Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Greg Hicks answers questions from his congressman, U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly.
In a highly charged hearing room Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Northern Virginia resident Gregory Hicks gave dramatic testimony as the star witness before House members getting to the bottom of a fatal attack in September on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Hicks identified himself at the hearing as a constituent of Congressman Gerry Connolly’s 11th District in Northern Virginia. Connolly is a member of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, holding the hearing Wednesday. Hicks, a Foreign Service officer and former deputy chief of the U.S. consulate, testified about the details of the night of the attack on Sept. 11, 2012, when U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and another man were killed; two others were killed the next …
Saturday, March 2, 2013
The March 1 deadline for sequestration passed, and another deadline could come and go March 27.
Northern Virginia Congressmen Gerry Connolly (D-11th) called Congress "dysfunctional," as the midnight deadline on sequestration steadily approached. "It's a dysfunctional Congress," agreed Jim Moran (D-8th), who spoke with Patch at a ribbon-cutting Friday in Lorton. "I think it ill-serves the people of the United States today. It's very frustrating, very disappointing. It's an institution that is not serving its functions." Connolly didn't expect a last-minute compromise on $1.2 trillion in debt reduction, and he was right. The U.S. military will be forced to cut $46 billion and domestic defense spending will be cut by $85 billion this year alone, he said. "It is the consequence of a dysfunctional Congress," he said. "It's the …
Friday, January 4, 2013
Virginia's 11th District congressman surrounded by family and friends at ceremony on first day of 113th Congress.
Speaker of the House John Boehner swore in Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-11th) Thursday for Connolly's third term in office. Connolly was re-elected Nov. 6, beating out Republican Chris Perkins. Connolly was surrounded Thursday by family and friends at a swearing-in ceremony on Capitol Hill. The oath of office officiated by the speaker is ceremonial, conducted after an official swearing-in of the entire Congress at noon on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. The first day of the 113th Congress Thursday came on the heels of a tumultuous debate over the "fiscal cliff," voted on by the House on New Year's Day. Though he had reservations, Congressman Connolly was the only House member in Virginia to vote for the bill, siding with …
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Connolly says he planned to vote while "holding my nose."
The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday night passed HR 8, the Tax Relief Extension Act, a permanent extension of many Bush-era tax cuts by a vote of 257 to 167. The late-night vote was taken at 10:57 p.m. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-11th) voted for the extension act. The legislation keeps the Bush era tax cuts for individuals making less than $400,000 and couples making less that $450,000. It also makes permanent the fixes for the Alternative Minimum Tax and delays government spending cuts for two months. Here's the breakdown of Northern Virginia's votes Tuesday on the so-called "fiscal cliff" legislation, which the Senate passed early Tuesday morning: The legislation came to a vote in the House Tuesday night after it was passed by the …
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Virginia Democrat says he's "holding his nose," but wants to avoid fiscal cliff, sequestration and extend middle class tax cuts.
Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-11th) said Tuesday while he is "holding his nose," he is urging his colleagues to vote for a fiscal cliff deal the Senate passed in the early hours of the new year. “This is not a perfect package, but it is something that gets us by until we can tackle the larger issues in the next Congress,” Connolly said. “I pray God that the next Congress is more willing to compromise than this one.” It was not certain Tuesday when the House, controlled by Republicans, would take up the fiscal cliff legislation. The Virginia Democrat said the Senate-passed measure provides an opportunity to: “There is a lot of good in this package," Connolly said. "But there is also a lot that is not addressed at all." “We have a debt …
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
Forty House members sign letter backing proposed program added to any end-of-the-year fiscal cliff deal.
A letter co-written by Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-11th), and signed by 40 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, urges Republican House Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi to support an immediate $200 million gun buyback program in any end-of-the-year fiscal cliff deal. Connolly, whose district includes the national headquarters for the NRA, and U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch of Florida authored the letter to the House leaders. “Gun buybacks have proven successful in communities across the nation,” Connolly and Deutch said in a “Dear Colleague” to House members. “Adding $200 million to the final compromise on the fiscal cliff could remove as many as one million guns from our streets.” Including the gun buyback program…
Monday, December 10, 2012
U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly will speak with 11th District residents.
Want to tell Rep. Gerry Connolly what is on your mind? Connolly will hold a telephone town hall for residents of Virginia’s 11th Congressional District residing in Fairfax and Prince William Counties and the City of Fairfax at 8 p.m. Dec. 17. Connolly (D) was elected to his second term in Congress on Nov. 6. Since Connolly started the telephone town halls shortly after he took office in January 2009, more than 190,000 district residents have participated in a call with the congressman, his office says. On one call in 2010, more than 30,000 people dialed in. Constituents will be called shortly before the meeting begins at 8 pm. Connolly will give a brief rundown of the top issues in Congress and issues he is working on and will then open …
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Jack Faulconer was a machine gunner under U.S. Army General George S. Patton.
On Nov. 28, 1944, U.S. Army Pvt. John "Jack" Faulconer was charging up a hill in the Saar Valley in Germany. In an instant, the 19-year-old machine gunner was hit in the arm by German machine gun fire. Faulconer was badly injured, and crawled to a German trench, where he hid for hours until the enemy pulled back. His two ammunition carriers were killed. The machine gunner's life would forever be altered by the experience, and, on Friday, he was finally awarded the Bronze Star for Heroism by U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-11th District). "What an honor to get this. It's very nice," said Faulconer, 88, who was accompanied by his wife, Joyce. The war "was terrible. All those young men in the prime of life losing their lives." Connolly …
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Lawmakers ask GSA to consider the area, noting that many FBI employees already live in Northern Virginia.
U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-11th District), along with Jim Moran (D-8th) and several other lawmakers, sent a letter to the administrator of the General Services Administration urging him to consider Northern Virginia as a possible home for a new FBI headquarters location. Moran and Connolly, whose district includes the Vienna, Oakton and Tysons area, was joined by Reps. Frank Wolf and Rob Wittman as well as Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner in signing the letter. Their letter follows GSA’s request for information seeking input on a new location for a consolidated FBI headquarters in the Washington, DC region. In their letter to GSA Acting Administrator Daniel Tangherlini, the lawmakers asked GSA to undertake a qualitative “source selection” …
Monday, November 5, 2012
The Independent Green candidate for Virginia's 11th congressional District seat talks about why he's running, and how the U.S. government should work.
(Editor's note: One of the greatest powers Americans have is their right to vote. Patch respects that, and wants our readership to be as informed as possible before walking into that voting booth on Tuesday. With that in mind, this is the sixth and final in a series of in-depth interviews with candidates vying for Virginia’s 11th congressional District seat.) Disgust with Congress, ridding America of it's dependence on foreign oil and the importance of third-party candidacies were just a few of the topics discussed recently between Patch and Peter Marchetti, the Independent Green candidate for Virginia's 11th congressional District seat. Marchetti spoke with Patch from the Starbucks coffee shop at the Bradlick Shopping Center in Annandale…
Anoneemous
12:15 pm on Saturday, May 11, 2013
Gregory Hicks is a true hero and patriot. more ›