At George Mason University, president says helping U.S. service members and veterans continue their education is not only an investment in their future but in the country’s as well.

President Barack Obama will join Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., former Sen. John W. Warner and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki on Monday at George Mason University to mark the implementation of Webb’s Post-9/11 GI Bill. Tomorrow, the Department of Veterans Affairs will begin distributing tuition payments to schools participating in the program.

The National Right to Work Committee took to the airwaves yesterday to pressure Virginia Sens. Jim Webb and Mark R. Warner to vote against proposed “card-check” legislation. The two Democrats are said to be undecided on the legislation, sought by labor unions and opposed by the business community. The Springfield-based Right to Work Committee has bought $2 million in television ads in five states, including Virginia, urging viewers to call wavering senators. “The truth is, passage of card check would be a massive expansion of union bosses’ power over workers at the expense of their privacy and freedom,“ Dennis Fusaro, executive director of the committee, said during a news conference at the Doubletree Hotel Historic Richmond.

The National Right to Work Committee is running a television ad urging Virginia Sens. Jim Webb and Mark R. Warner to vote against proposed legislation that would allow unions to organize without a secret ballot.

They held up signs: “Government-run health care makes me sick.“ “Can we be more disgusted? Yes we can.“ “No Obama care.“ They chanted slogans: “You work for me!“ “We’ve had enough!“ “Webb vote no, or you will go!“ In downtown Richmond, more than 200 people marched yesterday outside the office of Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., to show their opposition to President Barack Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade energy policy and his health-care plan.

Protesting against President Barack Obama’s health-care and cap-and-trade proposals, several hundred Virginians gathered today outside the Richmond area offices of Sens. Jim Webb, D-Virginia, and Mark R. Warner, D-Virginia. Pickets organized by the Richmond Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity chanted slogans and waved signs to urge the two senators to vote against the proposals.

Sen. Jim Webb wants the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to investigate what he says are numerous reports of misrepresentation of military service, including false prisoner-of-war claims.

A new poll shows President Barack Obama’s popularity slipping in Virginia. Obama had an approval rating of 48 percent and disapproval rating of 46 percent in the Public Policy Polling survey of people who are likely to vote in this year’s general election for statewide offices. Obama carried the state in November with 52.6 percent of the vote.

Virginia’s Native American tribes are a step closer to being formally recognized by the nation that was founded on their soil. Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the “Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2009,“ which would provide formal status to six of the state’s tribes that descend from the natives who first greeted the settlers of Jamestown 400 years ago.

Virginia’s U.S. senators have recommended that President Barack Obama nominate Justice Barbara M. Keenan of the Virginia Supreme Court to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If nominated by Obama and confirmed by the Senate, Keenan would be the first woman from Virginia to serve on the federal appeals court, which serves Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, North and South Carolina.

Lauren Cohen Bell, a political-science professor at Randolph-Macon College, says she often errs when making predictions, but not this time. As soon as she heard about Justice David H. Souter’s retirement, she said she thought Sonia Sotomayor would be President Barack Obama’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Bell worked on Sotomayor’s stalled nomination to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals throughout 1998, when Bell was a fellow on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Republican-controlled Senate eventually confirmed Sotomayor.

Virginia now has access to $806 million in education stimulus funding to help local school systems make up for budget cuts and save teaching jobs. Yesterday’s release of the first portion of state stabilization money comes less than two weeks after Virginia submitted an application for its cut. “The impact of these funds will be felt this summer and fall as teachers and other vital employees—who otherwise would have lost their jobs—return to schools across Virginia to serve the commonwealth’s children,“ said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patricia I. Wright.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., says he now disagrees with President Barack Obama’s timetable to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in January 2010. But Webb supports Obama’s idea of reviving military commissions to try some terror suspects now detained there. Webb, appearing on ABC’s “This Week” program, acknowledged that in January he said the president had established a reasonable timeline for closing the detention center.

It’s a drop in the bucket on a $3 billion project, but $77.3 million is headed to Virginia from the federal government for improved rail service to Washington-Dulles International Airport. U.S. Sens. Jim Webb and Mark R. Warner, both Democrats, yesterday announced the funding for Metrorail, under President Barack Obama’s effort to revive the economy with massive government spending.

While Mark Warner hides out on card-check, Jim Webb plunges into prison reform. These issues, conventional wisdom has it, are career killers. One Democrat shudders. The other says big deal. This tale of two senators spotlights their different temperaments and very different approaches to politics. On card-check—the new bloody shirt of business and labor—Warner is learning the hard way that being a “radical centrist” means you’re a target for people on both sides of a tough issue.