Just a “grain glitch” in the matrix, nothing to see here.

According to one journalist, they say of the Washington Post: ‘it’s a great paper; you never know which page will have the lead story’. True to form, the current lead headline might appear predictably anodyne: “Democrats balk as Republicans try to use must-pass spending bill to fix tax law“. On examination, the story proves more interesting, even amusing.

Seems the current crop of Republican legislators accidentally passed a tax break which encourages farmers to deal with co-operatives over traditional agri-business, seemingly due to the law being unable to distinguish between gross sales and net income on this occasion. Once agri-business pointed it out, Republicans immediately promised to fix it, but there are signs of resistance from Democrats who are kicking up a stink. That’s the gist of the story. What interests me is the irony, the inept element of it, and the way it’s written. The discourse, perhaps alien to an English reader, is very much of the minutia of House Democrats seizing on an issue purely as part of the game. Pelosi’s words notwithstanding, theres certainly no sense of Democrats seizing the possibility for a national debate about the general benefits of co-ops for organising trade, which i suppose inheres in their self-organising capacity.
And finally the story descends into remarking that the apparently numerous typos and omissions in the new law are par for the course.
So that’s alright then. We can, at least for today, confirm the lead headline in the Post will always leave us with ennui and disappointment after all.
 
What probably should be the lead story covers leading Republican opposition to Trump, in the form of the perfectly-named Arizona senator Jeff Flake, passionately defending the judiciary, the First Amendment, and describing the Trump administration as “chaos for its own sake, projected onto the world”. Stirring stuff but, as the reporter points out

The question remains: Where do Flake and like-minded Republicans go — to a new party? To permanent political exile? Much depends on whether the Democrats make a foolish choice in 2020, opening up space for a third party. In any event, Flake implicitly (and I think, unintentionally) makes a powerful argument that the first step is the complete demolition of a reckless, soulless party.