In the world of American guitars Gibson stands out like Harley-Davidson does in the American motorcycle world.

However, something else is standing out concerning Gibson, that of union thugs and thugocracy of the Obama-Holder Justice Department.

1962 was a crucial year in Beatles history. With Pete Best still on drums, the group had gone to Abbey Road for some test recordings in June and had been told a few home truths by the studio engineers and Mr. Martin. Engineer Norman Smith told Mark Lewisohn in The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions that the band were given “a long lecture about their equipment and what would have to be done about it if they were to become recording artists.”

Taking the recording studio advice to heart, George Harrison and John Lennon, remembering Tony Sheridan’s impressive Gibson ES-175, decided they needed some Gibson power and finesse of their own and both fancied a J-160E acoustic.

The J-160Es arrived just in time for the historic London recording sessions the next day, September 11, when at EMI Abbey Road Studio Two London, Lennon played his brand spanking new Gibson J-160E on the sessions for The Beatles’ first single.

Their record was released just three weeks later, on October 5th, 1962, on the Parlophone label. “Love Me Do” made it to #17 on the U.K singles chart. The Beatles had arrived.

But now, at the doorsteps of Gibson Guitar, federal agents raided Gibson factories in Tennessee last week and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. According to a government affidavit, Fish and Wildlife Service agents were investigating whether wood used in Gibson guitars was illegally imported from India.

“We believe the arrogance of federal power is impacting me personally, our company personally and the employees here in Tennessee, and it’s just plain wrong,” said Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz at a press conference last week.

Gibson Guitar accused the Justice Department of “bullying” and “harassment.” Juszkiewicz said the raids temporarily shut down the factories, costing the company money.

“Whatever the specious merits of the government’s investigation, the broader lesson is that federal regulatory authority is so expansive and vague, it enables corrupt bureaucrats to intimidate and punish nearly any honest business that falls under Washington’s crosshairs,” wrote a blogger on the conservative website RedState on Monday.

Other conservative websites have suggested a nefarious political motivation behind the raid, pointing to the fact that the Gibson CEO donated to Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee in 2007. According to campaign finance data on Open Secrets, Juszkiewicz donated $2000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN07) last year, as well as $1500 to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN). Juszkiewicz also has donated $10,000 to the Consumer Electronics Association, a PAC that contributed $92.5k to Republican candidates last year, as opposed to $72k to Democrats. (The CEA did, however, contribute more to Democrats in the 2008 election cycle.)

Big Hollywood reports Via Andrew Lawton at Landmark Report:

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 elections (though, to be fair, he did donate a whopping $750 to Republican Congressmen in the 90s.) 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.

Gibson’s press release claims that, while this incident marks the second raid of their facility in around two years, this is the first of the raids to cost the company time and resources, as they needed to shut down operations. It seems as though this was all for naught.

The release read:

The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.

On August 24, 2011, around 8:45 a.m. CDT, agents for the federal government executed four search warrants on Gibson’s facilities in Nashville and Memphis and seized several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. Gibson had to cease its manufacturing operations and send workers home for the day, while armed agents executed the search warrants. Gibson has fully cooperated with the execution of the search warrants.

Gibson’s facility wasn’t raided over allegations of tax evasion, charges of embezzlement, or even something as drab as child labor. It was raided over what the DOJ deems an inability to follow a vague domestic trade law in India (one that apparently the Indian government didn’t seem too concerned about enforcing) regarding a specific type of wood. Not illegal wood, just wood with obscenely specific procedural guidelines.

This is what tyranny looks like. Obama, Holder and the Democrats will stop at nothing to win reelection, to smear businesses not on board with Obama and the DNC even if it means openly raiding one company mirroring the practices of other companies. If you donate to and support Obama and his ilk it’s business as usual, if not, they will shut you down.

Yes, the Gibson guitar gently weeps because of injustice in America and the shredding of the US Constitution.

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In case you genuinely wish to light the fuse of a liberal Democrat, compare and contrast Barack Obama’s economic effectiveness subsequent to thirty months in office with that of Ronald Reagan. It is really not complementary for Mr. Obama.

Mr. Reagan approved the largest tax cut in history, along with a strategy regarding deregulation, fiscal discipline and spending controls. Mr. Obama, needless to say, provided us a $1 trillion spending stimulus.

