Focus | Democratic divide

Chris Graham

Battle brewing between progressives, centrists over direction of party Story by Chris Graham [email protected] The 2001 election that ushered in the Democratic Decade in Virginia gave power in Democratic Party circles to the centrists in the mold of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine who led the mini-revolution that fall. The model that they laid out…

Fifth District Report

AFP

   Column by Tom Perriello www.perriello.house.gov Last week, I held a conference call with Chambers of Commerce and other business leaders from across the Fifth District to gain their ideas on job creation and how to create new competitive advantage in Central and Southern Virginia. Supporting small businesses is one of the best ways we…

Webb joins bipartisan group in prescription-drug plan

AFP

   Staff Report www.webb.senate.gov Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) today joined a bipartisan group of 19 senators in proposing an amendment to the health care reform bill to lower prescription drug costs and save the federal government nearly $20 billion over the next ten years. Originally introduced earlier this year as the Pharmaceutical Market Access and…

Common-sense solutions needed to get Americans back to work

AFP

   Column by Bob Goodlatte www.goodlatte.house.gov The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released November unemployment numbers. For the second month in a row, the unemployment rate is at 10 percent – the highest rate in 26 years. Equally sobering is the fact that last month the national debt surpassed $12 trillion. Earlier this year,…

Fifth District Report

AFP

  Column by Tom Perriello www.perriello.house.gov My top priority is jobs for Main Street and rebuilding America’s competitive edge in the world. Recently, I was selected for two congressional roles to advance the ball on economic development for Central and Southern Virginia. I was appointed to a Congressional Task Force on Job Creation and was…

Webb on Afghanistan: ‘How do we define our enemy?’

AFP

  Statement from U.S. Sen. Jim Webb www.webb.senate.gov I have great regard for the careful process employed by this administration in an effort both to define a new approach for the long-standing military commitment in Afghanistan and to put an operational framework in place for our responsible withdrawal. At the same time, I intend to…

Focus | Groundbreaking development at new WSH

Chris Graham

Governor in town to help mark occasion Story by Chris Graham [email protected] With AFP Video Government doesn’t have a reputation for doing something that makes as much sense as the work that is going into the construction of the new Western State Hospital, which is being built adjacent to the current WSH campus in Staunton…

Concerns regarding terror trials

AFP

  Column by Rob Wittman www.wittman.house.gov Recently we all have learned that Attorney General Eric Holder has planned to bring several of the 9/11 attack masterminds to New York City for trial. As you know, I’ve been a voice from the beginning, against bringing these terrorists to the Commonwealth for trial or detention, and I…

Earth Talk | The skinny on the Climate Change Conference

AFP

Dear EarthTalk: What do organizers hope to accomplish at the upcoming (December 7-18, 2009) United Nations Climate Change Conference being held in Copenhagen? – F. Rojas, Oakland, Calif. The upcoming COP15 meeting in Denmark—so named because it is the 15th such international gathering of the Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework…

The Pulse | The politics of health care

AFP

Column by Chris Graham Health-care reform opponents speak as if it’s a given that the passage of reform including a public option and new mandates for private insurers will be an act of political suicide by Democrats. Take comments from Bill Wilson, the president of the advocacy group Americans for Limited Government, released today on…