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Sunday, May 10, 2026
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Columbus Flies Somali Flag Three Days Before America Turns 250 — Then Deletes the Evidence

On July 1st, Columbus Parks and Recreation posted a cheerful announcement: "Happy Somali Independence Day!" City Hall, the post said, "will be raising the flag of Somalia." Three days before the United States celebrates its 250th birthday.

Then they deleted it.

Columbus, Ohio — the capital and largest city in a state that went solidly red for the last three elections— decided that the week of America's semiquincentennial was the right moment to fly a foreign nation's flag from a government building. A city spokesperson later called the post "inaccurate" and said it "has been deleted," but the screenshots were already everywhere, and the damage was done.

The backlash was immediate and bipartisan in its intensity. White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller posted on X: "Columbus, Ohio raising the flag of Somalia for America 250." No additional commentary was needed. U.S. Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, was more direct: "There is only one nation's flag that should ever be flown on American government buildings or property. This action by Columbus is a total disgrace."

Journalist Mark Hemingway kept it simple: "No American government building should ever be raising another country's flag. Ugh."

Attorney and political commentator Mehek Cooke drilled into the deeper problem: "City Hall is not a foreign embassy... Our leaders treat foreign nationalism as sacred while treating American patriotism as controversial."

That last line lands harder than any of them. Because this wasn't a one-off mistake by some intern with access to the Parks and Rec social media account. Columbus City Council passed resolutions recognizing Somali Independence Day in both June 2023 and June 2025. This is policy. This is deliberate.

Columbus has the second-largest Somali population concentration in the United States, behind only Minnesota. Somalia celebrates its unification from June 26, 1960. Nobody is arguing that Somali-Americans shouldn't celebrate their heritage. The question is whether American government buildings should fly foreign flags — and whether the week of July 4th, 2026, during the nation's 250th anniversary, is the moment to do it.

The city's response tells you everything. They didn't say it was wrong. They didn't say they'd stop. They said the post was "inaccurate" — the bureaucratic equivalent of "we got caught and need better messaging." As reported by 100 Percent Fed Up, the deleted post and the scramble to distance from it became the story itself.

Two resolutions. Two years apart. A social media announcement. A flag.

And the only thing that changed was the screenshot going viral.

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