Tag: bill nelson

#rsrh Bill Nelson (D, FL) tries to sell out Barack Obama over gas prices.

(Via Instapundit) Don’t get your hopes up; the goofball Senator goofball thinks that the problem is that the administration isn’t hands-on enough when it comes to regulating away all those obscene gas profits*.  Still, Bill Nelson is criticizing an administration that doesn’t like being criticized… which tells you quite a bit on how shaky Florida must be seeming to the Democrats these days.

Also, this bit from the article is entertaining, for possibly obscure reasons:

Continue reading #rsrh Bill Nelson (D, FL) tries to sell out Barack Obama over gas prices.

Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers stuffed in closet at Bill Nelson shindig.

This is all very symbolic: Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers was assigned to cover a fundraiser for Senator Bill Nelson (D, FL) that was being thrown by local real estate bigwig Alan Ginsburg.  The fundraiser featured Vice President Joe Biden (D), whose staff promptly tossed Powers into a closet and refused to let him out except for the actual speeches [themselves].  This… is problematical, particularly since Biden’s been beating the transparency drum lately; well, more accurately the words on the paper in front of him are telling Biden to beat the transparency drum, and that’s just what Joe Biden is going to do, yes indeed.  Fortunately for Biden, Nelson, & Ginsburg, neither Powers nor the Orlando Sentinel seem inclined to see whether all of this qualifies as ‘kidnapping’ under Florida law.

I know that people will find this story funny on first read, and superficially it is.  But there’s a problem here, and it exists on a somewhat deeper level than the assault on the dignity of a member of the Fourth Estate.  You see, who told Biden’s staff that they had the right to sequester a reporter in another man’s home? It certainly wasn’t Alan Ginsburg who signed off on it: as the article linked to above reports, Ginsburg fell all over himself to apologize to Powers once the former heard what had happened to the latter.  As well he should have: Alan Ginsburg’s intent with this fundraiser was to maintain good relations with a sitting US Senator and generally build links, not get swept up into a dispute that threatens to sour his existing relationship with a local paper, at absolute best.  Ginsburg is thanking God right now that the Orlando Sentinel isn’t threatening a lawsuit; and I’m not a lawyer, but it looks like there would have been at least a civil case there.   In other words, Ginsburg mostly dodged the bullet that Biden fired. Continue reading Orlando Sentinel reporter Scott Powers stuffed in closet at Bill Nelson shindig.

ABC News: Hey, about that severability clause thing…

…oddly enough, they’re now noting in an update to their original post that, contra Senator Bill Nelson of Florida*, the lack of a severability clause in Obamacare is both: conspicuous; and a major factor in Judge Vinson’s decision.  Which you already knew, because you read about it first either at MoeLane, or at RedState.  And apparently, so does somebody over at ABC News**.

Still, let me not be unkind about this, given that they actually fixed the mistake and didn’t also try to memory-hole it.  So, let me be among the first to congratulate ABC News for its timely correction to the record; we at Redstate are always happy to help another media outlet correct, and learn from, their mistakes.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Continue reading ABC News: Hey, about that severability clause thing…

Bill Nelson’s Magical Obamacare Severability Clause.

The one that only he can see, apparently.

At first I thought that the outrageous thing that Bill Nelson had said in this interview with Rick Klein of ABC News was that the Senator wasn’t sure whether or not Obamacare was unconstitutional (good safety tip for legislators: if you don’t know whether or not a law violates the Constitution, don’t vote for it).  But what Nelson was actually saying was that he considers Obamacare Constitutional, but that the courts might disagree.  That’s fine.  He’s wrong for thinking that it’s Constitutional, but it is consistent with his vote.

But then Senator Nelson said this:

“But there is at the end of it what is called a severability clause, that says if parts are stuck down, that doesn’t strike down the whole law.”

Wait.  What?

How do I put this: NO, THERE IS NO SEVERABILITY CLAUSE AT THE END.  There was one in the first draft; it was later removed; the version that you voted for, Senator Nelson, had no severability clause; and the government used as part of its argument for keeping the individual mandate that the mandate could not be separated out from the rest of Obamacare.  All of which is immediately obvious to anybody who took the time to read  Judge Vinson’s decision in the first place… which apparently does not include Senator Bill Nelson.

Although, to be fair: Bill Nelson obviously didn’t read the original bill, either.  In that, at least, this indicates a certain consistency.

Moe Lane