Apparently, Chicago is supposed to be buried under some sort of blizzard tonight. Which I guess is perfect for the end of the world. Or something. All I know is its supposed to start snowing during rush hour which will mean that absolutely no one will get home tonight before 8pm, because despite having snow every single winter, everyone will, by now, have forgotten how to drive in it.

AWESOME. End of the world. Yep.

1. Obama enjoys doing the Gangnam Style dance around the White House when he’s alone.

2. The new movie about Bin Laden’s capture, Zero Dark Thirty, is apparently not the feel-good liberal tome the administration thought it would be. In fact, even John McCain is all riled up because the film seems to indicate that torturing terrorists gets information out of them.

3. Lots of people joined the NRA this week.

4. The New York Times has finally joined the ranks of the hipster racists.

5. The Teachers Unions are very sad about what happened in Connecticut. Now, why won’t you all just admit that charter schools kill children?

Pray for me, America. I don’t own a snow shovel.

President Obama held a press conference today where he listed out a number of reasons why, up untilright now, he had not addressed the assault weapons ban which totally expired under the last guy and which he has made the crown jewel in his American Safety Program. He also addressed the doomsday scenario for the Fiscal Cliff which is apparently what the Mayans were talking about when they scheduled the end of the world for Friday. Turns out, they were big on capital gains.

Of course, somewhere within the conference, Obama decided to bring up the possibility of compromising on Fiscal Cliff budget decisions, at least when it comes to John Boehner compromising by agreeing to Obama’s debt relief plan. After all, this is the holiday season, and in the holiday season, you do what the Baby Jesus wants you to. And if all of these tragedies are any indication, the Baby Jesus clearly wants higher taxes on rich people.

They understand that they’re not going to get 100 percent of what they want. And for some reason, that message has not yet taken up on Capitol Hill. And when you think about what we’ve gone through over the last couple of months — a devastating hurricane, and now one of the worst tragedies in our memory, the country deserves folks to be willing to compromise on behalf of the greater good and not tangle themselves up in a whole bunch of ideological positions that don’t make much sense.

Well, good news for Baby Jesus, then, because it looks like Boehner’s Plan B, which allows tax cuts for anyone making $400K and above to expire, is headed to passage in the House, making it just the kind of compromise that could put an end to the deep and nagging heartache that the American people feel at this dark moment. Except, of course, that in order for it to pass, Barack Obama has to pressure Senate Democrats to…yeah…compromise.

In an afternoon news conference that lasted less than one minute, Boehner said the House would pass his “Plan B” on Thursday “to make permanent tax relief for nearly every American – 99.81 percent of the American people.”

“I hope the president will get serious soon about providing and working with us on a balanced approach,” Boehner said. “Then the president will have this decision to make: He can call on Senate Democrats to pass that bill or he can be responsible for the largest tax increase in American history.”

Thankfully, the Senate Democrats are responding with characteristic rationality. This morning, Chuck Schumer, who supported this same plan when it raised taxes on people making over $250K, called the Boehner Plan B a “middle class tax hike,” which it probably is, but it’s not like Chuck Schumer is going to figure that out.

Joe Biden has a tendency to get folksy. A characteristic we all know and love.

Back in 2008, when he was still running for President, Joe made a pit stop in a nameless town where blue collar Democrats were apparently expressing concern over Barack Obama’s gun-grabbing ways, or Joe was looking to peel off a few moderate Republicans with stockpiles of weaponry to put him over the top. Whatever the motivation, Joe wanted this crowd to know that he had two shotguns and he’d go to Hell and back before Barack Obama got his grubby little hands on ‘em.

Which is good because he’s now in charge of Barack Obama’s gun-grabbing.

A lot of people will be writing, today, about how amazing a jurist Robert Bork was – and he was amazing. Some would consider him America’s leading scholar on Constitutional jurisprudence: a brilliant man who probably understood the operation of the rights listed in the document better than anyone. Some would also consider him one of the most unfairly treated Presidential nominees, as he suffered a vicious character assassination at the hands of the one man from whom it would be most ironic, Ted Kennedy.

This morning, Robert Bork passed away from a chronic pulmonary condition, at age 85.

