Gibson Guitars VERSUS the DOJ

Gibson Guitars CEO on DOJ bullies: “Smacks of something from an Orwell novel”
Michelle Malkin on Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 9:08am

Two significant items to add to the Gibson Guitars vs. Obama DOJ story that we noted on Friday.


Since the WSJ first reported on the famed instrument-maker’s battle with the feds over rare wood used in its guitars last week, people across the country have rallied to Gibson’s side. The company’s CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz has publicized his legal plight –and the heavy-handed, botched enforcement tactics of a Justice Department bent on mis-applying foreign laws to American workers. http://www.redstate.com/aglanon/2011...-export-labor/

1) Andrew Lawton and Landmark Report note that Juszkiewicz has donated to GOP candidates, while one of his leading competitors “is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of election cycles.”

2) Stacy McCain has the transcript and Ben Howe at RedState also spotlights Juszkiewicz’s recent KMJ interview in which the CEO revealed that the feds asserted in a court pleading that Gibson would be better off shipping their manufacturing labor overseas to Madagascar (be sure to click on the link to listen to the interview). http://theothermccain.com/2011/08/31...foreign-labor/

Howe adds: http://www.redstate.com/aglanon/2011...-export-labor/

Quote:

---

So the government attacked them in the first place by citing obscure regulations that probably weren’t violated about importation of wood. Now they are suggesting that all these problems would go away if they simply exported their labor.

Had it simply been said in passing by an agent, one could write it off as a lone sarcastic agent, trying to push buttons. But the fact that they actually wrote it in the pleading is a level of hubris that goes well beyond over zealous law enforcement officials and passes straight into what can easily be translated as an out of control and corrupt targeting of an American corporation.

---

When President Obama gives his jobs speech next week, let’s hope he has an answer for why our government would want to force and coerce corporations to send jobs overseas.
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama...porters-2011-8


The WSJ has a more extensive follow-up today to Eric Felten’s original Friday item on the Gibson raid. Read the whole thing. A snippet:

Quote:

---

Federal agents first raided Gibson factories in November 2009 and were back again Aug. 24, seizing guitars, wood and electronic records. Gene Nix, a wood product engineer at Gibson, was questioned by agents after the first raid and told he could face five years in jail. “Can you imagine a federal agent saying, ‘You’re going to jail for five years’ and what you do is sort wood in the factory?” said Mr. Juszkiewicz, recounting the incident. “I think that’s way over the top.” Gibson employees, he said, are being “treated like drug criminals.”

Mr. Nix hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

…The government has focused on a March 2009 shipment of ebony from Madagascar intended for guitar fingerboards. Madagascar law bars the export of certain unfinished wood products, according to both Gibson and the government. Gibson says the ebony had been cut into pieces and that local officials approved the export as a legal sale of finished goods.

U.S. officials described the wood as “sawn timber” and said Madagascar officials were “defrauded” by a local exporter about the nature of the product.

Gibson says the government is trying to “second guess” the Madagascar government. “The U.S. government’s startling position smacks of something from an Orwell novel,” Gibson said in a July 15 court filing in federal district court in Nashville.

---

One last detail of note: The article opens by observing that Gibson’s past alliances with left-wing enviro groups like Greenpeace didn’t stop the eco-nitwits from going after the company.



Here’s an article I found touting Gibson’s partnership with Greenpeace and other instrument makers to “green” their instruments. http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...-music-greener



There’ an object lesson here for other businesses small and large: Don’t delude yourself into thinking you can buy permanent immunity from Big Green or Big Government. You can’t.

Guitar Frets: Environmental Enforcement Leaves Musicians in Fear
By ERIC FELTEN

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...sj_share_tweet

Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson's chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company's manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. "The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier," he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.

It isn't the first time that agents of the Fish and Wildlife Service have come knocking at the storied maker of such iconic instruments as the Les Paul electric guitar, the J-160E acoustic-electric John Lennon played, and essential jazz-boxes such as Charlie Christian's ES-150. In 2009 the Feds seized several guitars and pallets of wood from a Gibson factory, and both sides have been wrangling over the goods in a case with the delightful name "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms."

