In The News

They fanned out, facing the ridge, and waited to get shot. The eight National Guardsmen lay as flat as they could in the open creek while the dirt beside them jumped with machine-gun rounds. There were 45 Taliban blazing away above them, firing from two emplacements on the hill in Wahgez, a lawless, black-route district in southern Afghanistan. Still dazed by the rocket that pierced his "bomb resistant" truck and launched this hour-old ambush, First Lieutenant Matt Zeller was low on ammo and dro...Continue Reading

On March 10, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) visited NOVA’s Alexandria Campus to discuss the interconnection between technical education and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields as it relates to future careers in the workforce. STEM programs, like NOVA’s SySTEMic Solutions, equips students with the skills needed in today’s and tomorrow’s workforce. Senator Kaine, along with U.S. Senator Robert Portman (R-OH), recently formed the Senate Career and T...Continue Reading

Last summer, says Sen Tim Kaine, in an essay published by The Roanoke Times, he joined doctors, nurses, dentists and students camped out in tents, trailers and RVs at the Wise County Fairgrounds to volunteer at the Remote Area Medical Clinic (known as RAM), to provide free medical, dental and vision care to rural Virginians who would otherwise go without that care. “While I always look forward to the opportunity to volunteer at RAM, I wish we didn't need one in Virginia,” Kaine wrote...Continue Reading

Last summer, I traveled to the Wise County Fairgrounds in Southwest Virginia to volunteer at the Remote Area Medical (RAM) Clinic - a sea of tents, trailers and RVs that house dentists, doctors, nurses and medical students who provide free medical, dental and vision care to rural Virginians who would otherwise go without that care. While I always look forward to the opportunity to volunteer at RAM, I wish we didn't need one in Virginia. But every year, the volunteers keep coming back because tho...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Timothy M. Kaine, D-Va., has teamed up with Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., to lead a bipartisan group of lawmakers in calling on President Barack Obama to develop and submit to Congress a more robust U.S. strategy for addressing the Syrian humanitarian crisis. The call comes on the heels of reports by UNICEF, Save the Children and World Vision that highlight how millions of Syrian children have been affected by the three-year crisis. “One of history’s greatest humanitarian catas...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine was among two dozen Senators to pull an all nighter this week to discuss climate change. And perhaps like those of us (naming no names) who’ve gone through some white nights getting set for a mean calculus exam, he kicked off his comments saying: “This is at the beginning, kind of a math problem folks.” The math, said Kaine, starts with 6 billion. That’s as in tons of greenhouse gases that went into atmosphere in 2005. The math problem (the prof would have ...Continue Reading

Nineteen senators introduced a bipartisan resolution on Thursday requesting that the White House beef up its humanitarian aid to Syria. The effort underscores growing frustration in Congress as Syria prepares to mark the third anniversary of an uprising that has left more than 140,000 people dead. While nonbinding, the resolution could be a prelude to increased congressional pressure on the administration to step up its involvement in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. &ldquo...Continue Reading

Innovation is needed to combat climate change, according to Democratic U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. Kaine was one of about two dozen senators who took part in an all-night session Monday into Tuesday to bring attention to issues coming from climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency says the Earth’s temperature on average has gone up nearly 1.5 degrees in the past 100 years, and in the next century is expected to go up another 2 to 11.5 degrees. Greenhouse gases, mainly from t...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine visited Northern Virginia Community College's (NOVA) Alexandria campus Monday to discuss the importance of career and technical education (CTE) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs like SySTEMic Solutions, a program at NOVA that strives to equip students with the skills needed in today’s workforce. “This is a good thing for students because they are acquiring skills that are in high demand among Northern Virginia employers right now...Continue Reading

In a rare instance of Senate Democrats and House Republicans working together, Congress agreed Tuesday to shift funding formerly allocated to presidential conventions to programs focused on pediatric medical research. The bill, the Gabriella Miller Kids First Research Act, was approved unanimously by the Senate, without a roll call vote, after being championed by Virginia Democrats Sen. Mark R. Warner and Sen. Timothy M. Kaine as well as by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), a veteran advocate for fe...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) spoke with Alhurra’s Congressional Correspondent Rana Abtar about the humanitarian crisis facing Syria’s neighboring countries as refugees continue to stream across borders. He noted that while the U.S. is the biggest provider of humanitarian aid in the world, the Syria refugee crisis is “the biggest humanitarian challenge since World War II.”  Dealing with this crisis, he added, “is going to require an awful lot of nations. The U.S. has t...Continue Reading

