America's Future Now! 2010 Speaker Biographies

Steve Abrecht

Steve Abrecht is the Director of Benefits and of the Capital Stewardship Program for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). He is the Director and Deputy to the Chairman of the Board of the SEIU Master Trust and its three associated pension funds. From 1996 through June 2000, Abrecht was the Research Director at SEIU; and, from 1990 through 1996, he was a Research Economist at the Communication Workers of America. Prior to 1990, he was an independent consultant to trade unions specializing in the financial analysis of corporations. He is a graduate of Yale University.

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Alexandra Acker Lyons

Alexandra Acker Lyons Bio Picture Over the past 10 years, Alexandra has worked for candidates and campaigns, party committees, and progressive organizations. Alexandra recently joined Democratic GAIN as Executive Director, overseeing the professional organization for political operatives. She previously worked for GAIN as Training Director in 2005.

Most recently, Alexandra served as Executive Director of the Young Democrats of America, the nation's largest youth-led partisan organization. In 2004, Alexandra served the National Youth Outreach Director for the John Kerry for President Campaign and the Democratic National Committee. As the Campus Outreach Manager for Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) from 2003 to 2004, Alexandra worked with PPFA affiliates across the country on campus organizing for public policy initiatives.

Alexandra is a recognized political commentator and has appeared regularly on CNN, Fox News, and in numerous national print publications. Alexandra graduated magna cum laude from the State University of New York at Binghamton with a B.A. in political science.

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Stewart Acuff

Stewart Acuff has been an organizer for more than 30 years. He started union organizing in 1982 as SEIU organizing coordinator in Texas where he and his organized 12 nursing homes in two years. In 1985 Stewart went to Georgia where he founded Local 1985 and built the union up to 3000 members. In 1990 he became president of the Atlanta AFL-CIO where he organized and led the historic campaign to unionize the 1996 Olympics, labor's biggest ever victory in the South. In 2000 he went to work for the national AFL-CIO. Stewart was organzing director from 2001 to 2008. Under his tenure the labor movement grew by more than it had in a generation. Stewart developed the policy and legislation which became the Employee Free Choice Act and led the campaign to pass it. Now Stewart is Chief of Staff of the Utility Workers Union of America and sits on the steering committee of the bluegreenalliance.

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Gar Alperovitz

Gar Alperovitz Bio Picture Gar Alperovitz is a professor of Political-Economy at the University of Maryland and one of the founders of the Democracy Collaborative, an organization devoted to developing community wealth-building approaches to local and national democratic reconstruction.

Alperovitz’s most recent book (with Lew Daly) is Unjust Deserts: How the Rich Are Taking Our Common Inheritance. He also is author of America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty and Our Democracy, and The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb.

Alperovitz previously was a Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University, of the Institute of Politics at Harvard, of the Institute for Policy Studies, and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution.

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Nancy J. Altman

Nancy J. Altman Bio Picture Nancy J. Altman has a thirty-five year background in the areas of Social Security and private pensions. She is Co-director of Social Security Works and the author of The Battle for Social Security: From FDR’s Vision to Bush’s Gamble (John Wiley & Sons, 2005). She is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of beneficiary rights. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Foundation of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, as well as the National Academy of Social Insurance, a membership organization of over 800 of the nation's leading experts on social insurance.

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John Amato

John Amato Bio Picture John Amato is the founder of Crooks and Liars, one of the nation’s most influential progressive weblogs, named Best Political Blog by the Bloggies in 2008. A pioneer of video blogging, Amato has led the nation in provocative and insightful online political analysis and advocacy. He has appeared on television as part of CNN’s election-night coverage, as well as MSNBC and E! Entertainment and featured in prominent newspapers including, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Forbes.

He just co-authored a new book with David Neiwert entitled “Over the Cliff,” How the Election of Barack Obama Drove the American Right Insane which will be released in June 1st.

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Sarah Anderson

Sarah Anderson Bio Picture Sarah Anderson is the Director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, which works with social movements to promote true democracy and challenge concentrated wealth, corporate influence, and military power. Anderson is a co-author of the books Field Guide to the Global Economy and Alternatives to Economic Globalization. In 2009, she served on an advisory committee to the Obama administration on bilateral investment treaties and in 2000 she served on the staff of a bipartisan commission created by Congress to evaluate the World Bank and IMF (the “Meltzer Commission”).

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Tom H. Andrews

Tom H. Andrews Bio Picture Hon. Thomas H. Andrews is the Executive Director of New Security Action, a 501c4 advocacy organization. He serves as National Director of the Win Without War coalition and as Senior Advisor to the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. As a member of Congress, Andrews served as president of his freshmen class, a Deputy Majority Whip and member of the House Armed Services Committee. Andrews is a well known and widely respected political strategist and organizer who has fought for progressive causes throughout his career.

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Phil Angelides

Phil Angelides Bio Picture Phil Angelides has earned national acclaim as an effective public and private sector leader with broad expertise and accomplishments in the fields of investor protection, finance, housing, and corporate and financial market reform. He has won widespread praise for his innovative work in urban reinvestment, smart growth and green investment.

Mr. Angelides is Chairman of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a ten member bipartisan panel created by Congress and charged with examining the causes of the nation’s financial crisis and reporting its findings to the President and Congress by December 2010. From 1999 to 2007, he served as California’s State Treasurer.

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Diane Archer

Diane Archer Bio Picture Diane Archer, an attorney and health care authority, is Special Counsel and Co-Director of the Health Care for All Project at the Institute for America’s Future. With Roger Hickey, she is co-leading a national effort to discuss and debate progressive solutions to the challenge of providing quality, affordable health care to everyone in America. Ms. Archer is the past president of the Medicare Rights Center (MRC), a national consumer service organization dedicated to ensuring that older and disabled Americans get the health care they need, which she founded in 1989 and on whose Board she served until December 2007. Ms. Archer holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Wellesley College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

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Nan Aron

A leading voice in public interest law for over 30 years, Nan Aron is President of Alliance for Justice, a national association of public interest and civil rights organizations. Nan, who founded AFJ in 1979, guides the organization in its mission to advance the cause of justice for all Americans, strengthen the public interest community's influence on national policy and foster the next generation of advocates.

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John Atlas

John Atlas Bio Picture John Atlas, a public interest lawyer, writer, and organizer, is president of the National Housing Institute, which publishes Shelterforce. His work has appeared in The Huffington Post, Star Ledger, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Tikkun, The Nation, Dissent, and Social Policy. His book Seeds of Change, The Story of ACORN, America’s Most Controversial Antipoverty Organizing Group, Vanderbilt University Press, is based on eyewitness reporting. It goes beyond today’s headlines and controversies, traces ACORN’s history, what happened in its massive voter registration drives, why it triggered an unrelenting attack by Fox News and the Republicans, and how ACORN confronted its internal divisions and scandals.

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Peter Bahouth

Peter Bahouth Bio Picture Peter Bahouth is the Executive Director of U.S. Climate Action Network and a board member of Climate Action Network International. USCAN represents over 80 organizations working for a safe and clean energy future.

Prior to USCAN Peter was Executive Director for Ted Turner’s family foundation for 9 years and managed the growth of that philanthropic organization from less than 1 million to over 50 million dollars in grants per year. Prior to the Turner Foundation, Peter served as Executive Director and Chairman of Greenpeace USA.

Peter is an accomplished stereoscopic photographer represented by Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta Georgia.

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Marge Baker

Marge Baker Bio Picture Marge Baker oversees People For’s policy and programmatic work, including its campaigns on the courts, nominations, LGBT equality, voting rights and elections. She has worked for nearly 30 years in various public service roles. Prior to her current position she was the Staff Director for the late Senator Paul Wellstone on the Senate’s Employment, Safety and Training Subcommittee. Ms. Baker is a graduate of Yale Law School, has served as a law clerk in the federal judiciary, as a counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as head of consumer protection for a state regulatory agency. Ms. Baker is married, and has three children, ages 24, 26, and 29.

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Robert Biko Baker

Robert Biko Baker Bio Picture The Executive Director of the League of Young Voters Education, Rob "Biko" Baker is a nationally recognized young leader. In his home community of Milwaukee, he has organized town hall meetings and used the power and agency of art to inform, mobilize, and motivate young people to participate in civic life. Baker has served as the deputy publicity coordinator and young voter organizer for the Brown and Black Presidential Forum. He has appeared on C-SPAN, Fox News and CNN, has interviewed luminaries Cornell West, Russell Simmons, and Howard Dean, and has been on panels with many of the nation's strongest progressive voices. Baker is a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA, and serves on the New Organizing Institute's board as well as CIRCLE's research advisory board.

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Andrea Batista Schlesinger

Andrea Batista SchlesingerBio Picture Andrea Batista Schlesinger is a special advisor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In this role she has been charged with developing initiatives to reform the safety net and help make the city more affordable and equitable for New Yorkers. Prior to joining the administration, Andrea served for eight years as Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute, a leading center of research and analysis on economic policy, the middle-class, immigration reform, and urban policy in New York City and beyond. She is the author of "The Death of Why: The Decline of Questioning and the Future of Democracy" (Berrett-Koehler: 2009).

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Carmen Berkley

Carmen Berkley is currently a Regional Field Director with the NAACP. Prior to the NAACP, Carmen served as the President of the United States Student Association (USSA). Since training young people is her passion, she has served as a trainer for Grassroots Organizing Weekend (Midwest Academy & USSA), Electoral Action Training (Wellstone & USSA) and she is currently a Campus Camp Wellstone Trainer (Wellstone Action). As an advocate for healthcare reform, she recently consulted as a Healthcare Organizer with the Center for Community Change and as a Healthcare Project Manager at Power PAC. In her spare time she serves as the Co-Chair of the Black Youth Vote Advisory Board and the USSA/Foundation Board.

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Jared Bernstein

Jared Bernstein Bio Picture Jared Bernstein is the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. He is also the Executive Director of the Middle Class Task Force created by President Obama, and chaired by Vice President Biden.

Bernstein’s areas of expertise include income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, low-wage labor markets and poverty, international comparisons, and the analysis of federal and state economic policies.

He is the author and coauthor of numerous, including “Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?” and nine editions of "The State of Working America." Bernstein has published extensively in various venues, including The New York Times, Washington Post, American Prospect, and Research in Economics and Statistics. He was also a contributor to the financial news station CNBC.

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Deepak Bhargava

Deepak Bhargava Bio Picture Deepak Bhargava is Executive Director of the Center for Community Change, a national organization whose mission is to develop the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low-income people of color, to change the policies that affect their lives. He was previously the Center’s Director of Public Policy. Mr. Bhargava has sharpened the Center’s focus on community organizing as the central strategy for social justice and on policy change as a lever to improve poor people’s lives. He has provided intellectual leadership on issues including the future of the progressive movement, racial justice, immigration reform, community organizing, and economic justice.

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Jennie Blackton

An Emmy Award winner, Jennie Blackton started her career acting on Broadway as a teenager and progressed to hosting talk shows on radio and TV in New York City and Los Angeles. Later, she decided she wanted to be on the other side of the camera and began writing sitcoms, from One Day at a Time to Roseanne. When she didn’t feel funny anymore, she became a vice president of several movie studios. For the past 12 years, she has found her soul work developing candidates for local, city and state elections. She has also worked outside the United States on campaigns in Malawi, Haiti, Nigeria, and Greece. She’s proud to have been with Progressive Majority almost since the beginning, helping create smart candidates who talk convincingly to voters.

