Archive

Posts Tagged ‘Ashton Ellis’
May 22nd, 2015 at 12:23 pm
Clock Ticking Down on SCOTUS’ Decision On ObamaCare Subsidies
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Ashton Ellis, CFIF Contributing Editor, discusses what Congress should do if the Supreme Court strikes down ObamaCare subsidies for health insurance purchased on exchanges set up by the federal government, why some Americans had to pay back the IRS for ObamaCare subsidies, and the negative implications of ObamaCare across the nation.

Listen to the interview here.

May 11th, 2015 at 2:25 pm
This Week’s “Your Turn” Radio Show Lineup
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Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 CDT/5:00 pm EDT: Troy Senik, CFIF Fellow and Editor-in-Chief at Ricochet: Presidential Campaign 2016 Field Grows More Crowded;

4:30 CDT/5:30 pm EDT: Ashton Ellis, CFIF Contributing Editor, Author, and Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University School of Public Policy: Latest on ObamaCare Subsidies;

5:00 CST/6:00 pm EDT: Dr. Tom Stossel, Visiting Scholar at American Enterprise Institute: Medical Innovation and “Pharmaphobia: How the Conflict of Interest Myth Undermines American Medical Innovation”; and  

5:30 CDT/6:30 pm EDT: Tzvi Kahn, Senior Policy Analyst for the Foreign Policy Initiative: Iran, nuclear weapons and terrorism on America’s shores.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

July 18th, 2014 at 3:04 pm
Podcast: What Can and Should Be Done to Reign In Obama Admin’s Lawlessness?
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CFIF Contributing Editor Ashton Ellis discusses why critics agree that President Obama is failing to uphold his oath of office, Sarah Palin’s premise that Obama is acting lawlessly with respect to America’s unsecured border crisis, and what, if anything, can and should be done about it.

Listen to the interview here.

July 14th, 2014 at 1:42 pm
This Week’s “Your Turn” Radio Show Lineup
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Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 CDT/5:00 pm EDT:  Aloysius Hogan, Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute – Harris v. Quinn and Unions Targeting Women;

4:30 CDT/5:30 pm EDT:   Evan Moore, Senior Policy Analyst at the Foreign Policy Initiative – Unrest in the Middle East;

5:00 CST/6:00 pm EDT:  Dakota Wood, Senior Research Fellow in Defense Programs at The Heritage Foundation – U.S. Inaction Creates Opportunities for our Enemies;

5:15 CST/6:15 pm EDT:  Ashton Ellis, CFIF Fellow and Adjunct Faculty at Pepperdine University School of Public Policy – To Impeach or Not?;  and

5:30 CDT/6:30 pm EDT:  Sally Pipes, President, CEO and Taube Fellow in Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute – How ObamaCare Will Kill Job-Based Plans and Why Healthcare’s Problem is Not High Drug Prices.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

June 3rd, 2013 at 4:29 pm
THIS WEEK’s RADIO SHOW LINEUP: CFIF’s Renee Giachino Hosts “Your Turn” on WEBY Radio 1330 AM
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Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CST to 6:00 p.m. CST (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 (CST)/5:00 pm (EST):  Romina Boccia, Assistant Director at Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation: Debt Limit;

4:30 (CST)/5:30 (EST): Ryan Young, Fellow in Regulatory Studies at the Competitive Enterprise Institute: Over-Regulation;

4:45 (CST)/5:45 pm (EST): Ashton Ellis, Contributing Editor at CFIF: Congress’ Right to Impeach Eric Holder;

5:00 (CST)/6:00 pm (EST): Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies: Immigration Reform; and

5:30 (CST)/6:30 pm (EST):  Open Mic

5:45 (CST)/6:45 pm (EST): Sally Pipes, President and CEO, Taube Fellow in Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute: ObamaCare’s Upcoming Train Wreck.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

May 22nd, 2013 at 7:57 pm
Ashton Right, Mukasey Off (Slightly)

