One thing that measures what is important to you, what your priorities are, is what you do at the very first when given a chance. Especially if you are willing to skirt morality, ethics, or law in order to do it.

The current regime in Washington, D.C. made its choice as to what was important known immediately after the Inauguration on Jan. 20. Right out of the gate, Joseph Biden began signing Executive Orders, bypassing Congress. In fact, the first 10 days of the Biden regime, he signed 41 Executive Orders, while in the same period of the Trump administration, Trump signed only seven. There was one interesting moment, recorded on videotape, where Biden says 'I don't know what I'm signing here' as he is partway through a pile of 19 E.O.s he signed on Jan. 20. He is told by Kamala Harris, Sign it!' And, of course, he does as he is told.

Don't know if that specific bit of ignorance is the one I will talk about, but it was in that same pile.

Doing any major project in this country takes a long time. There is the matter of regulations that have to be followed, permits that have to be acquired, politicians that have to be paid off, various political/environmental groups that have to be appeased, and of course, the appeals that have to be made as every group deliberately delays things repeatedly to get a larger kickback.

The Keystone XL pipeline project started in 2010, with the permitting process then. The permitting process was finally completed late in the Trump administration. We are talking a decade, just for the paperwork. I would note that the Empire State Building planning and permitting process took from late 1929 to March 17, 1930. And that construction took a total of 13 ½ months. The reason we cannot get things done is not the effort of building things. That we can do easily. It is the government and bureaucracy that hold things up, frequently deliberately.

You are probably asking, what the freep is a Keystone XL? Y'all gotta look north. Like the United States, the central equivalent of states (they call them provinces) are far more conservative than the East and West. The central provinces are (west to east) Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba and are largely agricultural. British Columbia on the West Coast and Ontario and Quebec to the east are hardcore Leftist of a sort that make Seattle ANTIFA look like conservatives. The two sides do not like each other all that much. The central provinces actually like us quite a bit and kinda understand us.

OK, some time ago they discovered that there is a multi-billion b**t-load (a b**t being a barrel holding two+ U.S. standard barrels) of oil underneath Alberta in oil sands. A rich Alberta allied with Saskatchewan and Manitoba means the Left no longer runs Canada. So the functionally socialist Central government did its best to prevent them from marketing that oil. There is a limited capacity pipeline to the west coast. And Ontario tried the same tactic the Democrats are using to block Pennsylvania oil from our east-coast ports, blocking pipelines from being built.

Alberta (and the rest of central Canada) needed a way to get the oil to market. Over the objection of the Canadian government, they put together the first Keystone pipeline that runs across all three provinces (not our regulatory problem, but they beat it) and down through the Dakotas to Steele City, Nebraska. From there, the oil runs down to the refineries in Houston and the tanker berths at Port Arthur, Texas.

The “XL” part of the Keystone XL is a larger diameter and capacity pipeline running to the United States. Because there is an awful lot more oil in Alberta than they first thought. This one runs from the Keystone Hardisty oil terminal in Alberta, across Montana and roughly in a straight line down to Steele City. That means a lot more oil available in the U.S., and a lot more money for Canadians who like us.

Now remember, the Keystone XL pipeline had finally gotten all the permits needed, had the environmental impacts signed off, and gotten the politicians to shut up with enough money. They were ready to start building, and probably should have rushed it. Now, why do we need the oil? Have you been watching average gas prices for the last year? Since April 2020, OPEC has cut output and not increased it again. Our refineries are not getting the oil they need. So prices are going up, even with less driving due to Covid. Now if a Scheiss-load of Albertan crude oil, which does not have to come in from overseas, suddenly becomes regularly available, here, it helps Americans.

Now, in that pile of 19 Executive Orders signed on his first day, possibly the one that Joe Biden did not know what he was signing, there was an Executive Order revoking all the permits that had been granted for the Keystone XL pipeline. Because he could. Remember, the oil companies had already done everything required of them to build the pipeline. On his very first day he attacked American citizens, and the American economy; setting them up for another OPEC oil embargo.

I will toss in another thing. The Canadian government may be Leftists, but that does not mean that they do not understand taxes. If that oil is not going to be sold, while they will enjoy putting the screws to Albertans, it also means they cannot collect taxes on it. There is that small pipeline to the Canadian west coast, and they are talking about enlarging it. So that they can sell the oil to China.

But that is not all. The regime and its supporters do have pipelines they favor. Turkmenistan is a former Soviet republic on the east side of the Caspian Sea and due north of Afghanistan. The Turkmens have an awful lot of natural gas. They are also the Central Asia equivalent of North Korea. They want to build a pipeline to send that natural gas from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan, to India. I have no problem with the Indians getting natural gas. I do have a certain amount of skepticism of the pipeline to India going through Pakistan as I think that they are still at war. Or at least India claims that the 2003 truce they signed was violated by Pakistan 5,000 times in 2020. That may make keeping the gas flowing difficult.

But there are other problems with the deal. Can you imagine the equivalent of environmental impact statements in Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan? Yeah, no such thing. The U.S. is brokering meetings between Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan, and Pakistan to sort out who pays for what. The pipeline is supposed to go through Taliban controlled Afghanistan. Taliban envoys are at those meetings. Which means that the Taliban is going to get paid off for letting it through. This is the same Taliban we have been fighting, technically after a cease-fire was signed last year, for decades at the cost of thousands of Americans killed and wounded. And does anyone think that our current regime would not have U.S. taxpayers footing the cost of paying off the Taliban?

The priorities of the current regime are obvious.