In The News

Should any president be able to send U.S. forces into combat abroad without the consent of Congress? Our Constitution says no. But this Congress refuses even to hold hearings on whether Barack Obama should be authorized to deploy large forces into Iraq and Syria to crush ISIS terrorist strongholds. Virginia’s senator, Tim Kaine, tried unsuccessfully over several years to generate public discussion and congressional hearings on the war-powers issue, but has stimulated no action. His frustra...Continue Reading

The omnibus spending bill Congress passed this month includes several explicit mentions of the military campaign against the Islamic State and a $58.7 billion budget line that will allow the Pentagon to continue fighting the terrorist group in Iraq and Syria with bombs and, increasingly, troops on the ground. That may be as close as Congress comes to authorizing war against the Islamic State for the foreseeable future. After a couple of halfhearted attempts, the White House and leaders in the Ho...Continue Reading

Last week, when U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine dropped in on the Head Start program at the Original Walker–Grant School in Fredericksburg, perhaps he granted himself a moment of reflection as he engaged the young children in their learning environment. Sixty years earlier, Virginia’s priority had been to resist public school desegregation. Now, he had the opportunity to not only partake of this setting of welcomed cultural diversity, but also to see the fruit of his labor as a longtime champion...Continue Reading

U.S. Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine applauded Senate passage of the Fiscal Year 2016 Omnibus Appropriations bill, which provides discretionary funding for the entire federal government for the next fiscal year. “The bipartisan budget deal helped pave the way for this legislation, which restores some of the most harmful sequester cuts and provides certainty to our military and to Virginia shipyards. It provides much-needed additional resources to improve cybersecurity across the federal...Continue Reading

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Tuesday expressed support for considering an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), even though he said President Obama can wage his military campaign without it. "I do believe we have legal authorization under the 2001 [AUMF]. I do also believe that it would be a good sign for American foreign policy to have a new one updating our AUMF to declare our mission with respect to ISIS," he said at a breakfas...Continue Reading

It’s not every day that a U.S. senator visits your school to bring a present. But Head Start students and staff members at Fredericksburg’s Original Walker–Grant School enjoyed seeing Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine on Tuesday as he delivered news about a bill that will replace the federal No Child Left Behind legislation and help schools such as theirs. And the little ones gave Kaine gifts, too: ornaments to hang on his Christmas tree. Last week, President Barack Obama signed the Ev...Continue Reading

On Dec. 4, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) held a conference call during which he fielded questions from representatives of college newspapers around the state. Kaine, the former governor of Virginia, spoke for nearly an hour, first explaining his work in the various congressional committees he’s involved with and then addressing questions about his stance on events taking place in Virginia and around the world. Following the call, The Breeze got reaction from some students on campus. The Elem...Continue Reading

He may be prominent on the national stage, but Tim Kaine's political and personal roots run deep in Richmond. The U.S. senator started in politics in 1994 as a city councilman representing the Ginter Park neighborhood where he still lives — and where he raised three children with wife Anne Holton, Virginia's secretary of education and daughter of former Gov. A. Linwood Holton Jr. Kaine subsequently served as Richmond mayor before being elected lieutenant governor in 2001 and governor...Continue Reading

Provisions of U.S. Sen. Timothy M. Kaine’s Teach Safe Relationships Act were signed into law this week as a rider on the Every Student Succeeds Act, making public funds available for elementary and secondary school instruction about sexual assault and safe relationships. Packaged within the bill that replaces the No Child Left Behind Act, the provisions open Title IV funds for grants that encourage instruction and training on safe relationship behavior among teenagers and young adults. The...Continue Reading

[The Wall Street Journal] asked 50 people—from Gillian Anderson to Nell Zink—to name their favorite books of 2015. Tim Kaine on 'Showdown' My reading highlights are a new book, a recent book and an old classic. Wil Haygood’s“Showdown” is a fast-paced telling of how President Lyndon B. Johnson schemed to nominate Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court—running straight into the teeth of the segregationists running the Senate Judiciary Committee. Expe...Continue Reading