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Angela Glover Blackwell

Angela Glover Blackwell Bio Picture Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, founded PolicyLink in 1999 and continues to drive its mission of advancing economic and social equity. Under Blackwell’s leadership, PolicyLink has become a leading voice in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, education, and infrastructure.

Blackwell is the co-author of Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future (W.W. Norton & Co., 2010), and contributed to Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream (2007) and The Covenant with Black America (2006).

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John Bonifaz

John Bonifaz Bio Picture John Bonifaz is the Legal Director of Voter Action, a national voting rights organization, and the Director of Free Speech For People (www.freespeechforpeople.org [150]), a new campaign seeking to restore the First Amendment and fair elections to the people. Mr. Bonifaz previously served as the executive director and general counsel for the National Voting Rights Institute, which he founded in 1994. He has been at the forefront of key voting rights battles in the country over the past 15 years. Mr. Bonifaz is a 1992 cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and a 1999 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

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Heather Booth

Heather Booth Bio Picture Heather Booth has been an organizer for over 40 years, beginning in the 1960s and the civil rights movement. She is the founding director of Midwest Academy, a training center for organizers. She was the co-director of USAction, founding director of Citizen Labor Energy Coalition and other organizations. She has organized in many election campaigns and was the training director for the Democratic Party. She was the lead consultant to the campaign for immigration reform. She was the director of the AFL-CIO health care campaign in 2008. She is the director of Americans for Financial Reform, the coalition leading the fight to hold the big banks accountable.

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Robert L. Borosage

Robert Borosage Bio Picture Robert L. Borosage is the co-director of the Campaign for America’s Future. Previously, Borosage founded and directed the Campaign for New Priorities, a nonprofit organization calling for post-Cold War reinvestment in America. He is the author of The Next Agenda: Blueprint for a New Progressive Movement. Borosage’s work has appeared in a number of mainstream and progressive publications, and he is a frequent television and radio commentator. In 1988, he was senior issues advisor to the presidential campaign of Rev. Jesse Jackson. He has also served as an issues advisor to many progressive political campaigns, including those of Senators Carol Moseley Braun, Barbara Boxer, and Paul Wellstone.

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Andrew Boyd

Andrew Boyd Bio Picture Andrew Boyd is an author, humorist, and 25-year veteran of creative campaigns for social change. As "Phil T. Rich," he led the decade-long satirical media campaign "Billionaires for Bush" (now "Billionaires for Wealthcare"). He's a founding partner of Agit-Pop Communications, a "subvertising" agency for the progressive netroots. And he's written three books of political humor. He lives in New York with his wee laptop.

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Diallo Brooks

Diallo Brooks has over 15 years of non-profit management experience working with national and state leaders to enhance social justice missions through leadership development training, project management and technical assistance. In his current position as Director of Field Mobilization at the People For the American Way (PFAW), Mr. Brooks works to engage PFAW’s various networks and membership in key program activities related to the organizations mission. Prior to joining PFAW, Mr. Brooks was the Field Director for The Education Trust, Director of Legislator Relations for the Center for Policy Alternatives and Client Services Coordinator for Millennium Communications Group. Mr. Brooks also has severed as Co-Chair and national spokesman for Black Youth Vote (BYV!) and is a current executive board member of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. Mr. Brooks has provided trainings for numerous non-profit, state elected officials and other institutions in the areas of values baled leadership development and organization management.

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Darcy Burner

Darcy Burner Bio Picture Darcy Burner, Executive Director, ProgressCongress.org and Progressive Congress Action Fund

Darcy plays a key role connecting the progressive movement with Congress. A former candidate for Congress in Washington State, organizer of A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, and hero of the Netroots, she has been featured regularly in the media including appearances on MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. She blogs on OpenLeft, Huffington Post, and DailyKos.

She’s a board member of NARAL Pro-Choice America, Campaign for a Livable World’s PeacePAC, SNAP PAC Advisory Board, and the Progressive Ideas Network Advisory Board.

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Eric Burns

Eric Burns Bio Picture Eric Burns is a political communications and strategy professional with more than a decade of experience working in local, state, and national politics. He served as the communications director for the House Rules Committee and ranking member Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY). While serving as communications director for Congressman Chris Bell (D-TX), Burns directed the communications strategy for the historic 2004 ethics complaint filed against then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), which resulted in DeLay’s public admonishment by the House Ethics Committee. Burns holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Texas and is the President of Media Matters for America, the nation's premier progressive media watchdog, research, and information center.

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Lee Camp

Lee Camp Bio Picture Lee Camp is even funnier than that YouTube video you saw of that kitten watching a tennis match. He has performed stand-up comedy at events featuring Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore. He was called one of the best New Faces at the Montreal Comedy Festival; he ran for president on Comedy Central's "Fresh Debate '08"; and he's done comedic commentary on E! Network, SpikeTV, MTV, and ABC's "Good Morning America." Lee also provided a catharsis for millions of people when he went live on Fox News and called the network a "parade of propaganda and a festival of ignorance." Sign up for Lee's e-mails and check out his tour schedule, audio clips, and videos at www.LeeCamp.net [151].

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Denise Cardinal

Denise Cardinal Bio Picture Denise Cardinal is the Executive Director of Alliance for a Better Minnesota (ABM) -- part of the Progress Now family of organizations. Before moving back to her home state of Minnesota in 2006 to be communications director for America Votes Minnesota and then start ABM, Denise served for 5 years as Senior Press Officer for the National Education Association in Washington, D.C. She also spent time in our nation’s capitol as the Press Secretary for U.S. Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND). She’s worked at newspapers in Nevada, Idaho, Iowa and earned a degree in Journalism from Drake University in 1995.

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Rea Carey

Rea Carey Bio Picture Rea Carey is the executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, based in Washington, DC, which advocates on behalf of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community and builds grassroots power for change.

Ms. Carey has worked extensively in the areas of HIV/AIDS prevention; at-risk, runaway and homeless youth; the LGBT community; and was the founding executive director of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition.

Ms. Carey earned her master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and has over 20 years of experience in nonprofit management and in public policy issues affecting the LGBT community.

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Zach Carter

Zach Carter is AlterNet's Economics Editor and a Fellow at Campaign For America's Future. He writes a weekly blog on the economy for The Media Consortium, and his work has been featured in The Nation, Mother Jones, The American Prospect, Salon, Yes! Magazine and many other publications. He previously worked as a banking reporter for SNL Financial News.

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Marco Ceglie

Marco Ceglie Bio Picture Marco Ceglie is a writer and expert in using frames, values narratives, humor and creative tactics. As a Billionaire For Bush (now Wealthcare), Marco led the group’s 2004 “Get on the Limo” tours and auctioned off Social Security on eBay in 2005. He also created the first-ever ironic think tank to fight Estate Tax repeal, and delivered 37,000 copies of the Constitution to the Bush White House via Santa and sleigh. He co-produced "No, You Can't" during the 2008 Presidential campaign and "Public Option Annie", the guerilla musical interruption at AHIP’s 2009 conference. This year he co-founded The Other 98%.

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Gregory A. Cendana

Gregory A. Cendana Bio Picture Gregory is currently the President of the US Student Association and is the first openly gay Asian American to serve in this post. He graduated from UCLA where he was Student Body Vice President, Campus Organizing Director for the University of California Student Association and gender & sexuality coordinator of Samahang Pilipino, a Pilipino advocacy organization. Gregory also started his own consulting firm to support the next generation of youth of color & LGBT youth leaders and organizations working with these communities. He also enjoys his role as a national board member for Jobs with Justice, the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, the Generational Alliance & Asian Pacific Americans for Progress.

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Toby Chaudhuri

Toby Chaudhuri Bio Picture Chaudhuri has worked with labor and progressive groups, political campaigns and people in public office to develop strategies to communicate with the public and influence public policy for more than a decade. He moved a bold agenda for working families as director of communications for the Campaign for America’s Future; protected children as civil right’s leader Marian Wright Edelman’s media strategist at the Children’s Defense Fund; fought corruption directing communications at Common Cause; took on corporate polluters as a political appointee to President Clinton; and worked to elect principled candidates, including serving as a deputy press secretary to Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign.

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Juan Cole

Juan Cole Bio Picture Juan Cole is best known as a blogger and the proprietor of Informed Comment (juancole.com). He is also the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History and the director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan. In the past decade, Cole emerged as a public intellectual, commenting on Middle East, South Asian and Islamic affairs. He has appeared widely on television and radio and in op-ed pages, including the PBS Newshour, ABC Evening News, Nightline, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Stephen Colbert's "Report," and many others. His most recent books are Engaging the Muslim World and Napoleon's Egypt.

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Robert Creamer

Robert Creamer has been a political organizer and strategist for almost four decades. He and his firm, the Strategic Consulting Group, work with many of the country's most significant issue campaigns. He was one of the major architects and organizers of the successful campaign to defeat the privatization of Social Security. He is a consultant to the campaigns to end the war in Iraq, pass universal health care, change America's budget priorities and enact comprehensive immigration reform.

His clients have included labor unions, public interest groups, and advocacy organizations like MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change and USAction. He has also worked on hundreds of electoral campaigns at the local, state and national levels.

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Governor Howard Dean, MD

Howard Dean Bio Picture Governor Howard Dean, former Democratic National Committee Chairman, presidential candidate, six term Governor and physician, currently works as an Independent consultant focusing on the areas of health care, early childhood development, alternative energy and the expansion of grassroots politics around the world.

Dean also serves as a CNBC contributor and is the founder of Democracy for America.

As chairman of the DNC, Dean created and implemented the “50 State Strategy” and the development of 21st century campaign tools. Dean is credited with helping Democrats make historic gains in 2006 and 2008. Under his leadership, significant resources were dedicated to revitalizing the Party by building and strengthening the organizational tools, technological capabilities and infrastructure required to win while laying the foundation for a long-term Democratic majority.

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Karen DeYoung

Karen DeYoung, author of Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, is an associate editor and Senior Diplomatic Correspondent at The Washington Post. DeYong was awarded the Overseas Press Club Bob Considine Award in 2009 for her coverage of Afghanistan-Pakistani policy.

From September 2001 until the summer of 2003, she covered U.S. foreign policy for the paper, writing among other things about the beginning of the counterterrorism struggle and the lead-up to the Iraq war. Before then, she covered global issues including war crimes, the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and narcotics trafficking.

DeYoung joined The Washington Post in 1975 after working as a non-staff stringer in West Africa. She grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida and holds a degree in journalism and communications from the University of Florida. She lives with her husband and two children in Washington, DC.

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Digby

Heather "Digby" Parton is a political writer and activist from Santa Monica, California and founder of the progressive blog Hullabaloo. She is a principal in the progressive netroots political PAC, Blue America, and serves on the board of the Progressive Congress Action Fund. Her work also appears at Salon magazine, Huffington Post, Crooks and Liars, Alternet and Our Future.org. In 2007, she accepted the Paul Wellstone Award on behalf of the progressive blogosphere at the take back America Conference.

