{"id":1037,"date":"2021-02-22T19:29:45","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T03:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/?p=1037"},"modified":"2021-02-22T19:29:45","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T03:29:45","slug":"american-patriot-loses-battle-with-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/general\/american-patriot-loses-battle-with-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"American Patriot Loses Battle with Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On\nSunday evening, February 14th<\/sup>, Curtis Ellis passed away from a long\nstruggle with bladder cancer at the age of 67. Curtis was a true patriot and defender\nof liberty, who believed in all of the greatness our country and devoted much\nof his life to putting American first in economic policies to benefit American\nworkers and not just Wall Street. Curtis\u2019 career included work as a campaign\nmanager for state and federal elections, working for Congress as a media liaison for the New York State Senate Central Staff and held\na senior staff position in the U.S. House of Representatives. He had decades of\nexperience as a journalist, producer, writer and reporter for the New York\nTimes, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Time magazine and other\noutlets, such as HuffPost and World Net Daily. He appeared on 60 Minutes, HBO,\nNBC, CNN, NPR, MSNBC, Fox Business and Fox News, as well as national and\nregional radio shows. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nhad the pleasure of becoming one of his friends when in 2011, I was recruited\nto join the board of directors for the American Jobs\nAlliance<\/a> (AJA).  Curtis functioned as the part-time Executive\nDirector from 2011 \u2013 2016 for AJA, an independent non-profit organization\npromoting American jobs and Buy American policies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Den\nBlack, President of AJA shared that he first met Curtis Ellis in 2004 in the\nBuffalo New York region when his good friend, Jack Davis, decided to run for\nCongress in the New York\u2019s 26th District. He said, \u201cJack was under attack by\nthe Chinese who were manufacturing his industrial electric furnace, silicon carbide,\nheating elements in China, and marketing these items in America at prices below\nJack Davis’ cost. Curtis, who lived in Manhattan, became aware of Jack’s\nefforts to ‘take on the Chinese’ and offered to assist Jack with his fight\nagainst the Chinese unfair trade practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nadded, \u201cJack Davis accepted Curtis’ offer to help on his campaign and based his\ncampaign on the theme of ‘undoing’ the disastrous ‘Free Trade’ practices that\nhad caused the hollowing out of American manufacturing since the 1970’s and\n80’s. Curtis came to Buffalo and gave his all for the campaign, but unfortunately,\nJack Davis lost the Congressional race.  Curtis resumed his life in Manhattan, but our\npassion to work to ‘undo’ the unfair trade agreements continued unabated, and\nwe continued to stay in touch.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nexplained, \u201cIn late 2010, Curtis suggested that Jack Davis and I form the\nAmerican Jobs Alliance as a non-profit with the mission to educate Americans about\nthe negative impacts of the ‘Free Trade’ agreements, such as NAFTA, on American\nworkers and families and promote Buy American and Hire American policies. We\nquickly learned that the ‘Free Trade is Good’ ideology was deeply imbedded in\nthe seats of American power, including Wall Street, global manufacturing giants,\nand the Washington establishment. We realized that causing any real change was\nhuge challenge in the early years; but Curtis never wavered in his single-minded\npursuit of putting American workers first. \nCurtis played a big role in the AJA effort to prevent the Tran-Pacific\nPartnership (TPP) from being ratified during the Obama Administration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nconcluded, \u201cSubsequently, Curtis carried his passion for American workers over\ninto the Donald Trump for President campaign, but he continued to support AJA\u2019s\nwork and write articles for our website. \nIt was his idea last year to make and sell window\/bumper decals<\/a> saying \u2018Boycott China for Jobs, Human Rights, Peace.\u2019 All working\nAmericans owe a huge debt of gratitude for his steadfast, single-minded,\nefforts on their behalf over the decades.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\nyears of interaction on the AJA board and private phone conversations, I\nfinally got the opportunity to spend time with Curtis when I attended the\nannual trade conference in Washington, D. C. put on by the Coalition for a\nProsperous in March of 2017. Curtis was then working as a special advisor to\nthe Secretary of Labor as part of President Trump\u2019s transition team after\nworking on the presidential campaign.  He\nwent back to work full-time as communications consultant and senior policy\nadviser with America First Policies after his responsibilities on the\ntransition team were finished in September 2017.