Free Republic

James Talarico has gained ground in the closely watched Texas Senate race, with several prediction markets and election forecasters increasingly characterizing the contest as competitive, despite the state's long-standing Republican lean. Kalshi, a prediction market, currently gives the Democratic State Representative Talarico a 59 percent chance of winning the November election, compared with 41 percent for Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton. Another prediction market, Polymarket, similarly puts Talarico at 60 percent and Paxton at 41 percent; prediction market shares can occasionally sum to over 100 percent due to market spreads. Meanwhile, Fox News' latest Power Rankings forecast has shifted the...

30 Seconds in.You Will Get it. Here is a concise bullet-point summary of the speech in the video:Trump says the United States has developed a “new and powerful relationship” with Venezuela.He claims the U.S. has secured 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, which he describes as the largest oil deal in history and “500 years’ worth” of oil.He says the oil arrangement was obtained as a result of “an attack,” without explaining further in this clip.He pledges that, if Republicans win both the House and Senate in the midterm elections, every adult American would receive a $5,000 “Trump Dividend.”He argues...

President Trump on Wednesday floated the idea of issuing every American adult a $5,000 “dividend” check if his party kept control of the House and Senate in November — an extraordinary offer that would cost more than $1 trillion and likely would require congressional approval. “It will be called the Trump dividend,” he said at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas. He added a caveat: The money must be spent in the United States, though he did not say how the government could track where private citizens used the funds. He offered few additional details about the idea. How could...

President Trump on Wednesday told the crowd at the Republican National Committee’s first midterm convention in Dallas not to boo the absent Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), telling them that “John is working hard.” Trump mentioned Thune’s name after he said Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) “will go down as the greatest Speaker of the House in the history of our country.” He then added that Thune was “here” before asking where he was, prompting boos from the audience.The president added that Senate Republicans will in general have “great, great success.” Thune and Trump have been at odds with each...

Stocks dropped Thursday after U.S. oil prices topped $100 a barrel, amid growing fears of higher inflation from a prolonged war in the Middle East. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 315 points, or 0.6%. The S&P 500 fell 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.5% too. Higher oil prices continued to weigh on sentiment, as the war between the U.S. and Iran stretched into a seventh month. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures for October jumped above $100 per barrel. Futures for the international benchmark Brent crude for November delivery spiked above $105 a barrel. The jump in oil prices...

The story you heard first — that President Donald Trump fired Kristi Noem over a $220 million ad campaign — isn't wrong, exactly. But it's incomplete. The ad spending lit the fuse; an eight-word question that Noem refused to answer in plain English plunged the detonator.Here's what really pushed Trump to fire her.It was previously reported that the breaking point for Trump was when Noem testified on Tuesday that he had personally approved $220 million in Homeland Security advertising, including a cinematic spot of her riding a horse in front of Mount Rushmore with a voiceover that said, "From President...

The Justice Department, after calls by President Trump to investigate former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., scrutinized whether Mr. Biden and his aides broke the law in using the autopen to sign presidential documents, but was ultimately unable to move forward with making a case, according to three people briefed on the matter.

According to a Politico report citing an internal Pentagon notification, United States Central Command (CENTCOM) has requested additional military intelligence officers to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days and possibly through September. When the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran last Saturday, the operation was framed as a swift military campaign. Donald Trump later described it as a limited effort expected to last roughly four to five weeks. ...