Why did the Department of Justice raid Gibson Guitars twice in the span of two years, yet leave competitor C.F. Martin untouched? Both appear to use the same allegedly illegal woods. The allegation floating around is that it’s because Gibson’s CEO supports Republicans and Martin’s supports Democrats, and we have a Democratic administration hell-bent on punishing Republicans. Instinctively, I want to reject that theory. It’s too simple and too, I don’t know, obvious and even un-American. Gibson’s CEO may face jail time, and the company may end up failing under the weight of the federal boot. And over what?
Why does Warren Buffett, billionaire businessman, keep supporting President Obama despite the president’s obvious economic failures? Reading Tim Carney’s piece about Buffett and bank bailouts that appeared yesterday, it’s evident that at every turn over the past couple of years, Buffett has managed to cash in on huge government actions. Carney suggests that Buffett bought a major stake in Bank of America on the belief that the Obama administration will end up bailing that bank out, stuffing more money into Buffett’s pockets. One would expect a savvy and fair-minded businessman to oppose the rampant regulatory state that Obama has unleashed on the nation’s economy, but if the businessman stands to profit from it? If can use his influence to direct it to move in ways that help him? Does Buffett continue supporting Obama because he, Buffett, basically owns the president and knows he can make money off of his policies?
Why did the Obama administration shut down offshore oil drilling? Why did it take some car dealerships from their owners back in 2009? Do we really have an administration abusing its powers to punish its enemies? Is is really that simple?
Update: 3M would probably argue that yes, it is that simple.
We have a president who abrogated the process of bankruptcy law to provide a bailout to the auto unions; who extorted $20 billion from BP in the wake of the oil spill; who has dragged his feet on providing aid to Texas when that state was devastated by wildfires; who pissed away a trillion-dollar “stimulus” on payoffs to his supporters.
It sure looks that simple, don’t it?
Extorted $20 bil, and then stabbed the entire industry in the back. I’m sure the mafia is green with envy.
High-minded of you, Bryan, to want to believe in a free market, even under the Chicago thug regime of Boss Obama.
High-minded, but wrong.
Look, anyone could do 10,000 words on how fascist this regime is. GM, the Chrysler bondholders, the GM dealers, GE, ObamaCare and medical equipment manufacturers, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the war on small business, Buffet of course, Obamacare waivers. And, of course, it doesn’t just apply to private business: Arizona, Texas, the Black Panthers and the Dept of Racial Justice, McLame, Paul Ryan, the Supreme Court, and on and on…anybody remember the massive flood in Memphis and Nashville in 2009? They might have well have been on the other side of the world. Or how about Joplin? Did that tragedy ever cross Obama’s lips?
You are naive to even think that the raid on Gibson’s was anything other than a jackboot signal to the enemies of the State that resistance will be punished, no matter who they are. This regime is all about punishing its enemies and lining the pockets of its friends (of the moment).
Fascism on steroids.
proreason:
Don’t forget the ice storm in Kentucky and the flood in Atlanta.
I long ago stopped giving the benefit of the doubt to politicians. If they do x, and y happens, then when they did x they intended for y to happen. Or use the other test: “if 0bama were trying to destroy our economy, the middle class, and our freedoms, what would he be doing differently?”
In all fairness to Obama, no matter how relentlessly Red State we are, he did visit here after the tornado. And unlike e.g. Texas I’ve heard not a whisper of the Federal Government playing politics with anything related to the disaster.
(From someone who was born and raised in and has retired to Joplin and who probably wouldn’t be writing this in his parent’s basement if the tornado’s track had been 500 feet more north.)
@ Harold: What about the claims that they are going to redirect FEMA funds from Joplin to areas hit by Irene?
Well, that does count as more than a “whisper”, but it’s external to what we’re seeing on the ground in Joplin at the moment. It’s due to Team Omaba not asking for enough FEMA money back in February and the Congress having better things to do with the money (in their minds). Plus now the Republican House is insisting that FEMA increases be paid for by corresponding cuts elsewhere (fair enough, especially after Clinton turned FEMA into another way to spread the pork). In that case Obama gets dinged for voting present and absolutely refusing to cut spending anywhere (back in the debt ceiling fadango he offered, like, 2 billion, right)?
It could happen, although I’m not sure it would count as “playing politics” instead of incompetence. I.e. the Irene situation is very real and if they have to send some money planned for Joplin for long term rebuilding (AKA pork) to the east for real emergency stuff that’s the right short term thing thing to do and probably the right thing period. I don’t know that we’ll be hurting much if we don’t get that rebuilding money or get it any time soon, e.g. the R-VIII school district, which lost the big high school (biggest in the state) and one out of three middle schools plus a few elementary schools, is fully insured. And it’s not like we’re desperately looking for handouts, which is what the next phase of FEMA help amounts to.