Towards the end of the summer season of Reagan’s 3rd year in office, the US overall economy was zooming. GDP rate of growth had been 5% plus was speeding on the way to 7%, in fact 8% growth. In 1983 as well as ’84 productivity had been expanding so quick the greatest fear could be that the economic system might “overheat.” During the summer of 2011 we now have an economic climate limping around at scarcely 1% growth and from a number of signals on course towards a “double-dip” recession. At the end of Reagan’s 1st term in office, it was indeed Morning in America. Currently there’s dismal discussion of America in its twilight.

My personal objective isn’t additional Reagan idolatry, although my respect for the Gipper is immense, but to indicate the indisputable fact: A single plan for economic recovery was successful, while the other has not.

The actual Reagan school of thought would be to incentivize production – “supply side” of the economy – through minimizing restraints upon business enterprise expansion as well as investment. This had been accomplished by cutting marginal income tax rates, removing regulatory road blocks, and also reining in inflation which includes a more restrictive monetary strategy.

Keynesians during the early 1980s guaranteed the Reagan business expansion wouldn’t and couldn’t take place. Rapid development together with brand new jobs and dropping rates of inflation (4% during 1983 from 13% during 1980) happens to be an unfeasibility within Keynesian textbooks. When you boost demand, costs increase. Should you increase supply, just as Reagan did, costs decrease.

The Godfather belonging to the neo-Keynesians, Paul Samuelson, had been the head critic regarding the assumed follies of Reaganomics. He had written in a 1980 Newsweek publication that to kill the inflation beast would probably require “five to ten years of austerity,” together with unemployment of 8 or 9 percent as well as actual output of “barely 1 or 2 percent.”

Reaganomics had been regularly made fun of in the news, particularly during the 1982 economic downturn. That had been the year MIT economist Lester Thurow notoriously stated, “The engines of economic growth have shut down here and across the globe, and they are likely to stay that way for years to come.”

The overall economy would quickly take off for longer than eighty successive months. After that the Reagan naysayers announced the things they once believed could hardly succeed was really a textbook Keynesian business expansion powered through budget deficits of $200 billion annually, or perhaps around 4%-5% of Gross Domestic Product.

Robert Reich, currently with the University of California, at Berkeley, stated that “The recession of 1981-82 was so severe that the bounce back has been vigorous.” Paul Krugman authored in 2004 that the Reagan period was actually absolutely nothing unique due to the fact: “You see, rapid growth is normal when an economy is bouncing back from a deep slump.”

Mr. Krugman of Enron “fame” ended up being, finally, at the very least partially correct. Just how might Reagan not stand out following 4 years of Jimmy Carter’s personal economic malfeasance?

Speed ahead to the present and the erstwhile Barack Obama is managing deficits of $1.3 trillion, as well as 8%-9% of GDP. In the event the Reagan deficits pushed the ’1980s expansion, the Obama deficits, two times as large, ought to currently have the United States racing at Olympic momentum.

The left has currently accepted a fresh concept to elucidate exactly why Obama spending has not been effective. The resolution is actually included in the book “This Time Is Different,” by economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff. Released in ’09, this book investigates generations of recessions as well as depressions throughout the world. The writers determine that it requires nations significantly longer, half a dozen years or more, in order to endure economic downturns and also the bursting of asset bubbles compared to normal recessions.

Regardless, exactly what Reagan inherited had been most likely a far more serious economic crisis compared to what was initially confronting Obama. It’s not necessary to accept is as fact, however, from 1967 thorugh 1982 securities dropped two-thirds of their worth compared to inflation, based on a brand new review from Laffer Associates. This huge liquidation regarding wealth had been a first-class economic disaster. In addition to 20 percent mortgage loan rates of interest, evident during the 1970s, were an indication of a economic policy disaster.

You will discover something definitely distinct this time around. It isn’t really the type of turmoil Mr. Obama got, yet the dynamics associated with his policy solutions. Reagan utilized tax reductions along with other guidelines that sent the deficit to unknown peacetime heights.

However this borrowing funded an extraordinary as well as extended economic development plus a triumph versus the Evil Empire during the Cold War. Precisely what have Mr. Obama’s deficits achieved for the American people?

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I’ve read Michelle Obama’s college thesis and have concluded she is not the brightest light in any room.

Michelle Obama once said for the first time she is proud to be American but I’m not sure about that. I do know she definitely likes to spend the American taxpayers money.

