PAST EVENTS
Afghanistan
Afghanistan with Ambassador Peter Galbraith, the Honorable Mike Rogers, and Matt Zeller as we explore the consequences -humanitarian, security, political - of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. Moderated by Felicia Taylor.
About The Event
20 Years, 2 Trillion dollars and countless lives - was it finally time to leave Afghanistan? Join The Common Good as we explore the consequences -humanitarian, security, political - of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Wednesday, August 25th, 2021
5:00pm EST - 6:00pm EST
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Peter W. Galbraith is a former US Ambassador to Croatia and Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations in Afghanistan. He is the author of two books on the Iraq War, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End and Unintended Consequences: How War in Iraq Strengthened America’s Enemies.
Mike Rogers is a former member of Congress representing Michigan's Eighth Congressional District, officer in the U.S. Army, and FBI special agent. He is a highly sought-after expert on national security issues, intelligence affairs, and cybersecurity policy. He advises multiple boards and academic institutions, working to enhance America’s strength and security. Mike built a legacy as a tireless and effective leader on counterterrorism, intelligence and national security policy from his years of service in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he chaired the powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).
Matt Zeller is a consultant in Washington, DC. He is the author of Watches Without Time (Just World Books, 2012), a vivid description of what he experienced while serving as an embedded combat adviser with the Afghan security forces in Ghazni, Afghanistan, in 2008. Matt is a Captain in the US Army Reserve and a former officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was the Democrat candidate for Congress in 2010 in NY’s 29th Congressional District.
Felicia Taylor is a retired anchor-correspondent formerly for CNN International’s World Business Today has contributed to the Business Updates unit for CNN. She was the co-host of Retirement Living TV’s Daily Cafe until November 2009. She joined WNBC in 1998 and left in September 2006. Felicia Taylor has covered pivotal moments in history including the Gulf War, Black Monday, the top 5 largest point drops on the Dow, the demise of Long Term Capital Management, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, the demise of Bear Sterns and the global financial crisis beginning in 2008.
A Conversation with America’s Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton
The Common Good presents, A Conversation with America’s Police Commissioner, Bill Bratton. Moderated by best selling author, Ken Auletta.
About The Event
There is perhaps no greater authority on policing in America than Bill Bratton. But Bill Bratton is not only an expert on policing, he was also in the key position to assist in combating terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and subsequent terror threats in New York and Los Angeles.
Join The Common Good as Ken Auletta, best-selling author extraordinaire and famed columnist for The New Yorker, leads a conversation with Commissioner Bratton on Bratton’s new book, “The Profession: A Memoir of Community, Race, and the Arc of Policing in America” as a jumping off point.
We’ll look at Bratton’s extraordinary career, how policing has changed (for good and bad) over the years, and get his thoughts on national security more generally. Bratton was known for improving community relations with the police and significantly reducing crime rates. How did he do it? Can we do it again? With crime rates rising, particularly violent crime, we need to know. Don’t miss this essential conversation.
During a 46-year career in law enforcement Bill Bratton, ever results-driven, instituted progressive change while leading six police departments, including seven years as Chief of the Boston and Los Angeles Police Departments and two nonconsecutive terms as the Police Commissioner of the City of New York. He is the only person ever to lead the police agencies of America’s two largest cities. In the words of our Honorary Advisory Board member and former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, Bill Bratton is “America’s police commissioner.”
Wednesday, July 28 from 5:00pm to 6:00pm ET
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Commissioner Bratton was the 42nd police commissioner of the City of New York from January 2014 to September 2016. It was the second time he had held the post. During that time, he oversaw 32 months of declining crime, including historic lows for murders and robberies. Commissioner Bratton spearheaded a major technological overhaul, the Mobile Digital Initiative, which gave a smartphone with custom-designed apps to every officer and put a tablet in every patrol car.
Commissioner Bratton also implemented major reforms to the NYPD’s counterterrorism program by developing two new units—the Critical Response Command (CRC) and the Strategic Response Group (SRG)—which now provide the city with more than 1,000 highly trained and properly equipped officers who are dedicated to counterterrorism, large-scale mobilizations, site security, and rapid deployment citywide.
In the 1990s, Commissioner Bratton established an international reputation for re-engineering police departments and fighting crime. As Chief of the New York City Transit Police, Boston Police Commissioner, and in his first term as New York City Police Commissioner, he revitalized morale and cut crime in all three posts, achieving the largest crime declines in New York City’s history. As Los Angeles Police Chief from 2002 to 2009, in a city known for its entrenched gang culture and youth violence, he brought crime to historically low levels, greatly improved race relations, and reached out to young people with a range of innovative police programs.
Ken Auletta is an acclaimed journalist who has been a pillar at The New Yorker magazine since 1992, writing columns under Annals of Communication and major pieces on a variety of major personalities and trends. Auletta has profiled the leading figures and companies of the Information Age, including Google, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, AOL Time Warner, John Malone, Harvey Weinstein, the New York Times, Sheryl Sandberg and Facebook; he has dissected media meteors that fell to earth, probed media violence, the political giving of communication giants, and explored what "synergy" may mean to journalism. His 2001 profile of Ted Turner won a National Magazine Award as the best profile of the year. He covered the Microsoft antitrust trial for the magazine. In ranking him as America's premier media critic, the Columbia Journalism Review concluded, "no other reporter has covered the new communications revolution as thoroughly as has Auletta." New York Magazine described him as the "media Boswell."
In addition to his fine reporting and writing at The New Yorker, Auletta is the author of twelve books, including five national bestsellers: Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed And Glory On Wall Street: The Fall of The House of Lehman; The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Super Highway; World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies; and Googled, The End of the World As We Know It, which was published in November of 2009. His other books include: Backstory: Inside the Business of News; Media Man: Ted Turner’s Improbable Empire; The Streets Were Paved with Gold; and The Underclass. His twelfth book, Frenemies: The Epic Disruption of the Ad Business (And Everything Else), was published in June 2018.
Be sure to check out Auletta’s 2015 article on Bratton entitled,“Fixing Broken Windows”
Googled
The Common Good was proud to host Ken Auletta, author of Googled. He is known for his thorough research and fascinating profiles of leading figures and companies. These efforts have earned him five national bestsellers on subjects including Bill Gates, The New York Times, and now the multinational computing and internet search corporation, Google. In this latest best-seller, Auletta delves into the company and its success, and unmasks how the digital revolution may disrupt the world.
In his book, Googled, Auletta takes readers inside Google’s closed-door meetings and discusses Google’s notoriously private founders, Larry Page and Sergei Brin. In his narrative, Auletta provides the fullest account to date of Google’s meteoric rise.
Ken Auletta is an American journalist and media critic at The New Yorker. He has worked in government and on several political campaigns along with having taught and trained Peace Corps volunteers. In 1974, Auletta became the chief political correspondent for the New York Post. Following that, he was a staff writer and weekly columnist for The Village Voice, and then a contributing editor at New York Magazine. He started contributing to The New Yorker in 1977. Between 1977 and 1993, he wrote a weekly political column for the New York Daily News.
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The Common Good has been hosting events since 2006 that cover important issues of today, highlighting speakers who have worked to bolster our democracy and can provide great insight on the issues that matter.