Most notably, Karl Rove, who usually can muster a bit of humor and restraint when he attacks Obama, seemed particularly unnerved by O’Donnell’s victory and by what has obviously become an uncontrollable grassroots movement intent on taking over the GOP.

Rove’s rant and other GOP-establishment tantrums like Crist’s switch to Independent, Murkowski’s possible write-in candidacy, and the refusals of many incumbent Republican losers to endorse the Tea Party-backed winners reveal an uneasy alliance within the GOP.

To their credit, Tea Partiers across the country recognized early on that forming a third party would be defeatist. Instead, they chose the most expedient route they could find to halt the juggernaut of the nanny State:   reforming the Republican Party, the party of small government, now a shadow of its former self.

Everyone knows Washington Republicans lost their credibility and their footing while reaching across the aisle one too many times. Republican voters grew weary of Republican excuses for supporting left-leaning legislation after left-leaning legislation from TARP and ObamaCare to cap-and-tax.

The fact that the first bailout was ushered in by a Republican administration (and supported by the GOP’s presidential candidate, McCain) was not lost on the Tea Partiers. McCain was defeated by a man who promised there would be “change” in Washington. Unfortunately, that change went in the wrong direction — too far left, way too fast. High unemployment, a $1.4 trillion deficit and socialized medicine scared even the Independents, who quickly aligned with the Tea Partiers. No one likes high taxes and inflation.

Both parties in Washington should beware:  Voters are not willing to accept the status quo anymore. As one caller to Rush Limbaugh’s show put it:  The Tea Party movement is less about an anti-establishment sentiment than it is a rejection of Keynesian economics. This is true even if rejection of Keynes manifests itself as a rejection of government largess. The Tea Partiers want the government to stop spending their money recklessly.

Sure, not all Tea Partiers agree on everything — some are social conservatives and some are libertarians, some put God first while some are atheists — but they are all in agreement about one thing:  the urgent need to fight for liberty against the ruling-class statists. They know, implicitly or explicitly, that defending liberty means fighting for economic freedom, which means fighting to save capitalism — the freest economic system on Earth.

Tea Partiers are a diverse bunch. But somehow, in spite of decades of progressive education, they understand that socialism is not compatible with capitalism. They also know that a government intent on lording over its citizens or trampling on Constitutional rights naturally wants deficit spending to be okay. They know it’s in the Washington politico’s interest to keep implementing more and more welfare programs both domestically and abroad. But they couldn’t care less about what Washington politicos want now. Or, as one O’Donnell volunteer put it:  “We could care less about the Republican Party. We want our government back.”

The stakes are too high, and the People don’t know who they can trust anymore. But since they have to trust somebody, they will go with anybody new who espouses free-market principles and fights for what the GOP used to stand for — limited government.

This is also why the People will vote for inexperienced self-made millionaires and billionaires. The People like business, and they like successful entrepreneurs. Business means jobs. Big business means more jobs. If a new candidate’s past is a little sketchy, who cares. In the era of big and bigger government, it’s a lot harder to navigate without breaking some law you may not even be aware of anyway. Issues that involve Medicaid fines, federal student loans, taxes, foreclosures, bankruptcy, or unemployment won’t necessarily cost a candidate any points; while voting in favor of mammoth federal mandates like cap-and-trade, ObamaCare or TARP will.

Most of the established politicians in Washington are to blame for the ballooning $1.4 trillion deficit, the unpopular bailouts, the union favoritism, the bloated pensions, and the backroom deals that lead to the passage of unfavorable legislation.

Of course, O’Donnell is a Republican even if the establishment and the NRSC refuse to support her for the general election. (To be fair, NRSC, did reluctantly donate to her.)

And the other Tea Party-backed candidates — Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, Ken Buck of Colorado, Sharon Angle of Nevada, Tom Graves of Georgia, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Mike Lee of Utah, and Joe Miller of Alaska — are all Republicans, too.

The question is, will the GOP establishment in Washington embrace them as their own or will there be a third party after all?