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Gail Dratch
Gail Dratch is Legislative Representative for the AFL-CIO Department of Government Affairs, responsible for retirement security issues, including Social Security and pensions, and corporate accountability. Previously, Dratch was with the National Council of Senior Citizens for nine years, first in the Legislative Department, and then as Political Director. In that role, she managed their electoral activities and directed the NCSC Political Action Committee. Dratch also served as National Political Director of the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union, which has become UNITE-HERE. In 1993-1995, she directed the Campaign for Health Security, the labor-consumer coalition supporting President Clinton’s Health Reform efforts.

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Sen. Dick Durbin

Dick Durbin Bio Picture Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Springfield, is the 47th U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois and the first Illinois senator to serve on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee in more than a quarter of a century. Durbin was elected by his fellow Democratic senators in December 2006 to the post of Assistant Majority Leader, also known as Majority Whip. In 2004, Durbin was elected as Minority Whip.

In 2000, Durbin served as Co-Chairman of the Democratic Platform Committee and also was Co-Chairman of the Atlantic Conference sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. He is a founding member of the Senate Global AIDS Caucus.

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Rep. Donna Edwards

Donna Edwards Bio Picture Congresswoman Donna F. Edwards represents Maryland’s 4th Congressional District. Elected in 2008 as the first African American women to represent Maryland in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congresswoman Edwards serves on the Committees of Transportation and Infrastructure, Science and Technology, and the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. She is a Member of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, and was recently chosen to co-chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” task force. A graduate of Wake Forest University and Franklin Pierce Law Center, she has lived in Prince George’s County for more than 25 years and currently resides in Fort Washington. She is the proud mother of a son who is attending Drew University.

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Ross Eisenbrey

Ross Eisenbrey, Vice President of the Economic Policy Institute, is a lawyer and former commissioner of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. Prior to joining EPI in 2002, he worked for many years as a staff attorney in the House of Representatives, as legislative director for the late Rep. William Ford (D-Mich.), and as a committee counsel in the U.S. Senate. He served as policy director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from 1999 until 2001.

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Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins Bio Picture Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is the Chief Executive Officer of Green For All. Under Ms. Ellis-Lamkins leadership Green for All has had several victories including the creation of a civil rights coalition that successfully lobbied for two significant improvements to the House version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act: securing funding for job training, and guaranteeing broad access to clean energy jobs. These are the Act's only two provisions creating opportunity for low-income people and people of color.

Previously, Ms. Ellis-Lamkins led both the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council in California's Silicon Valley and Working Partnerships USA. While there, she earned her reputation as one of the nation's most brilliant, inspirational and creative problem solvers for working families.

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Rep. Keith Ellison

Keith Ellison has represented the Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives since taking office on January 4, 2007. The Fifth Congressional District is the most vibrant and ethnically diverse district in Minnesota with a rich history and traditions. The Fifth District includes the City of Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs.

Representative Ellison is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). He previously served two terms representing Legislative District 58B in the Minnesota State House of Representatives, from 2003 to 2007. While in the State Legislature, he served on the Public Safety, Policy and Finance Committee, and the Election and Civil Law Committee. Ellison led efforts to protect Minnesota children from dangerous pesticides and chemicals; he promoted legislation to restore the voting rights of ex-offenders; and he successfully advocated for an increase in the state's minimum wage.

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Richard RJ Eskow

Richard RJ Eskow Bio Picture Richard (RJ) Eskow is a Senior Fellow with the Campaign For America's Future. He is also a former senior executive (on Wall Street, with AIG, and elsewhere) in healthcare and related financial issues. He is currently a consultant in areas such as health policy, finance, communications, and IT.

Richard is also is a freelance writer for print and other media and an occasional radio host. He writes for The Huffington Post and is a regular contributor to other publications. He is also an (occasionally) working musician.

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Lee Farris

Lee Farris Bio Picture Lee Farris is Estate Tax Policy Coordinator at United for a Fair Economy (UFE). UFE has been a leader of the successful fight to defeat Bush’s efforts to end the estate tax, which is the most progressive tax in the U.S. Lee has organized more than 2000 wealthy people and thousands of non-wealthy to speak out in support of strengthening the tax. Lee regularly speaks with the media about federal tax issues, and has appeared on Marketplace, Fox News, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Lee is co-author of the reports, Spending Millions to Save Billions: The Campaign of the Super-Wealthy to Kill the Estate Tax and Safe, Fair and Sustainable: Do Obama’s Tax Proposals Measure Up?.

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Negin Farsad

Negin Farsad Bio Picture Negin is the director/executive producer of the current feature film release, “Nerdcore Rising,” a comedy about Nerdcore hip hop. Negin is currently the Independent Film Channel's correspondent on all things interactive, tech and nerdy. She recently developed, wrote, and performed for the MTV broadcast pilot and web series, "Detox." She also directed, wrote and performed the Comedy Central series, “The Watch List” and recently wrote for the upcoming PBS cartoon series, “1001 Nights.” As a standup comedian she has opened for the likes of (Senator) Al Franken in venues ranging from the Laugh Factory in New York, the Comedy Store in Los Angeles, and Town Hall on Broadway. Her work has been called “smart, funny, and fascinating” by the Wall Street Journal, and “delightful and hilarious” by Salon, to mention a few.

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Matthew F. Filner

Matthew F. Filner is the National Political Director for Progressive Majority, leading the effort to recruit and develop progressive candidates at the state and local level. Prior to joining Progressive Majority, Matt served the Minnesota DFL party as a media consultant, creating paid media for candidates such as Mark Ritchie in his race for Secretary of State. He also managed Steve Kelley’s gubernatorial campaign in 2005-06, and has managed numerous federal, state and local campaigns over the past 18 years.

In addition, Matt holds a Ph.D. in political science and was professor of political science at Kalamazoo College from 1999-2003. He has also published several articles on progressive politics—e.g., in The State and Local Government Review, Polity, and a chapter in the book Democracy’s Edges.

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Joan Fitzgerald

Joan Fitzgerald Bio Picture Joan Fitzgerald is professor and director of the graduate program in Law, Policy, and Society at Northeastern University. Her third book, Emerald Cities: Urban Sustainability and Economic Development, examines how cities are creating green economic development opportunities and discusses state and national policies needed to support them. Fitzgerald has published in journals such as Economic Development Quarterly, Urban Affairs Quarterly, Urban Affairs and The American Prospect. Her work has been supported by the MacArthur, Annie Casey, Rockefeller Brothers, Rockefeller, Surdna, and other foundations. She has conducted research for the U.S. DOL, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Boston Housing Authority and other government agencies.

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Joel Foster

Joel Foster runs Ballot Initiative Strategy Center’s Ballot Integrity program. He is primarily responsible for strengthening the laws protecting states from initiative fraud and developing tools to hold initiative fraud merchants accountable for subverting direct democracy.

Joel comes to BISC after more than a decade of organizing, political, community, and union work in Arizona. He began his career organizing around environmental and criminal justice issues. In 2002, Joel built a coalition of labor unions, community groups, environmental organizations, women's groups, and organizations of color that prevented a 5,000 bed private women's prison from being built. He became the Executive Director of Arizona's US Action affiliate, the Arizona Leadership Institute (ALI) in 2004. That year, ALI registered more than 55,000 new voters and knocked on over 100,000 doors in predominantly Latino, African American, and Native American neighborhoods. In 2006, Joel was the Communications Director of Mi Familia Vota, the SEIU-led effort to increase Arizona's Latino vote. Most recently, Joel served as the Policy Director for UFCW Local 99.

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Judith Freeman

Judith is the co-founder and Executive Director of the New Organizing Institute, a training, research and development organization for technology-enabled organizers, activists, staff, and leaders. In 2008 Judith was on a short leave from NOI for a five-month position on the Obama new media team, coordinating their field and new media efforts. Previously, she was the Senior Political Strategist at the AFL-CIO, where she also co-founded the Analyst Institute. During the 2004 presidential election, she worked on the Kerry campaign's Internet operations. She advises political campaigns, unions and non-profit organizations on organizing, targeting, strategy and technology infrastructure. Judith worked for five years in technology at the University of Chicago, where she also organized with social justice organizations.

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Maria P. Freese

Maria P. Freese is Director of Governmental Relations and Policy at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. Since 2003, she has overseen strategic planning and advocacy initiatives on Social Security and Medicare. Freese has 17 years legislative experience in employee benefits, individual income taxes, and retirement security and pensions. She served as Democratic Tax Counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, Legislative Director for Rep. L. F. Payne, D-VA, and Legislative Assistant for Rep. Norm Dicks, D-WA. Maria holds a B.A. from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida and a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center.

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Karen Friedman

Karen Friedman Bio Picture Karen Friedman is Executive Vice President and Policy Director of the Pension Rights Center. Karen has more than 20 years of experience advocating for progressive retirement income policy for workers, retirees and their families. Karen has testified before the key tax-writing, labor and aging committees and has given speeches on pension issues. Karen has written articles for the Washington Post, the New York Times, the L.A. Times, is regularly quoted in the media and has been featured on such news programs as Good Morning America, the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, CBS Evening News and CNN. Karen is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and a graduate of Georgetown University.

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Kari Fulton

As EJCC’s Youth Climate Justice Coordinator, Kari works on supporting and mobilizing the new generation of young leaders for climate justice. Through EJCC’s partnership with the Energy Action Coalition, Fulton works to engage students and faculty at Historically Black Colleges and Universities on campus sustainability and sustainable education. She is a recipient of the 2008 Brower Youth Award (Earth Island Institute New Leaders Initiative), Damu Smith “Power of One” Young Professional Award and a Senior Fellow of People for The American Way’s Young People For program. During high school and while attending Howard University, Ms. Fulton worked diligently to improve educational standards as a student leader, AmeriCorp member and tutor in public schools. Ms.Fulton is a 2007 alumna of the John H. Johnson School of Communications at Howard University. In February of 2010, Fulton was named one of a 100 African American History Makers in the Making by NBC and thegrio.com. Her most recent writings can be found at http://checktheweather.net/ [152]

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Page S. Gardner

Page S. Gardner Bio Picture Page S. Gardner conceived of and founded Women's Voices. Women Vote. She is an expert in the voting patterns of women voters, with a particular expertise in unmarried voters. She began this project dedicated to increasing the share of unmarried women in the electorate. During her twenty years experience as a political and communications manager and strategist, Ms. Gardner has worked at senior levels for the most competitive presidential, senatorial, gubernatorial, and congressional campaigns in all parts of the country. Ms. Gardner also has managed some of the most hotly debated national public policy issue campaigns, including those related to reproductive rights, civil rights, national budget priorities, technology and trade. Ms. Gardner has been credited with designing and implementing some of the most creative and successful issue and legislative campaigns, as well as staging come from behind candidate victories in key battleground races. She is regarded as one of the top strategists in the country. Ms. Gardner has a magna cum laude degree from Duke University. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Virginia.

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Leo W. Gerard

Leo W. Gerard Bio Picture Leo W. Gerard is the International President of the USW. With over 850,000 active members in more than 8,000 bargaining units in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean, the USW is the largest industrial union in North America, and the dominant union in the paper, forestry products, steel, aluminum, ire and rubber, mining, glass, chemicals, petroleum and other basic resource industries.

