Category: Notes and Comment Blog

A very profound and serious point.

Rule of thumb: you can do 'ideology critique' (why on earth do they believe X?) once you have debunked the claims of the putative ideology.

Doing ideology critique of the claim "humans can't change sex" is a bit silly. We believe it coz it's true. https://t.co/0B3eWEnTx2

— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) November 22, 2024

See also: an irregular verb in the “Yes Minister” sense.

That’s one of those irregular verbs, isn’t it. I have an independent mind, you are an eccentric, he is round the twist.

We see a lot of that these days.

Shhhhh don’t mention the maternal deaths.

Georgia officials have dissolved a committee responsible for investigating deaths of pregnant women in the state, after one or more members leaked confidential information about deaths linked to the state’s strict abortion laws.

In a letter sent to members of the Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC), Georgia health commissioner Kathleen Toomey said an investigation failed to identify those responsible for the leak, so all current members would be removed.

The news – first reported by ProPublica – comes two months after the outlet published stories on the deaths of two women the panel ruled were preventable and linked to the state’s strict abortion ban.

See also: Galway University Hospital and the death of Savita Halappanavar.

Since June 2022, Georgia has prohibited all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, when many women might not know they are pregnant, except in cases of rape, incest or when necessary to prevent “irreversible physical impairment” or death of the mother.

Amber Thurman, 28, and Candi Miller, 41, both died that same year, following rare complications involving the FDA-approved abortion medications mifepristone and misoprostol prescribed from out of state.

Thurman waited 19 hours at a Georgia hospital before doctors performed a rare procedure – prohibited by the state abortion ban with few exceptions – needed to expel fetal tissue from the uterus that had not been fully cleared by the abortion pills. By the time she was taken into surgery, Thurman had developed acute sepsis. She died on the surgery table.

Which is exactly what happened to Savita Halappanavar.

The anti-abortion fanatics, Catholic and otherwise, prefer the death of the woman and the fetus to the termination of a failed pregnancy.

ProPublica’s reporting on Thurman and Miller, published in September, drew widespread outrage especially among pro-choice activists who argue strict abortion bans put women’s lives in danger.

And why do they argue that? Because it’s true. Catholic hospitals adamantly refuse to terminate miscarriages and that does indeed put women’s lives in danger.

Committees to investigate maternal deaths exist in every state. Georgia’s now-disbanded panel featured more than 30 experts, including 10 medical doctors.

Georgia has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the US, the only industrialised country in the world where rates of infant and maternal mortality are growing.

Isn’t that just wonderful? Makes me so proud to be a Namurrican.

Every bit? Really?

A civil rights movement based on such an utterly unhinged assault on reality was always doomed to fail. What's remarkable is that so many still can't see that. pic.twitter.com/4IoHbAiyp4

— Mia Hughes (@_CryMiaRiver) November 22, 2024

I think if you look into it the answer to all those questions is no.

A guy can have a delicate girlish face. He can smile winsomely. He can have long hair that he tucks behind his ears. He can tilt his head just a little.

He’s still a guy.

This one calls himself Zooey Zephyr. He represents Missoula in the 100th district in the Montana House of Representatives. Hats off to him for courage, doing it in Montana as opposed to Vermont. Zero hats off to him for respect for women.

They just want to be their true selves.

A transgender woman has made a chilling call to violence, explicitly threatening to assassinate prominent figures including author JK Rowling and Representative Nancy Mace.

The Instagram user, who goes by @Venuspeenis, made graphic and detailed threats of murder in a disturbing video rant, targeting the Harry Potter author and Republican congresswoman.

‘I condone murder… I think we need to hold our politicians accountable by murdering them,’ they said in a series of shocking statements.

He said. He’s not two or more people, he’s just the one guy.

The user targeted JK Rowling, asking ‘Why is JK Rolling still alive?’ and calling for her to ‘burn on the stake and die.’

‘We should be focusing our efforts and our resources not on assassinating Trump but on assassinating JK Rowling – that f***** w**** needs to die, she needs to burn on the stake and die,’ they said in their since-deleted Instagram story. ‘I think we should just all come together and murder everyone,’ they added. ‘I think things would be better.’

