More Headaches for McCain’s Camp

[one...two...tree 2,762]

By Mark Hosenball | NEWSWEEK

For weeks now, John McCain's presidential campaign has faced awkward questions about the outside activities of several top advisers. Add one more name to the list: former Texas senator Phil Gramm, McCain's longtime friend and one of his five campaign co-chairs. (A sixth, former congressman Tom Loeffler, quit recently after NEWSWEEK reported on his lobbying work for Saudi Arabia.) According to McCain spokeswoman Jill Hazelbaker, the co-chair position affords Gramm "broad input into the structure, financing and conduct of the campaign." She added that Gramm, who has a doctorate in economics, is also "a valued voice on economic policy." Gramm is not a paid McCain adviser, but his day job—vice chairman of a U.S. division of Zurich-based financial giant UBS—could pose new tests for a candidate who has promised high ethics standards and ditched advisers who failed to meet them.

UBS has recently written off huge losses in subprime-mortgage-based securities, and last week liberal bloggers noted that Gramm was a registered UBS lobbyist on mortgage-securities issues until at least December 2007.

NEWSWEEK has learned that UBS is also currently the focus of congressional and Justice Department investigations into schemes that allegedly enabled wealthy Americans to evade income taxes by stashing their money in overseas havens, according to several law-enforcement and banking officials in both the United States and Europe, who all asked for anonymity when discussing ongoing investigations. In April, UBS withdrew Gramm's lobbying registration, but one of his former congressional aides, John Savercool, is still registered to lobby legislators for UBS on numerous issues, including a bill cosponsored by Sen. Barack Obama that would crack down on foreign tax havens. "UBS is treating these investigations with the utmost seriousness and has committed substantial resources to cooperate," a UBS spokesman told NEWSWEEK, adding that Gramm was deregistered as a lobbyist because he spends less than 20 percent of his time on such activity. Hazelbaker said the McCain campaign "will not comment on the details … of ongoing investigations and legal charges not yet proved in court."

McCain's campaign is already distancing itself from some of Gramm's other work for UBS: his involvement in attempts to sell financial products known as "death bonds," which BusinessWeek described last summer as one of "the most macabre investment scheme ever devised by Wall Street." Not long after joining UBS, the Houston Chronicle reported, Gramm helped lobby Texas officials, including Gov. Rick Perry, to sign on to a UBS proposal in which revenue would be generated for a state teachers' retirement fund by selling bonds, whose proceeds would in turn be used to buy annuities and life-insurance policies on retired teachers. UBS would advance money to the retirement fund, then repay itself, compensate bondholders and pocket profits when insurance companies paid off on retirees who died. According to a banking-industry source, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive matter, Gramm was involved in efforts to pitch similar UBS products to other financial institutions.

Gramm's office declined NEWSWEEK's request for comment. A source familiar with the bank's current business, who also asked for anonymity, said UBS no longer markets the kind of plan that Gramm was allegedly trying to sell to Texas. Hazelbaker said that McCain, who has been critical of the financial industry's performance in the subprime market, disapproves of death bonds and "supports increased accountability, transparency and capital backing in our financial markets as a solution to these problems." Death bonds, she continued, "move markets away [from]—not toward—these goals."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/139443

[웃 910]

Whats your point? Obama was endorsed by Hamas and Louis Farrakhan!!! It doesn't get much worse than that!!! Obama donated tens of thousands of dollars to Reverend Wright, a radical preacher who married him to Michelle and baptized his children. Topic of todays sermon: "U.S. of KKK of A: God damn America, We Deserved 9/11"

Edited June 1, 2008 by thegreatgate

[nana_356 0]

It wont be much of a head ache for him, he'll just sleef this of, like here

Edited June 1, 2008 by nana_356

[one...two...tree 2,762]

It wont be much of a head ache for him, he'll just sleef this of, like here

LOL...that would put me to sleep too.

[nana_356 0]

and here..

[웃 910]

McCain could retain more half asleep in one sitting than Obama could in 20 years if you know what I mean.

Edited June 1, 2008 by thegreatgate

[nana_356 0]

McCain could retain more half asleep in one sitting than Obama could in 20 years if you know what I mean.

Well McCain has retained alot, 1000 sheets of a medical history in 8 years, while Obama only retained 1 or 2 sheet in 25 years.

[GaryC 7]

McCain could retain more half asleep in one sitting than Obama could in 20 years if you know what I mean.

Well McCain has retained alot, 1000 sheets of a medical history in 8 years, while Obama only retained 1 or 2 sheet in 25 years.

Put Obama in a N.Viet POW camp, kick the living sh!t out of him every day for 5 years and then wait another 30 years to let the effects wear in. Then see what his medical record looks like.

[nana_356 0]

McCain could retain more half asleep in one sitting than Obama could in 20 years if you know what I mean.

Well McCain has retained alot, 1000 sheets of a medical history in 8 years, while Obama only retained 1 or 2 sheet in 25 years.

Put Obama in a N.Viet POW camp, kick the living sh!t out of him every day for 5 years and then wait another 30 years to let the effects wear in. Then see what his medical record looks like.

I have respect for McCain, as far as his history of serving for the US. But in all fairness,

An as s kicking doesnt cause 5 skin cancers or high cholesterol or 2 abnormalities in his lung that may I add, contribute to his 25 years of 2 pack a day smoking.