Veterans for Peace forming Charlottesville chapter
Veterans For Peace, an international organization dedicated to helping veterans heal and abolishing warfare established in 1985, is proud to announce that Central Virginia will soon be home to a new chapter, in a renewed effort by local veterans in the Charlottesville-Albemarle area to organize veterans.
According to Iraq war veteran and college-student Evan Knappenberger of Charlottesville, the timing for a new chapter of Veterans For Peace couldn’t be better. “It’s never too early (or to late) to proclaim the good news of peace. I am honored to participate in the historic formation of such an august group as Veterans For Peace,” he said. Read more
Augusta Free Press launches NewDominionTourist.com
A website highlighting options for tourists and hometown tourists is being launched this week by Augusta Free Press LLC.
NewDominionTourist.com will be the online complement to the New Dominion Tourist magazine that will hit the streets in Waynesboro, Staunton and Harrisonburg in April.
The print and web editions will work together to highlight what’s going on in the Central Shenandoah Valley. Sections on the website are devoted to the arts, books, film, food and dining, history, music and theater.
The front page of the NewDominionTourist.com website will highlight content in the print magazine and the latest news on goings-on. The site will also become home to the extensive calendar of events that has been hosted at AugustaFreePress.com since that website’s inception in 2002.
Democrats: Where do you go from here?
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
You talk to one Democrat, and the party definitely, no question, needs to restrategize toward the middle. The blowback from voters in Massachusetts is an obvious clear signal. The nation isn’t comfortable with the direction things had been headed on health care and the stimulus. Time to pull things back in for a while.
Talk to another Democrat, and that first Democrat is either an idiot or worse, a sellout. Exit polls in Massachusetts indicate that a strong majority of voters there like their state-level version of universal health care. The blowback was local, aimed at a poorly-run campaign on the part of the Democratic nominee, Martha Coakley.
Changing the course now will bring about a repeat of 1994, when Democrats threw in the towel on health-care reform and suffered at the polls in a historic GOP takeover of the House that November.
“There’s no profit in moving to the center,” said Robert Borosage, the co-director of the Washington, D.C.,-based Campaign for America’s Future, which bills itself as the “strategy center for the progressive movement.” Read more
McKelvey: Rage against the machines
Candidate for GOP nomination pushes power to the people
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
That the political winds are shifting, as evidenced by the upset win in Massachusetts by Republican Scott Brown in the race for the late liberal scion Teddy Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat, is not a surprise to Jim McKelvey.
“The problems are the politicians in D.C. They’re elitist. They think they know more than we do. Since getting involved with the Republican Party, I realize it’s not just the politicians. It’s the political machines. They’re all hellbent on power,” said McKelvey, who despite his concerns about party machinery is running for the Republican Party congressional nomination in the Fifth District.
The Moneta-based real-estate developer went into “defense mode” with his business interests after the 2008 election. “I made a conscious decision back then that until the 2010 election in Congress, I’m not doing a thing, because my take is, that’s where the problems originate,” said McKelvey, who announced his candidacy for the nomination in November on the radio talk show of former Charlottesville City Councilor Rob Schilling. Read more
Guess who’s funding the anti-Perriello ads?
Story by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
An article in the Jan. 12 National Journal reported that America’s Health Insurance Plans and its member insurance companies funneled $20 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for ads designed to scare Americans into opposing health-care reform.
The ad campaign included $94,740 in media buys attacking Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello in the wake of the vote in the House of Representatives in December to pass health-care reform.
The Virginia Organizing Project is working to raise public awareness of the ad buys – and the implications to the effort. Read more
The value of service
Column by Tom Perriello
www.perriello.house.gov
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Everybody can be great because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
In 1994, Congress designated the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday a national day of service. Each year, Americans of all ages and backgrounds come together on this day to take up Dr. King’s call to action and make it “a day on, not a day off.” The King Day of Service empowers individuals, strengthens communities, bridges barriers, addresses social problems, and moves us closer to Dr. King’s vision of a “beloved community.”
Last year, I had the privilege of joining students from Longwood University at their annual MLK Service Challenge. We went to the Stepping Stones Preschool in Farmville and painted a classroom. I was so impressed and humbled by these young people’s dedication to serving their community, and the gratitude of the children and parents was evident on their faces. All over the Fifth District, there are schools, churches, community groups and nonprofit organizations organizing service activities. I encourage you to call community groups in your area to find out what’s going on. Read more
Constituent service
Column by Tom Perriello
www.perriello.house.gov
One of the most important parts of my job is to assist constituents with any issues or problems they are facing when dealing with federal government agencies. The caseworkers in my offices in Charlottesville, Danville, Farmville, and Martinsville helped nearly 800 Fifth District residents in 2009 cut through government red tape and solve individual, sometime complex, problems with federal agencies. Here are the kinds of cases we helped with and some of the stories behind the numbers. Read more
