Federal judge rejects former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows bid to move his Georgia Jan 6th case to federal court.

This is so important I’m going to start with a tl;dr: Elon Musk got caught with his hand in the national security cookie jar, sabotaging or blocking a major Ukrainian military operation after conversations with a Russian government official.

Now let’s unpack this.

Last month I wrote about the rise of the global oligarchs and I made particular mention of Elon Musk. Even if you set aside the various things you may not like about Musk he has amassed a degree of economic power that is novel and dangerous in itself even if he had the most benign of intentions and the most stable personality. More than half the operating satellites in the sky are owned and controlled by him. Overnight we finally got confirmation of something that has long been suspected or hinted at but which none of the players had an interest in confirming. Last September Musk either cut off or refused to activate his Starlink satellite service near the Crimean coast during a surprise Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian Navy at anchor at its Sevastopol naval port.

Could insurrection disqualification spur a new and much bloodier insurrection? From TPM Reader EK …

In your recent commentary on this matter, including in the link above, I haven’t seen anything about the very real civil peril that would come with taking Trump off the ballot.

If Trump is actively removed from a ballot(s), whether that’s with the Supreme Court’s blessing or not, how are we not going to have armed rebellion? And I’m not just referring to swing states. I live in Oregon. We’re a blue state. But like many other blue states, the vast majority of our geography is deep red. Do you think that if Oregon’s all D leadership took Trump off the ballot that the Rs here would just load more Let’s Go Brandon! Flags on their trucks, roll some more coal, and call it a day?

TPM Reader CB responds to JS by arguing that case law and precedent about insurrections in one context doesn’t necessarily settle the question of what counts for the purposes of the 14th amendment’s disqualification clause. As I told CB I partly agree but not entirely. I subscribe to an older of who in our system gets to interpret the constitution. Each branch has a right and a duty to interpret the meaning of the constitution. The courts may get the last word. But it’s not the only word.

My perspective as a reader/subscriber with over a decade of strategic impact public interest litigation experience:

I couldn’t disagree more with the reader who said “The question is clear to me: would the President have the authority under the *1807* Insurrection Act to federalize troops in this case?”

Here’s a follow up from TPM Reader JS on law and precedent tied to what constitutes an insurrection. (See their earlier post.) I’m basically where they are on this. I want to be crystal clear with everyone that this will not work as a way to prevent Trump’s election. (See my earlier post.) I’m uncomfortable with where this leads us in policy terms. But that’s not a standard we apply to constitutional text. I’m super uncomfortable about the electoral college text too. But we all agree that doesn’t matter.

I would just add that, sure, it’s bad policy to deny a bunch of voters their choice and that’s generally how we read the law in light of provisions of the very same amendment. But it’s also bad policy to let a few judges’ sense of good policy override the clear, plain meaning of the Constitution. That’s not the rule of law. It’s about as clear as it gets here. He swore an oath when he took office and then he fomented an insurrection. Sure, no one has done a fact finding on that yet, but they will in the trials on this matter, won’t they? It doesn’t have to be res judicata from a criminal trial at all.

Trump White House official Peter Navarro found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress. Sentencing set for Jan. 2024.