What is going on with the "fact-checkers" over at Politifact?
Really, how in the world can they come to this conclusion?
The article is long and convoluted. But you can tell by reading it that they came to their conclusion first before doing any research at all.
The most recent data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that the U.S. increased its oil imports from Russia by an average of 154,000 barrels per day in the first 11 months of 2021.
The U.S. imports two types of oil from Russia: crude oil and refined products such as gasoline and kerosene. Last June, the U.S. imported 848,000 barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products from Russia.
This increase resulted in Russia edging out Mexico to become the second-largest foreign oil supplier to the U.S. in 2021, behind only Canada — which accounts for almost half of U.S. oil imports.
Historically, this is a notable increase — about 28% — but it is far from double.
When we asked the Fox Business Network about Bartiromo's remarks, a spokesperson pointed to the growth in crude oil imports alone.
The U.S. more than doubled its crude oil imports from Russia, to about 208,000 barrels a day in the first 11 months of 2021, from 76,000 barrels a day in 2020.
So, they want to act like the US hasn't become more dependent on Russian oil, which, isn't true at all. As they point out, Russia is now the second leading oil importer for the US. But they claim it's not that big a deal AND that it hasn't doubled.
Then they reach out to Fox to ask for clarification. It was clarified that the crude oil imports from oil have MORE THAN DOUBLED and Politifact decided that, essentially, it's not relevant.
Except for the fact that it makes the claim true! Other than that fact, it's irrelevant, I guess.
Here's their fact-checking conclusion:
The latest data from the EIA doesn't back her up. The U.S. increased its Russian oil imports by about 28% last year. That's a notable increase, but it's not double.
Bartiromo has more of a point when looking at only crude oil imported from Russia in 2021, which has more than doubled. But Russia accounted for about 3% of overall U.S. crude oil imports in 2021 — a 2 percentage point increase from 2020.
We rate this claim Mostly False.
They rated the claim "Mostly False" because it's 100% true and they didn't like the implications.
In case this is all confusing (because it is), here's a further breakdown by The Blaze:
The fact-checker suggested that when crude oil imports and refined products imports such as gasoline and kerosene are combined, it shows the year-over-year increase to be 28%, not 50%.
But that's not how oil imports are typically categorized. Normally, oil imports and energy imports — which include refined products — are categorized separately. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, which PolitiFact cites multiple times, shows as much by breaking down crude oil imports in a separate chart.
A spokesperson for Bartiromo evidently explained this to PolitiFact, resulting in the fact-checker admitting, "The U.S. more than doubled its crude oil imports from Russia, to about 208,000 barrels a day in the first 11 months of 2021, from 76,000 barrels a day in 2020."
Really, all this is is an attempt to dunk on Fox News and claim that they make false statements so that Facebook and other social media can downgrade their sites.
The more "false claims" a site makes, the more social media can marginalize them.
But the fact check is wrong.
