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Founder
Jane Hamsher
Founder & Publisher
Jane Hamsher is the founder and publisher of Firedoglake.com, a leading progressive blog. Her work has also appeared on The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, AlterNet, The Nation, and The American Prospect. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, Al Jazeera, PBS, and the BBC. She is the author of the best-selling book Killer Instinct, and she has produced such films “Natural Born Killers” and “Permanent Midnight.” Jane currently lives in Washington, D.C. Email address is janehamsher AT firedoglake DOT com.
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Staff
Bev Wright
Book Salon Editor
Bevw, also known as Bev Wright, Firedoglake Book Salon Editor. Everything interests me, not enough time in a day…I am a retired federal law enforcement officer from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, DOJ, after 32 years in the federal government. I have traveled the US and overseas, lived in houses, RV’s and Sailboats, grew up working on cars as a kid, then, electronics and construction, ending up a Program Manager in Security Electronics and Telecommunications, with a top secret clearance for 30 years. The whole time I probably had several books within reach. After two years of retirement and video games, and Hosting Drinking Liberally, FDL found me. I enjoy the Book Salons, the challenges of scheduling the authors and hosts, but mostly, the interaction between our readers and the authors. Our readers are fantastic. I live in the DC metro area. Email: BevJWright at gmail.com.
Brian Sonenstein
Director of Online Activism
Brian Sonenstein is an online organizer with Firedoglake. After graduating from Wheaton College (MA), Brian blogged for Living Liberally before coming to Firedoglake in 2009. He has been blessed to have had several amazing opportunities to travel since he was very young, including time spent in 2007 living and studying grassroots revolutionary movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador — experiences that contributed greatly to his passion for social justice, accountability and the power of political activism. Brian currently lives in Brooklyn, NY with his dog / best friend, Georgia. Email: brian@firedoglake.com
David Dayen
Reporter, FDL News Desk
David Dayen is the reporter for FDL News Desk, the breaking news and information site at Firedoglake. He has been blogging since 2004 at his own site D-Day (d-day.blogspot.com), as well as contributing to the nationally recognized Digby’s Hullabaloo and the California progressive political site Calitics. His work has appeared in the LA Times, the Washington Post and Capitol Weekly, and he has been a guest on NPR, Pacifica Radio and Air America. He has a BA from the University of Michigan, and prior to blogging was a TV/film producer and editor for a decade, and performed stand-up comedy in clubs and colleges across the country. With all these multiple careers, he hopes to one day find something he’s good at.
Ellie Elliott
Editor
Elliott plunged into Firedoglake during the Libby trial and has been swimming around the Lake from cove to cove ever since (3rd on the right from the left). She serves as weekend editor, compiles Sunday Talking Heads, and puts up assorted diaries at MyFDL, some of which are just for so. She can be reached at EllieElliott at gmail.com.
Jon Walker
FDL Action
Jonathan Walker is a graduate from Welseyan University and is currently living in Washington DC. He started ‘The Walker Report’ a blog about politics and public policy with a strong focus on the issue of health care. Walker is currently working full time for Firedoglake writing on the FDL Action and Elections pages.
Ryan Cook
Director of Operations
Zach Tomanelli
Online Organizer
Zach works as an online organizer for the activism arm of Firedoglake. He is a 2011 of graduate of Ithaca College with a degree in journalism. He has previously worked/interned at NPR, Democracy Now!, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and the ACLU. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Email zach at firedoglake.com
Lisa Derrick
Blogger, La Figa Entertainment Blog
Lisa Derrick writes La Figa for Firedoglake and hostesses FDL Movie Nights. She attended, in theory, UC Berkeley and Loyola Marymount University, but spent more time in punk rock clubs than in class, eventually matriculating to autodidactic studies in lots of weird useless pop-culturey stuff. She has worked in bookstores, at record labels, on film sets, in nightclubs, and as a freelance writer, as well as writing for and editing Grammy and Sacred History magazines. Her hobbies are religion, history, arcane feminine arts and crafts, and re-runs of Beverly Hills 90210. Film noir, American melodrama, vintage jewelry, and ice cream make her really happy. She can be reached at lalisa.derrick93 at gmail.com.
