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A woman suffered chemical burns after a Florida man dunked her head in a vat of tar-like substance and choked her at gunpoint. Marshall Dimick, 55, of Rosewood, was arrested this week after an unidentified woman told police she was tortured after she had an “argument” with the felon on Thursday. Dimick claimed the man “dunked her head into a vat of tar-like substance that is used to treat clam and oyster bags.” He also “pointed a shotgun at her and choked her to near unconsciousness,” the Levy County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release. The victim was hospitalized...

The 74.9-megawatt plant, called the Archer Solar Project, would span the 650-acre vacant farmland plot near the Saint Peter neighborhood area. “This is not a facility that’s compatible with the residential community,” Rutledge continued. “Our families have ties to those types of experiences since the Civil War, Jim Crow, and having to escape,” said Gerrie Crawford, another resident who lives across from the proposed site. She explained that many families, including hers, have worked and purchased land there since the 1800s. Crawford also said that many residents in the town are descendants of African Americans driven out of Rosewood, a...

Rock n' Roll. The soundtrack to rebellion. Across the decades, the motif has held, and the mythology of the rebellious rocker striding into the political arena to shatter the establishment with some deftly played power chords still stirs the imagination. Sadly, the new world might not be ready for the revolution, because this week, after 116 years in business, and following years of attacks, fines, and losses incurred by federal bureaucrats, Gibson, the legendary manufacturer of electric guitars, revealed that it could face bankruptcy in July. .......the feds claimed was a violation of the Teddy Roosevelt-era “Lacey Act”, which was...

t was seven months ago that federal agents with guns drawn raided the Gibson guitar factories in Nashville and Memphis. A half million dollars worth of Indian rosewood and ebony was seized under the premise that it had been imported illegally. The feds also took a number of guitars and computer hard drives. The factory was shut down for the day and employees told to go home. Yet after all this time, the Department of Justice has shown no sign that it will file criminal charges against Gibson. What’s more – it has been almost 3 years since federal agents...

Federal agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and local police today seized wood, guitars, computers and boxes of files from Gibson Guitar's Massman Road manufacturing facility. Sources say the Nashville-based guitar manufacturer is being investigated for violating the Lacey Act, a key piece of environmental law, for importing endangered species of rosewood from Madagascar. Rosewood is widely used in the construction of guitars and sells for $5,000 per cubic meter, more than double the price of mahogany. The island nation off Africa's east coast is a key producer of the hardwood, the export of which has links to...

Federal authorities are pressuring Nashville-based Gibson Guitar to hand over an additional 25 bundles of Indian wood that the company allegedly planned to use in its famous guitars. The complaint was filed today in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee and mirrors a 2010 action that sought official forfeiture of wood obtained in a 2009 raid of Gibson facilities. The latter of those cases has been stayed, pending the outcome of the most recent suit. As has been the case in previous allegations, at issue is the classification of certain wood imported to the United States from...

The real endangered species? I’ve seen a lot of enviro-nitwittery over the years, but this takes the cake. US Fish and Wildlife officials have raided the famous Gibson Guitars. And the instrument-maker isn’t alone. Antique piano dealers are also in the crosshairs. Why? Because rare, beautiful instruments made of ecologically incorrect materials must be sacrificed at the green altar. Talk about hitting a sour note. Eric Felten at the WSJ reports: 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...

Gibson CEO: Obama Administration Told Us Our Problems Would Go Away If We Used Madagascar Labor (Audio).......KMJ Radio host Chris Daniel interviewed Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz on Wednesday. Juszkiewicz told Chris that the Obama Administration told them, “Your problems would go away if you used Madagascar labor instead of our labor.”

Joe Biden’s bizarre disconnect regarding his scandal-ridden former boss. On December 13, former vice president, Joe Biden, appeared on CBS with the hosts of “This Morning” where he peddled his new book and showered his former boss with praise. During the course of the interview, he was asked about his relationship with Obama and responded with the following; “I’ve served with eight presidents and I’ve gotten to know four of them very well. I’ve never met any president that has more character, more integrity, and more backbone than this guy does.” Then he went completely off the rails when he...

