By Sheldon Friedman, reviewing Democracy in Chains: Nancy MacLean’s powerful book, Democracy in Chains, focuses on the decades-long alliance between billionaire industrialist Charles Koch and radical right-wing economist James Buchanan—set largely against the backdrop of George Mason University. Fueled by the limitless donations of the Koch family and the star power of Nobel Prize-winning Buchanan, GMU by the early 1980s…
Category: Issues
Time to change the role of police in Fairfax County public schools
By Kofi Annan: We have the opportunity in Fairfax County to change the role of police officers in public schools – to reduce the possibility of racial profiling and make policies more transparent and accountable to parents. The need for this is apparent. Children are being arrested in our schools for minor offenses that can be dealt with better by…
Photo Essay: Thousands rally to bring families together
Tens of Thousands of demonstrators rallied Saturday in Washington, D.C. to protest the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy and separating children from their parents. On a sweltering day in the capital, the crowd gathered at Lafayette Square across from the White House to protest separating thousands of children from their parents at the border and the new plan to detain families…
Wexton ahead of Comstock by 10 points in new Monmouth poll
Jennifer Wexton is leading U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock among all potential voters by 10 points, 49 to 39, with 12 percent undecided or supporting someone else in Virginia’s CD-10 race, according to a Monmouth University poll released Tuesday, June 26. Half of the voters in CD-10 identify themselves as independents, and Virginia Democratic State Sen. Wexton leads among this group by 45% to…
Jennifer Wexton draws stark contrasts with Comstock on issues
By Karen Kirk: “With Donald Trump in the White House, Scott Pruitt heading the EPA, Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education and Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, I am very concerned about how much damage is going to be done to our country in the next couple of years and the only way we’re going to stop it is to…
Fighting for democracy and the soul of our country
By Karen Kirk: These are dark times for democracy. That was the theme of a few speakers at Saturday’s Women’s Summit 2018 who encouraged progressive activists to pull out all the stops to turn the U.S. House and Senate blue in November. At the sold-out summit in Herndon, activists and Congressional candidates praised the audience, mostly women, for their hard…
It’s cruel but not unusual for Virginia to execute the seriously mentally ill
By Paul O’Shea: The last person executed in Virginia was mentally ill. Yet Virginia, which has executed more people than any state except Texas, has no law protecting the mentally disabled from capital punishment. It’s time to change that. When Virginia completed the task of executing William Morva at 9:15 p.m. on July 6, 2017, it had killed a disturbed…
School Board votes to make sex ed more LGBTQ inclusive
By Karen Kirk: The Fairfax County School Board Thursday night approved changes to the Family Life Education (FLE) curriculum that are more inclusive of LGBTQ students, thwarting opposition from a national right-wing media campaign. The proposed changes include using the term “sex assigned at birth” rather than “biological sex” and informing high school students about “pre-exposure prophylaxis” or “PrEP,” a…
Former opponents pledge support to Jennifer Wexton
By Stephanie Witt Sedgwick: The Virginia CD-10 primary candidates gathered today in Sterling, Va., to pledge their support for Tuesday’s primary winner, state senator Jennifer Wexton (D-33). The CD10 Unity event fulfilled a pledge all candidates had taken to support whoever won the primary. Moderator Zach Pruckowski, Chair of the 10th Congressional District Democratic Committee, declared all the candidates winners…
‘Shock and Awe’ movie shows how a few reporters ‘got it right’
By Karen Kirk: In the march to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, there were few dissenting voices. Most of the news leading up to the war was about the Bush administration’s false claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein could unleash on us at any time. But at the Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, there were a…
Here’s the story of a candidate who won by losing
By Holly Hazard: Lost in the discussion of how minority Democrats won Medicaid expansion last month in the Virginia General Assembly is the story of one vibrant 26-year-old woman who may have made a big difference. The story starts with the surprising change of mind of Del. Terry Kilgore, a long-serving Republican whose 1st District ( parts of Lee, Scott,…
Medicaid expansion will improve public education in Fairfax County
By Dalia Palchik: As a first-generation immigrant, I know first-hand how hard it can be for a working family to access critical preventive care. And as a Fairfax County School Board member, I know the importance of affordable healthcare to a child’s development. That is why I am so encouraged by the recent vote of our Virginia General Assembly to…
Candidate Question Time: How will you fight back against the ongoing Republican war on the environment?
Each week until the Va-10 congressional district Democratic Party primary election on June 12, The Blue View is asking all six candidates to respond to a key question on an important issue in 100 words or less. This week’s question: If you are elected, how will you fight back against the ongoing Republican war on the environment? Answers below from candidates, in alphabetical…
School Board votes on sex ed changes June 14 amid controversy
By Robert Rigby, Jr.: The Fairfax County School Board meets on Thursday June 14 to vote on changes to the Family Life Education curriculum that are more inclusive of transgender students—and have attracted a national media campaign of opposition from outside, right wing groups. The changes – which also include informing students of ways to prevent HIV infection – were…