Addressing Congresswoman Nancy Mace, the user threatened to find her in the woman’s bathroom and ‘bash her head in’ until she’s dead. ‘I hope that one day I do find you in that woman’s bathroom and I grab you by your ratty looking f******* hair and drag you face down to the floor while I repeatedly bash it in until the blood’s everywhere and your dead.’

He’s just one random lunatic, but still, the enthusiasm with which the fans of trans ideology threaten and abuse and shout at women is worth noticing.

Meanwhile Gaetz has backed out.

Matt Gaetz said Thursday he is withdrawing as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney general, ending the controversial bid that put prior allegations of sexual misconduct in the spotlight.

“I had excellent meetings with Senators yesterday. I appreciate their thoughtful feedback – and the incredible support of so many,” Gaetz said in a statement posted on his X account.

“While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition,” said the former Republican congressman from Florida.

Yup yup yup that’s it, it’s a distraction. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with sexual abuse of minors, it’s that it’s a distraction from all the great things the sexual abuser in chief plans to do to us.

Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense:

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — A woman told police that she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public late Wednesday.

Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, told police at the time that the encounter had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said.

News of the allegations surfaced last week when local officials released a brief statement confirming that a woman had accused Hegseth of sexual assault in October 2017 after he had spoken at a Republican women’s event in Monterey.

He’ll fit right in then.

The report does not say that police found the allegations were false. Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review.

Tim Palatore, Hegseth’s attorney, has said the woman was paid an undisclosed sum in 2023 as part of a confidential settlement to head off the threat of what he described as a baseless lawsuit.

…

The 22-page police report was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman alleged to have transpired — one that is at odds with Hegseth’s version of events. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel staffer, another woman at the event and Hegseth.

A nurse who treated her for what? A misunderstanding? I have my doubts.

The New Republic submits:

Nancy Mace’s thinly veiled transphobia is getting old fast—just ask Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

“What Nancy Mace, and what Speaker Johnson are doing, [is] endangering all women and girls. Because if you ask them, ‘What is your plan on how to enforce this?’ they won’t come up with an answer,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters after being asked about Mace’s string of targeted anti-transgender resolutions against Delaware’s Representative-elect Sarah McBride, the first ever openly trans woman in Congress.

Ah but is he the first ever non-zebra in Congress? Is he the first soap dish? The first violin?

We all know what he’s not: he’s not the first man in Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez is, frankly, a credulous idiot to pretend that a man elected to Congress is being persecuted because not everyone is willing to play along with his fantasy/con-game. The New Republic is a credulous idiot for agreeing with her idiocy.

Mace, a GOP representative from South Carolina, introduced a resolution on Tuesday that would forbid trans women [to use] the restroom that aligns with their gender identity in the U.S. Capitol Building. The only trans elected official in the Capitol Building is Representative-elect Sarah McBride.

Blah blah. The point is that Sarah McBride is a man and thus should not barge into the women’s restrooms. Uttering the magic word “trans” doesn’t change that.

Democratic Representative Mark Pocan was also swift to react to Johnson’s decision. “As Chair of the Equality Caucus, I requested a meeting with Speaker Johnson to discuss his bathroom ban and open his eyes to the reality that this policy is cruel, completely unenforceable, and opens the door for abuse, harassment, and discrimination in the halls of Congress,” he wrote on Bluesky.

But letting men use the women’s restrooms does not open the door for abuse, harassment, and discrimination?

They just don’t see us, do they. We’re a sort of annoying blur.

Cops back away from ludicrous overkill investigation of naughty tweet:

Essex Police has dropped its investigation into Allison Pearson, the Telegraph journalist.

Pearson, an award-winning writer, was being investigated for allegedly stirring up racial hatred with a social media post made in November last year.

Two police officers called at her home at 9.40am on Remembrance Sunday to tell her she was under investigation and invited her to a voluntary interview. She was told, however, that the officers were not allowed to disclose the specific focus of the inquiry.

The officers refused to tell her any details about which post on X, formerly Twitter, was being investigated, or who made the complaint against her.

It’s almost funny, the string of police misconduct after police misconduct, all over one single tweet. Mind you, one single tweet could be a graphic murder threat, but if it had been it probably would have been removed by Twitterex, and police reaction would probably have been swifter and less “no we won’t tell you what tweet.” It’s hard not to suspect that the reason the cops wouldn’t say which tweet is because it would have been so embarrassing. “Er…the one in which you called him a big poopyhead, Madam.”