Tbogg
Blogger, Tbogg Blog
Tbogg, unlike all of the other contributors at Firedoglake, never completed college. Actually, he barely attended. But never mind that, TBogg writes about whatever he wants at the FDL affiliate site coincidentally called TBogg. Weird, huh? He lives in San Diego with his wife and his dogs who are all much more popular than him. He can be reached at tblogg at hotmail.com. No fatties.
Pam Spaulding
Blogger, Pam’s House Blend
Pam Spaulding is the editor and publisher of Pam’s House Blend, twice honored as Best LGBT Blog in the annual Weblog Awards. She has guest blogged at Glenn Greenwald’s Unclaimed Territory on Salon and Americablog and Pandagon. Pam received the 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award from The Monette-Horwitz Trust for making significant contributions toward the eradication of homophobia. She was also named one of Huffington Post’s Ultimate Game Changers in Politics, honored with the 2009 Women’s Media Center Award for Online Journalism and the Courage Award from the New York City Anti-Violence Project and was selected as one of the OUT 100 for the year. Pam’s House Blend was nominated for the inaugural Best Blog prize at the 2011 GLAAD Media Awards. A Durham, North Carolina native and current resident, Pam lives in the Bull City with her wife Kate; they legally married in Canada in 2004. Email pam AT firedoglake DOT com.
Kevin Gosztola
Blogger, The Dissenter
Kevin Gosztola served as an intern for The Nation Magazine and worked closely with Greg Mitchell, helping him to maintain his daily WikiLeaks blog. He contributed sections to both of Mitchell’s books, “The Age of WikiLeaks” and “Bradley Manning: Truth and Consequences.” And, he’s the producer of a weekly podcast “This Week in WikiLeaks” that has been tweeted by WikiLeaks to their more than 900,000 followers. He has been writing and publishing to WikiLeaks Central for the past six months. He was a multimedia editor and trusted author for OpEdNews for over three years. He’s a 2009 YP4 fellow and also a filmmaker/videographer, who graduated with a Film/Video B.A. degree from Columbia College Chicago. And, in April 2010, he co-organized a major arts & media summit called “Art, Access & Action,” which explored the intersection of politics, art and media. The conference earned support from the media reform organization Free Press.
Contributors
Allison Hantschel
Allison Hantschel (aka Athanae) is a 10-year veteran of the newspaper business. She publishes First Draft, a journalism and politics blog, with her partners Adrastos and Jude. She is the author of It Doesn’t End With Us: The Story of the Daily Cardinal (2008, Heritage Books) and Chicago’s Historic Irish Pubs (with Mike Danahey) (2011, Arcadia Books). She also edited the anthology Special Plans: The Blogs on Douglas Feith and the Faulty Intelligence That Led to War (2005, William, James & Co.). Her work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the Daily Southtown, Sirens Magazine, and Alternet. She lives in Chicago with her husband, three pet ferrets, and approximately 60 tons of books.
Attaturk
In 1949, I decided to wrestle professionally, starting my career in Texas. In my debut, I defeated Abe Kashey, with former World Heavyweight boxing Champion Jack Dempsey as the referee. In 1950, I captured the NWA Junior Heavyweight title. In 1953, I won the Chicago version of the NWA United States Championship. I became one of the most well-known stars in wrestling during the golden age of television, thanks to my exposure on the Dumont Network, where I wowed audiences with my technical prowess. I was rumored to be one of the highest paid wrestlers during the 1950s, reportedly earning a hundred thousand dollars a year. My specialty was “the Sleeper Hold” and the founding of modern, secular, Turkey. Oops, sorry, that’s the biography of Verne Gagne with a touch of Mustafa Kemal. I’m just an average moron.
Christina Siun O’Connell
Christina Siun O’Connell writes on conflict zones for Firedoglake with a focus on Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In her professional life, she was an early specialist on online communications and worked in publishing and media relations before directing the development of the first corporate social responsibility news service. She currently advises multinational organizations on sustainability and climate change management and communications.
