Welcome to Law and Chaos!

Come on in! The water’s crazy.

But to be fair, everything’s crazy all the time. We’re all just swimming and swimming and wondering how the hell we’re going to get to the other side of this seven-year waking nightmare. And the answer is … I have no idea, but drowning is not an option.

We’re all going to have to learn to navigate a world where normal people have to pay attention to the Logan Act and the Insurrection Clause and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Maybe you lived half your life thinking that you didn’t have to worry about politics, much less “lawyer stuff.”

Turns out, you do!

You, too, are going to have to devote time and attention to figuring that shit out if you want to stop your country from sliding into autocracy.

And that’s where Law and Chaos comes in.

If you landed here, you may already know me. I’m Liz Dye, a legal journalist at Above the Law, Wonkette, and Aaron Rupar’s Public Notice. Every week, my co-host Andrew Torrez and I will dig into the legal stories that dominate the news and affect our politics.

We are unapologetically left-of-center, so if you’re looking for some Joe Manchin, “No Labels”, bothsides bullshit, you’re out of luck. Nor will we be serving up Occupy Democrats-style alarmism. What we will give you is the kind of in-depth writing that helps you become a better consumer of legal news. We’ll read the original court documents and link to them here, because that stuff belongs to you, too.

And yes, for the foreseeable future, that means talking about Donald Trump a fair bit. That criminal and his cronies are throwing vats of ketchup at the wall in an attempt to evade justice and cheat their way back into the White House. From the “Clinton socks case” to the “IRONCLAD disclaimer clause” to howls about being denied his First Amendment rights or a trial by jury, Trump’s lawyers are spewing garbage legal arguments and hoping that you won’t be able to tell the difference.

We can tell the difference, and we will do our damnedest to help you cut through the BS.

But even when Trump is gone — to prison or some place hotter — we’re still going to be stuck in a country where the minority party is desperately trying to hang onto power and inflict its will on the rest of us. Obviously, the Supreme Court is an ongoing disaster and will be for decades. But Republicans have taken over the federal judiciary and state courts, and they’re gearing up to dismantle civil rights and rig the system for their wealthy donors forever.

Looking away is no longer an option, and at Law and Chaos, we won’t.

So if this sounds like the kind of thing you might find useful, subscribe to get full access to the newsletter, podcast, and website. We’ll send you links to every post and put you in touch with a community of people who are just as nerdy and freaked out as you are.

Thanks for supporting our work. It means a lot.

— Liz and Andrew