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The title of Codevilla’s essay and book is derived from the growing anti-establishment sentiment among  Americans, now furious at Washington politicians who continue to ignore their voices. Most people I know want to vote all the bums out in November. I think this helps explain the recent primary victories of Rick Scott in Florida (over establishment favorite Bill McCollum in the gubernatorial race) and Joe Miller’s victory over incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska.

Other Evidence that Americans are turning on the establishment is found in the waning audiences of the progressive media outlets, which are losing viewers, money, and credibility faster than the bedbugs are reproducing in NYC. Unfortunately, CBS’ ratings are not dropping as fast as Americans are losing their rights, but the backlash has begun. Nov. 2 is coming.

The first wave of this anti-establishment sentiment came in response to the $700 billion “Troubled Asset Relief Program” (TARP) legislation, which passed in 2008 despite a huge public outcry against the bill. Codevilla notes that that public objected to TARP “by margins of three or four to one.” Discussing the public’s epiphany, Codevilla writes:

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term ‘political class’ came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public’s understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the ‘ruling class.’

Codevilla’s work is important because it helps identify and expose the fraud being committed against the American people. Most Americans now realize the government is acting as the destroyer of our economy. They realize government is a non-productive (and often incredibly inefficient) entity whose only means of getting money is through taxation, printing fiat money, or selling government securities to be paid back with future taxes.

I personally believe that Ayn Rand has a lot to do with this awakening. The intellectual elite will never admit this–they will even condemn her as they did in a recent NRO article, “The Greatly Ghastly Rand”–and maybe not all the Tea Partiers even know about her explicitly. (Some do, because I saw “Who is John Galt?” signs at the Tea Party rally I went to in Orlando.) Still, her influence here and abroad is undeniable. Her literary classic, Atlas Shrugged, first published in 1957, remains a top-seller.

Seeing the events in the economy unfold today, I am reminded of a passage she wrote in her 1974 essay “Egalitarianism and Inflation,” (from Philosophy: Who Needs It):

While the government struggles to save one crumbling enterprise at the expense of the crumbling of another, it accelerates the process of juggling debts, switching losses, piling loans on loans, mortgaging the future and the future’s future. As things grow worse, the government protects itself not by contracting this process, but by expanding it. The process becomes global:  it involves foreign aid, and unpaid loans to foreign governments, and subsidies to other welfare states, and subsidies to the United Nations, and subsidies to the World Bank, and subsidies to foreign producers, and credits to foreign consumers to enable them to consume our goods–while, simultaneously, the American producers, who are paying for it all, are left without protection, and their properties are seized by any sheik in any pesthole of the globe, and the wealth they have created, as well as their energy, is turned against them, as, for example, in the case of Middle Eastern oil.

Needless to say, left unchecked, government’s economic meddling and expansion does not end well. But, as the ruling class are beginning to realize, you should never underestimate the American people.

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Total voter turnout in Florida was around 21% (2.3 million out of 11.1 registered voters), but Republicans outvoted Democrats in the Senate race by about 16%. Republicans definitely seem energized and ready for Nov. 2. (Source:  Florida Election Watch)

Rubio, a state politician, was virtually unknown when he entered the race against Crist, an incumbent governor. His meteoric rise is testament to the Tea Party’s clout as much as it is his own charisma. And, he does have charisma. Here is his CPAC speech, much of which he echoed in his recent victory speech:

A big surprise in the Republican primary race for Governor was Rick Scott, a self-made millionaire, beating out establishment favorite Attorney General Bill McCollum. Scott will go head to head against Democrat Alex Sink.

In my Congressional District (FL-24), Sandra Adams narrowly beat Craig Miller and Karen Diebel. Adams will now face Democrat Suzanne Kosmas.

Update:  Looks like there may be a recount for the FL-24 Republican U.S. Representative primary. Adams beat Diebel by only 560 votes.

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Seriously? Do the American people need a lesson on the Constitution from Obama or the New York Times? Don’t they get that the “bitter clingers” are not clinging to guns and religion so much as they are the Bill of Rights, which is being threatened daily by the Obama administration and its 32 anointed czars?

