OutFoxed: Fox News yesterday agreed to pay more than three quarters of a billion dollars to settle the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit accusing the network of knowingly broadcasting and spreading lies that the voting company helped Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election.

  It’s the first time anyone has paid a price for the Trump election fixing lies. The settlement price is $787.5 million, just short of half the $1.6 billion dominion sued for. It’s about a quarter of what Fox earned last year.

  The settlement does not require the network or its hosts to admit what they did. “Money is accountability,” said Stephen Shackelford, a Dominion lawyer. Fox issued a statement saying  it acknowledges “the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false.” They admitted nothing. Fox did not lead with the story and buried it on the company website, yet said in its statement, “This settlement reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”

  Prime time host Tucker Carlson led last night with a rant about the economy, and young people … young black people … running wild in the streets of Chicago, “civilization unravelling,” he said.

  Lawyers for Dominion say the size of the settlement speaks for itself, but the public has been denied a trial in which Fox executives and smug hosts like Carlson, Maria Bartiromo, and Sean Hannity would have been grilled about their attack on the foundation of democracy, faith in the voting system.

  It’s not over for Fox News, which still faces a similar defamation lawsuit by Smartmatic, another voting company suing for $2.7 billion. Also, former Fox producer Abby Grossberg, who worked with Bartiromo and Carlson, has sued both in Delaware and New York, claiming that Fox’s lawyers had pushed her to be misleading in her deposition for the Dominion case and alleging a hostile and discriminatory work environment. Grossberg was fired after filing the complaints.

Behind Closed Doors: Four public officials including the sheriff and a commissioner in a rural Oklahoma county were caught in an audio recording having an overtly racist conversation in which they even joked about lynching black journalists and Gov. Kevin Stitt has demanded that they all resign. 

  The recorded conversation includes McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, county Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning, and Jail Administrator Larry Hendrix.  Some excerpts:

Manning: “They are insignificant in my life, really. They bring no (indistinguishable).”

Clardy: “The old saying is, ‘What goes around goes around.'”

Jennings: “It will. I told you it will. I know where two big deep holes are here if you ever need them.”

Clardy: “I’ve got an excavator.”

Jennings: “Well, these are already pre-dug.”

Jennings: “I’ve known two or three hitmen. They’re very quiet guys.”

Manning: “Yeah?”

Jennings: “And would cut no fucking mercy.”

Manning: “Yeah.” 

  The audio also picks up two men believed to be Clardy and Jennings complaining about  you can’t get away with hanging people anymore.

Jennings: “Not this day and age. I’m gonna tell you something, if it was back in the day, when that, when [a former sheriff] would take a damn black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fucking sheriff.”

Clardy: “Yeah, well, it’s not like that no more.”

Jennings: “I know. Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.”

The Pill: The Supreme Court faces a deadline today for making some kind of decision about the abortion pill mifepristone, which was effectively banned by a US District Court judge in Texas.  With a stay of that order expiring at midnight, the Supremes might take up the case, send it back to an appeals court, or even do nothing. 

Collapse: A New York City parking garage collapsed yesterday, the floors pancaking and dozens of cars tumbling with the concrete. One man was killed. 

  The fire department used a robotic search dog painted like a dalmatian.

The Spin Rack:  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans will block attempts by Democrats to temporarily replace ailing California Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee, thereby stopping the committee from appointing any new federal judges. — Andrew Lester, the 84 year old Kansas City man who shot a black teenager who mistakenly came to his door, surrendered yesterday to face felony charges. — A Moscow court yesterday denied bail or house arrest for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovic, who has been formally accused by Russia of espionage. — The Dominion Voting lawsuit against Fox News was delayed again yesterday just minutes before opening arguments were set to begin. That’s unusual at such a late stage and no explanation was given. — The Food and Drug Administration approved an additional round of Covid booster shots for adults 65 and over. — Buffalo Bills’ safety Damar Hamlin, whose heart stopped on the field stopping the hearts of millions of football fans,  has been cleared by his doctors to play again. It’s believed that a blow to his chest caused the stoppage.  — The New York Board of Regents, which oversees education in that state, has voted that all public schools must eliminate Native American nicknames, logos, and mascots.  

Below the Fold: Donald Trump has issued a second set of digital trading cards featuring HIMSELF in heroic poses and unlikely characters; Donald crossing the Delaware, Donald as King of Hearts, and the chess piece king. They cost $99 apiece and the website says they’re sold out already.

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