White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney went on “Face the Nation” this morning and explained sacrifice to us all.

Mulvaney agreed that he knew the bill would hurt children and prevent them from having access to nutritional food from organizations like Meals on Wheels, but he wants people to know he’s suffering too.

“Yes,” he began. “I don’t have a business card to give to you today, John, because, at the Office of Management and Budget, we have to pay for our own business cards. So it does start at home but it’s already started.”

Seriously.  Let them eat business cards.

Start at about time 5:15.

Yeah, he learned all that slick from being a member of congress.

The New York Times researched his claims that Meals on Wheels and educational programs don’t work.  They found that he’s a damn fool.

Thanks to Charles for the heads up.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is scheduled to go to trial on charges of securities fraud on May 1st.  He’s hurrying some good press until then.

Last December, Paxton joined in supporting the right of a school aide in Killeen, Texas (between Austin and Waco) to hang a poster with a bible quote on the wall of the school.

After the principal told the aide to take the poster down, Paxton wrote to the Killeen school district: “These concerns are not surprising in an age of frivolous litigation by anti-Christian interest groups … Rescind this unlawful policy.”

Here it is three months later and Paxton is still defending the right to proselytize.  Unless, of course, you’re not a highly discriminated against Christian.

Liberty High School in Frisco, Texas (North Dallas), has a prayer room.  Muslim students have used it for 7 years instead of leaving school and driving home to pray.  Buddhists students use it for mediation. Nobody has objected or say anything about it.

Without warning to Liberty High School or even asking a question, Paxton tweeted this —

Paxton contends that students of other faiths have been excluded from the prayer room.  And the reason he knows that is that a 11th grade student told him so.

And totally untrue, according to Frisco Independent School District officials, who say state officials didn’t even ask them about the prayers before the letter ended up in Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s tweet.

“This ‘press release’ appears to be a publicity stunt by the OAG to politicize a nonissue,” schools superintendent Jeremy Lyon wrote in reply to the state. “Frisco ISD is greatly concerned that this type of inflammatory rhetoric in the current climate may place the District, its students, staff, parents and community in danger of unnecessary disruption.”

Publicity stunt?  No, not Paxton.  Not a month before he heads to trial for cheating people out of their money.

And there’s this –

A week before the attorney general’s letter, Liberty High’s principal had welcomed all students to use the room in an interview with KERA public radio.

You know, there ought to be a law against an attorney general needlessly stirring up hate in a public high school right before his trial on state felony charges of securities fraud.  Probably wouldn’t stop Paxton, though. Laws have never actually applied to Paxton.

Congressfool Pistol Pete Sessions had a date to talk with his constituents today and it was rowdy.

They were not pleased with his flat statement that Congress is going to repeal Obamacare and they are going to “make changes.”

The crowd of 2,000 started yelling, “Vote him out.”

Pete decided to mansplain it to them.

Sessions appeared to grow frustrated with the crowd, and told them, “You know what? I know why you’re so frustrated: You don’t know how to listen,” according to the Texas Tribune.

I dunno know about everybody at the town hall, but it seems to me that there was only one person there who doesn’t know how to listen.

Pistol Pete eats bullets for breakfast and then shoot off his mouth all day long.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

“Well, you know, I love to read. Actually, I’m looking at a book, I’m reading a book, I’m trying to get started. Every time I do about a half a page, I get a phone call that there’s some emergency, this or that. But we’re going to see the home of Andrew Jackson today in Tennessee and I’m reading a book on Andrew Jackson. I love to read. I don’t get to read very much, Tucker, because I’m working very hard on lots of different things, including getting costs down. The costs of our country are out of control. But we have a lot of great things happening, we have a lot of tremendous things happening.”

For extra credit, diagram this sentence.

And, no, it was not Sarah Palin. Donald Trump has taken over as leader of the inane and insane.

Thanks to John F for the heads up.

Yesterday morning on CBS, James Baker was interviewed about a number of issues including the escalation of war threats between the idiot in the White House and the idiot running North Korea. The issue he focused on, though?  The “ticking debt bomb”.  He warned of the unsustainable level of debt that is almost 100% of GDP (a measure used by economists), asserting that we must cut “entitlements” to get it under control.  I asked myself, “Is that really true?”  I’ve taken a simpleton’s approach to this question, just using math, not political spin.  For the purpose of this discussion, I’m going to ignore defense and other discretionary spending – that’s a whole other kettle of fish and a subject for a future post, probably after I’ve been drinking.

So I looked at a couple of things:  First, I assume entitlements to Baker mean Social Security (more…)

You remember former east Texas Republican congressman Steve Stockman, right?  Of course you do!  He said Obama wanted Ebola to spread.  He has his own mugshot.  And he was all that stood between Louie Gohmert and the coveted title of Texas’ Freakiest Man.  (You can see ten pages of my writing about him by clicking right here.)

Well, the devil finally caught up with Ole Steve.

Steve Stockman, who served two stints in the U.S. House of Representatives, spent part of Friday in federal court.

Stockman, a Tea Party favorite who courted controversy thorough two congressional terms, was brought into court Thursday shackled and handcuffed.

He is accused of conspiring to violate federal election laws during his last term in office. It’s a felony that could send him to federal prison if he’s convicted.

As Stockman stood before the judge Thursday afternoon, prosecutors alleged that the former Congressman had conspired with two former employees to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to his personal use.

That made my whole weekend.  The Tea Party Duke of Divisiveness in shackles.  I’m almost giddy, dammit.

Here’s an exchange you’ll enjoy.

When the judge told Stockman he needed to obtain an attorney by Friday, the following exchange ensued:

Stockman: You said 2 o’clock tomorrow? I should have counsel by two?
Judge: Yes.
Stockman: I’ll have to hustle with that.
Judge: Yeah, you will. These are serious charges.

Oh, I hope so.  I really do.

Thanks to Bubba for calling me with the heads up.