Guitar players, more nonsense from Obama's administration

[mamabearCali]

Really REALLY scary stuff. You know ignorance of the law is no excuse worked well when the law was common sense, easily obtained, and easily understood. This has descended into insanity.

[Heartland Patriot]

Really REALLY scary stuff. You know ignorance of the law is no excuse worked well when the law was common sense, easily obtained, and easily understood. This has descended into insanity.

Yes, the "laws" (Federal Code) has become so convoluted and twisted that all of us are probably criminals in some form or fashion, and just don't realize it yet...and we won't unless we rub someone the wrong way...at which point, they will look through your life, compare what you have done to the Federal Code, and find something to stick you with...its wrong on many levels, but mostly because it makes you GUILTY until proven innocent...completely anathema to our system of jurisprudence (I hope I used that word correctly), and to English common law, which a lot of our law is base on. Its enough to turn your stomach, and to make the Founding Fathers turn over in their graves. This is EXACTLY the sort of thing they were trying to get away from, and prevent from recurring.

[bnc]

Really REALLY scary stuff. You know ignorance of the law is no excuse worked well when the law was common sense, easily obtained, and easily understood. This has descended into insanity.

And it is completely intentional. By erecting an irrational and incomprehensible labyrinth of law that nobody, including those who create it, can ever understand the government has made us all into criminals. It is only a matter now of carrying out the arrests.

[The Annoyed Man]

Besides Drudge where is the coverage?

I'll people talk about is more jobs, more jobs. Here is a company who is employing Americans and they get this.

If I was the owner I would be looking right now at moving the factory out of the US and simply importing the guitars.

Here's some more coverage:

Fretful practices
Rosslyn Smith
AmericanThinker.com
8/28/11

If enforcing a foreign law to the determent of an American manufacturing business isn't enough, we now learn that Gibson's CEO is a Republican donor and that Feds seem to have given a pass to a rival operation following the same practice that is owned by a Democrat donor

One of Gibson's leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of election cycles. According to C.F. Martin's catalog, several of their guitars contain "East Indian Rosewood." In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson's guitars.

Anyone surprised? I for one am not. This is Chicago politics, democrat style, coming straight out of the Oval Office from the Charlatan in Chief. They do not love the Constitution because it is an impediment to their desire to steal all power over The People.

[SQLGeek]

To paraphrase Bill Shakespeare...something is rotten in the United States.

[speedsix]

...I guess the man from wherever REALLY doesn't like country music...

[The Annoyed Man]

Gibson goes on the offensive
Guitar maker's CEO vows fight, says feds' raids went too far
TheTennissean.com

Eleven days ago, Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz was getting ready for work when he got a phone call at home from his assistant, whose voice sounded panicky.

Half a dozen armed federal agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were searching the Gibson executive suite. Two of the company’s South Nashville guitar factories also had just been raided, along with one in Memphis.

By the time Juszkiewicz (pronounced Juss-ka-witz) reached his office, agents were forensically imaging his computer and carting out boxes of paperwork and company hard drives. At the factories, agents were loading trucks with pallets of rosewood and ebony, guitars, guitar necks, computers and shipping documents.


{snip}

In recent days, Gibson’s CEO has gone on a counterattack, telling various talk radio and TV news programs that the raids are an “outrageous abuse of federal power” that have unfairly singled out his company, perhaps for political reasons.

“There’s no doubt we’re being persecuted,” Juszkiewicz said. “But while I was sitting in my conference room, while agents blocked the door to my office, I decided two things. One, we were going to try and fight this in court. Secondly, we were going to give this issue visibility.”

A) I have been posting and following up on this story in other sites around the Internet, exactly because it needs to have visibility. This allegedly pro-jobs administration has unfairly singled out a job provider, who happens to be a supporter of republican causes, when the core issue behind the Lacey Act is American jobs versus foreign jobs (read the article for the explanation of that). If it walks like a wolverine and talks like a duck, it isn't a duck.

B) My next guitar purchase will be a Gibson. Not a Martin (which company's CEO is a big democrat supporter and has been spared what is happening to Gibson even though they buy the same woods from the same source). Not a Taylor (Bob Taylor is an OK dude, but why isn't he speaking up when his industry is under attack, when he buys his woods from the same sources?). Not a L'Arrivée (my primary guitar is a L'Arrivée and they make some of the finest guitars in the world, but Jean L'Arrivée has remained as silent as Bob Taylor............and they use the same wood sources as the others).

C) What about violin manufacturers? They use the same woods as guitars: http://www.theviolinsite.com/violin_mak ... _wood.html. How long before they come under fire if they support republican causes like Juszkiewicz does? And then what about makers of violas, stand-up bass, cellos, etc? ALL of these instruments mean AMERICAN jobs filled by skilled craftsmen. They use imported ebony woods in the fingerboards, just like guitar makers do. They use rosewood in the necks and bodies just like guitar makers do.

Guitars are not unique to this country. They weren't invented here. But there is no stringed instrument that is so quintessentially American as a guitar. When guitar makers are selectively persecuted based on their political affiliations by a democrat government for allegedly violating a law that protects foreign labor ahead of American labor, there is something that stinks like dead bodies in DC.

I hate this kind of crap.

[bnc]

There are some pretty good interviews with Juszkiewicz out on Youtube, and by good I mean scary. Gibson was informed by the feds, in writing mind you, that they would have no problems if they moved their manufacturing from the US to Madagascar. On top of it, during the raid the lowest level employs of Gibson, literally the guys sweeping the floor, were interrogated by armed men without a lawyer present. Of note is that Gibson is a non-unionized manufacturer, and I believe most of the other big names are.

And this goes well beyond guitars. Anything made out of wood, from your kitchen table to the grips on your 1911, could be subject.

My hat is off to Juszkiewicz, he seems like a decent guy and is not rolling over. I don't own a Gibson, and I certainly don't need another guitar, but I'm really wanting to go buy one now.

[Jasonw560]

Dang, someone beat me to the Ted Nugent connection.

I bet Uncle Ted speaks up about this. He's been known to voice his opinion every once in a blue moon.

But none of this surprises me in the least. There's a job crisis, and Nobama wants an American plant to move overseas?

[Middle Age Russ]

While unemployment and economic uncertainty run rampant here in the US, you certainly can't argue that Obama and his cronies are letting the crisis go to waste. Advocating moving American manufacturing overseas as a response to federal thuggery indicates to me exactly what this administration stands for -- the destruction from within of our nation.

[DONT TREAD ON ME]

America used to be a nice place to live.

Political Correctness ruined a lot of that.

Not holding people accountable for their actions. Letting them get away with anything and everything because "it's not their fault, they were brought up in a bad environment". Giving handouts to anyone and everyone. Not making people actually earn their things/money.

All of this has lead to a population filled with people that feel they are entitled to everything and are able to take anything regardless if it belongs to them. They feel that they can do harm and evil to other people simply because they blame them for their bad lives. And society will not do anything about it. We keep giving them handouts, we keep trying to help them thinking they will change. Well, they won't.

It is time to get rid of this "nice and polite" America and time for tough love!