The Hot Air Force dispatches other people's navies

Dispatches from the War Fronts

Editors’ Note: For over 20 years the Spy has followed the thrilling adventures of the 101.1st Hot Air Force, that brave gaggle of pundits and “academics” who selflessly ordered other people’s children into pointless wars from their vantage points in some swell part of Washington, D.C. We all remember their triumph in Iraq(now a failed Iranian client state), don’t we? But that hasn’t deterred the Hot Air Force from embarking on thrilling new Crusades. Here’s their latest stirring adventure:

By Naval Correspondent Sammy Morrison

Just as Hot Air Force Generalissimo Bretbug was making plans for a glorious Iran War victory parade, his fellow HAF brasshats have proposed another even more exciting and plausible chapter in the military history: forcing the Strait of Hormuz.

Here’s legendary Admiral (and General!) Tom “Six Months” Friedman calling other people's fleets into the fray:

The Admirals of the Hot Air Force have spoken

Dear NATO Members: ....You despise President Trump for all the right reasons....Now get over it.

Get all your navies together and proceed to the Persian Gulf immediately to join the American armada to make clear that Iran will never, ever be allowed to decide who shall pass and who shall not through the Strait of Hormuz. And, if it insists on trying to do so, it won’t just be taking on the United States and Israel, it will be taking on the entire Western alliance. 

Yo-ho, Europe, you’ve got your steaming orders. Admiral Tom demands that every Englishman do his duty to bail America out of another catastrophe of its own making, arising out of decades of neocon pimping for a war against Iran.

And he’s not the only Hot Air Force brasshat ready to assemble a mighty armada of other people’s sons and daughters. Third-Rate [Surely, Third? – Ed.] Sea Lord Eliot Cohen ‘77, who has been equally wrong about every f***in’ thing for over two decades, is tootling the same tune on his pitchpipe:

All seafaring nations have a deep interest in maintaining freedom of navigation through international waterways, of which the Strait of Hormuz is one of the most important. If Iran gets away with charging any kind of toll or fee for passing through it, that principle is shot, and that is a dangerous thing. The allies may not like how Trump is addressing that problem, but addressed it must be.

Ah yes, freedom of passage through international straits, a principle articulated in the Law of the Sea Treaty forty years ago. Upon its completion in 1982, America walked away from and did its level best to sabotage the LOS Treaty, thanks to extremist Republican jingoism and isolationism, which, our loyal Republican allies may be shocked to learn, did not spontaneously arise in 2025. By the way, where were Admirals Tom and Elliot back then?

The great Sea Lords of the Hot Air Force do not even trifle with the cost of blood and treasure that would be involved in forcing the Strait of Hormuz against a well-supplied Iranian military occupying the hostile shore. Is it possible that a fleet of mighty ships might not succeed against a ragtag army of heathens?

Third Sea Lord Eliot dismisses those concerns with some incomprehensible word salad that boils down to what use is having a navy if you’re not shooting at somebody:

Would it be dangerous to send in the frigates? Yes. But here we run into one of the ways in which the West’s strategic culture has been vitiated by the Cold War habit of confusing strategy with deterrence. Many advanced states understand the need for some kind of violent reaction to terrorists or insurgents, usually as a task for special-operations forces. For the bulk of the armed forces, their main purpose has been preventing war by looking imposing rather than winning wars by fighting. That rationale for military power no longer suffices.

The HAF is ready for glorious battle in the Strait!

Fortunately, no matter how bloody the naval encounter in the Strait of Hormuz would be, Admirals Eliot and Tom, like the rest of the Hot Air Force, would face no danger, except for Shell Shock, by which we mean their reaction to paying $100 to fill up their Range Rovers at the Wisconsin Avenue Shell station. 

Some lily-livered nattering nabobs of negativism aren’t so sanguine:

It has long been understood by US military planners that countering an Iranian move to close the strait would be highly complex, reinforced by the experience of shipping being targeted by the Houthis in Yemen.

The US has been targeting Iran’s larger naval forces, but the country also has small, fast boats that the US says have been used for mine laying in recent days.

The proximity of the Iranian coast to launch missiles and drones against shipping creates its own issues, with transit lanes in some places only 3 to 4 miles from the Iranian shoreline. Flight times for drones and missiles are consequently very short, giving ships less than two minutes to react.

Iran last week also used a remote-controlled boat laden with explosives to damage a crude oil tanker anchored in Iraqi waters.

And while the US has one of the world’s largest and most powerful navies, that does not mean it has enough assets required for escort duties.

Which may be why the Admirals of the Hot Air Force are calling for an allied armada.

But you don’t have to accept The Guardian’s 2026 take as gospel. That same newspaper was around in 1915 to report on what happened when a previous generation of Great White Men decided to force a strait against opposition from non-Christian rabble at Gallipoli:

The repeated British and French bombardments beginning in mid-February against Turkish positions proved ineffective. A final attempt to force a passage up the Dardanelles in March ended in three allied battleships being sunk and three badly damaged. The two landings – one by British troops at Cape Helles, at the base of the peninsula, and the other on the western Aegean coast, in the area later known as Anzac Cove, by the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps – were met by fierce and disciplined Turkish opposition. Well dug in and heavily fortified on higher ground, they had been reinforced six times over. The allies had badly underestimated the capacity of the Turkish forces.

The verdict of history was scathing:

[Gallipoli was] of arguably the most ill-conceived, poorly led and, ultimately, senseless campaign of the first world war.

What could possibly go wrong?

In nine months of bloody slaughter, about 58,000 allied soldiers – including 29,000 British and Irish soldiers and 11,000 Australians and New Zealanders – lost their lives during the ill-starred operation to take the Gallipoli peninsula; a further 87,000 Ottoman Turkish troops died fiercely defending their homeland, and at least 300,000 more on both sides were seriously wounded 

But of course that couldn’t happen again, because the Iranian rabble, like the Ottomans in 1915, would surely crumble at the magnificent sight of British and French frigates steaming through the Strait of Hormuz. Anyway, as Hot Air Force master strategist John Bolton once said about bombing Iran, what happens next isn’t their problem. And you can’t expect strategic geniuses like Admirals Tom and Eliot to fret about a little thing like history.