Gibson Guitar Corp. agreed to settle charges that it illegally purchased and imported ebony wood from Madagascar and rosewood and ebony from India, the Justice Department said today. The company will pay a $300,000 fine under a criminal enforcement agreement that defers prosecution for criminal violations of the Lacey Act. Another $50,000 fine will go to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation “to be used to promote the conservation, identification and propagation of protected tree species used in the musical instrument industry and the forests where those species are found.” Since May 2008, it has been illegal under the Lacey...

Over the last few years, guitars and a sort of obscure law against illegal logging have come into conflict. Environmental activists are in Anaheim today, at the National Association of Music Merchants trade show, to do a raising awareness song-and-dance about this. Literally: they've got a musician with them. The guitars are Gibsons, and the law is the Lacey Act. An NPR colleague reported on this issue from Tennessee last year. Gibson is just a flash point: federal law enforcement officials have investigated the company on the suspicion that it broke laws in India and Madagascar. The Lacey Act makes...

Saturday October 8,2011 2 - 4 p.m. (CDT) Scoreboard Resturant 2804 Music Valley Dr. Nashville TN (across from Opryland Hotel) We need your help: - PLEASE make plans to attend and help us support Gibson Guitar - If you have contacts with musical talent who would like to lend their support, please let us know - If you can help with security and staffing and promotion please let us know - Please spread the word by emailing the link to the website

In addition to those Republican lawmakers who have announced – motivated, it seems, by disrespect — that they will decline to attend President Obama’s Thursday night jobs address to a joint session of Congress, Republicans are also taking the additional step of inviting a man whose company the Obama administration is investigating for possibly breaking the law. Henry Juszkiewicz, the CEO of Gibson Guitar Corp., will either sit in the House Gallery as the guest of his member of Congress, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. (members of Congress each get to invite one guest to sit in that balcony), or he...

Call Michelle Obama the ultimate guitar hero. The American First Lady presented French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy with a practical – and very rock 'n' roll – gift: an acoustic Gibson guitar. Offered "as a sign of friendship', Michelle Obama gave Gibson's Legend model, to Bruni, a former model-turned-singer who is currently in the process of recording her fourth album. The gift, which Michelle Obama brought to France, was presented to Bruni following their visit Saturday to Strasbourg's 12th century cathedral and the city's Renaissance Museum, a source says.

First Lady MICHELLE OBAMA is being accused of break­ing the law over a gift she gave French First Lady CARLA BRUNI-SARKOZY! Michelle presented Carla with a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic gui­tar in 2009 – but the problem is that it may have been made from wood that was illegally obtained. The guitar, which Michelle took from the U.S. to Strasbourg and gave to the supermodel-turned-singer wife of France’s president, has a fretboard made from rare rosewood – and that’s why Michelle could wind up singing the blues over it. In fact, if the first lady was aware that the guitar contained...

Did you get here Googling "exotic wood raids?" Is this not what you expected? I'm sorry. Settle in for some hot public policy.Last we checked in with Gibson, the famed Tennessee guitar maker had been raided twice by armed federal agents, who seized almost $500,000 in exotic wood imported from India and Madagascar and shut down production. The ebony and rosewood in question have been used for decades to make the instrument's fingerboards and are integral to their style and sound, the company said. (Great video background from Reason, here.)This week, Gibson settled with the government in a "criminal enforcement...

American First Lady Michelle Obama presented France’s First Lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, with a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar “as a sign of friendship” over the weekend. The two first ladies met for the first time on Friday afternoon when President Barack Obama and his wife visited French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife at French Palace Rohan in Strasbourg, France. Mrs. Obama presented Mrs. Bruni-Sarkozy with the Gibson guitar on Saturday before the first ladies visited the Cathedral de Norte Dame de Strasbourg, along with the rest of the NATO Summit spouses. The Gibson Hummingbird apparently hit the right chord with...

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...

Henry Juszkiewicz, the CEO of Gibson Guitars, Inc. was on The Dana Loesch Show on Friday. Gibson is under attack by the the Obama Justice Department for accusations that the company broke American Indian laws. Juszkiewiz said the government suggested that the company's use of unfinished wood from India is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because of the Justice Department's interpretation of a law in India. The Holder Justice Department raided at least two Gibson manufacturing plants this week forcing hundreds of workers off their jobs. Juszkiewiz says the company lost a million dollars this week. Finally, Henry...

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. If true, it adds another piece to an increasingly disturbing puzzle.