Coincidentally, on the very same day the Financial Times reported that UBS had advised 50 current and former employees of its private banking group not to travel to the United States. The bank is worried that they might be arrested in connection with a massive tax-evasion scheme under which UBS helped rich Americans cheat the IRS, thus making sure that the rest of us suckers had to pay for, e.g., the War in Iraq. Some of the clients of the scheme are already testifying before a grand jury, and a senior UBS official has already been indicted. UBS is offering to provide lawyers for all of the suspects.
Now, how is it that Gramm got to be Vice-Chairman of UBS? Why, by being the chief author of the banking-deregulation legislation (the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act) that made so many bankers rich and helped create the crisis McCain doesn't want to do anything about.
In keeping with McCain's decision to purge "lobbyists" from his campaign, Gramm had himself de-registered as a lobbyist. But he's still Vice Chairman of UBS, and still McCain's chief economic adviser. All the de-listing means is that he can't now personally call Congressmen or Senators; no doubt his staff can handle such details for the next few months.
thinkahol * on 25 Jun 11They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world. American gays and lesbians in the 1950s and 1960s faced a legal system more anti-homosexual than those of some Warsaw Pact countries.[note 1][2] Early homophile groups in the U.S. sought to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored non-confrontational education for homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. The last years of the 1960s, however, were very contentious, as many social movements were active, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s, and antiwar demonstrations. These influences, along with the liberal environment of Greenwich Village, served as catalysts for the Stonewall riots. Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s. Those that did were often bars, although bar owners and managers were rarely gay. The Stonewall Inn, at the time, was owned by the Mafia.[3][4] It catered to an assortment of patrons, but it was known to be popular with the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, representatives of a newly self-aware transgender community, effeminate young men, hustlers, and homeless youth. Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn, and attracted a crowd that was incited to riot. Tensions between New York City police and gay residents of Greenwich Village erupted into more protests the next evening, and again several nights later. Within weeks, Village residents quickly organized into activist groups to concentrate efforts on establishing places for gays and lesbians to be open about their sexual orientation without fear o
