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David Frum

David Frum is a staff writer at the Atlantic. Frum is the author of ten books, most recently TRUMPOCALYPSE: Restoring American Democracy(HarperCollins, 2020). His first book, Dead Right, won praise from William F. Buckley as “the most refreshing intellectual experience in a generation” and from Frank Rich in the New York Times as “the smartest book written from the inside about the American conservative movement.” In National Review, John Podhoretz hailed Frum’s history of the 1970s, How We Got Here, as “an audacious act of revisionism, written in a voice and style so original it deserves to be called revolutionary.” Arianna Huffington said of Frum’s 2012 novel, Patriots, “David Frum is someone who fearlessly speaks his mind, regardless of where the chips may fall, so it’s no surprise he’s able to convey so much truth in his fiction.” Frum’s memoir of his service in the George W. Bush administration, The Right Man, was a New York Times bestseller, as was his 2018 book, Trumpocracy: The Corruption of the American Republic.

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Anita Dunn

Anita Dunn, one the nation's most renowned and accomplished political and communications strategists, joins The Common Good to discuss President Biden's first 100 days in office. Anita is a Senior Advisor to The White House.

Anita most recently served as a senior advisor to President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. In that role, Anita advised on all aspects of the campaign, including messaging, debate preparation, and overall strategy, helping lead the Biden/Harris ticket to its historic win.

Anita was a chief strategist to former President Barack Obama, as a senior campaign advisor and as the White House Communications Director. Anita oversaw all communications strategy and messaging and helped the former President navigate a complex legislative and political landscape early in his administration.

Named one of Washingtonian’s most powerful women in 2019, Anita has broken barriers and holds a unique role in Washington, having been the only person who has served as a senior advisor of the winning campaigns for two different presidents. Anita also served in a variety of senior roles for other key Democrats throughout her career, including Tom Daschle, Bill Bradley, and Evan Bayh. 

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Douglas Brinkley

Douglas Brinkley is one of the most prominent historians in the U.S. — and CNN's presidential historian - having charted American history and significant figures for decades. He is also the official Presidential Historian for The New York Historical Society, an essayist, and a prolific and renowned biographer. He has published over three dozen highly acclaimed books, including many discerning biographies and shrewdly edited collections of presidents and presidential records. His subjects have ranged from Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, JFK, FDR, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon to the life of Rosa Parks, Hurricane Katrina, the space race and American Catholicism.

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R. Harrison

CEO, Art Director, Creative Director, co-Founder

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Jonathan Greenblatt 

Greenblatt is a seasoned CEO with leadership experience in managing complex organizations in business, government and nonprofit environments. He currently serves as CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the oldest anti-hate organization in the world and one of the longest standing civil rights groups in the US. He has been named to the list of Top 50 Nonprofit Leaders by the Nonprofit Times in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Additionally, he has launched and led successful high-growth companies and worked in senior positions at several public companies. Greenblatt is also a former Special Assistant to President Obama and Director of the White House Office of Social Innovation (2011-2014) and co-chaired G7 Task Force on Impact Investing (2012-2013). He developed technology and trade policy as an aide at the National Economic Council in the White House and the US Department of Commerce (1993-1997).

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R. Harrison

CEO, Art Director, Creative Director, co-Founder

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Michael German

Michael German is a retired FBI agent, scholar, and writer..German is a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program, which seeks to ensure that the U.S. government respects human rights and fundamental freedoms in conducting the fight against terrorism. A former special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, his work focuses on law enforcement and intelligence oversight and reform. Prior to joining the Brennan Center, German served as the policy counsel for national security and privacy for the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office.

German is the author of Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Democracy. The book chronicles how the FBI transformed itself after the 9/11 attacks from a law enforcement agency famous for prosecuting organized crime and corruption to arguably the most secretive domestic intelligence agency the country has ever seen. A 16-year veteran of federal law enforcement, German served as an FBI special agent, where he specialized in domestic terrorism and covert operations. He left the FBI in 2004 after reporting continuing deficiencies in FBI counterterrorism operations to Congress. German served as an adjunct professor of law enforcement and terrorism at National Defense University. He joined the ACLU’s Washington legislative office in 2006 and the Brennan Center in 2014. His first book, Thinking Like a Terrorist: Insights of a Former FBI Undercover Agent, was published in 2007.

