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Canadian Heritage buys millions of Canadian flag pins from China despite Liberal promise

The federal government has spent more than $194,000 on Canadian flag pins and desk flags manufactured in China, according to a newly released Order Paper response tabled in Parliament.

The disclosure comes in response to Question Q-1077 from Conservative MP Arnold Viersen, which asked Canadian Heritage to detail its purchases of Canadian flags, flag pins and related products since January 2022.

Records show Canadian Heritage purchased three million plastic Canadian flag lapel pins from a Chinese manufacturer in September 2024 at a cost of $143,400. The department also bought 44,117 floating metal flag pins from China in January 2023 for $14,999.78, another 72,400 metal flag pins in November 2024 for $20,996, and 8,770 desk flags made in China for $14,996.70.

In total, Canadian Heritage spent $194,392.48 on Chinese-made flag-themed merchandise while simultaneously purchasing most of its full-sized Canadian flags from Canadian manufacturer L’Étendard.

The department spent more than $2.5 million on Canadian-made full-size nylon flags between 2022 and early 2026, including orders ranging from 9,700 to 30,100 flags. It also purchased paper hand flags from Canadian suppliers Broadway Import Export and Tobermory Press.

When asked why foreign-made products were selected instead of Canadian manufacturers, Canadian Heritage offered a brief explanation.

“For purchase of products manufactured outside of Canada, purchases were made pursuant to current Government of Canada procurement processes,” the department stated.

The revelation stands in contrast to a longstanding Liberal commitment to source Canadian flag merchandise domestically.

In 2005, then-Liberal Public Works Minister Scott Brison pledged to end the practice of purchasing Canadian flag pins made in China after media reports highlighted the contradiction. At the time, the federal government announced it would seek Canadian suppliers for the patriotic merchandise distributed by MPs and government departments.

More than two decades later, millions of Chinese-made Canadian flag pins are still being purchased with taxpayer dollars.

The Order Paper response was signed by Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller and released on June 3, 2026.

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MacCormack Facing Intense Pressure To Abandon House Race After Calling For The Death Penalty For “Sodomites”

“It’s American to be Anti-Pride Month,” wrote Jadon MacCormack, the 23-year-old GOP candidate for Connecticut’s 50th House District, in a now-viral social media post announcing his intention to “stand firmly against the Transgender and LGBT movement” and celebrate “Straight Month” this June.

His post drew immediate blowback and calls for him to drop out of the race:

  • Governor Ned Lamont called the comments “hateful” and “completely out of step with Connecticut values. Elected democrats, Democrat Town Committees and candidates from all across the state similarly condemned the comments, and called on MacCormack to pull the plug on his campaign.
  • House Speaker Matt Ritter and House Majority Leader Jason Rojas said it was “sickening to think that this candidate wants to spew this kind of poison in the people’s chamber.’
  • Vanita Bhalla, the vice chair of the Connecticut Democrat Party, said MacCormack represents an element of the contemporary GOP — he’s a “MAGA extremist.”
  • The Young Democrats of CT said the comments were “part of a clear, unvarnished pattern of hate” and pushed Ryan Fazio and CT GOP leadership to take concrete action against MacCormack’s dialogue.
  • The Connecticut Republican Party issued a statement strongly condemning “any rhetoric… encouraging hostility, intimidation, or violence toward any individual or group,” asserting that McCormack “crossed a line.”
  • CT GOP Chair Ben Proto said MacCormack”immediately withdraw his candidacy and step aside.”
  • Gubernatorial candidate Ryan Fazio echoed the CT GOP’s sentiment, as did Republican State Senator Jeff Gordon, whose district covers much of the same area as the 50th House District. Gordon strongly condemned the “reprehensible” comments.
  • House Minority Leader Vince Candelora said it was “immature and reckless”, “hate speech” and a sign MacCormack “isn’t ready for the responsibility he’s asking voters to give him.”

Rep. Candelora noted in a subsequent social media post that he will “always call out anyone who supports violence.” He included an image MacCormack had posted of a noose with the comment, “The Bible has a better idea,” in reference to gay marriage.

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Putin Envoy Dmitriev Says Design Agreement for Tunnel Across the Bering Strait, Linking US and Russia, Will Be Signed During Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum

US and Russia linked at the top of the world.

