About Politics Code Blue

Dan Ruben is the Founder and Executive Director of Equal Justice America, a non-profit organization that puts law students and lawyers to work with legal aid and civil rights organizations focused on providing legal assistance to people in need. Prior to launching EJA in 1993, Dan worked as a staff writer at Suffolk Life Newspapers and the Gannett Group Newspapers. He was a writer and editor for The Alchemist, a monthly publication in Ann Arbor Michigan that covered politics, the arts, culture and local entertainment. He was also an editor for the Santa Barbara News and Review. Dan has started Politics Code Blue out of a deep concern for the state of our politics in the United States and the threat looming over American democracy.

Jenn is a journalist who transitioned from a longtime career in marketing to help expose corruption, bringing her tenacious investigative skills to the table. Her journalism – including whistleblower stories on the Flint Water Crisis and others on FBI corruption and overreach – has been published in Rolling Stone, VICE News, The Intercept, The Detroit Metro Times, and more. Jenn also co-founded a highly respected and nationally recognized progressive independent media outlet, with stories picked up by major networks like CNN, MSNBC, HBO, Showtime, ABC, and BBC. Rudy Giuliani once called Jenn a "very discourteous person" when she journalistically pressed him on his election fraud lies – a badge of honor Jenn wears proudly!

Jimmy Tingle, a celebrated humorist and commentator, is the founder of Humor for Humanity. Lauded by The New York Times as “so cheerfully intelligent he makes his audience optimistic in the face of reality. One comes away uplifted,” Tingle made a political run as a 2018 candidate for Lt. Governor of Massachusetts, garnering 41.3% of the vote in the primary. A graduate of UMASS Dartmouth and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, he earned an MPA and spoke at Harvard's 2010 commencement. His media presence includes work for 60 Minutes II, MSNBC, appearances on The Tonight Show, CNN, Conan O'Brien, and an HBO comedy special. Tingle's theatrical credits include one-person shows, and his film work features roles in "Next Stop Wonderland," "The Boondock Saints," and "Clear History." He's also won Boston Magazine's "Best of Boston" for stand-up comedy and as the producer and artistic director of Jimmy Tingle's OFF BROADWAY Theater in Somerville.

Julianna Forlano is the Senior Correspondent and host of The Julianna Forlano Show for The Political Voices Network. She is a professor in the Film, Media & TV  Department at Montclair State University and has performed stand up comedy all over the US including such famed stages as Carolines on Broadway, The Friar’s Club and The Apollo Theater in Chicago. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications including The Chicago Tribune, Huffington Post and was featured in the books Letters to President Obama (2009) & Letters To The American Voter (2014). Ms. Forlano holds a Masters Degree in Social Work with a dual focus on Public Policy and Clinical Practice.

Clay Jones discovered at a young age he had a knack for making fun of people, drawing simple Crayola caricatures of his friends in elementary school. He decided later to make it a career.  Jones was with Creators Syndicate from 2000 to 2013 when he decided to create his own syndication, which distributes his cartoons to daily newspapers, weeklies, alt-weeklies, and online news sites throughout the country. He is currently drawing one cartoon each week for the CNN Opinion Newsletter.  His cartoons have entertained readers in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Chicago Sun-Times, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, USA Today and Newsweek magazine.  Jones believes it is his daily goal to lampoon authority and make it look as ridiculous as possible. “My cartoons do not tell readers what they should believe. I hope they simply challenge people to think.”  Jones was born in Fort Hood, Texas, and was raised in Louisiana, Illinois, California and Georgia. He attended Belhaven College in Jackson, Miss.

Taylor Tobin is a freelance journalist currently based in Austin, Texas. Her work has appeared in publications like HuffPost, Refinery29, Insider, and Austin Chronicle, among others. As a progressive Democrat living in a dangerous red state (but one with tremendous potential to turn purple in the not-so-distant future!), she sees first-hand the hazards of a government helmed by MAGA Republicans, and she regularly works with local grassroots organizations to campaign for progressive candidates statewide and to register and educate voters about their options for making their voices heard in one of the most gerrymandered and anti-democratic states in the nation.

