PRELIMINARY FINDING: FALSE
With the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the low approval ratings of Putin, Biden, and the Democrats, the Biden administration and its partisan extremist supporters have been pushing the false narrative that the price of gas and the price of other consumer products were not increasing until after Putin had invaded Russia.
A review of historical news footage over the last couple of years however tells a very different story. According to mainstream news outlet coverage of economic issues over the last 2 years, gas prices, which are often the canary in the coal mine for inflation, first began increasing in the week after Biden was sworn in President of the US. There are a number of reasons for this.
During the 2020 campaign both Biden and the Democratic Party vowed to destroy and exterminate the US oil industry.
According to The Hill, Trump tried to take advantage of the Biden attack on the US oil industry and the majority of Democrats supported the call to destroy the US oil industry.
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/522839-press-joe-biden-drops-bomb-on-oil-industry
During the campaign, Biden said during the 2020 debates he would exterminate the oil industry. The comment led to Biden losing the nation’s most important oil states, including Texas and Alaska. In fact a review of the 2020 election results shows Biden losing in nearly all of the major US oil producing states.
Clips of Biden’s debate comments are still up on Youtube despite being censored from Democrat echo chamber apps.
During the first couple of weeks of his administration, Biden proceeded to carry out his promise to rid America of its oil industry. Biden pauses oil and gas leases, cuts subsidies in "bold" climate steps
Early in the first term of his administration, Biden immediately cancelling US oil and gas leases. Biden unveils climate change plan, halts new oil and gas leases on federal land
According to mainstream reports the effects on industries outside of the oil industry were near immediate:
CNN also covered Biden’s cancellation of oil and gas leases. In fact, according to several CNN reports, Democrats across the country, including here in LA County celebrated the start of the destruction of the US oil industry.
After the cancellations, America’s most important oil producing states filed lawsuits in federal court where they alleged the Biden administration had violated the US Constitution and Due Process Rights in cancelling the leases. The courts ruled against Biden and in favor of the plaintiffs in late 2021.
In response to the rulings and in response to sky rocketing inflation on everything from gas prices to food, Biden did in fact reverse course starting in October/November and started to restore leases but the damage was already done. Another judge cancelled those renewed leases citing the Democrat’s new all-encompassing climate change law. Because of this, prices on everything continued to surge throughout the US during all of 2021. Part of it was increased regulations on the shipment of goods at time when shipping companies were already having a tough time finding workers to drive the shipping and delivery vehicles.
This inflation resulted in Biden and the Democrats having the lowest approval ratings in years. A recent poll released last week showed that 64% of American voters blamed President Biden, not Putin, for sky rocketing gas prices in the US.
Price hikes were exaggerated in California where, like in the federal government, Democrats have absolute control of the state government and run rough shod on all other parties and interests in the state. In the after math of the 2020 elections the state’s legislative Democrats and the state’s Democratic governor proceeded to impose new extremist and highly partisan laws. Among the new legislation was .75 cent tax hike which most of the state’s other political parties had joined forces, unsuccessfully, to block due to the harm it would cause to the state economy. The tax was passed anyway when the Democrats eliminated the right of minority parties to hold up or even question the majority party’s legislative agenda.
In early 2022, as predicted by Whittier 360 last year in 2021, Russia launched a massive invasion of Ukraine, potentially creating the opening phase of World War III. The invasion was likely caused by Putin’s low approval ratings in his own country so he invaded Ukraine to try and distract his own people from his failure as a national leader. Biden and the Democrats have been putting out talking points since the invasion falsely claiming that all of the price hikes in the US, including skyrocketing gas prices were caused exclusively by Russia and that neither Biden nor Congressional or legislative Democrats played any role in the inflation crises in the US. But the facts are clear and the facts are supported by news reports throughout the year 2021 that gas prices were skyrocketing the US and in California in particular for at least a year prior to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Figures show that the US imports less than 8% of its oil from Russia so Russia's role as the primary cause of gas price hikes in the US is virtually non existent. However we do receive most of our oil from Canada (up to 80% of all imported oil and gas comes from Canada) so when the Freedom Convoy thing was happening there, it did worsen the price hikes at the gas stations.
Our final determination. Democrat partisans are spreading claims on social media and on echo chamber apps that gas prices in America were not going up until after Russia invaded Ukraine and that neither Biden nor Congressional and state legislative Democrats played any role at all in causing inflation with its accompanying jumps in gas prices. All the evidence proves this claim, by the Democrats, is false information that they are spreading in an attempt to save themselves from the low approval ratings they’ve been experiencing for much of 2021. In fact, Biden and the Democrats are currently doing the same thing Putin is doing, pointing to an external/foreign enemy in an attempt to distract voters from the failures of their own administration and their own low approval ratings. The current inflation in the US was not caused by the Ukraine conflict which is barely an minor influence on the US domestic economy and was caused mostly by Democrats desire for revenge against Trump and against companies that had supported Trump or that employed pro Trump voters. Blaming Russia for something they, the Democrats, did in 2021 is not likely to save Democrats’ control of Congress in the 2022 midterms. Through out 2021 the Democrat majority in the state legislature and in Congress were doing all they could to undermine and eliminate the US domestic oil industry.
To be clear what we are rating as false is the claim that all of the increases in gas price and the prices of everything else from food to clothing was caused exclusively by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and that Biden and the Democrats played no role in inflation and gas price hikes in the US.
Comments