Pentagon's oil stake stays untouched; the Maduros' docket just added a torture charge.

…(cont) September 3rd, CBS News and NPR, the same day: Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, asked a federal judge to dismiss the drug trafficking indictment against them, on the grounds that the offices they once held carry immunity.

September 10th, NBC News: Flores asked the same court to release her to home detention, citing what her filing called a serious heart condition.

October 8th, The New York Post and The Guardian: a Manhattan federal grand jury indicted Maduro and Flores for conspiracy to commit torture, over the treatment of Americans jailed in Venezuela, five weeks after the immunity motion. The Guardian reports the couple has been held in New York since early January.

Line the four filings up and the asset side and the liability side are easy to tell apart. The asset side is one number, booked once, nine months ago. The liability side is four entries since August 31st, and it only runs one direction: a watch traded down, an immunity bid, a medical bid, a torture count. The watch is the only line item that moved down in value. Everything filed after it moved up in weight.

None of the four filings touch the oil. The stake sits where the Pentagon wrote it down nine months ago, while the two people who used to run the country it came from work through drug charges, a heart condition, and now a conspiracy to torture, in the same federal courthouse. A reconciliation does not require the two columns to meet. It only requires writing them down side by side and noticing that they don't.

Hon, that's the whole filing cabinet. The oil stays booked at 35 percent. The docket keeps adding entries.