Sen. Patrick Leahy was joined by six other U.S. lawmakers, including Castro dictatorship lackey Sen. Jeff "Cuba Flake" Flake, on a trip to Cuba to meet with dictator Raul Castro about Alan Gross, the American aid work held hostage by the Castro regime since 2009.  Unless the U.S. lawmakers took with them a few suitcases filled with either billions of dollars, or five convicted Cuban spies, or perhaps even both, this visit will most likely be an utter failure.

Capitol Hill Cubans has more:

Senator Leahy's Winter Pilgrimage to Havana

After a visit to Havana in February of last year, which accomplished absolutely nothing (other than a great photo-op for General Raul Castro), U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) is back in Cuba today. 

This time, he's accompanied by the leading Republican advocate for unconditionally embracing the brutal Castro dictatorship, U.S. Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

Also joining Leahy are snowbird Senators Sherrod Brown from Ohio, Debbie Stabenow from Michigan and Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, as well as the FARC's favorite Congressman Jim McGovern from Massachusetts and Chris Van Hollen from Maryland.

Once again, they'll do the same thing Leahy, Flake and McGovern have done on multiple other visits:

They'll meet with Cuba's repressors -- through which they legitimize and further embolden their beatings, kidnappings, torture, hostage-takings and murders -- then take another picture.

All while accomplishing absolutely nothing for the Cuban people.

But at least its warmer than in Vermont, Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island or Washington, D.C.