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Robert Pape

Pape is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago specializing in international security affairs, as well as, a successful publicist. His commentary on international security policy has appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, as well as on Nightline, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and National Public Radio. 

Before coming to Chicago in 1999, he taught international relations at Dartmouth College for five years and air power strategy for the USAF's School of Advanced Airpower Studies for three years.

His current work focuses on the causes of suicide terrorism and the politics of unipolarity. He is the director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats.

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Jonathan Greenblatt 

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Joyce Vance

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jim webb

Webb is the former Democratic Senator from Virginia He wrote, introduced, and guided to passage the Post-9.11 GI Bill, the most significant veterans legislation since World War II, and co-authored legislation which exposed 60 billion dollars of waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan wartime-support contracts. A long-time advocate of fixing America’s broken criminal justice system, Mr. Webb was spotlighted in The Atlantic as one of the world’s “Brave Thinkers” for tackling prison reform and possessing “two things vanishingly rare in Congress: a conscience and a spine.” He went on to give a response to the State of the Union which has been regarded as one of the stronger State of the Union responses in recent memory. 

 He previously served as Secretary of the Navy under President Reagan and is the recipient of the Purple Heart. Webb is also an Emmy Award winning journalist, a filmmaker, and the author of ten books. Since retiring, Webb is continued to be a prolific writer and has written for many national journals including USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal

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Kai Bird

Kai Bird is an author and columnist who has written on numerous topics and won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography on Oppenheimer. His books have received critical acclaim and popular success, including The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames, which was a New York Times best-seller. His memoir, Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

In January 2017 he was appointed Executive Director and Distinguished Lecturer of CUNY Graduate Center's Leon Levy Center for Biography. He is also the recipient of the McArthur Genius Grant for research and writing. 

charlie cook

Cook is considered one of the nation’s leading authorities on American politics and U.S. elections. He is the editor and publisher of the Cook Political Report which serves as one of the leading sites and informational platforms for election predictions and results in the United States. He is also a political analyst for NBC News and National Journal.

 Since the 1984 US presidential election, Cook has provided election night commentary for various television networks. The Wall Street Journal has referred to Cook as “the Picasso of election analysis” and the Washington Post has called him "perhaps the best non-partisan tracker of Congressional races.”

In 2010, Charlie was the co-recipient of the American Political Science Association’s prestigious Carey McWilliams award to honor “a major journalistic contribution to our understanding of politics."

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Anita dunn

Dunn is one of the nation’s most highly regarded communications strategists, bringing decades of experience to bear for political, corporate, nonprofit and advocacy clients. A leading expert on message delivery, Anita has managed presidential debate preparations and has media- and message-trained dozens of political candidates and Fortune 100 executives.

She served as  White House Communications Director and as a Senior Adviser to President Obama and his campaigns. During her time there Anita directed conventional and new media communications strategies, as well as research, speechwriting, television booking, presidential events and cabinet affairs press.

She currently serves as the Managing Director for SKDKnickerbocker and is also a senior advisor to Joe Biden's presidential campaign . 

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Rick Wilson

Rick Wilson is a longtime Republican political strategist, infamous negative ad-maker, and commentator. He has successfully worked for numerous GOP campaigns including, presidential, senate, mayoral and gubernatorial. Since 2015, he's been a leading conservative critic of Donald Trump. He went on to co-found The Lincoln Project, a group of Republican and conservative leaders who are critical and oppose Donald Trump. 

A pioneer of and leader in the Never-Trump movement, Wilson released the best-selling Everything Trump Touches Dies in August 2018. In the book, Wilson brings his dark humor and biting analysis to confront the absurdity of American politics in the Age of Trump. He mercilessly takes down Trump and exposes the damage Trump has done to the country, to the Republican Party Wilson served for decades, and to the conservative movement that has abandoned its principles for the worst president in American history.

Wilson writes several opinion and columns for newspapers like The Daily Beast, Politico, and The Federalist. 

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Senator al Franken

Al Franken is an American comedian, politician, media personality, and author who served as a United States senator from Minnesota. He gained notoriety for his work on Saturday Night Live.

