Ken Rudin

After eight years of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Los Angeles voters will pick a, shall we say, more charismatically-challenged successor.

President Obama says we don't have time to be playing these kinds of political games. Was he talking about Benghazi or ScuttleButton?

Seriously, who cares about the Jodi Arias verdict when there's a new ScuttleButton puzzle to be solved? Actually, even if there weren't a new ScuttleButton puzzle.

History says that if a sitting vice president wants to succeed his retiring boss, the nomination is usually his. Think: Nixon '60, Humphrey '68, Bush '88, Gore '00. But history may not help Joe Biden in 2016.

Of the eight senators retiring in 2014, six of them are Democrats. Which should be good news for the Republicans. Maybe. Plus: take our poll, please, as to who will win in South Carolina next week.

America has rushed to embrace the first openly gay NBA active player. Now if it would only embrace ScuttleButton, the popular waste-of-time button puzzle.

The complaints begin anew. First, it was indignation over the April Fool's puzzle. Now, it's how EASY last week's one was. Well, here's another ScuttleButton for you to figure out.

Please forgive me for the cruel, April Fool's ScuttleButton, which ultimately was deliberately unsolvable. This week's puzzle is on the up and up.

It's wrong, and journalistically lazy, to lump together every politician who was ever involved in a sex scandal. Still, there are a lot of similarities between Mark Sanford and Anthony Weiner — at least in their post-scandal "script."

I couldn't possibly go on vacation this week without leaving a ScuttleButton puzzle to be solved behind.