Family members said Bork, 85, died early Wednesday morning. He had a history of heart problems and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung condition.

His funeral is scheduled for Saturday.

…President Ronald Regan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. In a 58-to-42 vote, the Senate rejected his nomination — it was by one of the widest margins in U.S. history.

Republicans have long said his defeat was a completely partisan move and have said Bork was one of the greatest conservative figures in history.

The last line is a little polarizing. And I’m not here to talk the polarization of the process. I’m here to talk about the fact that I knew this guy, and this obit doesn’t do him justice, and not just because he was a pretty fantastic professor, which he was.

I had Judge Bork for Moral Foundations of the Law during my first year at Ave Maria Law School. The class wasn’t particularly enlightening – nothing you take your first year of law school really is, until you can cut through the crippling fear of making a complete ass out of yourself by repeatedly making a complete ass of yourself – but Judge Bork himself was, when he wasn’t clearing his through loudly in the miniature microphone they force law profs to wear. From Judge Bork, I learned that necrophilia was the perfect example of a moral law against a victimless crime, that ordering a martini with an olive in it was akin to ordering your drink with a side salad, and that lawyers could argue for hours over whether it was appropriate to eat a fellow traveler if you were waylaid indefinitely, even if there was a chance you might be rescued.

The answer? Always eat the lawyer first. It’ll be quieter.

I was fortunate, enough, though, to know Judge Bork better as a person than a professor, primarily because I liked to study outside, and the man smoked like a chimney, especially when his wife wasn’t around. So Judge Bork and I would sit on benches while he sucked down cigarette after cigarette talking about Ronald Reagan, the demise of the modern justice system, and his various reasons for hating most everyone he met – or at least it seemed like it. He thought deeply, even when the subject wasn’t deep, which means he had an explanation for nearly everything. Luckily for me, I wasn’t so much interested in his explanation of Constitutional law, so he occasionally consented to me talking to him.

Like most modern geniuses, he also had his quirks, which being a professor in a school of barely 300 will bring to light rather quickly. Robert Bork had a morning ritual, on days his wife Mary Ellen (or Saint Mary Ellen, as everyone came to know her, because she really is one of the nicest and most tolerant women alive) stayed in DC, was to walk down the hall from his office with a cigarette in one hand and a frosted doughnut in the other. Occasionally, he sported trucker hats with his suit. Not like the kind you buy in gas stations, but the kind of Ashton Kutcher-style trucker hats that have the mesh in back, like the kind you get for free when you buy your first John Deere tractor for mowing the back 40. And one time, at a picnic to celebrate the law school’s Fifth Anniversary, Robert Bork noticed a pile of fried chicken I assume that he figured his wife wouldn’t let him have. So he opened the sewn-shut pockets of his suit jacket and stuffed wads of greasy drumsticks inside. For later. Or at least until Mary Ellen noticed the grease stains near his waistline.

One thing about Robert Bork, though, was how much he loved his place at the crossroads of history. I might have dozed off once or twice during his lectures on the bastardization of the the concept of privacy as it was wrongly enshrined in the Constitution’s penumbras and emanations (so, at least I paid a little attention), but never during his incredibly witty and detailed accounts of things like the Saturday Night Massacre, which he retold to myself and a few others after we sneaked a bottle of wine from another law school party to his office. Bork had been an unwilling participant – called to fire Archibald Cox as Solicitor General and acting head of the Justice Department in the middle of the night after the heads of the first two Attorneys General had rolled – and he talked about the anguish he felt as he discussed what he’d been called by the President to do with his then wife, Claire. He told the story to each successive class, I understand, on their final day of Moral Foundations of the Law, probably as a reward for listening politely to the thoughts of a real genius, and for having our inflated egos brushed aide by a man who really knew what he was talking about.

So rest in peace, Judge Bork. And thanks for everything.

If any American was, at any point, concerned that Congress was going to make a play to grab your guns in the wake of the Newtown shooting, I think you can probably rest easy. In his infinite wisdom, President Obama has placed Joe Biden in charge of championing assault weapons bans and gun law reforms, meaning they will be as successful as anything championed by Joe Biden. In other words, everyone wants it, no one thinks they can get it, so let’s just occupy old Joe for a while.

