Breaking Bread
The midterms will likely come down to issues that live at the intersection of affordability and corruption. The question is whether the average American can afford to live there. The economic issues at the center of our current campaign go far beyond a single election. The promise of the middle class and the American dream has been broken as our economic bifurcation becomes as dramatic as our political divides. The path to getting a little more and a little more has been replaced by a road less traveled, where middle class Americans find themselves making do with a little less and a little less. “While by some measures, members of the middle class now earn more than those of prior generations, the Brookings Institution recently found that one-third of the American middle class still can’t afford essentials. And for the rest, the high costs of child care, housing, medical care and other necessities make their incomes feel paltry. So they are trimming, reining in the lives they once expected for themselves.” And the cutbacks are needed because of things that are out of people’s control, tariffs, wars, inflation, and medical costs (not to mention the potential threat of A.I. to the job market). What happens to the American dream when people are too stressed out to sleep? Alissa Quart in the NYT (Gift Article): What America Is Living Without. “What’s lost — good bread, regular haircuts, pets, food delivery, babysitters, fancy face creams — isn’t just stuff. It’s ambition. It’s the luxury of living a life without the constant hum of worry. It’s losing the idea of the future you had in the past. It’s nostalgia for a life that you imagined for yourself that will never come to fruition.” Even attempts at distracting the middle class with bread and circuses might not work anymore. Circus tickets are too expensive.
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It Takes a Pillage
Add to the list of destroyed norms the idea that grand jury requests for indictments almost never fail to meet the low bar required. That was before Trump’s corrupted DOJ took over. In the latest failure, a grand jury refused to indict former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson. Her crime, apparently, was having the nerve to tell the obvious truth about Trump and his enablers on Jan 6. The cowards who didn’t have the guts to stand by her then, sat back and watched her get indicted for showing the courage they wouldn’t (in between, all the Jan 6 criminals were pardoned). It’s all a reminder that this is not a one-man show. It takes a village to raze a government.
+ “President Trump’s success in demolishing the traditional wall between the White House and the Justice Department is apparent at the helm of the agency, now led by his former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche. Mr. Trump’s reach can also be seen in the network of U.S. attorneys across the country who are flexing their power to pursue the president’s political agenda.” Here Are the U.S. Attorneys Who Are Carrying Out Trump’s Grievance Agenda.
+ “Mr. Witt’s explosive testimony, offered at a hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, was the latest account of just how tight a grip the White House has on decision-making at the F.B.I. and just how willing Mr. Patel has been to take orders from the president to go after people he believes to be enemies.” White House Has Tight Grip Over F.B.I. in Pursuing Trump Targets, Agent Says.
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The Unbearable Israeliteness of Being
The result of the Israeli election could lead to another election. “Israel’s political leaders were poised for weeks of negotiations over the shape of the next government, as initial results on Wednesday showed no clear winner in a tightly fought election that many have described as a make-or-break moment for the country. If neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line alliance nor an opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot win enough seats to form a government, both would need to find support from outside their blocs for backing as prime minister.” Here’s the latest from the NYT (Gift Article): In Tight Israeli Election, Leading Parties Face Tough Path to Power.
+ “The voting results are mostly in, and they are less conclusive than everyone hoped, and than either side is willing to admit. (Both sides have said the results show that the public favors them.) Netanyahu’s current coalition can no longer form a government on its own. Neither can the opposition.” The Atlantic(Gift Article): Israeli Election Results Hazy, Try Again.
+ “Negotiations to form a coalition will take dizzying twists in the coming weeks; maybe a minority government or a stalemate will be the unsatisfying result. But one thing is certain. Israel’s divisions have never been more profound. Blocs, camps and tribes have never been more irreconcilable.” A bitter night in Israel for all who craved a fresh start.
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Canon Fodder
“’A lot of what we get out of this class is the human experience, and you can’t get that out of AI,’ said Peggy Urdan, a government and neuroscience major from Lexington, Mass. ‘The only way to get anything out of this class is to not use AI.’ At the core of the humanities is, of course, humanity.” WSJ (Gift Article): The Brutal Harvard Class That Suddenly Everyone Wants to Take (alt link). “It’s an ungodly amount of reading and no easy A. So why are freshmen lining up to get into Humanities 10?” Either it’s a tiny backlash to AI, or the students really liked watching The Odyssey.
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Extra, Extra
Spain Train Crash: “A high-speed passenger train rear-ended another near Toledo, months after a crash involving the same carriers killed dozens and stunned the country.” At Least 68 Killed in Train Crash in Spain. “The accident happened after traffic control operators told a high-speed train to continue its journey when another train was stopped farther along the tracks, Spain’s transportation minister, Óscar Puente, said. He called the operators’ instruction ‘inexplicable.’”
+ Flava Flavio: Give me your tired acts, your poorly behaved, your huddled asses yearning to breathe free from justified prosecution. Flávio Bolsonaro Lands in Miami After Fleeing Brazil. (It’s also troubling that the elected government in Brazil would go after a political opponent so quickly. Who do they think they are, America?)
+ Brothers in Harms: “Three brothers convicted of leveraging their wealthy lifestyle to drug and rape dozens of women were each sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison after one victim described her attack as an ‘eternity of terror’ and the judge slammed their behavior as shameful, degenerate and monstrous.”
+ Under a Different Influence: “In recent years, an average of 30 people a day in the U.S. have been killed in vehicle crashes involving drugs including methamphetamines, cocaine, painkillers and marijuana — meaning at least one driver tested positive for drugs other than alcohol. Yet local, state and federal officials are failing at the most basic levels to confront the carnage.” America Waged War on Drunk Driving. Now, a New Epidemic Is Taking Hold. (Waymos don’t party.)
+ The Dan Plan: “In the summer of 2025, a staffer for Mary Peltola, the Alaska Democrat who was eyeing a run for Senate, received unusual instructions from top campaign aides: Find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can.” NYT(Gift Article): Inside Democrats’ Secret Effort to Stack Alaska’s Ballot. (I once tried to compile an exhaustive list of Dave Pells, mostly because I was hoping to find someone else to read through this hell every morning.)
+ La Activista: “Dolores Huerta, arguably the nation’s most well-known Latina civil rights leader, has died. She was 96.”
+ Does This Register? “The Federal Trade Commission has sued the bargain chain Dollar General for what it characterized as ‘long-running deceptive pricing practices’ by charging customers more once they reach the register than the prices that are displayed on shelves and in advertisements.”
+ Choc Full of Photos: “The German Society for Nature Photography recently announced the top images from the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.” Looking for something a little more appetizing? Photos of chocolate transformed into creatures at the World Chocolate Masters in Belgium.
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Bottom of the News
It was meant to be a never-ending residential cruise. Then fuel prices rose. And just like that, the promise of a permanent life at sea became a drop-off in Cambodia.
© 2026 Dave Pell
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