Gary Sick

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Gary Sick

Academic

Gary Sick is a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and an adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Sick served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. Sick was a captain in the U.S. Navy, with service in the Persian Gulf, North Africa, and the Mediterranean.

From 1982 to 1987, Sick served as deputy director for international affairs at the Ford Foundation, where he was responsible for programs relating to U.S. foreign policy. He is a member (emeritus) of the board of Human Rights Watch in New York and founding chair of its advisory committee on the Middle East and North Africa. He is the executive director of Gulf/2000, an international online research project on political, economic and security developments in the Persian Gulf, being conducted at Columbia University since 1993 with support from a number of major foundations.

Steve Liesman

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Steve Liesman

Journalist

As CNBC’s senior economics reporter, Steve Liesman reports on topics including the Federal Reserve and major economic indicators. He appears on Squawk Box, as well as other CNBC programs throughout the business day.

Liesman joined CNBC from The Wall Street Journal, where he served as a senior economics reporter covering monetary policy, international economics, academic research and productivity. At the Journal, Liesman worked as an energy reporter and Moscow bureau chief. He won an Emmy for his coverage of the financial crisis and was a member of the reporting team recognized with a Pulitzer Prize for stories chronicling the crash of the Russian financial markets.

Prior to joining the Journal in 1994, Liesman was the business editor for The Moscow Times, where, as the founding business editor for the country’s first English-language daily newspaper, he helped create the publication’s stock index, which was the country’s first. Liesman also has worked as a business reporter for both the St. Petersburg Times and The Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Twitter: @steveliesman

Senator Gordon Smith

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the honorable Gordon Smith

Former U.S. Senator for Oregon

Gordon Harold Smith is a former United States Senator and businessman from the state of Oregon. A Republican, he served two terms in the Senate. Prior to election to the U.S. Senate in 1996, he served in the Oregon State Senate, including one session as President of Oregon’s Senate in 1995. Smith was defeated for reelection in 2008 by Democrat Jeff Merkley. On September 18, 2009, he was named as President of the National Association of Broadcasters.

Smith was hosted by The Common Good in 2006 for a Meet & Greet.

Jon Soltz

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Jon Soltz

Political advocate

Jon Soltz is the Co-Founder and Chairman of the 400,000+ supporter veterans group, VoteVets.org.

He served twice in Iraq—in 2011 as a Major, helping train the Iraqi Army prior to the removal of US Troops, and in 2003, as a Captain during Operation Iraqi Freedom, deploying logistics convoys with the 1st Armored Division. In 2000 he served as a tank Platoon Leader in the Kosovo Conflict. As Chairman of VoteVets.org, Soltz has overseen the creation of a 400,000+ grassroots network of Veterans, military families, and civilian supporters. In his time as Chairman, VoteVets.org has raised over $20 million for VoteVets Action Fund and over $2 million for candidates, via VoteVets Political Action Committee.

Soltz is frequently quoted in major publications and frequently appears on cable shows, including Larry King Live on CNN, Nightline on ABC, PBS’ News Hour, the Dylan Ratigan Show, NewsNation with Tamron Hall, The Ed Show, and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC, among other shows on many networks. He has been interviewed by the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time magazine, Newsweek, Politico, Roll Call, The Hill, and many other national and local papers.

Twitter: @jonsoltz

Steve Levy

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Steve Levy

Politician

Steve Levy was the seventh County Executive of Suffolk County, New York, elected on November 4, 2003. Originally a fiscally conservative Democrat, Levy joined the Republican Party in an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for governor.

Levy has promoted strict anti-immigrant policies and has supported employer verification efforts and restrictions on drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants. On March 19, 2010, Levy announced that he would seek the Republican Party’s nomination for New York Governor, competing with former New York Congressman Rick Lazio and Buffalo developer Carl Paladino for the party nomination. Levy’s platform focused on getting the state’s financial house in order and reining in spending while decreasing property taxes. He also called for the creation of an independent control board, much like the ones formed by the state for counties who are in financial crisis, to help address New York’s fiscal woes.

Twitter: @SteveLevyNY

Maurice Sonnenberg

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Maurice Sonnenberg

American intelligence and financial advisor

Maurice Sonnenberg is a board member of Chertoff Group’s board of advisers. He is currently Co-Chair of the National Commission for the Review of the Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Community, and a member of the Special Navy Advisory Panel to the Secretary of the Navy at the Department of Defense.

His professional experience includes being appointed to the U.S. Observer Team to observe Central American elections during the Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush and Bill Clinton Administrations, as well as being appointed to the President’s Export Council and White House Task Force on International Trade during the Jimmy Carter administration.

