Enjoy your freedom:
- Freedom from warrantless surveillance
- Freedom of speech (link fixed!)
- Freedom to travel (and late-breaking bonus!)
- Freedom to sleep under bridges … at least for a couple more years.
Recent Bluessky Posts- I gather that Trump's name came off the Kennedy Center after the courts rejected the ridiculous 11th hour attempt (unhinged brief not signed by career lawyers) to block it, but the work was done behind a tarp to block the cameras. Missed opportunity to sell tickets; might have raised real money. June 13, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- There is: Reward your friends and those who pay you. Punish opponents and perceived enemies. June 13, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- Seen at MIA in the TSA departures queue, this invitation to 'self-deport' in exchange for a $1000 per person and a free flight. Although I recall reading they don't necessarily deliver. In any case a sour taste for the start of international travel. June 13, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- In a strange way you almost could admire the Trumpies' leave-no-stone-unturned approach to graft. There is really no bottom. No limit. And justice is at best slow. June 12, 2026 Michael Froomkin
- Jotwell Adlaw: Fred Jacob, Administrative Agencies & the People who Love Them, JOTWELL (June 12, 2026) (reviewing Anya Bernstein & Cristina Rodriguez, Working with Statutes, 103 Tex. L. Rev. 921 (2025)), adlaw.jotwell.com/__trashed-2/. June 12, 2026 Jotwell
Thx for this & happy new year anyway. BTW I think yr Freedom of Speech link needs an “http” prefix to work right.
Thanks. What concerns me is the slow erosion of freedoms over time. It happens on a regular pace but just slow enough that people get side tracked by so many other shiny objects. We still have the best country in the world IMHO. Once talked to a guide from Thailand who told me he wasn’t even allowed to visit the United States without a VISA. Not only did it cost money but he needed a valid reason to travel. Just going for fun and vacation wasn’t enough to be approved to leave his country. That to me .. is scary!
I was not aware that Thailand had exit visas (and a very quick Google search didn’t find anything about them). Could it be perhaps that this was an ENTRY visa requirement imposed by the US? In which case the approval wasn’t to leave his country, but rather to enter this one.
I wasn’t aware either but the guide we had that day who also worked for the Thai Navy … he did specifically tell me he needed a Visa to exit the country. I flat out asked him “so you need a Visa to exit, you have to pay for it and saying you just want to see the United States for vacation isn’t a good enough reason?”
He confirmed that was true. He had to pay for a Visa and he would need a better reason than a vacation request.