Occam’s Razor.
You beat me to it, Marc. The simplest explanation is usually correct.
That’s a common misstatement of Occam’s Razor. The original statement, “Entities ought not to be multiplied beyond necessity,” pertains to the formation of an explanatory hypothesis, not the likelihood of its correctness. Beyond that, the Razor implies one other useful thing: The simpler an explanatory hypothesis is, the more easily and quickly it can be tested by prediction, because severely mutlicausal theses present us with greater challenges in prediction and experiment design.
True dat.
So what is it? Are they just good boys enforcing the law? Okay, but then why overlook Martin. If you are willing to consider a different perspective it might be helpful to spell it out. Maybe they’re just stupid??
Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice, what can be explained by stupidity.
“Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
The third time it’s enemy action.” – Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger (and various other sources)
Hanlon’s Razor works until you hit the third time (which we passed a long ways back). If this were stupid or accidental, wouldn’t ONE of Obama’s actions help a Conservative and damage a liberal at some point somewhere?
Or do Conservatives not get involved in business? Is there a reason that every single one of these continues to fall the same way, if it’s just stupid random chance?
Harry – Gibson didn’t pay their “protection” dues … er … campaign contributions to the DNC
Gibson is not a union shop. And that is all there is to it.
Warren Buffet is straight out of the pages of Atlas Shrugged. He is Orren Boyle brought to life.
Scary thought. And damned accurate.
Were he and George Soros separated at birth?
See the article and my comment on Mr. Adams’s ‘Wanted: Alcoholic Truck Drivers”.
These people are bananna republic dictator types. Using the power of the state to punish their enemies is perfectly natural for this bunch, they see nothing wrong with it. Obama said so himself.
I got it from a very liberal physicist in academia, a particle physicist, that the Superconducting Super Collider was canceled because Kay B. Hutchison, a Republican, was elected in the special election in 1993. By Bill Clinton.
So, yeah, it happens.
Bryan, I am willing to listen to any other explanation that makes sense.
But, first…you will have to convince me that Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Frank Marshall Davis, Barack Obama, Sr., the Midwest Academy, the Cooper Union folks, the radical professors at college, Heather Bloom, Carl Davidson, Danny Davis et al, and essentially the whole of Stanley Kurtz’ work has ZERO influence on the actions listed by proreason and others above.
And, then…convince me that some OTHER explanation is more plausible.
Because from where I sit…if Michael Moore or Sean Penn or George Soros or Hugo Chavez had made the moves listed by proreason above, it would make PERFECT sense to me.
Please explain that coincidence. I am completely open to hearing any sane person provide one….and that leaves out all leftists by definition.
There are free-market entrepreneurs and there are political-influence entrepreneurs. The first attempt to profit from catering to a free market in products and services; the second attempt to profit from economic rents derived from government largess in the form of subsidies, crony contracts, insider information, favorable regulation, and tax breaks. The activities of the first, including bankruptcy, promote economic efficiency and growth. The activities of the second, for the most part, promote inefficiency and economic stagnation. For the first, think “Information Revolution.” For the second, think “Green Revolution.”
jidcat, I know what you’re trying to say, but the Green Revolution usually refers not to environmentalist green job nonsense, but to Norman Borlaug’s brilliant advances in agriculture that saved over a billion people from starvation (which the enviro-nuts hate). Maybe change it to, “for the second, think ‘Green Jobs Boondoggle.’”
Is it really that simple?
Why, yes. Yes, it is.
Of course, it’s just a matter of who has their butts in the seats of power at any one time, but “it” has been happening in America for a very long time.
Both major political parties are culpable…and many a third party has no greater agenda, at heart, than to replace those butts with their own, so that they and their fellows can feed from the public trough.
There goes the pot, again.
To quote a former Australian Prime Minister in 1986:
“If this Government cannot get the adjustment, get manufacturing going again, and keep moderate wage outcomes and a sensible economic policy, then Australia is basically done for. We will end up being a third rate economy… a banana republic…”
Start gathering up yer bananas mate….
All administrations have rewarded their friends and punished their enemies;it’s called patronage.
This administration has taken patronage to extreme new highs and unbelievableness. Except that it’s that simple.
And Obama wants to know why businesses won’t invest and get rolling. We’ve no idea who’s going to get stepped on next.
It’s pretty clear that if you own or run a business, any political action must take place behind the scenes. Making traceable campaign contributions makes you a target. To say nothing of the fact that giving money to a candidate or a party accomplishes nothing beyond enriching the recipient. Better to find a group of insurgents and buy them some ammo. This is not a predicament one can vote one’s way out of.
