Josh Marshall trying to spin a fantasy world of a Russiagate 2.0?

Josh Marshall, as all the #BlueAnon vervently faithful know, as well as leftists like me, is proprietor of Talking Points Memo, one of the top Blue MAGA go to sites for news analysis.

Well, they've got a doozy.

First, the author, because that gets us to the header of this piece.

Josh Kovensky. But, we need his tagline:

Josh Kovensky is an investigative reporter for Talking Points Memo, based in New York. He previously worked for the Kyiv Post in Ukraine, covering politics, business, and corruption there.

There you go.

The TL/DR of the piece is that Trump lawyer Kenneth Chesebro had a Plan B for after Jan. 6, 2021 to try to extend the vote count past that date. The Electoral Count Act time-limits challenges to prevent an actual, or threatened, filibuster and the goal was to get around that.

Options?

1. Have Pence say he would actually count votes himself;
2. Have Pence recuse himself on conflict of interest grounds to Senate President Pro Tem Chuck Grassley.
3. Try to filibuster anyway.

Option 1 was never happening. 

Option 2? No vice president presiding over his own or his team's defeat — Tricky Dick and Dan Quayle being the two most recent, and with Nixon having better grounds than Pence to be asked to recuse — has ever done so.

Option 3? In comments to Trump, TPM says Chesebro suggested multiple lines to try to trigger it:

• Mike Pence could decline to open Biden electoral votes — it would be a “fairly boss move,” as Chesebro put it in one email — likely delaying the certification of Biden’s win while posing a core challenge to the ECA. 

• A “test case” could be filed before SCOTUS aimed at invalidating the law. It would be filed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) acting in Pence’s place as President of the Senate. 

• The Senate filibuster could be used as a blunt instrument to block the ECA from either being followed or being implemented on Jan. 6.

Even though people like former Trump chief of staff Rinse Penis told Chesebro not to get Trump's hopes up too much, he apparently at least talked around the edges of this.

And .... nothing happened.

Trump instead incited a riot at minimum, insurrection at maximum. If he knew the details of the Chesebro plan, he ignored them.

That said, as Chesebro, and Rudy Giuliani, and gazillions of other lawyers who have worked for Trump should know, he's generally really good at ignoring advice from lawyers.

And, Kovensky should know that, too. That said, with Trump's recent NATO comments, it's a "good" time for angles like this.

TX Progressives talk state politics

The Texas Progressive Alliance only spends forty percent of its day in Executive Time, which is just enough to put together this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff considers John Cornyn's campaign strategy and what it says about how Texas Republicans are looking at 2020.

SocraticGadfly read Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Nathan Hecht's lament about some of the judges unseated in November and had a two-pronged response — Hecht had a bunch of political sour grapes, but yet, Texas could adopt specific ideas from other states on better judicial selection.

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And here are some posts of interest from other blogs and news sites related to Texas.

Better Texas Blog warns about undercounting Latino children in the Census.

The TSTA Blog is not impressed with the Senate property tax bill.

The Texas Observer has a good piece about news deserts — entire counties without a newspaper — and what happens with that.

Raise Your Hand Texas advocates for separating school funding from high stakes testing.

Stephen Young thinks the end my be near for Dallas' downtown Confederate memorial.

Texas Monthly was impressed by Sen. Kirk Watson's questioning of SOS David Whitley.

The Lunch Tray revisits "pink slime".

Justin Miller has a good takedown for the Texas Observer on Greg Abbott’s “bipartisanship” claims in his State of the State, along with those property tax issues.

Can Limbaugh be nailed for Ohio election fraud?

Short answer, for those of you familiar with the developing story, appears to be No, we apparently can’t put Rush’s pilonidal cyst behind bars for recreational fun for some some Ohio criminals named “Bubba.”

Whether you are familiar or not with the story, read on:

Truthout reports Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) is investigating GOP crossovers voting in the Ohio Democratic primary. In Ohio, doing a temporary party change for that reason (Ohio primaries are semi-closed or semi-open, depending on which way you look at it) is a criminal offense, and Rush Limbaugh (and Laura Ingraham) encouraged exactly such behavior:

While this all makes for great talk radio and sounds like fun, there is one catch: What Limbaugh encouraged Republican voters to do in Ohio was a fifth-degree felony in that state, punishable with a $2,500 fine and six to 12 months in jail. That is because in order to change party affiliation in Ohio, voters have to fill out a form swearing allegiance to that party’s principles “under penalty of election falsification.”

That said, if Truthout, beyond the direct quote, is getting the gist of the law right, I don’t know that it applied to Limbaugh.

Indeed, the law applies only to individual voters:

3599.36 Election falsification.

No person, either orally or in writing, on oath lawfully administered or in a statement made under penalty of election falsification, shall knowingly state a falsehood as to a material matter relating to an election in a proceeding before a court, tribunal, or election official, or in a matter in relation to which an oath or statement under penalty of election falsification is authorized by law, including a statement required for verifying or filing any declaration of candidacy, declaration of intent to be a write-in candidate, nominating petition, or other petition presented to or filed with the secretary of state, a board of elections, or any other public office for the purpose of becoming a candidate for any elective office, including the office of a political party, for the purpose of submitting a question or issue to the electors at an election, or for the purpose of forming a political party.

Whoever violates this section is guilty of election falsification, a felony of the fifth degree.

Every paper, card, or other document relating to any election matter that calls for a statement to be made under penalty of election falsification shall be accompanied by the following statement in bold face capital letters: “Whoever commits election falsification is guilty of a felony of the fifth degree.”

And, the Ohio statute on conspiracy does not cover this level of felony.

Sorry, Truthout, and other people wanting to put Rush’s pilonidal cyst behind bars for some Ohio criminals’ recreational fun, but it ain’t gonna happen.