Brushfires of Freedom

By Matt Hawes

The Wall Street Journal covers C4L Director of Development Steve Bierfeldt's lawsuit against the TSA.  And the title of their article made Drudge!

"TSA agents don't get to play cops," says Ben Wizner, an attorney who filed Mr. Bierfeldt's suit. The ACLU has heard an increasing number of reports of TSA agents involved in what he called "mission creep," he says....

Mr. Bierfeldt's suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, seeks to bar TSA from "conducting suspicion-less pre-flight searches of passengers or their belongings for items other than weapons or explosives."

Mr. Bierfeldt, who was released by TSA after an official in plain clothes saw political materials in his bag and asked if the cash was campaign contributions, said he just wants to save others from harassment by TSA. "It's the principle of the matter," he said. "I didn't break any laws and was no threat."

Read the rest.

By cip1428

Great news.

Today I was on a signal light in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

I saw a Bangladishi man wearing a Campaign for Liberty T-shirt . The campaign is gaining world wide popularity.

In liberty

Abdullah

By Matt Hawes

If you're planning to attend a July 4th event this weekend (or even if you're just having a bbq with a few friends in your backyard), take the opportunity to spread the word about C4L!

The fliers below celebrate our founding principles and feature the C4L logo and website address.

The first one was created by supporter Craig Wright, and quotes the Declaration of Independence while also listing the Bill of Rights. Click here to download.

This second flier is our official July 4th handout, and centers on the Declaration, with a key quotation (original document in the background) framed by images of the Founders and the states.  Download this flier here.

And be sure to check our Handouts section for more C4L fliers!

By Adam de Angeli

If you haven't checked out this vital comparison of today's situation with the Great Depression, I recommend you do so right now:

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3421

Commentary contrasting the two episodes compares America then and now. This, however, is a misleading picture. The Great Depression was a global phenomenon. Even if it originated, in some sense, in the US, it was transmitted internationally by trade flows, capital flows and commodity prices. That said, different countries were affected differently. The US is not representative of their experiences.

Our Great Recession is every bit as global, earlier hopes for decoupling in Asia and Europe notwithstanding. Increasingly there is awareness that events have taken an even uglier turn outside the US, with even larger falls in manufacturing production, exports and equity prices.

In fact, when we look globally...

We may be on track for the biggest global depression in a century.

By Anthony Gregory

For the other side of the debate -- and yes, there is a debate, here -- watch The Great Global Warming Swindle, available to see online. I've been a skeptic a long time, somewhat on the fence, and then I noticed that the entire corporate-state establishment jumped on board. When Bush, Obama, McCain and Al Gore agree on something, be skeptical, very skeptical.

Watch the movie with an open mind. It questions the scientific questions on many fronts, discusses the rightwing origins of the whole idea in the Margaret Thatcher administration, explores the huge, politically funded industry that climate alarmism has become, scrutinizes what the proposed reforms would do to the economy, and shows how the environmentalist movement has largely become a political movement that threatens the well-being of the poorest people on Earth.

By shelly

Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano welcomes the following guests to the show today (7/1).

Guests:

Rep Ron Paul
John McManus, John Birch Society
David Bruckner, Columbia Univ Professor
Dr. Mary Ruwart, Libertarian Presidential Candidate
Jim Babka, Pres, DownsizeDC.org

Tune in at 2pm EST for another power hour of liberty!

Details here

* * * * *

By ipwnedbush

I'm a 16 year old high school junior from Eastern Washington.  I've been involved in grassroots and national politics for about two years now, and I have run across people with views from all across the political spectrum.  Whether they be Republican, Democrat, or Independent, one thing is certain:  Liberty is a resonating message with most people, given they have common sense.  Leading and convincing them to act on beliefs, however, requires a whole separate bag of tricks.  Many get discouraged, say "the system is too big", and claim there is little chance of turnaround or reform in government, and just go home.  I myself felt discouragement from time to time, but something has changed that.  In February, a bill was introduced in Congress.  At first, one would expect that just like any good bill, it would just quietly die in committee, not attracting any attention as the politicians were busy debating how to take over GM.  Until we got their attention.  All it took to get the ball rolling was less than 50,000 people.  Once that one person in six-thousand bothered to sign a petition, make a call, or write their Representative, the outlook changed.  We let them know what might happen on election day due to their action or inaction.  Their response?  Over half of the House of Representatives cosponsoring our bill in a matter of months, and ever-growing mainstream media coverage.  Audit the Fed has changed my perception of what is politically possible, and what this revolution is capable of accomplishing.  When you consider what we have already achieved, you realize it really doesn't take much to start a political brush fire.  Of course, we could move a heck of a lot faster with more help, but nonetheless we are moving towards victory.  We can reign in the 545.  I am convinced The Revolution and the ideas of liberty can and will prevail.