The Crown Prosecution Service advised that no charges should be brought against Pearson after reviewing the case. Essex Police said it would therefore take no further action and the investigation was now closed.

The scale of the investigation was revealed by The Telegraph, with officers from the Metropolitan Police, Sussex Police and Essex Police all handling the complaint over the past year.

The complaint about one single non-throat-cutty tweet.

While rape has been effectively legalized.

In New Zealand news:

The Ministry of Health is urging doctors to take a “precautionary approach” before prescribing puberty blockers, as the Government moves to limit access to the medications.

Those moves came as the ministry released a highly anticipated evidence brief about the use of puberty blockers, which said there was insufficient evidence supporting their use.

The Ministry of Health also announced new rules, effective immediately, for prescribing puberty blockers. It told doctors that they should be prescribed only be clinicians working as part of “an interprofessional team offering a full range of supports to young people presenting with gender identity issues”.

Puberty blockers are medications prescribed to young transgender patients.

No, they’re not. They’re not medications. They’re something else. They’re attempts to alleviate psychological suffering (at best), but they’re not medical attempts. There is no medical illness that requires puberty blockers as medication.

There has been growing debate internationally about the efficacy, safety, physical and mental outcomes of these medications.

Debate which is not helped by journalism’s endless failures to be precise with the language. They’re not “medications” so much as they’re throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. Puberty blockers are medications when prescribed for children with too-early puberty. When prescribed for “the wrong” puberty they’re a scary reckless fad rather than a med.

Children’s Minister Karen Chhour said “using medication to deal with gender identity issues can have permanent effects that do real long-term harm”.

What I’m saying. Gender identity issues are in the mind; using medication to deal with them is a category error.

H/t Rob

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on The persistent framing.

As much as I sympathize with Hutchinson, I wish everybody on the gc “side” would stop bringing up whether or not TIM have had surgeries, taken hormones etc. as if it made a difference. Even if he had, it still wouldn’t make him a woman, nor make it any more acceptable for him to enter women’s changing rooms.

I agree, but sometimes I think it’s important to spell out for the naive and clueless (like me from a few years ago) that things are worse than they seem. How many are aware of the fact that most TiMs have not undergone surgical “transition”? I wasn’t. Under self-ID there’s absolutely nothing, not even the threadbare legal fiction (i.e. lie) of a GRC to keep any and all men from identifying into women’s facilities. They’ve completely gutted the perfectly reasonable and prudent safeguarding concept of “Schrodinger’s rapist.” Make them explain how this works, and how they can tell the “safe” males from the “unsafe” with such precision and reliability that the former can be let in while still keeping the latter out. They can’t of course, yet they believe they have some power to do so, and that identifying “as a woman” somehow magically renders men who do so completely harmless. It’s all bullshit, and they know it. They don’t care about women’s safety. Women don’t matter. Women have already paid too high a price for this willful malevolence disguised as a “human rights” campaign. Women have been pushing back for years, but are still portrayed as hateful bigots for doing so. How dare McGovern push and prod and browbeat women to force them to accept men into women’s spaces? How dare she try to force Hutchinson to submit to and use the Newspeak redefinition of “woman” against her own interests? How dare she feign any kind of pontificating, judgemental superiority, and claim to hold the moral high ground when she’s the one who is essentially defending and promoting the “right” of sexual predators to enter women’s spaces? She should be sacked.

Hutchinson could have put it differently, or better, but I think that using surgically “transitioned” males as a rhetorical, “best case,” “steel man” scenario is useful. The fact that they’re willing to accept the carte blanche to predators that is self-ID, shows just how shitty the genderists’ position is. Taking this approach spells out what transactivists are willing to defend, and shows what they’ve already been able to force upon women. The fact that this open invitation for predators under self-ID stands even if TiMs are as completely harmless as they are claimed to be (which of course they are not), demonstrates how extreme the genderists’ position is. It shows their continuing, unrepentant, bloody-minded commitment to keep on sacrificing women’s safety in its pursuit and defence. Exposing that is worth something.

