloney!

An old rule of thumb in political science teaches that when you transform a crime-detecting police force into a crime-preventing policing apparatus, you have created a police state. And, that is exactly what is developing. Quickly.

The American people shall not direct their lives for the expediency of police work. The situation, in fact, is supposed to be the other way around.

If an agent of government wishes to stop, question, check papers of and/or search an American citizen not immediately suspected of being involved in a crime, that public servant must first secure a warrant stating who and what is to be searched and why. Most police officers know that and few good American police officers will violate that rule of law.

But, there is yet a much more ominous reason these unconstitutional roadblocks are dangerous to the well being of the American people. That directly relates to the mind-set of a certain segment of police officers.

Years ago, I remember a little girl (we need not embarrass anyone with an identification here) sitting on the floor of the living room playing with the family cat. The cat suddenly started kicking up a fuss and making cat noises. The little girl's mother looked in from the kitchen and scolded: "Quit pulling that cat's tail!"

The little girl looked up sweetly and replied, "I'm not pulling the cat's tail, mommy. I'm just holding. The cat is doing all the pulling."

And so it is with many police officers today. If someone does not stop to have their papers checked, they get chased. If they still do not stop, most police officers will stop them the only way they know how: Crash them.

After all, the police officer is only "holding." It is the person fleeing who is "pulling" the situation along.

This creates a real danger for everyone around and it is not uncommon for people -- innocent victims, too -- to be killed.

The other way for police to stop a fleeing citizen, of course, would be to shoot them.

But, the fact is, the police will not let the person escape. They'll have an army of police cars zooming around until they somehow stop the person. To many police, the danger to the community is a forgotten factor at this point.

Is the necessity of checking papers worth that risk? How about seat belt compliance? Tipsy drivers? Well, what is then? Where do we draw the line?

The Kentucky House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on these roadblocks last week. They got an earful, too. State Rep. Perry Clark (D-Louisville) told Major Pendleton that police officers underestimated public feeling about roadblocks and that he intends to draft legislation to forbid them.

"The people are irritated very much on this issue," Clark said. "To think we're not going to a police state -- we've got our heads in the sand."

We had occasion to speak with people from both the House and Senate, and from both sides of the isle, on this issue last week. It appears that type of legislation stands an excellent chance of passing.

And so it should, in every state in the country. We must demand that our State Legislators again begin performing their rightful duty, part of which is to protect the rights of the people by protecting and defending the United States Constitution against any assault whatsoever.

The Fourth Amendment was designed to protect our liberty. But it also protects our personal privacy from the prying eyes of government agents. We do not need to have our "papers in order" for any agent of government unless we are to be accused of a crime.

Tell them so.

The imperial President is at it again. On August 5th, the day before Congress went into recess, he signed two new executive orders, both of which Congress would surely have rejected. The first is an order designed to control the information flow on the Internet -- that devilish medium that won't keep its mouth shut about his misdeeds. The other is his second try at Executive Order 13083, the one he had to suspend in May of 1998 when Congress found out about it and forced him to put a hold on it. EO 13083 was one of the most diabolical in a sea of diabolical Clinton Executive Orders. While it was certain to have been struck down by the United States Supreme Court because it nullified the 10th Amendment, there is no telling how much damage could have been done to states' rights before it got there.

Now he's trying again, hoping no one will notice until it's too late.

While the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, we are cursed with a Congress that practices anything but vigilance. All Executive Orders are published in the Federal Register, which is presented daily to each member of Congress. Since it's apparently too much trouble for Congressmen or their staffs to read the register, it falls to us to read it for them.

Executive Orders are a favorite tool of President Clinton, who is disdainful of the sole power of Congress to create laws. Consequently, he fires off EOs like a Gattling gun, in the dead of night or when Congress is in recess. Fighting them is a ping pong game, trying to bat them back when the President serves them ten at a time. The truth is that the only way we citizens can win at this game is by throwing a blanket over the table.

What is holding back the blanket is the Emergency and War Powers Act, which was created in the 1930s to give FDR broad powers to hold the country together during first the depression and later World War II. In theory, the EWPA is an excellent tool for fast response during a true national emergency. And we have been fortunate in that since FDR, we have not had a megalomaniac President who abused the powers inherent in the EWPA.

Not until now.

Take a look at some of the EOs that have been coming out of the White House in recent months. The buildup of the powers of FEMA, run by President Clinton's Arkansas buddy, James Lee Witt. Through the relentless assault on the sovereignty of the individual states via Executive Orders, President Clinton has systematically drawn unprecedented power to himself to the point that by a stroke of his pen during some real or imagined emergency (Y2K comes to mind), our Republic can be replaced by a dictatorship.

Admittedly, this could be considered a paranoid view of our government. But this is a very special President, unlike any we've ever had. Even his wife attributes his actions to a psychological affliction. At the very least, we should ask ourselves how important it is to have the EWPA at the disposal of any President, let alone this one. If the power over us isn't used, the act is unnecessary. If it is used, it can be disastrous.

While the two Executive Orders concerning Federalism and editing the Internet need to be intercepted and destroyed, the problem of EOs will continue while the Emergency and War Powers Act is in place.

[Note: To read these executive orders -- EO 13132 on Federalism and EO 13133 on the Internet -- go to http://www.uhuh.com/laws/list-law.htm -- ed]

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