RNC Celebrated Fourth By Tweeting Liberian Flag

On Tuesday, the Republican Party’s official Twitter account posted to mark the Fourth of July, writing, “247 years ago, our forefathers told Ol’ King George to get lost! Happy Independence Day from the GOP!” There was just one problem: the flags they used in the graphic were not the American flag. They were the Liberian flag.

Liberia is a West African nation that was established as a colony for free and formerly enslaved Black Americans, in an era when the citizenship of even free Black Americans was questioned. It was a time that many who opposed slavery weren’t sure if they could ever have full equal rights and participation in American society.

 

Giuliani Sweats Disbarment as Lawyers Who Lied for Trump Finally Face Consequences

Two and a half years after January 6, lawyers who helped Donald Trump use lies about election fraud to try to retain power are finally starting to face sanctions for their actions.

On Friday, a legal ethics committee recommended that Rudy Giuliani, who helped Trump’s legal efforts following election day in 2020, be disbarred in Washington. “He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it,” the three-member panel said in a 38-page ruling. “By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law.”

“By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani…forfeited his right to practice law.”

The three-member panel noted that Giuliani had a record of public service during his stints as mayor of New York and as a US Attorney. But “the misconduct here sadly transcends all his past accomplishments,” they said. “It was unparalleled in its destructive purpose and effect. He sought to disrupt a presidential election and persists in his refusal to acknowledge the wrong he has done.”

 

Tuberville Blockade Over Abortion Policy Threatens Top Military Promotions

A lone Senate Republican’s bid to reverse a Pentagon policy ensuring abortion access for service members is delaying the smooth transfer of power at the highest echelons of the armed forces, including in the ranks of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a monthslong partisan dispute over social policy drags on.

Senator Tommy Tuberville, a conservative from Alabama, has been single-handedly blocking hundreds of promotions for high-ranking generals and admirals since February, refusing to relent unless the Defense Department scraps a policy — instituted after the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion last year — offering time off and travel reimbursement to service members who need to go out of state for abortions.

Now, Mr. Tuberville’s tactics are on the brink of disrupting the Pentagon’s ability to fill its top ranks. More than half of the current Joint Chiefs are expected to step down from their posts during the next few months without a Senate-approved successor in place, leaving the president’s chief military advisory body in an unprecedented state of flux at a time of escalating tensions with China and Russia.

 

MI Republican “Kicked In The Balls” During GOP Brawl

A Republican meeting in Michigan turned into fight night on Saturday when two local GOP figures got into a physical brawl over access to the event.

James Chapman, a Republican from Wayne County, told the Detroit News he was outside the meeting at the Doherty Hotel in Clare. He was hoping to get inside and jigged the door handle.

Clare County Republican Party Chair Mark DeYoung came to the door to see what was going on. “He kicked me in my balls as soon as I opened the door,” DeYoung told the newspaper in an interview from the emergency room. He said Chapman ran at him and slammed him into a chair.

 

And finally, I include this next story because as is well known, Fox “News” is really just the propaganda arm of the Republican Party:

The Case That Could Be Fox’s Next Dominion

Of all the distortions and paranoia that Tucker Carlson promoted on his since-canceled Fox News program, one looms large: a conspiracy theory that an Arizona man working as a covert government agent incited the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol to sabotage and discredit former President Donald J. Trump and his political movement.

What’s known about the man — a two-time Trump voter named Ray Epps — is that he took part in demonstrations in Washington that day and the night before. He was captured on camera urging a crowd to march with him and enter the Capitol. But at other points, he pleads for calm once it becomes clear the situation is turning violent. He can be seen moving past a line of Capitol Police at the barricades, but never actually goes inside the Capitol.

Federal prosecutors have not charged Mr. Epps with a crime, focusing instead on the more than 1,000 other demonstrators who acted violently or were trespassing in the Capitol. The Justice Department’s sprawling investigation into the attack remains open, however, and Mr. Epps could still be indicted.

Yet for more than 18 months, Mr. Carlson insisted that the lack of charges against Mr. Epps could mean only one thing: that he was being protected because he was a secret government agent. There was “no rational explanation,” Mr. Carlson told his audience, why this “mysterious figure” who “helped stage-manage the insurrection” had not been charged.

He repeated Mr. Epps’s name over and over — in nearly 20 episodes — imprinting it on the minds of his viewers.

Mr. Epps was in the Marine Corps but said in his deposition before the Jan. 6 committee that he had otherwise never worked on behalf of any government agency. He and his wife, Robyn, have fled Arizona and are in hiding in another state, having sold their wedding venue business and ranch after receiving death threats from people who appeared to believe the conspiracy theory. And his legal jeopardy is far from over given that prosecutors are still unsealing new cases in connection with Jan. 6.