John McCain ✝
John McCain ✝
Former U.S. Senator from Arizona
John Sidney McCain III was a senator, soldier, and 2008 presidential nominee. As a young man in his twenties, he enlisted in the US Navy to follow in the footsteps of his father. He was deployed in Vietnam and ended his military service with the rank of Captain. During his tour in Vietnam, he was captured and was a prisoner of war for five and a half years.
McCain went on to become a House Representative for Arizona’s 1st congressional district in 1982 and was re-elected in 1984. McCain began his first term in the Senate in 1987. He went on to win five more terms all the way until 2018. McCain was the Republican nominee for the 2008 election running against Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
Senator McCain was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2017 and passed away on August 25th, 2018.
Senator John McCain was awarded the American Spirit Award for Distinguished Public Service by Chele Chiavacci Farley at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2017.
Chele Chiavacci Farley
Chele chiavacci farley
Investment banker, private sector adviser
Chele Farley is Managing Director of Mistral Capital International, which has invested over $1.6 billion in equity since inception in 1991. Her past Mistral transactions include deals with Goldman, Sachs (GSEMREF), Starwood Capital (Star Resorts), and Royal Dutch Shell. Farley sits on the Management Committee and Board of Palmilla San Jose Inmobiliaria (a real estate resort development in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico). She formerly was with UBS Capital and Goldman, Sachs & Co. (Investment Banking Division).
Farley received both a B.S. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and sits on Stanford’s New York Alumni Board as well as the Archeology Center Advisory Board of the University. Along with former Senator Bill Bradley, she is Co-Chair of the East Coast Advisory Board of QuestBridge, the leading conduit for students with a family income below $60,000 annually to attend a university. She is also active with the Alzheimer’s Association and Co-Chaired the Association’s Rita Hayworth Gala in New York in October 2010 which raised over $1.7 million.
Farley ran as a Republican candidate against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in 2018, and has now announced her 2020 campaign against Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney.
She hosted events at The Common Good in 2016: Commentary on the 2016 Presidential Election with Bill Kristol - September 22, 2016 and 2017: Rethinking the Afghanistan War with Erik Prince - October 3, 2017. She also presented the American Spirit Award for Distinguished Public Service to Senator John McCain at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2017.
Twitter: @CheleFarley
Marc Busch
Marc Busch
Writer
Marc L. Busch is an expert on international trade policy and law. He serves as a member of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Standards and Technical Trade Barriers, a public-private group reporting to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative. He has addressed a wide variety of governments and international institutions, including the Advisory Center on WTO Law, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, the World Bank and the United Nations. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on Airbus-Boeing litigation, and before the Canadian Senate on softwood lumber litigation. In 1999 he published his first and only book, Trade Warriors: States, Firms, and Strategic-Trade Policy in High-Technology Competition.
Busch spoke at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2017 on the “New Era of Global Trade”.
David Burstein
David Burstein
CEO and Founder of Run for America
David Burstein is the CEO and Founder of Run for America, a citizen-powered movement to re-imagine politics, reinvigorate government, and restore the promise of America for the 21st century. Run for America strategically recruits, trains, and works to elect a new generation of leaders to Congress who are committed to a solutions-first, future-focused, and innovative approach to tackling our major national challenges. RFA Candidates serve their communities by ending gridlock, increasing participation and bringing citizens together, expanding the electorate to win elections and build a lasting grassroots network of supporters across the country and political spectrum. David is also the author of Fast Future: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaping Our World and the founder and former Executive Director of Generation18, a nonpartisan young voter engagement organization.
Burstein spoke at both The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2017 and The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.
