Better in their words…

JEFF CHILDERSAUG 29

Good morning, C&C, it’s Saturday! Your roundup includes: Trump announces a hundred-year oil deal giving America the keys to the world’s largest petroleum reserves, and the Times can only manage to call it colonialism; the mail-voting fight takes a plot twist so delicious that corporate media has decided not to mention it, in which one of the plaintiff states quietly complies “flawlessly and smoothly”; and Lake Ontario becomes Lake America, sparking a stirring outbreak of naming conservatism among the very people who spent a decade renaming everything that wasn’t nailed down.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

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The Monroe Doctrine now comes with a rewards card. Yesterday, social media buzzed and the New York Times reported, “Trump Says U.S. Has Deal for Control of Large Share of Venezuela’s Oil.” He’s done it again. The Art of the Deal.

Only eight months ago, the United States conducted a dramatic and historic midnight op in Venezuela that snatched El Presidenté Dictatór and narco-terrorist final boss Nicolás Maduro— and hauled him to face justice in the U.S. You’re fired.

Since January, U.S. officials have been working closely with what’s left of Venezuela’s government at breakneck speed. The day following Maduro’s capture, Caracas’s public tone shifted noticeably from “Death to Yankees!” to “Would Señor Yankee like the corner office?” The U.S. has intercepted the country’s oil revenues and, like a parent putting a teenager on a budget, is carefully doling them back to Caracas to ensure the funds are used to benefit the Venezuelan people.

Hardest hit were the Chinese, Russians, Cubans, and Democrats— all of whom Maduro used to snuggle up with. They’ve been advised strongly to “get the Flock out of the Western Hemisphere and stay where you belong.” The Cubans are still trying to figure out how to move the island.

Yesterday, President Trump threw another monkey wrench into global geopolitics and Democrat ambitions by announcing a 100-year deal with Venezuela in which America gets the right to buy Venezuela’s vast oil reserves at no cost to the American taxpayer. It’s a very big deal, which he modestly called “the biggest oil deal in world history!”

Trump posted that the deal will put America in control of more than 65 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

⛽ “Venezuela is thought to have the world’s largest oil reserves,” the article explained. The 65 billion-barrel bonanza “is almost as much as all of the proven reserves in the United States, which is the world’s biggest oil producer,” the Times said.

In short, the world’s biggest oil producer just got hold of the world’s largest oil reserves. Of course, the Times lied, because the U.S.’s reserves are around 41 billion, so Venezuela’s are +41% bigger, not “almost as much.” But whatever.

Venezuela’s acting president, former vice-president Delcy Rodríguez, said the deal would revive her country. Nothing accelerates a South American leader’s journey toward the free market like watching her predecessor get removed from it shackled to a Black Hawk. “The deal involves the development of 17 oil fields,” the Times explained, “more than $100 billion of investments and projected taxes of $209 billion for Venezuela’s strapped government.”

For comparison, Venezuela’s national government just proposed a 2026 budget of about $20 billion. So the projected new taxes from just the 17 oil fields exceed the country’s entire annual budget more than 10 times over. Not too shabby. It’s a lot better than Venezuela’s previous socialist model of nationalizing the oil industry, which produced the exceptional result of empty grocery shelves and toilet paper shortages.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it a “huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people.”

The Art of the Deal. In our lifetimes, we’ll never have another president like this one.

⛽ The actual terms of the deal, the fine print, have not yet been disclosed. But at least one as-yet-unnamed “experienced” U.S. oil company —probably Chevron, which already operates in Venezuela— will also participate as a joint venturer with the U.S. The revolution will not be televised. It will be operated by an experienced private contractor.

The usual suspects are already complaining bitterly. The Times sneered that Venezuela has become “something resembling a client state.” But this deal is not colonialism. It is a strategic hemispheric energy partnership with an unusually assertive onboarding process.

Previous presidents preferred to describe overseas adventures as efforts to advance peace, democracy, and the sacred right of bureaucrats to attend swanky NGO conferences. But Trump just said oil, saving taxpayers an estimated nine syllables per barrel.

The United States will now control more proven oil than it already has at home. In strategic terms, we have acquired a backup America in case the original one forgets its password.

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Here we go! Late yesterday, the Associated Press reported, “Trump administration appeals latest ruling blocking his mail voting order from taking effect.” Wait until you see the latest insane plot twist that corporate media has been hiding under its teacup.