Where is the NYT editorial board when we really need them? They never have any interest in defending the Second Amendment. They rallied behind the President on the unconstitutional health care legislation rammed through on Christmas Eve and on the weekend with practically zero debate. They sure didn’t care anything about the rights of private property owners who lost out in the Supreme Court case Kelo v. City of New London or those who lose out every day under Byzantine zoning laws. They don’t care anything about the unconstitutionality of banning offshore drilling in the Gulf. And, despite their newfound concern with “religious freedom,” they don’t seem to mind that the Greek Orthodox church, St. Nicholas, hasn’t been able to rebuild their place of worship at Ground Zero for years.

Why don’t the NYT editors ask why bureaucratic red tape manages to ensnare St. Nicholas’ efforts to rebuild but so easily parts for a sketchy imam backed by foreign governments?

As Jonah Goldberg points out, why didn’t Mayor Bloomberg realize the offensiveness of having a symbol of Islam at Ground Zero, put two and two together and avoid the whole debate in the first place “with a few phone calls”? Instead, notes Goldberg, “It’s as if they’ve wanted to turn a dumb idea into an emotional and unwinnable national controversy.”

A mega-mosque at Ground Zero is beyond dumb. No offense to the millions of moderate Muslims who have to sit by and watch as fundamentalist freaks hijack their religion, but even moderate Muslims know this mosque is a bad idea.

M. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, writes in the New York Daily Post:

This is not about the building of a mosque or a religious facility. It is not about religious freedom. This is about a deep, soulful understanding of what happened to our country on 9/11.

When Americans are attacked, they come together as one, under one flag, under one law against a common enemy that we are not afraid to identify. Religious freedom is central to our nation — and that is why the location of this project is so misguided. Ground Zero is purely about being American. It can never be about being Muslim.

The World Trade Center site represents Ground Zero in America’s war against radical Islamists who seek to destroy the American way of life. It is not ground zero of a cultural exchange.

None of this concerns the NYT, Bloomberg or Obama.

Sadder still, as Dr. Paul Hsieh points out so articulately in his recent essay at American Thinker, this controversy has become a major distraction in our battle against Islamic totalitarianism — a battle we are in danger of losing. Dr. Hsieh writes:

All the energy devoted to this issue of the Ground Zero Mosque is distracting us from the far more serious problem of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. If this more fundamental problem is properly addressed, then the NYC mosque issue will become irrelevant. Conversely, if America doesn’t deal with this more fundamental problem, then any legal or political maneuvers to stop the NYC mosque — even if successful — will make little difference in the long run.

Indeed, I can think of a thousand more controversial issues in America that will be moot if Iran gets a nuclear bomb.

Is anyone else horrified that it’s Mickey Mouse time with our leaders during this critical juncture in history?

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It’s very hard, Mr. Krugman. In fact, it’s impossible to “understand” because the idea is irrational. For people who do not live in a topsy-turvy world where apparently money can be created out of thin air and has no basis in reality, it’s impossible to “understand” how spending more in the face of a massive, mind-blowing deficits is a good idea. When you are broke, you do not need to spend more. You need to stop spending and produce more. People being productive create money. Governments that arbitrarily “stimulate” the economy with future money that doesn’t exist create inflation, not prosperity.

I’m  heartened to see that there is a growing backlash in the media (and among voters) against Keynesians and statists, like Krugman, who believe the only way out of a recession is to increase consumption.

Finally, voices of reason are pointing out that it was government intervention into the economy — (artificially low fed rates, a policy-driven housing bubble and government sponsored entities, Fannie and Freddie) — that got us into this mess in the first place and thus it cannot be government that gets us out of it. The following is an excerpt from today’s Investor’s Business Daily editorial:

The world is going to hell in a handbasket, Krugman suggested this week, thanks in large part to its refusal to follow his advice to the letter.

Actually, he has it exactly backward. Krugman was among those who encouraged the new Obama administration and the Democratic Congress to spend massive amounts of money early on in a kind of Keynesian frenzy to shock the moribund economy back to life.

