Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.

Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 800 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous soul

Christian Finnegan  is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor based in New York City. Finnegan is perhaps best known as one of the original panelists on VH1's Best Week Ever and as Chad, the only white roommate in the “Mad Real World” sketch on Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show. Additional television appearances as himself or performing stand up have included “Conan”, “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”, "Would You Rather...with Graham Norton", “Good Afternoon America” and multiple times on The Today Show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and on History's I Love the 1880s. He hosted TV Land's game show "Game Time". As an actor, Finnegan portrayed the supporting role of "Carl" in the film Eden Court, a ticket agent in "Knight and Day" and several guest roles including a talk show host on "The Good Wife". In October 2006, Finnegan's debut stand up comedy CD titled Two For Flinching was released by Comedy Central Records, with a follow-up national tour of college campuses from January to April 2007. “Au Contraire!” was released by Warner Bros. Records in 2009. His third special "The Fun Part" was filmed at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston on April 4, 2013 and debuted on Netflix on April 15, 2014.

Sara Kamali, PhD is a holistic justice activist and a scholar of systemic inequities, White nationalism, and militant Islamism. Her writings and activism address how interlocking institutions of power oppress the many while maintaining systems of privilege for a select few. 

Dr. Kamali is also the author of Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War against the United States published by University of California Press. In the first book to directly compare White nationalists and militant Islamists in the United States, Dr. Kamali examines their histories and networks as well as their self-described beliefs, grievances, and rationales for violence.

She also calls for changing the current counterterrorism paradigm in the United States to one based on what she defines as “holistic justice” in order to effectively counter what is now the greatest terrorist threat faced by the United States and by many countries around the world.

She also writes two monthly series, Activating Justice and Jessie Spano is in the Wake. The first focuses on the work of everyday heroes working to make their communities more equitable and is in an interview format. The second applies the lessons learned from Jessie Spano's time at the fictional Bayside High as an ally and activist to examine some of the same challenges we face in the real world today.   

Dr. Kamali is passionate about striving against oppression in all forms at the axis of systemic racism, particularly ableism, the opportunity gap within education, and food and housing insecurity.

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Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.

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Dr. Jason Johnson is an associate professor of politics and journalism in the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University and author of the book Political Consultants and Campaigns: One Day to Sell. He focuses on campaign politics, political communication, strategy and popular culture. He hosts a podcast on Slate called "A Word"

He is a political analyst for MSNBC, SIRIUS XM Satellite Radio and The Grio. He has previously appeared on CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera, Current TV and CBS. His work has been featured on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and on ESPN. He has been quoted by The Guardian, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Wallstreet Journal, Buzzfeed, The Hill newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Dr. Johnson is a University of Virginia alumnus and earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Melissa Boteach, Vice President for Income Security and Child Care/Early Learning, oversees NWLC’s advocacy, policy, and public education strategies to ensure that all women and families have the income and supports they need to thrive. Prior to joining NWLC, Melissa spent nearly a decade at Center for American Progress (CAP), where she founded and led the Poverty to Prosperity Program, growing it from a team of 1 to 17, establishing projects to center the voices of low-income families; leading the team’s message and narrative change work, overseeing intersectional advocacy campaigns, and developing bold ideas to cut poverty & expand opportunity that resulted in new legislation, executive actions, and other progress. Melissa also served as policy editor on The Shriver Report, a book and multimedia platform by Maria Shriver and Center for American Progress on the 1 in 3 U.S. women on the financial brink, and solutions to help them push back. Previously, she worked at The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), where she led interfaith antipoverty campaigns. She has testified before Congress and frequently serves as a media spokesperson on issues relating to economic opportunity. A Harry Truman and George J. Mitchell Scholar, Melissa has a Master’s of Public Policy from The George Washington University, a master’s of Equality Studies from University College Dublin where she studied women in social movements, and bachelor’s degrees from University of Maryland in government and Spanish.

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The Earth is flat, the World Trade Center collapse was a controlled demolition, planes are spraying poison to control the weather, and actors faked the Sandy Hook massacre …

All these claims are bunk: falsehoods, mistakes, and in some cases, outright lies. But many people passionately believe one or more of these conspiracy theories. They consume countless books and videos, join like-minded online communities, try to convert those around them, and even, on occasion, alienate their own friends and family. Why is this, and how can you help people, especially those closest to you, break free from the downward spiral of conspiracy thinking?

