The Middle Ages formerly known as the Dark Ages:

«At the Council of Chalcedon, held in Byzantium in 451, there was an attempt to force monks to live in monasteries and quit wandering, but this had little long-lasting effect.9 For one thing it was practically very difficult to police individual piety. And for another, global cultural networks in the early Middle Ages were already wide and strong enough [emphasis mine] to mean that men and women were living monastic lives far beyond the discipline of Constantinople: by the fifth century Christian hermits could already be found as far afield as Ireland and Persia. Wherever there was Christianity, there were monks and hermits, and for a long time there seemed to be very little way to impose any sort of order or discipline on their spontaneous, vigorous, and localized subcultures.»

Powers and Thrones (Dan Jones) https://bookshop.org/ebooks/quotes/2b5fd5b7-0a08-4a45-9054-9bec407de262

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/ice-warrantless-arrests-castanon-nava

And so it goes.

Castañon-Nava Settlement Agreement is terminated.

«The Castañon-Nava, et al. suit was brought because warrantless arrests were performed on people who in retrospect did not meet ICE’s recommended criteria for one: but at the time, there was no mechanism for accountability. That changed when the NJIC negotiated the terms.

…

Fleming pointed to a recent case in Liberty, Missouri in which ICE raided a local restaurant to arrest one individual and ended up making 12 warrantless arrests—a clear violation of the policy that was created in response to the settlement. Naturally, the administration doesn’t seem to care.»

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/sen-alex-padilla-forcibly-removed-dhs-sec-kristi-noems-press-conferenc-rcna212688

«Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said that what his Democratic colleague “ought to be doing, in my view, is making sure that we have rational immigration policy. And Sen. Padilla, who’s a nice man, sat on the sidelines for four years, watch the border completely be blown apart.”»

Sen. Graham, I vaguely recall a reasonable compromise on immigration reform reached on a bipartisan basis during the Biden aministration but completely torpedoed after Donald Trump picked up the phone. Am I remembering that right?

https://smotus.substack.com/p/arrested-in-la

«So I decided to walk backwards to 3rd Street, which was away from the action, away from all of the officers to just like check on things and ensure that we could still leave, and that they hadn’t kettled us in on all sides.

It was down to maybe 150 people. There was a row of officers. I asked if I could just get by to leave. They said no. I told them that I wanted to exit the area. They said that I couldn’t. I showed them that my car was right behind them, to the point that they could hear it when I hit my key fob.

…

And I said, “Well, if I’m trying to leave, on what grounds are you arresting everyone?” And they said, “Well, maybe we won’t arrest everyone.” And I said, “Okay, well, in that case, can I leave?” and they said no.

…

SM: Did they eventually tell you what exactly you were being arrested for?

CA: Yeah. The charge was failure to disperse.»

😐

«The other thing I’m rethinking was the narrative that by the end of a protest, the people left are agitators — people who are there for something other than the cause. We hear it and easily accept it because we know that some people do exploit protests for chaos. I heard that about this protest the following day and it just wasn’t true. I realized that even I assumed that some of the people who are actually arrested were arrested because they disobeyed orders. To be clear, I believe that’s also a valid form of civic action, but it wasn’t my experience or that of the majority of people there.

That was really eye-opening for me and all the people we were with. We were all talking about how we assumed people had to do something to get arrested. Something more than showing up.»

Why am I googling “what is the best way to video the police?”

Boy, if this isn’t the siege of Minas Tirith, Eiffel Tower and all.

«In 885, a Viking army returned to Paris, where Ragnar had found such easy pickings four decades previously. This time the city was better defended, but the Northmen put it under siege and tormented the inhabitants for nearly a year. A famous account known as the Wars of the City of Paris, by a monk called Abbo of Saint-Germain, recounted the chaos as “fear seized the city—people screamed, battle horns resounded . . . Christians fought and ran about, trying to resist the assault.”»

https://bookshop.org/ebooks/quotes/75bfc8ec-0855-434c-a268-59e6ef7e375a

That’s it, that’s the post.

https://christopherrufo.com/p/trump-should-crush-the-la-riotswith

I see Christopher Rufo is a huge fan of the Stasi:

«the agencies should dispatch unmarked vans to follow key agitators and snatch them from the streets while the media are not looking.»

Supposedly 85° F, 50% humidity, breezy. Quiet jam, Gin Daisy (out of frame).

Some day, this will all be ashes and tears*, but for the moment….

——–

*Is this the wrong framing? Am I carpe-ing too much diem?

Today, I got into a conversation with a delivery guy. (I never get into these conversations, so I have little skill at them.) He said, “so what’s with all the protest signs out front?” (We have one BLM flag and maybe a forgotten pink “Madam President (and Tim!)” sign leaning against the house.) So we talked. He’s pretty much been soaking in the right-wing media. He was a nice enough guy but you could tell.

But one of the things he asked, which made me think later, was, “What are you protesting for, other than just against Trump?” And I tried to answer it with “We’re protesting for regular democracy, and for the Department of Education, and just sanity, in general.”

But later, I realized something: there is nothing wrong with being against something. It’s what the word “protest” actually means. We elect politicians to do what we want, and if they don’t, we vote them out of office. In other words, if enough people protest what they do (i.e., object to what they do), they’re out. The entire process is essentially negative and time-honored, back to the beginning.

The “but what are you for?” question is a trap of framing. The implication is that if you can’t articulate a positive vision (and we certainly can), then your protest is invalid.

(inb4 cynical comments about unfree elections or no elections: stahp.)

«The program — previously referred to as “Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement” or “MAGA Accounts” — would seed index fund accounts with $1,000 in government funds for U.S. citizens born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028.»

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/09/trump-accounts-uber-dell-ceo.html

A new entitlement program, basically. Will that money just sit around, quietly growing, for 18 years? I doubt it. It’ll be like Social Security. It’s “there” in theory, but, really, it’s being used to buy more bombs or pay interest on our current debt. Or it’s being used by investment firms, investing in… what?

What to do in 18 years when the promisory note is due is literally a problem for another day.