The mighty French and British Navies were stopped dead by artillery, mines, and small arms fire. A century later, Iran has all those things and also a horde of small boats and guided air and sea drones directed by troops dug in on steep slopes. Like Gallipoli.

Our advice to Europe: before firing up the boilers of your frigates on the orders of the Hot Air Force, just remember that even Mel Gibson couldn’t force the Dardanelles in 1915. We don’t see Gerard Depardieu as being up to the job today.

Good and Dead Special Preview Edition: Lunatic corrupt racist and unpatriotic supporter of insurrection, not quite dead yet

The Obituary Page of The Massachusetts Spy 

Editors' Note: The news that corrupt depraved lunatic and disbarred mouthpiece Rudy Giuliani lay on death's door in a Florida hospital (itself a bad sign) erupted over all media earlier this week, leading everyone, including us, to refresh our draft obituaries of the old scoundrel. Unfortunately, despite a liver with more fat spots than a mortadella, the door remained shut.  What to do?  Then we saw a social media post suggesting that the obituaries be printed now, when their subject, and his remaining toadies and apologists, could see how he and they will be remembered.  The more we thought about this, the more we liked it.  So while the cousin-marrier remains barely alive, we offer a special preview edition of his obsequies.

By Obituary Editor Luke Reschuss 

The news that Rudy Giuliani had been struck by what seemed to be a fatal illness was received with the same lack of interest that normally attends the demise of a forgotten ex-celebrity.  But he can not be so easily dismissed, because the arc of his sordid life tracks the progress of the Republican Party and its legions of white male a*******s from Nixonian dog-whistles and dirty tricks to the Mad King's bats*** crazy sadism and evil.

Just this week, another volume of madness was added to the annals of his infamy, with the release of his grand jury testimony about his efforts to smear and terrorize Georgia election workers by lying about the 2020 election. 

He starts strong:

I'm seventy -- 77, I think. I get confused sometimes -- 77, 78.  

Who among us doesn't remember their age? 

He then responded with the candor and commitment to honesty that marked his whole career:

Read all about when Rudy was Mayor

ADA WADE: So -- so just -- just to be clear, the -- the question was: What is your legal definition of the Fifth Amendment? Your response was, You would invoke the Fifth Amendment.

THE WITNESS: Correct. 

As the innocent always do.

And like the independent courageous tell-it-like-it-is guy that he pretended to be, he responded eloquently to the question of who won the 2020 election:

ADA WADE: Mr. Giuliani, who won the 2020 presidential election?

THE WITNESS: I -- I will invoke the Fifth Amendment, on the advice of counsel, as well as the attorney-client privilege and the work-product privilege. 

By the way his performance in the George election litigation led a jury of his peers to, um, disbar him, an extraordinarily rare sanction usually reserved for lawyers who steal their clients' funds or are convicted of various horrible crimes:

As to the sanction, the Referee’s disbarment recommendation is amply supported by the record and should be confirmed. The seriousness of respondent’s misconduct cannot be overstated. Respondent flagrantly misused his prominent position as the personal attorney for former President Trump and his campaign, through which respondent repeatedly and intentionally made false statements, some of which were perjurious, to the federal court, state lawmakers, the public, the AGC, and this Court concerning the 2020 Presidential election, in which he baselessly attacked and undermined the integrity of this country’s electoral process. In so doing, respondent not only deliberately violated some of the most fundamental tenets of the legal profession, but he also actively contributed to the national strife that has followed the 2020 Presidential election, for which he is entirely unrepentant. The aggravation cited by the Referee, which includes respondent’s disruptive and disrespectful behavior during the hearing, significantly outweighs the mitigation and only adds to the case for his disbarment. 

His career ended in madness and disgrace. Let's recall how it began.

After marrying his cousin, Giuliani served in various career and then political position in Reagan's bent Justice Department.  He did some useful work prosecuting inside traders but spent most of his time peddling the prevailing Republican law and order line, which meant pandering to white racists by unleashing the police on Black people.

His performance, and the white racist backlash to the election of a black Mayor (sound familiar?), led him to two terms as New York City Mayor, where he presided over the usual police reign of terror that in those days was justified as a response to supposedly out of control crime.  As the New York Civil Liberties Union so aptly summed up, “the rest of Rudy Giuliani’s mayoralty was driven by a hostility to free expression, police brutality and violence, and an authoritarian disregard for democracy....In the seven-and-a-half years before 9/11, let there be no mistake: racial bias, fear-mongering, and police brutality were the hallmarks of Giuliani’s mayoralty.”

The sordid particulars can be found here.

His finest hour

One of his terrible decisions proved to have especially lethal consequences: locating the City's $60 million emergency operations center within the World Trade Center complex, knowing that the area had already been attacked by terrorists.

The decision to place the command bunker at the WTC, rather than the preferred location within Brooklyn's downtown Metrotech complex, was made so that Giuliani could preen before the cameras without having to schlep to what in those days was regarded as a backwater.  Others claim that he located the center there so that he could have a convenient excuse to bang his girlfriend on the down low while still married to Donna Hanover. 

His adequate and surprisingly empathic performance after 9/11 gave him celebrity and power to burn.  And boy did he burn it. 

While blowing most of his money on divorcing his second and third wives, not to mention booze, cigars, and other vices, he had the great brass balls to run for President as as Republican.  But his watered-down racism and general weirdness appalled primary voters.  He quit his campaign after achieving a total of one (1) delegate.

From there it was all downhill.  His political ambitions permanently stifled, he tried to return to power by attaching himself to an even more loathsome and corrupt Republican: his fellow Republican louche lizard Donald Trump.  His crude hate and lie filled rant about Hillary Clinton stood out even at the insane 2016 Republican clown convention.

He had hoped that his vile attacks would lead the Mad King to give him a big job in his Administration, like Secretary of State, but he failed to realize that the Donald was a solo act who had no use for other self-promoting loudmouths, however sycophantic.  His belief that he could succeed in a job requiring judgment, tact, and discretion suggests his later alcohol-fueled dementia was already in full bloom in 2016.

With his money and reputation slipping away, he appointed himself the Mad King's personal lawyer, although of course the Mad King stiffed him for at least $2 million in legal fees. 

Not realizing that he was being played as a fool, he then permanently fouled out of public life by spreading the Mad King's obvious lies about the 2020 election and the supposed corruption of the Biden Family.  The total he falsely alleged to have been pocketed by the Bidens was of course small change compared to the billions stolen by the Mad King and his mouth-breathing failsons.

