Welcome to Stack the Week for Monday July 27th.
Thank you to our paying subscribers and our Apple podcast reviewers. Food for the larder and the soul. This is also a podcast, so you can listen to it while you read along or while you slowly tap your summer bag of wine.
Let’s start.
1. IRAN
The United States paused strikes on Iran for a second night while Iran refrained from retaliation.
Last week we kept count of the nights in a row that bombing was continuing. This week starts by keeping track of the nights there was no bombing. We’ll see what happens to the underlying tension that broke the ceasefire apart in the first place: Iran says it has the right to manage Hormuz; the United States treats the waterway as an international passage.
What struck me over the weekend was reporting from the New York Times, matched today by the Wall Street Journal, that a shortage of Patriot interceptors constrained the president’s options. That was a principal reason his military advisers opposed a larger strike. The Times reported that Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine told Trump in a closed-door meeting that a bigger strike remained technically doable but would dangerously deplete the Patriot interceptor stocks CENTCOM needs to protect troops in Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE.
We’ve been saying for weeks that missile depletion is a problem. Here we see what that problem looks like in practice. “If we need to negotiate with bombs, we’ll negotiate with bombs, and we’re very good at it,” said the Secretary of Defense. That line didn’t age well. The United States had not run out of targets or offensive weapons. It was running short of the defensive margin required to protect American troops from the retaliation that further bombing might produce.
Another connected thought: when the war started, Secretary of State Rubio originally justified U.S. involvement in the war as an “anticipatory” strategy. He argued that the U.S. knew Israel was planning to strike Iran and that Iran would inevitably retaliate against American forces. Therefore, he claimed, joining the fight preemptively was the only way to “get ahead” of that retaliation and avoid higher casualties.
In short, the administration framed its intervention as evidence of superior foresight.
However, if the administration were truly capable of “anticipatory thinking,” they would have planned for the logistical realities of the conflict. Instead, we are seeing the opposite: a shortage of Patriot interceptors has limited military options. This depleted stockpile is only the latest evidence that the administration failed to anticipate the long-term consequences of their actions, undermining their claim of strategic competence.
2. 67 Boat Strikes, 221 Dead—and No Drop in Cocaine
CNN and The Washington Post published separate investigations Monday reporting that Operation Southern Spear has carried out 67 lethal strikes against vessels the administration says were involved in drug trafficking, killing 221 people.
Were those attacks effective? The investigations report that internal Pentagon and DEA assessments found no measurable reduction in the cocaine supply reaching the United States.
President Donald Trump has claimed the operation virtually ended maritime drug trafficking.
This is not so.
The government’s own analysts reached the opposite conclusion.
We still don’t know what evidence identified the people killed as lawful military targets. Now another question: What public purpose is served if the supply remains undiminished?
The failure to reduce the cocaine supply does not itself establish that every strike was unlawful. It does, however, gravely undercut the administration’s stated justification for the operation.
If the strikes merely push traffickers onto different routes, the United States assumes the costs of a lethal campaign without achieving its stated objective.
In that sense, this operation feels like the Iran War. Many things are blowing up. People are dying. The goal is not achieved.
3. Wildfires Drive Mass Evacuations in France and Spain
Thousands of firefighters, military personnel, volunteers, and European partners were battling major fires Monday across southwestern France and central and eastern Spain. Reuters reported about 220,000 evacuees in France and 100,000 displaced in Spain.
The Bordeaux fire was approximately 104,000 acres–more than four times the acreage burned by the 2025 Palisades Fire in Los Angeles– and the Spanish fires at about 190,000 acres.
The immediate danger was to the pine forests, neighborhoods, campgrounds, tourist properties, airport hotels, and other development between Bordeaux and the Atlantic coast. Flames were advancing toward the outskirts of Bordeaux, at the center of one of the world’s best-known wine regions. Smoke was visible and could be smelled in Bordeaux; emergency phone alerts ordered residents to leave; traffic was diverted from roads leading toward Atlantic beaches; campgrounds were evacuated; and authorities cleared the hotel district around Bordeaux Airport.
4. Haitians Face Roundups as TPS Ends
More than 300,000 Haitians are losing permission to live and work in the United States as ICE prepares targeted arrests and rapid deportations to their come county. A country where armed gangs control large areas. The State Department tells Americans not to travel there.
Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, has allowed Haitians already in the United States to work legally and avoid deportation because conditions in Haiti are extraordinarily dangerous. A Supreme Court decision allowed the Trump administration to end that protection. The administration can start moving on deportations as of Monday.
The deadline changes legal status instantly, but life does not change that neatly. A nurse may lose work authorization while patients still need care. Parents may have U.S.-citizen children who cannot safely follow them.
CBS News reported that internal ICE plans include operations in communities such as Springfield, Ohio. Officers would locate, arrest, detain, and place newly deportable Haitians on accelerated removal flights.
TPS is not citizenship or a green card. Congress created it as an emergency shelter for people who are already here when war, disaster, or institutional collapse makes return unsafe. Haiti received the designation after the 2010 earthquake, and it continued as the country endured political assassination, hunger, displacement, and gang rule. Sixteen years is “temporary” in the statute, but it is also enough time to build a career, raise children, buy a home, and become essential to an employer.
Springfield was singled out because thousands of Haitians settled there under TPS and other lawful programs, filling jobs in manufacturing, health care, and other local industries. After Trump and Vance amplified the false claim that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating residents’ pets, Vance defended the tactic by telling CNN, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.” He subsequently said that by “creating a story” he meant creating media attention—not admitting that he had fabricated the underlying allegation. But to be clear. Then Senator Vance knew that the story was fabricated. Springfield’s city manager reportedly told Vance’s staff on September 9 that the pet-eating allegations lacked evidence, before Vance continued amplifying them.
The administration argues that a temporary program cannot become permanent through repeated extensions; affected families and advocates answer that ending the legal designation does not make Haiti safe.
5. Changing Casualty Ledger
This story was reported by CNN: The authoritative Pentagon system for counting casualties was revised over the weekend. The reported total casualties for the Iran war increased by more than 140 wounded personnel. Four soldiers killed during renewed fighting, after disappearing from the Iran-war category, reappeared under a new category labeled “Overseas Operations.” That category also listed 207 wounded, but the Pentagon did not explain whether those 207 were entirely new cases, partly reclassified cases, or already included in the increase of more than 140. The Pentagon’s current overall figures show 18 service members killed and 624 wounded since the war began.
Casualty accounting can sound bureaucratic. Ghoulish. But every row represents a person and a family who have sacrificed for their country. It also tells the country not directly experiencing that sacrifice what a war is costing.
Some database corrections are ordinary. Reports arrive late, injuries are reclassified, and clerical systems fail. What makes this episode serious is the combination of large revisions, disappearing deaths, a newly created category, all of it encompassed by an administration that has committed itself to limited public explanation during an active war.
6. Two Wars Collide
This story was reported by the Associated Press.
A Russian ballistic missile strike near Kyiv killed at least 10 people and wounded nearly 100. In a separate development with potentially broader consequences, Ukraine struck an Iranian vessel that it said was connected to military cargo and Iranian support for Russia in Ukraine.
In case you missed that while you were re-tiling your bathtub. The Ukrainians attacked the Iranians.
On Monday, Zelenskyy visited Britain’s new prime minister Andy Burnham as Britain offered additional electronic-warfare support, principally a drone-jamming system.
The immediate question is whether Iran treats the Caspian strike as an isolated loss or a reason to intervene more directly. You’d think they’d be busy enough.
7. Senate Issues
A man dining at a vegan restaurant who berates the waiter for not quickly producing a porterhouse steak will not be the hero of a Christopher Nolan film. But this is the drama taking place in the Senate right now.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is caught between what the Senate can actually pass and demands from President Trump—and senators seeking President Trump’s favor—to produce an outcome that lacks the necessary votes in a body where votes are required to accomplish things.
On Monday, Trump personally demanded that Thune keep the Senate in Washington until it passes the SAVE America Act or abolishes the legislative filibuster. With eight working days before recess, Thune is trying to negotiate a bipartisan bill to keep most federal agencies operating until after the November election, process a backlog of executive and judicial nominations—including the nominee for director of national intelligence—and possibly pass bipartisan sanctions targeting Russia and Iran.