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Lisa Gilbert

Lisa Gilbert Bio Picture Lisa Gilbert works in DC, as an advocate for government transparency and integrity, getting big money out of politics, and making elections more fair and accessible to all. She develops policy, lobbies and writes on an agenda of fair and honest government and participatory democracy. She is the author or co-author of U.S. PIRG reports Greasing the Wheels and Saving Dollars, Saving Democracy.

Ms. Gilbert has been quoted by The New York Times, Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and National Public Radio. She is also a featured contributor to the National Journal's "Expert Blog" on lobbying and ethics, and writes frequently for The Huffington Post and Think Progress.

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Garlin Gilchrist II

Garlin Gilchrist II Bio Picture Garlin Gilchrist II is the Director of New Media at the Center for Community Change (CCC). Before joining CCC, Gilchrist was a Software Engineer at Microsoft. He served as Social Media Manager for the Obama campaign in Washington. He co-founded and contributes to The SuperSpade: Black Thought at the Highest Level, a leading Black political blog. Mr. Gilchrist co-founded blacknetaction, a strategic collective of Black bloggers and online activists who coordinate online campaigns across the country. As part of the New Organizing Institute's Trainer & Speakers Bureau, Gilchrist trains activists, candidates and staffers on utilizing new media in their work.

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George Goehl

A community organizer, strategist, and trainer for 15 years, George Goehl has crafted national campaigns on affordable housing, predatory lending, and immigrant justice issues. George is the Executive Director of National People’s Action, founded in 1972, exists to create a society in which racial and economic justice are realized in all aspects of society, resulting in more equity in work, housing, health, education, finance, and other systems central to our well-being. George has led the organization through a forward thinking reorganization and transformation. As a result, the organization has significantly expanded its affiliate base, built a new and talented staff team and opened the organization’s first Washington DC office.

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Laurence E. Gold

Laurence E. Gold Bio Picture Laurence E. Gold is a lawyer with Lichtman, Trister & Ross, PLLC and serves as Associate General Counsel of the AFL-CIO. He practices campaign finance, election, lobbying and general nonprofit law on behalf of labor, advocacy, political and charitable organizations, political services providers and candidates. During the first portion of his legal career, Gold practiced labor and employment law on behalf of labor organizations. Gold argued before the United States Supreme Court in McConnell v. FEC, the. 2003 case that addressed the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold Law, and he regularly prepares amicus briefs in campaign finance cases before the Court. He is a regular public speaker about campaign finance topics and has written articles in many publications.

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Danny Goldberg

Danny Goldberg Bio Picture Danny Goldberg, President of Gold Village Entertainment (GVE) has worked in the music business as a personal manager, record company President, public relations man and journalist since the late nineteen sixties. GVE manages the careers of Steve Earle, The Cranberries, Peaches, The Hives and Tom Morello among others. He is on the Board of Directors of The Nation Institute, The ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Americans for Peace Now, Brave New Films and is Chair of the Board of the American Symphony Orchestra. He is also the author of the books “Bumping Into Geniuses” and “How The Left Lost Teen Spirit.”

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Gabe Gonzalez

Gabe Gonzalez Bio Picture Gabe Gonzalez is the National Director for the Campaign for Community Values which brings together hundreds of diverse grassroots groups to win real victories for low-income communities, challenge the "on your own" mentality of the right and build a new politics for the common good. Most recently, Gonzalez was the lead organizer for an immigration march and rally in DC, which drew 250,000 people nationwide.

Gonzalez was formerly with Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. He has worked as a community organizer, lobbyist, and electoral strategist for over 15 years. Gonzalez is a graduate of Drew University and lives in Chicago, IL.

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Scott Goodstein

Scott Goodstein Bio Picture Scott Goodstein was external online director for Obama for America where he developed the campaign’s social networking platforms. He ran first niche-based political social network efforts like BlackPlanet, Eons, MiGente, AsianAve and Disaboom. Goodstein also built the Obama campaign’s lifestyle marketing strategy and developed “street team” materials used in battleground states. Goodstein also created and implemented Obama Mobile, an advanced communication strategy that included text messaging, downloads, interactive voice response communication, a mobile web site, and an iPhone app. Goodstein worked for progressive political initiatives. In 2004, he co-founded Punkvoter.com and Rock Against Bush which became a $4 million young voter mobilization effort.

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Kate Gordon

Kate Gordon Bio Picture Kate Gordon is the Vice President for Energy Policy at American Progress. Most recently, Kate was the co-director of the national Apollo Alliance, where she still serves as senior policy advisor. Kate is nationally recognized for her work on the intersection of clean energy and economic development policy. She also has a long history of working on economic justice and labor issues. At COWS, along with her energy work, Kate focused on corporate tax policy, progressive federalism, and rural economic development. Prior to that, she served as an employment and consumer rights litigator at Trial Lawyers for Public Justice in Oakland, CA.

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Marissa Graciosa

As the Immigration Campaign Coordinator at the Center for Community Change, Marissa Graciosa directs the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, a national coalition of grassroots organizations fighting for just and humane immigration reform. Prior to working at the Center, she managed the Naisy Dolar aldermanic campaign and worked at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights as the Director of Politics and Communications. The daughter of Filipino immigrants, she hails from Burlington, Wisconsin.

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Rep. Alan Grayson

Alan Grayson Bio Picture Congressman Alan Grayson, elected to the US House of Representatives in 2008, was born and grew up in the Bronx neighborhood of New York City. After graduating with high honors from Harvard College, Grayson worked as an economist. Later, In four years, Alan earned a J.D. with honors from Harvard Law School, a master’s degree from the Harvard School of Government, and passed the general exams for a Ph.D. in Government. His master’s thesis focuses on gerontology. He went on to be a founding member of the Alliance for Aging Research.

Alan Grayson lives in Orlando with his wife, Lolita, and their five children, Skye, Star, Sage, Stone and Storm.

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Katie Halper

Katie Halper Bio Picture Katie Halper is a comedian, writer, blogger, and filmmaker born, raised and based in New York. She is a founder of and comedian in the political comedy collective, Laughing Liberally. Katie has performed throughout the country, at all four Netroots Nation Conferences and appeared in countless TV networks including MSNBC. Her writing and videos can be found on Comedy Central, Huffington Post, Alternet, Daily Kos, Open Left, Working Life, Culture Kitchen. She is currently editing her documentary on the social justice summer camp she (along with her mother and grandmother) attended, and their "Peace Olympics," the camp's non-violent and socially conscious alternative to color wars tentatively titled Another Camp is Possible.

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Terrance Heath

Terrance Heath is a writer and activist. His blog, The Republic of T -- a three-time Koufax awards nominee , and two-time Weblog Awards finalist -- has been featured by CNN, The Advocate, Newsday, NPR, and BBC Radio. He is a blogger and online producer for Campaign for America's Future. He also blogs at the Bilerico Project, the Booman Tribune, Pam's Houseblend, and the Huffington Post. Terrance lives in sub-urban Maryland with his husband and their two adopted sons.

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Bob Herbert

Bob Herbert Bio Picture Bob Herbert is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, a position he has held since June 1993. He writes about politics, urban affairs and social trends in a twice-weekly column.

Prior to joining The Times, Mr. Herbert worked at NBC News, The Daily News and The Star-Ledger.‬

Mr. Herbert is the author of “Promises Betrayed: Waking Up from the American Dream,” (Times Books, 2005).‬

He is married and lives in Manhattan.

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Maren Hesla

Maren Hesla is a partner with Mission Control, a direct mail firm known for its fresh creative ads and disciplined political strategy. Mission Control’s clients in 2010 include the AFL-CIO; AFSCME; the DCCC; the DSCC; EMILY’s List; the National Education Association; Planned Parenthood; SEIU; Kendrick Meek for Senate (FL): Paul Hodes for Senate (NH); Kirsten Gillibrand for Senate (NY); and numerous congressional races; ballot initiatives; and local campaigns. Prior to joining Mission Control, Maren directed Women Vote!, the EMILY’s List multi-million dollar independent expenditure program from 2003 to 2008. At EMILY’s List Maren was an early adopter of voter file modeling, tackling projects that enhanced the entire progressive community’s knowledge of microtargeting. A native of Georgia, Maren has served as the southern regional director of the DNC, national field director of the DCCC, and as political director of The Feldman Group, a Democratic polling firm. Maren, and her husband Bernard Craighead are raising two young Democrats, Olivia age 14 and David age 12.

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Roger Hickey

Roger Hickey Bio Picture Roger Hickey is a founder and co-director of the Campaign for America's Future. He was also one of the founders of Americans United to Protect Social Security, a coalition of citizen leaders representing consumers, workers, women, seniors, young people, civil rights advocates and community activists—united to strengthen Social Security and Medicare. Americans United is now working on Medicare prescription drugs and other issues. Hickey also helped found the Ecnomic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that looks at economics from the point of view of working Americans. Hickey served as EPI’s vice president and director of communications. A graduate of the University of Virginia, Hickey began his career in the 1960s as an organizer for the Virginia Civil Rights Committee and the Southern Students’ Organizing Committee.

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Chloé A. Hilliard

Chloé A. Hilliard Bio Picture For the last eight years, Chloé A. Hilliard has been a culture/entertainment journalist, writing for The Village Voice, Essence, Vibe, King, and The Source. For her expertise on Hip Hop culture she’s appeared on CNN Headline News, ABC News, Our World with Black Enterprise and local news broadcasts on ABC 7 and CW11. Chloé’s work is featured in The Best African-American Essays:2009, a non-fiction collection that examines African American concerns in the Obama era. She's currently the managing editor for Vibe Magazine and Vibe.com.

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Ilyse Hogue

Ilyse Hogue Bio Picture Ilyse Hogue is the Director of Political Advocacy and Communications for MoveOn.org. She's been at MoveOn for 4 years and three election cycles and focuses on resonating the voices of 5 million members to help shape the priorities of our elected leadership. Prior to joining MoveOn, Ilyse worked on several corporate accountability campaigns trying to tilt the power in our country back in favor of real people and away from corporations, their lobbyists and CEO, with a special emphasis on holding Wall Street accountable. Ilyse is motivated by the fact that our democracy is in crisis and optimistic that MoveOn members and the rest of the progressive movement have what it takes to meet his challenge.

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Heather L. Holdridge

Heather Holdridge Bio Picture Heather leads the social media team at Fenton Communications. She previously led the effort to develop and launch Care2's Election2008 Channel, which included video-blogging and interviews. Heather was online organizing director for the Carol/Trevelyan Strategy Group, working with clients across the progressive spectrum developing online communications strategies where she helped produce media that won several Pollie awards. Heather also served as the Director of Legislative Services for Project Vote Smart, a non-partisan voter information service, which included tracking and translating key Congressional votes and aiding reporters with their research.

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Arlene Holt Baker

Arlene Holt Baker Bio Picture Arlene Holt Baker is Executive Vice President of the national AFL-CIO, serving her second term.

Holt Baker has 30 years’ experience as a grassroots organizer and working with community groups, as well as having run Voices for Working Families -- a non-partisan, voter participation organization dedicated to registering, educating, mobilizing and protecting the votes of communities of color and women.

