A hallmark of the Democratic Left is its fear of monsters; not the real threats to life and liberty – communism and Islamic jihad – but the monsters lurking in the dark recesses of their imaginations. And no one is better than New York Times columnist Paul Krugman at expressing these irrational fears:

…the right-wing fringe, which has always been around — as an article by the historian Rick Perlstein puts it, “crazy is a pre-existing condition” — has now, in effect, taken over one of our two major parties. Moderate Republicans, the sort of people with whom one might have been able to negotiate a health care deal, have either been driven out of the party or intimidated into silence. Whom are Democrats supposed to reach out to, when Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who was supposed to be the linchpin of any deal, helped feed the “death panel” lies?

“Oh where, oh where, can my little squishy Republicans be?” wonders Krugman. The assumption on the part of many left-wing Democrats is that the Republican Party’s only purpose is to serve as an Amen corner for their socialist agenda. And who can blame them? Since the election of Eisenhower in 1952, the Republican Party – for the most part – willingly provided that Amen corner. In a strange moment of honesty, Krugman admits to missing one of America’s squishiest Republican presidents:

As many people have pointed out, Nixon’s proposal for health care reform looks a lot like Democratic proposals today. In fact, in some ways it was stronger. Right now, Republicans are balking at the idea of requiring that large employers offer health insurance to their workers; Nixon proposed requiring that all employers, not just large companies, offer insurance.

The New York Times is willing to forgive Nixon for what they once called his “assault on the constitution” because Nixon once proposed something as totalitarian as ObamaCare. Who could have imagined the New York Times would become such forceful advocates of  Nixon’s political rehabilitation. Krugman and his Democrat friends fear taking the hit for the unpopular ObamaCare. All they need is one or two squishy Republicans on board so they can claim a victory in the name of bipartisanship, and point the finger at Republicans when Obama’s health care death panels set up shop. The question is whether conservative Republicans can, as Krugman suggests, “intimidate into silence” Nixonian squishies who can’t wait to give Democrats another legislative victory. The onus is on conservatives within the Republican Party to apply the pressure Krugman fears. Otherwise, don your choir robes and give ObamaCare a great big “Amen.”

John Kohlert was a young piano tuner in the 1920s. In old age he recalled the time he got a job to tune the piano strings at the Cicero, Illinois home of a certain Chicago mob boss – Al Capone. “How would you like to stay for spaghetti?” asked Capone. “That’s fine,” said Kohlert. In time, Capone’s other dinner guest arrived. “This is Joe Kennedy,” Capone told Kohlert, “and we have a little business deal to make at supper. I hope you don’t mind.”

The deal involved the sale of good Irish whisky to Capone, the transaction being completed in the middle of Lake Michigan. It was just one of many business deals made by the multifaceted Joseph Patrick Kennedy. He made a killing through insider trading as a stockbroker on Wall Street, millions from movie making in Hollywood and tons of cash in real estate. Kennedy took financial opportunities wherever he found them and with whomever it proved profitable. Whatever else was said of him, Joe was no snob.

Joe Kennedy left his sons trust funds to keep them in the lap of luxury. Easy money, even dirty money, left Edward Kennedy not knowing the value of a dollar – especially the value hard-working Americans place on their dollars. And the “Liberal Lion” made a career separating them form as much of their money as it took to buy power for his party. Now his party hopes to save failing ObamaCaare by wrapping it around his memory.

Ted Kennedy’s party could learn something from Joe Kennedy: “I’ve had a tough time learning how to act like a congressman,” Joe once said, “today I accidentally spent some of my own money.”

Florida police found a use for Obama’s stimulus money; no, not more funding for added officers or overtime for existing peacekeepers. “Operation Show Me the Money” offered stimulus cash to lure greedy criminals out from under their rocks and into the arms of waiting law enforcement. Police sent letters to suspects wanted on everything from drug charges to second-degree murder. The “South Florida Stimulus Coalition,” as the sting was called,  informed the suspects that they were the proud winners of Obama’s stimulus lottery loot. It shouldn’t surprise people that the promise of free government money should sucker criminals, it suckered Obama voters.

Reach-across-the-aisle Republicrat John McCain may get his knuckles rapped soon. In an unusual move, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to re-hear arguments against government imposed restrictions on free speech put into effect by the McCain-Feingold law. One of its provision denies corporations the right to issue “electioneering communications” or television and radio ads within 30 day of a primary election or 60 days before a general election.

The issue centers around the documentary film “Hillary: The Movie,” which chronicled the seamy legal and political career of our current Secretary of State. The Federal Elections Commission ordered the film pulled from circulations during the last election cycle– including its DVD sale or pay-per-view screening over cable television networks.