The president and his allies instead want Thune to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register for federal elections and photo identification to vote, while restricting certain forms of mail voting. Democrats argue that the requirements would impose unnecessary burdens on eligible voters, particularly those who do not readily possess passports, birth certificates or other qualifying documents.
Even if Thune wanted to pass the SAVE Act, it faces a six-pack of bottlenecks. Under ordinary procedure, Republicans’ 53 seat majority leaves them at least seven votes short of ending a Democratic filibuster —and some Republicans may oppose the SAVE Act itself. Thune could theoretically use the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster or create an exception to the filibuster with a simple majority, but he does not appear to have even 50 Republican votes willing to make that institutional change.
Just because you want a porterhouse we’re not turning our vegan restaurant into an Outback.
A third route—budget reconciliation—also appears closed. Reconciliation measures can pass by simple majority, but their provisions must principally affect spending, revenue or debt. The Senate parliamentarian has already found the bill’s nationwide election rules incompatible with those requirements. Senators who know better may demand that Thune disregard or overrule that judgment, but under the Senate’s normal procedures, preserving the disputed provisions would require 60 votes—the same obstacle they are supposedly trying to escape.
There are other gambits, but at some point listing them as if they were genuine alternatives— and then explaining that each would work only if a unicorn drew an inside straight in a poker game with Bigfoot— becomes tiresome. Worse, it creates the impression that plausible routes exist when they do not.
That is the game being played by several senators, including Mike Lee of Utah, who is demanding that Thune postpone the August recess. Canceling recess would not make the SAVE Act pass. It would create more time for negotiation—or political theater—but it would not manufacture the missing votes. Lee has offered no explanation of how canceling recess would produce the votes that are currently missing. The episode also demonstrates how far he has traveled: in 2016, he helped stage a convention revolt against rules binding delegates to Trump. That effort failed, just as his current efforts on Trump’s behalf are likely to fail.
UPDATE: The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to revive President Trump’s blocked mail-voting order, escalating a fight over whether the president can dictate how states verify and process ballots. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., successfully challenged the order in the lower courts, arguing that the Constitution assigns election administration to the states and Congress—not the White House. The request asks the justices to redefine presidential power over elections only months before the midterms. (Associated Press)
Short Stack:
Seattle update: The suspect now in custody in the shooting outside the Bite of Seattle festival is just 15 years old, but police still have not explained how he obtained a gun, whom he was allegedly confronting or what started the exchange of fire that killed three people and wounded four others, including a 2-year-old. Investigators believe two gunmen fired at each other in the crowded Seattle Center area; they are looking for a second suspect while acknowledging that person could be among the dead. (Associated Press, Seattle Police)
Berlin update: The suspect in the Berlin Pride attack was killed after a nearly 24-hour search, intensifying scrutiny of the court decision that had left the 21-year-old free despite an earlier conviction connected to ISIS. Abdul Ballout’s conviction was not yet final, and after an unusually long period in pretrial custody, a court lifted his arrest warrant because it concluded that the statutory grounds for continued detention—such as flight risk or danger of reoffending—were no longer established strongly enough. In other words, this was not an accidental release or missing paperwork: it was a judicial risk-and-proportionality decision that now appears catastrophically wrong. (Associated Press, Tagesschau)
Asylum Fast Track: The Trump administration has put into effect a rule allowing immigration officials to bypass the customary asylum-office interview and send applicants directly into immigration court, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of cases. The administration describes the change as a way to reduce the asylum backlog, but the interview is often an applicant’s first opportunity to explain evidence of persecution outside an adversarial courtroom. Immigration courts are already severely overloaded, applicants are not guaranteed lawyers and an erroneous decision can mean deportation to the country from which a person says they fled for their life. The rule may move files faster, but it does so by removing an important layer of review from a process in which mistakes can be irreversible. (NOTUS)
SpaceX: SpaceX’s shares have been cut nearly in half since last month’s record post-IPO peak, Tesla lost more than 18 percent in one week, and Elon Musk lost the trillionaire status the share sale created. Investors began focusing on losses and execution problems after the IPO excitement faded. SpaceX disclosed at least $13 billion in losses since 2023, aborted a launch because of engine trouble, and its shares fell nearly 50 percent from their peak; Tesla also disappointed investors by offering few concrete results from its expensive AI and robotics projects. The reporting supports those as contributing factors, not a single proven cause.
