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World War II Battle for Manila detailed at American Legion Post 20 meeting
James M. Scott, author of "Rampage," a stirring account of the 29-day battle for Manila in early 1945, told a Nov. 14 luncheon meeting of the National Press Club American Legion Post 20 that the U.S. Army realized it was occupying a crime scene once the fighting ended. Scott told of how Japanese Rear Adm. Sanji Iwabuchi surprised Gen. Douglas MacArthur when he refused to abandon the city to spare its destruction as MacArthur had done during his retreat to Bataan three years earlier. Iwabuchi's 17,000 soldiers battled surrounding U.S. forces in an urban bloodbath that destroyed much of the…
Type: News
NASA scientists look to InSight landing on Mars for clues to planet’s past and our future
InSight, a NASA spacecraft scheduled to land on Mars Nov. 26, aims to answer “critical unknowns” about the Red Planet’s composition in preparation for human habitation, according to a science panel at a National Press Club Headliners event on Tuesday. “Mars rocks are time machines,” said Dr. James Garvin, chief scientist of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “As I tell my students, no rock has ever lied to me!” he said to laughter. One of four presenters at “Becoming Martians: NASA’s 25-year Plan for Humans to Inhabit the Planet,” Garvin invites us to imagine “Greenland-scale ice sheets,…
Type: News
VA secretary vows to improve efforts to help active duty military transition to veterans status
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie told a National Press Club luncheon audience Friday that he does not expect the upcoming change in control of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Republicans to Democrats to affect efforts to improve services for more than 20 million veterans receiving VA health care benefits. Speaking on the eve of Veterans Day and the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I on Nov. 11, Wilkie said his department enjoys bipartisan support that has resulted in a record-high budget and legislation that makes possible greater accountability…
Type: News
Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin reveals 'what real leadership looks like' at Headliners luncheon
Author Doris Kearns Goodwin has thought about leadership for her whole career, she told a Headliners Luncheon audience Monday at the National Press Club. In her newest book, “Leadership in Turbulent Times.” the acclaimed presidential historian decided to approach the topic by focusing “a lens on the guys I knew the best,” referring to her previous books on former Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. “I wanted to shine a light on what real leadership looks like,” she said. She cited Abraham Lincoln’s persistence in his first run for office…
Type: News
Sasse doubts Trump will face major GOP challenger in 2020
President Donald Trump is unlikely to face a major GOP challenger in 2020, Sen. Ben Sasse, R-NE, said Wednesday at a National Press Club Headliners Luncheon. Trump “has basically captured the majority of the Republican Party over the course of the last two and one-half years, Sasse said. "The Republican electorate is pretty comfortable with the anti positions” that Trump takes on a lot issues. In discussing his new book, “THEM:Why We Hate Each Other —and How to Heal,” Sasse told the audience that the “free press is not an enemy of the American people,” but are instead living out a First…
Type: News
Vaccine expert Paul Offit takes on anti-vaccine celebrities, politicians in new book
When Paul Offit was five years old, he tied a towel around his neck, leaped into the air, tried to fly like Superman, and hit the ground hard. “That didn’t prove that I could never fly like Superman,” he explained to an audience at a Headliners’ Book Rap Oct. 29 at the National Press Club. “Just that I didn’t fly during that attempt." Offit, now a doctor and an award-winning expert on vaccines, immunology and virology, told the story to illustrate why scientists are often careful about what they say. "It can sound like we are waffling or covering things up," he noted. "Such statements don’t…
Type: News
Host and founder of The Young Turks blasts mainstream media, touts role of digital media in progressive movement
Cenk Uygur, host and founder of progressive digital news outlet The Young Turks, delivered a blistering attack on the mainstream media Friday at the National Press Club. Uygur railed against what he described as a mainstream media beholden by corporate money to the status quo. “I don’t think it has a liberal bias, I don’t think it has a conservative bias, I think it has an establishment bias,” Uygur said of the mainstream media. Referring to CNN, he said, “Why are they in favor of the status quo? They don’t want to rock the boat. It’s their boat. If you’re a multibillion dollar corporation…
Type: News
Air & Space Museum’s restoration to revive enthusiasm for space, says director
A seven-year restoration of the National Air and Space Museum on Washington’s National Mall, scheduled to begin this fall, aims to rekindle the enthusiasm for space exploration that gripped America with Apollo moon landing program 50 years ago, the museum’s new director, Ellen Stofan, told a National Press Club Headliners Luncheon Oct. 22. Calling the landing in 1969 “history’s biggest achievement,” Stofan said the Apollo program’s “level of excitement and engagement is what I want people to feel when they visit the Air & Space Museum.” Stofan, chief scientist at NASA from 2013-2016 who…
Type: News
Author Mark Leibovich: NFL maintains hold on American imagination
Despite many problems plaguing professional football, the NFL continues to have a "hold on the American imagination," author Mark Leibovich told a National Press Club audience Oct. 11. In a discussion of his new book, “Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times," Leibovich said the appeal of football is that it is “a great reality show,” and fans never know what is going to happen next. As a recent example of a surprise, he pointed to Vontae Davis, a defensive back for the Buffalo Bills, retiring at halftime of a game. The NFL is in dangerous times, Leibovich said, because it has collided with…
Type: News
House Speaker Ryan worries about 'divisiveness' seeping deeper into society
Retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan told a National Press Club audience Oct. 8 the nation is experiencing "a lot of divisiveness" but that Congress continues to work in a bipartisan way. He also addressed criticism that he does not stand up to President Donald Trump forcefully enough by saying that he tries to influence Trump through "good relationships" and "private conversations." Ever the self-described "policy maker who came into political leadership," Ryan said the political hostility was coming from both sides but could be lessened by growing the economy and getting people people out…
Type: News