Varias organizaciones ecologistas de Estados Unidos se mostraron hoy optimistas sobre el alcance del acuerdo internacional sobre cambio climático que está a punto de lograrse en la Cumbre del Clima (COP21) de París, e instaron a la comunidad internacional a aprovechar este "momento clave". Adrianna Quintero, fundadora y directora ejecutiva de la organización estadounidense Voces Verdes, aseguró a Efe desde la capital francesa que se trata de "una oportunidad &u...Continue Reading

El Congreso de Estados Unidos recibió hoy un nuevo proyecto de ley sobre la "autorización para el uso de la fuerza militar" (AUMF, por su sigla en inglés) contra el Estado Islámico (EI) en Irak y Siria, la primera de este calado con carácter bipartidista y bicameral. Los representantes Scott Rigell, republicano por Virginia, y Peter Welch, demócrata por Vermont, presentaron el nuevo texto en la Cámara baja, mientras que en el Senado lo hicieron Ti...Continue Reading

Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives joined a Senate push on Thursday for Congress to vote on a formal authorization to use military force against Islamic State, a boost for an effort that has struggled to gain traction among lawmakers. Eight days after an attack in San Bernardino, California, by a couple who pledged loyalty to the militant group, Republican Representative Scott Rigell and Democratic Representative Peter Welch backed a proposal to formally autho...Continue Reading

A top US Senator today asked Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to repeal a dress policy in its army which prevents Sikhs from serving in the military with their religious articles intact. "Under current Department of Defense (DoD) policy, implemented in 1988, members of the Sikh faith are unable to serve in the military unless they abandon their articles of faith--namely maintaining unshorn hair, beards, and wearing a turban," Senator Tim Kaine wrote in a letter to Carter....Continue Reading

Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Virginia Beach, is joining Sen. Tim Kaine's efforts to getCongress to formally authorize the use of military force against the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS. Rigell and Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., are introducing a companion bill to the one Kaine and Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., introduced this summer, and which still has not been taken up by the Senate. “I feel very strongly about this,” Rigell said. “We need to have thi...Continue Reading

The Roman statesman Cato the Elder was so alarmed by the rise of the Phoenician city across the Mediterranean that he ended every speech — no matter what the topic — with the declaration: “Carthage must be destroyed!” Tim Kaine is not quite to the Cato the Elder stage, but Virginia’s junior senator does use every opportunity — and lately there have been a lot — to issue a slightly less-ringing declaration: Congress should vote on using force against the ...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress have criticized President Obama’s response to the Islamic State — also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, or ISIS — but have been slow to authorize the use of force against the group. In his address Sunday, Mr. Obama again challenged Congress to give him a formal authorization to use force. So-called authorizations of the use of military force — basically declarations of war — do exist; one passed the...Continue Reading

The federal education bill meant to overtake No Child Left Behind passed the Senate on Wednesday with provisions included by Virginia representatives. The Every Student Succeeds Act, reauthorizing and amending the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, passed through the Senate on Wednesday on a vote of 81 to 17 after passing the House of Representatives 359 to 64 one week earlier, according to congressional websites. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill. The bill is tou...Continue Reading

WASHINGTON — Tim Kaine always travels with three harmonicas. “You never know when you’re going to get a chance to play,” the freshman U.S. senator from Virginia says, dumping three instruments onto his uncluttered office desk before picking one up to honor a request for a tune. He warms up with a few chords of blues but then breaks into an early Beatles classic with a catchy harmonica intro — “Love Me Do.” “You can see how hard we work in th...Continue Reading

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he’s impressed with area law enforcement agencies’ approach to the heroin epidemic. During a visit to the city Monday afternoon, Kaine attended a roundtable discussion on the heroin/prescription opioid problem with representatives from the Northwest Virginia Regional Drug Task Force, Valley Health, area schools, concerned community members and Winchester Police Chief Kevin Sanzenbacher, at the Timbrook Public Safety Center, 231 E. Piccadilly St. About...Continue Reading