From June 3 to 6, Russia is holding the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that hey describe as a ‘key platform for dialogue between governments, business and the expert community’.

Even though smoke billows can be seen at a distance where Ukraine sent kamikaze drones against Oil facilities, the forum is ongoing – and reportedly will host an agreement between the US and Russia on a project that is bound to literally unite the two countries.

UPDATE: The signing will NOT be between Russia and the US, but with the company designing the tunnel.

Kommersant reported (translated from the Russian):

“The tunnel through the Bering Strait, which will connect Russia and Alaska, will be built, and an agreement to continue the design will be signed on June 5 at SPIEF. This was stated by the special representative of the [Russian] president, the head of the RDIF Kirill Dmitriev.

‘As for the tunnel. We will have news tomorrow: we are signing an agreement that we will continue the design of the tunnel. There will be a tunnel’, said Mr. Dmitriev (quoted on the Zvezda TV channel). According to him, this ‘will be one of the big infrastructure projects between our countries’.”

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Virginia Judge Delivers Win for Gun Owners, Smacks Down AG and Governor on Background Checks

Lynchburgh, Virginia Circuit Court Judge F. Patrick Yeatts has sided with Gun Owners of America and Virginia Citizens Defense League and rejected the attempt by Gov. Abigail Spanberger and Attorney General Jay Jones to resume requiring background checks on the private transfers of firearms. 

In a ruling delivered from the bench after a hearing on Thursday, Yeatts declared that his previously-issued injunction on Virginia’s universal background check scheme is still intact, despite Democrats’ efforts to do an end-run around the injunction. 

As we discussed ahead of today’s hearing, Yeatts has been dealing with this issue for several years now, and has previously ruled that adults under the age of 21 have the right to possess a handgun. Under newly passed HB 1525, though, that right has been stripped from them in an attempt to impose a NICS check on all private transfers. Any NICS check on a handgun purchase is going to be flagged by the system given the federal prohibition on commercial handgun sales to under-21s, and the state of Virginia had previously tried to get around that by running checks on private sales of handguns to young adults through a system administered by the Virginia State Police. 

Yeatts previously held that to be a violation of equal protection laws, so Democrats responded by making it a crime for an adult younger than 21 to purchase a handgun under any circumstances. GOA and VCDL argued that by doing so, the state is still running afoul of the judge’s previous rulings, and the judge appears to agree with that argument, as well as the plaintiffs’ contention that the “emergency” clause in the legislation that allowed HB 1525 to take effect immediately instead of on July 1 is null and void because it did not receive the 4/5ths approval by lawmakers as required under Virginia’s constitution. 

Yeatts did deny GOA and VCDL’s request to hold the head of the Virginia State Police in contempt for resuming background checks on private transfers while the injunction was still in place, but according to VCDL President Philip Van Cleave, the judge warned the Attorney General’s office that further attempts to enforce background checks on private transfers would lead to a finding of contempt. 

Attorney General Jay Jones has been quiet on today’s defeat, at least so far, but expect him to appeal the judge’s decision in short order. Once this case reaches the appellate court, I have no idea what will happen, but there are a number of issues at play, including whether or not Virginians under the age of 21 can be prohibited from purchasing firearms given their status as full, legal adults under the state constitution. The legal fight is far from over, but VCDL and GOA won a major battle in court today, while Spanberger and Jones are the big losers. 

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“F*ck You Cracker!” – Karmelo Anthony Supporters Hurl Racist Insults, Threaten Austin Metcalf Rally Organizers Outside Courthouse

Karmelo Anthony supporters on Thursday hurled racist insults and threatened Austin Metcalf rally organizers outside the Collin County Courthouse.

Things got heated outside the courthouse as apening arguments began in the Karmelo Anthony murder trial on Thursday.

As TGP previously reported, 16-year-old track and football star Austin Metcalf was brutally stabbed to death in April 2025 during a championship track meet at Kuykendall Stadium in Frisco, Texas.

Metcalf, a junior at Frisco Memorial High School, was attacked in broad daylight — at a school-sanctioned event meant to showcase hard work, discipline, and sportsmanship.

Austin Metcalf died in his twin brother Hunter Metcalf’s arms.

The suspect, (now 18-year-old) Karmelo Anthony of rival school Frisco Centennial, was charged with first-degree murder and faces between 5 and 99 years in prison.