I agree with Ashton that it is a bad idea — an awful idea — to have the DoJ’s Civil Rights Division investigate the IRS scandal. I also agree with Ashton that in the short run, the best thing of all is to keep letting Congress (and the press) investigate this outrage, and let the body politic be the judge. In fact, that’s what Andy McCarthy argues today at National Review Online, with superb reasoning:

The Framers would have been astounded at the notion that Congress’s responsibility to ensure the proper working of government could be delegated to an unaccountable prosecutor. The paramount question is whether the government is out of control, not whether some mid-level official (or even a higher official) can be convicted by a jury.

Indeed, I think there is some agreement between Mukasey and McCarthy: Mukasey’s main point was not about who would conduct the criminal prosecution, but that a “special counsel” would be a bad idea. I agree. Only if it is later decided to open a criminal investigation, says Mukasey, should it then be determined who best to conduct such an investigation. But as McCarthy writes, a criminal investigation makes it easier to keep things secret from the public. That’s the opposite of what good citizens should want right now.

As Ashton says (which makes it unanimous!), “Best for the House to continue exercising its oversight responsibilities until they find some smoking guns.” Or, I would add, until a situation that might develop where smoking guns seem likely to be found, but only a criminal investigation could show exactly where the smoke is coming from. (I hope that metaphor works.)

So, to review: Congress and the press, only, for the time being. A “special prosecutor,” probably never. On that, we all agree. The only place Mukasey goes afield is in who should conduct a criminal investigation if one finally is required. The Civil Rights Division? As Ashton says, perish the thought.

January 9th, 2013 at 12:21 pm
On Procedure

Ashton, just to be clear (in response to your post), I do understand the procedures. Here’s the thing: There is plenty of time to gauge, from press statements and elsewhere, a rather good sense of how many senators support a nomination, and therefore whether or not it will be killed in an up or down vote. My contention is that a senator seeing the tea leaves going in favor of Hagel could consider a hold before the nomination technically reaches the floor. I do not necessarily advocate this, but I think it’s worth looking into.

Sure, a majority leader can disregard a hold, technically. But if he does so, members of one’s own party, looking to protect their own prerogatives, are then MORE likely to join the “holder” in a subsequent filibuster.

But the main thing I advocate is not a hold, but the willingness to filibuster this thing to death. Of course I know that Reid is threatening to kill the filibuster, but there is blowback on his side, too. The rules will be determined in just a few weeks; from what I have read, the most likely outcome is that he will kill the ability to filibuster the motion to proceed to debate in the first place, but will probably not change the rules to disallow a filibuster on the motion to “call the question” — in other words, to end debate and hold a straight up-or-down vote.

Because this motion comes already after at least some debate has been held, it is perfectly consistent with my agreement with Ashton’s advocacy of using open debate to try to kill the nomination. Indeed, I think enough Democrats are skittish about Hagel that the nomination can indeed by killed in a straight up or down vote — and that there will be enough clear statements of Democratic opposition that it will be safe to allow it to go to such a vote.

BUT… BUT… BUT! — if it looks like Obama has strong-armed enough Dems that Hagel will get through, or has a good chance of doing so, THEN I think a filibuster is in order to keep debate going (technically speaking) and, in short, to forever block the nomination. By that time, the rules will be set already. Reid of course could then still use the nuclear option, but it would be mighty risky of him to do that after having already agreed to rules for this Congress that do allow a filibuster before proceeding to a final vote.

So I am not “wrong” about procedures. You may disagree with my advocacy of certain procedures, but that’s different from not understanding them fully.

And, for the record, I am not a huge fan of killing ANYTHING with a permanent filibuster. I am an advocate of a different kind of filibuster reform, which I have written about elsewhere. But the rules and their use should be consistent from party to party. Unless a fair-minded, apolitical reform is introduced, and absent serious constitutional (letter OR spirit) concerns that apply in the case of judicial nominees but not executive branch nominees, I think that a precedent as recent as the filibuster against John Bolton is one that should apply the first time the shoe is on the other party’s foot, so to speak, in terms of a major executive branch nomination.

