Thursday, May 9, 2013
ABC News: About half as many Virginians vote in gubernatorial elections as in presidential years.
Anyone familiar with Terry McAuliffe knows he can tell a good story. The one he told Thursday in Arlington, at George Mason's campus as he was wrapping up a five-day tour of the state, was about this past November. It was Election Day. McAuliffe, at the request of the campaigns of Barack Obama and Tim Kaine, was asked to head to a polling station in Henrico County, where voters were still waiting in a long line as darkness fell. He said he went there and handed out coffee, hot chocolate and hand warmers. And everyone got to vote. And then he asked everyone in the room to mobilize for this year's election. [McAuliffe: Reform Virginia's Standards of Learning Tests] Turnout, often, is key. But now more than ever that isn't lost on Northern …
Friday, April 12, 2013
Startup 3.0 legislation will enable brightest minds to stay and do business in U.S.
Investing in talent through bipartisan immigration reform is a key to growing the economy in general and nurturing Northern Virginia startups in particular. That was the message U.S. Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, conveyed to a roomful of tech entrepreneurs and business leaders on Friday at Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce event at the Wolf Trap Center for Education in Vienna. While Warner says he thinks the access to capital, which dried up in the economic downturn of the last several years, is poised to make a comeback, he mostly spoke about the access to talent that he said would expand greatly under the Startup 3.0 bill. "If you look around this room, and I have seen data that supports this, 35 to 40 percent of tech-…
Thursday, April 11, 2013
McLean-area Concerned Citizens Against Gun Violence collected more than 3,000 signatures.
The McLean-area Concerned Citizens Against Gun Violence delivered more than 3,000 signatures to the office of Sen. Mark Warner on Tuesday urging him to support universal background checks on all gun purchases, limits on the size of ammunition clips and the assault weapons ban. The Virginia Democrat’s announcement Wednesday that he will support the Manchin-Toomey bipartisan compromise came as welcome news to the group, according to a news release. “While it does not address the ammunition or assault weapons issue, the compromise does close the gun show loophole, one of our primary goals,” said group leader Ben Zuhl in a prepared statement. “The over 3,000 Virginians represented by our petition are happy to have Senator Warner’s vote on …
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
State Sen. Adam Ebbin, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner among those who have changed their profile pictures.
You probably have seen a red square with a pink equals sign on it in your Facebook, Twitter and other social media feeds lately — a symbol that stands for marriage equality. It stems from an effort by the Human Rights Campaign that coincides with oral arguments being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court this week regarding the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA, as it is known, allows the federal government to discriminate against same-sex couples. The equality symbol signifies that marriage really is all about love, according to the Human Rights Campaign. "It's nice for people on Facebook to see their Facebook friends standing up, and seeing so many people doing that," said state Sen. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria. Ebbin, who is…
Friday, March 8, 2013
Sen. Mark Warner facilitates Brett Wanamaker's marriage proposal to staffer Beth Adelson. Did a Congressman finally get a proposal through?
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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Virginia lawmakers, residents will be in attendance at President's 2013 State of the Union address at the Capitol.
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Tuesday, February 12
President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night will offer local citizens more chances than ever to participate and find out more about issues they're most interested in. The White House will offer an "enhanced" viewing experience complete with charts, graphs and data. The address will begin at 9 p.m. ET and will be followed by the traditional Republican response, this year delivered by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida. CNN will begin its coverage at 7 p.m. with political anchors and analysts including former Speaker Newt Gingrich, of McLean, who ran an unsuccessful campaign in the Republican presidential primary. C-SPAN coverage will begin with a live preview, one hour early, at 8 p.m., and will include interviews with members…
Friday, February 8, 2013
Virginia Senators Warner and Kaine give warnings about sequestration's effects on the local economy and national security.
If sequestration goes into effect in March, it will be "worse than you can imagine," Virginia Sen. Mark Warner (D) told a group of mostly government contractors at a breakfast event Friday organized by the Northern Virginia Technology Council. Warner, along with junior Sen. Tim Kaine (D), spoke about the short-term and long-term impact of the potential $1 trillion federal budget cuts happen March 1 if Congress doesn't reach a compromise. Half of that would affect the defense industry, which some estimates say could cost Virginia more than 207,000 jobs. Sequestration could have a large impact on the local economy, where hundreds of firms depend on government contracting, and thousands of workers are employed by various agencies and …
Monday, December 24, 2012
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," the NRA's Wayne LaPierre said.
In an Friday morning press conference, the Fairfax-based National Rifle Association broke its weeklong silence following the horrific shooting of 26 people at a school in Newtown, Conn., and called for a surge of gun-carrying "good guys" around American schools. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre called for a new kind of American domestic security revolving around armed civilians, arguing that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." "We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents," LaPierre said. "Members of Congress work in offices surrounded by Capitol Police officers. Yet, when it comes to our most beloved, innocent, and vulnerable members of the American …
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Senator tells Associated Press he'll announce decision before Thanksgiving.
Sen. Mark Warner plans to announce before Thanksgiving whether he'll run for governor again, according to the Associated Press. The former governor, a Democrat, served as the Commonwealth's chief executive from 2002 to 2006. Virginia is the only state in the country where a governor cannot succeed himself. Former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe has already thrown his hat in the ring and will face Republicans Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. If Warner walks away from another run for governor, he'll be teaming up in the Senate with the state's soon to be junior senator, Senator-elect Tim Kaine, who served as Warner's lieutenant governor and is himself a former governor of Virginia. In a poll conducted Nov. 8-12 by …
Sunday, June 3, 2012
State party convention drew more than 2,000 to the city of Fairfax this weekend.
FAIRFAX — Perhaps U.S. Sen. Mark Warner put it best: "In 2008, we changed the guard. In 2012, we need to guard the change." More than 2,000 Democrats from across the commonwealth descended on George Mason University this weekend for the Democratic Party of Virginia's State Convention. The gathering served as part pep rally, part organizational meeting as activists mobilize for November. Party leaders had similar messages, previewing what they will try to hammer home while Virginia is in the national spotlight as a battleground state for the U.S. presidency. That message, they say, is that the right-wing takeover of the Republican Party has made this country, and this state, unrecognizable and infringes on the rights of gays, women and …
Kris Gregory
4:24 pm on Monday, April 15, 2013
I've had an NRA member, a woman who was shot 42 years ago and recovered, Republicans, hunters, a competitive target shooter, a nurse, a woman whose 2 sons are police officers, veterans, and a family member of one of the Virginia Tech victims sign our CCAGV petition for me. All of them are Virginians who live in Congressman Wolf's district and like me, they want smart gun laws that keep families … more ›