Even mainstream media outlets are running story upon story about President Barack Obama’s possible ties to the government grabbing a wire service’s phone records and the IRS bullying conservative groups.
Those who have been paying attention to the New Media shouldn’t be surprised by these headlines. In fact, here are two examples where the Obama administration appeared to use an ideological cudgel to bash both conservatives and free market principles.
On Aug. 24, 2011, the Department of Justice sent armed agents into the Gibson Guitar factor in Memphis “confiscating half a million dollars worth of guitar making material is an alleged violation of environmental standards.”
Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz is a conservative, and his company eventually settled rather than take matters to court.
Nashville-based Gibson agreed to pay a $300,000 penalty, forfeit claims to about $262,000 worth of wood seized by federal agents and contribute $50,000 to theNational Fish and Wildlife Foundation to promote the conservation of protected tree species.
We felt compelled to settle as the costs of proving our case at trial would have cost millions of dollars and taken a very long time to resolve,” CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said in a statement late Monday night….
“We feel that Gibson was inappropriately targeted, and a matter that could have been addressed with a simple contact a caring human being representing the government,” he said in his statement.
Just a few weeks later, the Obama administration squared off against Boeing for daring to set roots in a “right to work” state.
In a faltering economy, the aerospace titan opened a $750 million factory in South Carolina and hired thousands of workers to build the world’s most fuel-efficient commercial jet…. the National Labor Relations Board has accused Boeing of opening its South Carolina shop in a “right-to-work” state to retaliate against union worker strikes at its main manufacturing base in the Seattle area.
An Obama appointee is now asking a judge to order Boeing to relocate all 787 Dreamliner production to Washington state — a move that’s feeding the GOP narrative that Obama’s Big Government is meddling with job creation, just as the first plane nears its first commercial flight.
The NLRB complaint against Boeing was eventually dropped, but not before the union got a pretty compensation package as a parting gift.
Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates called it a prime example of regulatory overreach by the Obama administration, arguing that federal officials should not be telling companies where they can or cannot build factories. Congress held hearings and demanded thousands of pages of documents.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.