Nine months after the military removed Venezuela's president, the 30-minute operation that booked 65 billion barrels — 35 percent of it to the Pentagon — leaves the driver stretching a gallon at a record $4.15 until the savings arrive in a year or two.

…(cont) Sunday, September 6, The Hill printed the count. The administration had reached a deal granting it control of more than 65 billion barrels, and Wright's assessment was, "We have a lot of leverage over Venezuela." The New York Times priced that same Sunday at nearly $4.15 a gallon, with Brent up about 1 percent as trading resumed. Sixty-five billion barrels in the asset column, a national average of nearly $4.15 in the price column, both filed on Sunday. OPEC Plus decided that Sunday to keep production steady. One hour after saying Venezuela is being "forced to work" with the United States, Common Dreams reported, Wright denied that the administration was stealing Venezuela's oil.

Monday brought the holiday number. AAA's figure was $4.15 per gallon, the highest gasoline has ever been during Labor Day weekend, one of the most popular travel weekends of the year; ABC put the weekend average at $4.14. The Times spent Monday with hypermilers, drivers using special techniques to stretch a gallon. The asset side booked entries Monday as well: the New York Post reported that U.S. forces destroyed three Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps crude oil tankers in the Persian Gulf on Saturday, after Iran launched ballistic missiles at two U.S. Navy vessels. Three tankers of crude taken off the water in the same fortnight that 65 billion barrels went onto the books. Iran threatened a "more painful" response.

The president had described the conflict on Friday, at an Oval Office event, as "small potatoes," declining to call it a war. Rep. Mike Lawler, on Sunday: "Any time you are at war or in a military escalation, it is certainly not small potatoes. It is serious." By Tuesday oil was up again, after a top Iranian official said Tehran would impose an "exclusion zone" outside the Strait of Hormuz.

By Friday, September 11, the operation had a running time. Fox News carried Wright's account of how a 30-minute military operation unlocked the Venezuela oil windfall for U.S. buyers, tapping 300 billion barrels of reserves to grow supply and cut prices. Thirty minutes is the labor line. The stake is majority control of 65 billion barrels, 35 percent of it held by the Pentagon, nine months after the military took Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores out of Caracas, and Common Dreams reported on Friday, August 28 that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller were in talks with acting president Delcy Rodríguez over an ownership stake in more than a dozen oil fields. Whose column the gap turns up in is not a mystery. It is a line item at the Department of Defense.

People are on these books too. The New York Post reported that Venezuela's former first lady wants to be let out of jail, citing a heart ailment, while she and her husband await trial on U.S. drug trafficking charges; Workers World reported that protesters rallied outside Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center on September 3, the ninth month in a row. That same Friday, the list of U.S.-designated foreign terrorist groups in Latin America reached 21.

So the fortnight closes: 65 billion barrels on the asset side, a record $4.15 at the pump on the price side, and the savings scheduled a year or two out. The barrels went somewhere. The money went somewhere. It did not go to the person holding the nozzle, hon. On Sunday, September 13, the president spoke with MBS, with the Strait of Hormuz still the primary flashpoint, and said everything will "work out fine."