A Call to Arms

Vivek Ramaswamy spent Independence Day the way only a billionaire who calls Ohioans lazy could: jetting off to Paris.

Flight records show a Bombardier Global 5500 tied to the Ohio Republican gubernatorial nominee departed John Glenn Columbus International Airport around 10:20 p.m. on Saturday, July 4, and landed at Le Bourget Airport outside Paris the next morning. While Ohio families were grilling in their backyards and watching fireworks, the man asking for their votes was crossing the Atlantic in luxury.

The transatlantic flight burned an estimated 3,511 gallons of jet fuel at a cost of roughly $21,065 and produced an estimated 34 metric tons of carbon dioxide. That single flight cost more than many Ohio families take home in four months of work.

And this is not a one-time indulgence. The Paris trip marks Ramaswamy's fifth international getaway this year, following jaunts to Portugal, Greece, the Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos, and Puerto Rico. Campaign filings show he spent more than $780,000 on private jet travel in 2025 alone, more than Bernie Sanders spent on all air travel during a 29-city national tour.

The timing makes it worse. Much of Ohio spent that holiday weekend under an excessive heat warning, with heat-index values pushing into triple digits. Working families sweated through the holiday while Ramaswamy's jet pumped 34 tons of carbon into the sky on his way to a country still recovering from a deadly heat wave linked to roughly 1,000 excess deaths.

This is the same candidate who calls Ohioans lazy and insists rising prices are in their imagination. Ohio voters deserve a governor who spends the 4th of July with them, not one who spends it 3,800 miles away sipping champagne over the Atlantic.

...and Afghanistan are punishment for doing their jobs. A federal court in New York has summoned US President Donald Trump to respond to a lawsuit brought by three sitting judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), who accuse his administration of punishing them with sweeping sanctions for their work on investigations involving Israel and the United States. The summons, issued on Thursday by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, requires the government to respond within 60 days to a complaint filed a day earlier by judges Kimberly Prost of Canada, Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda and Reine Alapini-Gansou of Benin. The case names Trump as the lead defendant, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. It also names the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which maintains the sanctions list, and its director, Bradley Smith. It is the first time that ICC judges have personally gone to court to challenge their designation under Executive Order 14203, which Trump signed on 6 February 2025. The order declared a national emergency over the court's investigations into US and Israeli nationals and authorised asset freezes and travel restrictions against foreign officials who take part in or support them. The three judges are among eight on the court who have been sanctioned, alongside ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, his two deputies, the United Nations special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories and three Palestinian human rights organisations. Each of the three has served on judicial panels dealing with alleged crimes in Afghanistan (in the cases of Prost and Bossa) or in Palestine (in the case of Alapini-Gansou).

**Breaking: Was Lindsey Graham’s Sudden Death More Than Just Bad Luck?** 🤔

In an unexpected and tragic turn of events, Senator Lindsey Graham has passed away at the age of 71, just hours after returning from a pivotal visit to Ukraine. This raises unsettling questions: Could there be foul play involved?

### Key Concerns:

- **Timing of the Death**: Graham’s sudden health crisis, resulting in his death, came immediately after he had been vocal about supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression. Coincidence or a troubling connection?

- **Calls for Action Against Putin**: Graham has been outspoken about wanting Russian President Vladimir Putin eliminated. Did his vocal stance against the Russian leader put him in a precarious position?

- **Health Background**: Initial reports suggest Graham died from a ruptured aorta, but the rapidity of his decline—after a trip to a conflict zone—has left many suspicious.

- **Public Response**: The public is buzzing with theories, questioning whether this is just a tragic health incident or if there’s more lurking beneath the surface.

### What’s Next?

As investigations unfold and the public awaits further details, many are left wondering if this tragic event has larger implications. Was Graham’s visit to Ukraine a catalyst for something more sinister?

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 11, 2026

Heather Cox Richardson

Jul 12, 2026

Last night the Department of Justice subpoenaed reporters from the New York Times over a story the newspaper published on Wednesday. Julian E. Barnes, Eric Lipton, Tyler Pager, and Eric Schmitt reported that the Secret Service had security concerns about the new Air Force One Boeing 747-8 given to the U.S. by Qatar. So, when tensions escalated with Iran while Trump was in Türkiye for the NATO summit, they asked the president to use one of the other, older, Air Force One planes for his return journey.

Trump and White House officials pushed back strongly against the idea that the new plane had any security problems after pouring what appears to have been hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into renovating the plane. But, according to Adam Gramegna of Military . com, U.S. officials told CBS News that the speed with which the plane was rushed into service meant that it does not have the same protections as the older planes.

According to Devlin Barrett, Glenn Thrush, and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, the story that his prized plane was not as good as the older ones enraged Trump, and the White House called in FBI director Kash Patel to find the two anonymous sources who leaked it. Patel spent about 8 hours on Friday running an investigation from the White House, rather than FBI headquarters, before the reporters received the subpoenas.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton, whom Trump has nominated to be the next director of national intelligence, issued the subpoenas. The reporters are ordered to testify before a federal grand jury in Manhattan on Wednesday “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.” The Department of Justice said the subpoenas are related to “the crime of leaking national security information.”

