Pod Damn America Creators & Guests

Anders Lee is a Brooklyn based writer, comedian and activist. He is the author and performer of 'Dummy', a solo show about growing up with a developmental disability, that was featured in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival last August. He is also a co-host of the bi-weekly comedy and politics podcast, Pod Damn America.

Jake Flores’ material has gotten him raided by the government, retweeted by everyone from Tom Morello to Bette Midler, and published in The New York Times. His stuff has been quoted on CNN by Wolf Blitzer and taught at Yale. He has appeared on The Majority Report, Chapo Trap House, Cumtown, Fun Fun Fun Fest, SXSW, Comedy Central’s Roast Battle, Comedy Cellar Radio and has been shouted out on The Joe Rogan Experience and The Doug Stanhope Podcast. He has toured around the country and opened for Doug Stanhope, Tig Notaro, Greg Fitzsimmons, Jim Norton, Felipe Esparza and Patton Oswalt.He’s signed to Stand Up! Records and tours regularly while not running his popular Brooklyn show, Yoko. Previously the author of The Observer’s satire column “A Millennial Reviews,” he’s currently the creator and host of radical political comedy podcast Pod Damn America. All this while working at a restaurant and living in a squat with no heat. What a country.

Alex Ptak is a comedian and writer living in Brooklyn, New York. He wrote this bio about himself. Alex is a real stand up guy. He is #1 overall. He is the co-host and producer of the Paid Protest and Bad News comedy shows, in addition to the 'Pod Damn America' and 'Ballin' Out Super' podcasts on iTunes. When he’s not traveling or performing around New York, he’s writing great comedy scripts that cause everyone around to clap and cheer.Alex’s work has been featured in Adult Swim, Time Out NY, MTV, CollegeHumor, Brokelyn and VentureBeat. He has performed stand up comedy at bar and club shows all over the city, hosted in the Laughing Devil Comedy Festival, and was a finalist in the Fingerlakes Comedy Festival in 2015.Alex graduated from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 2013. At school his studies earned him a major in Dramatic Writing and accolades including a Certificate of Excellence in Outstanding Writing for Half-Hour Television. He continues to build a reservoir of scripts in the hopes of one day writing for television.

Hussein Kesvani is a journalist. He is the UK and Europe editor of MEL Magazine and his work focuses on technology, subcultures, and identity. In 2019, his first book, "Follow Me, Akhi: The Online World of British Muslims," was published.Kesvani is the co-host of the podcast "No Country For Brown Men."

Dharna Noor is a climate journalist. Currently, she reports for The Guardian.Previously, Moor was the climate reporter for the Boston Globe. Before that, she was a staff writer at Gizmodo's Earther, where she also co-produced a season of the podcast "Drilled." Before that, she led the climate team at the Real News Network.Noor's work has appeared in In These Times, Jacobin Magazine, and Truthout, and collected in the anthology "The World We Need."

Michael Selden is the CEO & Co-founder of Finless Foods, the first cell-cultured seafood company as well as the first to serve cell-cultured fish in the United States, was founded on the central mission ‘to create a future for seafood where the ocean thrives.’ Selden developed a passion for the interrelation of science & food systems, specifically the critical roles they play in economic, environmental, and social justice issues, during his time at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he earned a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Riley Quinn is one of the hosts of Trashfuture, The Bottlemen, and has published writing in Jacobin, Novara, and The New Socialist.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton is a blind/low vision and chronically ill artist and author. She is the co-host of the Death Panel podcast and studies radical patient groups and the capitalist political economy of health as an independent researcher. Her first book, Health Communism co-authored with Artie Vierkant, was published by Verso Books in the US and UK in October 2022.

John F. O’Donnell is an actor and comedian.

Samuel Moyn is a professor of law and history at Yale University. Previously, he was a professor of history at Columbia University for thirteen years and a professor of history and of law at Harvard University for three years.

John David McAfee is a British-American computer programmer and businessman. He founded the software company McAfee Associates in 1987 and ran it until 1994, when he resigned from the company. McAfee Associates achieved early success as the creators of McAfee, the first commercial antivirus software, and the business now produces a range of enterprise security software.

Daniel Denvir is a fellow with the Fair Punishment Project at Harvard Law School's Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice and the host of The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin magazine

Jamie Peck is a producer and contributor at The Majority Report with Sam Seder. She is a regular Guardian contributor.

Ted has made multiple appearances on David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson and The View. He’s had two half-hour specials on Comedy Central.Ted has had the pleasure of performing at iconic venues like Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden and the Sydney Opera House.Ted has performed internationally in France, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Jakarta, The U.K., Holland, Israel, South Africa and Qatar.Ted appears regularly at the Comedy Cellar in NYC.

David Klion is a Brooklyn-based writer and a contributor to The Nation, The New Republic, Jewish Currents, and other publications. He is working on his first book, a reconsideration of the history and legacy of neoconservatism.

Nato Green is a stand-up comedian, writer, and union organizer.