Karmelo Anthony supporters called Metcalf rally organizers “crackers” and threatened to kill them.

“Imma push you if I get close enough…push you right into that grave….f*ck you cracker…Neanderthal!” a Karmelo Anthony supporter shouted.

“You gone end up like Metcalf, you gone be pushing up daisies,” another Karmelo Anthony supporter said.

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Trump Says “They’re Rigging the Election” in California as Counting Continues – “They Found a Lot of Mail-in Ballots Last Night”

President Trump sounded the alarm on California on Thursday, telling reporters, “They’re rigging the election,” as counting continues across the state and key races for California governor and Los Angeles mayor remain undecided. 

As The Gateway Pundit reported, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt had surged on election night, taking an early lead over Democratic Councilwoman Nithya Raman and trailing incumbent Democrat Mayor Karen Bass by a slim margin. The two top vote-getters will advance to a runoff if no candidate receives over 50% of the vote.

However, the late-arriving mail-in votes, which are expected to be roughly a third of the total vote, will take days to arrive under California’s lawless vote-by-mail system.

As of 2:47 pm ET, 62% of ballots in the Los Angeles mayor’s race had been counted. Only Bass has been projected to advance to the runoff in November, where she will face either Spencer Pratt or Nithya Raman.

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Venezuelan Activists: Helicoide Torture Complex Still Active Despite Regime Claims of ‘Shutdown’

The Venezuelan non-governmental human rights organization Justice, Encounter, and Forgiveness (JEP) said this week that the Venezuelan socialist regime’s largest and most infamous torture complex, the Helicoide (“The Helix”), remains operational despite the regime’s claims.

The Helicoide is a structure in southern Caracas’s San Agustín parish built in the 1950s during the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez, originally conceived as the world’s first drive-thru shopping mall. The plans never materialized following Pérez Jiménez’s downfall in 1958 and the building remained unfinished.

The Venezuelan socialist regime turned the facility into what has been largely described as the largest torture center in Latin America. Following the arrest of socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces on January 3, “acting President” Delcy Rodriguez announced that the Helicoide would be shut down and “transformed” into a “cultural center” for local residents of San Agustín.

On Tuesday, over three months since the “shutdown” announcement, JEP explained that the Helicoide remains operational and at least 25 political prisoners are still unjustly detained in the complex.

“We understand that international statements are based on prior institutional commitments and information, but the reality of human rights demands that we compare these announcements with the actual situation of the people affected,” the statement read in part.

“Behind every statistic are families who are still waiting for answers today; therefore, it is not possible to consider a facility closed as long as there are citizens deprived of their liberty inside,” the statement continued.

JEP called upon the international community and organizations to continue monitoring the situation — calling all relevant authorities for transparency regarding the actual status of the Helicoide and the 25 political prisoners still detained at the center.

Hours after JEP published its statement, the organization further denounced that “unusual movements” were reported at the Helicoide, including reports about possible transfers of political prisoners at the complex to other unspecified locations.

“These events raise serious questions and reinforce the perception that last-minute decisions are being made to respond to pressure and international scrutiny, rather than to genuinely correct the reported violations,” JEP’s statement read.

“In the face of this situation, we reiterate that the 25 people deprived of liberty for political reasons who remain in the Helicoide must be released immediately,” the statement continued. “Their transfer to another detention center does not constitute a solution nor represent progress in human rights matters. What is required is their full and unconditional release.”

Following Maduro’s capture, the Venezuelan regime began releasing hundreds of political prisoners unjustly detained across several Venezuelan prisons — including former police officers that spent over 23 years imprisoned.

Although hundreds of political prisoners have been released in the first months of 2026, the Venezuelan non-government organization Foro Penal detailed on Wednesday that the Venezuelan socialist regime still holds at least 404 political prisoners as of Monday, June 1 — including at least one child aged between 14 and 17 years old.

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INSANITY: New York State Democrats Pass Bill Replacing the Words “Mother” and “Father” with These Two Ultra-Woke Terms

Democrats in New York State have declared war on the nuclear family after passing a bill designed to kowtow to the radical pro-trans lobby.