The Justice Department emphasized that “reporters are not the targets. Those leaking classified information are.” But issuing subpoenas to U.S. journalists, who are protected from government interference by the First Amendment, is a huge red flag. As former Time magazine editor Rick Stengel noted: “The reporting that the Times journalists have been subpoenaed for is exactly the kind of journalism the First Amendment is designed to protect: matters involving national security and taxpayer dollars. Reporting that embarrasses a president is protected speech.”

David McCraw, senior vice president and deputy general counsel for the Times, said: “The appearance of Federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects. Our journalists report the facts and advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used. This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs.”

By 11:18 PM on Friday, Trump’s fury had turned back to Iran. He posted on social media that if Iran tried to assassinate him, “Locked and Loaded” missiles would begin to rain down on the country “to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran—PRAISE BE TO ALLAH!”

Today he turned his anger toward those questioning his mental acuity, particularly New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman, who commented on MS NOW about his reference in Türkiye to the “Islamic State of Japan.” At 12:23 PM he lashed out at “Maggot Hagerman” and then, to refute her claims, wrote that he “just finished a perfect physical at Walter Reed, I do it every six months, and I requested another Cognitive Test, the only President to do so, three times, and I aced them all—Got every question right. Few people in Washington, D.C., could do so, including Maggot and her flunky associate, Jonathan Swan. I would be willing to bet they couldn’t get 50% of the questions right.”

The White House said Trump was referring to a physical he underwent in May.

Then, at 3:16, the president’s account posted a screed of almost 450 words complaining angrily that “I win the Election IN A LANDSLIDE against the entire Dumocrat Party,…against almost 100% negative press and Fake News,…especially Maggot Hagerman, one of the most unattractive people in the News “Business,” and her lightweight assistant, Jonathan Swan…. All I do is WIN, often against all odds,” yet no one compliments him on his great successes.

Here he may have had in mind Thursday’s news story from Catherine Rampell of The Bulwark about his claim on social media on Monday that Walmart would be “dropping the price of ground beef by almost 15 percent” “at my Administration’s request.” Rampell reported that a Walmart spokesperson told her a different story: the price cuts were part of usual summer rollbacks, which had begun the week before Trump took credit for them. Rampell noted that Trump “looks for opportunities to slap his name on politically useful things that companies were already planning to do—seasonal sales, major investments, hiring, et very much cetera.”

White House spokesperson Kush Desai clarified on social media that the president’s “announcement was that the sale is extending all summer long,” adding, “The media’s obsessive need to try to undermine any good news when it affects President Trump is pathological.”

A rant about the news media took up most of Trump’s long post, as he insisted that those reporting his bad poll numbers and policy failures “have no credibility…. If the Election was held again today, I would win by even more—Actually, much more!” he posted. “The Dumocrats don’t have what it takes, their Policies are wrong, and they are, generally, stupid people. They are going COMMUNIST because they are a desperately ‘sinking ship,’ and there’s not a thing they can do about it.

“Instead of writing inaccurate, false articles, for over 10 years now, shouldn’t it be time that they say, ‘We give up, we can’t beat him, there seems nothing we can do.’ Isn’t it time they say, ‘TRUMP IS THE BEST POLITICAL ATHLETE OF ALL TIME! CONGRATULATIONS, MR. PRESIDENT. YOU HAVE BEATEN US FOR 10 YEARS, AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO WASTE OUR TIME FIGHTING YOU ANY LONGER. WE CAN’T WIN. DO A GREAT JOB, SIR, RUNNING OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’”

Journalist Aaron Rupar used a common meme often used to respond to unreasonably long posts. “I ain’t reading all that,” he commented. “I’m happy for u tho. Or sorry that happened.” Conservative lawyer George Conway wrote: “A severely mentally ill man has control of the launch codes for America’s nuclear arsenal, but it doesn’t seem that many people care.”

Almost 450 words evidently weren’t enough. At 4:54 he reiterated the themes of the long post in a shorter one, then a minute later, accused “the Dumocrats” of being communists. A minute after that, he claimed: “The Radical Left Lunatics, often referred to as Dumocrats, have lost control of their Party.”

Apparently, media criticism still stung. At 5:27, Trump took on reports of the high cost of his damaging renovations in Washington, D.C. Posting photos of what he said was “the horrible front of the White House,” he continued: “The Radical Left Dumocrats criticize me for spending so much time bringing our White House back to the Glory of 100 years ago—Actually, it will be far better than that, and they will not shame us for bringing our Great and Brilliant Monuments to the past and the future back to levels never seen before. This is what we are doing all over Washington, D.C., and, in different ways, with our Country, itself!”

But his confidence that American voters will support Republicans in the 2026 elections is shaky enough that he continues to call for the Senate to rig them. At 6:07 he reposted what purported to be a poll from right-wing loyalist Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) claiming that 97.2% of supporters want the Senate to take up the voter suppression SAVE America Act when it goes back into session next week, while only 2.8% want the Senate to take up “Anything else.”

Meanwhile, on Friday a Pentagon official told Rebecca Turco of WJLA 7News in Washington, D.C., that National Guard troops will stay activated in Washington through Inauguration Day 2029 “until law and order are fully restored in our Nation’s Capital.”

“So,” Bill Kristol of The Bulwark commented. “[M]ilitary troops under the direct control of Trump and Hegseth will be on the streets of our nation’s capital for the rest of Trump’s term. The rationale—they’re here to help with a crime emergency—is laughable. But of course the real reason is ominous.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN