A Philadelphia man was freed Tuesday after being jailed in 1983 for a murder he didn’t commit but was convicted due to false testimony from a witness who was provided sex and drugs by police to secure statements that would frame him, the Associated Press reports.

For more than two decades, 61-year-old Willie Stokes wasn’t aware that the key witness in his case had been convicted for perjury months after he was convicted of murder.  No court officer or lawyer reviewed cases in which the witness testified, nor did any prosecutor move to dismiss the conviction.

Franklin Lee, a suspected murderer and rapist at the time, was promised a lighter sentence by two Philadelphia detectives if he testified that he heard Stokes confess to the murder.  To encourage his cooperation, the detectives arranged a tryst with his girlfriend, who was allowed to bring him marijuana and opioids while he was being held.  Later, the detectives arranged a jailhouse visit by a prostitute for Lee when his girlfriend refused to visit the police station. 

Fox host (and boy sporting a hairstyle Mommy created by styling his locks with a finger and some spit) Tucker Carlson claims there aren’t as many beautiful things left in the country, presumably because we have PEOPLE [gasp!] living all over the land, and only empty places are still beautiful.   “Have you driven around your country recently? You may have noticed there are fewer and fewer beautiful things in America. You’re not imagining that. It’s real. Dollar Stores are everywhere.”

Tuck’ems fails to acknowledge that he and his ilk advocate ruining the beautiful national and state parks by allowing everything from oil drilling to mass deforestation to animal extinction.  But it’s his claim that “Dollar Stores” make the landscape ugly that exhibits his snobbiness.  Besides, if he had his way, there would be no zoning regulations and you could have a gas station in your backyard or a [gasp!] Dollar Store up the street.

Mississippi Democrat Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, is reportedly considering having live hearings during prime time to promote viewership and increase the transparency of the hearings, Bloomberg reports.

“Maybe a series of hearings,” Thompson said Tuesday in an interview. “The public needs to know, needs to hear from people under oath about what led up to January 6th, and to some degree, what has continued after January 6.”

The televised hearings could occur in late March or early April, Thompson said.  The committee cannot demand television networks carry the hearings live, which means they would likely not get aired on the big four networks–ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC–and it would definitely not be aired on the Fox propaganda network, so live viewing would likely be limited to CNN and MSNBC.

A Trump spokesperson tells CNN’s Kaitlan Collins “I disagree with Sean on that statement and the facts are proving me right,” when asked about a text from Hannity to Meadows that said “He can’t mention the election again. Ever. I did not have a good call with him today. And worse, I’m not sure what is left to do or say, and I don’t like not knowing if it’s truly understood. Ideas?”

Again, this is a text from a year ago sent between two other individuals over a year ago and Trump says he “disagrees” as if this was something Hannity said on his television show last night.

MSNBC’s Ari Melber hosted Trump advisor (and coup plotter) Peter Navarro, who claimed that everything he and others did going up until the certification of the election by Congress on January 6th was perfectly legal and legitimate because the election hadn’t been certified yet–even though the results had been certified by the various state election officials, including Secretaries of State.

“You just described this plan as a way to take an election where the outcome was established by independent Secretaries of State, by the voters of those states, and legal remedies had been exhausted with the Supreme Court never even taking, let alone siding with, any of the claims that you just referred to, so legally they went nowhere, and then you’re describing a way the incumbent [Navarro attempts to interrupt and Melber quiets him].  Then you will use the incumbent, losing party power, that was the Republican Party losing power, to overtake and reverse that outcome,” Melber states.  “Do you realize you are describing a coup?”

“No,” Navarro responds.  “I totally reject many of your premises there.  First of all, the election was still in doubt and would be until it was certified.  Second, the idea that, that, that Secretaries of State, particularly in Michigan and, and Pennsylvania, were, like, innocent parties–I mean, Jocelyn Benson and, and Kathy Boockvar, the Secretaries of State in, in Michigan and Pennsylvania, they were put in power by George Soros for the express purpose of shifting the playing field.”

Fox contributor, unpaid contributor to TheHill (and underachieving fraternity brother riding off his friends’ coattails) Joe Concha claimed that multiple people died in the hours-long traffic stoppage due to an accident on Interstate 95 in Virginia yesterday.  While Concha animatedly claims people were killed during the backup, officials have stated no one died in the accident or the traffic jam.  A request for comment from Concha has gone unanswered, and Fox has not issued a correction.

