By some sad twist of fate, Ted Cruz, a man whose face is regularly broadcast to millions of television viewers, does not possess a face that is pleasing to the eye. What’s worse, he’d now like to openly display that face to the public for hours on end: the Senator from Texas has promised a filibuster.

President Obama is currently starting one last effort for gun control, in his final year in office. Sometime in the next two weeks, he is expected announce an executive order to require more small gun sellers to do background checks, and he plans to pitch that idea and other gun-control measures to the American public at a CNN-televised town hall Thursday.

On February 10th, dog handler Robert Chaffin and his charge, a fluffy three-year-old Samoyed named Cruz, shared a steak and a hotel room as they prepared for the Westminster Dog Show. Six days later, while at a show in Colorado, the cuddly "marshmallow" began vomiting up blood. Within hours, Cruz was dead.