As Executive Vice President, she works closely with community allies, state and local bodies, with a focus on the issues of women, people of color, gays and lesbians, immigrants and the working poor.

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Jeannette Huezo

Jeannette Bio Picture Jeannette Huezo coordinates UFE’s popular education work and facilitates numerous trainings and workshops. She has extensive experience as a popular educator and community organizer. She has worked with many constituencies around different issues including welfare rights, labor rights, public education, women’s rights and immigration. Originally from El Salvador, she came to the U.S. in 1989. She serves as a Board Member at the Access Strategy Fund.

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Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington Bio Picture Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, a nationally syndicated columnist, and author of twelve books including On Becoming Fearless. She is a frequent guest on television shows such as Charlie Rose, The Daily Show, Larry King Live, and The Tonight Show. In 2006, she was named to the Time 100, Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people, and in 2009 she was named to the Financial Times list of 50 people who shaped the decade.

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Rev. Jesse L. Jackson

The Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., founder and president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, is one of America’s foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. Over the past forty years, he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality, and economic and social justice. On August 9, 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Reverend Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Reverend Jackson has been called the "Conscience of the Nation" and "the Great Unifier," challenging America to be inclusive and to establish just and humane priorities for the benefit of all. He is known for bringing people together on common ground across lines of race, culture, class, gender and belief.

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Benjamin Todd Jealous

Benjamin Todd Jealous Bio Picture Benjamin Todd Jealous became the youngest national leader of the NAACP on September 1, 2008. During his career, he has served as president of the Rosenberg Foundation, director of the U.S. Human Rights Program at Amnesty International and Executive Director of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), a federation of more than 200 black community newspapers. From his early days of organizing voter registration drives up until his nomination and election as NAACP president, Jealous has been motivated by civic duty and a constant need to improve the lives of America's underrepresented. A graduate of Columbia University in New York, Mr. Jealous is also a Rhodes scholar, holding a master’s degree in Comparative Social Research from Oxford University.

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Alan Jenkins

Alan was Director of Human Rights at the Ford Foundation, managing over $50 million in grant making annually in the United States and eleven overseas regions, before joining The Opportunity Agenda. Previously, he served as Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior to that, he was Associate Counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where he defended the rights of low-income communities suffering from exploitation and discrimination.

Alan serves on the Board of Trustees of the Center for Community Change, the Board of Governors of the New School University, and is a Co-Chair of the American Constitution Society’s Project on the Constitution in the Twenty-First Century.

Alan holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an M.A. in Media Studies from New School University, and a B.A. in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard College.

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Dave Johnson

Dave Johnson Bio Picture Dave Johnson is a Fellow at Campaign for America's Future, writing about American manufacturing, trade and economic/industrial policy. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Institute for the Renewal of the California Dream, working on progressive messaging and a Fellow at the Commonweal Institute, writing about the relationship between corporations and democracy.

Dave is a frequent public speaker and talk-radio guest and a leading participant in the progressive blogging community, blogging at Seeing the Forest, Speak Out California and occasionally sitting in at Open Left. He does a regular weekly segment on the popular Fairness Doctrine radio show.

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Kierra Johnson

Kierra Johnson, Executive Director of Choice USA, heads the leading pro-choice organization working to mobilize and provide ongoing support for the diverse, upcoming generation of leaders who promote and protect reproductive choice both now and in the future. Often sought after for her expertise on youth and reproductive justice, Kierra fosters dialogue between major national organizations and local activists to raise the voices of young people on the ground in the national debate. She serves on the boards of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Center for Community Change and the advisory council of the Women’s Information Network.

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Robert Johnson

Rob Johnson is the Executive Director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking and is a regular contributor to the Institute’s blog NewDeal2.0. Previously, Johnson was the Director of the Economic Policy Initiative at the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. He serves on the UN Commission of Experts on Finance and International Monetary Reform.

Previously, Dr. Johnson was a Managing Director at Soros Fund Management where he managed a global currency, bond and equity portfolio specializing in emerging markets. He was also a managing director at the Bankers Trust Company. Dr. Johnson has served as Chief Economist of the US Senate Banking Committee under the leadership of Chairman William Proxmire and was Senior Economist of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee under the leadership of Chairman Pete Domenici.

He currently sits on the Board of Directors of the Economic Policy Institute and the Institute for America's Future.

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Simon Johnson

Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and a member of the CBO’s Panel of Economic Advisers. He is a co-founder of The Baseline Scenario.

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Van Jones

Van Jones Bio Picture Van Jones is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean-energy economy. Van is a co-founder of three successful non-profit organizations: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change and Green For All. He is the best-selling author of the definitive book on green jobs: The Green-Collar Economy. He served as the green jobs advisor in the Obama White House in 2009. Van is currently a senior fellow at the Center For American Progress. Additionally, he is a senior policy advisor at Green For All. Van also holds a joint appointment at Princeton University, as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

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Kweli Kitwana

Kweli Kitwana is an accomplished progressive professional with over 30 years of experience in community and the political field. Kweli is currently the Vice President of Political Programs at Progressive Majority, where she directs and manages the national political candidate recruitment and development program. Before coming to Progressive Majority, Kweli served as the Deputy Director of the Center for Progressive Leadership. She also was a Field Director at USAction/USAction Education Fund, a union representative for District 952 and Local 535, Service Employees International Union, and a field representative for Midwest Labor Research Center and The Youth Project. In her spare time she enjoys her family and works in her art studio.

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Robert Kuttner

Robert Kuttner Bio Picture Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect magazine and a senior fellow at Demos. He was a longtime columnist for BusinessWeek, and continues to write columns for Huffington Post and the Boston Globe. He co-founded of the Economic Policy Institute and serves on its board.

The latest of Bob’s nine books is A Presidency in Peril. His magazine writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The New Yorker, Dissent, Foreign Affairs, Columbia Journalism Review, Harvard Business Review, and New England Journal of Medicine.

He has served as national staff writer on The Washington Post, chief investigator of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, economics editor of The New Republic, and assistant to I.F. Stone.

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Gordon Lafer

Gordon Lafer is Senior Labor Policy Advisor for the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Education and Labor. The Committee's Chairman, Rep. George Miller, is the author of the Local Jobs for America Act. Prior to coming to work in the House, Lafer spent the past twenty-five years doing a combination of economic policy and union organizing work, including most recently serving as a professor and Acting Director of the University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center.

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Celinda Lake

Celinda Lake Bio Picture Celinda Lake is a prominent pollster and political strategist for Democrats and progressives. She currently serves as President of Lake Research Partners. Lake’s polling and strategic advice helped candidates such as Jon Tester, Tim Walz , and Gov Bob Wise defeat incumbent Republicans and her expertise guided Senator Mark Begich to victory . She has focused on women candidates and women's concerns, having worked for Speaker Pelosi, Governor Janet Napolitano, and Senator Debbie Stabenow. Celinda worked for the largest independent expenditure to take back the House and has been a key player in campaigns launched by progressive groups such as the AFL-CIO, SEIU, Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, HRC, EMILY'S List and more. Additionally, she recently helped elect Annise Parker as the first openly gay mayor of major US city.

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Emily Lamia

Emily has worked on political and organizing campaigns at the local, state, and national level throughout her career. She brings a wealth of campaign, coalition, finance, and event management experience to GAIN, where she serves as the Deputy Director.

In 2009, she served as Governor Howard Dean’s Transition Director after previously serving as his Executive Assistant during the 2008 election cycle at the Democratic National Committee. Prior campaigns include the New Hampshire Democratic Party coordinated campaign in 2008, Paul Hodes’ successful congressional challenger campaign in 2006, Gifford Miller’s NYC mayoral campaign in 2005, and the Dean campaign in 2004. Additionally, she has worked for progressive organizations such as Grassroots Campaigns Inc, and Democracy for America. She has been a member of Democratic GAIN since 2006.

In addition to her work at GAIN, Emily is a Co-chair of the Women’s Information Network (WIN) Travel Network and an alumna of the Women & Politics Institute’s WeLEAD program. Emily grew up in New York City and is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College.

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Mike Lapham

Mike Lapham Bio Picture Mike Lapham has a great job. Since 1997, he's been organizing business leaders and wealthy individuals to use their unique and surprising voices to speak out in favor of progressive taxes (including the estate tax), living wages, and corporate accountability. The voice of greed is well represented in Congress, in boardrooms, and in the media. Responsible Wealth's 700 members provide an alternative and refreshing voice that delivers messages like: "I don't need another tax break," or "paying a living wage is good for my business and my community," or "more inequality is not good for me or for society."

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Rep. Barbara Lee

Barbara Lee Bio Picture Congresswoman Barbara Lee represents California's 9th Congressional District, and is the Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. Congresswoman Lee's major accomplishments include: promoting legislation to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, was the only member of Congress to vote against giving President Bush a blank check to wage war after the September 11th attacks –in addition to being one of Congress' most vocal opponents to the war in Iraq –and a demonstrated commitment to eradicating poverty, fostering opportunity and protecting the most vulnerable in our society.

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William S. Lerach

William S. Lerach Bio Picture William S. Lerach – lecturer, writer and investor advocate.

For decades, Mr. Lerach was one of the leading securities lawyers in the United States. He headed up the prosecution of hundreds of securities class and stockholder derivative actions which resulted in billions of dollars of recoveries for defrauded shareholders from Wall Street banks, big accounting firms, corporations and insurance companies. Mr. Lerach has been the subject of considerable media attention and is a frequent commentator on economic and political matters and securities and corporate law. His career was recently chronicled in the best-selling book “Circle of Greed.”

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Rudy Lopez

Rudy came to the Center for Community Change from Wellstone Action where he served as National Field Director. Mr. Lopez also was Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee's Rhode Island director for GOTV in the November 2006 elections and served as National Field Director of the Chicago-based U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute (2000-2005) overseeing regional offices in Chicago, Kansas City, Orlando and Philadelphia.

Rudy worked on the staff of Congressman Peter Visclosky (D-IN) (1993-95); served as the Midwest Field Director for the Midwest/Northeast Voter Registration and Education Project (1995-98); and was a community organizer with Gamaliel affiliate the Metropolitan Alliance of Congregations in Chicago (1998-99). Rudy co-authored and served as Technical Advisor of the 2002 and 2004 Almanac of Latino Politics and holds B.A. in Political Science from Indiana University (1992).

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Adam Luna

Adam coordinates the America’s Voice strategy to build a new majority for immigration reform. Previously, Adam worked with community organizations and national leaders on immigration reform at the Center for Community Change and as a leader of campaigns to stop Social Security privatization at the Campaign for America's Future. Adam has authored policy and political analyses which have found their way into hundreds of news stories and has organized grassroots and online actions that mobilized hundreds of thousands. Adam began his career fighting anti-immigrant politics in California and is back to finish the job at America’s Voice.

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Stephanie Lurz

Stephanie Lurz is the development manager at Progressive Majority, which recruits and elects progressive champions at the state and local levels. She began her career as a field director for a Wisconsin State Assembly candidate ten years ago. Since then, she has worked for several other political action committees assisting state and local candidates, including Women’s Campaign Fund and the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.