As The New York Post reported on Wednesday, the New York State Legislature this week passed legislation that would erase the terms “mother” and “father” from state child custody and parental laws in favor of two woke, gender-neutral terms.

The terms that would be used instead? Gestating parent and non-gestating parent.

This sounds like something straight out of the Babylon Bee.

The New York Post reported:

A woke new bill erases the terms “mother” and “father” from state child custody and parental laws — a gender-neutral rewriting that’s expected to spark a flood of similarly clunky legislation.

“Mother” would be replaced with “gestating parent,” while “father” becomes “non-gestating parent” or “parent” in family court, passed this week by state Democrats.

“Paternity” proceedings to determine a child’s biological father would meanwhile become “parentage” cases, under the bill, which was rammed through the Assembly in March and of the Senate this week.

A “putative father” — also known as a deadbeat dad — would now be called “an alleged parent” in official state records, under the bill, which was sponsored by liberals Sen. Luis Sepulveda (D-Bronx) and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin (D-Westchester) and will go to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk for approval.

Sepulveda, a Bronx Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, claimed the bill was necessary “to be consistent with current statute and case law>

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman lashed out at the changes:

“Democrats led by Kathy Hochul have continued their declaration of war on New York families by canceling the loving terms of Mom and Dad and replacing them with ‘gestating and non-gestating parent,’” Blakeman said in a statement obtained by the New York Post.

“The insanity ends when I’m Governor.”

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Michelle Bachelet, Who Helped Cover Up Uyghur Genocide, Visits China to Campaign for U.N. Chief

Former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice President Han Zheng on Wednesday, touring the country amid her campaign to become the next U.N. Secretary General.

Bachelet, a radical leftist, served as president of Chile before completing her term and taking over the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). She served two terms as president in the country, from 2006 to 2010 and, later, from 2014 to 2018. Her time leading the OHCHR spanned from 2018, shortly after the end of her time as president, through 2022, when she chose not to run for a second term amid global disgust and calls for her resignation for her poor handling of the Chinese genocide of Uyghurs and other Turkic people in the country.

Bachelet notably visited China in 2022 shortly before stepping down and, far from condemning the ongoing genocide, praised China’s human rights record and claimed that the concentration camps the Chinese Communist Party had been caught using to imprison as many as 3 million people were no longer functional.

Bachelet is one of five official candidates running to replace Antonio Guterres as the secretary-general of the United Nations. The other candidates are former General Assembly leader María Fernanda Espinosa, former Costa Rican Vice President Rebeca Grynspan, former Senegalese President Macky Sall, and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi. Bachelet initially enjoyed the endorsement of her country under leftist former President Gabriel Boric, but Chile withdrew its support after the inauguration of conservative current President José Antonio Kast.

Campaigning for the position is often less overt than a traditional political role, involving private meetings with the most powerful actors at the United Nations. Bachelet appears to have traveled to Beijing seeking support from China, though Chinese state media reports did not overtly describe her visit as a formal campaign stop.

Chinese government television networks published images of Bachelet receiving a warm welcome from Wang, the nation’s top diplomat.

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Report: Bolton to plead guilty to retaining classified documents, faces $2.25M fine

Former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton reportedly plans to plead guilty to a single felony count of unauthorized retention of classified information in a private diary, according to several reports citing sources familiar with the matter.

The plea deal, reported on Thursday, would resolve a criminal case filed in October after a federal grand jury charged him with 10 counts of retaining national defense information and eight counts of transmission of classified information. The materials included notes from his time in government, which he allegedly shared with his family while writing a memoir about his tenure in the first Trump administration, from 2018 to 2019.

In August, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided his home in Bethesda, Maryland, where he allegedly kept the sensitive materials.

“From on or about April 9, 2018, through at least on or about August 22, 2025, BOLTON abused his position as National Security Advisor by sharing more than a thousand pages of information about his day-to-day activities as the National Security Advisor—including information relating to the national defense which was classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level—with two unauthorized individuals,” the indictment read.

“BOLTON also unlawfully retained documents, writings, and notes relating to the national defense, including information classified up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level, in his home in Montgomery County, Maryland,” it continued.

Under the proposed plea agreement, Bolton would face a $2.25 million fine and any prison sentence would be capped at five years, according to an anonymous source who spoke to the Associated Press. The sentence would ultimately be at the judge’s discretion.

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