Daniel is a graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and has worked as a professional graphic designer for more than 25 years, but cartooning has always been his passion. In 2010, Daniel's comic strip, "Hoxwinder Hall​", was a top 5 finalist in The Washington Post’s "America’s Next Great Cartoonist​" contest. His Dozi the Alligator® character was the inspiration for a children's book series that was published in 2015 by Heritage Builders Publishing. Daniel's artwork has appeared in numerous websites, publications, and books, including the 2013 Eisner and Harvey award-nominated anthology, Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson's by Andrews McMeel Publishing. In 2017, Daniel felt compelled to try his hand at political cartooning. He found that he had a knack for it and his work has been evolving ever since.

With degrees from Boston University and Harvard University, Linda Connolly is a sociologist and an educator who has devoted more than forty years as a teacher, trainer, researcher, and administrator in both the public and private sectors. She specializes in qualitative research and cultural assessment; process observation, assessment and design; gender issues in management, and issues in organizational change and leadership. Always politically involved, Linda has worked on campaigns at every level, disseminating white papers, writing speeches, and leading demonstrations with enthusiasm!

Megan is a freelance artist who graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Mary Washington in May 2020. Last fall, she began a Masters Program in Museum Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Aisha K. Staggers had her first major publication, an album review, in The New Haven Register while just a sophomore in high school. Another series of reviews published in The Hartford Courant followed. By the time she reached college, Aisha was writing for the literary magazine and interning at a local radio station, ABC-affiliate as a writer in the news department and in the A&R department of an independent record company. As a graduate student at Fisk University, Aisha asked Dr. Raymond Winbush to chair her thesis because: 1) He was one of the most renowned voices in black culture and academia; and 2) He was a Prince fan. His scholarship and guidance led Aisha to an early career as a professor of social sciences and later an administrator in higher education. Aisha has also served as a director of education and policy research centers and on the staff of legislative commissions. She previously served on the Executive Board of the CT Young Democrats’ Women’s Caucus, is an avid campaigner and has remained active in politics and public policy.

Bill is a writer, political observer and lifelong student of 20th century totalitarian movements. One of the very first to recognize the parallels between Trumpism and pre-WWII Europe, in April of 2018, Bill launched The Dystopia Report, a blog committed to documenting the catastrophic civic failure that was the Trump Presidency. More than 300 essays later, few commentators have been more prescient about the broader dangers of Fox/AM and the MAGA political class it created.

David, a politically conscious liberal since his youth, engaged early on in political cartooning as well as political activism for Eugene McCarthy in 1968. His professional path led him to the arts and entertainment industry, working as a public relations/marketing executive, producer, and stage manager. He ran his own successful arts marketing/public relations firm in Boston for nearly 20 years, representing an array of national Broadway tours and over 200 productions and institutions, including the Boston Ballet, The Big Apple Circus, The Huntington Theatre Company, Blue Man Group and Catch a Rising Star comedy club. More recently, he was a producer on the public radio program 'From the Top', helping to build it into a significant force on the classical music scene. David is a proud father of two and lives in West Concord, MA with his wife and two dogs.

Guthrie Scrimgeour is a freelance investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C.

 He has previously worked as a reporter at local newspapers in Lynn, MA, and Kauai, HI, where he covered landlords conducting illegal evictions, wealthy developers taking advantage of tax breaks meant for the poor, and a sitting county council member running a meth ring. He is currently a contributor to Jacobin and Wired.

 He developed his leftist politics through his years working in the service industry, where he has been employed as a line cook, valet and (regrettably) a telemarketer.

Jerry Iserson is a retired city planner who worked for several cities in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to serving in local government, he has had a life-long interest in national politics. He has watched with concern as extreme right-wing elements in America have become mainstream, distorting the truth, dismantling the social progress made over the years, and putting us on a dangerous course towards authoritarianism. Jerry wrote for the previous version of Politics Code Blue and for its predecessor, Code Blue Politics. Jerry is a father and grandfather who enjoys baseball, jazz guitar, crossword puzzles, and reading.