Free Republic

China and Russia's combined military spending exceeds that of the United States when adjusted for purchasing power, which has allowed China to shorten capability gaps in its quest to become the top superpower by midcentury, the top U.S. military officer said Thursday. "Combined, the Russian and Chinese budgets exceed our budgets if all the cards are put on the table," Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He called China's increased spending trend "disturbing." China and Russia are the U.S. military's two biggest competitors. Defense secretaries from Jim Mattis to Lloyd Austin have identified China...

It's no secret that Hollywood and its "values" are contributing mightily to the moral decay of American culture, and 2011 romantic comedies have been some of the raunchiest to date. But the stars of the summer 2011 sleazy hookup film "Friends with Benefits" have involved Facebook in promoting their flick.

During a class discussion on adolescence, a high school teacher recently asked her students whether they go on dates. We don't "date," the 12th graders reported. We "hook up." If you're in your 40s, "hooking up" might mean catching a friend downtown for lunch. But to people in their teens or 20s, the phrase often means a casual sexual encounter _ anything from kissing onwards _ with no strings attached. Now a new book on this not-so-new subject is drawing fire in some quarters for its conclusion: That hookups can be damaging to young women, denying their emotional needs, putting...

The Sixties generation thought everything should be free. But only a few decades later the hippies were selling water at rock festivals for $5 a bottle. But for me the price of “free love” was even higher. I sacrificed what should have been the best years of my life for the black lie of free love. All the sex I ever had — and I had more than my fair share — far from bringing me the lasting relationship I sought, only made marriage a more distant prospect... And I am not alone. Count me among the dissatisfied daughters of...

The first thing that one notices about the portrait of President and Laura Bush in the January issue of Vogue is its informality. The photograph was taken in the Oval Office by Annie Leibovitz and shows the president in his shirt sleeves. To be sure, his shirt has French cuffs and he is wearing a tie -- a blue one. But he has removed his suit jacket. While it is always somewhat risky to read meaning into a facial expression, it would not be too much of a stretch to say that the president looks amused and mischievous, as if...