My late father was a huge Warren Buffett fan. Used to go to Omaha for the annual Berkshire Hathaway propaganda festival. It’s a mercy that he didn’t live to see Buffett exposed as the reprehensible, double-dealing piece of filth that he is. Although the mere fact of Obama being elected president probably would have killed him anyway.
I’m willing to hear alternative explanations for the focus on Gibson and lack of interest in CF Martin, but so far no one is even *attempting* to offer a reason. I visited the CF Martin factory last year for a tour (despite being more of a Taylor man), and I remember the guide going on and on about using renewable woods, yadda yadda. I know damned well they have a hard time complying with law regarding wood importation because the regulatory regimes in those nations (in South and Central America and South Asia) are so damned corrupt and inconsistent. (Indeed, the rules seem inconsistent and vague in order to allow corruption).
So I don’t necessarily blame the big luthiers when they do run into trouble. But if the government is going to crack down on them (I’d rather they didn’t at all, but that’s asking too much, I guess) they ought to do so without the appearance of political favoritism. Until I see some other rational explanation, it’s certainly reasonable to surmise that it did, in fact, play a role.
How about this for another possible reason…
Maybe the government got complaints about Gibson and not about Martin?
Maybe this is a competitive business problem as opposed to a political problem and it was actually the result of Taylor guitars calling their representatives in Washington every week?
Maybe Gibson stepped on the toes of the local people in the country that they were exporting from and the complaints stemmed from there?
Maybe Gibson was being really blatant about something that the government would have turned a blind eye to if they were able to, like they are with Martin?
Maybe Gibson knew that they were breaking the law and behaved like the government wouldn’t do anything…and they did?
Did you even read what went on? There were a bunch of ebony fretboards that were labeled as something else and a customs official noticed the discrepancy. The pieces were going to a company under a different name even though they were being shipped by Gibson, to Gibson.
Maybe it’s just as simple as they were breaking the law and got caught.
“Did you even read what went on? There were a bunch of ebony fretboards that were labeled as something else and a customs official noticed the discrepancy”
Interesting. Where is this ‘fact’ available for checking?
In fact, I read something similar at the Financial Times – that the wood in question was ebony. It would pay to get all the facts.
The worst part, we don’t even have bananas.
Yes, it is fascism.
I don’t see what the fuss is all about. Preserving trees is too important to be constrained by trivial matters like judicial impartiality and due process. It is vital to the future of humanity, and any eventual extra-terrestrial alien visitors, that exotic hardwood trees be allowed to grow, be killed by some insect infestation or weather event, fall over, and then rot away to nothing on the ground.
He’s a Chicago machine democrat. Do you expect better from him because he’s not fat with jowls and doesn’t smoke cigars?
Make it impossible to work outside of the machine and who knows what you can accomplish…
From the title “Is it really that simple”, I expected an article about how easily the government can go out and just bully whomever they please whenever they please. Somebody ticks you off? No problem – send in a SWAT team with guns drawn. Oh, and have them pick up some doughnuts on their way back, would you?
Is governmental abuse of power really that simple? It surely appears to be.
Failure is a feature of this administration, not a bug.
I have never known a hardcore-leftist and I have known a few, that weren’t completely dedicated to the destruction of this country. Why would we expect Obama to be any different. And perhaps more to the point exactly why did anyone expect a person who associated with Wright, Ayers and the rest to be anything but a hardcore leftist freak?
The only question left is why Republicans are not bringing up charges of Treason against this entire administration.
Right this very second the left is inciting their followers against the Tea Party. They intend to silence us by cowing us or by outright violence…when do we respond?
I’ve posted this suggestion elsewhere:I call on every Gibson guitar owner/player/lover of freedom across the U.S.A.to meet in their local townsquare and play the National Anthem together this Labor Day, September 5, 2011. Each and every group enlist as many friends as possible to record it, download every video on Youtube, Facebook, and set the Twitterverse on fire with it. Calling Ted Nugent, Gene Simmons…..
I got it I got it I got it!
It’s even simpler and more diabolical than Bryan thinks. Warren Buffett plays the ukulele, you know. If the Feds torture Gibson long enough, Gibson may be willing to sell out to Berkshire-Hathaway at the kind of price Buffett likes, and then I bet they start producing ukuleles again, too.
Please remember that Barrack Obama (and his wife) is what he always has been: an extreme America-hating fascist, who surrounds himself with fellow-travelers.
The total absence of any media to vet him and expose to the public what he really is (save for Fox and some right-wing talk-shows), makes the Make-Believe Media 100% negligent and complicit in these actions.