“The National Guard needed to be called in here yesterday,” Concha whines.  “All hands on deck.  It didn’t happen, and now people have died as a result of this governor who doesn’t seem to care all that much.  Where the hell is he?”

Again, no one died (and no one was seriously injured) as a result of the accident or the traffic backup.  Concha’s accusal of Democratic Virginia Ralph Northam’s indifference (which is shown to be a lie) stands in stark contrast to his lack of comment on Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s disastrous handling of power outages in Texas that killed at least 246 (and as many as 700) in 2021, or Republican President Donald Trump’s abandonment of Puerto Rico after Hurricane when 3,000 perished.

Utah tech entrepreneur David Bateman, active in Republican politics, sent an unhinged Anti-semitic and Anti-vax conspiracy email with the subject line “GENOCIDE” to a wide array of state business and political leaders including Gov Spencer Cox on Tuesday, Fox 13 Salt Lake City reports.

“I write this email knowing that many of you will think I’m crazy after reading it. I believe there is a sadistic effort underway to euthanize the American people. It’s obvious now. It’s undeniable, yet no one is doing anything. I believe the Jews are behind this. For 300 years the Jews have been trying to infiltrate the Catholic Church and place a Jew covertly at the top. It happened in 2013 with Pope Francis. I believe the pandemic and systematic extermination of billions of people will lead to an effort to consolidate all the countries in the world under a single flag with totalitarian rule. I know, it sounds bonkers. No one is reporting on it, but the Hasidic Jews in the US instituted a law for their people that they are not to be vaccinated for any reason” Bateman wrote, swiftly drawing wide condemnation from the Salt Lake City-area “Silicon Slopes” tech community.

“Earlier today Dave Bateman, one of our founders, made several highly offensive statements in an email to recipients outside the company. The opinions expressed by Dave were his alone, and do not reflect the views or values of Entrata, the executive team, board of directors, or investors. To be absolutely clear, we at Entrata firmly condemn antisemitism in any and all forms” wrote Adam Edmunds, the CEO of Entrata, Bateman’s own company in a statement Tuesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron, already hated by far-right assholes, told a newspaper his strategy to fight COVID is to “piss off” the unvaccinated, Axios reports. “I really want to piss them off. And so we will continue to do so, to the bitter end. That’s the strategy,” said Macron Le Parisien.

After significant disgust and resistance, Donald Trump has announced that he will not hold a press conference on the first anniversary of the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol, when his supports sought to undermine the Constitution and install Trump for a second term despite the fact that he lost the election.

Confirmed by a statement from Trump’s camp, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reports that Trump will address the issues he wanted to raise at a planned January 15th rally in Arizona, where he was expected to continue spreading lies about the November 2020 election by claiming the election was rigged for Joe Biden, despite multiple probes by Republican-led groups that have come up with zilch to prove his assertion.

After 27+ hours on the road from Richmond to DC, @timkaine is safely back in the Capitol. Still in good spirits! pic.twitter.com/VV9SKdDeNM

— Katie Stuntz (@kastuntz) January 4, 2022

To hit its goal of becoming a clean energy company by 2045, Idaho Power said it would phase out operations of coal-fired power plants no later than 2028, according to a plan the utility presented to the state Public Utilities Commission, the Associated Press reports.

Idaho Power currently operated two coal-fired plants, along with 17 hydroelectric dams and three power stations run with natural gas.  It services 600,000 customers in southern Idaho and eastern Oregon across a 24,000 square mile area.

President Joe Biden has set a goal for the nation to have the US become a net-zero emissions country by 2050.

The House Select Committee investigating the January 6th domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol to install Donald Trump into the presidency is expected to request Fox host Sean Hannity to cooperate with the probe, Axios reports.

A favorite media personality of Trump, Hannity has bragged on his program about being a policy and campaign advisor for the Trump Administration and Trump personally.  Hannity appeared at campaign rallies for Trump, a move that reportedly angered his network superiors.

Hannity is known to have texted Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to call on Trump to make a statement urging the domestic terrorists to stop the attack.  Another Fox host, Laura Ingraham, also made a similar plea.  Committee members likely want to question Hannity about any communication he had with Trump or the administration about the intent of the rallies on January 6th, and if the Trump camp asked for Hannity’s help to promote them.

US federal authorities arrested and charged a former Colombian military soldier for his alleged role in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse in July in Port-au-Prince, Politico reports.

