Fox in the House 🌻 🌻 🌻

The Fox Lives On:  Yesterday afternoon after a jury had already been seated Fox settled with Dominion, agreeing to pay the company $787.5 million for repeatedly claiming that its voting machines were doing nefarious things like flipping Trump votes to Biden.  That’s great news for Dominion because though their case against Fox was strong, defamation cases against media companies are hard to win and jury trials are unpredictable so their ultimate victory in court wasn’t a sure thing.  In addition, had Dominion won, their reward would have been held up while Fox appealed.  The settlement, as costly as it is, and even though it was only half the amount that Dominion was seeking, three quarters of a billion dollars isn’t chump change, was also a win for Fox because contrary to expectations, they weren’t required to do the full mea culpa thing on air, not even on the Fox News website. The settlement was mentioned on Fox’s “news” programs but not on the later “entertainment” shows which had moved on to other sensational balderdash, like Elon Musk’s assertions that leftists are controlling the output of ChatGPT and its siblings and Margie Q’s claim that she’s seen thousands of pages of proof that all the members of the Biden Crime family are sex traffickers. Though brief coverage of the settlement was on the Fox News website last night, it’s already gone this morning.  There’s very little coverage in the NY Post and though there is an article in the WSJ, it seems intentionally boring and says little more. Ironically, Fox’s right-wing competitor Newsmax has far more details about the suit on their website. As depressing as it is that we won’t be hearing Rupert and company on the witness stand, Fox isn’t out of the woods, they still face a $2.7 billion lawsuit from Smartmatic, another voting technology company and some Fox shareholders have already requested company records in preparation for a lawsuit.  

2024:  Trump continues to take pot shots at Governor DeSanctimonious for the inexplicably dumb things he’s been doing.  And it’s not just Trump, former NJ Governor Chris Christie who may or may not be running for president is doing the same.  Both are questioning DeSantis’ battle with Disney and though it’s painful to agree with them, especially Trump, they’re right.  What sane governor goes after his state’s largest employer and revenue generator, threatening to build a jail near a child friendly theme park, because they had the nerve to question a performative Don’t Say Gay policy? Oddly enough, Trump and his mini-me son have been right about a few things of late: Don Senior by pointing out that the Republicans are alienating too many voters with extreme abortion legislation, Donny Junior by trying to shut down the right’s war against Anheuser Busch, the huge donor to Republican candidates that offended the right’s sensibilities by partnering with a trans influencer in some Bud light Instagram posts. DeSantis can’t be happy that despite his pleas for them to hold off, more and more Florida politicians have endorsed Trump’s candidacy, adding their names to a group that already includes 42 House members and nine senators. Though it’s not clear that he’s included in the 42, George Santos who did show up to support Trump on his fingerprint day, does share a lot in common with Trump, he’s a liar and “allegedly” a criminal who has thus far avoided any consequences for his actions so it’s probably not all that surprising that George of many names has announced that he’s also running for reelection. Kevin McCarthy keeps trying to avoid commenting on Santos, but he can’t be happy which probably explains why Santos will not be a beneficiary of a recent PAC set up to help NY Republicans retain the seats they won during the 2022 midterms. Anyway, Kevin’s been busy of late on other things like trying to wrangle all of his disparate caucus members to sign off on his plan to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for budget cuts, including some in areas that his vulnerable coalition members won’t or shouldn’t be willing to agree to.  Kev wants to pass his plan without any Democratic help, probably impossible to do since 16 Republican House members have never ever voted to increase the debt ceiling.  Tick tock.

Say Goodbye:  Senate Republicans, a group that once again includes Mitch McConnell, have made it clear that they won’t sign off on Democrat Diane Feinstein being temporarily replaced on the Senate Judiciary Committee because they’ll have nothing to do with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s efforts to seat more “radical, leftist” judges. Putting aside the absurdity of the Republican crowd, who happily voted for the likes of Texas judge Matthew Kacsmaryk and Florida judge Aileen Cannon questioning the political leanings of Democratic nominees, their failure to allow a replacement, puts Schumer and company deep into the Feinstein pickle barrel with no easy solution at hand other than a forced Feinstein retirement, if that’s even possible. Sadly, DiFi is about to join the Notorious RBG, another heroine who didn’t know when her time was up.  One consequence of Ginsburg sticking around is the Dobbs decision and maybe, depending on what we learn by midnight, the end of mifepristone availability.   

Guns and Groomers: It turns out that when lots of people have guns some of them use them when other options like screaming, waving a stick, or just flashing bright lights would have met their needs.  So a young black man in Missouri was shot for accidentally knocking on the wrong door of a house owned by an old bigoted white man while trying to pick up his young twin brothers and a young woman in upstate New York was shot and killed for making a U-turn in a unhinged man’s driveway.  Both incidents are beyond awful, but not surprising because guns. The upstate woman is gone forever but the Missouri high school student appears to be recovering and it’s great that his classmates are demonstrating because if we are going to be saved from the tyranny of guns it will be young people who lead us. Also, not surprising but a bit amusing in a sick kind of way, Ali Alexander the far-right activist and founder of the Stop the Steal election denier crowd has admitted to asking young men and boys for nude pictures, soliciting some of them for sex.  Why is it that the accusers are always the ones who are groomers and pedophiles?