In Escaping the Rabbit Hole, author Mick West shares over a decade’s worth of knowledge and experience investigating and debunking false conspiracy theories through his forum, MetaBunk.org, and sets forth a practical guide to helping friends and loved ones recognize these theories for what they really are.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the most successful approaches to helping individuals escape a rabbit hole aren’t comprised of simply explaining why they are wrong; rather, West’s tried-and-tested approach emphasizes clear communication based on mutual respect, honesty, openness, and patience.

West puts his debunking techniques and best practices to the test with four of the most popular false conspiracy theories today (Chemtrails, 9/11 Controlled Demolition, False Flags, and Flat Earth)―providing road maps to help you to understand your friend and help them escape the rabbit hole. These are accompanied by real-life case studies of individuals who, with help, were able to break free from conspiracism.

Rebecca Vallas is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, where her work focuses on economic justice. Vallas joins TCF after seven years at the Center for American Progress, during which she helped to build and lead CAP’s Poverty to Prosperity Program, in a range of roles, including as the program’s first policy director and managing director, and later as vice president. During her time at CAP, Vallas also helped to establish CAP’s Disability Justice Initiative—the first disability policy project at a U.S. think tank—as well as the organization’s criminal justice reform work.

Much of Vallas’s policy and advocacy work flows from her years as a legal aid lawyer. In partnership with her legal aid alma mater, she co-developed the “clean slate” model of automated, automatic criminal record-clearing that is now law in Pennsylvania, Utah, and Michigan and advancing in additional states—while advancing national momentum for removing barriers to economic opportunity for justice-impacted individuals and families. In 2019, she co-founded the Clean Slate Initiative, a national organization supporting state efforts to adopt clean slate policies.

Vallas previously served as the deputy director of government affairs for the National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives, working to protect and strengthen the Social Security disability programs, including as co-chair of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) Social Security Task Force. Forever a legal aid lawyer at heart, Vallas spent several years representing low-income individuals and families at Community Legal Services in Philadelphia, where she began her work as a Skadden Fellow, and was the inaugural recipient of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association’s New Leaders in Advocacy Award.

Vallas has authored dozens of policy reports on antipoverty policy, income security, disability policy, access to justice, and criminal records/reentry policy; testified before Congress and state legislatures on numerous occasions; and been cited and quoted in media outlets across the country. She is also the creator and host of Off-Kilter, a nationally distributed podcast about poverty, inequality, and everything they intersect with. Vallas serves on the Board of Directors of the National Academy of Social Insurance and is a member of the Academy’s 2020–2021 Economic Security Study Panel. Vallas was twice named to Forbes magazine’s “30 Under 30” for law and policy, and later to Emory University’s “40 Under 40.” She received her law degree from the University of Virginia and graduated summa cum laude from Emory University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology. In a past life, she was an operatically trained mezzo soprano. She’s the proud mother of four rescue kitties.

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Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.

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On Today's show I tried something completely different. After blocking literally thousands of strangers who were calling me a pedophile and threatening me and my family I decided to message one and guess what? He ended up apologizing and begging my forgiveness!    It didn't happen right away but I was able to earn his trust and invited him on the show to have a long talk. We talked for almost 2 hours. I don't know if you are gonna like it or hate it or somewhere in between but I hope you get as much out of it as I do. He is only 20 years old so it almost felt wrong and exploitative but he held his own and gave me his consent to post our discussion.   My talk with Mike in Chicago begins at about 30 minutes in after the news.  

Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.

Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 800 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous souls

Bryce Covert is an independent journalist writing about the economy. She is a contributing writer at The Nation, and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Time Magazine, the Washington Post, New York Magazine, Wired, the New Republic, Slate, and others. She won a 2016 Exceptional Merit in Media Award from the National Women’s Political Caucus. She has appeared on ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NPR, and other outlets.

She was previously Economic Editor at ThinkProgress, and before that was Editor of the Roosevelt Institute’s Next New Deal blog and a contributor at Forbes.

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Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.

Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 800 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous soul

Christian Finnegan  is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor based in New York City. Finnegan is perhaps best known as one of the original panelists on VH1's Best Week Ever and as Chad, the only white roommate in the “Mad Real World” sketch on Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show. Additional television appearances as himself or performing stand up have included “Conan”, “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”, "Would You Rather...with Graham Norton", “Good Afternoon America” and multiple times on The Today Show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and on History's I Love the 1880s. He hosted TV Land's game show "Game Time". As an actor, Finnegan portrayed the supporting role of "Carl" in the film Eden Court, a ticket agent in "Knight and Day" and several guest roles including a talk show host on "The Good Wife". In October 2006, Finnegan's debut stand up comedy CD titled Two For Flinching was released by Comedy Central Records, with a follow-up national tour of college campuses from January to April 2007. “Au Contraire!” was released by Warner Bros. Records in 2009. His third special "The Fun Part" was filmed at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston on April 4, 2013 and debuted on Netflix on April 15, 2014.

Julie Mason is the host of SiriusXM's Julie Mason Mornings, heard nationwide weekdays from 6-9 a.m. ET.

Her daily political talk show on SiriusXM's POTUS channel features an eclectic mix of guests, including newsmakers such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Ted Cruz, Sen. Sherrod Brown, Secretary of State John Kerry, Gov. Larry Hogan and Gov. Chris Christie, among others.

She also hosts filmmakers including Alex Gibney and Michael Kirk, artists Henry Rollins, John Doe and Robin Bell, entertainers including the cast of Veep, plus authors, comedians and journalists.

Before joining SiriusXM, Julie was a White House reporter at POLITICO, the Washington Examiner and the Houston Chronicle.

Julie has more than 30 years of journalism experience covering local, state and national politics, including four presidential campaigns.

Julie is a former elected board member of the White House Correspondents Association and appears on CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, NPR and more. She was a 2014 recipient of the Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media for outstanding achievement as a radio talk show host.

Julie is married to Tunga Yakupoglu and lives in Washington, DC.

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Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.

Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 800 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous soul

Cameron Joseph is a senior reporter who covers congress for ViceNews

He is on Twitter at Cam_Joseph

He is also a Contributor @The_Almanac of American Politics. Bylined & large.

Steve LeVine is now the head writer at "The Electric"  He also writes The Mobilist, a blog on the future of batteries, electric vehicles, and autonomous mobility. Steve is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Foresight, Strategy and Risks Initiative, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Previously, Steve was a foreign correspondent for eighteen years in the former Soviet Union, Pakistan and the Philippines, running a bureau for The Wall Street Journal, and before that writing for The New York Times, the Financial Times and Newsweek. Before joining Medium, Steve conceived and launched the Future newsletter at Axios, and before that was on the launch team at Quartz, where he was Washington Correspondent.

The Powerhouse is Steve’s third book. In 2007, Random House published The Oil and the Glory, which chronicled the struggle for fortune and power on the Caspian Sea. BusinessWeek magazine selected it as a Top 10 book for the year. In 2008, Random House published Putin's Labyrinth, a profile of Russia through the life and death of a half-dozen Russians. Both books are on numerous university reading lists.

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Steve lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Nurilda, and their two daughters.

Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.

Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 800 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous soul

Barry Ritholtz has spent his career helping people spot their own investment errors and to learn how to better manage their own financial behaviors. He is the creator of The Big Picture, often ranked as the number one financial blog to follow by The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and others.   Barry Ritholtz is the creator and host of Bloomberg’s “Masters in Business” radio podcast, and a featured columnist at the Washington Post. He is the author of the Bailout Nation: How Greed and Easy Money Corrupted Wall Street and Shook the World Economy (Wiley, 2009). In addition to serving as Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management, he is also on the advisory boards of Riskalyze, and Peer Street, two leading financial technology startups bringing transparency and analytics to the investment business.   Barry has named one of the “15 Most Important Economic Journalists” in the United States, and has been called one of The 25 Most Dangerous People in Financial Media. When not working, he can be found with his wife and their two dogs on the north shore of Long Island.   Mia Bloom is a fellow with New America’s International Security program and professor of communication and Middle East studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Her new book is Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon  She conducts ethnographic field research in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia and speaks eight languages. She has authored several books and articles on terrorism and violent extremism including Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (2005), Living Together After Ethnic Killing (2007) Bombshell: Women and Terror (2011) and Small Arms: Children and Terror (2019). Bloom is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has held appointments at Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, and McGill Universities. Bloom’s newest book is Veiled Threats; Women and Global Jihad is scheduled for 2020 release. Bloom has a PhD in political science from Columbia University, a master’s in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree from McGill in Russian, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies.   Pete on YouTube Pete on Twitter Pete On Instagram Pete Personal FB page

Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.