After the Mad King's attempted coup in 2021, he was regarded as so toxic and unreliable that he was barred from appearing on Fox “News.”  Imagine being too incredible to appear on the network that featured Jeannie Pirro and now Jesse Watters.   

Facing creditors and legal judgments, he filed for bankruptcy in 2023, listing debts of over $500 million. 

Bankrupt and disbarred, his last appearance on the world stage was as a horny old tosser about to drop trou and make a pass at a girl known to him only as Borat's 15-year-old daughter.

And now he's dead.  Well, not quite, but we need to have this obit ready to roll.

Waiting for Rudy to return to his Florida bachelor pad

So what's the point?  Certainly there's the sheer joy of pounding on a truly vile and arrogant white man who used his power and privilege to enrich himself and get laid, while poisoning the political and racial environment of our United States.

But there's another aspect to his sordid life and imminent death.  The arc of his life, bending from the coded racism and privilege of Nixonian Republicanism to the unabashed raw Fascism and naked corruption of the Mad King's Republican regime of terror, not only epitomizes the last 40 years of his party.

It also demonstrates to even the most meager intelligence, including our Wonderful Republican Allies seeking our votes for Congress and our eyeballs weekdays at 4, that there really isn't much if any distance between Republicans of the 70's and now.

If you don't believe us, look at the Supreme Court built by the Republicans over the past half century and what they have done to our democracy.

Our advice to our Wonderful Republican Allies: if you're asked about the difference between the Republicans of your era (like America's Mayor) and today, follow Rudy's example and take the Fifth.  

Meanwhile Rudy, unlike his Fascist idol Generalissimo Francisco Franco, remains critically alive. 

Supreme but no Court: the Republican Lords' repeal of the Voting Rights Act

By Legal Editor Saori Shiroseki with Meta-Content Generator A.J. Liebling

On Wednesday the six bent Republican Supreme Court Justices completed their decades-long repeal of the Voting Rights Act on the unrebuttable ground that they didn't like it.

That may seem rather a harsh conclusion, but you don't have to take our word for it.  Here's the conclusion of the three unbent women who dissented with remarkable bitterness:

The point is not to deliver a eulogy for the law—though, in truth, the Court’s step-by-step slaying of voting rights now makes one appropriate. Rather, the object is to reveal how far today’s decision repudiates past, and rightfully still controlling, congressional choices.  

Callais v. Louisiana, No. 24-109 (April 29, 2026)(dissenting op. at 6).

Alito and Roberts seemed pleased by their decision

Very briefly, the six bent Republicans decided that a state violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by breaking up minority districts (thereby effectively nullifying the minority (in America, Black) vote) only when plaintiffs prove that the redistricting was done for racism.

Crucially, the same bent six decided that when minority voters favored one party and majority white voters favored another, a state could dilute the votes of minority voters for political reasons.

That is, it's OK to dilute Black votes to enshrine Republican rule as long as the state's mapmakers did not say, “Oh, and by the way, we're racists too.”

In other words, never.  In fact, it's worse than that.  Under the Court's existing case law, a Section 2 claimant had to plead and prove that the political affiliations of the majority and minority voters of a state diverged.  Callais, dissenting op. at 18.  But now the existence of political differences is both a necessary part of, and fatal to, the claim.

The political fallout was swift: unraveling the Voting Rights Act-inspired maps of the old Confederacy would wipe out as many as 12 majority-minority (and Democratic) districts.  This return to the Jim Crow era when Black candidates were systematically excluded from public office is a grievous blow to democracy.

While the media focused on the effects this unraveling would have on the question of who controls the House, that isn't the most terrible aspect of the bent majority decision.  It is possible that a decision based on faithful application of the law could hurt people, sometimes badly.

But this decision came nowhere the law.  The Callais majority acted not as a court, but as an unelected Privy Council with the power to dismiss any laws enacted by the political branches that displeased them.

To her credit, Justice Kagan makes this clear to even the most meager intelligence, like our mainstream media bloviators:

The majority now demands that vote-dilution plaintiffs muster proof of racially discriminatory motive. ...In that way, the decision echoes an earlier one of this Court, which also held that Section 2 should function as an intent test....But Congress...amended Section 2 to reject that view: In light of the way voting discrimination had operated since the Fifteenth Amendment’s adoption, Congress instead drafted Section 2 to bar the use of any electoral mechanism that would result in minority citizens having less opportunity than non-minority citizens to choose their political representatives. 

Id. at 6.

As Justice Kagan explains in extenso, Congress passed Section 2 to protect minority voters from decisions that in effect made their vote meaningless, by spreading them among white-majority districts.  The Supreme Court then interpreted that provision to require racist intent.

Then Congress rewrote the law to make it clear that the Supreme Court got it wrong, and that the issue was discriminatory effects.  There the law stood for 43 years, blessed by many Court decisions. 

On Wednesday, despite 43 years of contrary precedent, the six bent Republicans again rejected Congress's duly enacted legislation on the basis of their feelings that things had improved so much the law enacted by Congress was no longer needed:

As long as it's political, it's fine!

So the majority moves on again, now to a grab-bag of “developments” that it somehow thinks license it to rewrite a statute....The majority first summons the slogan of Shelby County, in which the Court ordained itself the arbiter of when civil rights laws are no longer needed. “ ‘[T]hings have changed dramatically,’ ” today’s majority echoes, pointing to increases in African American voting registration and to the success of “ ‘African-Americans attain[ing] political office’ ”—“particularly in the South, where many §2 suits arise.” ... No doubt that is so, in large measure because of the Voting Rights Act. But it is a separate question whether those gains will endure once the Act’s protections are gone. ...And surely—but apparently not—the proper actor to answer that question is Congress. For one thing, it likely has a fuller understanding of the issue. I will be interested to see, for example, whether time will vindicate the majority’s view that the “great strides” made in African American office-holding, “particularly in the South,” will hold up after the issuance of this opinion...My own guess is not. ...But honestly, the American people pay no Member of this Court to make those predictive policy judgments—and more important, the Constitution does not allow us to base our decisions on them. It is for the people’s representatives in Congress to decide when the Nation need no longer worry about the dilution of minority voting strength. So long as Congress has not done so—and it has not—this Court has no right to cancel (sorry, “update”) a duly enacted statute on the theory that it knows better. 