Is it that simple?
During the GM and Chrysler bail out, the government shut down lots of car dealerships as superfluous. Did they decide which franchises survived and which were closed based on the political contributions of the owners?
See:
“Race Played Role in Obama Car Dealer Closures”
“Furor grows over partisan car dealer closings“
more to the point, he’s a democrat. democrats steal.lie.destroy.
remember tipper gore? and her kerfuffle about violent comic books? you probably don’t. You probably remember the risible one about warning labels on music albums.
you don’t remember the one about comic books, b/c comic book stores are small, independent businesses run by eccentric business guys who do to work in printed tee-shirts. and, you know, comic book guy on the simpsons isn’t nice, so they all must be like that, right?
Well, the government would swoop in and take all of the stock in a comic store into custody. All the stock. all of it. and then hold it until they could examine it, or fine it, or go to trial for corrupting the morals of minors, b/c there might be a grownup comic book sold to a kid. ALL THE STOCK taken for an indefinite period of time.
not, drugs, bongs, weapons,alcohol, porn…..comic books.
these guys went bankrupt. most of them. they owned a business. they paid their taxes. they provided a legal product the community enjoyed. they fostered other small businesses- independent comic book artists- costumers, sculptors, they provided the imaginative environment that fostered the people that bring you lush video games ( a bigger industry than Hollywood, right now) Legal, safe, books……not sex ed books, not gay porn, not “why shoot the president” books…….comic books. superman. batman. league of extraordinary gentlemen…
And that’s a goofy wife of a somewhat socially retarded pot-smoking senator who did it.
We need to have a Gibson Buycot to show these clowns who we support. Play on.
Hmm, maybe this is my excuse to buy that Les Paul Goldtop I’ve had my eye on…
Wow, you guys are crazy. I mean…with a capital ‘C’.
So, based on the comments here, Obama is just a leftist nut who hates America and is just purely anti-business. Well, thank goodness it is just that simple.
Perhaps you guys should take a basic economics course and read a book about critical thinking. 75% of the arguments here are simple fallacies. Post hoc ergo propter hoc comes to mind.
You guys are right…I bet Obama just couldn’t wait to get his fascist hands all over Gibson guitars so that he could get the price down for Warren Buffet. I think that the tinfoil on your hat needs to be adjusted. Makes perfect sense though…the president would totally go after the CEO of Gibson guitars (Who most guitarists couldn’t even name…I am a player and collector of guitars so I know who he is, but most of my friends who play couldn’t come close to guessing) rather than go after The Koch brothers, or ANY of the actual LARGE donors that he could pick on. You are right, he would make a call and get some charges brught against Gibson. You guys are a bunch of yamsacks.
You idiots should read a book. Seriously. Tough to find a biggger group of misinformed Americans outside of the Tea Party.
Anyone who refers to the Koch brothers shouldn’t be making accusations about tinfoil hats. Though I prefer to blame Emmanuel Goldstein.
Good spelling on the latin, though.
Have you read these comments?
It is like it was written by a bunch of clowns. Here is my reason for stating the Koch brothers…they are public with their support of republican candidates. They are large donors. No conspiracy theory or tinfoil hat required. I was making the point that the administration has much bigger targets if they wanted them…
Not to confuse anyone with facts…because I know how much they frustrate you folks…but did anyone here know that the name Gibson didn’t appear anywhere on the items that were shipped? It was only after the illegal shipment was taken and the lead was tracked down that it led to Gibson.
Again…you folks should read a bit before you get on the internets with all of this stupidity. I do have to say though…it has been mighty entertaining reading the comments. Anytime any of you would like to discuss the actual problems in your arguments, let me know.
So it is your contention that Obama is just a misunderstood typical liberal democrat? You believe that a person raised by communists, mentored by communists, and a person who has associated with communists and radicals his entire life was not affected by any of it? You believe that he sat through those wonderful sermons by Reverend Wrights and never knew Wright was a crazy son of a….?
He was just joking when he said he was going to redistribute the wealth? Just joshing when he declared that he would bankrupt coal power plants? He is terribly misunderstood regarding Fast and Furious? Do you believe he agrees with US Representatives in the Black Caucus who claim that Tea Partiers are the enemy and that we want to see black citizens strung up?
Just saying…
Just saying what? Nonsense?
Re-read your post. It is absolutely ridiculous. You believe he was raised as a communist and by communists? You need to stop drinking during the day if you are going to post.
You are a fool and it is unfortunate that you don’t do a better job of forming your opinions.
You may have reason on your side. Unfortunately the facts elude you.
