Every day I hope today will be the day I wake up and read a headline that Justice Antonin Scalia has decided he’s done enough damage to society and it’s time to retire. Whether he’s willfully mistaking the morning after pill as an “abortifacient” or he’s ruling that corporations are people and the rich are entitled to buy their government because money is speech, Scalia is a curmudgeonly, pious, and backwards remnant of the Reagan era that simply must go. Alas, today wasn’t the day, and I have a sad feeling that old bastard is going to outlive us all. He’s like the cockroach of high justices.

When he’s not making life suck from his seat on the bench, he’s out giving speeches, riling up the conservatives with all kinds of insanely stupid notions, most recently he told a room full of college students that if rich people get tired of paying their taxes, they should “revolt.” Even though I despise the man for his wanton disregard for modernity, even I understand Justice Scalia wouldn’t be dumb enough to advocate armed revolt, but you can bet your ass he knew many who adore him would absolutely take it that way — and if he didn’t, then maybe he really is just plain ol’ dumb.

After watching the events of the last couple weeks play themselves out in Nevada, it’s very clear that there is a small but dangerous fringe faction of the right-wing that is not feeling any desire to play by the normal rules of our society. The armed morons that showed up to support a tax dodger continue to dodge is taxes clearly feel that the American Revolution wasn’t a one-time thing the Founders decided to go through in order to establish our country, but instead is some kind of template for shaping society. It’s 2014 and there are still assholes who think we should vote with bullets instead of ballots, and these same people idolize Justice Scalia for his stances he’s taken on everything from abortion to gun control.

How could Scalia not understand how dangerous it is to use rhetoric like “revolt” in his speeches? At the very least he could insert the word “peacefully” or “civilly” before the word “revolt,” but he didn’t do that. I maintain he let his phraseology be as vague as possible intentionally. The man obviously has a barge-sized ego and he knows the way to continue to ingratiate himself upon these backyard commandos and wannabe-patriots is to use 18th century rhetoric every chance he gets.

"See if you want to live in a major city in Colorado, where there's head shops popping up on every corner and people flying into your airport just to come and get high," Christie said during his monthly "Ask the Governor" radio show, according to CNN. "To me, it's just not the quality of life we want to have here in the state of New Jersey and there's no tax revenue that's worth that."

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Business climate: It turns out Colorado is a great place for business, ranking seventh out of the 50 states in a 2013 study from CNBC that took into consideration metrics like economy, infrastructure and the cost of doing business. New Jersey came in 42nd. Forbes agrees, listing Colorado as the fifth best state for "business and careers." New Jersey comes in 32nd on the Forbes list.

Economic growth and job creation: FreeEnterprise.com gathered data on just how well the 50 states do at creating jobs and fostering economic growth. They ranked Colorado second in the nation for innovation and entrepreneurship (New Jersey was 14th), 14th in economic performance (New Jersey came in at 33rd), and eighth for business climate (New Jersey was 49th).

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General well-being: The health care company Healthways partnered up with Gallup in 2013 to evaluate well-being across the United States. Looking at residents' habits and behavior, emotional and physical health, work environments and more, they determined that Colorado ranks seventh in overall well-being. New Jersey comes in 23rd.

Neb. law officials: Colo. should help cover cost of local drug enforcement

LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska law officers have expressed frustration with the increasing cases of drug enforcement since Colorado legalized recreational marijuana on Jan. 1.

Officers across the border in Colorado’s neighboring state are upset that Nebraska taxpayers are left with the expense of jailing, prosecuting and defending people arrested on possession of pot brought over from Colorado, according to the Omaha World-Herald. Rather, law enforcement suggested Colorado taxpayers foot the bill.

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Anthony Schutz, an associate professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law in Lincoln, told the Omaha World-Herald there may be other options than suing, like getting Colorado to share some of the marijuana tax revenue.

Another option, he said, would be for the federal government to shut down recreational pot sales across the nation.

The real reason conservative media is flipping out is that CBS hired Colbert clearly uncaring about any potential Republican and conservative backlash. I am positive that they discussed it in their meetings. After all, O’Reilly is right to point out that uber-conservatives probably really hate Colbert, so it stands to reason that any conservatives in Letterman’s current audience might be turned off by the new host. However, let’s be real, shall we? Letterman himself is a pretty progressive guy, and he has had his own run-ins with the conservative outrage machine when he had the gall to make fun of Sarah Palin and her family. So how many conservatives do you think really watch Letterman to begin with?

