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Rick Jacobs
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Rick Jacobs chaired Howard Dean's 2003 presidential campaign in California. He is currently Chair and Founder of the Courage Campaign, a progressive political organization in California. He is also the Chair and Co-Founder of Brave New Films, the documentary film company. Jacobs was co-executive producer of Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers.

From 1999-2003, Mr. Jacobs worked with a Forbes 400 family in the Los Angeles area managing investments, asset allocation, philanthropic endeavors and its operating businesses. Prior to that, he served as acting COO of Marvel Enterprises, Inc.

Mr. Jacobs was President and Chief Executive Officer of Newstar, Inc., a Washington, D.C. and Moscow-based merchant banking and investment advisory firm focusing on the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and Central Europe. He founded the firm in May 1991 with Ambassador Howard H. Baker, Jr., the former U.S. Senator and White House Chief of Staff.

Prior to establishing Newstar, Mr. Jacobs served as Assistant to the Chairman of Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Dr. Armand Hammer) from 1983 through 1990. He represented the Chairman in major financings and philanthropic activities.

Before joining Occidental, Mr. Jacobs served as International Director of The 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. Mr. Jacobs was instrumental in securing the participation of the People's Republic of China for the first time in the history of World's Fairs in the United States.

Mr. Jacobs is actively involved in a number of community organizations and serves on several private and public policy Boards. He has traveled to the Former Soviet Union on more than 80 occasions, as well as to over 30 other nations (including China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Korea, Colombia, Peru and Israel) on various business and citizen diplomacy matters. He serves frequently as a commentator and speaker on national politics, appearing on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, NPR and at the Milken Institute Global Conference.

A native of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Mr. Jacobs is a 1980 graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where he received the Dean's Citation. He lives in Beverly Hills, California.

Blog Entries by Rick Jacobs

Born This Way in Berlin

(7) Comments | Posted February 12, 2013 | 9:29 AM

Ambassador and Mrs. Philip Murphy, America's diplomats-in-chief in Berlin, put their nation's support for full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people front and center with the government of Cameroon. How the heck did that happen? It's a story of the finest in American diplomacy and...

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Why Chuck Hagel Should Be Secretary of Defense

(28) Comments | Posted January 7, 2013 | 7:49 AM

Vietnam veteran and former Senator Chuck Hagel is the ideal man to serve as Secretary of Defense. In the small world category, I've known him for over 30 years. In all of that time, I have consistently regarded him as a man of high moral character who puts service and...

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Meet Koch Brothers Employee David Spady, Darling of LA Fox "News"

(9) Comments | Posted November 4, 2012 | 7:22 PM

Want to know how the right-wing astroturf machine works? Want to see how they use power and money to drown out the voice of the people? Want to see the motivations behind the Koch Brothers' hit man in California?

Well then, meet David Spady, "California State...

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Charlie Munger, Jr. -- Buying Elections with Daddy's Money

(7) Comments | Posted October 8, 2012 | 6:01 PM

Just as most of the nation's attention turned to the first Presidential debate in Denver last week, the Sacramento Bee reported that Charles Munger, Jr. had ponied up $9.9 million to the Small Business Action Committee PAC, a committee dedicated to defeating Prop. 30 and passing...

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An Open Letter to the LGBT Community: We Need Labor

(18) Comments | Posted October 1, 2012 | 5:36 PM

First they came after our families, now they are coming after our allies.

The same folks who brought us Prop. 8 four years ago, and a campaign full of lies, hate and division, are back, and this time they are targeting one of our biggest allies -- union members.

What...

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Mitt + Koch = Prop 32 Ways to Buy CA

(33) Comments | Posted September 17, 2012 | 6:39 PM

That's what the banner flying over Mitt Romney's Orange County fundraiser said today. Why?

First it was Wisconsin. Then it was Ohio. Now the Koch Brothers, Karl Rove and the Tea Party have their eyes on an even bigger prize: the eighth largest economy in the...

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Mitt Gets Worse

(36) Comments | Posted July 18, 2012 | 7:01 PM

1994: Mitt Romney tells the Log Cabin Republicans he supports ENDA, ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, and will be better on gay rights than Ted Kennedy.

2009: Mitt Romney tells CNN there should be a national standard against gay marriage.

Mitt Romney has earned a well-deserved...

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How the Big Banks Lost and Homeowners Won in California

(39) Comments | Posted July 3, 2012 | 10:38 PM

Banks are among the most powerful, if not the most powerful, private institutions in the country. Sen. Durbin (D-IL) famously commented "they own the place," referring to the U.S. Senate. But once in awhile, through concerted efforts, they can be beaten.

On July 2, the California Legislature passed a...

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The Wall Street Journal Missed the Forest for the Trees on the Millionaires Tax of 2012

(109) Comments | Posted January 9, 2012 | 6:11 PM

It takes a lot to get me to write about the opinions of The Wall Street Journal because they are so consistently ideological and out of touch. To find out what they say, I can usually skip a step and just read Karl Rove's daily talking points. But last Friday,...

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Occupy Plus Ballot Measure = A Millionaire's Tax in California

(116) Comments | Posted December 7, 2011 | 4:01 PM

California began going downhill when Howard Jarvis' Prop 13 passed in 1978. Thus began the end of funded public education, libraries, road repair, healthcare, senior services and the most respected higher education system in the world. It brought us Grover Norquist, the no-nothing Republican party of 2011, and a pledge...

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California Has One Option Left to Stop the Bleeding

(138) Comments | Posted November 28, 2011 | 4:29 PM

This piece was co-authored by Joshua Pechthalt and Anthony Thigpenn

When we think of California, we imagine the state that allowed the three of us to be who we are, a state that gave us the California Dream. For years now, that dream has been quickly slipping away and now...

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Occupy Golf Course, or What Happens When You Interrupt Boehner's Golf Game

(87) Comments | Posted October 17, 2011 | 8:42 PM

Speaker Boehner has a job, and that's to create more jobs. But when he's not keeping the House from voting on the American Jobs Act, he likes to go golfing and raise money. Unfortunately for him, we at the Courage Campaign aren't about to let that stand as an excuse...

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Will Prop 8 End California's Democracy?

(75) Comments | Posted September 5, 2011 | 6:19 PM

Foes of marriage equality will make a ludicrous argument before the California Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 6. They will assert that anyone who has the money to put an initiative on the ballot in California and then sufficient funds to advertise its way to passage, whether relying on facts...

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Release The Tapes And Heal a Nation

(12) Comments | Posted August 28, 2011 | 3:27 PM

Eighteen months ago, the gay and lesbian equality movement won the war. It happened in U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker's San Francisco courtroom. It was called Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which resulted in a ruling overturning Prop 8. The evidence in that trial made crystal clear...

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Prop 8 Ruling One Year Later: Pulling Back the Curtain on the Right's Dirty Tricks

(314) Comments | Posted August 3, 2011 | 11:27 PM

A year ago today, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker overturned "Prop 8," ruling that it violated both the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the United States Constitution.

I thought the war had finally been won. The forces of prejudice and...

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Hands Off Big Bird

(1) Comments | Posted February 16, 2011 | 3:25 PM

I've been watching PBS for I don't know how many years. When I was a kid, I watched Sesame Street. When I got a little older, NOVA. When I turned an adult, Frontline and the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. And I know millions of Americans like me, too. It's good...

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Sock Puppets and Sugar Daddies: NOM and GOProud Go Hand in Hand

(36) Comments | Posted July 31, 2010 | 2:19 PM

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is halfway through its 20-state "One Man, One Woman" tour at which approximately one man and one woman seem to show up for them at each stop. But what NOM lacks in popular, grassroots support, it more than makes up for in...

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Olson & Boies Exorcise the Ghosts of Homophobia Past

(6) Comments | Posted June 15, 2010 | 2:31 AM

By the time I graduated from Oak Ridge High School in East Tennessee 34 years ago, I knew a few things for sure:

1. I cared deeply about social justice.
2. I expected to become governor or a senator from Tennessee after college.
3. I was...

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Equality on Trial: Judge Walker's Amazing Questions for Closing Argument

(325) Comments | Posted June 8, 2010 | 7:41 PM

There was big news yesterday in California about "the trial of the century." Judge Vaughn Walker today issued a series of questions (see document below) for the parties to the federal Prop. 8 trial that began in January and was put on by Ted Olson and David Boies and colleagues...

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Prop 8 Trial + DADT Debate = Death Rattle of the Right Wing

(475) Comments | Posted February 3, 2010 | 7:33 PM

Last night, I watched Lt. Dan Choi and Gen. Wesley Clark face off against Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis on Larry King Live.

The topic was "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT), but the subject at hand was how America deals with...

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