Penna Dexter
There’s no satisfactory explanation for the recent actions of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in keeping his cancer surgery — and his subsequent, extended hospitalization — secret from his staff and the White House.  The Administration insists this was simply a lapse in judgment, but it’s an unforgivable breach of protocol.
Even more disturbing are the growing recruitment problems in the US military, the institution from which Secretary Austin retired as a 4-star general.
Political and military leaders are alarmed at severe declines in recruitment in all branches except the Marines.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Owen West, Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Trump administration, and Kevin Wallsten, Professor of Political Science at California State University, Long Beach, offer an explanation backed by research. They sum up the  “essential problem,” by stating that, “Young white Democrats have lost faith in their country and are rejecting military service.” They lament that “American patriotism is dissolving.”
Their op-ed cites “one of the oldest and most reliable youth polls, Monitoring the Future,” which, “has for decades shown only small differences in the propensity to serve.”  In 2015, the percentage of white Democrats who wanted to serve stood at 19%, with blacks, Latinos, and white Republicans at 20%.
But, by 2021, the Monitoring the Future poll shows only 3% of young white male Democrats were interested in serving in the military, about one-fourth as many as among black and Latino men, and one-eighth the level of white Republicans. The poll revealed a drop of 45,000 men who wanted to serve.
Young white Republican men are more inclined to join the military, but lately more of their parents don’t want them to. Roughly 80 percent of recruits come from extended military families. With widespread implementation of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion policies which disfavor white, heterosexual males — especially conservative, religious ones — many families are actively discouraging their young people from joining up.
A woke military discourages patriotism and recruitment.

Kerby Anderson
If you do an online search of the term “cultural Marxism,” you will see a Wikipedia entry that dismisses it as a “conspiracy theory” that is supposedly trying to take over Western culture. Actually, it is the dominant form of Marxism in America and in much of the West today.
Dr. Paul Kengor was on the Point of View radio talk show with me to talk about his recent article about cultural Marxism. He explained that cultural Marxism began about a century ago in Germany because the proponents felt that orthodox Marxism was too limiting and too narrow. They wanted revolutionary changes in marriage, sexuality, and family.
They looked to the universities as a place where their ideas would be launched. They could organize the students, the artists, and the media to transform Western society. Instead of focusing on an economic war, they wanted to bring a cultural war.
One of the key figures in cultural Marxism was Antonio Gramsci, who taught that they should seize the “cultural means of production.” That would be the media and the universities. He believed that the social transformation would be able to “march through the institutions.”
One place where cultural Marxism is evident today is in what is called “critical theory.” Paul Kengor reminded us that Barack Obama’s alma mater, Occidental College, has a Department of Critical Theory and Social Justice. It promises to instruct students in the principles of “Marxism, psychoanalysis, the Frankfurt School, deconstruction, critical race studies, queer theory, feminist theory, and postcolonial theory.”
If you have been near a college campus lately, this should all sound very familiar. This is not a “conspiracy theory” but an accurate picture of the march of cultural Marxism through the institutions.