Cynthia Kouril
Cynthia Kouril is a former Special Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York under several different U.S. Attorneys, former counsel to the Inspector General for the N.Y.C. Department of Environmental Protection [where she investigated threats to the New York City water supply and other environmental crimes, as well as public corruption and fraud against the government], former Examining Attorney at the N.Y.C. Department of Investigation and former Capital Construction Counsel at New York City Parks and Recreation. She is now in private practice with a colleague whom she met while at the USA Attorney’s Office. Ms. Kouril is a member of the Steering Committee, National Committeewoman and Regional Coordinator for the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, a member of the Program Committee of the Federal Bar Council and an alumna of the Election Law Committee at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. She was NYS election day in-state litigation counsel for the Barack Obama presidential campaign. Most important of all, she is a mom.
Kirk James Murphy
Kirk James Murphy, M.D. is a board certified psychiatrist and medical educator who completed formal fellowship training in consultation-liaison and trauma psychiatry as well as undergoing advanced training in human sexuality, affective disorders, anxiety disorders, and cognitive behavioral therapy. After many years providing care to organ transplant patients and oncology patients in a renowned Los Angeles academic medical center he moved to the Bay Area, trading less challenging work for far lovelier surroundings. For over a dozen years he’s participated in and provided medical support for non-violent eco-protection efforts including the Ruckus Society and many forest protection campaigns. This work enabled him to identify the pattern of neurotoxic symptoms in civilians exposed to chemical weapons during the 1999 Seattle WTO protests. His greatest activist success so far was his successful effort to ensure the precautionary principle was the framework for the LA Unified School District’s pesticide reform plan, thus ensuring the principle’s wide adoption in other jurisdictions. He writes for Firedoglake on food safety, environmental, and human rights issues.
Masaccio
Masaccio is the nom de plume for Edwin M. Walker. Ed is a Notre Dame grad, and got his law degree from Indiana University. He began his career as a corporate and securities lawyer in Columbus, Ohio. He was an Assistant Attorney General in Tennessee, working on consumer protection and securities cases for several years. He was the securities commissioner of Tennessee for three and a half years, where he focused on criminal prosecutions and abusive tax shelters. He practiced business and bankruptcy law for 25 years. Beginning with an expensive and slightly frightening experience with Small Martingale as a young man, he has seen, investigated, sued, and prosecuted a wide variety of fraud cases, including check-kiting, critter contracts, churning, insider trading, Ponzi schemes, embezzlement, and stock market manipulation. This background is helpful in his work for FDL, which focuses on explaining the financial industry of today. He can be reached at masaccio68 at gmail.com.
Peterr
Peterr is an ordained Lutheran pastor in the Kansas City area, with a BA in math and economics from a nice secular Big Ten university to go with his Master of Divinity and PhD in religion. He has been writing at Firedoglake since mid-2006 on matters of religion and politics, international events, sexuality and politics, language and public speaking, government accountability, and other topics that catch his attention. Email: peterr.fdl at gmail.com.
Phoenix Woman
Phoenix Woman lives in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and has done so all her life. She has zero off-internet professional accomplishments to speak of and is thus embarrassed to be around her fellow FDLers. She did, however, manage to cobble together enough social skills to find a mate and has been with said mate for over a quarter of a century. Her hobbies are container gardening, reading, bicycling, and disputation–not necessarily in that order. She can be reached at womanphoenix at yahoo.com.
Dakine01
Richard Taylor, aka dakine01, is a lifelong Cincinnati Reds and Kentucky Wildcat fan (except when the Wildcats play the Hilltoppers of Western Kentucky University) who manages to see the absurdities in most things in day-to-day living. Proud to be a liberal no matter how many people try to make it a dirty word. Writes at MyFDL (usually cross posted from his own sucky little blog Just A Small Town Country Boy), occasional host of Late Night FDL or Pull Up A Chair, has hosted a couple of Book Salons and a Movie night and all around general pain in the a** (has been called anal retentive ‘but in a good way’ by former managers). Tries not to take self too seriously. Air Force veteran who flew a desk in the Accounting office in northern MI and Hawai’i. Email dakine at firedoglake.com
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