So long, Mitt. For now.

Once in a great while, you get to witness a politician go down in flames BEFORE THE FACT. Before the concession speech, when, after weeks and weeks and months and months of him – or her – crying " … and we're gonna win this thing!" amidst doom-saying polling numbers, they, indeed, have their asses handed to them by the only people who really do count – the voters. It's always a bit fun no matter which side of the fence the vanquished plays on, but when it happens to an enemy, it's a little sweeter.

Such was the case with Mitt Romney this week. 

Mitt Romney – the ultimate phony. The guy who sent middle class jobs overseas in his past life in order to create greater wealth for the wealthy. Including himself. Which would be okay in and of itself if he hadn't been prancing about these past months as some sort of sympathetic champion of the middle-class worker in an attempt to build a new base for yet another presidential run.

And then he quit. He said he wouldn't be running after all. Which was a surprise to many, but not Jeb Bush who took poor Mitt aside recently and Just Said No – you, Mitt, are not going to run.

This is what the Republican Party has become – one of absolute capitulation, whether it's caving to the far right nutball portion of the party or another candidate.

Where have you gone, Bob Dole?

Sarah Palin: The Sacrificial Lamb?

I got a big bang out The Washington Post's Kathleen Parker's oh-so-touching article on the "sacrificing" of Sarah Palin. The reality? Nobody has screwed over Sarah Palin like Sarah Palin has screwed over Sarah Palin.

In the past, we've witnessed her rants and she's been good, saying all the right things and pushing all the right buttons in quick-hit sound bites. But if you ever wondered if she was playing a role, now you know, what with the mish-mosh of a "speech" she attempted to deliver recently upon unexpectedly losing the use of her teleprompter, proving something most of us have known all along – there is simply nothing between the woman's ears. She can deliver a line – and has always been willing to deliver the worst, most contemptuous, most FALSE of lines – to a crowd dumb enough to eat them up. All she needed was the ability to READ those lines and in doing so we've learned that she can (surprisingly) read. But when that teleprompter went haywire, we witnessed the real Sarah Palin – the shallow, idealess, empty-headed Sarah Palin.

On one front, Kathleen Parker was right in stating that Palin was and is out of her league. But contrary to Parker's belief, Palin would never have been – and never will be – ready for a national ticket. Ever. That's because Sarah Palin is dumb. Really dumb. And when someone in such a state hangs their own ass out there for public exhibit and ridicule, it's nobody's fault but their own.

In the end, Sarah Palin sacrificed herself.

A New Year - A New Congress - SOS

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven … "

- Ecclesiastes 3:1

And with the advent of a new political season, a new day has dawned in the halls of the United States Congress. It's a day the Right has been dreaming of since that cold day in January 2009 when Barack Obama took the oath of office for the first time. Yet a day, truth be known, most Republicans in D.C. have been secretly fearing. Because now the SOBs have to work; now they have to govern; now they have to take some responsibility for the mess they've become and, more importantly, for their future actions over the next two years.

It didn't start off too well for the elephants as they had not one, not two, not three, not … oh, hell, who the hell knows how many responses they actually had to the President's State of the Union address this week. In underground bunkers across this fine nation, there could have been hundreds of Republican responses to Obama's speech; each one touching on the particular issues that mean the most to each group. And what groups they are! The Tea party, the Libertarians, the KKK, even the bunch known as mainstream Republicans, if there is such a thing anymore.

Reports coming in do, however, indicate that a few "normal" GOPers are still alive, if not so well. Weak little weasels like John Boehner; grouchy old inconsequential assholes like Mitch McConnell; sneaky, whining weasels like Lindsey Graham. Yes, hard to believe, but these are they characters who have come to comprise the mainstream branch of your current Republican party.

Beyond these old-timers, leading the nut brigade, is our 'ole buddy, Ted Cruz, who was thought to have been marginalized back in the fall when the likes of old timers like John McCain informed him that if he pulled the same shut-down-the-government stunt he'd pulled in 2014, he might as well forget any leadership roles in the new Republican majority, not to mention any support at all from the party in the rare event he should win the 2016 Republican nomination.

Right. Cruz and his bunch – Gohmert, Lee, King, Palin and Bachmann (if she's still around) – are about to be shoved to the back of the bus, along with Rand Paul who is trying more and more every day to look like a Regular Guy.

A time to every purpose, indeed.

Marco Rubio: Lost, Lonely Boy

Cuba Libre!

Or, in other words, "free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, they're free at last!"

The Cuban people, that is. Not those who've lived in Florida for one, five, 10 or 50 years and think our government is wrong in finally dealing with "the Cuban issue" by reversing a policy that has failed for more than a half century in attempting to create democracy, but those who actually live in Cuba; who have, with incredible fortitude, withstood the onslaught of the Castro regime. To Cubans in Florida I would say "you're HERE and they're THERE! And THEY are the people we're trying to help, and will help with the move toward normalization. But not everybody understands this, including little Marco Rubio, who has lived in Florida all his life and is finally having to come to terms with the lie he has perpetuated about when exactly his parents really left Cuba.

But forget the idiot Rubio for a moment. What I want to know is how can Cubans here in the U.S. not want their homeland (their "homeland" – ha!) to be free? Over and over again, such exposure to democracy has worked around the world, specifically throughout Europe in the past quarter-century. But the opposition to Obama's announcement want to keep up the same old, tired tactic … "tell us, naysayers – after 50+ years of failure, how do you expect this strategy to suddenly work?" Of course, they've been expecting it to do so for … oh, 50+ years.

Now if you're part of the old-time Cuban guard, I understand, to a degree. But the likes of Marco Rubio?

For those who, like Rubio, oppose this move because the Castro regime still oppresses its people … ("Really? It does?!?! Big surprise! Of course it does, you dumbass!") What Obama is trying to do is help the people, not the regime.

It's time to drown these rats out and we need idiots like Marco Rubio to get out of the way.