Freedom Line Blog

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Amid the flurry of inanity brought upon this nation by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, it is important to stop and smell the roses of triumph.  One arrived today when the Senate blocked, at least for now, the DISCLOSE Act. 

That act would violate the First Amendment rights of free speech and free association in its attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s correct Citizens United v. FEC decision, while effectively exempting politically powerful labor unions.   Obama, Pelosi and Reid will surely follow with their usual bromides about “the people versus the powerful,” but the fact is that the DISCLOSE Act is nothing more than a scheme to enable the powerful, namely partisan Big Labor, at the expense of everyday citizens.  It’s a welcome victory for free speech and freedom of association, and a stinging defeat for an Obama Administration that manages to pioneer new realms of cynical partisanship on a daily basis.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D – Nevada), who foolishly said in 2007 “this war is lost” just as the surge was winning in Iraq, just had another one of those “he didn’t really just say that, did he?” moments.

A local reporter raised the issue of high unemployment in Nevada’s hard-hit construction sector, noting that construction companies often find it easier to hire illegal aliens.  To this, Reid bizarrely replied, “any information you have in that regard is absolutely without foundation.”  The reporter then cited a Pew Hispanic Center study showing that 17% of construction workers are illegal aliens, to which Reid replied even more absurdly, “that may be someplace, but it’s not here in Nevada.”

As noted in the following Fox News video, however, the Pew Center confirms that Nevada actually suffers the highest percentage of unauthorized immigrants in the workforce.

Is it any wonder that Reid’s son avoids using the family surname in his own political race for Nevada governor?

Majority Leader Harry Reid this morning didn’t mince words in warning Senate Republicans that if they don’t get behind “health care reform” soon the Dems will use a procedural maneuver to pass it on their own. 

If we can’t work this out to do something within the committee structure, then we’ll be forced to do reconciliation.”

Reid has threatened to use budget reconciliation — a procedural move that requires a simple majority vote for passage rather than the traditional 60 votes needed in the Senate to pass most bills —  before, but some have warned that such a move could backfire.  The Majority Leader’s “bipartisanship, we don’t need no stinking bipartisanship” moment this morning, however, made it clear that public opposition be damned, Reid is prepared to ram Obama’s government-run health care experiment down the throats of the American people no matter what it takes.

Given Reid’s anemic job approval ratings in Nevada, it appears he’s thinking he’s got nothing left to lose.