Woman’s Hour hostile interview of woman who doesn’t agree that men are women if they say they are Part 2.

McGovern: There’s kind of two parts to that in a way Bethany. If the person dressed more traditionally as a female for example would that make a difference?

Me, interjecting. What a stupid question! Sure, it would make the same difference it made to Little Red Riding Hood. Oh hello sir I see you have a skirt on, by all means come in and watch us changing into our work uniforms, your skirt renders you miraculously harmless and trustworthy.

Hutchinson: Ah, not necessarily, no.

McGovern: If this person had surgically transitioned, would that be something you would accept when it comes to the changing room?

Me again: she says that in such an annoyingly unctuous, kindergarten-teacher way. NO, and why the fuck should it? McGovern is like those bullies who pretend to be “just teasing” but pinch a little harder every time. Remember: this is Woman’s Hour. It sounds like Trans Hour, but it’s not. Or it’s not supposed to be.

Hutchinson, exasperated, points out that it’s not her decision.

McGovern: But you are making the decision to take it to an employment tribunal for letting this person use those changing facilities at work, so you are taking a stand, making a decision.

Me again: Yes but she shouldn’t have to. She doesn’t want to. The bosses have forced her (and the other nurses) to by letting a man watch them change their clothes.

Hutchinson: Yeh I am making a decision because the Trust have put us at risk. Not because of this particular person, may I add, I have never alleged that this person is a predator. But the policy that the Trust has in place, it puts women at risk, because it states that men can self-identify as women and access the female changing room All they have to do is go to a senior member of staff and say “Look, I identify as a woman” and that’s it, they’re allowed in.

What could possibly? Eh?

No they’re not.

I literally just got out of meetings with members of Congress & used the bathroom on my way out.

Trans women are women—full stop. We're every bit as "biologically female" as cis women & @SpeakerJohnson's statement doesn't change the fact that women's spaces include trans women. https://t.co/B4gpBkuXRo

— Rep. Zooey Zephyr (@ZoAndBehold) November 20, 2024

How did a man who pretends to be a woman get elected to Congress from Idaho?

There’s a surprise.

Ahoo Daryaei released without charge

An Iranian woman will not face charges after she stripped to her underwear in an apparent anti-hijab protest at a university in Tehran, Iranian authorities say.

Earlier in November, video went viral on social media capturing the moment the woman, named by BBC Persian as Ahoo Daryaei, undressed on a university campus before being forcibly detained.

A spokesperson for the Iranian judiciary said the woman had been treated in hospital and returned to her family.

…

Iranian authorities at the time said Ms Daryaei was “sick” and had been taken to a psychiatric ward. It is not the first time Iranian authorities have branded a woman protesting compulsory hijab laws with a mental illness.

Yeah sure. Women thinking we are people = mental illness. What else would it be?

Criminal’s lawyers demand his conviction be thrown out because it would be “destabilizing” to let it stand.

Donald Trump’s attorneys are demanding the judge who presided over his New York hush money trial and conviction immediately throw out the case, saying it would be “uniquely destabilizing to the country” otherwise.

Hey, you know what’s really destabilizing? Electing a convicted criminal president.

“Immediate dismissal of this case is mandated by the federal Constitution, the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, and the interests of justice, in order to facilitate the orderly transition of Executive power following President Trump’s overwhelming victory in the 2024 Presidential election,” attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove argued in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan that was made public Wednesday.

The interests of justice forsooth. No, the interests of justice mandate not letting a ruthless criminal get away with some of his crimes because he’s too famous and rich to face punishment.

The letter also cited presidential immunity as a reason to dismiss the case, and maintained Trump is already protected by it.

You mean already and retroactively. He was found guilty, but now that enough people thought it would be a fun joke to elect him president anyway, he becomes not guilty? That’s not justice, it’s borderline dictatorship.

In a letter to the judge Tuesday, prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said they would not object to the sentencing being postponed while Trump’s lawyers file further legal arguments asking the case be dismissed.  

They said they would challenge efforts to toss the case, but agreed the situation is unprecedented.

“The People deeply respect the Office of the President, are mindful of the demands and obligations of the presidency, and acknowledge that Defendant’s inauguration will raise unprecedented legal questions,” their filing said. “We also deeply respect the fundamental role of the jury in our constitutional system.”