The question in the first raid seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests, such as the Madagascar ebony that makes for such lovely fretboards. And if Gibson did knowingly import illegally harvested ebony from Madagascar, that wouldn't be a negligible offense. Pete Lowry, ebony and rosewood expert at the Missouri Botanical Garden, calls the Madagascar wood trade the "equivalent of Africa's blood diamonds." But with the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle.

It isn't just Gibson that is sweating. Musicians who play vintage guitars and other instruments made of environmentally protected materials are worried the authorities may be coming for them next.

If you are the lucky owner of a 1920s Martin guitar, it may well be made, in part, of Brazilian rosewood. Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution.

John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says "there's a lot of anxiety, and it's well justified." Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, "I don't go out of the country with a wooden guitar."

The tangled intersection of international laws is enforced through a thicket of paperwork. Recent revisions to 1900's Lacey Act require that anyone crossing the U.S. border declare every bit of flora or fauna being brought into the country. One is under "strict liability" to fill out the paperwork—and without any mistakes.

It's not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What's the bridge made of? If it's ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge? Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar's headstock bone, or could it be ivory? "Even if you have no knowledge—despite Herculean efforts to obtain it—that some piece of your guitar, no matter how small, was obtained illegally, you lose your guitar forever," Prof. Thomas has written. "Oh, and you'll be fined $250 for that false (or missing) information in your Lacey Act Import Declaration."

Consider the recent experience of Pascal Vieillard, whose Atlanta-area company, A-440 Pianos, imported several antique Bösendorfers. Mr. Vieillard asked officials at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species how to fill out the correct paperwork—which simply encouraged them to alert U.S. Customs to give his shipment added scrutiny.

There was never any question that the instruments were old enough to have grandfathered ivory keys. But Mr. Vieillard didn't have his paperwork straight when two-dozen federal agents came calling.

Facing criminal charges that might have put him in prison for years, Mr. Vieillard pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of violating the Lacey Act, and was handed a $17,500 fine and three years probation.

Given the risks, why don't musicians just settle for the safety of carbon fiber? Some do—when concert pianist Jeffrey Sharkey moved to England two decades ago, he had Steinway replace the ivories on his piano with plastic.

Still, musicians cling to the old materials. Last year, Dick Boak, director of artist relations for C.F. Martin & Co., complained to Mother Nature News about the difficulty of getting elite guitarists to switch to instruments made from sustainable materials. "Surprisingly, musicians, who represent some of the most savvy, ecologically minded people around, are resistant to anything about changing the tone of their guitars," he said.

You could mark that up to hypocrisy—artsy do-gooders only too eager to tell others what kind of light bulbs they have to buy won't make sacrifices when it comes to their own passions. Then again, maybe it isn't hypocrisy to recognize that art makes claims significant enough to compete with environmentalists' agendas.

Guitar-Makers Making Music "Greener"
How industry leaders are ensuring the future of the environment and their business
February 26, 2009

http://www.scientificamerican.com/me...-greener_1.jpg

Dear EarthTalk: I’m a musician and am curious about what the guitar industry is doing to ensure that the wood it uses is not destroying forests.
-- Chris Wiedemann, Ronkonkoma, NY

Though it has not received a lot of press to date, the industry is on the case—in part for the sake of its own survival, and thanks to the hard work of a handful of green groups, guitar makers and wood suppliers.

In 1996, Gibson, one of the world’s premier guitar brands, became the first in the industry to make some of its instruments using wood certified as “sustainably harvested” by the non-profit Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). By 2006, some 42 percent of the wood purchased by the company for its Gibson USA electric guitars came from FSC-certified sources. By 2012, Gibson expects to increase that to 80 percent.

Gibson isn’t the only instrument maker greening up its footprint: Taylor, Fender, Martin, Guild, Walden and Yamaha, along with Gibson, have signed on as partners with the Music Wood Coalition, a project of the leading environmental non-profit Greenpeace. The coalition, which is also made up of a half-dozen tonewood suppliers, hopes its efforts will protect threatened forest habitats and safeguard the future of trees critical in manufacturing instruments of all kinds. Eco-advocates and guitar makers alike fear that the spruce, maple, mahogany, ebony and rosewood trees that have been the foundation of the wooden instrument industry for years are being cut down faster than they can be replaced.

