DOJ Raids Gibson Guitars Looking for Illegal Wood

If only wood grew on trees. Oh wait...

2nd

This is Down right Crazy!!! The mention about people Knocking Gibson really stirs me up, I hear more jokes about fender myself. Gibson's Rule Fenders Drool. I must say though i do like the Fender Tele. I'm a proud owner of a 75 Gibson Les Paul Studio Custom w/Gold Accents, and a 84 Gibson Flying V with kahler Tremolo. Both works of art that have never had issue one.

I just can't get over the insanity that is our Justice Department. I mean, interpreting a foreign law to find something to do when we have so many much more destructive and pressing issues that need the Justice Department's Attention. Just one I can think of right now is the epidemic of Crystal Meth and the destruction it is doing in small and large towns and cities all throughout rural and urban America. It is one of, if not the most destructive drugs anyone could find themselves hooked on. And I know there are tons of crimes that need to be dealt with that requires only US Law to enforce. India wasn't even worried about it. These raids sometimes, like the ones on the milk plants for selling organic milk, are indicating to me that the selective prosecution of things like milk and wood, and letting manufacturing meth, kidnapping, murder, etc slide by, that the government is using the Justice Department to try and get the people to protest and raise cain like the European and middle-Eastern citizens are doing so they can carry out their real plan and agenda against the American Citizens. They haven't been able to do it yet and missions like these are getting pretty desperate if you ask me. And another reason behind it is probably to levy fines against these businesses as a revenue source. I see it in our local government with building permits and inspections. They will fail the first inspection, sometimes having to read code books and study prints, etc to find something to flag the inspection. They get more money the second and even more the third time they come back, Inspections on the same exact same thing, constructed the same exact way for the last ten years that got passed every time. The government is broke and they are going to arrest, raid, levy civil fines, criminal fines, and put the people through as many third party programs they can to increase funding for more of the same. This raid the OP has shown here is another glaring piece of evidence that this government is in a major FAIL mode and it is sad to see how they are going down trying to damage as much of the good citizens and businesses as they can to try and stay afloat. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the Administration was behind this because it's not a union shop.

Actively trying to put more Americans out of work. This is unreal. But it would seem to me that the Indian govt should be going after their domestic criminal wood workers for failing to finish the product.

illegal wood...really?

I lol'd. to quote family guy, that makes about as much sense as beowulf having sex with robert fulton at the first battle of antietam.

If I owned Gibson Guitar manufacturing I'd fire all the employees and shut down my factory.

Put a sign on the front door, "Closed until Obama's out of Office".

The justice department at work.

Costing probably millions of dollars and someone their job......The money for the fine and attorneys has to come from somwhere. Unfortunatly it is usually the employees that suffer...

Way to go gang.

You did good

this is crazy!!! this is going on in every industry. this is just like what is being done to the amish farmers and the organic farmers and the dairy farmers. they are KILLING free enterprise in America. it is SO obvious that there is a plan here to kill every american business and to make sure we all have to depend on the big international corps for everything we want or need. and that the government is in control over every industry.

US is quickly looking like Castro Cuba. IMO.

Martin guitars, out of Nazareth, PA utilizes the same supply chains for fine woods as Gibson. Martin is a BIG DNC contributor, Gibson is a big RNC contributor....don't think we need a slide rule for this one folks....

reply to post by RainDog


Some more news to add. Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz interviewed on Dana Loesch's radio show talking aout the recent raid.


It seems someone really doesn't like Henry, as Martin, Fender, etc. were not raided. Just Gibson. I for one am still a fan of Gibson guitars, but it seems there is a lot more to this story than unfinished fingerboards. I guess time will tell. Best wishes to all the musicians out there who currently have any custom orders from Gibson. My guess is you may be waiting awhile longer than expected.

I wonder if my morning wood is in danger.

This looks like they are trying to bully them into some thing.
may be the chef of police wants a new gutter.
or hes not paying protection money to TPTB.

reply to post by blackrain17


Not as long as it's polished and finished by a certified Indian. And the documentation is provided. Otherwise the Feds might confiscate your wood too.

reply to post by 1SawSomeThings

Not as long as it's polished and finished by a certified Indian. And the documentation is provided. Otherwise the Feds might confiscate your wood too.

Of course you know that wood polishing is unionized in this country. They have an apprenticeship program. So, they have to work themselves up from the bottom. Each apprentice has to learn how to do one part before they can move on to the next.

For example, if the wood polisher's union gets called to a residence to polish an organ. Their first job is to master the sack of tools. At the next level, they move up to polishing the shaft. Only once they've mastered that, are they allowed to polish knobs. Of course their ultimate goal is to become a fully-certified head polisher.

I don't know if the US has a reciprocal agreement with India for wood polishing certification. If so, I'm sure there are a lot of certified head polishers here that will be more than happy to lend them a hand.