They respect all those things, but Trump doesn’t. Trump doesn’t respect anything but himself.

Some reactions to that “why won’t you let men into your changing room” interview on the women-hating BBC Woman’s Hour:

Why aren't you publicising the outrageous interview by @BBCNuala of a female nurse describing how her & her colleagues consent to be watched undressing by male colleague is disregarded?

Utterly appalling
Hostile
Biased

This is woman's hour fgs

I shall be complaining

— Marjorie Hutchins (@leakylike) November 20, 2024

The cognitive dissonance by @BBCNuala going from this story to the shocking disrespectful interview with Bethany #DarlingtonNurses is unbelievable. That was an absolute disgrace @BBCWomansHour. Bethany was brilliant remaining clear, calm & respectful in the face of such vitriol.

— Jane McLenachan (@jane_mclenachan) November 20, 2024

Disgraceful questioning here from @BBCNuala who bullies an NHS worker and pushes the erasure of single sex spaces https://t.co/ON5E1VNUVE

— Jennifer Milligan💙 (@soulfoodie) November 20, 2024

There are lots more of the same kind.

Ugh I’m probably going to have to transcribe every word of this disgusting conversation on Woman’s Hour – because the very first thing Nuala McGovern the woman host of WOMAN’S HOUR does is confuse the issue by referring to the man in the women’s changing room as “a trans woman” instead of a man or a male. Ok Nuala McGovern so why talk about women on Woman’s Hour at all? Why not just make it all about trans women instead? Why not replace you with a trans woman? Eh?

It's difficult to know where to start unpicking this interview with Darlington Nurse, Bethany, on @BBCWomansHour by @BBCNuala.

Bethany did extraordinarily well considering the persistent framing of her as a bigot. pic.twitter.com/LFZyLlc9ZU

— Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) November 20, 2024

Off we go.

The presenter Nuala McGovern:

Want to turn to Bethany Hutchinson, she is one of eight women, all nurses, who are taking their NHS Trust to an employment tribunal for allowing a trans woman to use their changing facilities at work. Bethany works in Darlington Memorial Hospital in County Durham, and when I spoke to her I asked her when she first became aware that a colleague who is trans was using the women’s changing room.

Bethany Hutchinson: Yes so this kind of kicked off in July 2023, so without any sort of warning or consultation from senior management, we became aware of a male changing in the female changing room, and this has led to nurses having panic attacks before their shifts, it’s led to international nurses wearing clothing underneath their uniform because obviously culturally they can’t be exposed in a state of undress in front of any other male other than their husband – and generally just a feeling of anxiety amongst many female members of staff, you know, looking over their shoulder worried that this person’s going to walk in and see them in a state of undress.

McGovern: Emmm you talk – use the word male, but what you mean is a trans woman colleague.

Hutchinson: This person self-identifies as female, this person has had no surgery, does not take hormones, is having sexual intercourse with a female as far as I’m aware, so I would say a male.

McGovern: And the person you are referring to would use she/her pronouns –

Hutchinson: Yes

McGovern: – but you don’t agree to using that?

Hutchinson [firmly]: I don’t agree to using that, no.

McGovern: And why?

Hutchinson: Because they’re a male, they have all their parts in place, and I believe that this is a biological fact, it’s not interchangeable.

End of part one.

It’s interesting that Hutchinson is a nurse, and it’s her job to be familiar with these “parts” and to know who has which kind, while McGovern is a BBC talking head, so it’s her job to be familiar with words. The two have different vocational habits of thinking. McGovern can mostly forget about the parts while she’s working, while Hutchinson cannot.

The Guardian insults women yet again.

For many trans and non-binary people, top surgery – the process of removing breast tissue to get a flatter or masculinized chest – is not an elective procedure. It’s essential to them feeling at home in their bodies.

Wrong. Sorry. “Feeling at home in their bodies” is indeed elective. Removing breasts to feel at home in one’s body is like removing a leg to feel at home in one’s body. Both are elective because they are not physically necessary. Emotionally necessary is elective territory. If you had to triage patients waiting to have their breasts removed you wouldn’t (one hopes) put the “at home in my body” ones ahead of the breast cancer ones.