The coalition’s initial focus is on halting the aggressive deforestation going on in Southeast Alaska. Greenpeace has been in talks with Sealaska Timber Corporation, one of the biggest logging operations in Alaska, to get 190,000 acres of the company’s privately owned Southeast Alaska timberland—a prime source of Sitka spruce, a wood coveted by instrument makers for its use in guitar soundboards—certified by FSC. Greenpeace Forest Campaign Coordinator Scott Paul views getting these forestlands certified as an important win-win opportunity for Sealaska, which wants to maintain a viable income stream, and for instrument makers who need a dependable source of resonant, durable and beautiful woods.

“These [private] lands are going to be logged,” says Paul. But with FSC oversight, he says, the forests can be managed sustainably. And the process is already underway, with the first part of the two-step certification process already completed. “Our goal is to create a demand…for FSC certified ‘good wood’ as the only acceptable music wood from the North American coastal temperate rainforest,” adds Paul.

Guitar makers know that the woods they’ve used for years might not continue to be had at the quantities and low prices they’re used to, but they are willing to adapt: “Alternative woods are the key to successful guitars,” says Bob Taylor of Taylor Guitars , which has been a pioneer in the use of exotic and sustainably harvested tonewoods in their high quality acoustic guitars. “But the market needs to go there all together.”

Tradition is a huge driving force, agrees Paul. “Players expect a spruce soundboard, a mahogany neck, an ebony or rosewood bridge.” There needs to be a leap of faith in changing markets, he says, where people are becoming more environmentally conscious.

CONTACTS: Gibson USA, http://www.gibson.com ; Forest Stewardship Council, http://www.fscus.org ; Greenpeace Music Wood Coalition, http://www.musicwood.org ; Taylor Guitars, http://www.taylorguitars.com

Could it be because Gibson’s non-union?

http://ibdst.blogspot.com/2011/08/gibson-blues.html

See The Gibson Guitar Raid at Human Events for more background on this lunacy – read the whole thing if your blood pressure can stand it.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=45785

A dear friend is a guitarist, and he told me that musicians who own vintage instruments have to travel with documentation for their guitars that proves their provenance. Otherwise they can be subject to hefty fines and confiscation of their instruments.

It’s no laughing matter to a musician.



I had a huge suspicion that this was also the reason why Toyota execs were made to suffer Congress’s hectoring and browbeating for the sudden acceleration issues they were having.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/08/auto...port/index.htm

Obama, LACEY Act Shut Down American Business
by Conservative Action Alerts on February 29, 2012 · 0 comments Print This Post

More than 14 million Americans are unemployed, and it looks like Obama wants to increase those numbers by closing down Gibson Guitar factories in Tennessee in order to send jobs overseas.

Armed agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Homeland Security raided Gibson Guitar corporate headquarters and four of their factories, and confiscated 24 pallets of Indian rosewood and ebony, as well as guitars (more than $500,000 in products) and computer files.

The raid cost Gibson more than $1 million in lost profits, because the company was forced to shut down production and send hundreds of workers home – after they were interrogated by Homeland Security.

Yet to this date, NO CHARGES HAVE BEEN FILED. Obama’s DOJ is stalling and forcing Gibson guitar out of business … or at least, overseas.

Many have speculated that Obama is attacking Gibson because their CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, is a big contributor to Republican candidates…AND they operate non-union manufacturing plants.

This might sound far-fetched at first, until one learns that Gibson Guitar’s top competitors — who are unionized and big supporters of Obama – have not been raided, and they, too, import the same products from India.

Obama and his rogue Department of Justice cannot continue to expand their police state and eliminate businesses that don’t necessarily agree with their politics. Fax Congress now and tell them to investigate this attack on Gibson Guitars and and help save American businesses!

Why is Obama worried about wood importation? Ostensibly, because of the Lacey Act of 1900, which was originally passed to regulate trade in bird feathers used for hats, amended in 2008 to cover wood and other plant products.

The U.S. Lacey Act includes the provision that Anyone who imports into the United States, or exports out of the United States, illegally harvested plants or products made from illegally harvested plants, including timber, as well as anyone who exports, transports, sells, receives, acquires or purchases such products in the United States, may be prosecuted. In any prosecution under the Lacey Act, the burden of proof of a violation rests on the government.

