Issue No. 18 - August 11, 2026
Last month, as the President left the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, U.S. officials had picked up a credible threat: Iran was reportedly planning to fire on Air Force One as it departed. So the Secret Service did what any reasonable security team would do in a spy thriller — they hid the President inside an airport catering truck, drove him to a different, smaller military plane, and let Air Force One take off as a decoy with the press pool and staff still aboard, none of them aware the President wasn’t on it.
The official cover story, delivered hours earlier on social media, was that the President wanted to fly the older Air Force One instead of the newer jet “for old time’s sake,” and was sending the new plane ahead so troops in England could tour it. That part was true. It just also happened to double as the perfect excuse to be on a different plane than everyone thought.
The switch only came to light this week, after the Washington Post and New York Times reported it and the President confirmed it to reporters at Joint Base Andrews. He said he “didn’t really ask too much” about the specifics of the threat, adding that he receives “a lot of threats.” Congressional leaders, for their part, were reportedly not informed the operation had happened until they read about it in the news, same as everyone else.
Headline Thread
SWITCH
Commemorating the time the President was smuggled off Air Force One in a catering truck, driven to a different plane, and let his own staff and press corps fly home thinking he was still with them. Classified operation, questionable communication plan, extremely wearable shirt.
Unsolicited Opinions
The Fake News Desk
LOCAL MAN CONFIRMS HIS LEGAL NAME IS ACTUALLY “JIMOTHY,” HAS BEEN LETTING EVERYONE CALL HIM JIM FOR THIRTY-ONE YEARS
Dayton resident James “Jim” Halbrook, 31, confirmed this week that his birth certificate does not, in fact, say James at all, but reads “Jimothy,” a name his parents selected in 1995 for reasons neither of them can currently reconstruct.
“I've just always gone by Jim,” Halbrook said, producing the birth certificate at a family barbecue after a cousin bet him twenty dollars he was making it up. “It felt like a lot to explain at, like, age six. And then it just never came up again for twenty-five years.”
Family members confirmed the name is real and has simply never been discussed, the same way nobody discusses why Uncle Ray isn’t invited to Thanksgiving anymore. Halbrook’s driver's license, passport, and lease all say Jimothy. His email signature, LinkedIn, and every relationship he has ever had say Jim.
Halbrook says he has no plans to correct the record going forward and considers the whole thing “handled.” He has, however, started signing birthday cards as Jimothy, just to see who notices.
