About

John Avlon is senior columnist and political director for Newsweek and The Daily Beast as well as a CNN contributor. He is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America as well as an editor of the anthology Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns. Previously, he was a columnist and associate editor for the New York Sun and chief speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' award for best online column in 2012.

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Books
  • Deadline Artists 2: Scandals, Tragedies and Triumphs
    "Newspaper columns are an American art form you can read on a subway, at a ballgame or in a bar. Deadline Artists puts the best of the past in an essential anthology – now focused on Scandals, Tragedies and Triumphs. Buy it and read it. You'll have a good time and you just might learn something."
    —Jimmy Breslin
    New York Daily News

  • Deadline Artists: America's Greatest Newspaper Columns
    "Well-catalogued and categorized, this exultant retrospective of American journalism seems ideal for today's attention spans and travel schedules... Avlon, Angelo, and Louis's glorious compilation "is a chance to be there at moments when America changes, for better or for worse." Free-flowing to the very end, lasting drops of pure wisdom...as far as this essential anthology goes, it's so well done, there's nothing left to say."
    —Publishers Weekly
    Starred Review

  • Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics
    "A rewarding portrait of a political trend the established parties have tried to ignore."
    —Barron's

    "A brave and compelling case for the past persistence and future dominance of American Centrism."
    — Blueprint Magazine

    "The best political book ever on American centrist voters."
    —TheModerateVoice.com

  • Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America
    "Wingnuts offers a clear and comprehensive review of the forces on the outer edges of the political spectrum that shape and distort our political debate. Shedding more heat than light they drive frustrated alienated citizens away from the reasoned discourse that can produce real solutions to our problems."
    —President Bill Clinton

  • The Resilient City
    From "Empire City: New York Through the Centuries" Read John Avlon's essay on the attacks of September 11th, "The Resilient City," which was selected to conclude this anthology of writing about New York City from its founding. The essay won acclaim as "the single best essay written in the wake of 9/11."

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Recent Entries
  • Hispanic Outreach Director Explains Why He Said ‘Adios’ to the GOP – The Daily Beast

    Conservatives should consider this a warning sign. The Republican National Committee’s former Hispanic outreach director for Florida has left the GOP and registered as a Democrat, citing a “culture of intolerance.” Pablo Pantoja is a decorated Iraq war vet who began his brief career with the GOP by volunteering for Read more…

  • Holder, Carney Under Attack as Scandal-Gate Widens – The Daily Beast

    For journalists, privacy concerns and the Patriot Act just got personal. In two brutal press conferences Tuesday afternoon, the Obama administration caught both barrels from a newly aggressive press corps. Confronting a hailstorm of questions on the Justice Department’s secret subpoena of AP phone records and the IRS targeting conservative Read more…

  • With Benghazi Video, Karl Rove Kicks Off 2016 With Hillary Clinton Hit – The Daily Beast

    Less than five months after Barack Obama began his second term, the 2016 presidential campaign kicked off this weekend with a Benghazi-themed attack ad that takes direct aim at Hillary Clinton. The 90-second web ad, called “Benghazi”, was issued by the Karl Rove–founded American Crossroads, which spent more than $21 Read more…

  • IRS Wrong To Target ‘Patriots’–But Also To Let Non-Profits Play Politics – The Daily Beast

    Forget slow-news Friday. The IRS admission today that it singled out for scrutiny political action committees with the words “Tea Party” and “Patriot” in their names rocketed around the Internet, fueling conservatives’ feeling of persecution. The actions were apparently taken in isolation by workers at a local Cincinnati, Ohio, branch Read more…

  • Why We Need the Full Faith and Credit Act – The Daily Beast

    The debt ceiling should really be renamed the default ceiling. This catastrophic game of chicken cost the U.S. our AAA credit rating and $19 billion when it was last employed in the summer of 2011 by House radicals who pretended their intransigence was a stand for fiscal responsibility. Now the Read more…