A Song of FIRE and ICE

By Kevin D. Williamson

Wednesday, July 08, 2026

 

Can we all agree that Todd Lyons is kind of a sissy?

 

The former acting director of ICE, the immigration enforcement agency that Donald Trump uses as his personal, occasionally homicidal goon squad, received an email nastygram from the author of Best Bike Rides Connecticut, David Streever, who is exactly the kind of imposing, Jason Statham-esque tough guy you’d figure the author of Best Bike Rides Connecticut is going to be. The email was pretty mild stuff—Shame on you, basically. Compared him to a Nazi, etc. Lyons, who has 22,000 armed agents at his disposal, was so freaked out that he sent ICE agents to Streeter’s house and then tracked him down while he was traveling with his 7-year-old daughter. The agents did their best Gestapo bit, informing the author of Best Bike Rides Connecticut that his critical email might have violated the law and trying to get him to sign some baloney paperwork.

 

There is no threat in this email. You can read it here. There was no plausible reason for the armed response of a federal law enforcement agency to criticism of its acting director, who is, evidently, kind of sensitive.

 

We’re not talking here about the lunatic ravings of some genuinely scary and dangerous figure, like maybe the author of Best Bike Rides New Jersey. This is the author of Best Bike Rides Connecticut.

 

In my work as a journalist, I am routinely threatened with everything from lawsuits to murder, as have many (perhaps most) people who do work similar to what I do. Some of those threats I worry about more than others. In an earlier part of my life, I did some consulting work for a corporate security firm, and I learned a fair bit about who targets business executives, government officials, and similar figures for kidnapping and terroristic violence. I am far from an expert on the subject, but I am pretty sure that the guy who is going to murder you is not the author of Best Bike Rides Connecticut, returning from a trip to Finland with his 7-year-old daughter in tow.

 

You pansies.

 

As it turns out, the author of Best Bike Rides Connecticut is not the only one ICE has targeted with its imbecilic intimidation tactics following a bit of good old-fashioned American First Amendment-protected criticism.

 

Paigelynne Gonyea, who reviews skincare products on TikTok, is another terrifying figure, apparently. (Perhaps Milla Jovovich will play her in the movie, or maybe Karen Gillan doing some John Wick-style gun-fu.) Along with the author of Best Bike Rides Connecticut, the lady who reviews skincare products on TikTok does not much approve of how ICE goes about its business—as it turns out, lots of Americans disapprove of reckless police violence leaving a trail of blood in the streets of American cities. ICE sent agents after the lady who reviews skincare products on TikTok, too. They showed up with some baloney paperwork in her case as well, and they told her to take down social media posts critical of Jonathan Ross, the feckless ICE thug who gunned down Renee Good. You’ll remember Renee Good of Minneapolis as the kind of terrifying brute that only a 37-year-old lesbian poet in a Honda Pilot can be. (Ronda Rousey will play her in the movie, surely.) And there are several other cases.

 

Our friends over at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the free speech outfit our colleague David French used to run, have taken up the issue, filing a lawsuit in the case of the bike-rides guy. FIRE and ICE—I like the symmetry.

 

“Americans have a clear right to criticize government officials,” FIRE lawyer J.T. Morris told the Washington Post. “When federal agents come to your door and ask you to stop engaging in political speech,” Morris said, it “is an act of intimidation that the Constitution doesn’t tolerate.”

 

As the great political philosopher Ice-T once put it, the U.S. government cherishes “freedom of speech … just watch what you say.”

 

While I do worry daily about the national debt, I hope that FIRE succeeds in suing the tactical pants off of those sad-sack mall-ninjas over at ICE and then continues to sue their asses some more. I hope they run through a whole box of toner cartridges printing out their lawsuits. A self-respecting republic would put these bullies and incompetents  in jail—or at least in stocks. In the United States, we just sue our already strapped government.

 

(It doesn’t cost much to pillory somebody—just sayin’.)

 

But beyond the largely symbolic issue of monetary damages that are paid for by the same taxpayers who are being poorly served by ICE, what these pathetic federal specimens most deserve is Americans’ contempt—for abusing the power of their offices, for trampling on the First Amendment, and, most of all, for being such a bunch of whimpering ninnies. For Pete’s sake: If you’re going to swan around with your guns and your boots and your balaclava and your tactical underpants and whatnot: Cowboy up, Bubba.

 

Or if that’s too much, maybe just glow up. Because I know where you can get some good advice about skincare products and invigorating bicycle rides around the Nutmeg State.