How My Dead Cat Became An International News Story
This is what happens when worlds collide
So.
Some of you may have independently connected the dots already. Yes, I filed a federal lawsuit against the Blue Angels with my wife Lauren as the plaintiff. No matter how often I say this people will still be confused, but the lawsuit is specifically about a government entity blocking someone on social media because they dislike that person’s criticism. This is classic viewpoint discrimination, and a flatly unambiguous violation of the First Amendment.
Since you’re presumably here for my writing, the legal complaint is a gem — the perfect combination of a sharply honed and legally precise framework, overstuffed with a raw and unhinged filling. Perfectly colored within the lines of Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Behold, the introductory paragraphs (Scribd link):
This is the story of a heart-wrenching emotional loss needlessly compounded by unapologetic Constitutional violations. When a beloved family member was terrorized by the United States Navy’s Blue Angels, an American citizen exercised her Constitutional right to criticize her government’s role in her daughter’s suffering. In response, a cadre of emotionally fragile snowflakes masquerading as naval officers chose the coward’s path: they silenced this citizen’s speech, violated their oath to the Constitution, and brought disgrace upon the uniform they claim to honor. A year later, when that same vulnerable creature died after enduring yet another sonic assault during her final days on Earth, the Navy’s Constitutional betrayal compounded the tragedy — an American remained silenced, unable to voice her grief or otherwise hold her government accountable for its role in her family’s suffering.
Every August, a squadron of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets multirole fighter aircraft descend upon the Puget Sound with the subtlety of a military occupation, conducting screeching low altitude flights with their twin jet engines reaching speeds of over 700 mph and producing decibel levels exceeding 130 dB — louder than a jackhammer at close range and sufficient to cause immediate hearing damage. This auditory carpet bombing is nominally not part of an invading enemy force destined to traumatize a captive civilian population but rather represents the United States Navy’s own elite aerobatic troupe: the Blue Angels. With an annual budget exceeding $40 million in taxpayer funds, these self-proclaimed ambassadors of naval aviation conduct their cacophonous flight demonstrations ostensibly to ingratiate the general public to the work of the brave men and women of the US Navy — regardless of whether the public consents to this aural assault or not. However, there exists robust public discourse disputing the purported mutual beneficence of this often-fatal stunt show, with mounting evidence that these performances serve primarily to satisfy the Navy’s institutional narcissism while needlessly tormenting vulnerable humans and animals alike.
Every August, Puget Sound residents endure what can only be described as state-sanctioned acoustic torture. A 2024 University of Washington study found over 74,000 residents exposed to jet noise levels scientifically proven to cause hearing loss, hypertension, and sleep disruption. Veterans with PTSD report flashbacks; autistic care home residents have been terrorized mid-treatment during what should be therapeutic sessions. Meanwhile, a 2020 study published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering show such jet noise penetrates Puget Sound waters deep enough to impair endangered and beloved orcas’ critical hunting and communication abilities. During training exercises at a California Naval base in 2021, a single “sneak pass” shattered buildings and triggered immediate health effects in nearby Navy personnel. Even internal emails between high-ranking Navy officers grudgingly admit “some valid concerns including safety of citizens and impact to medical patients are being raised” regarding these performances’ cacophonous assault on civilian populations.
Every August, Lauren Ann Lombardi engaged in a familiar American pastime of complaining to her government about her government’s actions through her government’s social media accounts. As the human parent and advocate to her Layla — an elderly cat who suffered from congestive heart disease — Lombardi expressed her displeasure with this taxpayer-funded naval squadron in unambiguously coarse terms that any red-blooded American can understand and appreciate. For the affront of expressing Constitutionally protected criticism, the Constitutionally illiterate bureaucrats running the Blue Angels’s Instagram page resorted to censorship instead of accountability, bringing shame upon the Service they purport to represent. These thin-skinned bureaucrats blocked Lombardi from commenting any further, thereby muzzling an American citizen while simultaneously blinding the broader public from witnessing legitimate grievances against their government.