1. Not to worry, however. In the event they can’t whack gun owners for their part in an inexplicable tragedy, they will make sure that at least you can never again play Call of Duty.

2. Apparently, one of the Obama Administration’s in-court arguments in favor of keeping the HHS contraception mandate was that they won’t actually enforce it. Unfortunately for the Administration, the court would now like to know why the mandate is still in the law.

3. The Democrats were very much for tax hikes on the rich. Until John Boehner was. And now, they’re against it. BECAUSE.

4. That Benghazi thing just won’t go away, dammit.

5. GM is doing so well, now that they’ve been bailed out, that taxpayers will take almost a 50% loss on that awesome governmental investment, thanks to a brand new Treasury Department exit strategy.

A week from today, Christmas will be over. Two days from today, Christmas might also be over. There’s lots to look forward to, America.

On Monday, Nikki Haley named Tim Scott to fill Jim DeMint’s Senate seat, which he vacated when he realized that he could get a better job that pays more if he wasn’t pretending to care about the country. Tim Scott, for his part, immediately ran afoul of everyone who thinks black people should be Democrats if they want to continue to be considered to be black people, despite the fact that Tim Scott is, demonstrably, a black person.

But his term will end pretty soon – with the next election cycle – so the race is on to see which South Carolina resident would be the least acceptable replacement for Jim DeMint. Unfortunately, Nikki Haley has already oppo’ed out Stephen Colbert, so we’re left with only a small slate of famous South Carolinians.

But thankfully, it’s a willing slate.

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is mulling a congressional comeback, with sources saying he might join the special election contest for Rep. Tim Scott’s soon-to-be-vacant House seat.

Sanford is “studying” a run for the Charleston-area, GOP-leaning 1st District, which he occupied in the 1990s, said one South Carolina source. The seat will soon be vacant because Republican Gov. Nikki R. Haley on Monday selected freshman Republican Scott to succeed Sen. Jim DeMint, who is resigning in January, just two years into his second term.

In case you don’t remember, Mark Sanford is the disgraced former governor of South Carolina who disappeared for large swaths of time during his tenure. He claimed the trips were “hiking vacations” where he would get lost in the Appalachian Mountains, find himself, and return with a fresh outlook on life and a heavier commitment to uncovering the true Buddha within himself. In reality, he was visiting his Argentinian mistress. But now, apparently that his Argentinian mistress is soon to be his Argentinian wife, Mark feels he can comfortably re-enter the political sphere, at least until his next International whim takes him.

Unfortunately for Mark, though, his competition is fierce, and their vendetta? Personal.

Emerging as a possible candidate is former South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford — Mark Sanford’s ex-wife — who lives in the 1st District. One Palmetto State GOP strategist said Haley would likely back Jenny Sanford, who was on the governor’s short list of possible Senate appointees, if she decides to run.

“Nikki’s endorsement won’t be far behind,” the strategist said.

Nice. And awesome. And given that the only other announced candidate is the son of famed segregationist Strom Thurmond, probably a great shot at long-term success and the possible ability to have Mark Sandford’s new wife’s visa denied.

One week until Christmas. One week. It’s too late to find gifts for everyone on your list now. You should probably just find a Mayan and hang on.

1. Sen. Daniel Inouye passed away yesterday at the age of 88. If there was ever a badass on Earth, it was Daniel Inouye.

2. Iran has made it clear it would prefer gun control in America. And also free guns. You do the math.

3. NBC Correspondent Richard Engel was held for five days by an unknown force in Syria, and then freed by a number of Syrian rebels in a roadside firefight. He is now safely out of the country and likely reconsidering his choice of career.

4. Sen. Mark Beglich would like you to know that he was very happy to add $200 million in pork barrel spending for Alaska fish farmers to a bill intended to provide relief for Hurricane Sandy victims. Those damned fish farmers needed it.

5. America has solved all of it’s problems. So we have moved to making the Easy Bake Oven gender-nonspecific.

So close, America. So close.

