For the past week, Sean Hannity has furiously flogged his ridiculous and outrageous Seth Rich conspiracies to distract Fox News viewers from the more important (and damaging) news of the day about Trump and his escapades with Russian spies.

But today, Fox News put an end to the Seth Rich story, admitting that their invention was just that -- fiction -- and retracting the story.

"On May 16, a story was posted on the Fox News website on the investigation into the 2016 murder of DNC Staffer Seth Rich. The article was not initially subjected to the high degree of editorial scrutiny we require for all our reporting," Fox said in their written statement. "Upon appropriate review, the article was found not to meet those standards and has since been removed."

At the time of the retraction, there was some question as to whether Hannity would stand down on his frenzied flog of the story. His reaction was predictable. Watch the video if you dare, but the majority of his rant is in the transcript below.

A remarkable rant by Hannity on his radio show re: Seth Rich. Read for yourself. "I retracted nothing!" https://t.co/t523hnckwd pic.twitter.com/rY0Wu0FOkS — Sopan Deb (@SopanDeb) May 23, 2017

Throughout the afternoon, he has grown more and more unhinged.

IMPORTANT! Mediamatters is trying to silence me, get me fired, pressure my advertising on radio & TV. Liberal Fascism. I need your help!! — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 23, 2017

Oh my goodness. Media Matters is trying to get him fired. Really?

And then there's this.

Huge announcement tonight about Seth Rich, Trump/Russian Collusion corrupt media, the liberal effort to silence me. And my future at Fox! — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 23, 2017

Sean Hannity makes $29 million per year at Fox News, between his radio show and his nightly horror parade of conservative fever dreams.

He's also not doing very well in ratings-land, with Lawrence O'Donnell's show beating him and MSNBC capturing the number one spot, thanks to Rachel Maddow.

Michael Flynn, Jr. is aching for his hero to just start his own network of lying liars.

Hannity choosing not to back down on Seth Rich conspiracy could cause trouble with Fox but really it'll just endear him to pro-Trump fringe pic.twitter.com/uQJei21AeT — Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) May 23, 2017

Go ahead, Sean. Show us what you're made of. Go ahead. Quit.

Update:

Seth Rich's parents wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post begging conservative media to just simply stop. It is heartbreaking.

Despite these facts, our family’s nightmare persists. Seth’s death has been turned into a political football. Every day we wake up to new headlines, new lies, new factual errors, new people approaching us to take advantage of us and Seth’s legacy. It just won’t stop. The amount of pain and anguish this has caused us is unbearable. With every conspiratorial flare-up, we are forced to relive Seth’s murder and a small piece of us dies as more of Seth’s memory is torn away from us.

Shortly after it was published, Hannity blurped out a couple of new tweets.

When I saw this story after radio & some personal convos I had 2 day, as a father this really tears at my heart. https://t.co/09pUz9bF7C — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 24, 2017

Nonsense. That assumes he has a heart.

I will address this suffering family tonight at 10. It breaks my heart. Know this, I will pursue the truth wherever it may lead, 4 justice. — Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 24, 2017

So he's not going to honor their wishes, then.