| Special Kraken Appointment In a meeting at the White House on Friday, the New York Times reports, President Donald Trump put forth the idea of appointing “Kraken” attorney Sidney Powell as a special prosecutor to investigate election fraud. “It was unclear if Mr. Trump will move ahead with such a plan,” reported Maggie Haberman and Zolan Kanno-Youngs, of the idea their sources say “most of his advisers opposed.”
Michael Flynn was there, too, talking about military intervention in the American election. Again.
On Monday, Haberman talked to CNN about the "wild" meeting. "This was a many-hours-long meeting, people were screaming at each, basically," she said. That and more.
Smart Smartmatic
A week ago, voting technology firm Smartmatic demanded retractions from Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax retract what they said were "false and defamatory" statements about the company that aired on those networks.
On Friday, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, in a stunning segment, had to air what amounted to a fact-check of his own false and misleading claims.
On Saturday, Justice with Judge Jeanine had to do the same, although with a guest host on air to do it.
On Sunday, so did Maria Bartiromo, who put her own qualifier in after the fact.
And on Monday, in similar fashion, Newsmax TV had to air an extensive fact check of claims made on their own air about the election and the voting technology from Smartmatic and Dominion. Smartmatic has said the disinformation campaign destroyed its international reputation, and estimated its losses in revenue and valuation to be in “the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars.” In an interview with the New York Times on Sunday, First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams said a potential lawsuit would be “highly dangerous” to Fox, Newsmax and OAN.
Giuliani not so much
Rudy Giuliani nevertheless continued to dig in on the conspiracy theories about voting machines on Sunday, despite the legal threats and the backtracking of his favorite TV hosts.
When, in his extensive, multi-part radio rant, he said that he finds "You, the Republican turncoats, the Republican quislings, the REAL villains," he was theortetically talking about the politicians on the hill and not his TV friends. But one could be forgiven for thinking there was at least some crossover intent, given the timing.
Stimulus The $900 billion dollar package passed this weekend. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Americans can expect the $600 checks to individuals as early as next week, just after Christmas.
The plane boss. President Trump has been asking around about the idea of having an airport named after him apparently, a sign that he’s looking at a post-presidency despite his campaign’s continuing attack on the election results. Mediaite's Caleb Howe has an idea which airport it should be.
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