Id. at 42-43. 

The bent Republican majority has taken it upon itself to rewrite, based on its own, to put it charitably, limited perspective on the current state of race relations in America.  As Justice Kagan pointed out, this was the method used by that majority to repeal the other operative provisions of the Voting Rights Act: Section 5 preclearance, voided for no legal reason by Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U. S. 529 (2013) and Section 2 prohibitions on changes to voting rules that unfairly burden minority participation, Brnovich v. DNC, 594 U. S. 647 (2021).

And that Voting Rights Act hat trick is not the only recent example of lawless Supreme Court decisions that just happen to favor Republicans. We'll just mention one: United States v. Trump, 603 U.S. 593 (2024), creating, contrary to the Constitution, an absolute Presidential immunity for crimes committed while in office.

By the way, Kagan's prediction that Southern white Republican racists would lose no time in destroying Black majority districts was well founded.  Since Wednesday's decision, white politicians in South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Florida, and Missouri have all started (or finished) action to blow up majority-minority districts, thereby putting 12 Black Congressmen at risk.

The media response has been the predictable hand-wringing not combined with calls to take effective action on a political level to curb this out-of-control court. 

The only cure for a nonjudicial power-mad institution that believes itself empowered to repeal federal statutes based on whatever prejudices they have firmly held for their entire lives is a political one.

During the Biden Administration, calls for Court reform were condescendingly rejected by the Democratic powers that be as too extreme.

That seems to have changed.

No less an Establishment pillar than House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has called for unspecified reforms, saying “All options are on the table.”  Presumably this excludes bombing their bridges and power plants.

The deep thinkers at the Brennan Center have come up with six reforms (including term limits), all of which are fine as far they go, which isn't far enough.

We have a few more modest suggestions; modest, that is, in relation to the gravity of the current bent Court's usurpation of political power:

7. Unpack the Court (and various circuits) with at least four new Justices.  The counterargument that a future Republican regime would add their own only emphasizes the the Court is subject to political control, and eventually the arms race would force the Republicans into a real compromise involving staggered 18-year terms.  Doing nothing simply lets the Republicans' court-packing go unanswered.  If you don't believe me, ask Justice Garland. 

8.  Limit the Court's jurisdiction.  A revised Voting Rights Act could provide that its operation cannot be enjoined or stayed except upon a final unanimous judgment of the Court.  Similar provisions could be added to curb shadow docket abuse.

9.  Impeach Justices who lied during their confirmations (Thomas, Kavanaugh) or have proven to be be corrupt (Thomas, Alito). 

Oh, and one final proposal that should effectively curb the Republican Justices' appetite for judicial tyranny.

Release them and replace with the Supreme Court 

If they are not going to act like judges, then they don't need a courthouse.  They don't own their marble palace on Capitol Hill; we do.  And we can boot them out, restoring the status quo that prevailed for over 150 years.

Actually, we agree that they should have a safe place to work far from the prying eyes of the great unwashed.

Fortunately, ICE has spent over $1 billion on warehouses it intended to turn into concentration camps for persons not convicted of any crime.  The public outcry has brought this mighty project to a halt.

Why not put these warehouses to good use?  The Court and its flunkies could easily fit into one of these 800,000 square foot behemoths, with room for their basketball court.  We can't wait to see the first arguments in their beautiful and utterly secure facility in ICE's unused warehouse in Williamsport, Maryland, conveniently located only an hour away from Chevy Chase.

Perfect. 

Spy book exclusive: A thrilling new adventure with Captain Hornblower in the Seas of Araby!

Spy Book Exclusive:

HORNBLOWER AND
THE MAD BOMBERS

Editors' Note: Feeling overwhelmed by all of the horrible news about the collapse of American democracy?  Us too!  To provide some welcome diversion from the real world around us, the Spy is proud to present an exclusive excerpt from the latest adventure of famed British Captain Horatio Hornblower, the intrepid British sailor who roams the world thrashing the heathens in the service of His Majesty.

 

Chapter XXII

A well-lubricated encounter

 

Captain Horatio Hornblower paced the quarterdeck of the HMS Faded Glory, a magnificent 72-gun frigate of the Royal Navy.  Its magnificence was only slightly tarnished by the Admiralty's budget constraints, which left the vessel with only 12 guns and 60 logs painted black pointing out of the sally ports.

Hornblower scanned the horizon of the brilliant blue sea.  His second in command, Lt. Bush, stood by his side ready to assist his Captain, as he had on so many other occasions.

“I say Mr. Bush, what is that vessel approaching us?”

Bush raised his spyglass and noted the vessel's massive American naval standard: a portrait of King Donald parting the waters while holding a bucket of fried chicken. 

“I believe it is an American naval vessel of some sort,” Bush replied.

Hornblower greeted the Americans

Damnation!  Not the Americans again, Hornblower thought.  Who knew what was on the mind of these uncouth savages who couldn't tell the difference between a mizzen mast and a swizzle stick?

Hornblower allowed himself a small sigh.  “What are their intentions, Mr. Bush?”

The alert Lieutenant noted that the American vessel had launched a small lighter with several officers headed in the direction of Hornblower's vessel.  “They appear to be seeking a parley, Sir,” Bush said.

“Very well, Mr. Bush.  Prepare to receive our American visitors and lay out some simple but adequate refreshment.”

Bush nodded, but he realized that the request was not as simple as it appeared, as the Faded Glory was at that moment receiving a supply of victuals and spirituous refreshments from a small supply craft that had tied up along side.  He watched as the crew unloaded the various items from the local merchants, including, to Bush's satisfaction, several live sheep, who would supply copious amounts of food and recreation for the weary crew, not necessarily in that order.

Just then, Bush's thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash of an incoming projectile landing just off the port quarter.

Captain Hornblower picked himself off the deck and growled “What was that, Mr. Bush?”

Bush looked over the rail and saw immediately that the supply vessel had been smashed to pieces and its crew either blown to bits or wailing desperately for help.  Bush ordered the bosun's mates to organize a rescue of the shocked survivors under the direction of the ship's surgeon.  “My God, what a bloody mess!” Bush ejaculated.  At least the sheep were safe, he saw.

