Speaker Boehner chasing after his fig leaf

The Speaker and the nutty conservatives who lead him continue to drag the rest of America further into the hole they’ve been digging.  Last night the House again failed to come up with a plan to lift the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown- so they basically threw the mess into the Senate’s lap and went homeBoehnerCantorFigLeaf

The World of Justice Scalia

Here’s a well-informed Supreme Court Justice of the United States.  According to a New York Magazine article, Justice Scalia only reads The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times.  He admits he gets most of his news from talk radio and his favorite host is Bill Bennett.Scalia

*update: Be sure to read Justice Scalia’s answer to why he became an avid hunter.  Scalia recounts when his grandfather and namesake Antonino became too old to go out into the woods, he would sit on the back porch and shoot rabbits who ventured out in the vegetable garden.  When the interviewer suggests this isn’t a very sporting way to hunt, Scalia excuses it because his grandfather was 85 at the time.  I wonder if Justice Scalia will be metaphorically shooting defenseless things from the Court bench in his old age…

*update #2: “… the only heroic opinion I ever issued— was my statement refusing to recuse”,  Justice Scalia said of his decision not to recuse himself from the case which involved former Vice-president Cheney, his hunting buddy.  If I can find the cartoon I did about that case, I’ll post it soon.

Found it!  From 2004:ScaliaResponseRecusalSM

GOP proposes to open parts of the government

We’re in day 2 of the Government Shutdown.  The Republicans are trying to change the narrative from the fact they caused the shutdown over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), so they’re proposing to open parts of the governments to appeal to certain groups of voters.  PanderBears

Another mass shooting- this time in Washington, DC

Another mass shooting in the United States.  If I sound weary, it’s because I am.  Although it’s early and details about the shooter are still emerging, the common ingredients are all there: easy access to guns, previous gun-related arrests, the powerful gun lobby, mental illness, and  violent video games.  Here’s a graphic reflecting who commits these mass shootings from Mother Jones:Screen shot 2013-09-17 at 6.37.41 AMI guess they forgot to include a graphic showing the male/female ratio.