After leaving SNL, Franken went on to become a political activist including hosting a radio show, offering commentary and insights and writing several books. He supported military members and often worked on entertaining soldiers. He decided to run for the Senate and win. While in the Senate he supported same-sex marriage, abortion rights, and gun control. In addition, Franken was active in health care reform and fought to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. 

After leaving the Senate, he now hosts his own radio program The Al Franken Show on SeriousXM which covers global affairs, politics, the 2020 presidential election, and entertainment. 

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Jonathan Capehart

Jonathan Capehart is an American journalist and television personality. He writes for The Washington Post's PostPartisan blog and is a contributor for MSNBC.

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Capehart was a researcher for NBC's The Today Show. Subsequently, he worked for the New York Daily News (NYDN), serving as a member of its editorial board from 1993 to 2000. At the time of his hiring, Capehart was youngest ever member of that newspaper's editorial board. In 2000, he left the NYDN to work at Bloomberg News. Afterward, he advised and wrote speeches for Michael Bloomberg, during Bloomberg's 2001 run for the mayoralty of New York City.

He joined the staff of The Washington Post as a journalist and member of the editorial board in 2007. He continues in that capacity and is a contributing commentator for MSNBC. He also hosts the Cape Up podcast, in which he talks to newsmakers about race, religion, age, gender, and cultural identity in politics.

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governor ned lamont

Governor Lamont got involved in public service shortly after college, founding a weekly newspaper in a town hit by the loss of its largest employer. Covering town meetings and the Board of Selectmen, he helped to bring voice and transparency to a community working to recover from job losses and reinvent itself. He later went on to started his own company, taking on the large and established giants of the telecom industry. Under his vision and stewardship, the company grew to serve over 400 of America's largest college campuses and 1 million college students across the nation.

In 2006 he would defeat incumbent Joe Lieberman for the Democratic nominee for Senate.In 2018 he was elected governor of Connecticut with his top priorities including: implementing electronic tolls on state highways, taxing online streaming services, restoring the property tax credit, legalizing marijuana for recreational usage, increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour, instituting paid family and medical leave, renegotiating contracts with public-sector unions, and legalizing sports betting.  

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ed rollins

Ed Rollins is a giant in the political world, having served as campaign consultant and advisor for numerous congressional, senatorial, gubernatorial and presidential campaigns and victories. 

During the Reagan administration, he served as Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and Director of the Office of Political Affairs. He would go on to lead Reagan's re-election campaign in which he oversaw the 1984 election where Regan won 49/50 U.S. states 

 He was the first non-member of Congress to serve as the Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Chief Political Advisor to the House Republican Leadership. He has gone onto manage successful campaigns for: Governor Christine Todd Whitman, Congressman George Nethercutt and Katherine Harris and currently serves as chairman of the Great America PAC. 

He was inducted into the Political Consultants Hall of Fame in 201 and was was also the recipient in 2010 of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

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michael schmidt

Schmidt is a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning correspondent for The New York Times. Over his fifteen years at the Times, he has covered the investigations of the Trump presidency, the Pentagon, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the war in Iraq. He continuously appears on MSNBC and NBC News. 

Michael has broken several high profile stories. Among them was that former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, wrote a series of memos on how the president asked for his loyalty and tried to interfere with the F.B.I.'s investigations. Michael was first to reveal the fact that Hillary Clinton exclusively relied on a personal email account when she was Secretary of State.

He recently released his book Donald Trump v. The United States  which tells the dramatic, high-stakes story of those who felt compelled to confront and try to contain the most powerful man in the world as he shredded norms and sought to expand his power.

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Ambassador joe paolino 

At just 29 years old, Joseph Paolino, Jr., earned the distinction of becoming the youngest mayor of any major city in the country and held the position of Mayor of Providence, Rhode island until 1991. In 1994, he was appointed as the U.S. Ambassador to Malta.

Following his political career, Mr. Paolino is now the managing partner at Paolino Properties, representing the fourth generation to lead his family business, which he has expanded into one of the largest property holding companies in the state of Rhode Island. He continues to stay involved with politics through his role as the Rhode Island representative on the Democratic National Committee.

governor ned lamont

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