Pentagon Death Numbers

Plus: Troy Jackson's race, City Without Children, the DEA and cocaine, the FDA and peptides, and more...

A strange way to count: "On Wednesday, the Pentagon reported on its casualties website that a total of 18 American service members had been killed during the war in Iran," reports The New York Times. "By Thursday, the Defense Department had lowered that number, reporting that 14 American troops had been killed in the war." The stated justification, per three military officials who spoke to the Times, is that the four most recent deaths—one service member killed in Iraq and three in Jordan—had happened after President Donald Trump had declared a ceasefire. Meanwhile, the Pentagon's acting press secretary said the count was wrong due to "temporary data disruptions" on the website.

The Guardian concluded that "the change is tied to the War Powers Act of 1973, which requires the president to end military operations within 60 days unless Congress authorizes an extension. The Trump administration has argued that the April ceasefire with Iran paused the clock on 1 May for the conflict's initial period. The separate casualty count beginning on 7 July follows that interpretation."

Let me explain this absurd ruse: The Pentagon is pretending there have been two Iran wars separated by a brief cease-fire.

The reality: By going more than 90 days without congressional authorization @SecWar IS BREAKING THE LAW and must be held accountable. https://t.co/SuHcGkJcD3

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 24, 2026

The Pentagon should get its story straight. The initial justification—that deaths of service members after a ceasefire has been (nominally) adopted somehow don't count—is ludicrous on its face and deeply disrespectful.

The Times also notes that "in its casualty toll for the Iran war, the Pentagon has separated the number of troops killed under fire" (which amounts to 11) versus those killed in accidents (which amounts to seven), "includ[ing] the crew of a U.S. military KC-135 refueling aircraft that crashed in Iraq in March, as part of the war campaign in neighboring Iran."

A slow-moving disaster in Maine? "Troy Jackson is like [Graham] Platner but worse. He's a socialist who's flip-flopped on policy, a career politician who keeps losing, an insider who is also unknown. His nomination was illegitimate, he has anger issues, and he lacks 'rizz.'" That, reports Politico, is "just a sampling of the messaging the GOP plans to use to trounce Jackson, the former Maine Senate president who lost this year's Democratic gubernatorial primary only to glide this weekend into the party's nomination to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R–Maine) in November." Lots of attention being paid to unseating Collins—who is pretty moderate, as far as these things go—in order for Democrats to get closer to flipping the Senate. Unclear if it'll work.

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Scenes from New York: Have long been into this:

TIL: Noguchi proposed turning a New York City block into "Play Mountain" — steps of all sizes, a water slide for summer, sledding for winter… all in the middle of the city. Robert Moses nixed it. Bring it back @NYCMayor! pic.twitter.com/gpghEeSKdg

— Josh Miller (@joshm) July 26, 2026

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QUICK HITS

• I'm writing a book! It's called City Without Children and it's about how wealthy, highly educated city dwellers became the most risk-averse parents. It's grounded in my experiences with my two sons—and the fear and risk aversion that sets in when you lose a child. I'm thankful for generous support for this project from the Fund for American Studies, where I am a 2026–2027 Robert Novak Journalism Fellow. More details to come.

TFAS is excited to welcome the 2026-27 Robert Novak Journalism Fellows! Congratulations to @FrannieBlock, @Faithika, Rago '21, @MJ_Koch, Gilbert Guerra '20, @GraysonLogue '24, John Sailer and @LizWolfeReason.

To learn more about the cohort, visit https://t.co/0KcLNXdZWY.

— TFAS (@TFASorg) July 23, 2026

• "The number of children under 18 living in big U.S. cities is down 6% in the past decade…compared with a 1% decline nationwide," reports The Wall Street Journal. "The drop is especially stark among families with little kids: The number of children under age 5 in big cities fell 15%, compared with a drop of 7% nationwide. Even cities that are gaining population are losing children." Gosh, won't someone write a book about this?
• "Officials who separated former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg from his young twins last month relied on a vague and unsubstantiated allegation from an accuser authorities later deemed possibly 'mentally unstable,' according to previously unreported police records," reports The Washington Post. "Child welfare experts who reviewed the documents at The Post's request said they illuminate a flawed process that was made worse by poor judgment by agencies and a lack of communication among investigators from two states." I wonder at what point there will be a reckoning, and child protective services will stop acting on thinly substantiated, not-so-credible reports.
• Analysts at the Drug Enforcement Administration have found that U.S. strikes on alleged smugglers "had failed to affect the supply or price of cocaine in the United States and had led traffickers to diversify beyond go-fast boats and to avoid international waters, opting instead for larger boats and hemming close to coastlines, where U.S. forces are less likely to open fire," reports The Washington Post. "In a closed-door briefing last month, Pentagon officials told lawmakers the strikes in international waters off South and Central America had not reduced its purity." Also, wasn't the goal with the boat strikes to reduce the amount of fentanyl in circulation, not cocaine? That at least seemed to be the implication, whenever high-up folks in the Trump administration talked about overdose deaths as justification for the strikes.
• Oh no, I'm getting into peptides discourse (and the Food and Drug Administration's approach). I can't look away:

Before you bullish-on-peptides folks inject melanotan, make sure you do a web search to look at some before and after photos…!
Here is a case where unless there's a *real clinical need* I highly recommend you intelligently use sunlight instead.

— Andrew D. Huberman, Ph.D. (@hubermanlab) March 5, 2026

• Good AI applications:

Put every blood test, diagnosis into AI.

My wife needed to take iron supplements per her doctor.

Taken them for months with no results.

I put her blood test into Grok telling them about her, when she takes the iron, etc. saying the supplements aren't doing anything.

Grok… https://t.co/Guq1xWgiUd

— Joe Cassandra (@JoeCassandra) July 27, 2026