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Kenneth C. Davis is the bestselling author of Don’t Know Much About® History and other books in the Don’t Know Much About® series. He also wrote the acclaimed In the Shadow of Liberty.

For 30 years, Kenneth C. Davis has proven that Americans don’t hate history — just the dull version they slept through in class. Davis’s approach is to refresh us on the subjects we should have learned in school. He does it by busting myths, setting the record straight, and making history human.

If your school, library or learning community would like to speak with Kenneth C. Davis about American history, click on   Classroom Skypes or Custom Virtual Visits to learn more.  

Constitutional Law Scholar, author, professor and now podcaster as well as close personal friend of mine Eric Segall joined me to talk about the remaining challenges to the election outcome by the Trump Campaign and the consequences of the damage already done Buy his books.  Follow him on twitter Listen to his new Podcast Supreme Myths

Eric J. Segall graduated from Emory University, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude, and from Vanderbilt Law School, where he was the research editor for the Law Review and member of Order of the Coif. He clerked for the Chief Judge Charles Moye Jr. for the Northern District of Georgia, and Albert J. Henderson of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. After his clerkships, Segall worked for Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and the U.S. Department of Justice, before joining the Georgia State faculty in 1991.

Segall teaches federal courts and constitutional law I and II. He is the author of the books Originalism as Faith and Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is not a Court and its Justices are not Judges. His articles on constitutional law have appeared in, among others, the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Stanford Law Review On Line, the UCLA Law Review, the George Washington Law Review, the Washington University Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, the Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, and Constitutional Commentary among many others.

Segall’s op-eds and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the LA Times, The Atlantic, SLATE, Vox, Salon, and the Daily Beast, among others. He has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and France 24 and all four of Atlanta’s local television stations. He has also appeared on numerous local and national radio shows.

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Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day.

Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 800 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous souls.

See Pete and JL Cauvin in Boston on Monday July 26

First we had Con Law Professor Eric Segall who joined over 40 listeners and subscribers to chat about the final cases announced today from the supreme court

Next it's #FinneganFridays

Christian Finnegan  is an American stand-up comedian, writer and actor based in New York City. Finnegan is perhaps best known as one of the original panelists on VH1's Best Week Ever and as Chad, the only white roommate in the “Mad Real World” sketch on Comedy Central's Chappelle's Show. Additional television appearances as himself or performing stand up have included “Conan”, “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”, "Would You Rather...with Graham Norton", “Good Afternoon America” and multiple times on The Today Show and Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and on History's I Love the 1880s. He hosted TV Land's game show "Game Time". As an actor, Finnegan portrayed the supporting role of "Carl" in the film Eden Court, a ticket agent in "Knight and Day" and several guest roles including a talk show host on "The Good Wife". In October 2006, Finnegan's debut stand up comedy CD titled Two For Flinching was released by Comedy Central Records, with a follow-up national tour of college campuses from January to April 2007. “Au Contraire!” was released by Warner Bros. Records in 2009. His third special "The Fun Part" was filmed at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston on April 4, 2013 and debuted on Netflix on April 15, 2014.

Finally its George Zarkadakis

Cyber Republic Reinventing Democracy in the Age of Intelligent Machines

How to make liberal democracies more inclusive and the digital economy more equitable: a guide for the coming Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Around the world, liberal democracies are in crisis. Citizens have lost faith in their government; right-wing nationalist movements frame the political debate. At the same time, economic inequality is increasing dramatically; digital technologies have created a new class of super-rich entrepreneurs. Automation threatens to transform the free economy into a zero-sum game in which capital wins and labor loses. But is this digital dystopia inevitable? In Cyber Republic, George Zarkadakis presents an alternative, outlining a plan for using technology to make liberal democracies more inclusive and the digital economy more equitable. Cyber Republic is no less than a guide for the coming Fourth Industrial Revolution and the post-pandemic world.

Zarkadakis, an expert on technology and management, explains how artificial intelligence, together with intelligent robotics, sophisticated sensors, communication networks, and big data, will fundamentally reshape the global economy; a new “intelligent machine age” will force us to adopt new forms of economic and political organization. He envisions a future liberal democracy in which intelligent machines facilitate citizen assemblies, helping to extend citizen rights, and blockchains and cryptoeconomics enable new forms of democratic governance and business collaboration. Moreover, the same technologies can be applied to scientific research and technological innovation. We need not fear automation, Zarkadakis argues; in a post-work future, intelligent machines can collaborate with humans to achieve the human goals of inclusivity and equality.

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