Since the wood imported by Gibson is not finished by workers in India, the feds are claiming that the product is illegal to import into the U.S. — not because of U.S. law, but because Obama’s Justice Department wants to interpret India’s law whichever way it sees fit, in order to push the Administration’s agenda…which we have to assume is kicking businesses who don’t support his agenda OUT OF THE COUNTRY.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has now introduced an amendment called the FOCUS Act (Freedom from Over-Criminalization and Unjust Seizures Act of 2012). It will remove every reference to “foreign law” from the Lacey Act and substitute current federal penalties with civil penalties.

Quote:

---

“It is long overdue that the Lacey Act be revised to address its broad overcriminalization. We have seen the damage this extremely broad and vague law has done to American companies and it is time to change its language to better serve Americans and the American jobs it threatens.”

---

Congress needs to pass this amendment and support American businesses. Obama and his rogue Department of Justice cannot continue to expand their police state and eliminate businesses that don’t necessarily agree with their politics. Fax Congress now and tell them to support the FOCUS Act and save American businesses!

According to a court filing made by the Justice Department, Gibson is being told by the Administration to move its manufacturing overseas … to Madagascar.

“I think they’re taking the position that we should be shifting these jobs overseas,” Bruce Mitchell, the chief legal counsel for Gibson told Fox News. “We have – probably 40 people in our factory here who are doing the inlays into the fingerboard. … If all that was to be done over in India, then … those jobs would be lost.”

Gibson factory workers were told that they could face criminal prosecution for sorting wood in the Gibson factory.

“We feel totally abused. 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,” Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said in a statement released to the media.

Congress needs to pass this amendment and support American businesses. Obama and his rogue Department of Justice cannot continue to expand their police state and eliminate businesses that don’t necessarily agree with their politics. Fax Congress now and tell them to support the FOCUS Act and save American businesses!

The charges against Gibson do seem rather trumped-up. The wood that was seized is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier and is FSC Controlled. FSC standards require the wood not be illegally harvested and not be harvested in violation of traditional and civil rights.

Gibson is suing the government in Federal Court in Nashville to get their property back. (And still, the government hasn’t charged the company with any wrongdoing.) Juszkiewicz says that Gibson employees are being “treated like drug criminals.”

At a time when Obama is claiming that he wants to create jobs, he is doing everything he can to eliminate Gibson’s American workforce.

AND AGAIN, WHAT IS INTERESTING is that Gibson’s big competitor…who uses the same kind of wood…HAS NOT BEEN RAIDED, SHUT DOWN, OR CHARGED WITH ANYTHING.

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) says “Gibson Guitar is at the heart of this jobs debate, and is an example of exactly why President Obama has it wrong when it comes to getting our economy back on track. Maybe if the President spent more time finding real solutions to empowering small business owners and less time hindering businesses like Gibson, we’d see more new jobs being created.”

The government’s encroachment of our rights will continue as long as we fail to act! They are violating the Fourth Amendment rights of individuals and destroying American businesses. Is it all for political reasons? Or is it simply Obama’s expanding police state?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jolie Rouge

AND AGAIN, WHAT IS INTERESTING is that Gibson’s big competitor…who uses the same kind of wood…HAS NOT BEEN RAIDED, SHUT DOWN, OR CHARGED WITH ANYTHING.

---

Gibson settles with Justice Department over exotic woods

Posted at 8:23 pm on August 6, 2012 by Twitchy Staff | View Comments

Quote:

---

The Hubris Report@hubrisreport

More Liberal Insanity - Justice hits Gibson Guitars with $300G fine over fingerboards

---

http://twitchy.com/2012/08/06/gibson...-exotic-woods/


Favorite

While the Department of Justice drags its feet on an investigation into American guns crossing the border into Mexico, the nation can rest at ease knowing that Eric Holder and crew stand vigilant over exotic woods falling into the hands of American workers. Gibson Guitars, raided by the Feds in 2009 and again last August, has agreed to a settlement involving a $300,000 fine and a $50,000 donation to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz claimed the raids were bullying by the federal government. ”We are one company manufacturing in the United States that’s hiring people, that is succeeding exporting, and yet the government is spending millions of dollars on this issue,” he said last August. The bullying charge has struck a chord with Gibson supporters.

