In the current case, the government said even if India says Gibson is not violating their laws, our government has interpreted it as a violation of their laws.
The Obama Administration’s raid on Gibson USA may have slipped under the radar, but it shouldn’t have. This is serious business because the brute use of force and intimidation by Team Obama against Gibson is unconscionable and dangerous.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood (worth a half a million dollars), electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company.
“The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.
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The Fish and Wildlife Service said they were looking for banned Madagascar ebony (in the past, it was used for fretboards). This is banned under The Lacey Act of 1900 – that’s what I said, 1900. While The Lacey Act has been updated over the years and it’s an obscure, little-used law.
Then the Feds said they were looking to see if the wood from India that Gibson uses meets every petty regulatory everything. In other words, the Feds are investigating whether or not Gibson violated Indian laws, not U.S. laws, Indian laws.
Their excuse is that Gibson USA has violated the 1902 Lacey Act a little known act designed to protect certain species. The real reason that federal goons from Obama’s Injustice Department are after Gibson USA is because the CEO of Gibson is a Republican and Tea Party supporter!
Oh, let’s not overlook the fact that Gibson is not a union shop or the fact the Gibson’s major competitor is a Democrat. According to Seeing Red AZ , “Chris Martin IV, CEO of the Martin Guitar Co., is a long-time Democrat supporter, donating tens of thousands of dollars to numerous far-left candidates and organizations, among them Barack Obama.”
Forget anything Team Obama says about wanting to create and save jobs. This raid is yet another example of their ham-handed tactics designed to destroy American jobs and support unions. Gibson employes workers in four U.S. factories and has continued to hire in a down economy.
Now want to hear something scary? The federal government has said that all Gibson’s problems will all go away if Gibson will have all of the work outsourced to India! Let’s just call this use and misuse of the Lacey Act.
One other thing. Do you own a piano, guitar, or other musical instrument that was purchased in the past (many years past) before these novel interpretations of law took place?
Did you know under this knuckle dragging enforcement of the Lacey Act by the Fish & Wildlife Service that if you try to sell your musical instrument you could go to jail several years and pay a minimum $1,000 fine?
So tell me again, “how’s that hopey changey thing working out for ya?”
ino had led it to declare the species extinct, adding that the Northern White Rhino of central Africa is now “possibly extinct” in the wild and the Javan Rhino is “probably extinct” in Vietnam, after poachers killed the last animal there in 2010.
