Joseph Meyer: Small-business owners and Main Street–don’t forget about us

AFP

With voting in the Republican primaries around the corner and with unemployment still high, it has become evident that 2012 will be a big year for small-business owners. Both as a voting block and as the economic engine of America, small businesses will have a lot to say and a lot of power in the…

Longwood rolls past VMI, 110-89

AFP

Longwood University jumped out to a 13-2 lead during the first two minutes and led the entire way en route to a 110-89 men’s basketball victory past visiting in-state school Virginia Military Institute of the Big South Conference Monday night at Willett Hall in Farmville. The Lancers (4-6) posted a season-high for points and led…

Remarks by Obama, Al-Maliki at joint press conference

AFP

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Please have a seat.  Good afternoon, everyone. When I took office, nearly 150,000 American troops were deployed in Iraq, and I pledged to end this war, responsibly.  Today, only several thousand troops remain there, and more are coming home every day. This is a season of homecomings, and military families across America are…

Margot Dorfman: Big business tax holidays are bad for small business, bad for America

AFP

If small business owners decided to stop paying our fair share of taxes, we’d be sent to jail. Big business tax dodgers want Congress to reward them with a tax holiday. The U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce strongly opposes legislation in Congress that would reward U.S. multinational corporations with massive, unwarranted tax discounts to bring…

Children’s Choir invited to sing at the White House

AFP

The Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir has been invited to sing at the White House Christmas Tours on Dec. 21, according to Yvette Peake, choir manager. The acclaimed children’s choir, now in its twentieth year, had applied for the honor in April 2011. “We were thrilled to get this invitation in mid-November and had almost given…

Webb, Warner push Senate to reject efforts to balance budget on backs of federal workers

AFP

U.S. Sens. Jim Webb (D-VA) and Mark R. Warner (D-VA) are urging Majority Leader Harry Reid to “reject any proposals that call for pay freezes or other forms of compensation reduction for federal workers, or significant reductions in the federal workforce” to offset the tax extenders that need to be passed by the end of…

Nancy Carpenter: Support for Occupy Charlottesville

AFP

I am writing again to declare my support for all occupations including Occupy Charlottesville. All over the country, the work is just beginning to address what is unjust both morally and economically.  Here in Charlottesville, the plight of the homeless has been brought into our visual collective consciousness more so than it has in the…

McCormick: Time for a ‘new generation of leaders’

AFP

David McCormick worked his way up the ladder at UPS, started law school in his 30s and his own law firm at 38. He knows uphill battles. Competing against former governor and U.S. senator George Allen for the Republican Senate nomination is just another one. “Both parties are to blame. We’re at the very brink…