By Stephanie Witt Sedgwick: Dramatic testimony from school shooting survivors drew a larger than usual crowd of a few hundred protesters at the monthly vigil last Saturday outside National Rifle Association headquarters in Fairfax, VA. Jenny Wadhwa, a survivor of…
By Jim O’Connell: Steve Descano goes out night after night looking for trouble. Not trying to start some, he’s trying to resolve it. Descano is a member of the Fairfax County Police Civilian Review Panel, which reviews complaints of abuse…
By Shyamali Roy Hauth: How does an 18-year old immigrant woman whose parents are both college professors and steeped in a tradition of non-violence end up in the armed forces? I was working three part-time jobs and struggling to pay…
Ah, spring! Although by the time you see this, winter might be back. The Yoshino cherry blossoms finally peaked around the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., along with every blooming plant and tree in the metro area. Achoo! The colder…
Editor’s Note: Second in a two-part series on gun-related bills in the recently concluded state legislative session. Part 1 dealt with the Senate and was posted on April 2. This Part 2 deals with the House of Delegates By Ben…
By William Berkson: Republican “trickle down” policies have failed spectacularly. But their anti-government economic narrative retains a hold on the electorate. In 2016, despite the long Obama era economic recovery, 3% more voters thought Trump would handle the economy best.…
by Holly Hazard: Wouldn’t it be great to just sit at home and have voters come knocking asking how they might get more actively involved instead of you volunteering with a list and a clip board and going door-to-door? One…
By Brad Swanson: Marcus Simon remembers vividly the feelings of despondency and helplessness he saw around him as reality set in – despite winning 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton had lost the 2016 presidential election. “The…
By Mark Richer: Climate change is the most local of issues, as well as the most global. More than 90% of extra heat trapped by our atmosphere because of carbon emissions is absorbed in oceans spanning the globe. But the…
by Brad Swanson: Two prominent Virginia elected officials took turns Saturday night at a fund-raising event to celebrate recent Democratic victories and rally party members to take over the House and Virginia state legislature. Speaking first, Va. Del. Elizabeth Guzman…
Editor’s Note: First in a two-part series on gun-related bills in the recently concluded state legislative session. Part 1 deals with the Senate; Part 2 deals with the House of Delegates and will appear shortly By Sen. Dick Saslaw: Our…
By Stephanie Witt Sedgwick: Equal parts of grief and hope came together at The March For Our Lives in Washington, D.C., and echoed in towns and cities across the country. An estimated 200,000 people gathered on Pennsylvania Avenue on March…
Hundreds of thousands of people showed up for the March for Our Lives on March 24 in Washington, D.C. Led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas School in Parkland, FL., they carried creatively crafted signs supporting gun control measures, including banning assault weapons. The…
By Marion Stillson: I love distributing literature to the public, using a wheelchair as I have done full time since I was twenty-three. And I am good at it: good at catching the mood of an oncoming pedestrian, good at…