Every August, Layla would spend endless hours soaking up sunshine, tracing the days like a sentient sundial in peaceful communion within her protected backyard domain. In the summer of 2024, Layla’s heart condition spiraled. Lombardi spent several grueling overnights at an emergency vet where fluid had to be drained from around Layla’s failing heart. Layla returned home in critical condition — heavily sedated and desperately exhausted — and unfortunately perfectly timed with yet another Blue Angels sonic barrage. Even through the narcotic fog of sedation and her weakened state, Layla’s primitive limbic system overruled her medication and she fled in primal panic beneath furniture, her labored breathing escalating to clinically dangerous levels. Lombardi employed desperate measures to block or muffle the deafening roars — barricading windows with thick blankets, flooding the house with calming music, physically shielding Layla’s ears — to no avail. Whatever bandwidth Layla’s walnut-sized brain could previously gorge upon had been narrowed to a single overwhelming frequency: pure debilitating terror.
Every August was good until then, but no August would ever be the same again. Layla’s condition continued to deteriorate and she left home again, for the final time. She spent her last week fighting for her life in a specialty hospital before being humanely euthanized on August 11, 2024, surrounded by her inconsolably grieving family. Layla’s final days on Earth were marred by sadistic suffering — cowering in terror beneath furniture while her ailing heart struggled against the Blue Angels’s relentless noise pollution. Layla died knowing only fear when she should have known only love.
The Navy’s cowardly censorship and allergy to criticism transformed personal tragedy into Constitutional treason. By maintaining their block against Lombardi’s scathing complaints on a subject of intense public interest, taxpayer-funded censors compounded a mother’s grief with the bitter knowledge that her own government had silenced her voice at a time she needed it most. As precedent in Knight Institute v. Trump and other cases had shown, government officials cannot hide behind their own personal sensitivity or cowardice to escape criticism or accountability. Our constitutional order is predicated on a foundational bargain: those who wield government power must subject themselves to the full force of First Amendment scrutiny, regardless of how uncomfortable that criticism makes them. The purpose of this civil action is to compel the government to honor its Constitutional obligations and abide by the very document these defendants swore an oath to defend.
While the cause of action was strictly about social media blocking, the story of our dearly departed cat Layla provides the framing context. So in summer 2023, the Blue Angels were practicing their (admittedly very impressive) aviation stunts, and Lauren had some very choice words for them:
They blocked her and I immediately thought “They’re a government entity, they can’t do that!” and then promptly forgot about it. Before you ask: No, fuck (in all its glorious forms) is neither a violation of Instagram’s TOS nor a valid basis to censor under the First Amendment. For fuck’s sake, Cohen v. California (1971) was a landmark 1A case that upheld the right to wear a “Fuck the Draft” jacket inside a courthouse!
A year later, almost to the day, Layla got very sick. After Lauren spent a couple of sleepless nights at the emergency vet, we had a very brief snippet of relief from Layla getting better enough to go back home. Literally within 15 minutes of her arrival, the Blue Angels started screeching overhead.
It’s hard to convey the level of helplessness felt. From how it went down the year before, we knew to expect at least 6-8 passes a day, every day, for at least the next week. Layla was as drugged up as she could possibly be, and it was not possible for us to relocate to another region to escape the noise. We had to sit and bear it.
It’s also really hard to convey how physically loud their low-altitude passes are. This isn’t anywhere within the same ballpark as a commercial passenger jet flying overhead, our windows were literally rattling and the walls were shaking.
When I poured my heart out writing a remembrance worthy of Layla’s memory, there was one paragraph that didn’t include the full story, with the bolded sentence edited out before posting:
The vitals were concerning but stable, but she wasn’t herself and still loopy from the med cocktail. Back at home, she was incapable of sleep and developed an unprecedented obsession with water, spending hours and hours sitting in front of her water bowl, unable to drink. She’d whine at us to let her into the bath tub — a place she never had any interest in — so she could sit in front of the water stream and purr loudly to herself. Meanwhile, a squadron of military jets incessantly screeched overhead, causing Layla to flee in a panic despite her catatonic state.
The Blue Angels practice schedule matched up almost exactly for when Layla was home, and it was really sad to know that her final memories of the place she loved so much were saturated with fear.
But then and there, I knew what I had to do. I had a plan and a year to enact it.
