Helaine Olen is a contributor to Post Opinions and the author of "Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry" and co-author of "The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t

Keri Leigh Merritt works as a historian and writer in Atlanta, Georgia. She earned her B.A. from Emory University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. Her first book, Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge University Press, 2017), won both the Bennett Wall Award from the Southern Historical Association, honoring the best book in Southern economic or business history published in the previous two years, as well as the President’s Book Award from the Social Science History Association.

Merritt is also co-editor, with Matthew Hild, of Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power (University Press of Florida, 2018), which won the 2019 Best Book Award from the UALE (United Association for Labor Education). She is currently conducting research for two additional book-length projects. One is on radical black resistance in the still understudied Reconstruction era. The second project examines the changing role of law enforcement in the mid-nineteenth century South. It will ultimately link the rise of professional police forces in the Deep South to the end of slavery. Merritt also writes historical pieces for the public, and has had letters and essays published in Aeon, Bill Moyers, The Bitter Southerner, Salon, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.

Jodie Evans is the co-founder and director of CODEPINK and the co-founder of the after-school writing program 826LA. She has been a visionary advocate for peace for several decades. An inspired motivator, Jodie invigorates nascent activists and re-invigorates seasoned activists through her ever-evolving, always exciting methods to promote peace.
Since the start of the 2003 Iraq War, Jodie has traveled to Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Jordan on several occasions. On her most recent visit to Jordan, Jodie traveled with a peace coalition to meet with Delegates from the Iraqi Parliament to institute an action plan for peace and reconciliation. She has also traveled to Cuba to protest the prison facility at Guantanamo, and in 2015 she was one of 30 women activists from fifteen countries who crossed the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, calling for peace and reconciliation between the two countries.
Jodie is the co-editor of two books, “Twilight of Empire: Responses to Occupation” and “Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism” and a contributor to “Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution.” She is currently writing a book about divesting from the unjust, extractive war economy and building a just, sustainable peace economy.

Danny Sjursen is a former US Army strategist and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge.

Editor, The Grayzone Project & Author of “The Management of Savagery” at VersoBooks, available now

Alex Lawson is the Executive Director of Social Security Works

Rep. Ro Khanna  is an American academic, lawyer, and politician serving as the U.S. Representative from California's 17th congressional district, since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he defeated eight-term incumbent Democratic Representative Mike Honda in the general election on November 8, 2016, after first running for the same seat in 2014. Khanna also served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the United States Department of Commerce under President Barack Obama from August 8, 2009, to August 2011.

Jenn Budd Former Senior Border Patrol Agent & Writer

Professor Kelton has worked in both academia and politics. She served as chief economist on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee (Democratic staff) in 2015 and as a senior economic adviser to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns. She currently works as a Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Stony Brook University, and she holds Visiting Professorships at The New School for Social Research, the University of Ljubljana, and the University of Adelaide. She is a member of the TopWonks network of the nation’s best thinkers and one of POLITICO’s 50 Most Influential Thinkers (2016). She was previously Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

Her forthcoming book, The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and Creating an Economy for the People (summer 2020), shows how to break free of the flawed thinking that has hamstrung policymakers around the world.

Eric Levitz is a Political Correspondent for New York Magazine's Intelligencer

Gelila Sebhatu is a passionate activist who fights for equality. She is also a grassroots organizer for local VA candidates who support progressive causes.

Jay O’Neal is a middle school teacher in Charleston, WV. A member of the West Virginia Education Association and a founder of the WV United caucus, Jay created the “West Virginia Public Employees UNITED” Facebook group which served as the catalyst and organizing hub for the West Virginia teachers’ and service personnel strike of 2018.

Leila Conners is Founder and President of Tree Media Group. Conners is director, producer, and writer on "The 11th Hour,"as well as “We The People 2.0”. Her latest documentary is “Ice On Fire”

Melissa Troutman is a journalist, writer and vocal artist. She began investigating shale gas extraction in 2010 as a newspaper reporter in her hometown of Coudersport, Pennsylvania before co-founding the investigative news nonprofit Public Herald, where she now serves as Executive Director.

Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. A 25-year veteran of congressional trade battles starting with the 1990s fight over NAFTA, she was named to the “Politico’s 50” list of thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2016 for her leadership in the Trans-Pacific Partnership debate. Wallach is an internationally recognized expert on trade with experience advocating in Congress and foreign parliaments, trade negotiations, courts, government agencies, the media and in the streets.