Free Republic

Congress on Thursday split on advancing a pair of war powers resolutions aimed at forcing President Donald Trump to abandon his war with Iran, as the conflict escalates into a deadly new phase and oil tops $100 a barrel. The moves were the first vote since Trump informed Congress that he restarted the war with Iran following the breakdown of peace negotiations. The conflict’s revival after weeks of a shaky ceasefire comes just months before the U.S. midterm elections. It threatens to scramble the majority Republicans’ plan to maintain their razor-thin majorities. The Senate on Thursday voted 47-49 to kill...

Crossings through the Strait have fallen sharply across multiple shipping datasets with renewed U.S. strikes on Iran, Tehran’s declaration of a blanket ban on maritime traffic and fresh attacks on commercial vessels has prompted operators to reassess the risks of entering the Gulf. Lloyd’s List Intelligence recorded just 53 vessel transits in the week through July 20, down 66% from 157 the previous week. Tanker and gas carrier movements, which are the ships responsible for transporting most Gulf crude oil and liquefied natural gas, dropped to 30 crossings from 90. Kpler data similarly show activity deteriorating almost immediately after the...

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it has attacked Amazon’s data infrastructure in Bahrain, according to a statement reported by Fars, an IRGC-linked state media outlet. Fars News Agency said on Tuesday the IRGC had “attacked the central data infrastructure of the American company Amazon in Bahrain with several cruise missiles and destroyed it,” according to a translated Telegram post. CNBC was unable to independently verify the information. CNBC has reached out to the National Communication Center of Bahrain and Amazon for comment. Hostilities between the U.S. and Iran have ratcheted up over the past 10 days as President Donald...

More voters would be more likely to support a democratic socialist candidate than a Make America Great Again supporter or a candidate endorsed by President Donald Trump, the CNBC All-America Economic Survey released Friday found. The survey’s findings come as democratic socialist candidates win Democratic primaries across the country following the November election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The shift has become a lightning rod for Republicans, who are aggressively branding Democrats as communists. The results indicate that even with a number of self-described democratic socialists on the ballot, Democrats will have the upper hand heading into November’s...

CNBC’s ranking of the 10 worst states to live in 2026—all of them Republican-led—has drawn criticism from conservatives. The broadcaster gave each state a Quality of Life score based on factors including crime rates, air quality, healthcare access, worker protections and civil rights laws. The Quality of Life category was one of 10 in the outlet’s annual America’s Top States for Business study. Tennessee was ranked the worst state to live in after receiving a score of just 64 out of 290. CNBC noted that Tennessee had one of the highest violent-crime rates in the nation, citing FBI statistics, as...

Kalshi‘s predictions are based on people betting on the outcome of a race, not on the opinions of voters in Maine. It’s just another way for money to influence our politics.Unfortunately CNN as well as CNBC recently made lucrative deals with Kalshi and are allowing it to influence their reporting. Guess it saves them he cost of polling regular Americans who don’t have the time or money to constantly bet on things.

President Donald Trump on Monday urged South Carolina’s governor to appoint late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister, Darline Graham Nordone, to fill his Senate seat through the rest of the year. Graham, 71, died unexpectedly on Saturday, leaving an opening for the seat through the end of his term. “I recommended, to Governor Henry McMaster, Lindsey Graham’s wonderful sister, Darline, to serve as interim Senator from the Great State of South Carolina. This would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsey, who loved her dearly!” Trump posted on TruthSocial. Under South Carolina law, Gov. Henry McMaster has the authority to name an...

Airbus, Leonardo and Thales announced Thursday that they will combine their satellite and space activities to form a “leading European player in space,” as the region looks for a homegrown rival to Elon Musk’s Starlink. The companies — each a heavyweight in the aerospace and defense sector in their own right — said the joint venture would develop and build, “a comprehensive portfolio of complementary technologies and end-to-end solutions, from space infrastructure to services.” The development of space launchers will be excluded from the new company’s operations. The combined entity is expected to generate mid-triple-digit million euros in annual synergies...

Blackstone is restricting withdrawals from its flagship Blackstone Private Credit, or BCRED, fund following a spike in investor redemption requests, as fears over liquidity pressures rattled private markets. The asset management giant capped investor withdrawals from the $79 billion nontraded business development company at 5% of shares, after redemption requests hit 10% during the second quarter. It comes after U.S. private markets giants sold off on Wednesday after Switzerland’s Partners Group said it was curbing redemption requests in one of its European private equity vehicles. Partners Group said on Thursday it was prepared to restrict withdrawals in more of its...