Nvidia and OpenAI: Nvidia is reportedly considering guaranteeing roughly $250 billion in financing for OpenAI’s Ohio expansion, which means lenders could demand payment from Nvidia if OpenAI could not repay its debts. That would make Nvidia more than OpenAI’s chip supplier: it would also become a financial backstop for one of its largest customers. The arrangement could accelerate construction, but it creates a circular risk—Nvidia would be helping OpenAI borrow money to build facilities that buy more Nvidia chips.
West Point speech restrictions: West Point required professors to obtain permission before publishing articles, giving speeches or appearing on podcasts after President Trump ordered military academies to suppress ideas his administration considered un-American. West Point argues that a military school needs discipline and must prevent personal opinions from being mistaken for official positions. Critics say future Army officers need professors who can challenge military and political leaders openly, because commanders must learn to recognize bad decisions—not simply obey them. Presumably this is important information for current officers too.
The strange work of coming home
This story comes to us via Kottke dot org, drawing on reporting from Space Daily.
After six months aboard the International Space Station, some astronauts report a peculiar “observer” sensation that follows them home. They’ll sit down to dinner and feel like a guest, drive a familiar street as though they’re piloting it, or experience what Space Daily evocatively calls “jet lag of the self”—present in their lives, but also watching from somewhere just outside the frame.
There are several likely culprits. A brain trained to navigate without a reliable up or down must relearn gravity. Six months of procedural vigilance and constant self-monitoring doesn’t switch off at splashdown. And the overview effect, the term for a profound cognitive shift in awareness experienced by some astronauts when viewing Earth from outer space, characterized by deep awe, a sudden sense of human unity, and a stark realization of the planet’s fragility, can make traffic, small talk and terrestrial squabbles feel suddenly unreal. Add crowds, weather, unfamiliar smells and the first spectacularly intense strawberry after months of muted senses, and Earth itself becomes a rather overwhelming destination.
Some of us who’ve stayed pretty much on the earth feel that way all the time.
For most astronauts, the feeling recedes over weeks or months of rehabilitation and reintegration. As Space Daily puts it, “The observer steps back into the room. Gravity stops being theatrical.” But with years-long Mars missions on the horizon, the phenomenon is more than an intriguing footnote. Leaving Earth is only half the psychological journey. Coming home may be its own mission.
The bell with tentacles
This story was reported by Popular Science on Monday.
A lion’s mane jellyfish spotted near Cape Cod offered beachgoers a reminder that some of the ocean’s largest creatures arrive without bones, footsteps or much interest in explaining themselves. The species is mostly water—no heart, skeleton or central brain—but beneath its bell hangs a dense mane of stinging tentacles, giving it the appearance of a chandelier that has decided to go hunting.
The lion’s mane moves through a combination of muscular contractions, ocean currents and instructions passed along a distributed nerve net. Exceptional specimens can trail tentacles farther than many whales are long, although this particular visitor apparently won’t be troubling the record keepers. It can still trouble anyone foolish enough to touch it: those tentacles may sting even after the animal washes ashore.
Twenty-two hours in seat 34A
This story comes from CNN’s travel desk.
**Qantas is conducting Project Sunrise tests with a specially configured Airbus A350-1000ULR intended for nonstop Sydney to London and Sydney to New York service– a journey of more than 10,000 miles and as long as 22 hours.
An ultra-long-range flight is a math problem. More fuel provides more range, but fuel itself adds weight, requiring still more fuel. Winds, cargo, passenger numbers, reserve requirements and alternate airports all enter the equation. Then come the softer—and perhaps more combustible—components: human beings confined to a cabin long enough to eat several meals, sleep badly, exhaust the entertainment system and develop very firm opinions about reclining seats.
Researchers have been studying lighting, meal schedules, movement and cabin zones to make the marathon more tolerable. The engineering achievement is extraordinary: a machine will lift off from one side of the planet, remain airborne through nearly an entire day of human life and land on the other with the procedural dullness of a trip to Boise.
The harder design problem may be social. Once an airplane can stay aloft for 22 hours, how do you keep everyone inside it from becoming enemies?