Gibson’s chief legal counsel argued that under the terms of the Lacey Act, the exotic woods would be perfectly legal to import were they finished in India by Indian workers and imported as “finished.”


comments

A company using wood that is already cut and shipped is worthy of an intense investigation by multiple federal agencies.

A US Border Patrol Officer gunned down by illegal weapons, sent to Mexican drug cartels by the people who were supposed to look out for him is only worthy of an intense cover-up.

..

Last time I looked, FORCED "donations" were called extortion. SHAME.

..

The Obama queers would need to have morals before they could feel shame.

When I first heard about this story about Gibson Guitar and couldn't believe our government could do that and would do that.
Now it makes perfect sense. When will enough be enough.

Does that Gibson Guitar raid make more sense now?
posted at 11:01 am on May 26, 2013 by Jazz Shaw

An editorial at Investors Business Daily may wind up being filed under 'How Did I Miss This One?' Following the recent revelations of cases where the administration appears to have used the muscle of the federal government to go after its political enemies, IBD takes a walk down memory lane to the strange case of Gibson Guitars and the federal raids on their facilities for alleged illegal importing of exotic woods used in their products. They reach one provocative conclusion. http://news.investors.com/ibd-editor...ion.htm?p=full

Quote:

---

The inexplicable raid nearly two years ago on a guitar maker for using allegedly illegal wood that its competitors also used was another targeting by this administration of its political enemies…

Interestingly, one of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Co. According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood,” which is the exact same wood in at least 10 of Gibson’s guitars. So why were they not also raided and their inventory of foreign wood seized?

---

Well, let’s see… maybe C.F. Martin was getting their supplies from a properly regulated source? No....

Did they fill out some forms that Gibson forgot to submit? No… so what could it be?

Quote:

---

Grossly underreported at the time was the fact that Gibson’s chief executive, Henry Juszkiewicz, contributed to Republican politicians. Recent donations have included $2,000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and $1,500 to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

By contrast, Chris Martin IV, the Martin & Co. CEO, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee over the past couple of election cycles.

“We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted,” Juszkiewicz said at the time, adding the matter “could have been addressed with a simple contact (from) a caring human being representing the government. Instead, the government used violent and hostile means.”

---

The end of that story was a travesty, with Gibson being forced to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in a settlement where there was no finding of criminal action just so they could get back to business. At the time of the judgement, our own Mary Katharine Ham covered the story and found a lot wrong with it, but even she didn’t seem to suspect this situation. And in retrospect, it doesn’t seem all that surprising.

While all this was going on, there was plenty of reason to suspect that there was politics of some sort involved. With Democrats in control of the White House and the Senate, it didn’t seem much of a stretch to think that the eco-warriors were in full throated, chest thumping mode and they would be pushing the limits to show how much they were doing to save the planet. The Gibson story, with its hook of endangered forests and evil manufacturing giants stripping the land, was a perfect fit. But I don’t think many of us imagined that even the Obama administration would be so blatant as to simply launch a police state style attack on a company which supported their enemies while leaving friendly, Democrat donating competitors alone. Or at least I didn’t.

Is this paranoid, tinfoil hat territory? I assure you that Obama supporters reading this will declare it to be exactly that. But given what we’ve been finding in the news recently, is it really that far fetched? Not any more.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/2...ore-sense-now/


http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/2...ore-sense-now/

Are you ready for the Regulation Nation?
Posted on August 16 2013

http://www.conservative-daily.com/wp.../waterline.png

While you and I are being distracted by daily Obama scandals and Congressional infighting, the Environmental Protection Agency is working, quietly behind the scenes, to impose huge taxes, regulations and alterations onto the American people based on a phony climate change agenda.

These changes won’t only affect your pocketbook, but they will stretch into your job and your house, and every aspect of your private life in order to “motivate” you to live differently, in a “more sustainable” way. How will they do this? Easy, under oppressive taxation, without representation, and certainly without any real freedom for the American family.

The Democrats are telling us we are in a CRISIS,…and we must ACT QUICKLY in order to SAVE the WORLD!

We are not in a crisis and we do not need to act, yet again, without considering all the consequences!