Paxton has trailed Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in fundraising, and some Republicans say the party will have to spend millions to win the Senate race.President Donald Trump may be celebrating that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton won Tuesday’s Senate primary, but some Republicans now worry that they have a Texas-sized problem on their hands. Paxton, with Trump’s endorsement, handily defeated four-term Sen. John Cornyn in the runoff. Democrats largely viewed Paxton as the weaker candidate because of his many controversies. But his fundraising struggles are also raising alarm bells among Republicans. “Economically, it’s a disaster. Texas is extremely expensive,”...

In a country where big trucks are a big deal, those pickups and SUVs represent a big percentage of auto loans that come with a sizable monthly payment, more than $1,000 a month, according to new data. Experian Automotive’s analysis of more than 5 million open auto loans and leases in the first quarter shows nearly 19% of new vehicle loans include a monthly payment of at least $1,000. That’s up from roughly 17.4% year over year. “The assumption is that it’s all luxury, it’s high-line, and that is not the case,” said Melinda Zabritski, head of automotive financial insights...

Consumer sentiment has tumbled to a fresh record low in May as fears of higher prices grow due to the U.S.-Iran war and elevated oil prices, the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers said Friday. The index of consumer sentiment fell to 44.8 from a preliminary reading of 48.2. It’s also well below the 49.8 level seen at the end of April. “Consumer sentiment fell for the third straight month as supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz continue to boost gasoline prices. Sentiment is now just below the previous historical trough seen in June 2022,” Surveys of Consumers Director...

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down the state’s recently passed redistricting referendum, dealing a massive blow to Democrats who hoped to gain several seats from new House maps. The redistricting ballot measure passed by three percentage points in late April in what was seen at the time as a major win for Democrats, who stood to gain as many as four seats from redrawn maps ahead of the November midterms. The Virginia Supreme Court decision comes amid an ongoing partisan gerrymandering war and as Republican-led states across the South are working to redraw their House districts after a...

For more than a decade, Guy Shoemaker pitched military service to potential new recruits with one key promise: healthcare for life. “You’re going to have medical and dental for the rest of your life,” said Shoemaker, a retired Army sergeant first class and recruiter who spent a year in Afghanistan. “I used that phrase too many times.” That promise held up when Shoemaker, 64, of Fort Worth, Texas, was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2021. TRICARE — the military’s healthcare program for active service members, retirees and their families — covered the chemotherapy, radiation and years of follow-up care that...

President Donald Trump’s abrupt reversal on his plan to help ships go through the Strait of Hormuz came after a key Gulf ally suspended the U.S. military’s ability to use its bases and airspace to carry out the operation, according to two U.S. officials. Trump surprised Gulf allies by announcing “Project Freedom” on social media Sunday afternoon, the officials said, angering leadership in Saudi Arabia. In response, the Kingdom informed the U.S. it would not allow the U.S. military to fly aircraft from Prince Sultan Airbase southeast of Riyadh or fly through Saudi airspace to support the effort, the officials...

The United Arab Emirates said Monday that Iran launched missile and drone attacks against the country, putting at risk the already shaky ceasefire between the United States and Tehran. The White House did not immediately respond when asked whether the reported attacks, which led the UAE to activate its missile alert system for the first time since the ceasefire began on April 8, would violate that truce. Stock market indices fell, and oil prices rose on news of the attack, raising investors’ fears that the war’s impact on the global economy could be exacerbated or prolonged. “The UAE’s air defenses...

The United Arab Emirates announced Tuesday that it will exit OPEC on May 1. “This decision follows a comprehensive review of the UAE’s production policy and its current and future capacity and is based on our national interest and our commitment to contributing effectively to meeting the market’s pressing needs,” the UAE energy ministry said in a statement.

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will head to Pakistan on Saturday morning to engage in “direct talks” with their Iranian counterparts, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Friday. “The Iranians reached out” and asked for an in-person conversation, as President Donald Trump had asked them to do, Leavitt said on Fox News.

President Donald Trump has pushed to bring the war with Iran to a speedy end: He stepped up bombing raids. He threatened to wipe out infrastructure. He has attempted diplomacy and ordered a naval blockade. But Tehran is in no rush to cut a deal. Despite the assassinations of its leaders and the damage to an array of military sites, Iran’s regime seems to have benefitted politically from the attacks started by the U.S. and Israel, according to a Western diplomat with knowledge of the conflict and five Western officials, all with knowledge of intelligence assessments on Iran. The regime...

On Sunday’s The Weekend: Primetime, MS NOW welcomed former Canadian Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland—an MSNBC regular in her days as a journalist for the Financial Times and Reuters —to lament what she portrayed as a breakdown in U.S.-NATO trust under President Trump. Before getting there, Freeland set the tone with a gush of flattery—thanking host Catherine Rampell for the “great show” and praising her writing. Not subtle. But the most revealing moment came when Freeland tried to reassure viewers that Canadians still admire Americans. And of all places, she chose Minneapolis: “The people of Minneapolis are so admired in Canada....