Twitter: @davidburstein
Read more:
‘Rep. Emmer: Democrats will lose House majority over impeachment’ Fox News, 2 October 2019
‘Former Vice President Biden and his wife made $15 million in the two years after leaving office’, Yahoo! News, 10 July 2019
Logan McIntosh, ‘David Burstein, Founder of Run for America’, Purpose Generation, 28 October 2016
Orville Schell
Orville Schell
Writer
Orville Schell is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at Asia Society in New York. He is a former professor and Dean at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Schell worked for the Ford Foundation in Indonesia, covered the war in Indochina as a journalist, and has traveled widely in China since the mid-70s. (1)
Schell is the author of fifteen books, ten of them about China, and a contributor to numerous edited volumes. He has written widely for many magazine and newspapers, including The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, Time, The New Republic, Harpers, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Wired, Foreign Affairs, the China Quarterly, and The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. (1)
Schell is a Fellow at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University, a Senior Fellow at the Annenberg School of Communications at USC and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Schell is also the recipient of many prizes and fellowships, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Overseas Press Club Award, and the Harvard-Stanford Shorenstein Prize in Asian Journalism. (1)
Schell spoke at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2017 on “Global Threats and Opportunites” in China and North Korea.
Twitter: @orvilleschell
(1) Material from the Asia Society website.
Rep. Joe Kennedy III
Rep. Joe Kennedy III
Politician
Elected in November of 2012, Congressman Joe Kennedy III represents Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District.
Prior to seeking office, Kennedy served the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as an Assistant District Attorney in both the Middlesex County, Cape and Island’s District Attorneys’ Offices. A graduate of Harvard Law, he was an active member of the school’s Legal Aid Bureau – a pro-bono law firm that provided legal services to low-income families around Boston. During that time he also co-founded an after school program for at-risk youth in the Boston area with his wife, Lauren.
Earlier in his career Joe served as a member of the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic. He has also worked as an international development analyst for the United Nations’ Millennium Project and as an anti-poverty consultant abroad.
He spoke at The Common Good in 2013: Rising Leaders: Power Breakfast with Congressman Joseph Kennedy III, in 2015: Meet & Greet: Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, and in 2017: Discussion on Challenges and Opportunity in Congress.
Twitter: @RepJoeKennedy
William Floyd Weld
William Floyd Weld
Former Governor of Massachusetts
William Floyd Weld is an American attorney, businessman, and Republican politician who served as the 68th Governor of Massachusetts from 1991 to 1997. Weld is running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 2020 election.
A Harvard and Oxford graduate, Weld began his career as legal counsel to the United States house Committee before becoming the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts and, later, the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. He worked on a series of high-profile public corruption cases and later resigned in protest of an ethics scandal and associated investigations into Attorney General Edwin Meese.
Weld was elected Governor of Massachusetts in 1990. In the 1994 election, he was reelected by the largest margin of victory in Massachusetts history. In 1996, he was the Republican nominee for the United States Senate in Massachusetts, losing to Democratic incumbent John Kerry. Weld resigned as governor in 1997 to focus on his nomination by President Bill Clinton to serve as United States Ambassador to Mexico. However, due to opposition by socially conservative Senate Foreign Relations committee Chairman Jesse Helms, he was denied a hearing before the Foreign Relations committee and withdrew his nomination.
Weld was hosted by The Common Good in March of 2017: History in the Making: Post-Election Panel 2016, alongside Carl Bernstein and Kellyanne Conway, with moderator Alan Schwartz.
Twitter: @GovBillWeld
Richard Haass
Richard Haass
American diplomat
Dr. Richard Haass is a veteran diplomat, a prominent voice on American foreign policy, and an established leader of nonprofit institutions. He is in his sixteenth year as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, publisher, and educational institution dedicated to being a resource to help people better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other countries.
From January 2001 to June 2003, Dr. Haass was director of policy planning for the Department of State, where he directed the policy planning staff and was a principal advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate to hold the rank of ambassador, Dr. Haass also served as U.S. coordinator for policy toward the future of Afghanistan and U.S. envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process. From 1989 to 1993, he was special assistant to President George H.W. Bush and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. In 1991, Dr. Haass was awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal for his contributions to the development and articulation of U.S. policy during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Previously, he served in the Departments of State (1981–1985) and Defense (1979–1980), and was a legislative aide in the U.S. Senate.
Dr. Haass is the author or editor of thirteen books on American foreign policy and one book on management. His latest book is A World in Disarray: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Old Order, published in 2017 by Penguin Press.