“The supply tender was attacked. I can only assume it was a shot from the American vessel,” Bush informed his superior.

“I shall certainly remonstrate severely with those Yankees!” Captain Hornblower replied.

With the efficiency for which the Royal Navy was famed, the crew had soon cleared the blood and body parts from the decks and prepared to receive their American visitors.

Captain Hornblower had never seen such a rum lot of naval officers before.  Even the Spanish had a more military bearing.  

The Americans, their jackets gleaming with medals of uncertain origin, each carried a variety of weapons, including what appeared to be machine guns and grenades.  They eyes were hidden behind sunglasses and instead of proper military uniforms, they wore green camouflage fatigues, useless on the open seas, and red caps emblazoned with the curious letters “MAGA.”

“Do you think that's the name of their vessel?” Bush asked.

“D-----d if I know, Mr. Bush, ” Hornblower replied, irritated by the lack of decorum shown by the oddly-attired Americans.  He awaited a request from their leader to board the Faded Glory.

None came. Instead the Americans clambered out of their boat and onto the mighty British warship.

One of the Americans snapped his chewing gum and said, “Who's in charge here, Pops?”

“Captain Horatio Hornblower, at your service.”

“Hornblower – that's a stupid name,” the American replied. 

The Americans seemed to enjoy the Royal Navy's hospitality

“And whom do I have the honor of addressing?” Captain Hornblower replied politely, inwardly incensed at the cavalier attitude of his visitors. 

“I am Lord High General and Admiral of the United States Pete Hegseth. Now drop and give me 20!”

Captain Hornblower was nonplussed by the incomprehensible greeting from Hegseth, who appeared to be tottering from side to side.  That gave the resourceful King's officer an opening.

“May I interest you in a bit of spirituous refreshment, Lord Hegseth?”

The cheeky American sat at the Captain's table and pounded it with his fist. “Jaeger Bombs all round.  And be snappy about it!”

Hornblower's eye fell on one member of of the American party.  “Any may I suggest that your sepoy join our other ranks below decks, so that they may entertain him properly?”

Hegseth appeared puzzled but said, “That is not my sea boy.  That is General Patel, our nation's leading crime fighter, and he will join us.”

“My apologies,” Hornblower responded.  He nodded at his manservant, who promptly brought out pewter cups and a large flagon of Royal Navy rum.  The able seaman poured healthy rations for each member of the party.

“Where's the pineapple juice and maraschino cherries?  This isn't a real Scorpion Bowl, ” muttered General Patel.

“I'm afraid that in the King's Navy we take our rum neat. Cheers!” Hornblower replied.

After all had downed the first ration of grog, the mood in the Captain's quarters lightened considerably.

“May I enquire as to the purpose of your delightful visit today, gentlemen?”

“May I inquire as to why my cup is empty?” Lord Hegseth responded brightly.

With a barely perceptible nod, Captain Hornblower summoned his steward to refill the pewter cups.

After draining his second ration of rum, Lord Hegseth ran his hand through his oiled hair and banged the table with his fist.  “We're here to find out why you English cowards are not sending your warships to open the Strait of Hormuz.”

Captain Hornblower raised one eyebrow.  “Indeed?”

“F***in-A indeed.  We bailed you out of two world wars.  You owe us this one,” Lord Hegseth responded, slumping down in his chair.

“I have no orders from the Admiralty to engage Iranian forces,” Hornblower replied equably.

“D**n your Admiralty,”  Lord Hegseth shouted.  “Now get your ships to the Strait right after you buy us another round.”

Hornblower nodded to his faithful retainer again, and once again the cups were filled. “I shall be glad to seek instruction from the First Sea Lord and will revert to you promptly when I receive a response.”

Lord Hegseth downed his third cup and let out an audible belch.  “And how soon will you hear?”

“I think we should be able to get a response in three or four months, depending on the wind, ” Hornblower replied.

“Speaking of wind – ” General Patel said with a peculiar gleam in his eye.

“Not now, Kash!” Lord Hegseth thundered.  “My King will not be pleased by your response, I warn you.”

“I am most sorry to hear it,” the imperturbable Hornblower said. 

To break the ensuing silence, the British Captain ventured a question of his own: “Was that an American shell that destroyed the supply tender whilst it was provisioning my ship?”

General Patel ejaculated: “That was a boat full of narco-terrorists, according to our intelligence.”

With a scornful glare at the swarthy American, Hornblower replied, “Those were unarmed merchants.  Don't you know anything about the laws of war?”

The General muttered, “S--- happens.”

Lord Hegseth then rose suddenly, turned on his heel, and tripped over his chair, falling flat on his face.  He lay prone on the deck, moaning softly.

Captain Hornblower turned to his servant.  “Tell the bosun's mate to escort or carry our guests back to their lighter,” he ordered.

Once the guests had been ushered out of the room, Captain Hornblower turned to Lt. Bush with a mischievous gleam in his eye and said, “Now let's inspect those sheep, shall we, Mr. Bush?”

The loyal Lieutenant allowed the wisp of a grin to play over his weathered features. “As you wish, Sir!” 

His work is done: it's back to Southie for beloved ICE czar and beer loving white man Todd Lyons!

By Immigration Correspondent Emma Goldman with
Meta-Content Generator A.J. Liebling

Last week, we treated you to a look at The Boston Globe's tongue bath profile of a local boy made, in the Globe’s view, good: the Acting Chief of the gang of thugs and losers doing business as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), Southie’s own Todd Lyons. 

Despite his apparent wonderfulness and devotion to duty, this week Todd Lyons decided that he's had enough, using the patently preposterous excuse of his kid's senior year in high school: 

His son will be a high school senior next year, and Lyons said he promised not to miss any football or baseball games.

“It’s time to get back home,” he said. “I’ve really always put family first.” 

And once again his faithful lapdog, The Boston Globe, was there to glaze this cruel, vicious apparatchik.  Grab your hankies, boys and girls:

Those who know Lyons say he is not the fire-breathing partisan one might expect to lead the nation’s most controversial federal agency. He is affable and even-keeled, according to interviews with more than two dozen people who know him, and while a reliable Republican voter, he is not particularly political.

A Boston College High School graduate and Air Force veteran who worked as a police officer in Florida, Lyons previously headed Boston’s field office for ICE, where he at least once personally intervened to prevent deportation.

