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Helmke urges Americans to find common ground between gun rights and gun control to curb gun violence
Two recent mass shootings and dozens of daily homicides show the United States continues to have a gun violence problem despite drops nationwide in violent crime, Paul Helmke, former CEO of the Brady Campaign/Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said Friday, Oct. 18 at a National Press Club Newsmaker. In the ten months since a gun-wielding man murdered 20 children and six adults at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, the country has not taken steps to address the gun violence issue, Helmke, the former Republic mayor of Ft. Wayne, Ind., said. Meanwhile, an average of 32 people are murdered each…
Type: News
CNN host Piers Morgan tells NPC audience he favors aggressive interviews, loves Twitter
British interviewers are more aggressive and controversial than American TV hosts, CNN host Piers Morgan told a sold-out National Press Club audience Friday, Oct. 18. Morgan, host of CNN's Piers Morgan Live and a former British tabloid editor, discussed his new book, "Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God, and George Clooney," a memoir about his life, career and rise to prominence as a news host in the United States. He was interviewed at the event by Barbara Cochran, president of the board of the National Journalism Institute. Morgan said he loves social media, especially Twitter, which he uses…
Type: News
Players in 'Saturday Night Massacre' recall upholding rule of law
The 'Saturday Night Massacre' that shook the national and started President Nixon's slide to resignation pitted power against rule of law, several of the key players said Oct. 17 at a National Press Club panel commemorating the 40th anniversary of the event. On Oct. 20, 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox as his investigation into the Watergate break-in revealed secret White House recordings that captured the president's role in the scandal. When Richardson refused and resigned, Nixon tapped Deputy Attorney General William…
Type: News
Horde of Trekkies hears 'Star Trek' star George Takei defend gay rights at luncheon
Trekkies flocked to the National Press Club to welcome actor, activist and TV cult figure George Takei at a National Press Club luncheon Oct. 18. The Japanese-American actor's long-running role as Lt. Hikaru Sulu on the 1960s TV series "Star Trek" and the six subsequent, successful Paramount feature films that were an outgrowth of that small-screen phenomenon have made Takei a cult-figure among sci-fi fans. It was Takei's role as activist and his trademark humor that took center stage in the Club's ballroom, which Takei described as looking like an "elegant Star Trek convention." Takei has…
Type: News
Budget deal does not solve problem, debt-ceiling expert says
Americans may be breathing a sigh of relief as a result of the stop-gap budget deal reached minutes before the Oct. 17 U. S. default date, but unless the nation’s political parties can agree to repeal the underlying debt-ceiling law, Congressional gridlock is likely to recur, warned constitutional scholar Neil H. Buchanan at a National Press Club Newsmaker Oct. 14. "As a constitutional matter, the debt-ceiling law is defective and not enforceable – [and] not just on 14th Amendment grounds,” said Buchanan, a professor at George Washington University Law School and a leading expert on the…
Type: News
Michigan attorney general predicts Supreme Court will uphold his state's ban on racial preferences in education
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, at an Oct. 14 National Press Club Newsmaker event, predicted that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold Michigan's state constitutional amendment banning racial preferences in schools and universities. Schuette's Oct. 15 arguments to the Court in the case, Schuette vs. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, will result in a ruling in early spring, he said. The case has been appealed to the Supreme Court after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit found the amendment unconstitutional in July 2011. The amendment bans discrimination against and…
Type: News
Captain Phillips recalls rescue from pirates, advocates support for merchant marine
Richard Phillips, the American ship captain captured by Somali pirates in 2009 and rescued by Navy Seals, described his experience at an Oct. 10 National Press Club Newsmaker, meanwhile advocating Congressional budget support for the merchant marine. A movie starring Tom Hanks, scheduled for Oct. 11 release, tells the captain's story. Phillips said Hanks did a great job in the film, specifically because his eyes reveal the fear and attempt to regain control during the 12 hours the captain was alone with four pirates in a lifeboat. The captain said his goal was to remain a person in the…
Type: News
Now's the time to teach civics to youth, urges education group at Newsmaker
There is no better time than the present to improve civic education in schools and youth organizations, declared the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) in a report released at a National Press Club Newsmaker Oct. 9. The current political dysfunction in the United States should not be a barrier to action on civic education, members of the Commission on Youth Voting and Civic Knowledge, the national bipartisan commission that authored report, told the Newsmaker. Rather, they stressed, the dysfunction provides an opportunity to teach a new generation of…
Type: News
Funding to aid Syrian humanitarian crisis 'grossly inadequate,' says Mercy Corps CEO
Neal Keny-Guyer, chief executive officer of Mercy Corps, an international NGO and responder to the Syria crisis, called the situation in Syria “the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis,” at a National Press Club Newsmaker, Oct. 8. “The speed of the refugee crisis in Syria is the worst we’ve seen since the Rwandan genocide, and the current funding pledged is grossly inadequate to meet the needs,” he said. More than two million Syrians, of whom more than one million are children, have fled the conflict in their country and taken refuge in Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, Keny-Guyer said. He…
Type: News
NBC News's Andrea Mitchell honored at National Press Club's Fourth Estate Award dinner
Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent for NBC News and host of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” received the National Press Club’s most prestigious honor, the Fourth Estate Award, at a gala dinner at the Club Oct. 4. The veteran newswoman was the 41st recipient of the award, which is presented annually to a journalist in recognition for significant contributions to the journalism profession. In Mitchell’s case, the award also was a recognition of the advancements of women in journalism and in the National Press Club over the past 30 years. “This award is meaningful for so…
Type: News