There’s a popular saying.  There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.  Another saying comes to mind.  Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.  Politicians are fond of using spurious statistics to justify their prevarications.  And so it was this week of skyrocketing oil prices, which have driven the price of regular gasoline above $4.25 a gallon here in New Jersey.  It’s even worse in the People’s Socialist Republic of California.

I love that sign.  I don’t know if it means you need to hit the ATM before filling up, or if the only way to afford a fill up is to hit the Lotto.  When questioned about the Biden Administration’s reluctance to permit U.S. producers to produce more oil, Jen Psaki, Press Secretary to the Mumbler in Chief, offered one statistic and two tried and true lies.  Psaki claimed that U.S. oil production was higher in the first year of the Biden Administration than it was in Year One of the Trump Administration.  That was the statistic.  Here are the lies – 1) Biden’s done nothing to discourage domestic oil production; and 2) It’s all Russia’s fault anyhow.  You’ve really got to hand it to the Democrats.  When they hit on a lie that works for them, they just keep going back to it.  “Russia” has been the Democrats’ go-to excuse for every ill of the past 6 years from the election of Donald Trump to Joe Biden’s hemorrhoids.  The Russians hacked the DNC, elected Trump, and changed votes to fix the election. (That’s the 2016 election.  We now know that, despite counting untold thousands of untraceable mail ballots in 2020, no fraud took place, nothing to see there, just move on!)   Why do Dems constantly blame Russia?  It’s a coping mechanism.  They deflect their misconduct, by  accusing Republicans of doing things they’ve done.  Trump was colluding with Russia?  No, but The DNC paid Russians for the phony Trump dossier,  while Hillary’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, lobbied for Russian companies, including Putin’s bank and Uranium One, the Russian company to which Hillary sold American uranium, and which then coincidentally “donated” $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.  But let’s further explore the lies and the statistic.  Russia is 100% to blame for invading Ukraine.  No one disputes that.  But, is the invasion to blame for the increase in oil prices?  Not so much.  It’s truth time.  On election day 2020, the barrel price of oil was $39, and a gallon of gas a bit over $2.  In December 2020, when the Electoral College confirmed Biden’s victory, oil was $45.  By inauguration day it was $53.  In June 2021, oil hit $70, then $80 in October.  By February 2022, oil was over $90, and the day Russia invaded Ukraine it was $91.59.  So if we’re throwing around statistics, the price of oil increased 133% between Biden’s election and the Russian invasion.  Since the invasion, oil is up 35%.  What about the original Psaki statistic?  It was mathematically correct, as far as that goes, but context is necessary.  In the first year of Trump, economic activity was flat and domestic oil production was depressed by Il Duce Obama’s woke policies.  Which brings to mind a pertinent Trump quotation, “Everything Woke turns to shit.”  How true.  Woketard Democrats oppose fossil fuels.  Trump policies encouraged oil production, made oil leases available on federal lands, and opened the ANWAR Reserve to drilling, industries came back to the U.S., demand for oil increased, and oil production increased to meet that demand.  Before the Wuhan plague, U.S. producers were pumping more than 13 million barrels a day.  Now we’re at 11 million.  2021 domestic production was higher that production in 2017 because the Trump energy policies hadn’t happened yet.  No other reason.  The claim that Biden has done nothing to decrease domestic energy production is a lie so big that Joe Goebbel’s would be proud.  Donald Trump had U.S. producers providing more than enough oil and natural gas to satisfy 100% of our energy needs.  So much, in fact, that the U.S. was selling oil and gas to other countries.  On January 20, 2021, all that changed.  Biden announced he was unilaterally stopping construction on the Keystone Pipeline, which had been approved by Congress.  His Executive Order was illegal, and that’s now in court.  Biden threatened other pipelines.  He illegally cancelled current leases to drill on federal lands, and he banned all future leases.  This was a big deal.  Keep in mind, drilling on federal land doesn’t mean oil rigs in Yellowstone and Yosemite.  The Feds own 28% (640 million acres) of all U.S. land, including 80% of Nevada, 63% of Utah, 61% of Alaska, and nearly half of Wyoming.  The Biden Administration badmouthed fossil fuels at every opportunity.  They have a nutty plan to require all cars and trucks to be electric within 30 years.  It hasn’t occurred to them yet that the electricity doesn’t just leak out of the socket, but has to be produced by some source.  Wind, sun and pond scum won’t cut it.  Germany tried it and almost went broke.  On top of this, Biden is trying to install on the Federal Reserve some Commie witch whose stated plan is to refuse to permit banks and other financial institutions to grant loans to oil producers.  So, after taking away the leases, the financing and a means of transporting the product, Biden’s claim that he hasn’t caused the decrease in production is a colossal lie.  Instead of exporting oil, in the course of a year we are importing it.  Most imported oil comes from Canada and Mexico.  Biden increased importation from Russia, which supplied 8% of our oil.  Now, Biden has finally agreed to stop buying Russian oil (since Russia is using our money to destroy Ukraine).  But he still won’t replace the Russian oil with U.S. crude, which is here right now, is cheaper, is cleaner, will benefit Americans by providing high-paying jobs, and will decrease the strain on American consumers.  The Biden Administration’s position is “Americans be damned.”  Transportation Secretary Marie Antoinette Buttigieg said, “Let them drive Teslas.”  Great solution!  Just get an electric car.  No solace to the 97% of us who still need gas.  Cackling Kamala Harris also chimed in, “Imagine a future with all electric vehicles.”  That’s assuming we have a future.  As FDR advisor Harry Hopkins once noted, “people don’t eat in the long run, they’re hungry now.”  And, as usual, Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden had nothing to offer.  Two days after announcing he’d do everything he can to reduce gas prices, he flew to Texas and announced, “They’re going to go up.  Can’t do much right now … Russia is responsible.”  I least he tried, he called Communist Venezuela and terrorist Iran looking for oil.  He called Saudi Arabia, but they hung up on him.  Biden could have saved the roaming fees and just called North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, who says his State alone is operating at 400,000 barrels per day below the pre-Wuhan production numbers, and “that can easily be turned back on again.”  That would replace all the Russian oil, and we wouldn’t have to beg Commies, terrorist Mullahs and the thieves in OPEC for anything.  Biden won’t do it. It’s madness.