By Matt Hawes

In his op-ed in today's Washington Times, Congressman Paul presents his case for a truly conservative foreign policy, and lays out five principles that would keep us safe and respected as we interact with the rest of the world.

There is no area in which Republicans have further strayed from our traditions than in foreign affairs.

Generations of conservatives followed the great advice of our Founding Fathers and pursued a restrained foreign policy that rebuffed entangling alliances and advised America, in the words of John Quincy Adams, not to "go abroad looking for dragons to slay."...

Unfortunately, our foreign policy is undermining our security. We have more than 700 military installations in 135 countries around the globe. We have 50,000 troops in Germany, 30,000 in Japan, and 25,000 in South Korea. Worse, we have our brave men and women bogged down occupying Iraq and Afghanistan in the midst of ethnic strife and civil war.

We spend more than $1 trillion per year on our foreign policy, and our military is stretched thin. We can no longer afford to be the world's policeman. We must bring our troops home from around the world, cut overseas spending and strengthen our national defense....

Read the rest.  (Thanks to Nancy.)

Update: The article is also appearing in the print edition of today's Times. It has a prime location on page A4, in their "Perspectives" section.

By Doug Bandow

The Caucasus is heating up again.   Reports the Times of London:

Russia was accused of stoking tensions with Georgia yesterday as it mounted a huge military exercise, in an ominous echo of last summer's war. Thousands of troops and hundreds of armoured vehicles began the "Caucasus 2009" manoeuvres across southern Russia, close to the border with Georgia.

Soldiers based in the Georgian breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia were also taking part, as well as elements of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the air force and the elite airborne troops.

Lieutenant-Colonel Andrei Bobrun, a Russian military spokesman, said: "The aim of the exercises is to establish the state of battle readiness and troop mobilisation deployed in Russia's southwest region." The military held similar drills before the war between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia last August. The Kremlin later defied international pressure and recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

The latest war games are Russia's largest since the conflict and are being overseen directly by General Nikolai Makarov, the Chief of General Staff. The Defence Ministry said that 8,500 troops, 200 tanks, 450 armoured vehicles and 250 artillery pieces were involved in the exercises, which last until July 6, the day on which President Obama is due to arrive in Moscow on his first official visit to Russia.

Georgia accused Moscow of "playing with fire" by staging the event so close to the conflict zone. Alexander Nalbandov, the Deputy Foreign Minister, said: "This is aimed at further increasing tensions in the region."

There are lots of reasons to criticize Russia for its domestic political practices as well as brutal attack on Georgia last year.  But the latter's record when it comes to opposition rights and press freedom actually isn't that good.  There's also more than a little evidence to suggest that Tbilisi started last summer's brawl.  Washington need not choose sides among these two states.

In any case, there's no reason for the U.S. to put the lives, liberty, and wealth of Americans at risk by getting involved between the two potential combatants.  We should sympathize with the plight of the Georgian people, with a bad government at home and a threatening government next door.  However, that doesn't warrant bringing Georgia into NATO or extending a unilateral American security guarantee.  Alliances and defense commitments should be used to protect Americans, not other peoples, no matter how friendly they might be.  That's especially true when the U.S. is facing a nuclear power determined to protect its own border half a world away.  Put bluntly:  it's time for America to defend America, not the rest of the world.

Doug Bandow, American Conservative Defense Alliance

By Andrew Ward

Fox News' Judson Berger covers Ron Paul's successful efforts to gain bipartisan Congressional support for HR 1207, The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009.

Mr. Popular? Ron Paul Wins Supporters to Fed Sunshine Bill

All of a sudden, Congress is paying close attention to Ron Paul.

The feisty congressman from Texas, whose insurgent "Ron Paul Revolution" presidential campaign rankled Republican leaders last year, now has the GOP House leadership on his side -- backing a measure that generated paltry support when he first introduced it 26 years ago.

Paul, as of Tuesday, has won 245 co-sponsors to a bill that would require a full-fledged audit of the Federal Reserve by the end of 2010.

Read the rest here.