1. Markos Kounalakis is an American syndicated journalist and scholar who is the second gentleman of California as the husband of lieutenant governor Eleni Kounalakis.
23 Facts About Markos Kounalakis
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Markos Kounalakis writes a syndicated weekly foreign affairs column for The Miami Herald and McClatchy-Tribune News and is a frequent foreign affairs analyst for CBS News and CNN International.
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Markos Kounalakis was born on December 1,1956, in San Francisco to Greek immigrants.
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Markos Kounalakis's mother Vasiliki Rozakis, was born in Chania, Crete, Greece.
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Markos Kounalakis's father, Antonios Markos Kounalakis, was an underground guerrilla fighter against the Nazis on the island of Crete during World War II; he fought with Constantine Mitsotakis, who later became Prime Minister of Greece.
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Markos Kounalakis received a public education in the San Francisco Bay Area and earned his bachelor's degree in political science at the University of California, Berkeley in 1978.
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Markos Kounalakis received his MSc in journalism from Columbia University in 1988.
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Between 2003 and 2009, Markos Kounalakis was a regular Hoover Institution Media Fellow and has been a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University since September 2013.
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Markos Kounalakis is president and publisher emeritus of the Washington Monthly.
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Markos Kounalakis co-anchored with Peter Laufer the nationally syndicated weekly political program, Washington Monthly on the Radio.
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Markos Kounalakis has served on the board of visitors at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; board of advisors at Georgetown College and the Wilson Council at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
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Markos Kounalakis served as vice chairman of the board of advisors at the Southeast Europe Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and was a trustee of the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
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Markos Kounalakis chaired Internews Network from 2002 to 2004 and was vice chairman of the California State World Trade Commission from 2001 to 2003.
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In 1995, Markos Kounalakis became the executive producer for Visible Interactive, a start-up technology company that used Newton handheld devices for immersive interpretive experiences in venues like the Smithsonian Institution museums.
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Markos Kounalakis later became the executive communications strategist at Silicon Graphics.
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Markos Kounalakis was an early outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin's authoritarian turn.
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In 2017, Markos Kounalakis identified early that fentanyl was a cheap and lethal street drug and cutting agent emanating from China, strategically targeting vulnerable American citizens.
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Markos Kounalakis characterized this as a People's Republic of China's chemical attack on the United States and wrote that this deployment and non-kinetic warfare tactic was "China's 21st century Opium War against America".
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Markos Kounalakis's book provided the data, insights, and policy prescriptions supporting this policy.
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Markos Kounalakis's recommendation was intended to harm international drug cartels.
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Markos Kounalakis argues that California, despite being the most populous and economically influential state in the US, is significantly underrepresented in shaping foreign policy in Congress.
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Markos Kounalakis's wife served as the US Ambassador to Hungary until 2013 and won her election in 2018 and her re-election in for Lieutenant Governor of California, taking office in January 2019.
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Markos Kounalakis is running for the role of California governor in 2026.