The owner of a pro-Trump merchandise site is in trouble to the tune of more than $200,000 after replacing the "Made In China" labels on their merchandise to ones that read "Made In the U.S.A."
The retailer, Lions Not Sheep, sells apparel with slogans supporting former Republican President Donald Trump, promoting violence and other conservative messages, all presented on a website full of patriotic imagery and messaging.
But much like the former President they love, it turns out for these owners "Make America Great Again" means something more like "Make Off-shore Manufacturing Great Again." Like the former President's merch, most of their products are made in China.
The owner of the company, Sean Whalen, agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission a $211,335 for his solving this bit of hypocrisy by simply lying about it on the labels on his products, many of which feature outright calls to violence like the slogan "Give Violence a Chance" as seen in the video below.
Other products the company sells include t-shirts depicting Trump as the Terminator, shirts emblazoned with "#FJB," an acronym for "Fu*k Joe Biden," and a customized baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.
The Utah-based company's name is supposedly a reference to the saying, "a lion doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep," the sheep of course being liberals and anyone who takes the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, opposition to which is another favorite topic for the company's merchandise.
Much of the company's apparel is done in a red, white and blue color-scheme, with abundant American flag imagery. But nearly all items are manufactured in China, and the misrepresentation of that fact is fraud according to FTC rules.
Whalen certainly wasn't trying to hide it, however. According to the FTC's report, Whalen created social media posts in which he bragged about swapping the "made in" labels, despite claims on his site of selling the "BEST (expletive) AMERICAN MADE GEAR ON THE PLANET."
Despite having bragged about the practice, Whalen took to Instagram to post a defense of himself, casting himself as the victim. He has since made his account private.
On Twitter, people were not exactly sympathetic about Whalen getting in trouble for his fraudulent practices, and they dragged him hard.
In addition to the $211,335 fine, the FTC has also demanded Whalen “stop making bogus Made in USA claims” and “come clean about foreign production."
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