The price of gas has retreated from its highs earlier this summer, allowing the subject to retreat from the national headlines. But there’s still media cleanup needed, with USA Today recently attempting to shoot down an assertion that Joe Biden was “pushing” for $5-a-gallon gas. That analysis, huff the “fact-checkers,” was “taken out of context.”

It all started a few months ago, when Biden called the gas price situation “an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.”

While it can be argued that the meme claiming high gas prices were a specific Biden plot was stretching the truth, the facts remain that prices are still nearly double what they were when Joe Biden took office, and the increase stemmed from actions Biden took beginning in his first hours — actions intended to increase gas prices to advance his transition to electric vehicles and a green utopia. He may have demanded oil companies reduce their costs when his polling numbers started to suffer, but our Nate Jackson put it succinctly: “Biden’s part has been to constrict supply at a time of increased demand. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that’s going to raise prices.”

Radical leftists, of course, believe $5 a gallon should be a price floor. As one example, last month Bloomberg columnist Eduardo Porter penned an op-ed in which he called for stopping the recent decline in prices with “one bold move” from Biden. “As any economist will tell him, the most efficient way to reduce fossil fuel consumption is to raise its price relative to alternatives, encouraging people and businesses to switch to cleaner sources and use less energy altogether,” wrote Porter. “The beauty of this moment for the president is that he wouldn’t have to deploy any political capital for this to happen. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine already did the trick — sending the average retail price of gasoline above $5 a gallon in early June. All Biden must do is keep it from falling back.”

Interestingly enough, the proponents of a $5 a gallon floor almost had their chance a decade ago. Gas prices were supposed to be an issue in 2011 and 2012; however, prices dropped just in time for Barack Obama’s reelection, and the fracking boom kept prices low for most of a decade.

On the other hand, we were assured last December that gas prices would moderate in 2022. At that time, the Energy Information Administration predicted gas would average $2.88 a gallon for the year. Of course, we all know about the best-laid plans of mice and men, and those plans didn’t include a Ukrainian invasion and accompanying sanctions on one of the world’s largest oil producers, Russia. Despite those sanctions, Russian oil is still being purchased by India and China.

The real story, though, isn’t Vladimir Putin’s war but Joe Biden’s — on fossil fuels. The Russians can sell their oil, but Biden wants us to leave ours in the ground. It would indeed create a transition, but ask most Americans and “incredible” wouldn’t be the word they’d choose to describe it.

Finally, a reminder about the “fact-checkers,” regardless of the topic: Their job isn’t actually checking facts; it’s rebutting and silencing conservative analysis and opinion.