According to the New York Times:

At the first Supreme Court argument in March, a government lawyer, answering a hypothetical question, said the government could also make it a crime to distribute books advocating the election or defeat of political candidates so long as they were paid for by corporations and not their political action committees.

That position seemed to astound several of the more conservative justices, and there were gasps in the courtroom.

“That’s pretty incredible,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The discussion of book banning may have helped prompt the request for re-argument. In addition, some of the broader issues implicated by the case were only glancingly discussed in the first round of briefs, and some justices may have felt reluctant to take a major step without fuller consideration.

Sen. McCain decided that corporations, which are victims of high taxes and regulations, were not entitled to First Amendment freedoms to campaign against politicians that wish to empty a company’s pockets for government giveaways.

This may be the high court’s chance to overturn free speech restrictions that view some Americans as less equal than others.

With the American public overwhelmingly against ObamaCare, Democrats needed some way to repackage President Obama’s very bad bill. West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd came up with a simple solution, Use ObamaCare as a shroud to bury the recently departed Sen. Edward Kennedy. “In his honor and as a tribute to his commitment to his ideals, let us stop the shouting and name calling and have a civilized debate on health care reform which I hope, when legislation has been signed into law, will bear his name for his commitment to insuring the health of every American.” If anything, the Kennedy association places added weight on an idea that is quickly sinking.

Byrd is taking a page from Kennedy history. After John F. Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson urged the congress to pass his Great Society legislation in honor of the fallen president. Conservative democratic opposition dissolved and the cycle of unsustainable entitlement programs began. Obama’s spending and its phenomenal debt will only hasten the bankruptcy of LBJ’s Great Society. It’s ironic that Seniors dependent on LBJ’s Medicare now fight to protect their entitlements from the cuts ObamaCare will cause it. It’s also ironic that a legislative tribute to a Kennedy started an unsustainable process that another Kennedy tribute will end.

Saving the planet will cost us more than the time wasted sitting through an Al Gore lecture on his invisible friend global warming. The United Nations announced that dropping global temperatures to preserve polar ice, polar bears and to keep Florida from receding into the sea would cost its club members a hefty total of $450 billion a year. They underestimated the cost when they originally said it would be between $40 and $170 billion annually.

Professor Martin Parry, a former co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said:

The amount of money on the table…is one of the key factors that will determine whether we achieve a climate change agreement. But previous estimates of adaptation costs have substantially misjudged the scale of funds needed.

The U.N. was unclear what exactly the money will buy – giant fans or air conditioners, perhaps?

President Obama’s attempt to turn America into a left-wing banana republic seems to be working. From October 1 through July 31 of 2008, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted only 72 Cubans. That’s down from an average of 183 a month in 2007. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol said the number of Cubans reaching U.S. shores dropped from 4,000 last year to about 1,000 in 2009.

Cuban refugees, they say, vote with their feet. By staying home, they are sending Obama a vote of no confidence. Professor of Hispanic Studies at Baruch College in New York has a reasonable explanation for the sizable drop in Cubans yearning to breath free. “If you’re ambitious, young, hard working, you want to live in a capitalist country,” he told the Associated Press. For many Cubans, donning an inner tube and risking the 90-mile voyage to Florida through shark-infested waters isn’t worth the risk if the only reward is the poverty provided by Obama’s “hope and change.”

In an ironic twist of fate, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is doing conservatives a great service. They created a website called the “Hypocrisy Hall of Fame.” On it is a list of GOP lawmakers who voted against President Obama’s wasteful stimulus package but are now begging the administration to direct stimulus graft to their districts.

Here’s just a sampling of Republican hypocrisy and the cash amounts taken from Obama’s hand:

• Rep. Elton Gallegly (Ca.) $182,881
• Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (Ca.) $333,000
• Rep. Jerry Lewis (Ca.) $18 million
• Rep. George Radanovich (Ca.)
• Rep. Tom Petri (Wi.) $754,000
• Rep. Aaron Schock (Il.) $20 million

Some Republicans are hoping to hide their hypocrisies by claiming they are getting the money to bolster America’s defenses. According to the Associated Press:

Just a few days after criticizing the “staggering” cost of the stimulus, Rep. Brett Guthrie, a Republican from Kentucky, urged Gates [Secretary of Defense] to consider using stimulus money to renovate a military hospital at Fort Knox, a sprawling Army base located in his congressional district.