This is especially true when the concerns go, as they do with Hagel, not just to mere political differences, but to major policy misjudgments, major evidence of unseemly bias, and character concerns.

Just as no anti-black racist should ever be confirmed for a high post, so to should no anti-Semite be so confirmed. This is basic stuff, getting to the very heart of moral fitness for office. I think there is solid evidence that Hagel has anti-Semitic (not just anti-Israel’s foreign policy) tendencies, and that he is also dangerously unwilling to even acknowledge obvious proof of terrorism if the terrorism in question is mostly aimed at Israel. He cannot, must not, ever, be confirmed.

January 8th, 2013 at 2:53 pm
Ashton and I at (Respectful) Odds

I respectfully but strongly disagree with Ashton’s post against the idea of a Republican filibuster of the Hagel nomination, or a hold on the same.

To be more specific, I do agree, wholeheartedly, with this:

In the confirmation hearings, during floor debate, and in an actual speaking filibuster if it comes to that, Senate Republicans will have many instances to make precisely the case Quin alludes to, and any other substantive policy criticisms about Hagel they think will defeat his confirmation.  But let’s have the argument in public, through the normal process of a presidential nomination.

U.S. Senators like to think they work within “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”  Let them prove it with a robust examination of Chuck Hagel’s fitness to be the next Secretary of Defense.

I do believe that such scrutiny is a good thing. I do believe they should use it to put the pressure on Democrats to oppose the nomination. But I disagree with Ashton’s implication that, in the end, a straight up or down vote should be Hagel’s right.

In this extreme case, a case of a man so fundamentally at odds with so many basic precepts of decent foreign policy (he does not worry about Iran getting nukes, he would not label Hezbollah a terrorist organization, he would not advocate getting tough with North Korea, he repeatedly made references to the “Jewish lobby” and similar remarks, he said “let the Jews pay for” the single most popular USO post for American servicement, to the detriment of our own troops, and he was the only one of 100 senators to refuse to condemn Russian anti-Semitism, among numerous other foreign policy sins), there is more at stake than the public record. Such a man has no business, none whatsoever, coming anywhere within Jew-baiting distance of the Pentagon’s top office. He would be a menace as Secretary of Defense.

If not enough Democrats will join Republicans in killing this dastardly nomination, then Republicans ought to filibuster the nomination to death. And if they won’t do that, then a single Republican should use every other power at his disposal to block it.

I oppose the use of a filibuster to permanently kill a judicial nomination, for numerous reasons I have explained elsewhere. I think it violates the spirit and perhaps letter (the latter is arguable) of the Constitution to hold a third branch of government hostage to a super-majority vote. But that is decidedly not the case with an executive-branch appointee. Congress is empowered to keep direct watch over executive overreach. It should do so.

Democrats in the Senate filibustered to death the nomination of John Bolton to be Ambassador to the United Nations. Republicans and reasonable Democrats ought to do the same to Hagel, if they cannot defeat him in an up-or-down vote.

This is a hill to die on.

January 7th, 2013 at 3:17 pm
Hagel Should Not Get the Opportunity

Ashton seems to accept with some equanimity the idea the Chuck Hagel will be confirmed as Secretary of Defense. Hmmm…. At least one GOP senator ought to announce that Hagel will be confirmed only over his (the senator’s) dead body.

Even after all my years on and/or covering Capitol Hill, I don’t quite understand all the ins and outs of how a “hold” works. But surely, if Jesse Helms could put a permanent hold on William Weld’s nomination to be an ambassador, then why can’t/won’t another senator kill the Hagel nomination with such a hold?

If not, this is clearly a nomination that can be filibustered to death. As well it should be. The only man in the United States Senate to refuse to sign an open letter (signed by all 99 other senators) condemning Russian anti-Semitism has no business being confirmed to a job that might entail the provision of troops or weapons for defense of Israel.