Mr. Haass was hosted by The Common Good in March of 2017: The Changing World Order: Richard Haass.
Twitter: @RichardHaass
Sheldon Whitehouse
Sheldon Whitehouse
American lawyer, politician
Sheldon Whitehouse served as Rhode Island’s Director of Business Regulation under Governor Sundlun before being recommended by Senator Pell and nominated by President Bill Clinton to be Rhode Island’s United States Attorney in 1994. He was elected Attorney General of Rhode Island in 1998, a position in which he served until 2003. On November 7, 2006, Rhode Islanders elected Sheldon to the United States Senate, where he is a member of the Budget Committee, the Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), the Judiciary Committee, and the Finance Committee.
The Common Good hosted a special conversation with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in February of 2017: Captured: The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy.
Twitter: @SenWhitehouse
Yusuf Ziya Irbeç
Dr. Yusuf Ziya Irbeç ✝
Economist
Dr. Yusuf Ziya İrbeç was born in Kas, Antalya in 1959. He was an economist, foreign policy specialist and academician, and he served as a Member of the Turkish Parliament for Antalya and an Executive Board Member of the Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA) in which he was the Deputy Convenor of Peace and Democracy Program. Dr. Yusuf Ziya İrbeç was also a member of Turkish Parliament, and was Clerk Member and Vice-Chairman of the European Union Harmonization Commission. He also served as a Member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of the European Union.
His experiences within the private sector and international institutions include the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB), Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey (DEIK), Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC), Ministry of Labour and Social Security, Ankara Chamber of Commerce, and Institute for Cultural Diplomacy in Berlin.
Dr. Yusuf Ziya İrbeç passed away on June 19th, 2017.
He was hosted by The Common Good in 2013: Briefing on Turkey with Dr. Yusuf Ziya İrbeç – March 29, 2013, and in 2017: Special Meeting with Prof. Dr. Yusuf Ziya Irbec M.P. - January 30, 2017.
Carl Bernstein
Carl Bernstein
Journalist
Carl Bernstein is an American investigative journalist and author.
In 1972, Bernstein was teamed up with Bob Woodward at The Washington Post, and the two did much of the original news reporting on the Watergate scandal. These scandals led to numerous government investigations and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon. He shared a Pulitzer Prize with Bob Woodward as a result of this work.
Bernstein's career since Watergate has continued to focus on the theme of the use and abuse of power through books and magazine articles, and has done reporting for television and opinion commentary. He is the author or co-author of six books: All the President's Men, The Final Days, and The Secret Man with Bob Woodward, His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time, with Marco Politi, Loyalties; and A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Additionally, he is a regular political commentator on CNN. He has written for Vanity Fair, where he is a contributing editor, Time, USA Today, Rolling Stone, and The New Republic.
Bernstein was hosted by The Common Good in 2010: Election Insurrection: The Mid-Term Elections 2010, in 2012: Aftermath: Supreme Court & Health Care with Carl Bernstein, Jeffrey Toobin & Susan Blumenthal – July 19, 2012, in 2016: Post-Election Panel 2016 - December 7, 2016, and in 2017: History in the Making: Post-Election Panel 2016 - March 17, 2017.
Twitter: @carlbernstein
Kellyanne Conway
Kellyanne Conway
American pollster, political consultant, pundit
Kellyanne Conway is an American pollster, political consultant, and pundit. Previously she held roles as campaign manager and strategist in the Republican Party and was former president and CEO of The Polling Company, Inc./Woman Trend. In 2016, she was appointed as Trump’s campaign manager and now serves as a counselor in his presidential administration .
Within polling, Conway is one of the most quoted and noted pollsters on the national scene, having provided commentary on over 1,200 television shows on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, HBO, Comedy Central, MTV and the Fox News Channel, and numerous radio shows and print stories. Throughout her two decades in market research, Conway has provided primary research and advice for clients in 46 of the 50 states and has directed hundreds of demographic and attitudinal survey projects for statewide and congressional political races, trade associations, and Fortune 100 companies. She is also co-author of What Women Really Want: How American Women Are Quietly Erasing Political, Racial, Class, and Religious Lines to Change the Way We Live.
