Mostly clear skies this early Friday morning on California’s north coast, and a bit chilly, too.
Up here, even on clear, sunny days, the wind out of the north can cut like a knife — ruins the flavor of the moment.

And speaking of ruining everything, the Tea Party has a vacancy at the top — Michele Bachmann has announced she won’t seek re-election next year, and in doing so leaves a gaping hole in the brain cavity of an organization has really has no cranium.

(Illustration found here).

Of course, in all this we have to remember exactly the origins of the Tea Party and it’s a smoker’s hack-laugh: Resting quietly in the archive is full blown proof that Big Tobacco directly created multiple Tea Parties in 1994 as push back against a planned increase in the Federal Excise Tax (FET) on cigarettes.
And the rest of the story is stupid.

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone, however, hit the coffin nail on its square-hatted head nearly three years ago:

Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it’s going.
But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I’ve concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They’re full of shit.
All of them.
At the voter level, the Tea Party is a movement that purports to be furious about government spending — only the reality is that the vast majority of its members are former Bush supporters who yawned through two terms of record deficits and spent the past two electoral cycles frothing not about spending but about John Kerry’s medals and Barack Obama’s Sixties associations.
The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending — with the exception of the money spent on them.

US politics has gotten really, really creepy the last five years, and it’s hidden away behind outlandish bullshit and uneducated thought, so much so, the crowd is over-powered by the shrill voice of just one crazed Tea Party mouth that carries zero compassion and no sense of empathy. In the election of total nut-jobs like Bachmann, the horror is not fruitcake Michele, but what kind of freakin’ people make up her district back in Minnesota?
Voters who apparently haven’t a sense of concern at all.
And really don’t give a fat-rat’s ass even about their own people, fer instance, Tea Party darling, Sarah Palin, who will jump ship quicker than you can say gotcha: During the 2008 presidential race, Palin privately said, “I just don’t want to go back to Alaska,” according to the book, Sarah from Alaska. A similar line was used in the HBO movie, “Game Change.”
There’s even bullshit talk of Palin running for the Alaska senate seat now held by Democratic Sen. Mark Begich.
Talk about some shit-slang.

In taking Bachmann’s crown, there’s a crowd of insane crazies waiting, or pushing at the wings, already feeling the glow of public ridicule.
The Daily Beast has a short list of subjects:

Steve King (R-IA)
In the decade Iowa Republican Steve King has served in the House of Representatives, he’s given Bachmann a serious run for her money in the crazy category.
There is almost too much evidence to list, but here’s a sample.
Ahead of the 2008 presidential election, King predicted that members of al Qaeda would be “dancing in the middle of the streets” if Barack Obama were elected, “because of his middle name.”
…
Scott DesJarlais (R-TN)
Scummy is probably a better word for Scott DesJarlais than crazy—the Tennessee Republican is a major hypocrite three times over.
First, he cheated on his wife.
Second, the woman with whom this physician-turned-congressman cheated was one of his patients, a major no-no in the medical community.
And third—the real cherry on this sundae—DesJarlais reportedly pressured both his wife and his mistress to have abortions, all the while pushing an anti-abortion-rights agenda in public.
The real craziness, of course, is how DesJarlais got reelected to represent Tennessee’s Fourth District after this multilayered scandal came to light.
…
Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Louie Gohmert is ripe for the crazy caucus.
Just last week this Texas Republican told a female witness, during a congressional hearing on a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks, that she should have given birth to a baby that she already knew had no brain function and would spend the majority of its short life in the hospital undergoing surgeries.
Despite claiming to have “great sympathy and empathy” for the witness, Gohmert suggested it would have been better to wait “and see if the child can survive before we decide to rip him apart.”
…
Ted Cruz (R-TX)
One of the craziest things Sen. Ted Cruz has done in the few months since he was sworn in was attempting to bring unloaded assault rifles—illegal in D.C.—to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to demonstrate the safety and necessity of guns when they’re in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
Cruz has made clear that he thinks pretty much any form of gun control is unconstitutional.

And that’s just a sample — the full plate will delivered to your neighborhood asylum soon. And as you can see,  in reality these clowns are nothing more than nasty, asshole scum suckers who really don’t give a shit.

Meanwhile, it’s Friday and the weekend looms.