The man appears, to many, to be an anti-Semite. Opponents make quite a case that he should never set foot in the top office at the Pentagon.

February 3rd, 2012 at 7:54 am
Podcast: The Consequences of Pres. Obama’s Refusal to Approve Keystone XL Pipeline
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CFIF Contributing Editor Ashton Ellis discusses how President Obama’s decision to block the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline will cost Americans roughly 20,000 new jobs and 700,000 barrels of oil a day, and how the decision ultimately could benefit China at the expense of the U.S.

Listen to the interview here.

January 23rd, 2012 at 2:52 pm
THIS WEEK’s RADIO SHOW LINEUP: CFIF’s Renee Giachino Hosts “Your Turn” on WEBY Radio 1330 AM
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Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CST to 6:00 p.m. CST (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 (CST)/5:00 pm (EST):  Megan Brown, Partner, Wiley Rein LLP — United States Supreme Court’s October 2011 Term and Hosanna-Tabor case on First Amendment rights of religious groups;

4:30 (CST)/5:30 pm (EST):  Margaret Hoover, Fox News contributor and author — South Carolina and Florida primaries, and American Individualism: How a New Generation of Conservatives can save the Republican Party;

5:00 (CST)/6:00 pm (EST):  Ashton Ellis, Contributing Editor at CFIF — Keystone Pipeline Debacle;  and

5:30 (CST)/6:30 pm (EST):  Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author — Economic policy, and How Obama’s Gender Policies Undermine America.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

July 21st, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Bachmann’s Migraines Do Not Require ‘Heavy Pill Use’

Troy’s earlier point about the media creating a false story about presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN) being a pill-popping migraine sufferer is borne out by reporting from Byron York.  Citing what amounts to a doctor’s note from the resident physician in the House of Representatives (released with Bachmann’s permission), York says:

The doctor says Bachmann has had “an extensive evaluation by both my office and by a board-certified consulting neurologist.”  That evaluation, he continues, “has entailed detailed labwork and brain scans, all of which were normal.”  Monahan says Bachmann’s migraines occur “infrequently,” and that when she does have a headache, she is “able to control it well with as-needed sumatriptan and odasentron.”  Monahan says Bachmann has not needed to take the medication daily.  The two drugs, he adds, are “commonly used therapies.”

With that behind us, let’s get news that really matters, like whether Joe Biden’s botox habit is compromising his ability to advise (or possible succeed!) the president.

November 29th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
TODAY’S LINEUP: CFIF’s Renee Giachino Hosts “Your Turn” on WEBY Radio 1330 AM
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Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CST to 6:00 p.m. CST (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EST) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her show “Your Turn.”  Today’s star guest lineup includes:

4:00 p.m. CST/5:00 p.m. EST:    Bruce Herschensohn, Foreign Policy Expert  –  North Korea

4:30 p.m. CST/5:30 p.m. EST:    Pete Sepp, National Taxpayers’ Union (NTU)  –  Bush Tax Cuts, Obama’s Federal Salary Freeze

5:00 p.m. CST/6:00 p.m. EST:    Ashton Ellis, CFIF  –  Wikileaks, Janet Naplitano/Eric Holder/Charles Schumer

5:30 p.m. CST/6:30 p.m. EST:    Steve Milloy, Junkscience.com  –  U.N. Global Warming Conference

Please share your comments, thoughts and questions at (850) 623-1330, or listen via the Internet by clicking here.  You won’t want to miss it today!

August 12th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Podcast: CFIF Contributing Editor Discusses “Field Guide for Patriot Activists”
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Interview with Ashton Ellis, co-author of “Refounding America: A Field Guide for Patriot Activists.”  Ashton discusses the all-in-one guidebook for American first principles, successful activist strategies and how to peacefully change the federal and state governments throughout America to restore values, principles, honor and integrity.

Listen to the interview here.