The Pentagon’s stimulus spending plan shows no money for the hospital repairs. But of the more than $159 million in military stimulus money slated for Kentucky, almost $38 million is for other repair work at Fort Knox. Most of the total, $110 million, goes to Fort Campbell, home to the Army’s 101st Airborne Division. It’s in Republican Ed Whitfield’s district.

I could go on, but there aren’t enough bits and bites in the World Wide Web to detail what is so horribly wrong with the squishy Republican Party. This is why a new conservative party must be formed

One of President Obama’s campaign promises was to “spread the wealth.” With $7 trillion in new government debt and rising, he’s certainly a man of his word. Now there is a new beneficiary of taxpayer generosity – prison inmates. $250 government checks went out to 3,900 prison inmates as part of the economic recovery package passed by congress back in February. Nearly 52 million Social Security recipients and railroad pensioners qualified for the one-time stimulus payout. Under federal law, 2,200 of the prisoners get to keep the gift from their Uncle Sam. “The law specified that any beneficiary eligible for a Social Security benefit during one of those months was eligible for the recovery payment,” Social Security Administration spokesman Mark Lassiter told the Associated Press.

According to the Associated Press, of the $13 billion already spend for Obama’s stimulus, $425,000 incorrectly made it into the hands of jail birds. Perhaps they’ll stimulate the economy buying power drills and cash for clunkers getaway cars. This is understandable in the sense that our nation’s ruling party views all American citizens as inmates entrusted to their care. “Hope and change” is just part of our rehabilitation process.

The release on humanitarian grounds of Lockerbie bomber Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi from his Scottish dungeon is as popular with the people of Scotland as it is with Americans. A showdown is shaping up between the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) and all three oppositions parties. Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott said:

The SNP’s credibility at home and abroad is in tatters. Scotland’s must not be allowed to follow with it.

Down south in London Town, Gordon Brown’s Labor government is taking a beating as well. It’s been reported that Business Secretary Lord Peter Mandelson met twice with Saif Gaddafi – son of the Libyan dictator – to discuss the release of al-Magrahi.

The Europeans are running a little scared where the Gaddafi clan is concerned. Last July, Hannibal Gaddafi – yet another son of the great dictator – was arrested, along with his wife, for beating their two servants while staying at a posh hotel in Geneva, Switzerland. The Gaddafi’s cooled their heels for two days in a Swiss lockup. Needless to say, father Muammar was furious; not with the barbaric actions of his son and daughter-in-law but with Swiss authorities. The Libyan strongman showed his displeasure by withdrawing $5 billion from his Swiss bank accounts, stopping all flights to and from Switzerland and suspending oil exports to the tiny land-locked nation, cutting its oil needs by half.

Max Goeldi knows first hand how nasty Colonel Gaddafi can be. Goeldi, who heads the Swiss engineering firm ABB currently building Libya’s oil infrastructure, has spent months hiding in the nearly vacant Swiss embassy in Tripoli. Libyan authorities arrested Goeldi and an associate for alleged immigration violations. When they were released ten days later the pair was prevented from leaving the country. Fellow ABB employees bring food keep the hostages alive.

Meanwhile, as terrorist bomber al-Megrahi was deplaning to a hero’s welcome, the Swiss president was in Tripoli to deliver an “official and public apology for the unjustified and unnecessary arrest” of Hannibal and his missus. The Swiss newspaper Le Temps said, “In this crisis Switzerland loses more than honor. The country has slowly taken stock of its powerlessness.” Of course, the powerlessness is self-inflicted.

While Europe’s ruling parties quake in the shadow of Gaddafi, their constituents are getting fed up. The three Scottish opposition parties, which control 129 of the 176 seats in the Scottish Parliament, are threatening a vote of no confidence if Scotland’s Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill (who ordered the release of al-Megrahi) does not resign.

Twenty years ago, President Ronald Reagan responded to Gaddafi’s terrorist attacks against American military and civilian targets in Europe by sending U.S. attack aircraft to bomb the Libyan capital, its terrorist training camps and to sink what passed for its navy. It’s believed Gaddafi’s 15-month-old adopted daughter was killed in the raid. France, Spain and Italy refused to allow U.S. warplanes to pass through their airspace. In fact, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalgam recently admitted that while he was serving as Gaddafi’s ambassador to Rome, Italy’s government warned him of the impending U.S. attack. “I don’t think I am revealing a secret if I announce that Italy informed us…that there would have been an aggression against Libya,” he told the press.

Gaddafi seems to be begging for another lesson. But Europe craves Libyan oil and the U.S. no longer produces Ronald Reagans. Gaddafi and his like will flourish in this less than brave new world.