Speaking of knowing Lyons, once again we quote Justice Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: “By their fruits we best know them.”  

So to really get to know the pride of Southie (a post formerly held by luminaries like rock-throwing Louise Day Hicks and mobster bro Billy Bulger), let's look back at some of deeds for which Mr. Affable will remembered.  All of which took place in the week before his announcement.

1.  Goons reporting to Family Man Lyons intervened in a family dispute in Alabama by, wait for it, throwing an 86-year old French grandmother into their torture gulag:

Marie-Thérèse Ross-Mahé was arrested in her nightgown at the home she shared with her late husband, a retired US army captain, in Anniston, Alabama, more than two weeks ago. She had overstayed her 90-day visa, according to the US Department of Homeland Security.

Lyons is known as a good family man

She had moved 4,000 miles from her home in Brittany in north-west France to marry her former sweetheart William “Billy” Ross, whom she had met in the 1950s when she was a secretary working at a military base where he was stationed in France. 

It turns out that the body snatchers had acted at the request of her stepchildren, who were trying to swindle her out of any share of her late husband's estate in violation of state law:

[Alabama state probate] Judge Millwood wrote in her ruling that she believed that Mr. Ross’s younger son, Tony Ross, who she said was a retired Alabama state trooper now working at a federal courthouse in Anniston, had used his position as a government employee to have Ms. Ross-Mahé arrested. 

Don't worry though: after 13 days of terror and life-threatening mistreatment, she was finally booted back to France:

The New York Times reported that Ross-Mahé’s adult children met her at Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Paris on Friday morning, and that she was still dressed in her detention uniform of orange shoes, sweatpants and a grey sweater covered in stains and holes. One of her sons said she was in a state of shock and exhausted after her ordeal.... 

Before her release from detention, Ross-Mahé’s son said the family had been extremely worried after she was “cuffed by the hands and feet like a dangerous criminal” during her arrest on 1 April, as she suffered from heart and back problems.

He said he, his brother and his sister had heard no news about their mother for a week after she was arrested, until French consular officials were allowed to visit her.

2.  Speaking of Todd Lyons' network of concentration camps,  the detainees (who have been convicted of zero crimes) continue to die from mistreatment and denial of medical care at an appalling rate:

Aled Damien Carbonell-Betancourt is the 17th Reported ICE Detention Death of 2026 A 27-year-old man from Cuba died on April 12, one day after the 16th death of the year. The pace of detention deaths holds at an average of 1 every 6 days. austinkocher.substack.com/p/aled-damie...

[image or embed]

— Austin Kocher, PhD (@austinkocher.com) April 17, 2026 at 5:43 PM

3.  As with previous instances of mass concentration camps intended to terrify through their cruelty, the living might be envying the dead:

If she's looking for a new gig, ICE is hiring!

In a report published last week, the legal services non-profit Raíces and advocacy group Human Rights First documented “widespread due process violations, inhumane conditions, and lasting physical and psychological harm inflicted on families” incarcerated at Dilley. Nearly 4,000 medical professionals sent a letter to Donald Trump calling for the release of all children held at the facility, writing that detention was causing “predictable, severe, and lasting harm” to their health.

In a statement sent to the Guardian, the DHS denied the poor conditions at Dilley detailed in the report. Detainees said they found hair, worms, bugs and dead flies in their meals. 

Sounds like the cuisine at Todd Lyons's favorite Southie watering holes.

4.  One of the key responsibilities of any leader of an organization is staffing and recruitment?  How'd family man Todd do in that regard?

Rapid recruitment and expansion by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has led to an influx of employees with questionable qualifications, an investigation has found.

The track records of some of the new recruits amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda stand out – and not in a good way.

They include characteristics such as two bankruptcies and six law enforcement jobs in three years, an allegation of lying in a police report to justify a felony charge against an innocent woman – an incident that led to a $75,000 settlement and criticism of the recruit’s integrity – and a job candidate who once failed to graduate from a police academy, then lasted only three weeks in his only job as a police officer.

The common bond is that all were hired recently by ICE during an unprecedented hiring spree – 12,000 new officers and special agents to double its force.... 

Heckuva job, Toddie!

5.  Not only has Todd recruited unqualified goons for his secret police, he's also failed to supervise them to prevent them from committing crimes against those they are supposedly protecting:

6. Speaking of departures, Lyons, when not (or perhaps while)  watching his kids jock it up, has implemented a program of deporting noncitizens previously granted a form of immigration relief (withholding of removal) to violent s***holes where they are mistreated, imprisoned, and tortured in violation of U.S. and international law, according to intrepid freelance journalist Gillian Brockell.

The destinations of these flights include countries like the Congo, as violent and lawless as Southie was in 1975.  Perhaps Todd is too young to remember. 

And this was only one week's worth of torture, crimes, and outrages perpetrated by secret police reporting to the BC High grad who isn't a fire-breathing partisan.   According to the Boston Globe, that is.

Why the Globe has worked so hard to ignore Lyons's record of cruelty, lawlessness, and depravity as ICE Leiter remains a mystery.  The paper has had a long record of overlooking the manifest shortcomings of white men, usually Irish or WASP, it has anointed as saviors, like Kevin White or Bill “Happy Hour” Weld. 

But the ludicrous effort to whitewash Lyons as Dad and/or Martyr of the Year doesn't pass the laugh, or perhaps the scream, test:

Lyons told the Globe he was proud to have been a voice for the tens of thousands of people working under him at the agency.

“I would much rather me be the villain and be demonized than the work the men and women of ICE did and do every day,” Lyons said.  

And the Globe would apparently rather burn its reputation and integrity than grapple with the evil that white men from Southie do. 

We can only hope that a reconstituted Department of Justice will someday be less gullible and forgiving.

But he's from Southie: The Globe whitewashes cruel ICE czar

By Immigration Correspondent Emma Goldman with
Meta-Content Generator A.J. Liebling

Last Sunday, The Boston Globe treated, if that’s the word, its readers to a warm, glowing profile of a local boy made, in the Globe’s view, good: the current Acting Chief of the U.S. bureau of body snatchers, known in court papers as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), Southie’s own Todd Lyons.

