Given the paucity of issues so far in the GOP/TP debates, it looks like it’s up to us – the viewers and listeners – to chip in some subjects more worthy of the candidate’s discussions. I mean beyond abortion, who’s a politician and who’s not, who hired/laid off more state workers, whose book sold more copies, who had illegals mowing the law, etc.

Well, a barnburner surfaced this week. This one ought to bring out the Hellfire and brimstone response Rick Perry is known for down home.

Texas jails have decided to stop serving prisoners lunch on weekends. That’s right! Just two meals a day from now on. Tighten up! Matter of fact, the Texas Dept. Of Criminal Justice has already made the cut.

Seems Texas is trying to save money. Going lunch-less, it’s claimed, will cut about $3 million in the current fiscal year. I’d guess, from the current prison population in Texas, they’ll also loose about 300,000 pounds in the same length of time. Smaller prisoners means more in a cell. Now that’s saving!

What used to be weekend breakfast is now called “brunch” and is available from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. with dinner from 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. So, it seems at least in Texas, when they say “belt tightening,” they really mean “belt tightening.”

Now, sometime back, Perry got all over ol’ Mitt Romney about having illegal immigrants mowing his lawn. Or lawns, as the Romney case may be Mitt, of course, denied it. Seems the illegals contracted with somebody else. So Mitt puffed right up and said, “I told them I couldn’t have illegals working on my lawn because I’m running for public office.”

Not because employment of illegals is, well, illegal. Not because we have laws prohibiting such situations. Not that it was morally wrong. No, as Mitt said exactly, they can’t work here “because I’m running for public office.”

Now that’s having your priorities straight and your moral bar set high!

But now the shoe’s on the other right foot. Now Mitt can go after Rick on the internationally important controversy that illegals in Perry’s temporary care are being deprived of lunch. They’ve got to go for a minimum of eight hours each Saturday and Sunday without food and nourishment.

This is no mere lawn mowing situation. No, Sir. We’re talking depriving people of life, liberty and – well – peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a timely manner. Given the importance of what the eight Republican candidates have talked about so far in their nationally-televised debates, this subject ranks right up there.

I expect Newt to quote from the Federalist Papers; Ron Paul to draw strict Constitutional comparisons; Santorum will go straight for the Un-American denial of the right to adequate amounts of tuna; Cain will produce a 3-3-3 approach showing pizza would be a good economical lunch replacement. And Michelle? Well, she’ll just have to help her husband get a contract to teach those hungry prisoners how to pray themselves full.

Yep, it doesn’t get any more exciting than this. What a country!

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