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Heather McGhee

Heather McGhee Bio Picture As the Director of Demos' Washington office, Heather develops and executes strategy for increasing the organization's impact on federal policy debates in Washington. Previously, she was the Deputy Policy Director, Domestic and Economic Policy, for the John Edwards for President 2008 campaign, and a Program Associate in Demos' Economic Opportunity Program.

Her writing and research on debt, financial services regulation, retirement and inequality have appeared in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Detroit Free-Press and CNN. She is the co-author of a chapter on retirement insecurity in the book Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide in America and its Poisonous Consequences (New Press, 2005).

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Alexis McGill Johnson

Alexis McGill Johnson Bio Picture Alexis McGill Johnson is a political strategist, writer, and organizer. She was the Executive Director of Citizen Change, a national nonprofit organization founded by Sean “P. Diddy” Combs to educate, motivate, and empower young eligible voters. Under Combs, she launched the Vote or Die! campaign, creating a new political model for reaching young people and people of color by mixing traditional grassroots mobilization with nontraditional consumer-based marketing methods. Throughout her career, she has explored shifting paradigms of identity politics in the post-civil rights era, worked to increase civic engagement among young African Americans, and investigated the implications for demographic and ideological changes of this constituency on national politics. She serves as a private consultant to a variety of organizations, donors, and artists.

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William McNary

William McNary is the President of USAction, the largest network of progressive grassroots organizations working together to strengthen their political power and fight to win social, racial, economic and environmental justice.

McNary is also Co-Executive Director of Citizen Action/Illinois. The Illinois affiliate of USAction; CitizenAction/Illinois is the state’s largest consumer watchdog group working on an ambitious agenda, which includes health care reform, environmental safety, utility reform, public education funding and campaign finance reform. For twelve years he served as the Legislative Director for the state’s largest public interest organization.

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Mark Mellman

Mark Mellman Bio Picture Mark Mellman is one of the nation’s leading public opinion researchers and communication strategists. Mellman counts among his clients Majority Leaders of The U.S. House and Senate and has guided the campaigns of some sixteen U.S. Senators, eight Governors and over two dozen Members of Congress. Mellman serves as consultant to many of the nations most important public interest organizations, government agencies, and corporations. His groundbreaking research helped define how nonprofits and businesses use the Internet for online communications, organizing, and fundraising. Mellman received his undergraduate degree from Princeton, and graduate degrees from Yale University, where he taught in the Political Science department.

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Elizabeth Méndez Berry

Elizabeth Méndez Berry Bio Picture Elizabeth Méndez Berry is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in Vibe, the Washington Post, the Village Voice and Latina. She covers the intersection of pop culture and policy, with a focus on the hip hop generation. She was a founding board member of the League of Young Voters, and recently published a cover story in the Nation about young people who worked on the Obama campaign, which she is developing into a book. An adjunct professor at NYU, she was just selected to participate in the French American Foundation's Young Leaders program. To see more of her work, please visit www.mendezberry.com [153].

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Paola Mendoza

Paola Mendoza Bio Picture Paola Mendoza, was named one of Filmmaker Magazine 25 Fresh Faces to watch for 2009. She made her narrative directorial debut with ENTRE NOS, which had its world premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival where it was awarded Honorable Mention. Entre Nos went on to win over ten international awards at film festivals from around the world.

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Ellen S. Miller

Ellen S. Miller Bio Picture Ellen S. Miller is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Sunlight Foundation, a Washington-based, non-partisan non-profit dedicated to using the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency. As founder of the Center for Responsive Politics and Public Campaign she provides unique insight into how government has been moved to open its data and where we are going in the future. She is a nationally recognized expert on transparency, and the influence of money in politics. Her experience as a Washington advocate for more than 35 years spans the worlds of nonprofit advocacy, grass roots activism and journalism.

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Markos Moulitsas

<Markos Moulitsas Bio Picture Markos Moulitsas is founder and publisher of Daily Kos, the largest political community in the country. His third book, American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right, is due out in September.

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Janet Murguía

<Janet Murguía Bio Picture Janet Murguía is the President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza, the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.

She has been recognized by Washingtonian magazine as one of the “100 Most Powerful Women in Washington.” As a prominent advocate for the Latino community, Murguía has spoken out on issues including education, health care, immigration, and civil rights. Under her leadership, NCLR along with its partners helped to register nearly 200,000 new Hispanic voters.

Previously, Murguía served in the White House as deputy assistant to President Clinton and deputy director of legislative affairs.

Mursuli is a graduate of the University of Florida.

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Jorge Mursuli

Jorge Mursuli Bio Picture Jorge Mursuli has dedicated his life to the preservation, education, and implementation of civil rights. As President and CEO, Mursuli launched Democracia USA in 2004 as a program of the PFAW. Mursuli nurtured the program from a Florida-based operation to one of the most effective Hispanic civic engagement, voter empowerment, and leadership development organizations nationwide, now in collaboration with NCLR.

In 1993, Mursuli joined SAVE Dade, an organization aiming to secure the passage of an amendment to the Miami-Dade County Human Rights Ordinance that would include sexual orientation as a category protected by law from discrimination. In 1997, he took over as Executive Director and in December 1998 the amendment was adopted.

Mursuli is a graduate of the University of Florida.

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Jennifer Ng'andu

Jennifer Ng’andu joined the National Council of La Raza in 2004. As Senior Health Policy Analyst, Ng’andu leads efforts to improve the health status of Latinos by advancing federal health proposals that address systemic problems that create health injustice for Latinos. To enhance public health, Ng’andu works to strengthen anti-poverty initiatives and federal nutrition programs. In December 2006, she co-authored Sin Provecho: Latinos and Food Insecurity, raising the profile of hunger in the Latino community. Ng’andu also sits on the Board of Directors of the National Physicians and the Coordinating Committee of the Herndon Alliance, pursuing guaranteed health care for all.

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Dean M. Nielsen

Dean M. Nielsen is the Regional Director for Progressive Majority, a national organization that recruits, trains and elects progressive champions at the state and local levels. In this position, he directly manages eight state programs from coast to coast. Prior to being promoted, Dean served as Progressive Majority’s Washington State Director, helping to elect more than 100 candidates. After four elections, he held the highest candidate win rate in the organization.

A career politico, he has worked on hundreds of campaigns nationwide starting with Bill Clinton in 1992. His lengthy client list includes Governor Gary Locke, Solidarity Party (Poland) and Gore/Lieberman, as well as issue work for EMILY’s List, NARAL Pro-Choice Washington, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, SEIU and the Democratic Party.

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Karen Nussbaum

Karen Nussbaum Bio Picture Karen Nussbaum has been fighting for the rights of working men and women for nearly four decades. She was a founder and director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women; president of District 925, SEIU; and the director of the U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau, the highest seat in the federal government devoted to women’s issues, during the first Clinton Administration.

She has been at the AFL-CIO for a dozen years and is now the executive director of Working America, the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Working America has over 3 million members and is the fastest growing organization for working people in the country.

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Michael O'Hanlon

Michael O'Hanlon Bio Picture Michael O’Hanlon is the Director of Research and Senior Fellow of Foreign Policy, and the Director of Research of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution. O'Hanlon specializes in national security and defense policy and is senior author of the Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Index projects. Before joining Brookings, O'Hanlon worked as a national security analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. His current research agenda includes military strategy and technology, Northeast Asia, U.S. Central Command, defense budgets, among other defense/security issues. O’Hanlon recently served on the Secretary of State's International Security Advisory Board.

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Scott N. Paul

Scott N. Paul Bio Picture Scott N. Paul is the founding Executive Director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing (AAM), which was launched in April 2007. Prior to forming the Alliance, Mr. Paul was the principal lobbyist for the Industrial Union Council and was a trade lobbyist at the AFL-CIO, where he led the labor movement’s legislative initiatives on international trade, manufacturing, and foreign policy issues. Mr. Paul’s writings have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and other national and regional publications; he has been quoted in those publications, as well as USA Today and the Associated Press. He has testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and is a regular guest on networks such as CNBC, CNN, and National Public Radio.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi Bio Picture On January 6, 2009, Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as Speaker of the House of Representatives of the 111th Congress. Accepting the gavel for the second time, Speaker Pelosi committed to work for the common good to strengthen America’s future. Nancy Pelosi made history in 2007, shattering the marble ceiling to become the first woman to serve as Speaker of House. Building consensus across the aisle and within the diverse House Democratic Caucus, Speaker Pelosi has proved to be a strong, pragmatic leader, unifying her caucus more than any other leader in the last 50 years.

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Clyde Prestowitz

Clyde Prestowitz is the founder and President of the Economic Strategy Institute (ESI). Prior to founding ESI, Mr. Prestowitz served as Counselor to the Secretary of Commerce in the Reagan Administration where he headed U.S. negotiations with Japan, Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America and served as a leader of the first U.S. trade mission to China. Subsequently, he became a Fellow of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was appointed Vice Chairman of President Clinton’s Commission on Trade and Investment in the Asia-Pacific Region as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

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Kelley Robinson

Kelley has been organizing and pursuing social justice initiatives throughout her career, with special attention to issues of hate, bias, gender based violence, and where these issues intersect with public policy. As a student, Kelley established a task force and an anonymous system for bias incident and sexual assault reporting. She then became an organizer for President Obama's Campaign, organizing the Youth Vote in Mid-Missouri, and then as an organizer in Georgia working on Jim Martin's Run-Off Campaign for the US Senate. Kelley went on to work as a Health focused Outreach Coordinator for United We Serve, and later as a Regional Organizer and Community Outreach Specialist at Planned Parenthood of the Heartland in Des Moines, Iowa. She is now the Mid-western States Field Associate for Choice-USA.

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Sara Robinson

Sara Robinson is a social futurist focused on issues of change resistance and change management. She is a Fellow at both the Campaign for America’s Future and the Progressive Ideas Network, and a professional member of the Association of Professional Futurists and the World Futures Society, Sara writes a weekly column at www.ourfuture.org; [154] and her work also appears online at Firedoglake, DailyKos, OpenLeft, Grist, and Alternet.

A native of California’s eastern High Sierra, Sara spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She shares her life with her husband Evan, two fledging teenagers, and a good Democratic yellow dog.

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Ethan Rome

Ethan Rome is executive director of Health Care for America Now and served as deputy campaign manager in HCAN’s successful 2009 campaign to win comprehensive health care reform. Rome has been a grassroots organizer, political activist, and strategic communicator for progressive issue and electoral campaigns for more than 20 years.

From 2002 until last year, Rome directed public affairs for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Prior to joining AFSCME in 1999, Rome was chief policy and political adviser to the speaker of the Connecticut House and legislative and political director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group.

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Anthony D. Romero

Anthony D. Romero Bio Picture Anthony D. Romero is the Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, the nation's premier defender of liberty and individual freedom. He took the helm of the organization just four days before the September 11, 2001 attacks. Under Romero's leadership, the ACLU gained court victories on the Patriot Act, filed landmark litigation on the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, and filed the first successful legal challenge to the Bush administration's illegal NSA spying program.Romero is the ACLU's sixth executive director, and the first Latino and openly gay man to serve in that capacity. In 2005, Romero was named one of Time Magazine's 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America, and has received dozens of public service awards and an honorary doctorate from the City University of New York School of Law.