Frank Marshall Davis.
Please…enlighten me about the facts that are eluding me.
I am always interested in learning and would hate to argue a poorly formed opinion. Do you have some links to further details in the story that run contrary to what I have read?
Please provide them. I look forward to your reply.
hehe…Voice of Reason you have to be a sockpuppet. But just for giggles lets play.
Frank Davis was Obama’s early life mentor.
In his memoir Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama wrote about “Frank”, a friend of his grandfather’s. “Frank” told Obama that he and Stanley (Obama’s maternal grandfather) both had grown up only 50 miles apart, near Wichita, although they did not meet until Hawaii. He described the way race relations were back then, including Jim Crow, and his view that there had been little progress since then. As Obama remembered, “It made me smile, thinking back on Frank and his old Black Power, dashiki self. In some ways he was as incurable as my mother, as certain in his faith, living in the same sixties time warp that Hawaii had created.”[20] Obama also remembered Frank later in life when he took a job in South Chicago as a community organizer and took some time one day to visit the areas where Frank had lived and wrote in his book, “I imagined Frank in a baggy suit and wide lapels, standing in front of the old Regal Theatre, waiting to see Duke or Ella emerge from a gig.” [21]
In the opinion of Gerald Horne, a contributing editor to the CPUSA publication Political Affairs, Davis was “a decisive influence in helping Obama to find his present identity” as an African-American.[22] Claims that Davis was a political influence on Obama were made by Jerome Corsi in his anti-Obama book The Obama Nation.[23] A rebuttal released by Obama’s presidential campaign, titled Unfit for Publication, confirmed that “Frank” was Frank Marshall Davis, but disputes those claims about the nature of their relationship.[24]
In regards to Frank Davis and the communist party…here ya go.
A 1950 FBI memo reports that members of the subversive element in Honolulu were
“ concentrating their efforts on infiltration of the Democratic party through control of Precinct Clubs and organizations. He said they were spending considerable time urging support for their candidates in these Precinct Club elections. In this regard, he noted on April 6, 1950, that subject [Davis] had been elected Assistant Secretary and Delegate to the Territorial Democratic Convention…attendance of Davis at the Territorial Democratic Convention was verified by [informant]. This convention took place on April 30 at Kalakana Intermediate School.[14] ”
Robert M. Kempa, a Communist party informant who agreed to cooperate with government investigators, reported,
“ Late in the fall of 1950, I started contacting Frank Marshall Davis in connection with Communist Party matters, and relaying to him information received from my superior contact in the Communist Party, either James Freeman or [redacted].
During a portion of 1950, 1951 and part of 1952, I continued contacting Frank Marshall Davis and also transmitted dues for the Communist Party received from him to my contact above. During the period of my contacts with Frank Marshall Davis, he advised me that his wife, Helen was a member of Group #10. …During a portion of 1951 [redacted] took over contacts with the Davis group but I resumed contacting Davis in 1952 and continued meeting him on Communist Party matters until I left the Party in June of that year.”[15]
So, you think that because Obama knew someone who was a communist in the 50′s when he was a child…that he somehow hates Gibson guitar manufacturing?
Well, that makes perfect sense…oh wait, it makes no sense.
The discussion in this thread is about people claiming that the Govt came down harder on Gibson because they are run by a CEO who supports GOP candidates…that argument doesn’t hold any water and your argument is completely unrelated.
So, thanks for playing, but I think that you need to try harder. Your post reads like the crazy ramblings of a tin foil hat wearing nutjob. I am surprised that you didn’t mention Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright or any of the other debunked bullcrap that the poorly informed seem to cling to.
Nice try though.
It was just political thuggery. Those of you who don’t understand this are naive.
Actually, it wasn’t politically motivated AT ALL. Perhaps you should become familiar with the facts of the case before you start telling anyone that they are naive.
This whole comments section is full of the most ridiculous, childish banter by a group of people who couldn’t debate their way out of a wet paper bag.
Seriously, you folks should do some reading and try to edumecate yourselves.
TheVoiceOfReason said:
“You idiots should read a book. Seriously. Tough to find a biggger group of misinformed Americans outside of the Tea Party.”
———————————-
Thanks. I appreciate the suggestion. I’ll give it all the consideration it’s due.
Don’t act like you can just go out and buy books in Kansas. You know they will put you on a watch list with the rest of the thinkers.
Why not try to debate the issues? Oh yeah, because you can’t.
You are wrong and anyone who believes that Gibson being raided was an act of the government is just plain silly. You have ZERO credibility.
Just because you believe something, doesn’t make it true. Get a clue you bunch of morons. Just pure comedy in here…unreal.
