There’s a new AP story today about Jon Bruning challenging the constitutionality of the healthcare bill that passed the House yesterday. The story includes quotes from the following people:

1. Jon Bruning
2. Governor Dave Heineman (paraphrased)
3. Jen Rae Hein, Governor Heineman’s spokesperson
4. Republican state senator Beau McCoy
5. earlier versions also included quotes from Bruning spokesperson Allen Forkner

You know who wasn’t interviewed for a story on the constitutionality of the healthcare bill?

An expert on constitutional law.

(EDIT: for example, this one.)

Ben Nelson released a statement this afternoon declaring that he would vote against the reconciliation bill that the House passed yesterday because of the student loan reforms. As he says:

“Perhaps most troubling is adding unrelated student loan reforms that have never been debated in the Senate and would result in a government takeover of student lending.”

Get that? Ending an $80 billion subsidy to private lenders to do what the government already does is “a government takeover” in his mind.

As John Cole said on twitter Saturday,

“Only a full fledged wingnut like @kathrynlopez would call stopping a multibillion dollar corporate handout “a takeover.”

Full-fledged wingnuts and Ben Nelson.

Nelson argues that this would endanger 30,000 jobs, which he says is foolish in this economy. Ben Nelson thinks it’s worth $80 billion to protect 30,000 jobs, yet continues to vote against the much-less-expensive jobs bills that have come up in the Senate because they add to the deficit.

And quite significantly, the reconciliation bill eliminates the “Cornhusker Kickback,” which Nelson will now cast another vote to preserve.

I totally marked out. When Andrew started talking about going to meet with a cartoonist at the Washington Post, I turned to my wife and was like “He’s going to meet Tom Toles!” Considering Andrew doesn’t follow news or politics, I’m guessing he had no idea that he was face to face with and getting advice from the greatest editorial cartoonist working today.

To quote Bill Drummond, I have a rule – don’t meet heroes. I would probably make an exception for Tom Toles. The guy is just in a category of his own.

You can watch the episode here.

UPDATE (3/19): Here is Andrew’s cartoon from The Washington Times. And here is a collection of the work Andrew did at The Rocky Mountain Collegian that he claims got him fired. In a nutshell, the cartoons are about taking advantage of drunk girls. Not surprising given Andrew’s character so far on the show, but somewhat surprising for someone who thinks there’s a future in metro dailies for cartoons about date rape.

I posted this about a week ago but it disappeared in the Mysterious Post Purge of Early March 2010. The commentary may not be as witty second time around.

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Back in the mid-2000s, I did a show on 90.3 KRNU called “You are So Beautiful, Beautiful Robot.” It was all electronic music, including stuff like dance music, experimental electronic music, New Romantics-era ’80s stuff, and pretty much anything that had beeps in it. I stopped doing it in the fall of 2006. Not long after, some students who were after my time at KRNU started the show back up again as a straight-up dance music show. I approved. Well anyway, I’m trying to finish up my master’s degree, so I’m technically “back in school,” and I thought I’d have fun for a few months by bringing my show back. But since “You are So Beautiful, Beautiful Robot” still exists, I had to change the name. Thus was born “Ro, Ro, Ro Your Bot.”

Anyway, I bring this up because the show debuts (returns?) tonight at 9:00 p.m. on 90.3 KRNU. You can also listen online at krnu.unl.edu or on iTunes radio under “College / University” — scroll down toward the end of the list for 90.3 KRNU.