Friday Clip Show

It's as predictable as tearing the page off the calendar. Another month, another voter registration report from Matt Schultz, another Republican press release bragging about voter registration gains.

Which means A.J. Spiker is bragging about his own team's internal divisions. Ya think those dozen primary challenges to your own House incumbents had anything to do with it? And did Bob Vander Plaats ever endorse Branstad? Those lines of people at courthouses changing affiliation to protest ObamaCare are all in your imagination, mister chair...

What else I got here: Oh, yeah. My favorite story I've seen in ages:

The Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold ‘Obamacare’ changes the federal-state relationship in a way that might end up affecting issues such as the drinking age nationwide, legal experts say.

Haven't dug into all the details yet (and as you know I'm just a clerk, not a lawyer) but I look forward to studying this much more in the next few weeks. Stay tuned.

• A twist in the local option sales tax vote we were expecting early next year:

Iowa City staff (is) recommending that the City Council at this time not seek a continuance of the 1 percent local-option sales tax approved by voters in 2009 to pay for flood-related projects. The tax, which increases the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent for purchases in Iowa City, was approved for four years and has a sunset date of June 30, 2013.

If you recall this was a narrow win in Iowa City back in May 2009, a narrow loss in Coralville, a big loss in rural Johnson County and North Liberty, and a big winner in the small cities. And it's the small cities who stand to lose revenue, because under the law only entities making up 50%+ of the population can call the election... which means Iowa City alone decides.

•  Chris Rock gets in trouble again for telling the truth. Wasn't that a funny movie he made in 2003 about a black guy running for president?

• We still want that Nebraska electoral vote. What the article fails to mention: True, the Unicameral (don't get me started on that mess) didn't repeal the electoral vote by congressional district law. They took the easy way out. Since they had to redistrict anyway, they just gerrymandered a bit in Sarpy County to make NE-02 a little redder. That Omaha TV time still looks good in Council Bluffs, though.

• And just for fun: 100 great guitar riffs, 12 minutes, one take.

• Speaking of mixing rock and politics, Krist Novelselic is another guy who does that. You know him as The Other Guy from Nirvana who's 1) alive and 2) not in the Foo Fighters, but he made a nice appearance last night on Maddow discussing electoral reforms proportional representation and campaign finance reform.

Novoselic was in New York as keynote speaker at the CBGB festival and later in the evening bragged up a chance to meet another punk bass god, Glen Matlock (the OTHER Sex Pistols bass player, the one who could actually play).