I’ve always complained we put too much emphasis on the First Lady and will do the same if we have a First Husband or whatever he would be called. They aren’t elected by the voters so let’s limit their relevance unless, as Mrs. Obama is doing, feeding at the trough of the American taxpayer.

Now we’re not going to read about Michelle Obama’s extravaganza blowout in the American press, we have to find it on the Daily Mail online from the UK.

White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10 million of U.S. taxpayers’ money on vacations alone in the past year.

Branding her ‘disgusting’ and ‘a vacation junkie’, they say the 47-year-old mother-of-two has been indulging in five-star hotels, where she splashes out on expensive massages and alcohol.

The ‘top source’ told the National Enquirer: ‘It’s disgusting. Michelle is taking advantage of her privileged position while the most hardworking Americans can barely afford a week or two off work.

‘When it’s all added up, she’s spent more than $10million in taxpayers’ money on her vacations.’

The First Lady is believed to have taken 42 days of holiday in the past year, including a $375,000 break in Spain and a four-day ski trip to Vail, Colorado, where she spent $2,000 a night on a suite at the Sebastian hotel.

And the first family’s nine-day stay in Martha’s Vineyard is also proving costly, with rental of the Blue Heron Farm property alone costing an estimated $50,000 a week.

The source continued: ‘Michelle also enjoys drinking expensive booze during her trips. She favours martinis with top-shelf vodka and has a taste for rich sparking wines.

‘The vacations are totally Michelle’s idea. She’s like a junkie. She can’t schedule enough getaways, and she lives from one to the next – all the while sticking it to hardworking Americans.’

While the President and his wife do pay for some of their personal expenses from their own pocket, the website whitehousedossier.com says that the amount paid by the couple is ‘dwarfed by the overall cost to the public’.

The magazine also reported that Mrs Obama, whose fashion choices are widely followed, had been going on ‘wild shopping sprees’, much to the distress of her husband, who, its sources reveal, is ‘absolutely furious’ at his wife’s ‘out-of-control spending’.

The President has already come under fire this week over his decision to take a family vacation while millions of Americans are out of work and countless more are financially strapped.

FIRST LADY OF LUXURY TRAVEL: HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE OBAMAS’ LAVISH GETAWAYS OVER THE PAST 12 MONTHS

GIRLS’ TRIP TO SPAIN: AUGUST 2010

The exact cost is unclear as Mrs Obama and her 40 friends footed many personal expenses, such as hotels and meals themselves.

But the U.S. taxpayer would have paid for the First Lady’s 68-strong security detail, personal staff, and use of presidential jet Air Force Two.

Per diems for the secret service team runs at around $281 each – nearly $98,000 for the length of the summer break.

Use of Air Force Two, the Air Force version of a 757, comes in at $149,900 for the round trip. This does not include time on the ground.

Mrs Obama’s personal staff, of which there are an unknown amount and might cost considerably more per day, should also be taken into account.

CHRISTMAS BREAK IN HAWAII: DECEMBER 2010

According to the Hawaii Reporter, the bill for the $1.5m trip included:

$63,000 on an early flight bringing Mrs Obama and the children to Hawaii ahead of the President.
$1,000,000 on Mr Obama’s return trip from Washington on Air Force One.
$38,000 for the ‘Winter White House’ beach property rental.
$16,000 to rent nearby homes for Secret Service and Navy Seals.
$134,000 for 24 White House staff to stay at the Moana Hotel.
$251,000 in police overtime.
$10,000 for an ambulance to be on hand at all times

SKI TRIP TO VAIL: FEBRUARY 2011

Mrs Obama and her daughters stayed at the Sebastian hotel on Vail Mountain, where rooms cost more than $2,400 for multi-bedroom suites.

The family appear to have flown there on Air Force Two.

They were escorted to the resort by a motorcade of about a dozen vehicles, including 15 state and local law enforcement officers

SUMMER HOLIDAY ON MARTHA’S VINEYARD: AUGUST 2011

The Blue Heron Farm estate, where the Obama family are currently staying, rents for about $50,000 a week.

According to U.S. News and World Report, the Coast Guard is required to keep ships floating near the property, the presidential helicopter and jet remain at the ready and security agents will be on 24-hour duty.

If Michelle is so smart, graduating from Princeton and Harvard, why doesn’t she do something of substance if she really wishes to make an impression?

Answer – she’s unqualified at best and why work when you can act like Marie Antoinette and tell the American people to eat cake. Except Mrs. Obama is thumbing her nose at America telling us to eat excrement pie.

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