It didn’t work. With a stimulus — a deficit, that is — of nearly 11% of GDP, our economy is barely growing, while unemployment remains shockingly close to 10% of the adult working population.

Even the European leaders are realizing that we have finally “run out of other people’s money” — Margaret Thatcher’s famous observation on the inherent problem with socialism. Obama’s insistence on implementing socialist and Keynesian policies is yet another power-grabbing tactic and a threat to liberty.

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This White House-centric approach often leads to waiting (sometimes months) for final decisions on some of our most urgent matters. Further confounding the situation is the Obama administration’s lack of a strong national security adviser. Instead, major foreign policy issues are dealt with in countless lower-level meetings where no decisions are made, followed by high-level discussions involving members of Obama’s “inner circle” and National Security Council principals, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After all the facts are presented to Obama, he makes the final decision.

The authors write:

When Nixon wanted foreign policy advice, everyone knew where he got it from: Henry Kissinger, variously his national security adviser and secretary of state.

In contrast, Mr Obama has no big foreign policy strategist. Even insiders give different answers when asked to whom he turns for advice on the big international questions. But almost all agree with the following observation. ‘The truth is that President Obama is his own Henry Kissinger – no one else plays that role,’ says a senior official. ‘Every administration reflects the personality of the president. This president wants all the trains routed through the Oval Office.’

This lone wolf approach to foreign policy isn’t necessarily bad until you consider Obama had virtually no experience in foreign policy matters prior to his election. Given that context, the approach seems so naive that it borders on downright dangerous.

The article  also alludes to an unusual alliance between Obama’s Secretary of Defense and State (Robert Gates and Hilary Clinton) who often find themselves at odds with Obama’s “inner circle.” The inner circle itself forms an odd penumbra around the “Sun King,” and it seems to have its hand on all matters foreign and domestic. Conspicuously, the inner circle does not include Secretary Clinton.

Who exactly is Obama’s inner circle? The same author, Edward Luce, previously wrote on the core four surrounding the president:  Robert Gibbs, his communications chief; Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff; and senior advisers, David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett. All, observes Luce, had some hand in the Obama campaign and, with the exception of Gibbs, all are Chicagoans.

With so many disturbing events on the international scene — the increasingly volatile state of Arab-Israeli relations heightened by the recent Gaza flotilla incident, the narrowly thwarted terrorist attacks in Times Square, the imminent nuclear armament of Iran and its alliance with Russia, the bankruptcy of Greece and demise of the European Union, just to name a few — I find Obama’s heavy reliance on Chicago friends and campaign managers to lead the free world frightening.

Perhaps sensing a novice in the White House, the forces of tyranny seem to be lurking closer these days, salivating at the prospect of a weaker, more vulnerable United States.

Fortunately for us, we have elections and term limits. And this Sun King isn’t running a monarchy.

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The Dems were forced into using the reconciliation process (intended for revenue raising or tax bills) because of Scott Brown — the 41st senator elected by Massachusetts who ruined the Dems supermajority of 60 in the Senate. Thus, Dems can’t block GOP filibusters and would not have been able to pass the bill through normal processes.

The House Dems did back away from using “deem and pass” — a sketchy and obscure procedure that would have allowed them deem the Senate bill passed while not actually voting on it. Too many threats of challenges on the constitutionality of using such an ugly method are most likely the reason the Dems opt for reconciliation.

The bottom line is that the Dems stopped at nothing to pass this bill, which by their own words is historic in scope and on par with other far-reaching social legislation as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. And, they are fully aware that most Americans (54%) oppose the bill. The slimy way in which the Dems passed this bill is telling enough of their dubious motives.

This bill will impact the lives of every American and give the IRS unprecedented control and access over citizens. Everyone will be forced to have health care or pay fines. (If you can get through the 2700-page monstrosity, there are other provisions equally offensive.)

The Republicans did what they could do to try to stop passage of the bill. They argued that the $940-billion-plus will bankrupt us (further), create undue burden on taxpayers, lower the quality of health care, reduce individual freedom, and dangerously increase the power of the federal government. Objectivists and other free market advocates reminded us that health care is neither a right nor a proper function of government.