Let me answer your question with a question: “Why did ‘The Won’ have a Beer Summit to chastise a Cambridge cop for doing his job, yet say nothing about Black Panther voter intimidation, or Flash Mobs targeting Whitey?” Hmmm?
On the auto bailout thing:
Explain Ford.
The Ford Motor Company was in line for a bailout just like GM and Chrysler, because they were also in as sad a shape; yet Ford rejected the bailout when they saw what the deal was. Last I checked, Ford was very much alive and doing no worse, and perhaps a little better, than the now government-owned competitors. This amounts to a gigantic economic experiment in which Ford is the control subject. The experiment proved that there was no need whatsoever for a bailout, much less a need for a federal takeover. The whole purpose of the “bailout” was for the Obama administration to nationalize the auto industry. How do you like your 40-mile range $45,000 Chevy Volt now, citizens?
you are a shining example of the simple-mindedness fueled by blind adherence to ideology that is bringing this once great nation to her knees. Ford is a terrible “control subject” in your little economic experiment because the were nowhere near as bad off as either GM or Chrysler at the time of the bailout. You cannot compare apples to oranges in a scientific experiment….oh yeah, forgot you people don’t believe in science anymore…nevermind– carry on in your ignorance while we on the left take back our country for the middle class.
And yet the result was a relatively more nationalized auto industry. Funny how that works.
Think that is bad look who owns a bunch of the carbon credits that you have to buy if mr. president gets that to pass. He and Mr. Gore. That is why the care so much they are going to be instant billionaires.
Its a shame more people cant see through whats going on in this country.
VoiceofReason,is that reasonable to enter a facility with drawn aotomatic weapons as if they were raiding a crack house?Shove employees out the doors,force them into sequestered rooms,and NOT question them.Just stare them down.Not give any valid answer to the CEO requests for the reason of such raid?Then do it again?You sir must have huge biceps carrying all that water for GUVMENT and of course those huge word power textbooks.If there were discrepancies in the shipments and paperwork,hmmmm,maybe a phone call,letter?A simple visit from authorities?
And all the while Gibson knowing they have had such a raid would just willy nilly go back to the same vendors and do the same “alleged crime”?.Please,be more uppity in your response,it makes you sound as if you are above this “fray”.
excellent comment.
Actually, you don’t have many raids that go on without guns being drawn.
I know that you are an idiot tea-bagger baby who likes to think that the whole world is out to steal your freedom…but get this…there are actual rules and laws that people need to abide by and Gibson didn’t. When they got caught the last time (And the idea that this is union based is laugh out loud funny…you all should try to sound more ignorant) they just started to lie more and set up fake businesses and shipping addresses…well now they got caught.
Tough. Luck.
I am so happy that I came across this website. The comments alone are worth their weight in gold. I love how delightfully ignorant you all are. Someone needs to get a thesaurus and dictionary for you mouth breathers…stat.
Let me guess….it was the mainstream media distorting facts for George Soros and the caliphate! LOLOLOLOLOLOL You people are awesome!
Could it be possible that Gibson is non-union and CF Martin is not? Or is it just that the Fed agents thought there were too many “illegal” woods at Gibson? You know how much more those Gibson “illegal” guitars eat, get sick, need homes, etc. compared to illegal aliens. I mean now what is more important? And besides, those “illegal” guitars can’t vote or Obama would be giving all of them amnesty by executive order tonight yet!!!! Seriously, is Gibson union and C.F.Martin non-union. If the gov. puts Gibson out of business with false accusations, then it will boost sales at C.F. Martin? Right? Makes me wonder!
You sir…are a dolt.
Do you form these ideas on your own or were you raised by idiots?
Read a book.
I just did a search and found this article: http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2011/08/feds-raid-non-union-gibson-guitar-again.html Gibson is non-union…raided twice…2009 and within last couple of days. HMMMMMMM! But I cant find if martins company is union. But the owner is a huge Democrat donor!!!!! And Gibson owner is a Republican. Hmmmmm! Now that makes more sense. Read this: http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/30/another-interesting-tidbit-in-the-gibson-guitar-saga/ and form your own opinion. Dont let the mainstream media or anybody else try to convince you that Gibson breaks the laws and Martin doesnt when it very well looks like Martin is no more guilty or innocent than Gibson!
Maybe the explanation is that right wingers have become paranoid whack jobs so wrapped up in their warped ideology of gubmint and taxes being inherently evil that they can’t even form a reasoned opinion about the color of the sky.
Nice little business you got here – it would sure be a shame if something bad happened to it, like a regulatory violation…
I love the picture of Dear Leader putting the medal around Buffet’s wattled neck. They look like a happy pair of butt-boys.
