"Drain The Swamp" - No - Nepotism & Self-Enrichment

President Trump has not been in office for a week and he can already be accused of nepotism and self-enrichment. On his second "full" day in office, he signed executive orders to resurrect the Keystone XL and to proceed with the building of the Dakota Access pipeline. That was to be expected. But the real story is, how the announcement was made, how he was lying (again) and the whole backstory behind it. 

Let me make this absolutely clear - everybody knew we will have a president that will favor the exploration (read as exploitation) of oil, gas and coal. He never made a secret out it and he probably burnt the Paris climate treaty in the White House fireplace, when he moved in. First thing he did was to change the website portal for the White House, freeing the pages of any little tidbit of looming climate change danger, the former President wanted the US public to be aware of.

Announcement 
What was astonishing is that already on his second full day in office he came with the machete to clear a path for Keystone XL and Dakota Access. Keystone was rejected in 2015, Access was on hold because of massive protests led by Native American tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux. Besides the two executive orders, he also signed another one, which basically amputated the power of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Projects by now will be run on a fast pace, environmental reviews and impact studies were just killed by a single signature. One reporter had the "audacity" to ask the President, about the massive protests against Access, Trump just smirked and never even bothered to answer the legitimate question.

Lies
I'm not even touching his claim again, that the elections were rigged and that's why he lost the popular vote. Even Republicans, including Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan distanced himself from the concocted truth.
No the lies were more substantial and unfortunately don't get a lot of coverage. In his announcement President Trump again used "alternative facts," as we now call lies to convey his message - he boosted that the construction of the pipelines would generate  "lot of jobs, 28,000 jobs, great construction jobs.” - no they won't. According to a feasibility study by the "United States Department of State", an official government agency, who reviewed the project for seven years and released their report in 2015 - it was the source for former President Obama to reject the project - the economical impact is rather small. A total of 3,900 jobs would be generated for two years. So for a short-term gain of a limited amount of jobs, every environmental concern and the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, just got annihilated by Trump's signature.
He also falsely claimed (backed by Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan) that the building of the pipelines would increase US energy self-sufficiency and lessen the dependency on imports from OPEC. Former President Obama already did this without the pipelines, in his eight years in office. He halved the import from OPEC countries to 2.89 million barrels a day. To make the equation look even worse, 60 percent of the gasoline that will be refined in Texas out of the Canadian tar sands (a noxious mixture of sand, tar & bitumen), will not be for supplies to the US market, but is destined to be exported, according to priceofoil.org. So this is the true definition of "America First" - we take Canadian tar sands, refine them and export them to China. 
To insure that nobody from the EPA would comment on any of the executive orders, Trump issued a media blackout and cut all the grants of the agency.

Backstory
In a call to his investors after the election, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP)' CEO, Kelcy Warren said that he was "very, very enthusiastic about what's going to happen with our country." He should have been, he knew his investment into the election of Donald J. Trump would pay back "yuge." Warren supported Trump with over $ 100.000 during the presidential campaign. ETP with some minor partners (Phillips66, Marathon Petroleum and Canadian Enbridge) is the builder of the Access Pipeline. President Trump has (had) stocks in ETP and Phillips66; he claims to have sold these investments in the fall of 2016. The new Secretary of Energy, the former Governor of Texas, Rick Perry was a board member of ETP.
Shortly after the election, ETP merged in a 10 billion dollar deal with energy giant Sunoco, which was called one of the first "Trump Deals" to happen under the new president.

Conclusion
While it looks good on TV, as the new President announces economical projects and jobs, the reality is far, far away from the lies being told. A smaller amount of jobs, for a very limited time will be created. But the rights of the Indigenous People of America, property rights of landowners in Iowa and Texas, who lost their land in eminent domain disputes to a company, not the public common good as well as the rights of every environmental concerned citizen of this world, just got trampled by the big bully in the White House. The only ones profiting financially from this scam are the energy companies involved in the deal and Mr. President himself.

What Can You Do?
And if you read that in an other country than the United States, you may well believe that this is purely a US problem. Well it may be in the forefront, but the environmental impact is global. And it is your neighborhood bank that either directly bankrolls these projects or guarantees the credit lines for the companies involved - if you live
- in the US, you should talk to Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, DNB Capital, Citizens Bank, Comerica Bank, U.S. Bank, PNC Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Compass Bank, Origin Bank (formerly Community Trust),
- in Canada, you should talk to TD Securities, Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), Royal Bank of Canada
- in France, you should talk to BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, Natixis, Societe General
- in Germany, you should talk to Deutsche Bank, BayernLB
- in Italy - you should talk to Intesa SanPaolo
- in Japan, you should talk to Bank of Tokyo, Mizuho Bank, SMBC Nikko Securities, Sumitomo Mitsui Bank
- in the Netherlands - you should talk to ING Bank, ABN Amro Capital
- in Norway - you should talk to DNB Capital/ASA
- in Spain - you should talk to BBVA Securities
- in Switzerland, you should talk to Credit Suisse, UBS
- in the UK - you should talk to ICBC London, Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, HSBC Bank

Sources:  whitehouse.gov - United States Department of State (pdf) - Business Insider - http://www.sanders.senate.gov/ - US Energy Information Administration - yesmagazine.org -