Interesting news about GIBSON.....>>>>

[Scott]

now THAT'S one UGLY guitar! .......

these are not.....

P-90 SG> Buzzontron.... I bet that sounds unreal.

Yeah Clay. That combination is amazing!!! Any of those SG's through that '65 tube VOX super berkeley also sound incredible.

[DucRyder]

I would expect the lawyers at the DOJ and the armed federal agents involved are paid an annual salary, rather then per Republican they raid? Agian the Lacey Act is a US law.

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Gibson employees don't deserve to be paid? Gibson employees are all Republicans? Lacey Act is a load of dookie used to try to make enforcing Indian TRADE laws here in the US seem to make sense. It has nothing to do with endangered wood being logged and everything to do with an Indian getting a job for planing and radiusing and finishing those fretboards. It's tax payer money used to enforce Indian TRADE law, not Indian endangered wood law.

The DOJ didn't have a case. Thats why they didnt take it to court. Even the Indians told them to piss off. If they did have a case they wouldn't have accepted the agreement with a pidly $300,000 fine and then GAVE THE WOOD BACK.


Not sure what George Washington has to do with the criminals currently and formerly holding office here recently. You'll have to forgive me I actually live here and pay taxes here. I guess George would've been disgusted at the taxation since he helped start a war over taxation from Britain.

I was born and raised, worked for many years and paid taxes not only for the privilege of living, but a separate extra tax just for the privilege of working in the beautiful city of Detroit. You remember us doncha? Obama saved Detroit (even though its now in bankruptcy) and slid Chrysler Financial into "ALLY bank" so private equity firm Cerebrus got paid off with TARP funds... And the rest sold to the unions and an Italian firm (Fiat). All on the taxpayer dime. Awesome!

9 Trillion dollars of debt for Guns and Butter under Bush. 8 trillion for "bailouts" under Obama and we have the lowest employment utilization rate in many decades. 100+% debt to GDP, the currency devalued and Gitmo is still open, Afghanistan is still going on, 15 permanent bases in Iraq and we drone bomb the rest. Yet these same people couldn't stop the Boston Marathon bombers EVEN AFTER THE RUSSIANS TIPPED THEM OFF.

Maybe it's because it's not your tax money, being thrown around like its toilet paper, or your currency devalued to the value of toilet paper... But I'm not really pleased with how shit gets done with MY tax money and this Gibson shit is just another of myriad examples.

[DucRyder]

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. On the right is the district I used to drive a delivery truck in before the city imploded and I was employed. In the center is the GM building including a lavish hotel and shopping center. Looks like they need some more taxpayer wages quick huh?

[peps1]

I would expect the lawyers at the DOJ and the armed federal agents involved are paid an annual salary, rather then per Republican they raid? Agian the Lacey Act is a US law.

Not sure what you're trying to say here.

It was a retort to your comment about how costly this was to the Tax payer, and my point is lawyers at the DOJ and the armed federal agents involved would have been paid the same wages (cost to the tax payer) regardless of if this raid had happened or not.

Not sure what George Washington has to do with the criminals currently and formerly holding office here recently. You'll have to forgive me I actually live here and pay taxes here. I guess George would've been disgusted at the taxation since he helped start a war over taxation from Britain.

I alluded to George Washing in reference to what a party political issue this whole Gibson issue has become...He was famously vehemently anti party politics, among other things saying:

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

I think there is a argument to be made that someones bias to a political party could be more blinding to the facts in this case then my geographic location? I'm not 100% sure what other data I would have access to about Gibson's admission to guilt by living on the other side of the Atlantic.?

I agree with many of the points you made in the rest off your post outside of the Gibson raid

[DucRyder]

So if Gibson was guilty why did the DOJ return the wood?

I haven't read the blogs you're referring to. I'd assume anyone on the pro-DOJ side wouldn't be crowing about it on their blog since it was such a waste of money.

As far as DOJ lawyer/goon squad salaries being paid regardless, I guess we could have paid those six digit lawyer salaries and costs for all the assets like government buildings, computers, vehicles, and those scary AR-16 weapons and bullets for the DOJ people to go investigate cow farts. Now don't get me wrong, they already have a team with the USDA studying said cow farts, but using said assets to investigate Indian Trade laws will just have to do for now in the wasted endeavors using tax payer funds category.

I don't think bias has much to do with party since I'm not involved with either. I'd say it has more to do with skin in the game. I have 1/3 of my wages in the game. You have 0.

[peps1]

I'd say it has more to do with skin in the game. I have 1/3 of my wages in the game. You have 0.

Again, not too sure in how this is a hurdle to me understanding the Gibson case?

[DucRyder]

It has to do with your allusion to bias. You made a comment about bias, I retorted that I think your bias is it isn't your hard earned money being wasted.

The Gibson case didn't go to court. The DOJ gave the wood back. I see that as a loss for me the taxpayer since I foot the bill for these dipshits to spend millions for what? Attempted Enforcement of Indian trade laws while they damage a domestic business.... And then can't even make a case. They cost the domestic company 2.7 million dollars that could've gone into the economy just to fight a frivolous case.... And we foot the bill for this foolishness, you do not. Maybe that's why you aren't outraged, it isn't your money.

The Gibson case is just the cherry on a festering pile of profligate spending.

[peps1]

Gibson had the choice to go to court and prove they were innocent, but they chose to admit wrong doing and pay the fines. The DOJ gave SOME of the seized wood back that was not imported illegally.

If you want to blame someone for the costs to taxpayer, why not blame the people braking the laws?

And the conservation of Illegally logged protected species doesn't mater to you?

[DucRyder]

There's an Act in the Senate to change the Lacey Act because of this raid on Gibson. It illustrates one of a myriad ways we waste time, money and effort here in the land of the free.

http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/ ... us-senate/

[DucRyder]

I'm reading Gibson getting ALL the wood back.