Laura Ingraham OUTRAGED The Military Wants To Weed Out 'Traditionalist' Volk Like ... Neo-Nazis

Ingraham seems to think 'Trump-lover' and 'neo-Nazi' are synonyms. Stopped clock etc!

In April 1995, former Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. In December of that year, members of a skinhead gang in the 82nd Airborne Division — who made no secret of their beliefs, putting Nazi flags above their beds and openly talking about it — murdered a black couple, Michael James, 36, and Jackie Burden, 27, as they were walking down the street.

It was after this that the United States military leadership thought to themselves that they might have a problem here and started to crack down on extremist activity within their ranks. How has it gone? Well, according to a recent report from the Department of Defense itself, not great! Which is why the Pentagon is once again looking at ways to deal with the problem. One thing the DOD plans to do is to require all military branches to hold a stand-down this April to discuss extremism in the ranks and what can be done about it. Basically it just means "take a day and discuss how it's bad if neo-Nazis are in the military."

And Laura Ingraham is outraged . Because this, according to her, means that the military is going to spy on anyone who has ever said a nice thing about Donald Trump.

Soberly, she began this diatribe on her show Wednesday night by lamenting that the dubious measures implemented during the Bush administration to surveil citizens "that many Americans hoped would be a fortress to protect us from danger, [have] just become a very expensive prison for us," adding that "the vast apparatus created and championed by Republicans for years during the Bush era is now being used against their own voters!"

How very tragic for them. If only they had, perhaps, listened to those of us who pointed out that this "vast apparatus" was actually bad, but they were too busy waving their tiny flags, eating their freedom fries, and calling us traitors. Although it probably would not have made a difference on this, as no one is actually using any PATRIOT ACT nonsense to deal with extremism in the military.

I would just like to note at this junction that Laura Ingraham — who hates cancel culture, mind you — famously wrote an entire book about how Hollywood celebrities like The Chicks (the artists formerly known as The Dixie Chicks) and Barbra Streisand should have just shut up about any bad stuff the Bush administration might have been doing in those days.

But let's hear what she has to say about this!

Transcript via Media Matters:  

Well, the Pentagon chief, as you recall, already ordered a stand-down of the military to address extremism. A report is due in, what, 30 days or so?

And this means that they're gonna keep an eye on anyone who's ever posted anything positive about Donald Trump. Well, they're not saying that, but that's what is going on. Now, before that, some members of the National Guard, remember, that were deployed in DC were purged without much of any explanation at all.

But now the radicals are looking for new ways to punish and get rid of traditionalists from the military.

"Traditionalists." Is that what we're calling neo-Nazis now? Ingraham later states that her big issue is with the idea that veterans who join up with extremist groups could have their benefits pulled. Why? Because Marine-turned-Congressman Ruben Gallego (D - AZ) suggested that military veterans who were involved in the January 6 Capitol riots should lose their benefits. 

While this is not something that the military is currently actively considering, it would certainly be one way to address the problem of military veterans being targeted for recruitment by extremist organizations. Given that it is our tax dollars that go to training these individuals, it would certainly be unfortunate for that training to then be used against us.

For decades, at least since the previously mentioned incidents in 1995, the military has been aware that this is a problem. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists have been very, very open about the fact that they want their people to join the military in order to get training for "the coming race war" and also to recruit others to their cause. They know that veterans are also frequently targeted by these groups as well. As a neo-Nazi/former Army engineer told the National Alliance-affiliated magazine Resistance in 2004:

Join only for the training, and to better defend yourself, our people, and our culture [...]
We must have people to open doors from the inside when the time comes.

Yeah. Again, this has been a serious problem for a long while now. No one is going to take anyone's benefits away simply because they love Donald Trump. But, if they love Donald Trump and also invade the Capitol or belong to a violent neo-Nazi extremist group, they may have some issues staying enlisted. Just like if they love Donald Trump and do anything else that violates some other code of conduct. It would be absurd for the military to cease trying to deal with this issue just because some of these violent extremists might like Donald Trump a whole lot.

If Laura Ingraham believes that saying a nice thing about Donald Trump one time ever is the same thing as invading the Capitol or belonging to a violent neo-Nazi group, we're not going to stop her. That is her belief and she is welcome to it. However, it seems the military's focus at this time is going to be on identifying and dealing with people slightly more radical than that.

[ Media Matters ]

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