Summary
Masked neo-Nazis marched through Columbus, Ohio’s Short North neighborhood on Saturday, displaying swastika flags and making racist and antisemitic statements.
Police are investigating, and no arrests have been reported.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Columbus officials condemned the display, emphasizing that hate and bigotry have no place in the state.
The incident follows a similar demonstration in Michigan last week, where masked protesters displayed Nazi flags outside a performance of The Diary of Anne Frank.
Pardon them for what? Unless their possessing firearms wasn’t in line with the law, or that “physical altercation” mentioned that questioning apparently went nowhere reemerges as a thing then I don’t know what they’d need pardoned for based on the article.
The marching with Nazi shit and spewing whatever hateful bullshit is protected speech, because speech protections in the US are extremely broad.
And that’s before getting into whether or not the hypothetical crime is federal (which he could hypothetically pardon) or state (which he can’t).
Yeah, I was in a rush when writing that, and should have been more thorough in explaining what I meant.
I meant that’s their mentality: these idiots will become increasingly emboldened as Trump takes over, and make the assumption that they can do anything they want because Trump & the Republicans have taken over the Justice system and will allow them to do whatever they want to the “evil libs.” There will be no hate crimes prosecuted (unless against white and/or prominent right-wingers) - at least not on a federal level, but these idiots often don’t really understand that difference (and TBF there effectively may not BE a difference in red states).