Mario Antonio Palacios was arrested in Jamaica in October and he was being extradited to his native Colombia on Monday when he was detained by Panamanian officials while changing flights in that country.  Officials informed him that he would be extradited to the United States, which had made arrangements with Colombia and Jamaica to facilitate charging him.

Palacios is one of twelve former Colombian soldiers who participated in the assassination mission.  The Colombian government has cooperated with the investigation by Haiti and  the United States, and it has said that after questioning the suspects, it appears they were duped into thinking the mission was a protection detail.  More than 40 people have been detained in the course of the investigation.

Only four Republican Senators would go on record with Politico about Trump’s planned Thursday meltdown commemorating the deadly riot he incited a year ago, all five were not happy with their Orange God Emperor using the occasion to relitigate the 2020 election yet again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I guess it depends on what he’s going to say. But early assumptions are that it’s going to be an aggressive statement. I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” said West Virginia Senator Shelley Moore Capito. “It’s a free country and you’re entitled to say whatever you want to say subject to some limitations, but I think the country has moved on,” said Senator John Cornyn.

“He’s going to do what he’s going to do and… I think that most of us want to make sure that something like that never happens again,” Senator John Thune said. “What am I going to do about it?” asked Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey. “There’s no benefit on commenting,” said Senator Tim Scott, who probably locked himself in his bathroom and cried shortly after the exchange.

Yet another skirmish between factions in the rhetorically deadly 2021-2022 MAGA Civil War has broken out this time between MAGA Anti-Semite podcaster and Capitol rioter Tim “Baked Alaska” Gionet and Jim “Gateway Pundit” Hoft, the Daily Beast reports, with Hoft accusing Gionet of being a “fed” and Gionet (possibly correctly) calling Hoft a pedophile. Hoft started the fight in a December article, using his characteristic “logic” claiming that since Gionet is walking free while other Capitol rioters remain in jail awaiting trial, he must be a “fed”. Gionet responded in an interview on Stewie Peters’s show, saying “I mean, obviously, he’s interested in young boys.”

“He’s married to a very young boy,” Gionet added, which is only a slight exaggeration as Hoft’s husband Jezz Moreno was eighteen at the oldest when they met in Jezz’s native Philippines in 2016. Hoft responded with legal threats, forcing an a half-assed apology from Peters’s host Red Voice Media “That we participated in such an attack, we apologize to Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit, and to readers of the Gateway Pundit.” Peters himself didn’t give a shit however, telling the Beast that “At no point during the segment in question did I Stew Peters or the Stew Peters show accuse Jim Hoft of being part of a satanic pedophilia cabal. It is worth mentioning that, to date, Jim Hoft’s attorney is the only person to utter the words ‘satanic pedophile cabal’ in connection with Jim Hoft or The Gateway Pundit,” which we guess means that Hoft took the accusation to mean Peters and Gionet think he’s a QAnon-Pizzagate universe villian, not just a regular pedophile.

Ron DeSantis probably not realizing how much he sounds like his Orange Sith Master did in 2020.

Mitch McConnell may be open to a bipartisan deal to reform the Electoral Count Act which, while it does not come close to the broad election reforms Dems are still stuck with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema dicking around on a filibuster carveout to get passed, it at least would prevent the grave Constitutional crisis that would have ensued had Mike Pence been dragged out and hanged from the hastily constructed gallows on the National Mall last January, Politico Playbook reports.

A press conference at a state department of health office by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was cancelled after a Jacksonville activist yelled some mean things at the Napoleonic tyrant, CBS Miami reports. “We’re here to hold the governor accountable… We have a right our First Amendment rights, we can express them peaceably. And that is what we are doing here. This governor is, this governor is an enemy of the people” said community organizer Ben Frazier, president of the Jacksonville Northside Coalition, as some DeSantis lackey told him to sit down and shut up. Frazier was led away in cuffs shortly thereafter. Even though the “danger” had by then passed, DeSantis canceled the conference anyway. Better safe from accountability than sorry.

A record 4.5 million Americans, 3% of the workforce, voluntarily left their jobs in November, a record number in the twenty years the statistic has been measured, a sign that demand for workers is remains strong, the Washington Post reports.

The number follows 4.2 million quits in October and 4.4 million in September, a trend that demonstrates workers continue to jump into the job market to look for positions with better pay and benefits.  In a market with just a 4.2% unemployment rate, the turnover of workers pushes wages higher, particularly at traditional low-paying jobs.

The monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) report also shows more than 10 million job openings as companies pursue workers to fill positions as the economy grows at an estimated 6% pace in the fourth quarter of 2021.