As described by the Globe, he sounds like a nice fella:

Affable and even-keeled, a self-described “football and baseball dad,” Lyons supervises an army of armed agents and officers who have shattered car windows, dragged immigrants from vehicles, and killed a US citizen, leaving terror in their wake.

Those who know Lyons say he is not the fire-breathing partisan one might expect to be leading the nation’s most controversial federal agency. Rather, in more than two dozen interviews, people from across the political spectrum portrayed him as respectful, cordial, and occasionally funny — the consummate professional.... “He’s a really nice guy,” said Simona Flores-Lund, Lyons’s former boss in ICE’s Dallas office. “Don’t judge him because of the job he does.”

How else would you judge someone? We asked Justice Robert Jackson for comment, and he said simply:  “By their fruits we best know them.”  

Nuremberg Opening Statement at  ❡❡190.

Southie has given us many fine regular guys.

Lyons is what fellow Bostonians might call “a regular guy”: unpretentious and easy to get along with, someone who likes to play golf, watch the Patriots, and have a beer.

He has salt and pepper hair, which he wears slicked back over a broad face, and he speaks firmly and directly. He comes off more relaxed during interviews with conservative podcast hosts than with mainstream journalists. He is personable, if guarded, and known to crack a joke....

A regular guy from Southie who enjoys a brewski, like Dapper O’Neill and the other goons who threw rocks at school buses 50 years ago.

Lyons...now trumpets the hard-edged policy of the second Trump administration. “We are being allowed to do our job,” he told the Globe.

“People just can’t believe, ‘Oh my god, I’ve been here eight to 10 years, now you’re arresting me,’” Lyons said on a podcast last year. “Well, yeah, you’re here illegally, right?”

You might also be locked up in some ICE hellhole even though you have pending claims for immigration relief, like the hundreds of thousands Lyons’s body snatchers have incarcerated despite long-pending applications for asylum or status by marriage.

Lyons justifies his cruelty with a story, not verified by the Globe or anyone else about a junkie cousin whose death Lyons blames not on the junkie but on his dealer, who Lyons claims was an immigrant (there being no U.S. citizens involved in drug trafficking):

The work of ICE also became more personal for Lyons, family members said, after a cousin he was close to died in 2019 of a fentanyl overdose. ... “I think he always felt a sense of ... he wished he could have done more,” Jack Lyons said. “So his way now is, he goes after that: fentanyl dealers, drug dealers. … That probably fed a little bit into some of the border stuff too, keeping drugs from coming over.”

In a podcast interview last year, Lyons suggested the drugs that killed his cousin came from a dealer in Lawrence, an undocumented immigrant who Lyons claimed was free because local police did not honor a custody request from ICE. Such ICE requests that are ignored by so-called sanctuary cities are a major bone of partisan contention — and an enormous point of frustration for Lyons.

In fact, to the extent anything in this story is true, the reason the Lawrence Police did not hold someone in the absence of sufficient state criminal charges is because the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that local police agencies did not have the power to jail people just because ICE asks them to. Lunn v. Commonwealth, 477 Mass. 517 (2017). You could look it up. As could Lyons or the Globe reporters.

The Globe was proud enough of its story to plug it in their immigration newsletter:

We wanted to know: How did this “regular guy” go from humble Southie, where he dreamed of becoming a Boston cop or firefighter, to leading a major federal agency and one of the president’s top issues?

Maybe that’s what these reporters want to know. We wanted to know how they could present Todd Lyons as a wonderful family man devoted to justice without considering that the agency he runs has perpetrated the following atrocities against human beings in just the last few weeks:

1.  Beer-lovin' Todd runs a vast gulag of detention centers marked by incompetence, cruelty, torture.  And death.

This year alone, deaths in ICE detention are running at the rate of one per week.  Many if not all of these deaths are to the failure of ICE contractors to provide even basic health care and Lyons' depraved indifference to this unconstitutional denial of care to civil detainees:

Septic shock?  Bet that really would cut into your ability to enjoy knocking back bevos with your Southie boyos. 

The full story was published in the San Francisco Chronicle.

2.  If the gruesome ICE concentration camps don't kill you, you may will wish you were dead, which is obviously the point of this illegal punitive incarceration:

“What we saw tonight inside the facility was shocking,” [Rep.] Stanton told reporters outside the Mesa facility after the brief tour, calling the conditions inside “significantly overcrowded.”

He described concrete rooms with no bedding or blankets, packed with people mostly laying on the floor. When the lawmakers entered the facility, many of those individuals also scrambled to the doors of the holding cells, asking them for help.

[Rep.] Ansari was visibly shaken by what she saw.

“Shameful, absolutely shameful that the United States government, funded by our taxpayer dollars, is allowing this to happen,” she said.

Ansari said that each of the rooms holding immigrant detainees lists its maximum capacity; the majority had a capacity of 21, while two others were 24. Ansari, Stanton and Grijalva all said they counted more than 40 people in each of the 6 rooms and estimated around 250 people in total were inside the facility.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this in my entire life,” [Sen.] Grijalva said, fighting back tears. The Tucson Democrat described the way people were laying down inside as “like sardines.”

“It is frightening in there,” Grijalva said. “It is disgusting.”  

Bet the tormented detainees are relieved to know that their jailer is respectful, cordial, and occasionally funny. 

3. The pride of Southie is the boss of the body snatchers who arrested the wife of a U.S. Army Sergeant who was eligible for status by marriage.  She would had DACA status had the regime not lost her application.  

4.  The regular guy's untrained heavily armed goons have in the past two weeks shot and seriously wounded two more people.  Although Southie's beloved football dad was quoted making a number of smears about the victim, he provided no evidence to back up his assertions.  Available video appears to show that the man, shot six times in the face, had not tried to hit ICE secret police with his car, which makes this attempted murder.   

5. And to echo the request of every white man at a Southie bar, here's one more for the road.

 

 

We could go on listing criminal conduct by Lyons' untrained body snatchers, but you get the drift.

What lessons can we take from the sordid truth about fine family man Todd Lyons?

First as our old friend Kurt Vonnegut kept telling us, you are who you pretend to be.

We also know that when you feel besieged and beset, like Lyons, the human response is anger and defensiveness. This response is likely to be heightened when you know that the criticisms are well-founded and the crimes committed by the agency you run are serious. You may also try to justify your continued service on the grounds that you are better than your likely replacement, although Lyons’ record at running his agency calls that into question.