Sonnenberg introduced Steny Hoyer at a Breakfast and Discussion at The Common Good in 2009.

Tommy Sowers

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Tommy Sowers

Academic, politician, entrepreneur

Tommy Sowers was the 2010 Democratic nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives in Missouri’s 8th congressional district. He is a former U.S. Army Special Forces officer where he achieved the rank of Major.

In 2010, Sowers ran and lost against incumbent Representative Jo Ann Emerson. After the campaign, Sowers worked as the Senior Advisor to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the nation’s first and largest non-profit focused on improving the lives of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and their families.

In 2015, Sowers co-founded Goldenkey Networks, Inc., which includes GoldenKey, a venture backed real estate startup. Sowers currently serves as the Southeast Regional Director of MD5 National Security Technology Accelerator, a US Department of Defense program that works with research universities and the venture community to provide solutions for the immediate problems of warfighters.

Twitter: @sowers

Markos Moulitsas

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Markos Moulitsas

Founder of Daily Kos, publisher

Markos Moulitsas is the founder and proprietor of Daily Kos—a weblog focusing on progressive, liberal, and Democratic Party politics. In its first year, Daily Kos attracted over 1.6 million unique visits and about 3 million pageviews. It is now a part of Vox Media.

Moulitsas was named the single most successful entrepreneur of the progressive movement by NY Times magazine writer and author Matt Bai. Moulitsas is also co-author of the critically acclaimed book Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, and author of Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era. He is a contributing columnist to Newsweek Magazine and a weekly columnist at The Hill newspaper. He was named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the world by People en Español, clocked in at third in Forbe's Web Celeb 25 rankings, and was listed 26th in PC World's list of the Most Important People on the Web.

Moulitsas spoke at The Common Good as part of the 2008 Democratic National Convention Panel.

Twitter: @markos

Bernard-Henri Lévy

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Bernard-Henri Lévy

French philosopher, activist, filmmaker, writer

Bernard-Henri Lévy is a philosopher, activist, and filmmaker, and one of the most esteemed and bestselling writers in Europe. Lévy has advised presidents since François Mitterand and has served on diplomatic missions for the French government. The Guardian noted that he is “accorded the kind of adulation in France that most countries reserve for their rock stars.”

After starting his career as a war reporter for Combat — the legendary newspaper founded by Albert Camus during the Nazi occupation of France — Lévy co-founded the New Philosophers group. He has written for Le Point, El Pais, Corriere de la Sera, The WorldPost, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, among others. Lévy gained renown for his documentary film about the Bosnian conflict, Bosna! (1994). His films include the documentaries The Oath of Tobruk, Peshmerga and most recently, The Battle of Mosul.   

He is the author of more than 30 books, including works of philosophy, fiction, and biography. Lévy’s 1977 book, Barbarism with a Human Face, was a controversial critique of the European left’s complicity with totalitarianism. His most recent book, The Genius of Judaism, was published in January 2017 by Random House. His New York Times Bestsellers include American Vertigo, Barbarism with a Human Face, and Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

Lévy spoke at The Common Good in 2017: Special Private Screening and Conversation on "The Battle of Mosul" and we are excited to have him back as a speaker at our upcoming event: Athens Democracy Forum.

Twitter: @BHL

Senator Arlen Specter ✝

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the honorable Arlen Specter ✝

Former U.S. Senator for Pennsylvania

Arlen Specter was a former United States Senator from Pennsylvania. Specter was a Democrat, but was a Republican from 1965 until switching to the Democratic Party in 2009. First elected in 1980, he represented his state for thirty years in the Senate.

Specter first opened a law firm with Marvin Katz, who would later become a federal judge. Specter served as assistant counsel for the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy and helped devise the “single bullet theory.” In 1965, Specter was elected District Attorney of Philadelphia, a position that he would hold until he lost his re-election bid in 1973. On April 28, 2009, Specter announced that, after 44 years as an elected Republican, he was switching membership to the Democratic Party, On May 18, 2010, Specter was defeated in the Democratic primary by Joe Sestak, who then was defeated by current Senator Pat Toomey in the general election. Toomey replaced Specter on January 3, 2011.

In fall 2011, Specter was an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he taught a course on the relationship between Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court, focusing on separation of powers and the confirmation process.

Arlen Specter passed away at his home in Philadelphia on October 14, 2012 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Specter was hosted by The Common Good in 2007 for a Meet & Greet.