In point of fact, CBS’ hiring of Stephen Colbert proves just how completely irrelevant Fox News is to mainstream America, and that is the central issue driving the gargantuan levels of outrage and ire aimed at Colbert as soon-to-be new bosses. I don’t know what they think CBS should have done — hire someone from among their ranks? I hate to break it to them but there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of conservative “comedians” breaking into the big time: jokes need to be rooted in a fundamental truth in order to be funny. Not just fundamental, but universal. The entire conservative/Republican movement of the last 30 years has been an effort in walling themselves off from objective truth — because you know, “librul meediuhh biass” — and indeed from the rest of us Americans who don’t agree with their ideologies.

You know, it’s funny when Fox News crows about having the highest ratings of any cable news outlet. First of all, there are really only three of them, and CNN is so chock-full of derp these days that the only time you watch it is if you’re in an airport and you don’t have to shit so you’re stuck at the bar watching it. MSNBC is Fox’s ideological counterpart, but they don’t seem to have the same ability to toss out every scrap of unbiased journalistic credibility they have to just pound away at an entrenched, fringe philosophy. It’s funny to me that no one ever calls out Fox News’ ratings for what I’d call the “Howard Stern Effect,” meaning that when the radio and comedic icon was rising to the top, he was pulling in huge ratings, due in large part to people who actually hated him.

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CBS didn’t care about any conservative fallout because they knew that the people who watch Fox News simply wouldn’t be watching their network once the late local news came on anyway. Bill O’Reilly and his fellow conservatives are terrified because between Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel and Conan O’Brien, there’s nary a conservative among them. They’re all true comedians and therefore will have no problem lambasting the left when necessary, but represented within the current stable of late night hosts (hey TV execs, on a side note: Can we get a female on one of the big late night shows, please?) is the unflinching reality that conservatism in America is not the mainstream, and the mainstream doesn’t really care how much the right freaks out about anything — from Benghazi to blowjobs to late night hosts — because that’s all the right does now: Freak out about stuff.

The Republicans just want war. They may use platitudes about securing freedom and how freedom isn’t free and such, but in the end, they want war. They get off on it. They want to see all those fancy expensive war machines we’ve pumped obscene amounts of money into building used, and goddamnit we’re just not using them enough, in their estimation. Forget that the country is already sick and tired of wars of choice. Forget that most of us don’t believe we have a moral obligation to do anything other than be an active participant in coalition-style, diplomacy-first, economic sanctions next, and war as an absolute last resort. Brooks and his ilk just don’t believe America is at its best unless it’s terrorizing small brown people in small brown countries, and that’s why Obama — who finished Bush and Cheney’s mission in Iraq, will oversee the end of the Afghanistan War, and who ordered the raid on our number one enemy is “weak” in their eyes.

Look at how they are falling over themselves to kiss up to a former KGB thug like Vladimir Putin. It absolutely makes sense when you realize Putin is Russia’s George W. Bush of course. Neocons like Brooks just love leaders who eschew public opinion and do whatever the fuck they want. Now, if a chief executive wields his executive powers and delays small portions of a health care reform law that’s an impeachable offense and that man is a tyrant. But waving his country’s dick around and sticking it into the world’s mashed potatoes? That’s just how strong virile men run the world! So even though Putin is indeed a remnant of the USSR that they all seem to think still exists, the right-wing just can’t wait to line up to give Putin a handy.

Brooks went on to ask, “Is he tough enough to stand up to somebody like Assad or somebody like Putin? I think a lot of the rap is unfair, but certainly in the Middle East there is an assumption that he’s not tough enough.” First of all David does not in fact feel the rap is unfair. Why? Because he made sure to ask the leading rhetorical question about whether Obama is strong enough to stand up to someone like Assad or Putin. It’s verbal chicanery at its most basic. The real message Brooks was putting out there was that Obama is in fact not strong enough to “stand up to” those two leaders. Then he tries to weasel off the hook by saying he thinks it’s unfair to say these things, only to sandwich that statement in more naked demagoguery of Obama’s skills in the realm of foreign policy by talking about the assumption — that I assure you is only prevalent in conservative chicken hawk circles — that Obama is weak in the Middle East.

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By my count, Obama’s foreign policy record — abhorrent drone strikes not withstanding — is pretty damned solidly better than Bush and Cheney’s. Zero wars started, one war concluded and another that will be done by the time he leaves office. He did want to start another one, but he bowed to the will of the people like good leaders do took the rebuffing in stride. The Republicans have no counter argument for a factual accounting of Obama’s record on foreign policy so they invoke Boogie Men like Iran’s nuclear program, Assad or Putin to scare the country into thinking war is at our doorstep and Obama is doing nothing to beat it back, meanwhile what they’d love more than anything is a nice, big, fat war effort to get the red, white and blue confetti bursting out of every seam in the fabric that holds us together.