Obama tells us he is not going to wait on Congress to do anything and he intends to bypass them. We know he will try to shove this agenda through just as his did Obamacare. His new EPA chief Gina McCarthy just echoed his thinking in Colorado on Wednesday. She told the young, liberal crowd in Boulder that Obama isn’t going to wait on Congress to act on climate change. She said that President Obama and the EPA will just create the federal plan and implement it through regulations — without Congress, without the American people. People cheered, they actually cheered this TYRANNY!

In 2011, President Obama said,

Quote:

---

"We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times…and then just expect every other country is going to say OK.”

---

For years, climate change was the FIGHT du jour but most of us didn’t pay much attention because we were busy working and taking care of our families. However, not paying attention is where we went wrong! The special interest groups involved in the climate change hysteria mean everything they say, they are well financed and will not let Congress or the American people, get in their way.

We didn’t see it coming when water conservation began. We all want to be good stewards of our planet. We rolled our eyes when cities started refusing to carry plastic bags in stores so we started carrying our own. We thought it was irrational when the government backed the failed Chevy Volt with American tax dollars…

But even after the billions of tax payer dollars that have been lost on green schemes, President Obama says he will double down on spending tax payer dollars on green!

He is using THE CORRUPT EPA TO force behavior through unconstitutional taxes and penalties!

Green energy, green building, green living, sustainability…these are buzzwords used by the special interest groups to make us think, the American people somehow are the world’s problem.

In March of 2013, the president addressed people at the Argonne National Laboratory and proposed to spend $2 billion on an “Energy Security Trust Fund” for renewable fuel research. The president went on to promise “to shift our cars entirely off oil.”

“Shift our cars entirely off oil” … Just exactly what are Obama’s energy plans? The New York Times reported, matter-of-factly, that although the president “has vowed to make addressing climate change a priority in his second term…he has provided only scant details on how he intends to act.” SCANT DETAILS? Somehow that doesn’t seem to address how we will get entirely off oil and how much it will cost.

While we were watching President Hollywood back in March, all major media neglected to report that on the same day as the Argonne speech, the Department of Energy released a series of coordinated reports named “Transportation Energy Futures.” This is a project set up by the DOE to explore strategies to curb American’s greenhouse gas emissions up to 80 percent by 2050! And the DOE is working with Argonne.

Today it may be the coal power plants, and fracking that are the evil energies. What will be the target—tomorrow? WHO KNOWS!

The well-connected environmentalists want us panicked about global warming so they can make us feel guilty because “It’s our fault!”

Michael Oppenheimer of the Environmental Defense Fund says, "The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can't let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization, we have in the US.”

The environmental special interest groups scream “climate change is responsible for gun violence”. They yell climate change is responsible for devastating hurricanes. They even try to create fake meat in labs so one day we can do away with cows because they create so much methane gas it interferes with the ozone layer.

I don’t know about you but I do NOT want to eat fake meat and lose my Second Amendment rights. Nor will I be forced to live in an urban sustainability dwelling based on false science and elitist attitudes coming out of the United Nations!

But, Obama is making climate change legislation HIS priority. He sees a very clear way to redistribute wealth, using fear, big government, and faulty science. It’s not about “science,” nor is it about “saving the planet.” Remember, we reported back in July that the EPA is going to play a very big role in his second administration. So buckle your seatbelts, it’s going to be a very bumpy ride!

As a side note—Obama’s Democrat Campaign Appendage—Organizing for Action, scheduled a HUGE climate change rally in Georgetown last Tuesday. Guess what? NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON ATTENDED. Ironically, the media barely reported on it and mostly said it was because of the weather (rain). In reality, it is because hard working Americans care about families, jobs and college for their kids.

Of course, the media is more than happy to promote this agenda. In yet another tiresome lie, The Associated Press GOT BUSTED for publishing a FAKE PHOTO of a lake they say formed at the North Pole due to global warming. THE PHOTO WAS A LIE.

Not only was there no lake—it was a small melt-pond—but because the monitoring station had drifted hundreds of miles, the area photographed wasn’t even at the North Pole!

A lie will travel halfway around the world before the truth even puts its shoes on.

And special interest groups don’t care if they are lying to you or not—it’s not about you, or me. It’s about their agenda being implemented, no matter the cost.

“The end, justifies the means.”

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” – Christine Stewart, Former Canadian Minister of the Environment

Maurice Strong, the organizer for the first United Nations Earth Climate Summit. said, "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"

There it is, right there for us to see: THE AGENDA. The United Nations, Agenda 21.

