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DCCC Chairman Predicts Dems Will Keep House Majority
Democrats will retain a majority in the House in the 2010 elections, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, predicted at an Aug. 27 Newsmaker press conference. He said Democrats will use a three-pronged strategy: a move-forward agenda, effective field operations and a reliance on voter anger at “extreme” GOP candidates. Van Hollen criticized House Republican Leader John Boehner’s promise to repeal the Wall Street reform bill. Van Hollen said that “would undermine confidence and move the nation backward.” In addition, he attacked Republicans for…
Type: News
New Orleans Mayor Blasts BP and Government Failures
The Gulf oil spill hammered a region "nine times the size of Washington, D.C. and the government failed to do its job," New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu told a packed NPC ballroom crowd Aug. 19. He ripped BP for its failure for three months to cap its well. "It finally capped the well," he said, "but I have no confidence in its claim that all the oil has gone. This is a defining moment for the country and New Orleans...the U.S. economy is linked to the Gulf." Moreover, he said, he believes BP "is poised to cut and run." With more than 24,000 jobs lost from the spill, Landrieu said he will…
Type: News
Education Sec'y Sees "Quiet Revolution" in US Schools
Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday there is a quiet revolution being driven by educators and administrators “challenging the defeatism and inertia that has trapped generations of children in second-rate schools.” Duncan, speaking at a National Press Club luncheon, decried schools that are “drop-out factories” and graduate less than half their students. Overall, a quarter of the nation’s students do not graduate from high school -- 1.2 million young people a year, he said. He credited the “No Child Left Behind” education law with exposing dirty laundry within education but said its…
Type: News
"Environmental Extremism" Costs Jobs, Mining Executive Contends
The United States faces increasing loss of jobs if it continues to impose regulations of dubious merit on the nation's business and industrial sector, Don Blankenship, chairman and CEO of Massey Energy Co., said at a July 22 National Press Club Luncheon. He spoke in the face of wide criticism of his company over the April 5 explosion at Massey's Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia that killed 29 miners. It was the worst such disaster since the 1970 explosion killing 38 miners in Hyden, Ky. But his opening remarks were directed at the U.S. government's massive debt, which he said could…
Type: News
Benefits, Questions in Financial Reform, Financial Services Group Chief Says
A massive financial reform measure creates new challenges for financial companies, Steve Bartlett, head of the Financial Services Roundtable, said at a July 15 Newsmaker. The organization represents 100 of the largest integrated financial services companies that provide banking, insurance and investment products consumers. Bartlett neither endorsed nor opposed the legislation that President Obama signed into law July 21. Bartlett said there is plenty to like and a good bit to question. "We accept the reality of this legislation as a framework for regulatory structure," Bartlett said. "Our…
Type: News
NPC Welcomes 43 New Members
The Board of Governors approved 43 membership applications July 19. They include David L. Hunke, president and publisher of USA Today, and five representatives of international media. Active Sue Doyle - Los Angeles Daily News freelance reporter; Ingeborg Eliassen - Stavanger Aftenblad - reporter, international affairs; David L. Hunke - Gannett/USA Today, president & publisher; Sumiko Mori - Fujisankei Communications International, Inc., Washington bureau chief - Fuji Television; William Murray - Energy Intelligence Group - Oil Daily, reporter/editor; Sonia Schott - Globovision –…
Type: News
NPC 5K Participants Beat the Heat
Despite high heat and humidity, the winner of the National Press Club 5K on July 17 nearly set a record. Gurmessa Kumssa Megers ran the course in 15:34, charging through temperatures headed north of 90 degrees, even at this year’s earlier start time, 8 a.m. The event drew 759 participants and recorded the highest number of teams in its 13-year history (http://twitter.com/npc5k). Proceeds support training and scholarship programs at the NPC Eric Friedheim National Journalism Library. “This is the largest turnout we’ve had in recent memory, and gosh knows you suffered for it,” NPC President…
Type: News
Horton Vows to Make Troops 'Fit to Fight'
Obesity in the military has become a national security issue, fitness trainer Tony Horton said at a Club luncheon July 16, describing his work with military leaders to reduce the rate, which has tripled in the past few years. Horton, who is the marshal for the NPC's 5K race on July 17, discussed his plans to implement a “functional fitness” program in order to improve the health of the military. He said he has been working closely with military leadership to develop a multi-dimensional approach to fitness that will involve elements of his top-selling P90X system of muscle confusion, including…
Type: News
S.F. Mayor Sees Cities, States Taking Health Care Lead
If there is any progress in providing universal health care to all Americans, it will come from the cities and states rather than the federal government, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom told a Newsmaker audience Sept. 23. Newsom, speaking in the Broadcast Operations Center, expressed no confidence in either the Congress or the next president in making health care available to all Americans. He lamented that the health care issue is currently on the back burner and more and more Americans are falling into the ranks of the uninsured. Calling health care a "moral, ethical & economic issue…
Type: News
Ambassador Says Maldives is Now a 'Liberal Democracy'
The ambassador of the Republic of Maldives told a September 22 Newsmaker his nation—a collection of 1,192 islands and “islets” off the southwest coast of India--“ushered in a liberal democracy with strengthened human rights safeguards” with the August 7 ratification of a new constitution. Mohamed Hussain Maniku said the act marked the culmination of almost four years of work by the former British colony's Constitutional Assembly and is seen as “heralding a new era in the democratic history of the nation.” He said the Maldives government now is “working with political parties, NGOs, other…
Type: News