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Venezuela oil deal represents good progress, bad structure

In 2007, Hugo Chavez sent men with rifles into the Orinoco Belt. They walked into oilfields Americans had surveyed, Americans had drilled and American engineering had made productive and told ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips to take a minority stake in their own work or get out. Those two got out. Chevron stayed and ate two decades of abuse for it. Chavez handed what he took to party loyalists, ran it into the ground and left his people eating zoo animals atop the largest proven oil reserves on earth. Give President Donald Trump the credit he has earned. Nicolas Maduro is gone. The Strait ...

Republicans can rename things, too

In one of his Truth Social bombs, President Donald Trump insisted we should rename Lake Ontario to Lake America after Canada refused to accept his trade negotiation terms. It obviously echoes his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. It’s easy to find these whole geographic kerfuffles unnecessary. But the media hated the first one so much that the Associated Press found itself restricted from the White House press pool for refusing to accept the new gulf terminology. What they hate is anything Trump does to add a patriotic pro-America tinge to something that they ...

Remembering efforts of those who built USA

No longer the precursor to the start of the school year for most students, Labor Day weekend now serves as the first three-day weekend break for most. They and their parents get one more chance to take it a bit easy before the grind of the fall semester and all its activities starts to take its toll. There will be sales and parades, backyard barbecues (maybe not everyone has closed their pools just yet?) and even a few ceremonies in which folks gather to remember the true purpose of the holiday: We owe the success of this country not to the politicians who want all the control and ...

Nation’s woke renaming trend is nothing but childish antics

As part of Donald Trump’s trade war with Canada that the administration claims isn’t a trade war, the president has signed an executive order, renaming Lake Ontario, “Lake America.” This follows his renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” These childish antics help no one, but Trump is not alone in changing names for political and woke purposes. There is a long road in Northern Virginia that for years has been called “Lee Highway.” It passes through Arlington and Fairfax counties. Arlington County politicians decided they didn’t like Confederate Gen. ...

Chopping cherry trees stands as crime against DC humanity

WASHINGTON — Sure, build a ballroom dwarfing the clean and classic design of the White House. Go ahead, murder the history of Lafayette Square with prison bars keeping tourists away from our traditional place of dissent. Close the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts since it will never be the same again, with your name spoiling the grandeur and memory of the slain president. Take it all away from the people who live and love it here. But don’t chop down our precious cherry trees by the Hains Point waterfront, Donald J. Trump. To repeat, don’t cut down our cherry ...

Orchids & onions

ORCHID: To the Mahoning County Board of Elections for its fiscally responsible plans to reduce the number of voting precincts in the county. Tom McCabe, board director, said last week the decision results from difficulties in recruiting sufficient numbers of poll workers for each of the county’s 212 precincts. It also comes at a time when more and more voters are casting ballots early, lessening the strain on precincts on general or primary election days. The county also has the dubious distinction of having the lowest number of voters per precinct among counties of similar size. The ...