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another\nboard member of AJA, Greg Autry, co-author of Death by China and former NASA\nWhite House Liaison under President Trump, wrote me the following after I\nnotified him that Curtis had died: \u201cI\u2019m proud to have been able to work with\nCurtis Ellis for more than a decade in support of American manufacturing jobs\nand our nation\u2019s future. Curtis was a tough, straight talking man of action\nwith a heart of gold. He genuinely cared about the outcomes for workers,\nbusiness owners, and those living under the boot heel of China\u2019s authoritarian\nregime. In the long, hard fight over trade reform, Curtis was always there with\na good idea and a supportive comment.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\nFebruary 15th<\/sup>, World Net Daily founder Joseph Farah published an eulogy<\/a>,\n\u201cFarewell fellow Traveler, Curtis Ellis.\u201d  You can readd his full article here.  Farah had known Curtis from when they were\nboth about 16 years old and were left-leaning radical revolutionaries. He\nreconnected with Curtis several years ago when he was working as a\nsenior policy adviser for America First Policies. Curtis Ellis began writing a weekly\nexclusive column<\/a>\nfor WND in 2014, and Farah said \u201cHe will be missed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\nMonday, February 15th, radio talk show host John\nFredericks<\/a> gave his own testimony on his\nfriend Curtis Ellis in the first hour and then had their mutual friend, Steve\nBannon (War Room podcasts<\/a>) as a guest\non his show during the second hour.  John\ncalled Curtis an \u201cAmerican prophet\u201d and said \u201che had the greatest sense of\nhumor. I had him on my show nearly every week for ten years, and every time I\nwas with him, he made me laugh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bannon\nsaid, \u201cCurtis had a hand on the pulse of labor which most conservatists don\u2019t.  He was the first guy that laid down the\nplanks and fundamental elements of economic nationalism that truly drive the\nagenda. There are tens of thousands of workers going to plants and factories\nthat have jobs because of the policies and thinking of Curtis that were put in\nplace. He will be remembered in history. Curtis was a legendary guy in the\nTrump movement.  Peter Navarro and Curtis\nput together the whole economic program that President Trump ran on. He was\ncritical to the 2016 campaign. He always put the American worker first. He was\na deep thinker and also an activist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nthe administration, Navarro worked on the inside and Curtis stayed on the\noutside to work the PACs and policy institutions. He was very early on about the\nCCP. He understood the world economy and the globalization project, and because\nhe was so close to labor, he understood that the globalization project was\nbuilt on the backs of slave labor in China and would turn American workers and Western\nEurope Union into \u2018Russian serfs.\u2019 He was relentless and because he was\nrelentless, he cut across the grain, which is why he never had support from the\n\u2018establishment.\u2019  He was one of the first\nguys to recognize that and the first to point out \u2018free trade\u2019 was a fallacy\nbecause of the mercantilist, totalitarian dictatorship in. China. He called out\nthe Chinese Communist part, Wall Street, and the City of London.  He had a major impact on where we are.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael\nStumo, CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America<\/a>, wrote me \u201cCurtis was one of the only political campaign managers\nto focus upon returning jobs and industry to America. He worked as both a\nDemocrat and a Republican because party affiliation was secondary to his\nvalues. Curtis blazed the trail that became both Make America Great Again and\nBuild Back Better. He was one of the very talented few who could quickly\ntransform a complicated economic topic into an easily understandable and\ncompelling narrative that could motivate people to act. Curtis will be\nmissed.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curtis\nhad a love affair with America and believed that we have to fight to save\nAmerica to create jobs and prosperity. We need to \u201cup our game\u201d and bring higher\npaying manufacturing jobs back to America. \nThis is the best way we can honor his memory and carry on the torch. I\nwill continue to work to do my part by writing and speaking to honor his\nmemory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday evening, February 14th, Curtis Ellis passed away from a long struggle with bladder cancer at the age of 67. Curtis was a true patriot and defender of liberty, who believed in all of the greatness our country and devoted much of his life to putting American first in economic policies to benefit American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[284,280,283],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-america-first","tag-buy-american-2","tag-manaufacturing-jobs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1038,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions\/1038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/savingusmanufacturing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}