Within the Republican Party, Conway has worked for leaders such as the late Congressman Jack Kemp, former Vice President Dan Quayle, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Senator Fred Thompson and Congressman Mike Pence, Vice President in Trump’s administration.
Conway spoke at The Common Good in 2017: History in the Making: Post-Election Panel 2016 alongside Carl Bernstein and Governor William Weld, with moderator Alan Schwartz.
Twitter: @KellyannePolls
Marcina Hale
Marcina Hale
Co-Founder of Reconsider
Marcina Hale is Co-Founder of Reconsider, an organization that develops media and workshops that catalyze reflection, dialogue, and action around our relationship to life and what we wish to create. She has spent 20 years developing and presenting workshops for individual and communal transformation. A master therapist and dynamic facilitator, she challenges and inspires others to live their lives more consciously and to take responsibility for their own creations. She is a producer of Disturbing the Peace and is the primary facilitator for Reconsider workshop experiences, which have been given nationally and internationally.
Hale was hosted by The Common Good in November of 2016: Special Screening of “Disturbing the Peace”.
Twitter: @MarcinaLee
Bill Kristol
Bill Kristol
Founder and Editor of The Weekly Standard
Bill Kristol is a political analyst and the Founder and Editor of the political magazine The Weekly Standard. He is known for his neo-conservatism and frank approach to issues.
Kristol taught political philosophy and American politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government before joining the Reagan administration. He eventually became Chief of Staff to the Vice President in the George H. W. Bush administration. Kristol has played a major role in the debate on American foreign policy since September 11th, and served as a foreign policy advisor for Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign.
Kristol is associated with a number of prominent conservative think tanks. He co-founded the Project for the New American Century and is a member of the board of trustees for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, the Policy Advisory Board for the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and a director of the Foreign Policy Initiative.
Kristol was hosted by The Common Good for a Commentary on the 2016 Presidential Election with Bill Kristol.
Twitter: @BillKristol
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
Journalist, filmmaker, activist
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has become an important part of the global conversation in support of women’s issues and human rights in her native country and around the world.
Obaid-Chinoy has worked with refugees and marginalized communities from Saudi Arabia to Syria and from Timor Leste to the Philippines. By bringing their voices to the forefront, she has often helped them bring about a critical change in their community. Obaid-Chinoy has made over a dozen multi-award-winning films in over 10 countries. In 2012, Time Magazine included her in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2013, Obaid-Chinoy was the recipient of the Crystal Award. by the World Economic Forum for her work in documentary filmmaking, making her the first Pakistani to receive this honor. According to Women in the World founder and journalist Tina Brown, A Girl In The River is having “a galvanic political impact on laws surrounding honour killings in Pakistan.” After viewing the film, Pakistani President Nawaz Sharif promised to overturn the country’s honor killing law.
Obaid-Chinoy was honored with the American Spirit Award for Activism in the Arts at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.
Twitter: @sharmeenochinoy
Tammy Duckworth
Tammy Duckworth
American politician, former U.S. Army lieutenant colonel
Tammy Duckworth is an Iraq veteran who lost both legs and partial use of her right arm in 2004. She won her Congressional seat in 2012, and her Democratic seat in the Senate began in 2017. She is also the first Asian American woman elected to Congress in Illinois, the first disabled woman to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and the first member of Congress born in Thailand. She is fluent in Thai, Indonesian, and English.
Senator Duckworth was born in Bangkok Thailand. in 1989 she graduated from the University of Hawaii with a Bachelor of Arts in political science, and later received a Master of Arts in international affairs from George Washington University. In 1992 she joined the United States Army Reserve and chose to fly helicopters, citing it as one of the few combat positions open to women at the time. Senator Duckworth was working towards her P.H.D. in political science when she was drafted in 2004 to fight in the Iraq war. in November of that year, her UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in combat, where she sustained injuries and had to have her legs amputated. She received the Purple Heart for her injuries, and was promoted to Major.
