Webb: Status quo of health-care system ‘unacceptable’

AFP

Senator explains vote to move forward with legislation Statement from U.S. Sen. Jim Webb www.webb.senate.gov I have decided to vote in favor of moving forward on health care reform legislation. I do so despite my disappointment with some sections of the bill, which I will continue to address in the future. But the final package…

Howell, Putney address concerns over health-care reform

Chris Graham

Pair cite state Medicaid-funding issue in letter to Webb, Warner Staff Report News Tips: [email protected] House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford, today announced that they have written U.S. Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner to voice their “significant concern” about the impact that health-care reform bill making…

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…

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…

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 | Webb discusses Afghanistan strategy

Chris Graham

Raises questions about surge, withdrawal timeline Story by Chris Graham [email protected] With AFP Audio U.S. Sen. Jim Webb has questions both about President Barack Obama’s planned Afghanistan troop surge and the goal set by the Obama administration to be able to begin drawing down troops from the Afghan theater in 2011. “My belief is that…

UVa., Politico to host conference on ’10 elections

Chris Graham

Staff Report Leading journalists, party insiders, and political analysts will share their views on the upcoming 2010 midterm elections at an afternoon conference sponsored by the University of Virginia Center for Politics and Politico. The 11th annual American Democracy Conference will be held at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, December 3 from 1-5…

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…

Focus | Perriello ’10: A safe bet? Hardly

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham We’re about a year away from the November 2010 elections, though you wouldn’t know that by watching local TV and seeing the wall-to-wall commercials telling you about what Fifth District Congressman Tom Perriello has been doing up in Washington. First it was the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with an ad in…