Say it ain't so, Joe (Biden)

"Et tu, Joseph?" Hillary Clinton whispers

Rumor is that Vice President Joe Biden is eyeing a possible 2016 Democratic presidential contest with ever-wider eyes. And, reportedly, with an ever-more-cynical angle to testing the testing of the waters.

That's one reason to "just say no, Joe," or for Democratic primary voters to "just say no to Joe."

Others?

Biden's possible a shade more liberal than Clinton, but no more than that. Among his various political positions, he like her supported the Iraq War. He's not made any separation between himself and his current boss on the Patriot Act. (Would be nice to hear Bernie Sanders talk more about that, too.)

That said, Biden would certainly make the race more lively.

Hillary Clinton comes off as way too buttoned-down.

Bernie Sanders seems like a scolding schoolteacher at times. (And, yes, some may like that, but in general, Americans don't care for that. See "Jimmy Carter, 1980" and "malaise." [And, yes, I know he never used that actual word.])

And Lincoln Chafee feels like a bland former liberal Republican.

Biden's unscriptedness — gaffes and all — would make the race much more fun, and spare the lamestream media from having to play up a Sanders-Clinton "horse race" this early in the contest.

And, if he entered the race, and actually got some traction, I expect we'd see an explosion of both his gaffes, and his unscrupulousness. (Neil Kinnock, anybody?)

Something else Biden would do?

Make Democrats look even more geriatric.

He's 72. Sanders turns 74 in a month. Jim Webb is 69.

Hillary Clinton looks a bit young now at 67, doesn't she?

And, at 62, Chafee's a young pup, relatively.

Let's tackle that age issue as it relates to Bernie Sanders.

At the risk of being accused of age discrimination, do we really want as president a person who will be older at the start of his presidency than Ronald Reagan was at the start of his second term?

As for timing? I think Biden has to either shit or get off the pot by Labor Day. Stay tuned.

TX Progressives talk Ken Paxton, oil, energy

The Texas Progressive Alliance prefers Attorneys General who aren't themselves lawbreakers as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff is dismayed but not surprised by the business community's apathy about the coming effects of climate change in Texas.

Ken Paxton's indictments broke news on Saturday afternoon, about 24 hours later than PDiddie at Brains and Eggs predicted.  The one remaining question is: how long does our lazy-eyed attorney general twist in the wind before Gov. Greg Abbott cuts down his stinking carcass?

Nonsequiteuse is concerned we may never get back through the looking glass. She realizes that facts are a quaint vestige of simpler times, but cannot resist offering not one but five of them, plus a conclusion, an opinion, and even a bonus prediction about Ken Paxton's pending felony indictment, words that give her great delight to type over and over and over again.

Socratic Gadfly talks about the initial rollout of Congress' "new" energy plan and how so little of it is new.

Neil at All People Have Value made note of former President Carter referring to the U.S. as an oligarchy. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com. 

CouldBeTrue of http://stxc.blogspot.com/2015/07/you-can-thank-ronald-reagan-for-all-of.html">South Texas Chisme
say http://stxc.blogspot.com/2015/07/you-can-thank-ronald-reagan-for-all-of.html">you can thank Ronald Reagan and his greedy friends for all of the mentally ill people out on the streets.  An Edinburg woman is a widow thanks to Ronnie and the new, militarized police.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Scott Braddock analyzes the Donald Trump-inspired proxy war between Rick Perry and Ted Cruz.

Lone Star Ma prays for peace and justice.

David Ortez explains what the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance is and why it matters.

Street Smart shows how sacrificing the local street grid for highways can be devastating to the surrounding area.

The Texas Election Law Blog has some hope for restoring regulatory balance to the voting rights process.

Ken Paxton and the sound of Texas GOP crickets

Kenny Boy's official mugshot

As the Washington Post notes, top-tier Texas Republicans aren't rushing to defend state Attorney General Ken Paxton, even as we await the unsealing of the indictment against him from last Tuesday.

Given that this has already been covered in some depth, those crickets can't be from ignorance of the charges. Arguably, the opposite is true, if anything. Top GOPers may well not only be familiar enough with the charges, but give them enough credence that they're staying silent. Indeed, the Post piece compares these crickets to the loud protests when Rick Perry was indicted about a year ago.

Probably, as the story notes, the Texas Rangers' lead role in the Paxton investigation is another factor muting a chorus of protests over Paxton. The Rangers are long known for being thorough and non-partisan in investigations at any level of government within Texas.

Also, per the actual charges, many Republican officials may not just believe the charges are credible, they may have personal experience with the charges being credible. They may feel that Paxton, if they were clients of his, mislead them in some way, shape or form. Add in that the federal SEC was investigating fraud allegations against Servergy, and a few Republicans may even be worried about their money.

Indeed, one GOP consultant calls him "seriously wounded" and notes the GOP silence is "the loudest noise in the room."