My memories of Tim Kaine from high school are of a skinny Irish Catholic kid with wavy dark hair – very smart, outgoing, confident. He was a National Merit Semifinalist and Student Body president. He sang in the school choir, worked on the student newspaper, was even a cheerleader our senior year. In a class of 200 high achievers at that all-boys college-prep school in Kansas City, Mo., Kaine stood out as one who would be among the cream. Tim and I didn’t hang out a lot together, but...Continue Reading

Increasingly, America's wars have little connection to average U.S. families, and are waged without their consent. Only a handful of young people — mostly those with few civilian job prospects — enlist in the all-volunteer military services. Congress never declares war, as the U.S. Constitution requires. Instead, the White House alone jumps into "police actions" — mostly using the CIA's drones to kill targeted foreigners. Modern U.S. warfare has become a half-hidden search-and-...Continue Reading

A photo from Syria is grabbing the world's attention: a sea of people lining up for food amid the rubble of a Palestinian refugee camp inside Syria. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia was so moved by the image, he took to the Senate floor, saying "a country of 23 million people, a proud country, is being transformed before our eyes to a land of rubble, skeletons, refugees and ghosts." Syria was once a destination country for refugees. Now, it is fast becoming the world's biggest source of them. United N...Continue Reading

Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine have urged Taishan Gypsum, a Chinese drywall manufacturer, to settle with builders and homeowners after a federal appeals court in Louisiana last month confirmed U.S. jurisdiction in the dispute. A federal court has ordered Taishan to pay $2.7 million to seven Hampton Roads homeowners. Another 300 Virginia families are suing Taishan Gypsum. “On behalf of thousands of Americans that continue to deal with the effects of problem Chinese drywall, we again wri...Continue Reading

Leaders should always look for opportune moments to shift policy toward the long-term good. The Keystone XL oil pipeline is such a moment, and I oppose the project because I believe it sends an affirmative market signal to dirty energy at a time when our national interest lies with clean energy. Keystone XL supporters have trumpeted a recent State Department projection that the 830,000 barrels per day from the Alberta tar sands would find their way to market one way or another — if not by ...Continue Reading

The bomb went off, about five miles to the south, just as U.S. senators Tim Kaine and Angus King were leaving the U.S. Embassy in Beirut to meet Lebanese President Michel Suleiman. "We could hear the explosion, we could see the smoke," said Kaine, D-Va. The bomb at the Iranian Cultural Center last week killed six and injured more than 120, the latest in an alarming spike of terrorist incidents as the conflict in Syria spills over into Lebanon. "But the sad thing to me was, we thought we'd have t...Continue Reading

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) demanded Sunday that Syrian President Bashar Assad allow humanitarian assistance for Syrians struggling in the ongoing civil war. Kaine’s comments came a day after the United Nations (UN) Security Council unanimously approved a resolution requiring all factions in the ongoing civil war to let assistance be delivered to millions of Syrians. “It is now incumbent on the Syrian regime to allow unhindered access of humanitarian goods to all Syrians. Opposition group...Continue Reading

Israel’s stance on acceptable terms for a final Iran nuclear deal remains as uncompromising as that which divided Washington and Jerusalem on the merits of an interim nuclear deal last fall, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) said Monday following a trip last week to the Middle East. “Their position is no, no, no: No enrichment, no centrifuges, no weaponization program,” Kaine, referring to Israeli leaders, said in answer to a question on a conference call briefing with journalists Mo...Continue Reading

CAIRO: Terrorism is a real challenge Egypt is facing, said U.S. Senator Tim Kaine during a congressional delegation visit to Cairo on Wednesday. “We are worried about terrorism not only in Egypt but around the world, and Egypt has a legitimate fight against terrorism, as even government opponents realize the threat posed by terrorism,” said Kaine, who is also chairperson of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee During a Thursday press conference, Kaine said there should be an equ...Continue Reading