VoiceOfReason (lol) – Quite a few commenters stated clearly that they’re open to a plausible alternative explanation, but you didn’t offer one, plausible or not. The plain fact is that this looks bad. One major guitar maker has been subject to continual harassment, and another hasn’t. Both use the same materials. One donates to Democrats and is unionized, the other donates to Republicans and is non-union. The President and his hangers-on all come from Chicago, where this kind of crap is commonplace. That qualifies as a preponderance of (admittedly circumstantial) evidence. It’s reasonable not only to ask the question, but to take a certain guess at the answer.
Of course don’t let that stop you from calling me a ‘teabagger’, and then saying I’m the one who can’t think or debate.
I actually made one entire post that was full of nothing but plausible alternatives…did you not read that?
Let me know and I can re-post it for you.
The reality is that the customs officer who originally found the wood would have had no way of knowing that it was owned by Gibson guitars…because their name wasn’t on any of the shipping materials. So every single ridiculous argument on this page of comments is 100% moot. It has nothing to do with union/non union, political thuggery and who is a republican or democrat because when the law was broken…nobody knew who broke it.
See? There are actual facts to this case. Politics had NOTHING at all to do with it. So, Teabagger, if you want to think or debate, you need to do a better job. There is no cogent argument on this page that would lead anyone but a partisan hack to believe that this was government ordered. To say so isn’t a valid opinion…it is purely ignorant. Does that help?
TheVoiceOfReason…I was wondering where you learned the customs officer who originally found the wood had no knowledge of its owner.
At any rate, I think your argument might be moot. The fed obviously found out the wood was owned by Gibson guitars eventually. At that point they could decide to pursue an investigation or stall/stop it for political reasons. Of course, this is speculation but it’s based on a good deal of (circumstantial) evidence. The fact that the original customs officer had no knowledge of the owner of the wood doesn’t really matter.
And, honestly, it’s not like the “grunts” (such as a customs officer) are going to play these sorts of political games. They’re played by the higher-ups at any opportunity if they are played at all.
I learned it from the articles that have been printed about the raid. As an example, from the NYTimes article: “The investigation that led to the searches last week began when a customs official intercepted an air shipment of 1,250 ebony fingerboards in Dallas on June 22, according to an affidavit filed in support of the search warrant. The shipment was mislabeled as “finished parts of musical instruments,” which are legal to export, the affidavit said.
The paperwork with the shipment did not say the wood was going to Gibson Guitar Corporation in Nashville. Agents from the Fish and Wildlife Service interviewed officials at a Canadian import company listed on a manifest and a storage company in Nashville where the wood was to be warehoused. They determined that the Gibson factories were the final destination.”
Gibson has been caught doing this before. Now they get caught and it is pretty clear that they were trying to not be caught. Why would you expect the government to not pursue them at that point? “Yeah, we caught them once, and this time they used a shell company to try and avoid getting caught…so let’s just let them go.” Does that make sense to you?
It’s pretty simple…they broke the law and got caught. Simple.
VOR, let’s just go on the facts you mention in your post, which I’ll stipulate to for purposes of this discussion.
The fretboards were intercepted at the border, where in spite of being fretboards instead of stacks of lumber, they were determined to not actually be finished music instrument parts. Fine. The investigation then went up the chain to the level where ‘prosecutorial discretion’ was available to decisionmakers. These decisionmakers, at that point, knew that the shipment was destined for Gibson Guitars, not Joe Blow. Being presumably sentient beings, they also knew that Gibson is not the only guitar maker in the US that uses such materials.
These folks then decided that Gibson, not anyone else, deserved a SWAT raid and threats of jailtime, etc. Politics aside, the rules in question are seriously small potatoes, and it’s incredible that any administration would try to put a US-based manufacturer out of business at a time like this. I’m not making up the notion that the smallness of the rules or the violation matters – the Black Panther voter intimidation case is an excellent example. A couple of sh*theads set out to intimidate voters, but apparently didn’t actually do so. DOJ decided, not entirely unreasonably, that the incident wasn’t worth pursuing. Why did someone decide this one was?
So we’re back to where I started off above, that someone needs to explain why Gibson needed a visit from SWAT and Martin didn’t, because the known facts of the case don’t lead to a sensible answer.
Hey Stacy, I am going to copy your reply in here so that I can answer your points more directly.
VOR, let’s just go on the facts you mention in your post, which I’ll stipulate to for purposes of this discussion. – What do you mean stipulate to? Are you under the impression that I am making up facts? These facts are pretty clearly defined in any of the articles that pertain to the case. If the facts are suspect or dubious in some way, you would need to explain why. If it is because of the source, then why aren’t any of the other ‘facts’ that people are using under such scrutiny?