Update, 3 p.m. The crickets have gone away now, but state GOPers still don't have too much to say. Aaron Whitehead tosses the stinky old red herring of Planned Parenthood on the table.  The Collin County GOP does nothing but roll out tea party talking points.

And, maintaining a fairly high crickets level is the man who pushed Paxton to run for this job, Sen. Ted Cruz.

And Mucus, Micheal Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texas, thinks the reason many top GOPers (Speaker Straus top example) are cromulent with the indictment is that they actually wanted something like this.

Update 2, Aug. 4: Supporting my initial thoughts on the crickets, Steve Rep. Byron Cook may hae been among the "burned." He's one of two complainants on the first-degree felony count. And former state Rep. Bob Griggs sued Servergy in 2014 for various investment documents which the SEC also wanted at the time.

And, the SEC lawsuit lists a number of questionable actions by Servergy, including various versions of bubble-blowing. Makes it sound like Kenny Boy was a rainmaker, and that's why he got his commissions.

Beyond that, Servergy and Kenny Boy gots some unhappy investors, speaking of bubble-blowing:

Lewis Abronski, an Alabama investor, said he invested $50,000 two years after attending a lunch meeting. He said Paxton had nothing to do with his purchase of the stock. 

"They send me a letter every once in a while that tells me good things are on the horizon," said Abronski, 94. "At that time, it sounded really rosy, but a lot of these things do." 

He did not seem hopeful he'd ever get return on his investment. 

Gary Garner, another investor from Alabama, described himself as a "very unhappy" investor. 

"It looks like I will never get my money back," he told News 8. "It was kind of sold to us that you will get 10 times your money back, and maybe 20 times." 

Garner would not say how much he invested, but he said the minimum buy-in was $50,000. 

"I don't usually take out my wallet and light a match to it," he said.

Ken Paxton, wallet-burner.

Obama tights up energy plans more to fight #climatechange

It all sounds good — as far as it goes. He's toughened up draft proposals by the EPA on the next steps in power plant regulation. His goal is not only to move coal-fired electric plants to natural gas, but get electric companies to do more, more quickly, with renewable fuels.

However, while this is an important part of controlling carbon emissions, it's only one part. This doesn't touch transportation. Nor, unlike my dream of a carbon tax plus carbon tariff, does it force the rest of the world to play along.

The story notes after the inevitable suit by wingnuts in red states (cue Greg Abbott's "I wake up and I sue Obama" line from his days as Texas AG), many states that accept the regulations may go to some sort of cap-and-trade system.

Problem? Cap-and-trade, as the European Union has shown, is the Obamacare of meaningful battles against climate change.

Carbon tax + carbon tariff, on the other hand, is the equivalent of national health care.

Dear Leader says this:

Mr. Obama intends to use the new rules to push other countries to commit to deep reductions in their own carbon emissions before a United Nations summit meeting in Paris in December, when a global accord to fight climate change is expected to be signed.

But, that’s toothless.

Specifically, as toothless as this:

Mr. Obama’s pledge that the United States would enact the climate change rules was at the heart of a pact that he made last year with President Xi Jinping of China, committing their nations, the world’s two largest carbon polluters, to substantially cut emissions.

Which I noted was toothless at the time it was inked.

It’s all neoliberal at end … yes, it involves regulatory controls, but the regulations are designed, in part, to be a Cass Sunstein-type “nudge.” Pure neoliberalism.

And, per the story, if Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, really believes this gives Obama a "lever," then I've got a date with Greg Abbott to sell him.

New energy plan, old energy ideas

Lisa Murkowski and a bunch of other Western states senators want to kill more salmon, make energy efficiency upgrades market-driven, not required, and ship liquid natural gas anywhere.

In exchange, the Western states' electric grid is supposed to be updated, with details perhaps a big vague.

And, climate control measures get ignored. As does improved conservation efforts.

Yes, the bill is supposed to get a lot of "markups" to change it. But, it sounds like a pretty bad starting point.

Indeed, the "hydroelectric = clean" part of the bill comes off as a step backward.

We can do better. We need to do better.

As it is, more dams won't be "green," as almost extinct Rio Grande minnows show.

#Oilprices still struggling and will continue to do so

Yes, they took a brief swing up on Wednesday, after news that inventories had dropped, and more than expected. But, that's still small relief.

We're almost to August, moving past the peak of summer vacation season. That story above notes the world still has a large oversupply and the Chinese economy still looks mushy.

No wonder major oilfield service companies continue to lay off people. As is Chevron.

From that second link:

"We are not expecting a meaningful activity increase until sometime in 2016, depending on the pace of production declines and where commodity prices settle out in the coming quarters," Halliburton Chairman and CEO David Lesar said. "We are aggressively lowering our input costs, eliminating discretionary spending, managing our business within our cash flows and protecting our market position."

Basically, restarting work on most U.S. shale oil is predicated on a $65/bbl price. And, we're not going to get there until 2016.

If then. Lesar's Halliburton and others may get their overhead down to being able to work a certain number of wells at $60/bbl, but not lower than that.