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Simon Rosenberg

Simon Rosenberg Bio Picture Simon Rosenberg is President and founder of NDN, a leading, center-left think tank in Washington, DC. Rosenberg, a veteran of two presidential campaigns, including the 1992 Clinton War Room, got his start as a writer and producer in network television. He is a leading political visionary with a unique ability to identify important trends and decipher changes that will transform American politics, and a social entrepreneur who has identified and supported a new generation of ideas, institutions and leaders capable of helping America meet the challenges of the 21st century.

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Tarik Ross

Tarik Ross Bio Picture Tarik Ross was born and raised in Pasadena, California where he still lives. Tarik has worked effectively for nearly two decades for the Amer-I-Can Foundation serving at-risk youth and their families in the Los Angeles area and throughout the country. He also advocates for policies that empower disenfranchised communities

Since 2000, Tarik has worked in conjunction with Iowa State Representative Wayne Ford the co-founder of the Iowa Brown and Black Presidential Forum. Tarik confers with event organizers on youth advocacy as it relates to people of color. In December of 2007 the forum featured Presidential candidates former Senator Hillary Clinton, and former Senator Barack Obama.

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James Rucker

James Rucker Bio Picture James Rucker is the executive director of ColorOfChange.org, an online citizens' lobby of over 600,000 people dedicated to amplifying the political voice of Black America and forcing politicians to be more responsive to its needs. ColorOfChange.org was created in the aftermath of the failed governmental response to Hurricane Katrina and has expanded to lead a broad range of advocacy and electoral campaigns. James recently co-founded the Citizen Engagement Laboratory, an incubator for new online organizing efforts using the model of ColorOfChange, largely focused on empowering currently underserved identity and issue based communities.   

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Ron Ruggiero

Ron Ruggiero joined the Apollo Alliance in September 2008 after more than 15 years of organizing, representation, and negotiation experience in the labor movement. He is a graduate of the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute. In 1997, he was awarded the SEIU Western Region Organizer of the Year. After organizing thousands of workers across the country, he began representing workers and negotiating contracts, including unique partnership efforts between labor and management within Kaiser Permanente. Most recently, as staff director at SEIU Local 49, he helped lead a local-wide revitalization effort. This culminated in the local being awarded “Most Improved Local” for member political engagement by the international. In 2007, he joined an ad hoc environmental committee within SEIU and helped launch the “Negotiating Green” handbook. He also began attending local Apollo Alliance meetings in Oregon. He liked what he saw. “It is clear to me that building the clean energy economy can both solve the climate crisis and help us solve our inequality crisis by revitalizing family wage-paying jobs in the United States.” Ron enjoys hiking and camping with his wife, Cindy, and their two young sons, Justus and Zade. He holds a B.A. in sociology from the University of California, Davis.

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Carlos Saavedra

For the last couple of years, Carlos has been the lead organizer of the Student Immigrant Movement (SIM) in Massachusetts. He was born in Peru and immigrated to the U.S. along with his family when he was 12 years old. Since 2004, Carlos led the growth of SIM from a small group of students in Greater Boston to a statewide organization for immigrant youth. SIM led campaigns for in-state tuition, and successfully fought against the deportation of a DREAM Act student in the “Keep Mario Home” Campaign. Last year, SIM targeted their entire congressional delegation for the DREAM Act, and all 10 congressional representatives have now co-sponsored the bill. He is currently the National Coordinator for the United We Dream Network.

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Rep. Jan Schakowsky

Jan Schakowsky Bio Picture Jan Schakowsky was elected to represent Illinois' 9th Congressional District on November 3, 1998, after serving for eight years in the Illinois State Assembly. She is in her sixth term. Schakowsky serves in House Democratic Leadership as Chief Deputy Whip and as a member of the Steering and Policy Committee. She is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Select Committee on Intelligence and is co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues and of the Congressional Senior Task Force. This year, she was appointed by Speaker Pelosi to serve on the President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

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Yosi Sergant

Yosi Sergant Bio Picture Yosi Sergant has worked in communications, public relations, brand management, marketing, earned media, community organizing and business development - integrating art, music and culture into his work whenever possible.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Sergant engaged artists in a vast viral movement supporting Obama, the most prominent of which is the now ubiquitous "HOPE" campaign he created with artist Shepard Fairey. Following the election, Sergant served in the White House Office of Public Engagement before accepting an appointment as the Director of Communications for the National Endowment for the Arts.

Sergant recently launched TaskForce, a pro-social marketing and public relations outfit in Los Angeles, engaging leaders of the creative community and orchestrates strategic initiatives designed to raise awareness and build momentum for organizations tackling our worlds most pressing challenges.

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Susan Shaer

Susan Shaer Picture As Executive Director of WAND (Women’s Action for New Directions), Susan Shaer is dedicated to empowering women to act politically to examine excessive military spending vs. unmet needs, end the scourge of nuclear weapons and the occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

WAND programs have helped elect 49 women to Congress.

Susan co-chairs Win Without War, a national mainstream coalition opposing the occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

She spoke at the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder, directed the Clearinghouse for Women Candidates at the IOP, K School, Harvard; trained women candidates in Mexico and Guyana, and nonprofits in Kosovo.

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Brandon Silverman

Brandon Silverman is the National Communications and Technology Director for the Center for Progressive Leadership. He is a founding staff member of the organization and currently directs all of CPL's communications, messaging and technology strategies. Silverman oversaw the launch of CPL's five existing state offices and also ran a series of national house party trainings in 2006 and 2008 that trained over 3,000 progressive activists in 45 different states. He has been a guest trainer for numerous organizations including Sojourners, America Votes, Center for American Progress, Young People For and MoveOn.org. Silverman spent two years leading a political education program for youth in Center City Philadelphia, and has worked on numerous campaigns in Pennsylvania and Floria.
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Frank Smith

Frank Smith has been involved in political and public policy issues throughout his career. He is President of a Los Angeles-based consulting firm specializing in election and non-profit law and policy work. He has served as an Assistant District Attorney in Boston and worked on a number of political campaigns, including two Presidential elections. He is co-author of a recent book on the American healthcare system and writes a monthly newsletter on American politics. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Boston College Law School, and a member of the Massachusetts Bar. He has served on a number of non-governmental organization boards.

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Seaton Smith

Seaton Smith Picture Applying smooth charisma to a layer of explosive energy, topped off with unforgettable characters sure to permanently reside in your brain, Seaton Smith leaves his audience in a state of comedic euphoria as he killed performing on Opie and Anthony “Virus” tour and the “New Faces” show at Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal. He also is a online phenom signing a deal with Sierra Mist where he was able to showcase his chops at producing the skit “Pimpin Referee.” And he’s a youtube favorite with his popular webseries, Annoy Charlie Smith Inc.

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Andy Stern

Andy Stern Bio Picture Andy Stern is president emeritus of the 2.2 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the fastest-growing union in the Americas. Stern advocates practical solutions to achieve economic opportunity and justice for workers; to promote quality public services; and to guarantee that globalization benefits not just big corporations but also working people. Stern serves on President Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Stern began working as a social service worker and member of SEIU Local 668 in 1973 and rose through the ranks before his election as SEIU president in 1996.

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Tracy Sturdivant

Tracy has spent her time in the progressive community working to provide empowerment to our citizenry to create a more representative democracy. She currently serves the Vice President for External Affairs at the Center for Progressive Leadership, a national training institute dedicated to developing the next generation of progressive leaders. Prior to that position, she served as the Director of African American Outreach and the Deputy Director of National Program and Outreach for People for the American Way Foundation. Earlier in her career, Tracy served as the Vice President of the White House Project in New York City, Program Manager at The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and National Field Organizer for Public Campaign. Originally from Detroit, she is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University and sits on various boards, including State Voices, the Center for Democracy in the Americas, and Public Campaign.

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Gerald L. Taylor

Gerald L. Taylor Bio Picture Gerald L. Taylor has over 40 years of experience in community organizing and currently serves a national Staff member of the IAF where he built citizen organizations across the South. Gerald Taylor’s commitment to organizing began early as he served as the New York State President of the NAACP Youth and College Division, worked with Whitney Young as a member of the National Board of Directors for the National Urban League and with Dr. Kenneth Clark, on strategies and research for cutting edge civil rights issues. Internationally, Taylor served as auditor in South Africa for the Lessons project’s roundtable on Building Citizen Capacity and he provided consultant services to civil society organizations in Swaziland and in Zimbabwe for the Institute for Democratic Advancement of South Africa.

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Stephanie Taylor

Stephanie Taylor is Co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a federal PAC that works to elect bold progressive candidates to federal office. For a number of years, she was a labor organizer in the Midwest and Appalachia for SEIU District 1199, a healthcare and social service workers' union. She later worked at the AFL-CIO, the Democratic National Committee, Change Congress and MoveOn.org. In 2008, she was Field and GOTV Director for Rep. Tom Perriello's (D-VA) in his successful campaign to unseat Virgil Goode.

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Gloria A. Totten

Gloria A. Totten Bio Picture Gloria A. Totten is the president of Progressive Majority, which recruits and elects progressive champions at the state and local levels. Since 2004, Progressive Majority has elected 375 progressives to office.

Gloria serves on the board of directors for Spotlight Analysis and chairs the board of directors for the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center and Brave New Films. She is an advisory committee member for the Drum Major Institute Scholars Program, ProgressNOW, Wellstone Action and the Women’s Information Network. Gloria was named a “Rising Star of Politics” in 2002 by Campaigns & Elections magazine, awarded the “Progressive Champion Award” by Campaign for America’s Future and the “Progressive Leadership Award” by Midwest Academy in 2006.

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Richard L. Trumka

Richard L. Trumka Bio Picture Richard L. Trumka is president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, better known as the AFL-CIO. His election in September 2009 as head of the nation’s largest labor federation followed 14 years as secretary-treasurer and caps his rise to prominence in the labor movement from his start as a coal miner in southwest Pennsylvania.

In February 2009, President Barack Obama named Trumka to the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker.

In 1995, while serving in his third term as president of the United Mine Workers of America, Trumka became the youngest secretary-treasurer in AFL-CIO when he was elected on a ticket aiming to reinvigorate the American labor movement.

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Sen. Tom Udall

Tom Udall Bio Picture Tom Udall became New Mexico's 17th United States Senator on January 6, 2009, after two decades of public service as New Mexico’s Attorney General and U.S. Representative.

In the Senate, he serves on four Senate committees, including the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, the Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW), the Committee on Indian Affairs, and the Committee on Rules and Administration. Through the Rules Committee, Tom is working to reform government and Congress to work more efficiently for the American people.

Tom is married to Jill Cooper and they have one grown daughter. In his spare time he enjoys tennis, fly-fishing, mountain climbing and staying involved in his community.

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Cenk Uygur

Cenk Uygur Bio Picture Cenk Uygur is host and founder of The Young Turks (TYT), the first ever live, daily web television talk show. Recognized by Los Angeles Times as “pioneers of Internet programming,” TYT streams live weekdays on The Young Turks website, Ustream, via podcast, and continues its home on XM/Sirius Satellite as a multi-media talk show that unites news, politics and entertainment. Under Uygur’s vision, TYT also holds a partnership deal with YouTube where it is one of site’s Top 50 Partner Channels, averaging over 13 million views per month. In addition to TYT, Uygur is a prominent blogger on Huffington Post.

