National Press Club

Maurice R. Greenberg, chief executive officer of American International Group (AIG) from 1967 to 2005, told a Feb. 21 National Press Club Newsmaker audience that the company had been nationalized three times -- by Iran, Pakistan and the United States -- but only compensated by Iran and Pakistan.

"That's the reason we're suing," Greenberg said, referring to the terms of the AIG bailout during the 2008 financial crisis and his suit of the U.S. government for damages. He now leads C.V. Starr & Co., the largest shareholder of AIG stock.

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Regulating content is not the response to violence in films, said Christopher Dodd, chairman and chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America in a Feb. 15 National Press Club Luncheon speech.

Dodd stopped short of agreeing to limit gun violence in movies even as he recalled driving through Newtown, Conn., the night before the shooting tragedy. “I care deeply about the subject and will be working with the [Obama] administration to provide assistance,” he said. But “when you try to regulate content it’s a very slippery choice.”

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Salman Shoval, Israeli special envoy to the United States and Europe, told a Feb. 13 National Press Club Newsmaker event that 2013 will be "the year of reckoning" when Iran's nuclear ambitions must be stopped.

Iran will be the most important topic between Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Barack Obama during Obama's forthcoming visit to Israel, followed by the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the economy, Shoval said.

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House Budget Committee Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Vice Chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., agreed that the recurring fiscal cliffs and sequestration are bad for the nation but disagreed on ways to stop them.

Price opened a unique bipartisan leaders' Feb. National Press Club Newsmakers event decrying the "magnitude" of the $16 trillion deficit -- "too many zeros."

An orthopedic surgeon, Price said that "if you didn't make the right diagnosis, the patient only got better by dumb luck."

"We have a spending debt crisis, not a revenue crisis," Price said.

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Businesses can be successful while also benefiting customers, employees and their community by consciously looking for ways to serve, John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods told a National Press Club audience Tuesday.

Mackey and co-author Raj Sisodia, said they are hoping to persuade other business leaders of the value of conscious capitalism in their book, “Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business."

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Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt called for the federal government to give equal attention to protecting America's public lands when it considers the oil and gas industry's requests to develop energy resources.

President Obama should "embrace a simple, powerful, and practical principle that will, once again, place the conservation of America's lands on equal ground with energy development," Babbitt said at a Feb. 5 Newsmaker press conference at the National Press Club.

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Where can you find retirees from New York who have lost their eyesight and hearing, but then get driver's licenses?

Well, Miami, of course!

Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist Dave Barry, whose syndicated column for The Miami Herald kept the nation hiccuping with laughter from 1983 to 2004, regaled a National Press Club audience with tales from the palm tree-lined beaches of "Insane City" at a sold-out Book and Author event Friday.

"Insane City," Barry's first solo adult novel in more than a decade is the tale of Seth Weinstein and his destination wedding in Florida.

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As Ireland embarked on its six-month presidency of the European Union, Michael Collins, Ireland's ambassador to the U.S., outlined its priorities Thursday, Jan. 31 at a Newsmaker press conference at the National Press Club.

Ireland, as head of the Council of the European Union for the seventh time since joining the EU in 1973, will continue to work toward getting Europe's economy back on track as it implements new economic governance, Collins said.

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Moderating a debate is tricky business for a journalist, the 2012 presidential debate moderators told veteran newsman Marvin Kalb Monday on the most recent edition of “The Kalb Report.”

PBS' Jim Lehrer, ABC's Martha Raddatz and CBS' Bob Schieffer say they wrestle with whether to use reporting skills to press the candidates or to hold back and let the candidates slug it out.

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The National Press Club will focus on freedom of the press, women’s contributions to journalism and journalism training in 2013, National Press Club President Angela Greiling Keane, a reporter for Bloomberg News, said in her inaugural address Saturday, Jan. 26.

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