Rep. Gerry Connolly Imagine: @realDonaldTrump has been hacked and the latest missive from the president’s Twitter account announces imminent airstrikes on Genovia. Foreign militaries scramble, and the potential for an accidental escalation of conflict is suddenly very real. This has not happened, and hopefully it never will, but it does demonstrate the precarious position seemingly innocuous technology occupies in our national security infrastructure. Many federal information technology (IT) sy...
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Today, all Democratic Members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform sent a letter asking Chairman Trey Gowdy to issue a subpoena to finally compel the Department of Homeland Security to produce documents it has been withholding from Congress for months relating to Russian government-backed efforts to monitor, penetrate, or otherwise hack at least 21 state election systems in the 2016 election. Ranking Member Elijah Cummings issued the following statement in conjunction with t...
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Faiz Siddiqui A Virginia high school student will attend President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday as the guest of Rep. Gerald E. Connolly. Nicolle Uria, a senior at Annandale High School in Fairfax County, is a volleyball player, aspiring media mogul — and one of the estimated 690,000 immigrants whose future has been uncertain since Sept. 5, when Trump rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The program was created in 2012 for undocumented immigrants who...
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Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) announced today that he will bring Nicolle Uria, a Northern Virginia Dreamer, as his guest to the State of the Union on Tuesday evening. Nicolle is currently a high school student at Annandale High School. Her family immigrated to the United States sixteen years ago. She currently has DACA but was not eligible to reapply following the President’s announcement to end DACA in September. Her DACA will expire in September 2018. “Nicolle is a bright, talented student...
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Congressman Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA), released the following statement on Senator McConnell’s concessions on a three-week funding bill: “It is shameful that President Trump and Republicans inflicted this shutdown on the American public. I will vote to reopen government because we have big challenges that our constituents demand we address like ending sequestration, fighting the opioid crisis, and fixing the DACA problem the President created. I will also vote yes because Senator McConnell pledg...
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Today, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA) called on Speaker Ryan to immediately bring up the Families of Fallen Servicemembers Act, bipartisan legislation with Congressman Tom Rooney to ensure the immediate payment of military death benefits to survivors of fallen servicemembers during federal government shutdowns or any other circumstance when federal spending authority lapses. The legislation now has 144 cosponsors. Connolly and Rooney originally introduced the legislation in April. “It is unco...
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Congressman Gerald E. Connolly (D-VA), released the following statement on the Republican shutdown: "Republicans control the White House, the House and Senate and blame everyone but themselves for this government shutdown This is reckless, irresponsible and a complete abrogation of their constitutional duty to provide a functioning government. This is a failure of leadership and governance that discredits their legitimacy as a party. The consequences of another government shutdown will be felt b...
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Alex Koma Martin Luther King Jr. spent his life fighting injustice — and students competing in Prince William County’s annual oratorical contest believe people of all creeds and colors need to have that same sort of conviction in these troubled times. The 28th edition of the annual event, held Jan. 15 at the Hylton Memorial Chapel and designed to honor the civil rights icon’s legacy, challenged county students to consider King “in his own words: yesterday, today and tomorrow.” In the view of th...
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Kate Ryan Monday morning’s derailment along Metro’s Red Line comes as regional lawmakers are discussing ways to pay for capital improvements for Metro, including the possibility of dedicated funding. In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan has said he is open to regional funding for Metro. In September, he offered to have Maryland pay $500 million dollars over a period of four years if Virginia and D.C. would do the same. In Maryland’s General Assembly, twin bills are being drafted that would do essentia...
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Shannon Ryan “It seems like we probably derailed leaving the Farragut North station. We might of hit some rails, some loose rails. We are obviously stuck in the tunnel. There's no radio transmission on my radio,” according to officials. Officials discussed smoke and communication issues that were factors in the 2015 fatal incident at L’Enfant plaza. We have activated the fan...in the exhaust mode … to keep the smoke in the tunnel going up through the exhaust,” stated officials. Various politici...
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