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Erin Vilardi

Erin Vilardi is the Vice President of Program and Communiciations at The White House Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that aims to advance women’s leadership in all communities and sectors—up to the U.S. presidency. In her role as Program Director, Vilardi oversees the award-winning Vote, Run, Lead training program, which provides women across the U.S. with the skills and confidence to run for office. She helped launch this political leadership training at WHP in 2004, and has since trained over 6,000 women to lead a political life.

A frequent speaker on college campuses and at conferences, she has also appeared on CNN, the BBC, and was featured on Spotlight 25, a Lifetime Television special on young women and the quarter-life crisis.
Vilardi graduated from New York University with a B.A. in politics and gender studies.

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David Waldman

Editor of Congress Matters and a Contributing Editor at Daily Kos, David has made a specialty of blogging about the dynamics and intricacies of Congressional procedure, dating back to the 2005 “nuclear option” showdown over judicial nominations. His writing has helped focus campaigns challenging the continuance of Joe Lieberman’s committee assignments, raise awareness of the limitations of Congressional subpoena and contempt processes, broker a more favorable deal on Senate committee ratios, keep the “public option” debate alive beyond all expectations, and inform both activists and the media about the reconciliation process that salvaged the administration’s health insurance reform legislation. David is currently a fellow with ProgressiveCongress.org, and undertaking a campaign for filibuster reform.

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Scott Wallace

Scott Wallace Bio Picture Scott Wallace is Co-Chair of the Wallace Global Fund, a private charitable foundation located in Washington DC, with program areas including civic engagement, media reform and criminal justice. An attorney since 1978, he has served as counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Justice, General Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, Legislative Director with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Director of Defender Legal Services for the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. He is a founding partner in the Democracy Alliance, and serves on numerous boards, including the Institute for America’s Future.

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Robert Weissman

Robert Weissman Bio Picture Robert Weissman is the president of Public Citizen, . Public Citizen is a longtime proponent of public financing of public elections and other campaign finance and election reforms. Public Citizen’s Litigation Group served as co-counsel for Senators McCain and Feingold and Representatives Shays and Meehan in the Citizens United case. While supporting other mitigatin measures, Public Citizen has called for a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United and clarifying that for-profit corporations do not have First Amendment rights.

Prior to joining Public Citizen, Weissman was director of the corporate accountability organization Essential Action, and editor of Multinational Monitor magazine. Weissman is an attorney.

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Drew Westen

Drew Westen Bio Picture Drew Westen, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist, Professor at Emory University, and founder of Westen Strategies. He has authored of three books and over 150 scientific articles, including The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. He frequently comments on television and radio and is a frequent contributor to the Huffington Post. He has advised a range of candidates and organizations, from presidential and congressional campaigns and caucuses, to major nonprofit organizations and labor unions, and has led messaging campaigns on a range of issues, from immigration to energy and climate change.

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Elon James White

Elon James White Bio Picture Elon James White is a Brooklyn-based comedian, writer and host of the award-winning web series This Week in Blackness, a satirical look at race, politics and pop-culture in a so-called “post-racial” America. White has been a featured commentator on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC and on VH1's Black to the Future & The Great Debate. Praised as "The perfect comedian for the Obama era, talking race while exploding racial stereotypes" by Dr. Harris-Lacewell of Princeton on Politco.com and as "Precise, thought provoking and hilarious" by Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead.

White was the recent recipient of four 2009 Black Weblog Awards. He is currently on a Post-Racial College Tour with Christian Lander, creator of Stuff White People Like. Visit him online at ElonJamesisNotWhite.com

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Maya Wiley

Maya Wiley is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Social Inclusion, a national policy and advocacy organization which works to transform structural inequity and exclusion into structural fairness and inclusion. A civil rights attorney and policy advocate since 1989, Ms. Wiley has worked for the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Open Society Institute.

She was a contributing author to the National Urban League's 2006 State of Black America, and authored a chapter on race, equity and land use planning in Columbia, South Carolina recently published in Growing Smarter: Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice and Regional Equity, R. Bullard, ed. The MIT Press: Cambridge, MA (2007). In 2009, Maya was one of New York Moves magazine “Power Women” honorees.

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Calvin Williams

Calvin Williams enjoys his life as an educator, organizer and trainer in the progressive movement. From 2006 - 2009 Calvin supported campus organizers to create, launch, and sustain progressive campaigns on their campus and in their communities as a Fellowship Coordinator and Deputy Director of Young People For. In 2008, he also joined the Campus Camp Wellstone trainer team, training campus students on essential organizing skills and methodologies to build winning campaigns.

Calvin joined Generational Alliance as the Alumni Program Manager in 2009, working with GA member organizations to develop and support a collaborative engaged alumni network of young leaders. He currently resides and organizes in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn, NY--where he also casually engages in social media, the open mic scene and an occasional b-boy cipher session.

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Roger Wilkins

Roger Wilkins is a retired Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University. Professor Wilkins' career began in government as a Caseworker for the Ohio Welfare Department. He later served as Special Assistant to the Administrator at the Agency for International Development, Assistant Director of the U.S. Community Relations Service at the Department of Commerce, and Assistant Attorney General of the United States at the Department of Justice. In 1972, Wilkins joined the Editorial Page Staff of The Washington Post. His work during Watergate won him the Pulitzer Prize, which he shared with Woodward, Bernstein and Herblock. He later moved to The New York Times where he was a member of the editorial board and a columnist. Wilkins was a Senior Advisor to Rev. Jesse Jackson's presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988.Prof. Wilkins wrote A Man's Life in 1982 (reissued in 1991). He also wrote Quiet Riots with Fred Harris in 1988. His awards include a Roy Wilkins Career Civil Rights Contributions Award from the Los Angeles NAACP, a Roger Baldwin Career Service Award from the New York Civil Liberties Union, and George Mason University Distinguished Faculty Member of the Year.

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Lizz Winstead

Lizz Winstead Bio Picture As a co-creator and former head writer of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," and Co-founder of Air America Radio; LIZZ WINSTEAD has emerged as a critically acclaimed political writer and producer. As a performer, WINSTEAD brought her political wit to "The Daily Show" as a Correspondent and later to the radio waves co-hosting "Unfiltered," Air America Radio's mid morning show with citizen of the world and Hip Hop legend Chuck D, and political big brain Rachel Maddow. Currently Lizz is writing, producing and starring in “Wake Up World,” an Off Broadway and web show in NYC that satirizes all of our beloved morning shows.

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Alexander Zaitchik

Alexander Zaitchik Bio Picture Alexander Zaitchik is a Brooklyn-based freelance journalist and contributing writer at AlterNet.org. A former staffer at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report, he has written for The Nation, The New Republic, Salon, The San Francisco Chronicle, and many others. His first book, Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance, has just been released by Wiley & Sons.

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Deanna Zandt

Deanna Zandt Bio Picture Deanna Zandt is a media technologist and the author of Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking (Berrett-Koehler, June 2010). She is a consultant to key progressive media organizations including AlterNet and Jim Hightower's Hightower Lowdown. Zandt specializes in social media, and is a leading expert in women and technology. She works with groups to create and implement effective web strategies toward organizational goals of civic engagement and empowerment, and uses her background in linguistics, advertising, telecommunications and finance to complement her technical expertise.

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Links:
[1] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#abrecht
[2] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#acker-lyons
[3] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#acuff
[4] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#alperovitz
[5] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#altman
[6] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#amato
[7] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#atlas
[8] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#anderson
[9] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#andrews
[10] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#angelides
[11] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#archer
[12] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#aron
[13] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#bahouth
[14] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#mbaker
[15] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#bbaker
[16] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#batista-schlesinger
[17] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#berkley
[18] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#bernstein
[19] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#bhargava
[20] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#blackton
[21] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#blackwell
[22] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#bonifaz
[23] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#booth
[24] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#borosage
[25] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#boyd
[26] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#brooks
[27] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#burner
[28] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#burns
[29] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#camp
[30] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#cardinal
[31] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#carey
[32] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#carter
[33] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#ceglie
[34] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#cendana
[35] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#chaudhuri
[36] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#cole
[37] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#creamer
[38] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#hdean
[39] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#deyoung
[40] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#digby
[41] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#dratch
[42] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#durbin
[43] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#edwards
[44] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#eisenbrey
[45] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#ellis-lamkins
[46] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#ellison
[47] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#eskow
[48] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#farris
[49] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#farsad
[50] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#filner
[51] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#fitzgerald
[52] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#foster
[53] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#freeman
[54] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#freese
[55] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#friedman
[56] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#fulton
[57] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#gardner
[58] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#gerard
[59] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#gilbert
[60] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#gilchrist
[61] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#goehl
[62] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#gold
[63] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#goldberg
[64] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#gonzalez
[65] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#goodstein
[66] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#gordon
[67] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#graciosa
[68] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#grayson
[69] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#halper
[70] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#heath
[71] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#herbert
[72] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#hesla
[73] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#hickey
[74] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#hilliard
[75] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#hogue
[76] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#holdridge
[77] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#holt-baker
[78] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#huezo
[79] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#huffington
[80] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#jackson
[81] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#jealous
[82] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#jenkins
[83] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#djohnson
[84] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#kjohnson
[85] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#rjohnson
[86] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#sjohnson
[87] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#jones
[88] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#kitwana
[89] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#kuttner
[90] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#lafer
[91] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#lake
[92] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#lamia
[93] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#lapham
[94] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#lee
[95] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#lerach
[96] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#lopez
[97] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#luna
[98] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#lurz
[99] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#mcghee
[100] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#mcgill-johnson
[101] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#mcnary
[102] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#mellman
[103] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#mendez-berry
[104] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#miller
[105] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#moulitsas
[106] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#murguia
[107] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#mursuli
[108] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#ngandu
[109] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#nielsen
[110] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#nussbaum
[111] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#ohanlon
[112] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#paul
[113] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#pelosi
[114] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#prestowitz
[115] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#krobinson
[116] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#srobinson
[117] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#rome
[118] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#romero
[119] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#rosenberg
[120] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#ross
[121] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#rucker
[122] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#ruggiero
[123] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#saavedra
[124] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#sergant
[125] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#shaer
[126] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#silverman
[127] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#fsmith
[128] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#ssmith
[129] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#stern
[130] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#sturdivant
[131] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#gtaylor
[132] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#staylor
[133] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#totten
[134] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#trumka
[135] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#udall
[136] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#uygur
[137] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#vilardi
[138] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#waldman
[139] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#wallace
[140] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#weissman
[141] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#westen
[142] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#white
[143] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#wiley
[144] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#williams
[145] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#wilkins
[146] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#winstead
[147] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#zaitchik
[148] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#zandt
[149] http://www.ourfuture.org/now/speakers#top
[150] http://www.freespeechforpeople.org
[151] http://www.LeeCamp.net
[152] http://checktheweather.net/
[153] http://www.mendezberry.com
[154] http://www.ourfuture.org;