Read more:

Will Dunham, ‘Former senator Arlen Specter, 82, dies of cancer’, Reuters, 14 October 2012

Linda Greenhouse, ‘Senator Specter and the Law’, The New York Times, 20 May 2010

Brian Montopoli, ‘Sen. Arlen Specter To Become a Democrat’, CBS, 28 April 2009

Eric Spiegel

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Eric Spiegel

Businessman

Eric Spiegel is the President and CEO of Siemens USA and is responsible for growing the U.S. business in the company’s largest market. With over $22 billion in sales including exports and approximately 50,000 employees in the U.S., Siemens is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for more than 165 years. Siemens has over 25 major manufacturing sites across the U.S. and is represented in all 50 states.

Twitter: @ericspiegel

Carol E. Lee

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Carol E. Lee

Journalist

Carol Lee is a White House correspondent for NBC News. She was previously the White House correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, responsible for their coverage on politics, foreign affairs and domestic policy issues. She is currently president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, after serving on its board since 2010.

She has covered the White House since October 2008. She joined the Journal’s White House correspondence in 2011. Previously, she covered the White House for Politico, starting with President Obama’s transition in Chicago. Lee wrote a weekly column for the Journal’s digital politics page, “Capital Journal”. She now appears regularly on television and radio, including CNN, MSNBC, NPR and Sirius XM, as a commentator on the White House.

Lee spoke on the Midterm Elections Panel alongside Patrick Caddell, Anna Greenberg, Steve Kornacki, Jim McLaughlin, and Jefrey Pollock, moderated by John Harwood, at The Common Good in 2014.

Twitter: @carolelee

Governor Eliot Spitzer

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Eliot Spitzer

Lawyer and Politician

Eliot Laurence Spitzer is an American lawyer, political commentator, and former Democratic Party politician. Currently, he is the host of Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer, a nightly news and commentary program on Current TV. Prior to that, he was the co-host of In the Arena, a talk-show and punditry forum broadcast on CNN from October 2010 to July 2011. He served as the 54th Governor of New York.

Prior to being elected governor, Spitzer had served as New York State Attorney General. Spitzer was born and raised in New York, by real estate tycoon Bernard Spitzer. He attended Princeton University for undergraduate studies and then Harvard Law School for his Juris Doctor. It was there that he met his future wife, Silda Wall. He went on to work for the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and subsequently the Manhattan District Attorney’s office to pursue organized crime. He launched the investigation that brought down the Gambino family’s control over Manhattan’s garment and trucking industries.

In the 1998 election, Spitzer defeated incumbent Republican Dennis Vacco by a slim margin to become New York State Attorney General. His campaign was financed by a controversial multi-million dollar loan from his father. As attorney general, Spitzer prosecuted cases relating to corporate white collar crime, securities fraud, internet fraud and environmental protection.

He most notably pursued cases against computer chip price fixing, investment bank stock price inflation, predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders, fraud at American International Group, and the 2003 mutual fund scandal. He also sued Richard Grasso, the former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange over a compensation package perceived to be excessive.

Twitter: @EliotSpitzer

Read more:

Tim Mullaney, ‘Related Cos., Eliot Spitzer Propose Senior Living for Highrise Near Hudson Yards’, Senior Housing News, 12 June 2019

Errol Louis, ‘Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer Weighs in on the Mueller Report’, Spectrum News NY 1, 18 April 2019

Richard Bockman, ‘The Closing: Eliot Spitzer’, The Real Deal, 1 January 2019

Lilly Ledbetter

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Lilly Ledbetter

Gender equality activist

Lilly Ledbetter began her professional life at Goodyear. Nineteen years after her first day at Goodyear, Lilly received an anonymous note revealing that she was making thousands less per year than the men in her position. She filed a sex discrimination case against Goodyear, which she won—and then lost on appeal. Over the next eight years, her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where she lost again. The court ruled that she should have filed suit within 180 days of her first unequal paycheck, despite the fact that she had no way of knowing that she was being paid unfairly all those years. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg strongly disagreed with the decision and read her dissent from the bench. Ledbetter was not discouraged.

She became the namesake of Barack Obama's first official piece of legislation as president, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009. Today, she is a tireless advocate for change, traveling the country to urge women and minorities to claim their civil rights. 

Ledbetter was honored with the American Spirit Award for Citizen Activism at The Common Good Forum & The American Spirit Awards 2014.

Twitter: @Lilly_Ledbetter

Brandon Stanton

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Brandon Stanton

Author, photographer, blogger

Brandon Stanton is the author of “Humans of New York”, a photography and storytelling blog. Over the course of five years, “Humans of New York” (HONY) has built a devoted following of close to 20 million fans on several social media pages. Stanton has appeared on Ellen, Good Morning America, Nightline, MSNBC, CNN, has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Mashable, and dozens of other media venues. He has also been named a ‘person of the week’ on the ABC Evening News with Diane Sawyer, and a TIME Magazine “30 Under 30 Who are Changing the World.” He has photographed President Obama in the Oval Office and is the author of two #1 New York Times Bestsellers, Humans of New York, (2013) and Humans of New York: Stories (2015).

