From Raw Story

  • Suicide pact family feared it would be 'the end' if Trump lost election: former acquaintance

    A Pennsylvania family whom police say died as part of a suicide pact last week were described by a former acquaintance of being "hell-bent" on seeing former President Donald Trump reelected in 2020.In an interview with NBC News, Pennsylvania man Bret Stabley said that the Daub family -- 62-year-old James Daub, 59-year-old Deborah Daub, and 26-year-old Morgan Daub -- were conservative Christians who were "very, very huge" Trump supporters."They were just so hell-bent on Trump winning, like this...

  • Earthquake destroys Roman castle in Turkey

    A historic castle used by the Romans and Byzantines was badly damaged by an earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria.Gaziantep Castle, a tourist attraction in southeastern Turkey, collapsed during the 7.8 magnitude earthquake Monday that destroyed an estimated 1,700 buildings across the country and killed more than 600 people, reported CNN.“Some of the bastions in the east, south and southeast parts of the historical Gaziantep Castle in the central Şahinbey district were destroyed by the...

  • Trump positions himself as the peace candidate -- but 'Republicans just don't buy it'

    Donald Trump is trying to position himself as the anti-war candidate heading into the Republican primary campaign.The former president has bashed President Joe Biden's handling of Afghanistan and Ukraine, where he vaguely insists he could achieve peace in 24 hours or less, and he has attacked would-be Republican rivals as "globalist" and "neo-conservative," reported Politico.“Trump is the peace president and he’s the first president in two generations to not start a war," said one source close...

  • 'Full on Satan worship': Conservatives freak out over Sam Smith's Grammy performance

    Singers Sam Smith and Kim Petras delivered a devilish performance at the Grammys on Sunday night, and it has many conservative commentators in a Satanic panic.During the awards ceremony, Smith and Petras performed their song "Unholy," with Smith clad in a top hat featuring red devil horns and surrounded by red-robed female dancers.Conservatives on Twitter reacted with horror to the performance, which they believed was an actual tribute to Satan."The Grammys have gone full-on Satan worship right...

  • How Team Trump hopes to crush Nikki Haley's presidential campaign: report

    Republican Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and ex-governor of South Carolina, is expected to formally announce her presidential run on Wednesday, February 15. This will make Haley the second candidate to officially enter the 2024 GOP presidential primary, although Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appears to be gearing up to enter that primary as well.According to Daily Beast reporters Jake Lahut and Zachary Petrizzo, former President Donald Trump and his allies are hoping to...

  • Texas defense hawks urge Congress away from military funding cuts to raise the debt ceiling

    WASHINGTON — As U.S. House Republicans debate what to cut out of federal spending in their debt ceiling fight with Democrats, a handful of Texans have a clear message: Do not mess with the military.Republicans in the majority are using the debt ceiling as a negotiating tool with the Biden administration to reduce federal spending, but they are divided over where to trim the fat. Some, including Texans who have long defended military spending, are asserting Congress shouldn’t touch defense...

  • Before there was denial, there was 'Ozone Man'

    The Republican Party's long, messy divorce from reality began in October 1992, when President George H.W. Bush derided Al Gore, then the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, as "Ozone Man," someone who would put us "up to our necks in owls — and outta work for every American." Bush was referring to Gore's early warning about the public health threat posed by growing concentrations of CFCs, the chemical refrigerants used In air conditioners, which were rapidly degrading the ozone layer that...

  • Morning Joe reminds viewers of the last time the Koch network ‘stopped the craziness’ in GOP primaries

    The powerful Koch network is taking a stand against Donald Trump heading into the 2024 election cycle, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough examined the historical parallel to the Tea Party insurgency a decade ago.A memo released by Americans for Prosperity shows the conservative heavyweights will oppose the former president's GOP primary bid after a lackluster showing by Republicans in the 2022 midterms, and the "Morning Joe" host said that reminded him of the Koch brothers taking on the right-wing Tea...

  • Salman Rushdie releases new novel six months after knife attack

    Six months after being stabbed, British author Salman Rushdie on Tuesday publishes his new novel "Victory City", an "epic tale" of a 14th-century woman who defies a patriarchal world to rule a city.Written before the US knife attack that nearly took the Indian-born author's life, the novel purports to be a translation of a historical epic originally written in Sanskrit.The much-anticipated work tells the tale of young orphan girl Pampa Kampana who is endowed by a goddess with magical powers and...

  • Emotions run high in Sweden's biggest wolf hunt

    Hunter Lars Bjork points to fresh tracks in the snow as he lumbers through a whited-out forest in central Sweden, where the biggest wolf hunt in modern times is drawing controversy."We have quite a lot of wolves here, we're actually sitting in a new wolf territory where we are now," Bjork, a predator expert at the Swedish Hunters' Association, tells AFP as he settles into a small hunting lodge a few kilometres (miles) outside the town of Vasteras.Long known as a champion of environmental...

  • Republicans keep saying the quiet part out loud': Pence calls for privatizing Social Security

    Former Vice President Mike Pence, a possible 2024 presidential candidate, has voiced support for a Social Security privatization scheme that the George W. Bush administration unsuccessfully pushed nearly two decades ago.In a closed-door event Thursday hosted by the National Association of Wholesale-Distributors, a corporate trade group, Pence said he believes that "the day could come when we can replace the New Deal with a better deal, literally give younger Americans the ability to take a...

  • Crime spree hits one of Trump’s top supporters in Congress

    Another Republican congressman — one of former President Donald Trump’s top supporters — has lost gobs of campaign cash to cyberthieves.The re-election campaign of two-term Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas reported that someone on July 7 made an “unauthorized” withdrawal from its campaign account, according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by Raw Story.The money went to an outfit listed as “Misty J Productions,” although there’s no evidence in federal campaign or corporate...