Hegseth Leads Push to Punish Military Service Members Over Charlie Kirk Comments

The Pentagon has ramped up a political correctness crusade in the wake of the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk The military is taking disciplinary action against both enlisted troops and officers over social media posts regarding Kirk who was shot last week at an event at Utah Valley University In the wake of Kirk s death a number of X accounts began calling for their followers to find social media posts made by troops that they saw as being critical of or even not sufficiently deferential to Kirk or mocking or celebrating his death The accounts began posting screenshots tagging Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and other senior Pentagon personnel and calling for the troops to be fired The leaders of the U S military took note We WILL NOT tolerate those who celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American at the Department of War chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted on X on Sunday It s a violation of the oath it s conduct unbecoming it s a betrayal of the Americans they ve sworn to protect dangerously incompatible with military facility Hegseth added We are tracking all these very closely and will address forthwith Thoroughly unacceptable Hegseth has previously been accused of calling for the death of fellow Americans before his time in office when he allegedly chanted Kill all Muslims and has railed against political correctness at the Pentagon The secretary of war s office refused to say if they knew the total number of utility members who had been swept up in the crackdown But one defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity reported dozens of personnel had or will face sanctions in the face of pressure by Hegseth who knew Kirk personally Last week Task Purpose announced that a Marine Corps recruiter had been demoted and was under review for a post on Instagram referencing Kirk Another racist man popped the Marine shared His message included the emoji of two beer steins mid-toast The Marine in question has been relieved of his recruiting duties and the matter is now under assessment a Marine spokesperson announced Army Col Scott Stephens was suspended after he posted about Kirk on Facebook according to reporting by The Gateway Pundit The death of Charlie Kirk in Utah was tragic However we can take comfort in the fact that Charlie was doing what he loved best spreading messages of hate racism homophobia misogyny and transphobia on college campuses he wrote It also allows us to see who in our lives help those views I would offer empathy but Charlie hated empathy As we have been reported in the wake of so a multitude of other tragedies we have to move on The Trump administration is trying to capitalize on this tragedy to further their agenda of erasing and reshaping the military into their own unconstitutional image Jacob Thomas an Air Force veteran and communications director for Common Defense a veterans advocacy group revealed his organization had been working to combat political violence for years but was deeply concerned by published calls for a political purge inside our nation s military Provision members swear an oath to defend the Constitution not to enforce any single ideology or political litmus tests What we re seeing from the Pentagon goes beyond discipline it is an alarming step toward authoritarianism within our military Thomas stated It appears the Trump administration is trying to capitalize on this tragedy to further their agenda of erasing and reshaping the military into their own unconstitutional image Kirk s legacy has been the subject of spirited debate in the days since he was killed Kirk founded and led the right-wing organization Turning Point USA which worked to advance what the Southern Poverty Law Center described as a white-dominated male supremacist Christian social order Kirk was critical of gay and transgender rights He was also a strong supporter of gun rights and held that the benefits of robust protections for gun ownership outweighed the damage to society I think it s worth to have a cost of unfortunately selected gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights he stated The Pentagon s push to stifle troops speech follows not just Kirk s death but also the self-styled rechristening of the Department of Defense to the Department of War as part of the Trump administration s strongman posturing We re going to go on offense not just on defense Maximum lethality not tepid legality Hegseth disclosed earlier this month Violent effect not politically correct When required about Hegseth s sudden aboutface from decrying to promoting political correctness Parnell the spokesperson deflected Celebrating the assassination of a fellow American is unacceptable at the Department of War This common-sense stance is not in any way analogous to political correctness he recounted The Intercept When it was suggested that Hegseth s purge was the very definition of enforcing political correctness Joel Valdez the acting deputy press secretary at the Office of the Secretary of War clapped back Disagree he wrote in an email refusing to answer any of The Intercept s questions That is all we are going to provide for your request Earlier this year Hegseth introduced what he called a No More Walking On Eggshells procedures directing a review of equal opportunity programs and the processes for reporting and analyzing harassment accusations Hegseth complained that these programs are weaponized and stated Selected individuals use these programs in bad faith to retaliate against superiors or peers Military personnel have less robust First Amendment protections than other Americans and can be restricted in their expression in matters involving obscenity political speech threats or defamation among other normally protected speech Related Nancy Mace Targets Ilhan Omar in Charlie Kirk Speech Crackdown The First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech this protection permits the expression of ideas even the expression of ideas the vast majority of society finds offensive or distasteful the sweep of this protection is less comprehensive in the military context given the different character of the military region and mission reads a publication by the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces The leadership may place additional burdens on a servicemember s First Amendment free speech rights due to the unique character of the military neighborhood and mission The Department of War s contemporary embrace of so-called snitch society follows efforts earlier this year to hunt for national shield leaks by administering polygraph tests to top military officers staffers and even Trump-allied political appointees That effort was eventually shut down by the White House Hegseth s current political correctness crusade is part of a broader campaign by population officers and others on the right to shame or punish inhabitants employees or private citizens for protected speech Donald Trump and his allies have laid out a broad plan to target progressive groups and funders monitor speech revoke visas and designate yet-unidentified organizations as domestic terrorists Attorney General Pam Bondi declared the Trump administration will be targeting hate speech which she differentiated from free speech There s free speech and then there s hate speech Bondi commented in an interview with The Katie Miller Podcast that aired on Monday dismissing First Amendment concerns We will absolutely target you go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech anything and that s across the aisle Bondi later walked back the comments The post Hegseth Leads Push to Punish Military Amenity Members Over Charlie Kirk Comments appeared first on The Intercept