“The Trump administration is appealing a judge’s ruling that blocked limitations on mail voting before the midterm elections,” the AP said, “the latest twist in a court fight unfolding days before the first states begin sending out mail ballots for the pivotal November elections.”

It called the case a “whipsawing legal battle.”

“Days before” is right. North Carolina sends its absentee ballots out next Friday, which —unless North Carolina somehow voluntarily complied, which seemed unlikely since it is one of the plaintiff states— would all but doom any hopes of having the new rules online for the midterms.

No conceivable court would change the rules once the election has already started.

But wait! Plot twist alert! Two days ago, Democracy Docket reported that North Carolina voluntarily did comply with the critical first step— sending USPS its list of voters-by-mail and its ballot envelope form for approval:

North Carolina’s Board of Elections issued a short but sweet statement:

So simple! So easy! Note that highlighted line: North Carolina just said that, while complying, its election “will happen flawlessly and smoothly.” Smoother than Jif peanut butter.

🍿 This is yet another wildly unforeseeable development, the latest bizarre bend in the ongoing drama, and corporate media has completely refused to report it. It seems the looming September 4th deadline isn’t the real one after all. Against all odds, the Administration just got handed another two weeks till the next round of states begin sending ballots on September 19th.

But it’s not just about the enlarged deadline. It’s much bigger.

This is a colossal plot twist, much more than it first appears. Assuming USPS approves NC’s envelope format, accepts the voter uploads, and timely processes the September 4th military-and-overseas mailing smoothly and flawlessly, the government can argue that the plaintiffs’ claims of “impossibility” of complying are made up.

North Carolina is proving that state election officials can comply. And they can do it rapidly, flawlessly, and smoothly— and so the much ballyhooed disruption is purely speculative rather than unavoidably imminent.

This is probably why corporate media suddenly has amnesia about North Carolina. The AP’s article had time to take readers on a scenic detour through Trump’s 2020 complaints, a Brookings fraud statistic, and a minor essay about how Trump votes by mail— but couldn’t find time to mention that the first plaintiff complied smoothly and flawlessly.

Even though it had joined the others in suing to block the new ballot standards, the Tar Heel State just stepped out from behind the curtains and shivved its co-plaintiffs. Notably, North Carolina has a Republican-controlled legislature and a Republican State Board of Elections. Something to consider.

Picture a courtroom where the plaintiff solemnly explains that a grand piano cannot possibly be moved before Friday. At that exact moment, two movers roll the piano past the open courtroom door and are overheard saying that delivery should proceed “flawlessly and smoothly.” Corporate media would report the plaintiff’s severe back strain and omit the piano on the grounds that furniture is outside the scope of the story.

🍿 That’s terrific news. On the other hand, the case is swimming in imminent peril. North Carolina’s compliance might answer the burden issue, but the constitutional authority issues remain. Those issues now seem less persuasive, though, since the plaintiffs continue harping on the “not enough time” argument.

Ignoring North Carolina completely, the League of Women Voters and the plaintiff states passionately “contend there isn’t enough time to revise their systems to comply with the new Postal Service directives.” At this point, though substantially weakened by NC’s compliance, their burden argument continues to rebuild itself with each passing day.

But it might not be enough. Judge Talwani somberly opined in her order that compliance would be “practically impossible,” that failure “seems unavoidable,” and that state declarations of impossibility were unrebutted. Welp. They’re rebutted now, Sally! By one of the plaintiffs.

It is now up to the First Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite the appeal, throw it into “warp speed,” if you will, to give the Administration time to reach SCOTUS. Since the First Circuit already denied the Administration’s July appeal, the one that did reach the Supreme Court, it is not sympathetic and is unlikely to be of much help.

Any sane lawyer handicapping this mess would normally put the odds near zero. But these aren’t normal times. And the Administration keeps enjoying windfalls of “good luck.” For now, the show goes on.

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This might be the most delicious “boomerang” story I have had the pleasure of reporting in years. Yesterday, the Associated Press reported, “Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’ in the United States.” President Trump signed the order at the Resolute Desk with an enormous Great Lakes map behind him. Across the smallest Great Lake, in red letters large enough for Canadian intelligence services to read without binoculars, were the words LAKE AMERICA.

The president insisted the change was not meant to send any particular geopolitical message. He then said Canada had been “ripping us off for a long time,” had wanted to be treated like a state, and was not a state. This is how Trump reassures recalcitrant allies. He first states that there is no message, then puts the message in fourteen-foot red letters on a map.

