Free Republic

Add Secretary of State John Kerry to list of those skipping the inauguration Friday. A State Department official confirmed to Fox News that the outgoing chief diplomat “will not attend the inauguration.” The official did not give a reason.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) predicted Sunday the U.S. will take military action against Syria. Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he had been in discussions with the administration, and that he believed it would ask Congress for authorization to take military action. Corker suggested the action would be limited to air strikes and that U.S. forces should not be involved on the ground. "I think we will respond in a surgical way and I hope the president as soon as we get back to Washington will ask for authorization from Congress to do something in...

A San Francisco suburb voted Tuesday night to use the power or eminent domain to keep Wal-Mart Stores Inc. off a piece of city land after hearing from dozens of residents who accused the big-box retailer of engaging in scare tactics to force its way into the bedroom community. The overflow crowd that packed into the tiny Hercules City Hall cheered after the five-person City Council voted unanimously to use the unusual tactic to seize the 17 acres where Wal-Mart intended to build a shopping complex. "The citizens have spoken. No to Wal-Mart," said Kofi Mensah, who has lived in...

U.S. immigration officials refused Tuesday to allow Robert Fisk, longtime Middle East correspondent for the London newspaper, The Independent, to board a plane from Toronto to Denver. Fisk was on his way to Santa Fe for a sold-out appearance in the Lannan Foundation’s readings-and-conversations series Wednesday night. According to Christie Mazuera Davis, a Lannan program officer, Fisk was told that his papers were not in order. Davis made last-minute arrangements Wednesday for Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica Radio’s daily news show, Democracy Now!, to interview Fisk via satellite from a television station in Toronto. He appeared on a large screen...

<p>The United States, a nation of immigrants, has a love-hate relationship with newcomers. Despite its reputation as an international melting pot, only 7.9 percent of the country's population was born overseas, compared with 22.7 percent of Australia's, 18.5 percent of Switzerland's, and 16.1 percent of Canada's.</p>

LOS ANGELES -- Last Friday I was again reminded of how visiting the United States has begun to resemble entering a police-state. As I waited in line to check my bags at Heathrow Airport, a couple behind me joked about playing the "spot-the-sky-marshal" game. Like many others, I find the concept of plainclothes, gun-carrying officers aboard aircrafts more alarming than reassuring. And my anxiety is further compounded by the fact that, due to U.S. pressure, government ministers in Britain and other countries have rushed into plans for American-style sky marshals policing their airports and flights. The unilateralist U.S. administration is...

Johannesburg – Two South African Muslims heading for an Islamic convention in Atlanta, Georgia were refused entry to the United States despite having visas and were then detained and deported in conditions they described as humiliating, the Johannesburg-based Sunday Times reported. It said that after a 17-hour flight from Johannesburg to attend a convention hosted by the Atlanta Islamic Institute, businessman Moosa Suleman and scholar Moulana Ahmed Suleman Khatani were detained by immigration officials, fingerprinted and photographed. “Their passports, credit cards, invitations to the conference and other documentation were photocopied,” the newspaper said yesterday. Suleman, who is 66 and has...