A year later, the lawsuit dropped, and it just happened to be a couple of weeks before the Blue Angels’ practice runs — coinciding exactly with when media attention on the squadron would be highest. At best, I expected maybe a few local outfits to bite; maybe an evening news reporter needing something quirky to fill air time. But then the story quickly took off beyond my wildest expectations.
I severely underestimated how perfect of an antipode “Seattle Woman” was to “Florida Man” and also severely underestimated the average American’s level of media literacy (or just plain literacy). They also took the absolutely goofy photo of Layla in a dress I embedded within the complaint and plastered it all over the internet.
Once it ramped up, we were bombarded by media inquiries, or sometimes just very basic fact-checking. It made me deeply appreciate journalists as a profession when one of them across the globe dedicated time of their day to email us and confirm Layla’s age, or for them to have a 30-minute conversation just to write a 400-word piece.
We got invited by a local radio station for an interview at their studio, and I felt completely in my element. In contrast to their coverage the day before, the two hosts were somehow infinitely nicer to us in person:
Lauren, meanwhile, manifested apex maternal energy. The kind where a mom immediately starts bawling when asked about her children, while simultaneously declaring that her quest for vengeance on their behalf will never be abated.
The story was catnip for online engagement, and the avalanche of comments were virtually all harshly negative and — coincidentally — ignorant of what the lawsuit was actually about. While journalists (mostly) reported it accurately, their audience didn’t let details get in the way of their outrage. We got our first ever hate mail! Someone from Denver, CO put effort in finding an old address in order to physically mail a grammatically challenged missive:
It’s not a surprise that it fell among partisan lines, and tons of comments had plenty of assumptions, including my favorite bit of fanfic:
Just to yet again address the legally illiterate, there was nothing frivolous about the lawsuit. To quote a wise man:
Bouchtia and Lombardi dismissed any notion that they were worried people would view the lawsuit as frivolous. “Because it’s not,” Bouchtia quipped. “I mean, yeah, they can be wrong. I don’t care about the opinions of ignorant people.”
The lawsuit is a bona fide cause of action based on unambiguous 1A jurisprudence, served upon the correct parties, and fully compliant with every Federal Rule of Civil Procedure. I don’t expect everyone to know this next bit of trivia, but the complaint specifically requests only injunctive and declaratory relief — essentially asking the court “Hey can you let everyone know what the govt did was bad, and also can you tell the govt to stop doing this bad thing?” — and is not and cannot ask for monetary damages. Damages for constitutional violations committed by federal officials are severely foreclosed thanks to restrictive rulings set by SCOTUS under the Bivens lineage. It’s good to be the King!
But hey, the hate-fueled engagement train served only to force a Conversation, and now everyone was talking about it. That same week, we just happened to have been invited to a private party with the mayor of Seattle and got to ask him a question about the Controversy Du Jour. “Oh was that you guys? This year is definitely the most complaints I’ve ever heard on this issue.” You got that fucking right Mr. Mayor.
While we’re at it, why not top it off with an in situ protest with a deranged poster.
It’s long been an open secret but folks were easily able to connect my real name to my pseudonym. The facade barely serves any purpose anyways and maybe the lawsuit had a…familiar flamboyance. The attention to my meatspace half encouraged me to finally get off my ass and create a website for my law firm, and it’s squarely what you’d expect. No I will not be your lawyer. Unless you know the pass code, stop asking.
After all the furor died down, I noticed something else that was also diminished. This year, the Blue Angels were significantly quieter — definitely not as many screeching passes, on not as many days, and not as high on the decibel/rattling gauge.
Maybe after getting international attention for censoring an American, the Blue Angels finally learned a lesson or two about how to shut the fuck up.
Holy shit! If you'll pardon the expression, this is like catnip to me. It has a cat (IN A DRESS, no less), internet drama, some genuinely interesting social questions, and your hilarious and excellent writing documenting the whole thing.
Best of luck to you guys; it seems to me you have an airtight case (I don't know squat, but it seems like a pretty clear-cut 1A violation to me).
I meant to tell you back when you published it that I loved your paean to Layla. I'm a cat person through and through and that one hit me in the feels.
We get maybe 1 or 2 fighter jet overflights near my house per year and it's pretty jarring. My military friend says, "that's the sound of freedom" as if the only possible place to practice low-altitude maneuvers is over my kid's elementary school.