His Executive Order was titled, “Honoring the American History of the Great Lakes and Renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.”

The change applies only to the American government’s official terminology. Trump cannot force Canada to use it, which means the lake now has twonames, depending on which shore answers the telephone. Americans will call it Lake America. Canadians will obstinately call it Lake Ontario. The fish will continue calling it blub (although federal agencies are developing a portal).

We have therefore created the first binational body of water with an identity crisis. Every wave crossing northward must now stop at customs, select its preferred hydronym, and declare whether it is transporting any prohibited maple products. Canadian waves entering New York will be required to remove unnecessary vowels.

Canadian officials reacted in polite fury, as though Trump had renamed hockey “warm football.” Prime Minister Mark Carney declared that “naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario—then, now and always.” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said it would remain Lake Ontario “now and forever.” Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston called the whole thing “real foolishness” and added, with a sniff of supercilious dignity, “It’s Lake Ontario, buddy.”

On the Lake America side, New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) whined, “An acronym for the Great Lakes used to be HOMES. Thanks to Donald Trump, it’s now SHAME.” Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), feeling cleverer than her intellect supports, called it “superiorly stupid.”

🔥 I must admit that the outraged reaction by Canadians and progressives was a stirring outbreak of naming conservatism.

For years, enlightened institutions lectured all of us that names are neither permanent nor trivial. Names communicate our values. Names are a form of colonial oppression. Names can wound. Names carrying an objectionable history must be reconsidered, retired, replaced, and in some cases escorted from the building by security.

Canada’s own federal naming authority says geographical names change with “evolving societal perspectives of coexistence” and boasts that unpronounceable indigenous names are being restored “wherever possible.” Manitoba approved 117 tongue-twisting ‘indigenous’ place names in a single year. Nunavut approved 625 in one region the next year. Queen Charlotte Islands became Haida Gwaii; Cape Dorset became Kinngait; Hall Beach became Sanirajak; Mount Higgins became Jùuk’an; and Squaw’s Tit became Anû Kathâ Îpa. (I did not make that up). I could go on, at great length, but I’ve reached my limit on trying to type all the weird letters.

Here at home, thanks to progressives’ progressive thinking, Washington’s football team became the Commanders. Cleveland’s Indians became the Guardians. Aunt Jemima syrup became Pearl Milling Company, transforming a familiar breakfast topping into something that sounds like a Delaware subsidiary manufacturing ball bearings for municipal grain elevators.

The Associated Press Stylebook likewise instructs journalists to use a transgender person’s new name and to only invoke a former name “very rarely”—a rule rooted in courtesy, human dignity, and fantastical woke utopias. Either way, the principle is clear as distilled Lake America water: when a person adopts a new name, you must use the new name.

No Deadnaming. Never call it “Lake O—.”

🔥 Apparently it’s okay for Canada, reporters, and liberals to rename everything, but when President Trump’s federal government adopted a new name for a lake, the naming industry suddenly discovered punctilious originalism.

“Ontario—then, now and always,” thundered the Canadian prime minister, sounding an Old Testament minor prophet scolding the populace that he had just found the lake’s name engraved on the back of the Ten Commandments between Thou Shalt Not Steal and Thou Shalt Maintain Adequate Icebreaker Capacity.

Oh, well. Sorry, Canada! Lake America may only be the beginning. “We have a gulf and we have a lake,” Trump mused. “Now, all we need is an ocean.” Maybe, he speculated, America will rename the Atlantic or Pacific next. Canada is chaining its remaining geographic features to large immovable hockey arenas.

Apparently, names are always fluid— right up until Trump chooses one.

Finally, I should mention that some other conservative commentators with whom I normally agree on nearly everything (cough, Matt Walsh), called the move “kind of dumb” and unhelpful. (Pot, meet kettle.) Well, I disagree. After being forced to stand by while progressives rename everything that isn’t nailed down, I have no problem with clawing a few back.

They say Trump went too far. Frankly, I think Trump didn’t go far enough. He should rename the rest of the Great Lakes, too. What names would yousuggest? Let me know in the comments.

Here are my suggestions, in no particular order: Lake America II, Lake Trump Water, Lake America Gold Edition, Lake Superior America, and Clarence.

The Monroe Doctrine’s rewards card, it turns out, includes naming rights.

Have a wonderful weekend! Then roll back to the C&C buffet on Monday morning, for a fresh serving of essential news and caffeinated commentary.

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