The fretboards were intercepted at the border, where in spite of being fretboards instead of stacks of lumber, they were determined to not actually be finished music instrument parts. Fine. The investigation then went up the chain to the level where ‘prosecutorial discretion’ was available to decisionmakers. These decisionmakers, at that point, knew that the shipment was destined for Gibson Guitars, not Joe Blow. Being presumably sentient beings, they also knew that Gibson is not the only guitar maker in the US that uses such materials. – Yes, however, they were the only guitar maker in the US that had a shipment intercepted by customs. Your logic falls a bit short here. For example, if we catch a bank making a bad financial deal and we know that other banks are making similar deals…should we decide not to prosecute the person that we have evidence on, until we have evidence on every crime that has been committed in the banking sector? You prosecute what you can, when you can, when you think you can win…
These folks then decided that Gibson, not anyone else, deserved a SWAT raid and threats of jailtime, etc. Politics aside, the rules in question are seriously small potatoes, and it’s incredible that any administration would try to put a US-based manufacturer out of business at a time like this. _ This is what the government does to people who break laws no matter what the economy is. Were you mad when the DOJ went after Microsoft during the Bush Administration? Or when every other president has had DOJ that went after american companies? They are the American Department of Justice…that is what they do in good times and bad. I’m not making up the notion that the smallness of the rules or the violation matters – the Black Panther voter intimidation case is an excellent example. A couple of sh*theads set out to intimidate voters, but apparently didn’t actually do so. DOJ decided, not entirely unreasonably, that the incident wasn’t worth pursuing. Why did someone decide this one was?
So we’re back to where I started off above, that someone needs to explain why Gibson needed a visit from SWAT and Martin didn’t, because the known facts of the case don’t lead to a sensible answer.
– What if Martin hasn’t been caught? If they are raided next week..what happens to your whole theory? Gibson got caught doing something similar in 2009. This time, they used shell companies to try and slip one past the government…they got caught. Wouldn’t that piss you off if you were the DOJ? Wouldn’t that make you want to demonstrate to them, in no uncertain terms, that they were playing dirty pool and got caught?
It all seems very reasonable to me. To try and make it out to be a political operation..when the guy who found the shipment would have had no way of knowing who it belonged to…is preposterous. And yes, when they realized it was Gibson, they could have let it go…but why would they? Gibson got busted before and stopped putting their name on the shipments. They get what they deserve…and I love and own many Gibson instruments.
If Martin is raided next week, then you may be right. If they’re never raided, I’m sticking with my theory. To another of your points, DOJ should never make prosecution decisions on the basis that they are pissed off at someone working (gaming, if you prefer) the system. I know that in the real world, police agencies do things like that all the time, but that’s a bug, not a feature. DOJ should at least try to hold up a higher standard.
Yes, I was annoyed when DOJ went after Microsoft during the Bush administration, and I’m not a particular fan of MS. The US government should always err on the side of leaving businesses, especially American ones, alone. Instead, for at least the past decade they seem to deliberately attack the most successful companies, maybe because of the prevailing ambulance-chaser attitude among the legal profession, and certainly because of the cowboy/SWAT mentality among law enforcement.
This is a real problem, and you shouldn’t be so cavalier about it just because you (apparently) agree with the wood regulations. How do you feel about continual SWAT raids against medical marijuana dispensaries caught in the middle between state and federal rules, or small farmers being carted away at gunpoint for selling raw milk? These people are out of control.
Gibson isn’t the only example of corrupt cronyism in the Obama administration. Just look at the Boeing decision, and how the bondholders got screwed while the UAW got a sweetheart deal in the auto bailout. Obama stated publically in a speech that we should reward our friends and punish our enemies. Why dont we beleive what he himself says he will do. It the Chicago way.
Perhaps you should include some context…
He was talking to potential latino voters and the ‘punishment’ he was talking about was in reference to votes.
You people on the right certainly seem to be fact averse, plenty racist and almost entirely ignorant of the things that you claim to be so passionate about.
Why not form educated opinions? Just because you believe something, doesn’t make it true. Jackasses.
Mr/Ms Voice Of Reason, has some very good points. I have been reviewing articles on the raid and had not come across the article with a shill company bieng used to hide possible shipments.
To the point: The border agents discovery of an errant lable + previous alleged infractions of the Lacy act = probable Cause. Probable cause would be nessassary for a Judge to issue a search warrant. ( I hope they had a warrant.) I would hope any Judge in thier right mind would not issue a warrant on grounds that “others like them are doing it”.