Basically, no one dresses like they care what they look like anymore, right? That’s why American innovation went from producing affordable technology that worked and stood the test of time to producing sweatpants that make it look like you are also wearing jeans.

To me, this is the great crime of Victoria’s Secret PINK. Other than the fact that they make cute sweatpants that everyone thinks they can wear even if they obviously can’t, the idea of providing cheap, quality panties to women in need everywhere, should be a celebrated cause. Unfortunately for PINK, you are not, in this day and age, allowed to make cute underwear. Because someone might see that cute underwear and think that they are allowed to rape you. Or something.

It all started last Monday, when FORCE: Upsetting Rape Culture borrowed the company’s trademark image to promote the satirical website pinklovesconsent.com. The site spoofs Victoria’s Secret “PINK” (an official line marketed at college and highschool students) as a way to promote consent and fight rape. Consent is a verbal agreement about how and when people are comfortable having sex. The fake site sports panties reading consent slogans, such as “Ask First” or “No means No.” On the “Then and Now” page, the parody says “Then we loves styles that were all about rape culture. Now we love styles that are all about consent. Catch changes hitting stores this holiday season!”

In addition to merely ranting around and stealing people’s trademarks as though they have no regard for intellectual property – apparently, the basics of which are not taught in modern gender studies programs – FORCE also manufactured prank panties which they placed in PINK stores around the country.

Now, okay. The sentiment against hypersexualization is not without merit. Kids buy these undies, and it’s no secret that PINK creates an environment that markets to a demographic that would be too young to want to shop at the regular Victoria’s Secret. But that’s pretty much where the serious ends and the hilarity begins. After all, in order to actually be able to wear the panties they sell in PINK, you have to buy them, which means you have to make the conscious decision to go into a PINK store, pick up a pair of panties that makes a dirty Christmas pun, spend $10, wash them and wear them. It’s not like these panties just jump off the racks and crawl up the crotches of any young, attractive female that happens by (though that would be an awesome marketing campaign).

And beyond that, wouldn’t someone actually have to remove a good majority of their clothing in order to expose their naughty message to the general public? I mean, if you’re running around in panties that say “Unwrap Me” in a public location, you probably have bigger problems than whatever you just spent on your panties. Like an addiction to meth.

I suspect the intention was to get PINK to sign on to their campaign, but to do that, you have to be a target demographic PINK wants to court, and while it’s clear a certain market would definitely go in for some rape prevention panties, something tells me they’d be more likely to buy them made out of Earth-friendly materials at the university organic co-op.

…and feel terrible about the fact that Barack Obama’s Hawaiian vacation will now be postponed until at least Thursday.

This has been an unlucky year for Obama vacations. Thanks to a pesky election, they also missed their yearly summer holiday on Martha’s Vineyard.

Not because we want to, but because, in the end, arguments on the Internet are unlikely to produce any meaningful change, at least not immediately. Everyone seems to respond to tragedy by shouting to ban the thing they blame most for the tragedy, whether that’s guns, rock and roll, Marilyn Manson, violent video games or whatever. The problem is, the root cause is “crazy,” and “crazy” is about as easy to predict as it is to legislate. Unless you want one of those creepyMinority Report style surveillance systems where the government knows what you did before you do it because they hire a bunch of androgynous clairvoyants that they keep in wetsuits in a hot tub run by Tom Cruise.

So let us share our grief and our prayers, and move on to what our job is, namely making fun of people who think they run America.

1. John Kerry will probably become our new Secretary of State, so Massachusetts is going to have to appoint or elect a new Senator. And before things even get started, they’re already proving incapable of doing that.

2. John Boehner has agreed to raise taxes on millionaires if you will please just leave him alone for ten minutes so he can get his GTL finished. This tan doesn’t orange itself.

3. Jamie Foxx apparently does not watch his own movies. Particularly given that the most recent one is directed by Quentin Tarantino.

4. Apparently, the Baby Jesus is gay now. The guy who wrote the DaVinci Code is going to have some explaining to do.

5. Tim Scott will replace Jim DeMint in the Senate, and possibly in the minds of everyone who has suddenly forgotten who Jim DeMint is.

It’s a new week, America. Take it by the horns.