Emails have surfaced from scientists desperately trying to explain away the fact that they can’t place the blame of global warming on humans, and in most cases, they can’t even say the earth is warming! Scientists who dared speak the truth have been intimidated and fired.

The truth, wildfires have decreased globally by 15%. And a recent study indicates “there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.” We haven’t had warming for 15 years and many scientists are actually predicting an ice age that could last up to 250 years!

About a week ago, John Casey, a former White House and NASA advisor and climate author said, “Now that the Sun has entered a state of ‘solar hibernation’ and is cutting back on the energy by which it warms the Earth, a new and potentially dangerous decades-long drop in global temperatures has begun,” he warned.

Now, what do they think THEY are going to do about the solar hibernation? Whatever it is, I’m sure it will cost tax payers MILLIONS!

Wealthy and well-connected, George Soros has money, influence and a voice with Media Matters. He ridiculed Casey in the media calling him a scam artist—all because he isn’t towing the climate change line. Nevermind the truth and the string of emails uncovered proving climate change “scientists” were covering up data and manipulating facts in order to continue the global warming LIE.

Obama’s WAR ON COAL

President Obama’s policies are created to unfairly encourage “the green energy market” using our tax dollars, while he lines the pockets of his “environmental-Nazi” friends.

In Georgetown this June, the president launched another comprehensive plan on climate change policy. If you listen to his words, it sounded like a war against fossil fuels and especially the evil coal industry. He was just restating what he told us in 2008 when he warned prices would necessarily sky-rocket and eventually, bankrupt anyone who tried to build a coal power plant.

How can bankrupting coal miners, their families, their towns, cities and states, possibly be the answer to our economic crisis? Reports say that if implemented, a plan like this could close as many as 288 coal plants across 32 states. In a report, the Washington Post even conceded that the president’s policies on climate change will increase consumers’ electricity rates.

Also in June, CNNMoney and Bankrate.com both reported that roughly 76% of people are living paycheck-to-paycheck, with little to no emergency saving.

How will the working poor pay for this artificial increase in prices?

TAX PAYER FUNDED LOANS

Federal plans ‘urge’ investment in geothermal, solar and wind power, and will provide $8 billion in federal loans to assist in these renewables. Obama wants to speed up the permitting process for wind and solar while he’s basically stopped new oil and gas permits on federal lands. And again, when Obama can’t get his way on the Cap & Trade law, he goes around Congress and the American people, directly to the EPA, and sticks it to the American people with FEDERAL REGULATIONS.

And, if you disagree with the president’s policies – you are intimidated and accused of being a racist or a bigot!

DELAYING THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE

President Obama said the pipeline should only be approved if the project would not “significantly exacerbate” greenhouse gas pollution. And he says this despite the fact even the State Department found “NO SIGNIFICANT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT.”

Yes, I know you are surprised: the most transparent administration in history is hiding something from you? His appointees at the EPA are dodging the truth and are furiously working to overhaul our entire culture based on sketchy climate change lies.

They want you to believe that Americans have too much, and we should be ashamed of it. They want people to believe if someone is wealthy, it must mean someone else is poor because of it!

You’ll be hearing much more about THE HAVES AND THE HAVE NOTS and it is being used to divide Americans, yet again.

Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), who has spoken out about Gina McCarthy’s as head of the EPA said, “I have serious concerns about how the current EPA operates. We can’t afford another administrator who bypasses Congress and rolls out more red tape that discourages job creation. I’m going to take a very close look at Ms. McCarthy’s experience at the EPA and her vision for the agency.”

Remember also; the EPA is the organization that Lisa Jackson manages. She was the one with a fake email address to conduct EPA business, because she didn’t want the public to know exactly what she was up to.

And now, new chief McCarthy is facing a lawsuit by the Competitive Enterprise Institute over text messages she sent as an “alternative” to work-related communications.

Obama, the NSA, the IRS and the administration work in the shadows so you will have no information, no recourse and no opportunity to fight back.

Gotta keep the people in the dark. (And that pun is almost intended—oh, wait until they FORCE YOU to turn off your lights to save the planet)!

Stop the climate change lie. Stop Obama from redistributing YOUR WEALTH to other countries. Tell Congress to do their job of legislating and end the EPA’s reign over the American people!

