Just in case you haven't heard, the feds raided the Gibson Guitar Factory recently. NPR has the story:
Last week federal marshals raided the Gibson Guitar Corporation in Tennessee. It wasn't the first time. The government appears to be preparing to charge the famous builder of instruments with trafficking in illegally obtained wood. It's a rare collision of music and environmental regulation.
[...]
The raids at two Nashville facilities and one in Memphis recalled a similar raid in Nashville in November 2009, when agents seized a shipment of ebony from Madagascar. They were enforcing the Lacey Act, a century-old endangered species law that was amended in 2008 to include plants as well as animals. But Juszkiewicz says the government won't tell him exactly how — or if — his company has violated that law.
This immediately became a rallying cry for the TeaPublicans to cry about excessive government interference and job-killing federal regulations. Gibson has been raided by the feds before this last one, but no charges have been filed. Yet.
By the time Juszkiewicz (pronounced Juss-ka-witz) reached his office, agents were forensically imaging his computer and carting out boxes of paperwork and company hard drives. At the factories, agents were loading trucks with pallets of rosewood and ebony, guitars, guitar necks, computers and shipping documents.
It was the second time in the past two years Gibson had been raided by federal agents in search of illegal imported woods. A 2009 case hasn’t led to any charges against the 117-year-old guitar maker, although it is continuing.
In both instances, federal authorities spelled out in search warrants that they suspect the company was illegally importing protected hardwoods from rapidly dwindling rain forests to make prized Gibson guitars.
Juszkiewicz is milking his outrage for everything it's worth, accusing the government of harassing him and, of course, destroying jobs with their federal regulations.
Enter John Boehner, Speaker of the House, and the guy not enough in control of his own caucus to get them to show even a modicum of respect and make an appearance at tonight's joint session of Congress. Despite notable absences by members of the House and Senate, Boehner has invited 13 guests to the speech who, in his view, have been harmed by the federal government's "job-killing regulations." One of those guests is Henry Juszkiewicz.