In 2006, Senator Duckworth became the director of the Illinois Department of Veteran affairs, and held the position until 2009. While in the position, she was credited with starting a program to help veterans with PTSD and veterans with brain injuries.
Twitter: @SenDuckworth
Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Graham
U.S. Republican Senator of South Carolina
Lindsey Graham has earned a reputation as a conservative problem-solver and one of the strongest proponents of national defense. Graham is also a leader in cutting spending, reforming entitlements, and reducing government interference in businesses.
Prior to serving in the Senate, Graham was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994. Before being elected to Congress, Graham compiled a distinguished record in the United States Air Force, retiring at the rank of Colonel in June 2015, having served his country in uniform for 33 years. Graham was elected to the United States Senate in 2002 and was re-elected in 2008 and 2014. Since 2019, he has been the Chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
Senator Graham spoke at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.
Twitter: @LindsayGrahamSC
Ian Bremmer
Ian Bremmer
President and Founder of Eurasia Group
Ian Bremmer is the President and Founder of Eurasia Group, a leading global political risk research and consulting firm as well as founder of GZERO Media tasked with public coverage for global affairs.. Bremmer is also a foreign affairs columnist and editor at large for Time Magazine as of December 2014. In 2013, he was named professor at New York University, and in 2019, Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs announced that Bremmer would teach an Applied Geopolitics course at the school. He is the author of The J Curve, Every Nation for Itself, and the New York Times bestselling Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism.
He is a prolific thought leader and author, regularly expressing his views on political issues in public speeches, television appearances, and top publications. Dubbed the “rising guru” in the field of political risk by The Economist, he is a Global Research Professor at New York University and a Foreign Affairs Columnist and Editor at Large for TIME magazine. His latest book, Superpower: Three Choices for America’s Role in the World, was published in May 2015. Bremmer is credited with bringing the craft of political risk to financial markets—he created Wall Street’s first global political risk index (GPRI)—and for establishing political risk as an academic discipline.
Bremmer spoke at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.
Twitter: @ianbremmer
General David Petraeus
General David Petraeus
Former U.S. Army General and public official
General (Ret.) David H. Petraeus is one of the most prominent U.S. military figures of the post-9/11 era. During his 37-year career in the United States Army, General Petraeus was widely recognized for his leadership of the Surge in Iraq, which reduced violence in Iraq by over 85%; for his oversight of the organization that produced the U.S. Army’s counterinsurgency manual and overhauled all aspects of preparing U.S. Army leaders and units for deployment to combat; and for his command of coalition forces in Afghanistan as they reversed the momentum of the Taliban and enabled the commencement of the transition of tasks to Afghan forces and institutions.
General Petraeus’ military career was distinguished by significant achievements during assignments in Cold War Europe, Central America, the United States, Haiti, Bosnia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the greater Middle East. His career culminated with six consecutive commands as a general officer, five of which were in combat, a record believed unmatched in the post-World War II era.
After General Petraeus’ retirement from the military, he served as Director of the CIA. General Petraeus is now a Partner with the global investment firm KKR and the Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, a position he has held for over two years. He is also a Visiting Professor of Public Policy at the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College, a Judge Widney Professor at the University of Southern California, a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Co-Chairman of the Woodrow Wilson Institute’s Global Advisory Council, and a member of the boards of seven veterans service organizations and several think tanks.
General Petraeus received the American Spirit Award for Distinguished Public Service at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.
Kayleigh McEnany
Kayleigh McEnany
Writer, commentator
Kayleigh McEnany is an American political commentator, writer, and former CNN contributor. In 2017, she was appointed national Spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, and in February 2019, she was announced as National Press Secretary for the Donald Trump 2020 presidential campaign. With an extensive background in politics and media, McEnany has made many appearances on several notable cable television shows and has written for several notable publications.
McEnany spoke at The Common Good Forum & American Spirit Awards 2016.
Twitter: @kayleighmcenany
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