Saturday, May 18, 2013
Sens. Kaine and Warner offered language promoting Arlington's Four Mile Run as a recreational resource.
Virginia’s Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine this week offered an amendment to an environmental bill that will promote efforts to restore Four Mile Run as a recreational resource. The senators amended the Water Resources Development Act, which passed the Senate Wednesday by a vote of 83-14. They offered two other amendments to the measure – one dealing with a marine terminal on Craney Island and the other to increase authorized funding for oyster restoration. “… I am pleased we…were successful in updating an outdated regulation that prevented the Four Mile Run project from moving forward into a recreational and ecological resource for Northern Virginia,” Warner said in a statement. “This bill will advance a project of critical importance for…
Thursday, May 9, 2013
ABC News: About half as many Virginians vote in gubernatorial elections as in presidential years.
Anyone familiar with Terry McAuliffe knows he can tell a good story. The one he told Thursday in Arlington, at George Mason's campus as he was wrapping up a five-day tour of the state, was about this past November. It was Election Day. McAuliffe, at the request of the campaigns of Barack Obama and Tim Kaine, was asked to head to a polling station in Henrico County, where voters were still waiting in a long line as darkness fell. He said he went there and handed out coffee, hot chocolate and hand warmers. And everyone got to vote. And then he asked everyone in the room to mobilize for this year's election. [McAuliffe: Reform Virginia's Standards of Learning Tests] Turnout, often, is key. But now more than ever that isn't lost on Northern …
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
State Sen. Adam Ebbin, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner among those who have changed their profile pictures.
You probably have seen a red square with a pink equals sign on it in your Facebook, Twitter and other social media feeds lately — a symbol that stands for marriage equality. It stems from an effort by the Human Rights Campaign that coincides with oral arguments being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this week regarding the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA, as it is known, allows the federal government to discriminate against same-sex couples. The equality symbol signifies that marriage really is all about love, according to the Human Rights Campaign. "It's nice for people on Facebook to see their Facebook friends standing up, and seeing so many people doing that," said state Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria. Ebbin, who is…
Monday, February 18, 2013
Governor sends letter to president, congressional delegation.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on Monday sent a letter to President Barack Obama and the Old Dominion's congressional delegation calling for immediate action to prevent automatic spending cuts under sequestration. The $1.2 trillion in cuts — meant to force Congress to compromise, which hasn't happened — are slated to go into effect March 1. That deadline has been pushed back several times as lawmakers have brokered Band-Aid solutions. "The automatic sequestration reductions mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011 are already having a significant adverse effect on the Commonwealth," McDonnell stated. "When fully implemented, they could force Virginia and other states into a recession. Sequestration-mandated reductions will be implemented …
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Virginia Sens. Warner and Kaine warn about sequestration's effects on the economy and national security.
If sequestration goes into effect in March, it will be "worse than you can imagine," U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told a group of mostly government contractors at a Reston breakfast event Friday organized by the Northern Virginia Technology Council. Warner, along with fellow Democrat and Virginia's junior senator, Tim Kaine, spoke about the short- and long-term impact of the potential $1.2 trillion federal budget cuts that would happen March 1 if Congress doesn't reach a compromise. Half of that would affect the defense industry, which some estimates say could cost Virginia more than 207,000 jobs. Sequestration could have a large impact in Arlington, where plenty of small, medium and large firms depend on government contracting, and …
Monday, January 21, 2013
No rest for the weary: Democrats gear up for tough 2013 state races.
An estimated 1,100 people attended the Virginia Inaugural Ball on Sunday at the Westin Arlington Gateway to celebrate the second inauguration of President Barack Obama — and gear up for key statewide elections in 2013. "Everybody is happy. Everybody is excited. It's a feel-good moment for everyone who worked on a campaign," Arlington County Democratic Chairman Mike Lieberman told Patch before speaking to the crowd. "The president is right to feel good about this weekend. You can't help but be optimistic. There's a lot of criticism of our government out there, and some of it is deserved. But there's also a lot of reason for optimism. And coming out of the last election, we see a lot of opportunities." [See photos from the Virginia Inaugural…
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Officials from Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties met in Arlington to discuss six potential sites Thursday.
Local, state and congressional leaders met Thursday in Arlington to discuss six potential sites for a new FBI headquarters and to present a unified front in their commitment to landing the new federal complex somewhere in Northern Virginia. Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, who called the meeting, said leaders from Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and Stafford counties had a "singular focus" in bringing the FBI headquarters to the Old Dominion. "We're all committed to finding a home for the FBI in the commonwealth of Virginia," Moran said during a news conference following the meeting. "We are all going to promote Virginia as the best place for this relocation." Arlington's role was simply as host. It has not put forth any potential sites …
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Kaine said he is 'rested and ready.'
Tim Kaine was sworn in as the newest senator from Virginia this week. Vice President Joe Biden presided over a mock ceremony after the official one on the Senate floor, and Anne Holton, Kaine's wife, proudly held a Bible as her husband was sworn in as Virginia's junior senator at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. "I feel wonderful — rested and ready," Kaine said at a reception in his honor at the Hart Senate Office Building. "Life doesn't happen unless you are able to listen and compromise. With this beginning of the 113th Congress, the Senate has 15 newcomers... and I've watched group dynamics just as you have, and when you have that much change it opens the windows and rescrambles assumptions." Kaine, a former Virginia governor, then …
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Moran says new legislation puts Northern Virginia on the chopping block.
Although feuding lawmakers on Capitol Hill finally reached a deal Tuesday night preventing the nation from diving off the so-called fiscal cliff, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Moran is not happy with the new legislation. Moran — whose district includes Arlington, Alexandria and Reston — called the bill “hastily crafted,” “wholly inadequate” and said it puts Northern Virginia “on the chopping block.” Moran said the bill leaves the country with three more fiscal cliffs to negotiate over the next three months. “Each of these deadlines represents a major political battle in which nearly 40 percent of Northern Virginia's economy in terms of federal contracts and federal employees will be on the chopping block," he said in a statement. "Our leverage …
Monday, December 24, 2012
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," the NRA's Wayne LaPierre said.
In an Friday morning press conference, the Fairfax-based National Rifle Association broke its weeklong silence following the horrific shooting of 26 people at a school in Newtown, Conn., and called for a surge of gun-carrying "good guys" around American schools. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called for a new kind of American domestic security revolving around armed civilians, arguing that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." "We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents," LaPierre said. "Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by Capitol Police officers. Yet, when it comes to our most beloved, innocent, and vulnerable members of the American …
Michelle Thomas
5:36 pm on Wednesday, April 24, 2013
I for one find T-Bird to be a complete and utter buffoonery of a poster. Has anyone ever read his post what a wanker. This is a tomfoolery of mental illness to the extreme. I can believe such a person walks this earth with the hatred and bigotry abounds in "its" (T-bird) rants. Its the way it (T-Bird) comes across as holier than all and to be damned to anyone in which disagrees. A real honest to … more ›