The Dems refused to listen to reason. They are power-hungry and salivating over the imminent power grab like wolves surrounding a wounded deer.

And, this is a power grab like no other — one that will change the landscape of America. The Dems say they forced it through to help Americans. They say they know what’s best for us. Liberal economist, Robert Reich, an adviser to Obama, argued that socialized medicine (or state-controlled medicine) is the only way to force the private sector to control health care costs. This is absurd, and I’m no Berkeley professor.

The fact is, costs in health care are high because we already have socialized medicine — (Medicaid, Medicare and other federal laws that dictate emergency room treatment). More government control of medicine is not going to control costs. It is not a coincidence that the most heavily regulated industries inevitably see spiraling, out-of-control costs. It’s the nature of the beast. So while the price of smart phones and flat-screen TVs go down, the price of a pill or a hospital room skyrockets to cover administrative costs, subsidized health care and forced handouts.

The abuse of power and level of corruption surrounding this legislation should frighten Americans. They should vote out every Democrat who voted for this bill tonight.

It is time to question the motives of the Democrats (and liberals like Mr. Reich). The Dems and their advisers are no longer a party that respects or governs for the people. They are power mongers, out of control, hell-bent on a course that takes America away from a nation that respects individual freedom to one that sets government against the individual by use of force.

Socialism does not work. It bankrupts nations. In every country where it has been tried it has destroyed innovation and led to untold human misery — economic stagflation, inflation, civil unrest, war and even holocausts. It pits the productive against the unproductive. It creates resentment and causes the most able to flee to freer ground.

Proponents of socialism today — the liberals and the Democrats — do not have the best interests of individuals, the American people or America at heart. They are out to destroy innovation, destroy capitalism (what’s left of it) and ultimately destroy freedom.

Get ready for higher taxes and inflation.

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In fact, the data actually shows the Earth is cooling. VerumSerum.com has a good post on the emails, which leads to another blog, wattsupwiththat.com, showing the emails from Willis Eschenbach — who believes he is the person who filed the original Freedom of Information Act request that resulted in the coverup.

Tracinski writes:

For more than a decade, we’ve been told that there is a scientific ‘consensus’ that humans are causing global warming, that ‘the debate is over’ and all ‘legitimate’ scientists acknowledge the truth of global warming. Now we know what this ‘consensus’ really means. What it means is: the fix is in.

This is an enormous case of organized scientific fraud, but it is not just scientific fraud. It is also a criminal act. Suborned by billions of taxpayer dollars devoted to climate research, dozens of prominent scientists have established a criminal racket in which they seek government money-Phil Jones has raked in a total of £13.7 million in grants from the British government-which they then use to falsify data and defraud the taxpayers. It’s the most insidious kind of fraud: a fraud in which the culprits are lauded as public heroes. Judging from this cache of e-mails, they even manage to tell themselves that their manipulation of the data is intended to protect a bigger truth and prevent it from being ‘confused’ by inconvenient facts and uncontrolled criticism.

This is huge, folks. When you consider how long the lies have been perpetrated, the millions of dollars spent on fraudulent scientific research (taxpayer money to boot), not to mention an entire generation of indoctrinated youth who think the sky will fall if we don’t all drive electric cars — this is a crime of unfathomable proportions.

There is also a good editorial at the Washington Times, posted today on the scandal.  In it, the WT observes:

“The story has gotten worse since the global-cooling cover-up was exposed through a treasure trove of leaked e-mails a week ago. The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia has been incredibly influential in the global-warming debate. The CRU claims the world’s largest temperature data set, and its research and mathematical models form the basis of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2007 report. The CRU claims the world’s largest temperature data set, and its research and mathematical models form the basis of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2007 report.”

It will be interesting to watch how the scandal will impact the upcoming U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, where Obama is expected to personally commit the U.S. to slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 17% in the next ten years to help reduce global warming. This could be a costly mistake on a number of levels, economically and politically.

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