To put it another way, feeling at home in your body is a luxury, not a medical necessity.

Top surgery is a form of gender-affirming healthcare that can be used to treat dysphoria, the sense of deep unease one feels when their identity or appearance doesn’t match up with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Luxury. That right there is luxury.

The number of gender-affirming surgeries rose steeply in the US between 2016 and 2019.

Why? It couldn’t possibly be because it’s a fad, could it?

Despite the baggage that can come with one’s scars, they can also become symbols of pride and resilience.

Baggage? Scars and baggage? What kind of baggage? A duffel bag, a backpack, a 5-piece leather set?

But seriously, people really do need to learn the difference between necessary and elective.

He’s a guy.

I’m not a spokesperson for a movement, I’m a voice for all Delawareans — and when we see the incoming administration talk negatively about any vulnerable community, I guarantee you it’s an attempt to distract from the fact that in that same moment, they are picking the pockets of… pic.twitter.com/0ODe5H0uM0

— Sarah McBride (@SarahEMcBride) November 18, 2024

He’s a guy.

Noah Berlatsky on the murderous ignorance and arrogance of Worst Kennedy:

It really should go without saying by now, but despite what RFK Jr. claims, vaccines are in fact one of the most transformative medical advances in human history.

The smallpox vaccine eradicated a 3,000 year old disease that killed 300 million people just in the two decades between 1900 and 1920. Before the measles vaccine became available in 1963, 400 to 500 Americans died of the disease every year, and some 48,000 a year were hospitalized. In the early 1900s, polio paralyzed hundreds of thousands of people a year; a devastating 1952 outbreak in the US killed 3,000.

And then of course there’s covid. Researchers believe that in the first year after covid vaccines were introduced, they prevented 19.8 million deaths globally. They could have prevented even more with better vaccine coverage.

But apparently Bad Kennedy has a problem with that.

Most people are aware that measles and polio outbreaks are bad and recognize that vaccines have been a huge boon. That’s why vaccine deniers like Kennedy insist they are not vaccine deniers. Instead, he shuffles and equivocates.

“If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away. People ought to have choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information,” Kennedy said in a recent interview.

No, people ought not to have choice when it comes to spreading disease. People ought not to have choice to drive 100 miles an hour on city streets. People ought not to have choice to fire machine guns into crowds. People ought not to have choice to set fire to occupied buildings. “Choice” is not sacred.

Kennedy and his Children’s Health Defense organization have for years pushed completely debunked lies claiming that vaccines cause autism in children. Kennedy has also lied by claiming that a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal, which used to be used in some vaccines, causes adverse health effects. Kennedy insists the negative effects of vaccines have never been studied or fully revealed — which, again, is simply untrue. Vaccines are considered safe because studies have repeatedly found them to be very safe, not because officials are keeping the truth from the public.

As head of HHS, Kennedy would be in a unique position to spread vaccine misinformation and downplay the dangers of refusing vaccination, as he did with the Samoa outbreak. He could block the CDC from making vaccine recommendations, undermining school vaccine mandates that help keep vaccine rates up and prevent deadly outbreaks. He could slow vaccine production, creating shortages. He could prevent the approval of new vaccines — an especially dangerous prospect considering the ongoing threat of covid and the need for better protection. (Some 650 people a week are still dying of covid globally.)

Therefore, Trump chose him of all people to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Trump wants more of us to die of communicable diseases.

It’s a very small group of people in one city, but……..well, it’s that kind of very small group.

Ohio officials have denounced a small contingent of neo-Nazis who paraded Saturday afternoon through a Columbus neighborhood – waving flags featuring swastikas and shouting a racist slur – in the latest public demonstration by White nationalists in recent years across the United States.

Around a dozen people in black pants, shirts and head coverings – their faces obscured by red masks – marched along the street near downtown Columbus as three carried black flags emblazoned with red swastikas, footage provided to CNN affiliate WBNS shows.

At least one person yelled, “N***er,” again and again, according to the video that’s garnered online attention far beyond Ohio’s capital. The group strode past low-rise brick buildings housing a salon and a clothing boutique, along with cafés serving tacos, coffee, cookies and bar grub, as its leader shouted through a black bullhorn.

It could be just 12 people annoying the neighbors…or it could be part of the beginning.