Free Republic

SARATOGA SPRINGS — A group of Black Lives Matter activists were detained by police outside of City Hall on Tuesday night as they were protesting ahead of a City Council meeting. Beatty said several officers, including Saratoga County sheriff's deputies, came outside and grabbed some of the others who were gathering, bringing them into the police station at the ground floor of City Hall. Andrew Beatty, a Saratoga Springs resident who often attends BLM events, said they were gathered outside of the Lake Avenue entrance after they heard that activist Lexis Figuereo had allegedly been arrested at a different location...

Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Friday welcomed Saudi Arabia's King Salman for a long-delayed first White House summit marked by warm public words, amid clashing views on Middle Eastern crises. Obama made the rare move of greeting the 79-year-old monarch at the doors of the White House, as he hailed the "longstanding friendship" between the two countries. Salman's inaugural visit as king -- originally scheduled for May and canceled by Riyadh -- had been billed as a way of putting relations back on a more stable footing. In the Oval Office, Obama was effusive, saying he wanted...

Once thought dead and buried on the battlefields of Iraq, a muscular and militaristic "neoconservative" approach to US foreign policy is making a comeback. For most of the last decade, the "neocons" -- personified by former vice president Dick Cheney and ex-Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld -- have been out of office and out of fashion. But the 2016 presidential race has seen Republican candidates embrace ideas and advisors once ostracized for the catastrophes and hubris of George W. Bush's "preemptive war" in Iraq. During last week's Republican presidential debates, 17 candidates tripped over themselves to declare President Barack Obama weak...