About Us

Crooks and Liars is an award-winning site for progressive news and media criticism. Started by John Amato in 2004, Crooksandliars.com was the first website to feature audio and video online, revolutionizing how political news is consumed and distributed on the Internet.

John Amato - Publisher and Founder
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John Amato is a professional musician who played or recorded with Duran Duran, Ringo Starr, The Knack, Ronnie Montrose, Glenn Hughes, John Taylor and many more. He has been a guest at the White House and interviewed many progressive politicians. His articles have been featured at The Huffington Post, and he has been a featured panelist and guest on MSNBC, Al Jazeera, and The Young Turks.

John co-authored Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane with former Managing Editor David Neiwert.

Karoli Kuns - Managing Editor
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Karoli has been with Crooks and Liars since 2010, when she joined the site to cover education and health policy. In addition to her work here, you can find her articles about dark money at the Washington Spectator and Rewire.news. Her work has also been featured in anthologies of progressive writers. Karoli is co-host of the MOMocrats podcast, a weekly show featuring interviews with women in politics and policy.

Before coming to C&L, Karoli worked with CNN and WebMD to develop and create online communities and interactive content.

Frances Langum - Associate Editor
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Fran has been a part of the C&L team since 2007. In addition to her duties as Associate Editor of Crooks and Liars, Fran is the Executive Producer of The Professional Left Podcast.

Fran has both a degree in education, concentrating in US History and Social Studies, and a Master's Degree in Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.

Jamie Holly - Webmaster/Developer
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Jamie Holly has been handling the development and infrastructure that powers Crooks and Liars since 2005. He started programming back in the early 80's and hasn't stopped. As the owner of HollyIT, Jamie has handled other large sites such as Thom Hartmann and is a devout Drupal and open source evangelist. He's also an avid photographer and political junky.