Stanton was awarded The American Spirit Award for Citizen Activism at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.

Twitter: @humansofny

Representative Greg Stanton

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Greg Stanton

Arizona Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives

Greg Stanton is currently Representative for Arizona’s 9th congressional district, having entered the office in 2019.

Stanton served as mayor of Phoenix between 2012 and 2018, when he resigned to run for Congress. Under his mayoral leadership, Phoenix became the  first U.S. city to  end chronic homelessness among veterans, and Stanton’s H.E.R.O. initiative is emerging as an example for how to match veterans —especially post-9/11 vets —with local employers and good jobs. Stanton attended Marquette University on the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, and earned a law degree from the University of Michigan. Before he was elected mayor in 2011, Stanton served nine years on the City Council and as Arizona’s Deputy Attorney General. He and his wife, Nicole, who is a prominent local attorney, are both working parents of two young children.​

Twitter: @gregstantonaz

Cong. (ret) Jim Leach

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the honorable Jim Leach

Academic, politician

James “Jim” Leach is a congressman and academic. He served as ninth Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2009 to 2013 and was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa (1977–2007).

Leach was the John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. He also served as the interim director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University from September 17, 2007, to September 1, 2008.

Previously, Leach served 30 years (1977–2007) as a Republican member of the House of Representatives, representing Iowa’s 2nd congressional district (numbered as the 1st District from 1977 to 2003). In Congress, Leach chaired the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services (1995–2001) and was a senior member of the House Committee on International Relations, serving as Chair of the Committee’s Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs (2001–2006). He also founded and served as co-chair of the Congressional Humanities Caucus. He lost his 2006 re-election bid to Democrat Dave Loebsack.

Michael Steele

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Michael Steele

Politician

When he was elected Lt. Governor of Maryland in 2003, Michael Steele made history as the first African American elected to statewide office, and again with his subsequent chairmanship of the Republican National Committee in 2009. As chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele was charged with revitalizing the Republican Party. A self-described “Lincoln Republican”, under Steele’s leadership the RNC broke fundraising records (over $198 million raised during the 2010 Congressional cycle) and Republicans won 63 House seats, the biggest pickup since 1938.

As Lt. Governor of Maryland, Mr. Steele’s priorities included reforming the state’s Minority Business Enterprise program, improving the quality of Maryland’s public education system (he championed the State’s historic Charter School law), expanding economic development in the state and fostering cooperation between government and faith-based organizations to help those in need.

Mr. Steele’s ability as a communicator and commentator has been showcased through his current role as a political analyst for MSNBC. He is the author of Right Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda, which is a call to arms for grassroots America and co-author of The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis.

Steele spoke at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.

Twitter: @MichaelSteele

Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg

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Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg

Photographer, writer, philanthropist, businesswoman

Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg is an esteemed photographer, writer, philanthropist, and businesswoman. Lautenberg has successfully sold and exhibited her photography for a number of years and has received critical praise throughout her photographic career. Lautenberg’s photographs are included in both private and museum collections.

Lautenberg co-hosted Michael Wolff with The Common Good in 2019.

Twitter: @bonnie_lauten

Ted Strickland

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Ted Strickland

Psychologist, religious leader, politician

Ted Strickland is a former minister, psychologist, congressman and governor of Ohio. Strickland created one of the nation’s leading advanced energy laws, preventing runaway electricity rate hikes and making Ohio a national leader in green energy jobs. Strickland held tuition increases to the lowest rate in the nation and made Ohio the first state to offer free tuition to veterans from across the country. Under Strickland’s leadership, Ohio’s primary and secondary schools won the nation’s top prize for education innovation from the Education Commission of the States.

In Congress, Ted was instrumental in passing the Children’s Health Insurance Program that provides health coverage to millions of children nationwide. He was a leading advocate for funding the Appalachian Regional Commission and he voiced opposition to the Iraq War.

After serving as governor, Ted was nominated by President Barack Obama to be a public delegate to the 68th U.N. General Assembly. He also served as a senior advisor to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York. Most recently, Ted ran the Center for American Progress Action Fund where he spoke out on behalf of policies to strengthen America’s working families.

Strickland spoke at The Common Good in 2015 for a Meet & Greet.

Twitter: @Ted_Strickland