McCain: Banking system model for health care reform

Paul Krugman reports on Senator McCain’s views on health care reform. Here’s what McCain said this month in the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries: “Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less [...]

Local Vet Puzzled by McCain’s GI Forum Speech

In a speech today before the American GI Forum in Denver, John McCain told the veterans group that when the government forgets its debts to veterans, it constitutes “a stain upon America’s honor.” Yet that’s just what one prominent local member of the Hispanic veteran’s rights group says McCain has done, for failing to support [...]

Blame it on… Viagra?

Three NARAL Pro-Choice New Mexico members were ejected from Arizona senator John McCain’s town hall meeting Tuesday at the Hotel Albuquerque. They had tickets, just like the 500 or so people who were let in and given a chance to pose a question. But they apparently made the fatal mistake of wearing NARAL T-shirts to [...]

“Bidness” as Usual Express: The Eric Serna–John McCain Connection

From Santa Fe to Austin to Washington – it’s (as Molly Ivins would say) just the way they do “bidness” around here. Let’s start with Eric Serna. Remember him? Once upon a time he was the young up-and-coming politico who, when he ran for Corporation Commission in 1982, populated the highways with all those god [...]

Memorial Day 2008: True Respect

On a bipartisan vote of 75-22, the US Senate last week passed the GI Bill for the 21st Century. John McCain, who is campaigning in Albuquerque this Memorial Day, has joined President Bush in opposition to the new GI Bill. Bush has threatened to veto it when it arrives at his desk. In view of [...]

The New G.I. Bill: McCain’s opposition aligns him firmly with Bush

Yes, it was a big government program about which former Senator Bob Dole spoke in these glowing terms: “It changed America; it may have changed the world.” Passed in 1944, the G.I. Bill of Rights made available to sixteen million veterans of World War II, like Dole, generous educational opportunities and home ownership. It helped [...]

McCain: “Happy Festivus, Insurance Industry!”

Over the past couple of months, a discussion on the core issues facing Americans has pretty much fallen by the wayside during the presidential campaign. Americans expect an adult debate on foreign policy, the economy and health care. Instead, the 24-hour news cycle is obsessed with one candidate’s middle name and who’s most at home [...]

Lobbyists Gone Wild

When New Mexicans think about John McCain, I’m guessing most have a pretty vague, but favorable opinion about him. I certainly did, primarily because of his efforts on campaign finance reform several years back. But now, under the scrutiny of the Presidential race, I’m beginning to see McCain in a different light because of the [...]