Charming family man, seen here at Nuremberg

What would a worse job look like? Throwing detainees into the Black Hole of Calcutta? Impaling them on hot metal stakes (the Mad King’s dream)?

When you are responsible for a criminal secret police that has committed thousands of crimes and sent thousands more to torturous concentration camps, do we really care how sincere and charming you are?

We recently saw a movie about another charming government official described by his psychiatrist thusly:

“There were people and things that he liked—his family, his friends and animals, and for them, nothing was too good. On the other hand, he had a complete and total disinterest in any living thing which did not fall into one of these groups.”  

The title of the movie was Nuremberg.

You may ask: why are we getting so exercised about a newspaper story recounting the banal details of a government official’s life? 

Our friend Hannah Arendt answered that one in 1963.  You can read it here.

The Mad King's crime spree continues

 

By Legal Editor Saori Shiroseki with Meta-Content Generator A.J. Liebling

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Great Purge of 2026 continued, with the Supreme Leader pushing discredited stock-market tout Pam Bondi into the gravel pit of infamy, where she joins Kristi Noem.  Rumors are that the now former Legal Commissar will not be the last to be purged, as the Mad King's paranoia and fear spiral while his regime collapses around him as a result of his own insane diktats.

Pam Bondi, in happier times

Comrade Bondi, although a loyal bootlicker and apparatchik, apparently failed the Mad King by not indicting and sending to the gulag a sufficient number of the Mad King's political rivals and enemies.  Thus far, she has failed to bring to show trial any of the Mad King's targets, including dangerous deviationists like James Comey, Letitia James, Jerome Powell, or Adam Schiff, who all walk the streets as free citizens, an intolerable situation to the all powerful Leader whose whim is Law.

Unlike Comrade Noem, who was fobbed off with a sinecure appointment as Coordinator of the Five Year Plan for the Donroe International, Bondi was unceremoniously dispatched to the uninhabitable swamps of her native Florida.

While everyone enjoyed the spectacle of a cruel nasty incompetent toady getting her just rewards, the outrageousness not only of her conduct but of the reason the Mad King fed her to the alligators got in our view less attention than it deserved.

Since being re-elected, the Mad King, with the passive or active support of every f****in' Republican, has engaged in a tyrannical attack on the Rule of Law on many fronts, including the perversion of justice involved in using the Department of Justice (among others) to investigate and mount frivolous criminal prosecutions of anyone who dared to oppose him.

His direction to the Department of Justice prosecutors to torment his enemies is both a crime (for which his Republican allies on the bent Supreme Court wrote him a full pre-emptive pardon) and an impeachable offense.

We know this because the late lamented Robert Mueller told us so, with respect to the Mad King's first term efforts, paltry by comparison, to pervert justice into a tool to persecute his enemies and reward his friends.

As a statutory matter, the President’s counsel has argued that a core obstruction-of-justice statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), does not cover the President’s actions. As a constitutional matter, the President’s counsel argued that the President cannot obstruct justice by exercising his constitutional authority to close Department of Justice investigations or terminate the FBI Director [and] has made a categorical argument that “the President’s exercise of his constitutional authority here to terminate an FBI Director and to close investigations cannot constitutionally constitute obstruction of justice.”

In analyzing counsel’s statutory arguments, we concluded that the President’s proposed interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2) is contrary to the litigating position of the Department of Justice and is not supported by principles of statutory construction.  

2 Mueller Report at 159.

As a matter of statutory interpretation, the Mueller Report concluded “Several textual features of Section 1512(c)(2) support the conclusion that the provision broadly prohibits corrupt means of obstructing justice,” and that applying a broad reading of that statute to Presidential obstructions of justice was constitutional.

Having established the legal framwork, Mueller spent hundreds of pages outlining each potential obstruction committed by the Mad King and exonerated him on none of them. 

In other words, Mueller and his staff were persuaded that the President's efforts to direct and nobble the investigation into Russian election interference and his later interference in the investigation of that nobbling constituted criminal obstruction of justice. 

We also know this because the other insanely corrupt Republican President of recent times, Tricky Dick Nixon, was impeached in 1974 on this charge, inter alia:

He got away with obstruction of justice, too

He misused the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, and other executive personnel, in violation or disregard of the constitutional rights of citizens, by directing or authorizing such agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; he did direct, authorize, or permit the use of information obtained thereby for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office; and he did direct the concealment of certain records made by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of electronic surveillance. 

Art. II(2).

When Republicans told him that he would be convicted of such charges, Dick fled for the territories. 

So there should have been no doubt that the true reason the Mad King fired Pam Bondi was because she did not effectively carry out the Mad King's repeated obstructions of justice.

An objective lead for a story about her firing would therefore run something like this:

Frustrated by Attorney General Pam Bondi's inability to carry out his orders to obstruct justice by prosecuting his perceived enemies, President Trump today fired her, in a sign that he is likely to intensify his criminal assault on the rule of law.

Is there anything in there that isn't based on facts?  

Here's how the Paper of Record reported these momentous events:  

President Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, removing the nation’s top law enforcement officer after privately venting his frustrations for months over her handling of the Epstein files and her failed efforts to prosecute his political enemies. 

See the difference?

In the Times account, it sounds like the firing was either based on insubordination or incompetence, with no mention of the enormity of a President directing his Attorney General to commit crimes by indicting the Mad King's political enemies out of pure spite.  Nowhere in the piece does the Times tell the reader that the Mad King's orders for the political prosecution of his opponents is a crime.

The Mad King may be immune from prosecution for such a crime, thanks to six bent Republicans on the Supreme Court, but the newly-unemployed Bondi sure isn't.

The accompanying tick-tock of her defenestration was full of juicy details about who hated whom, but likewise contained no mention of the underlying crimes. 

Two takeaways:

1. It is shocking that an obliviously demented President would order his Attorney General to commit crimes, and then fire her because she did a bad job of it.

2. It is even more shocking that 11 years into the Mad King's assault on America, our most respected media have gotten either bored with or inured to his crimes, thus normalizing them.

When a population forgets what the norms of justice and law are, the path is clear for tyranny to flourish.  We asked our old friend Lavrenti Beria if he agreed, but he was unavailable.