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Here’s the highlight reel of last week’s posts and events. Grab a cup of coffee and get ready to catch up on anything you missed—links to everything below.
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The Week Ahead: We began the week at a key moment on the critical issue of our ability to exercise our right to vote, which once again comes to the Supreme Court’s shadow docket. Trump is trying to use an executive order to limit who can vote and exert federal control, which the Constitution doesn’t give him, over our elections. Red states are acting like willing lambs heading to the slaughter, and have joined the lawsuit supporting Trump, while blue states oppose him. The Court could rule at any time and this is an important one; we may see action in it this coming week.
Coffee with the Contrarians: Norm Eisen and I discussed the legal issues that absolutely piled up over the weekend.
Live with Norm Eisen: With so much going on, Norm and I decided to get together for a second time on Monday, so we could discuss DOJ’s decision to dismiss the Reflecting Pool prosecution of former Olympic canoeist Davey Hearn. When he took the case, it didn’t occur to Norm that the case would strike a chord with Americans across the country. We discussed why the Reflecting Pool case has become such a touch point and also discussed three principles for saving a backsliding democracy and what we can all be doing right now.
The $1.776b Slush Fund Isn’t As Dead As Senators Cornyn And Tillis Seem To Be Willing To Believe: Cornyn and Tillis may have folded and voted for Todd Blanche in Committee, but its ridiculous that they believed his Twitter post was enough to put an end to Trump’s slush fund and immunity deal. Make sure you know the facts!
More Blanche BS with Joyce Vance and Katie Phang: This is the deep dive of deep dives. Katie and I go all the way back to the origin of Trump’s slush fund, the lawsuit he filed in Florida, Trump v. IRS, to explain how we got from there to here. We trace the slush fund, the Trump immunity deal, and the arguments against confirming Blanche, although the Senate unfortunately confirmed Blanche in the early morning hours on Saturday, 50-49.
Trump’s Executive Order on Voting: Blue State Attorneys General, and Some Retired Judges, Weigh In: As a follow on to our review of the effort by the Trump administration to justify implementating an executive order that would give the federal government greater control over who can—and can’t—vote on Sunday, we analyzed the legal arguments made by blue states’ attorneys general who are challenging Donald Trump in this piece.
Live with Mary Trump: Mary’s Substack is called The Good in Us.” That really is how she views the world, and I needed a dose of that by midweek.
Erasing January 6: We went in depth to understand a ruling by Judge Amit Mehta in the District of Columbia, where the government moved to dismiss the indictments against insurrectionist January 6 defendants who had already had their sentences commuted. Judge Mehta's opinion is one of the clearest judicial descriptions we've seen of how prosecutorial discretion can be abused, exercised not to pursue justice, but to erase it. That's the Justice Department we'll be watching from here forward. If you missed this one earlier in the week, make time to read it now.
Live with Cait Conley: On Cyber, Elections & Why a Former Special Ops Soldier is Running for Congress: Cait Conley is running for Congress in NY-17, and although the incumbent is Republican (he votes with Trump 100% of the time), she is widely viewed as being in contention. Cait has deep expertise in critical areas involving 21st-century national security concerns. Rather than trying to summarize what she shared with us, take a minute to watch this phenomenal public servant explain issues on the basis of her experience in six tours of duty and time in the White House.
89 Days Until the Midterm Elections: Thursday was 89 days out from the election, a time that is legally significant for every registered voter. Read on to learn why and what you need to make sure you do right now to protect your right to vote.
Five Questions with Adam Gelb, President of the Council on Criminal Justice: Late last month, the bipartisan Council on Criminal Justice released a report on mid-year 2026 crime trends. It contained some interesting results. The organization’s president and CEO, Adam Gelb, joined us to talk about crime, statistics, and what they mean—going beyond politics into what we really need to know.
What Trump’s New Birthright Citizenship Orders Actually Do: The Supreme Court has spoken; birthright citizenship is part of the Constitution. Babies born here, with rare exceptions like one for children born to foreign diplomats, are American citizens regardless of their parents’ immigration status. But that hasn’t stopped Trump from issuing a pair of new executive orders on the topic. Read on for an explainer of what they mean and what they do.
Deserving of Chickens: By request, a couple of pictures of the Vance family chickens, and one of me closing out summer.
These are complicated legal times, and it’s easy for the truth to get lost in the chaos. Civil Discourse doesn’t just track today’s headlines—it connects them to the legal and political history that explains why they matter. We don’t forget what’s at stake. We don’t let Trump and his allies rewrite the past.
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We’re in this together,
Joyce