Dex

let's not forget this was an ARMED raid. much like the Amish farmer raid and the raw milk (Rawesome) food club raids. ARMED. they execute these things like they would a full on drug raid or something - like the people who work here are hardened criminals.

Prepare for home invasions (ahem), raids to see if your furniture is made from illegal wood.

Honorable self defense will be met with a hail of government lead.

THIS POST DESERVES A LOT MORE ATTENTION!!!!

Thank you, that is all.






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reply to post by muzzleflash

Interesting, so this actually could be about fraud and illegal trafficking.

At this point I'm certain that was part of it. The evidence indicates that Gibson knew exactly what it was doing both during the 2009 raid and the 2011 raid. The Rosewood/Ebony wood raw material is hard to get, and I suspect that Gibson wasn't interested in paying super-exorbitant prices for it.

Gibson has been having some financial problems and it's credit rating was recently downgraded. I suspect that it's a little cheaper to get "laundered" illegal timber.

Another interesting aspect to their financial problems is that fact that they ticked off the "financial community" with their actions with respect to some loans:
Ticked off banksters

They owe back taxes: Gibson's back taxes problem Perhaps that's another reason for Uncle Sam to harass them.

Gibson has been quite litigious of late. They have sued a number of game controller vendors over a rather questionable patent. And they sued any retailers who were selling those video game controllers, including Walmart. Not making any friends there... Of course turnabout is fair-play: Employee class action suit

I think the Gibson CEO, Henry E. Juszkiewicz, is a megalomaniacal-narcissistic-genius. In 25 years he's grown Gibson from a 5 million dollar investment to a global corporate empire doing 500 million in business per year. No doubt he's made more than a few enemies. Not the least of whom are his employees.

Here are a series of very interesting comments about working at Gibson: 97 comments about working for Gibson

Although I've wasted far too much time on this project, it's been interesting reading about HJ. When I look at his carefully constructed personal persona, including some on-line interviews, I am reminded of the Steve Job's Reality Distortion Field. I want to believe what he says even though I know is it totally BS!

Unfortunately it appears that the engine that has driven the extraordinary growth of the Gibson empire is now its biggest problem. One way or another I suspect that Mr. Henry E. Juszkiewicz will be forced to relinquish control of Gibson.

Finally, here is some additional information about the Search Warrant that was served on Gibson on Wednesday: More information on the warrant.

So, I believe that Henry E. Juszkiewicz/Gibson knew exactly what they were doing in smuggling a prohibited product into the US. While it has been spun such that everyone believes that this simply boils down to Indians versus Americans finishing some wooden planks, it's considerably more complicated. An international NGO has been investigating this and presumably working with the US government: EIA Global. And from every indication Henry E. Juszkiewicz/Gibson and/or their surrogates have been working with some seedy underworld types to acquire these very raw materials.

The government is within its right to investigate Gibson based on the Lacey Act, specifically with respect to the 2008 amendment. And since it appears that there is more here than is readily apparent right now, this may be one of those rare times when the Justice Department is actually doing the right thing.

Dex

Ever since the 2009 raid I have asked myself if perhaps Gibson Guitars refused to contribute to the Obama thugs and this is the end result where political payback comes in the guise of a SWAT team that confiscates millions of dollars of wood and shuts down the complete manufacturing process of a legitimate corporation under penalty of federal law.

I know some may think that politics may not have anything to do with what treatment Gibson Guitars is receiving, but even without any deep inside knowledge, it appears that the government is abusing its powers on Gibson and it seems that there is no recourse in the courts for Gibson to even state their case.

With a judicial system as corrupt as what we are seeing, it would be helpful if the federal government applied that focus to corruption and fraud within the systems of government, but instead they orchestrated a huge SWAT team force and even flew in Marshals from around the nation to participate. What a waste of taxpayer dollars.

I say if they want to actually fight crime, they should begin with in house criminals. It would go a long way to returning this nation to some system of real justice instead of the phony justice and the crooked judges we see sign warrants for such illegal excursions of extortion.

That is how I see it and I just hope Gibson Guitars and all those other corporations that are suffering under such a tyrannical system of fake justice used to reward political favorites and reward criminals of the same kind for going along to get along.

It is time to stop the madness and putting the justice department under focus for their crimes is a good place to start. Getting rid of Eric Holder is exactly what this nations needs to return justice to those that can spell it let alone understand what it actually means. Eric Holder is the main criminal and the sooner he goes the better.

On a completely different point to the one I made before.
I was walking down the road after a night out, and found some nice raw wood in a skip,
me and a few workshop mates grabbed a few planks each and walked towards the flat.
We got stopped by the police, who asked how we acquired the wood, we said we found it.
They went on try and arrest us on 'theft by finding'.......
Only trying save a piece of wood from the scrapyard....