There is no telling how many individual rights and freedoms we will lose to those who are hell-bent on implementing a global society of “sustainability” based on FALSE science (but BIG dollars for the well-connected and friends of the government).

Obama, the EPA, and climate change special interest groups are going to run all over us and try and control our lives, regulation by regulation, nudge by nudge –unless we stop them. Environmental Nazi’s want us to feel helpless, they want us to think there is nothing we can do.

We are here to tell them that is not the case! We need your voice so we become so loud they have no choice but to hear us and to LISTEN to us.

How will the sustainability lie change your life? I don’t want to wait and see, do you?

http://www.conservative-daily.com/20...lation-nation/

Quote:

---

"We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times…and then just expect every other country is going to say OK.”

---

This from a man who has flown Air Force One across the country for a three hour speech... and has had his favorite pizza flown in - at taxpayers expense - from Chicago to DC.

Quote:

---

It's not enough to know that the body of your old guitar is made of spruce and maple: What's the bridge made of? If it's ebony, do you have the paperwork to show when and where that wood was harvested and when and where it was made into a bridge? Is the nut holding the strings at the guitar's headstock bone, or could it be ivory? "Even if you have no knowledge—despite Herculean efforts to obtain it—that some piece of your guitar, no matter how small, was obtained illegally, you lose your guitar forever," Prof. Thomas has written. "Oh, and you'll be fined $250 for that false (or missing) information in your Lacey Act Import Declaration."

---

California ivory ban moves one step closer to law
[I]San Francisco Chronicle By Melody Gutierrez
3 days ago[I]


SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers voted Wednesday to expand a ban on elephant ivory so it could no longer be bought or sold in the state regardless of when it was first imported.

The legislation removes an exemption that has allowed for ivory imported before 1977 to be exempt from state laws banning the product. The exemption made the current ban nearly unenforceable since it’s difficult to determine the age of ivory without carbon dating and DNA. “We are on the verge of a major achievement,” said Peter LaFontaine, campaign officer for the International Fund for Animal Welfare. “It’s days like this that make me hopeful for the future of these species. California has one of the bigger markets in the country, so California is a major domino to fall to restrict illegal sales.”

The Senate passed the bill 26-13. AB96 returns to the Assembly, where it previously passed 62-14, before heading to Gov. Jerry Brown.

If passed and signed by Brown, the expanded ban goes into effect July 1, 2016.

Under Fish, Wildlife

The Department of Fish and Wildlife would be charged with enforcing the restrictions under AB96, which was authored by Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, and Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens (Los Angeles County).

“Ninety-six elephants are killed every day for their ivory — translating to 35,000 deaths each year,” Atkins said in a statement after the bill passed the Senate. “This species loss is unsustainable and African elephants are being poached at a higher rate than they are being born, which will result in their extinction.”

The ivory trade is particularly prevalent in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Los Angeles, as well as New York City. The material is often used for carved figurines.

An investigation by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that ivory from newly killed elephants was being treated with material that made it look older as a way to get around bans on new imports.

$10,000 fine

Under the California bill, the purchase or sale of elephant ivory or rhino horn would become a misdemeanor and subject to a $10,000 per violation fine. New York and New Jersey passed similar legislation last year to prohibit the ivory and rhino-horn trade.

“We are seeing a poaching crisis that has the potential to impact an entire species of elephants and rhinos,” Lara said in a statement. “We are one step closer to taking decisive action to prevent the harmful and illegal act of poaching to protect conservation efforts and help protect these delicate creatures.”

The bill exempts musical instruments with less than 20 percent ivory and antiques with less than 5 percent ivory.

Numerous artists who work with ivory opposed the bill, saying it would hurt their livelihood. The National Rifle Association also opposed the bill, saying gun collectors have firearms made with ivory features, such as ornamental inlays.

NRA’s argument

“When they go to transfer the firearm that they inherited from their great-grandfather, they will have no ability at all to document where the ivory came from,” NRA lobbyist Ed Worley said in a June hearing on the bill. “So they're left in limbo.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/Cal...d=ansmsnnews11

I personally own a mahjong set that belonged to my grand mother; and an ivory necklace that belonged to my great aunt. Am I now subject to fines because I inherited them ?