Not Even One Week In, and Biden’s Already Pissing Me Off
The Keystone pipeline, the Iran deal, the immigration and deportation orders...it didn’t take long for Joe to remind me why I don’t vote Democratic.
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It is, perhaps, an accomplishment of the Joe Biden administration that I am able to squabble about policy differences rather than worrying about him, say, trying to overthrow a democratic election. And squabbling is what I aim to do. In fairness, bipartisan negotiations are occurring, and compromise on big initiatives is still possible. The ideological trajectory of the Biden presidency is not fixed. But we are just one week into his presidency, and Biden has reminded me why I have never voted for a Democrat for president in a general election.
Let’s start with Biden’s decision to revoke the permit granted to the Keystone-XL pipeline. Honestly, I feel like we’ve been talking about this project for my whole career as a commentator. In case you’ve forgotten, Obama supported it before he was against it.
He even went to Oklahoma in 2012 (when gas prices were high) and declared, “Now, right now, a company called TransCanada has applied to build a new pipeline to speed more oil from Cushing to state-of-the-art refineries down on the Gulf Coast. And today, I’m directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done.” Then, in 2014, Obama’s state department concluded the pipeline wouldn’t substantially increase carbon pollution.
