Ted Cruz has discovered a new retirement plan.

You know there’s a law that candidates cannot spend campaign donations to benefit themselves. There’s about 174 ways around that law that I can come up with before sundown.

But, in all honesty, this is the first time I’ve seen this one.

Here’s how it works.

1. Write a book or get someone to ghost write one for you.
2. Get a donor to donate copies of your book through your SuperPAC
3. You get to keep the royalties, which you couldn’t do if they were bought with your campaign account.

And that’s exactly what happened here.  $15,000 to buy Cruz’s book as gifts.  Since Cruz’s book is selling for $17.62 on Amazon, that’s about 850 books.

And the guy who bought them?  Dr. Ben Carson’s former lawyer and campaign manager, Terry Giles.  Giles was also Ken Lay’s lawyer during Enron.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.

When people think your state attorney general’s first name is Beleaguered, you’re probably in Texas.

Ken Paxton, our Oh-I-Love-Jesus beleaguered attorney general, is under indictment for stock fraud, has the SEC chasing him with a lasso, and has now been caught good-ole-boying one of his former employees.

The state is paying thousands of dollars in salaries and benefits to at least two former high-level staffers in Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office who haven’t worked there for over a month.

Charles Roy resigned as first assistant attorney general March 9 but remains on the state’s payroll. He received his full month’s salary of $16,220.62 on April 1, according to the state comptroller, and remains on the payroll as an employee of the state even while working a new job for a national political committee.

They are now trying to convince everybody that Roy didn’t resign, he is just on “emergency leave.” If that is true, I need me some of that emergency leave because ….

“Roy resigned on March 9th. He is currently on emergency leave through June 10th,” spokeswoman Cynthia Meyer said late Thursday.

If Roy’s arrangement continues until then, he will make $48,660 for the three months of emergency leave.

The agency at first offered no further explanation of the reason for the leave. When asked to clarify the emergency, Meyer said: “I’m not sure the answer.”

Roy went to work at another job on the day he resigned and a replacement was hired the next day. But he gets emergency leave?

His new job? “Roy took a job as executive director of a super PAC supporting Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign.”

But, Roy has company.

Former communications director Allison Castle left the agency March 10, according to media reports. But, like Roy, she remains on the payroll. She was paid her full monthly salary of $12,825 on April 1.

To fill her job, Paxton hired the minister of his mega-church. Yeah, it’s a Baptist church. I suspect he knows that Paxton is going to hell.

Thanks to Sheree for the heads up.

It’s hot in Texas so water gun fights are a popular activity.  Well, up until now …

A water gun fight was winding down when one of the participants caught himself a case of bald-butt ignorant.

“The man went over there to his car to get his dry clothes and he must have had the gun so he started playing with it and tried to do this and I thought he probably had it on safety and he accidentally shot the girl in her collar bone area,” neighbor Micah Stewart explained.

The 15 year old girl was shot through the collarbone. She’ll recover. She’ll be mad enough to eat nails, but she’ll recover.

Here’s the icing on the cake.

Although deputy constables questioned the shooter, it was not immediately clear if he would be charged.

Of course not.  Dumb is not only legal in Texas, it’s encouraged.

Thanks to Paul for the heads up.

See the little off thing with the 7 on it?

Yeah, that’s my house.

There’s more on the way.  Houston has shut down — freeways closed, no bus, no school, no light rail.  I’m taking off an hour or two to check the flashlights and the pool floats.

Get your Trump Score.  It’s a hoot.

Tom DeLay, y’all.  Bless his heart, being on the take was the only thing he was any good at.  His exterminating business went belly up, he drank and caroused through three sessions of the Texas House and then had to resign from Congress.

A jury of his peers found him guilty of campaign finance violations but a friendly Republican judge dismissed the case on a legal technicality.

His one new claim to fame?

One of the most significant fights in Congressman long DeLay’s political career occurred in 1998, when the Majority Whip personally demanded the impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying under oath. The Majority Whip was successful again and for only the second time in U.S. history, Congress impeached the President of the United States. In 2003, Congress elected Congressman DeLay Majority Leader, the second most powerful position in the House.

Tom skips over the part where he put Dennis Hastert in as Speaker because Tom knew there was too much dirt on him personally to run.  By the way, Hastert was the only character witness at Tom’s trial. I wonder if Tom returned the favor.

This is about Tom’s fifth attempt (that I know of) to make a living.  His book fell flat, his first consulting business never got any clients, he tried to become real estate developer but nobody trusted him, and Dancing With the Stars didn’t exactly make him a movie star.

So now he has Tom DeLay and Associates.  It says he’s a founding partner but it doesn’t say who with.  I dunno, maybe they’re too embarrassed.  It could be the devil because Tom has partnered-up with him many a time.

I glanced around the site because that’s all my digestive system would take, but I never saw anyone else’s name.  Only Tom DeLay, no associates.  If y’all find anyone else associating with Tom, please let us know.

Now let me get to where I’m going with this.

You remember Texas Republican Congressvarmint Smokey Joe Barton, right?  He’s a man so tied to the gas, oil, grease, fracking, and coal business that they call him Smokey.

Smokey has hired Tom to do some damn thing.  I have evidence.

My handy pocket calculator says that’s about $34,000 in a month.  Honey, he hasn’t made that amount of money since he was on the take with Jack Abramoff.

Honey, if somebody has a website this … well, crappy, would you pay them $23,000 to make you a website?  And if you type www.TomDeLay.com, this is what you get so it’s not like Tom is some damn expert on websites.

I just thought you’d want to now that Tom DeLay is making a living.  I just want to spread the word so his church can expect $3,400 in the collection plate this Sunday.

Yeah.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.