Waynesboro: Hamp salary, benefits trail Walker’s

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] Waynesboro City Council has agreed in principle on an employment agreement that will pay new city manager Mike Hamp a $115,000 base salary and provide him with a three-month severance. That salary and benefits package trails slightly that which had been given to Hamp’s predecessor in the city manager’s office,…

Haresh Daswani: The U.S. financial crisis

AFP

Column by Haresh Daswani George Bush has just officially declared something that, bluntly stated, would say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, We are in deep deep trouble, and I will be off in 40 days, thank God.” The bigger question is, didn’t anyone see this coming? Wasn’t anyone able to think of how to stop this from…

W.R. Marshall: The new McCarthyism of the anti-intellectual right

Letters

Column by W.R. Marshall “A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.” – Thomas Pynchon Why Pynchon? Because he appeals to the intellect. And because it’s literal. There is a screaming across the sky, a constant shrill chorus filling the air. And it has…

Waynesboro: An open invitation to Barack Obama

Chris Graham

Column by Chris Graham [email protected] So now the world knows how badly Waynesboro wants its Obama-Biden signs. I wasn’t aiming at getting coverage on the front page of the Washington Post’s Virginia section, but sometimes these little crusades that you start at 2 in the morning trying to post an item on what you assumed…

Waynesboro: Former Mississippi governor talks up Obama campaign

Chris Graham

Story by Chris Graham [email protected] It was a midday Thursday event in Waynesboro featuring a former Mississippi governor stumping for Barack Obama. You wouldn’t expect to see more than a handful of people on hand, right? So then when 55 people show up to see Ray Mabus talk about what Obama wants to do to…

Business and Politics: Do tax cuts spur economic growth?

Chris Graham

The Top Story by Chris Graham [email protected] (Second in a series.) “There’s no surer way to kill economic growth and kill jobs than raising taxes in tough economic times.” Former Virginia attorney general and ’05 gubernatorial silver medalist Jerry Kilgore is echoing there what has become the Republican Party mantra dating back to Ronald Reagan….

Crystal Graham: Your mission – be prepared for worst-case scenario

Crystal Graham

Story by Crystal Graham Kathryn McMillan has a good reason for urging others to prepare for every possible emergency situation. Fire, flooding, even a tornado, are all possible on any given day, at any time. When a fire struck her apartment in Staunton years ago, she thankfully wasn’t home. Nor was her husband, Tony. A neighbor…

Jessica O’Brien: There are big holes in our health insurance system

AFP

Op-ed by Jessica O’Brien As an independent health- and life-insurance broker in Williamsburg, I deal with people looking for health-insurance coverage on a daily basis. It is very satisfying to be able to help folks find affordable, comprehensive coverage that offers them security in the event of a medical problem, and many of the health-insurance…

Who gets the economy?

Chris Graham

Special Commentary by Chris Graham [email protected] I thought we’d already decided as a nation that the massive federal budget deficits that Reaganomics brought with them were decidedly bad for the economy. Seems like some of us didn’t get the memo. “It’s important that we have a president who understands how to get our economy moving…