Leonard Leo

Right Wing Leftovers

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 7/1/2009 5:58 pm
  • In retrospect, this 2002 Mark Sanford ad seems a tad hypocritical.

  • Operation Rescue is now going to start targeting Leroy Carhart.

  • The Federalist Society's Leonard Leo has been elected chairman of the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom.

  • Ken Hutcherson lashes out at President Obama over the LGBT event at the White House.

  • Three of Rep. Michelle Bachmann's fellow Republicans are apparently getting fed-up with her Census nonsense.

  • In news that should send shivers down your spine, Steve Dillard's name is among those the state judicial nominating commission has submitted to the Governor for consideration for an open seat on the Georgia Supreme Court.

  • The Vanity Fair article on Sarah Palin has set off a Republican feud.

  • This SaraPAC 4th of July message really has to be seen to be believed.

  • As does this photo set and accompanying interview with her in Runner's World:

Right Calls to "Take Off the Gloves" Against Non-Existent SCOTUS Nominee

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Thursday, 5/14/2009 12:35 pm

Ben Smith reports that right-wing groups met with several Republican Senators yesterday to plot strategy on how to defeat President Obama's Supreme Court nominee:

Leaders of some of the social and judicial conservative groups planning an all-out fight over the Supreme Court nominee met with Republican Senators yesterday, a source says, passing on a couple of the items that came up in the meetings.

Centrally, it remains unclear how broadly the Republican leadership will commit to a fight, particularly on this first nominee, and so that's the question currently being arbitrated.

One of the conservatives talking points was money. Conservatives are telling the GOP that a court confrontation will be great fundraising, saying the NRSC raised some $200,000 at a breakfast yesterday with wealthy conservative donors, with the court issue dominating discussion, and that the key outside groups have raised some $1.2 million in advance of an expected fight in recent weeks, on top of money that other top conservative legal warries [sic] like Leonard Leo and C. Boyden Gray have been raising toward this cause over the last few months.

The groups are also hoping to reverse what has generally been positive press for most of the mentioned possible nominees, and there were calls to "take off the gloves, " and talk of a video being released on a call with 60 conservative groups tomorrow.

One other tidbit from the meetings: Republicans could raise objections to Elena Kagan's nomination because of the possible delays in getting documents related to her service in the Clinton Administration from the Clinton Library.

Of course, right-wing groups like the Judicial Confirmation Network and the Committee for Justice (who were presumably involved in this meeting) are raising millions of dollars to prevent President Obama's nominee from getting confirmed, even though they were founded in order "to support the confirmation of highly qualified individuals to the Supreme Court of the United States." But only under President Bush, apparently.

And why exactly are there calls to "take off the gloves"?  Against who?  There hasn't even been a nominee yet.  

It's good to see that these groups, which once existed to ensure that President Bush's nominees received fair treatment and an up-or-down vote, are now fully committed to savaging and defeating President Obama's nominee ... even before they have any idea who it is.

Federalist Society Downplays Its Power

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 11/21/2008 1:33 pm

It seems like it was just a few days ago that I was pointing out that the Federalist Society's claims that it was just some non-political debating society was entirely bogus. 

Now comes an article in the Washington Post saying that, after eight years of driving the Bush Administration's "efforts to change the federal judiciary," the Federalist Society must now be prepared to find itself out in the wilderness, which Federalist Society head Leonard Leo laughed off, saying that nothing would really change because the organization was really just a debating society all along:

Federalist Society executive vice president Leonard A. Leo laughed when asked about the wilderness remark, saying, "I know the media likes to talk about us in terms of power and influence." But he said the group's primary goal has always been discussion of legal interpretation and limited constitutional government, and that that "remains as important as it was on November 3rd."

Leo can laugh all he wants, but his days of working hand-in-glove with the Bush Administration to get its nominees confirmed are over and while he can try and pretend that they never really had that much influence, anyone who has paid any attention to the judicial confirmation battles over the last several years knows the truth about just how deeply he and his organization were involved and fully expects them to be just as involved, albeit in trying to prevent confirmations, during the Obama administration.

Terrorism and Abortion and Judges, Oh My!

Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Wednesday, 9/6/2006 4:50 pm

On today’s edition of “The 700 Club,” Pat Robertson lamented that the Republicans are facing very real difficulties in getting their right-wing base motivated for the upcoming elections, because unlike previous elections, the Right can’t just focus on “judges, judges, judges, judges” this time around and is therefore growing “dispirited” by things like the war in Iraq and growing deficits. [View the video highlight: Broadband or Dial-Up.] 

Given that “judges, judges, judges, judges” has been the primary mobilization strategy for the GOP and the Right for years, it is not surprising that judicial activists such as Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society are desperately trying to tie every issue to judges in any way they can, leading him to send out a memo to “Catholic leaders” ostensibly about national security but couched entirely in not-so-subtle “we need pro-life judges” rhetoric

Catholics, like other segments of the population, are not of one mind about the war in Iraq (I happen to be supportive, but know others in our Catholic communities who are not). But, there is one thing that all of us can agree upon respecting the broader war on terror: there is real value to efforts that identify and frustrate domestic threats and thereby prevent the loss of innocent life. No one can reasonably dispute, for example, that the resources our government expends to collect intelligence and data in order to break up a terror plot is premised on the individual dignity and worth of every human person. Counter-terrorism efforts protect all of us, regardless of our race, sex, or economic standing.

Today, when the Senate approved the confirmation of another Federal appeals judge, we were reminded of how important the judges battle is to a war on terror effort that successfully protects innocent human life.

…

We need to remind our friends and family, as they reflect upon the stakes in the upcoming Congressional elections, that we need a Senate that understands the way in which counter-terrorism can advance human dignity, and that understands the importance of confirming judges who won't frustrate those efforts at protecting innocent human life because of their own political views about the war on terror.

Terrorism, abortion, and judges – Leo managed to tie all three issues together in this one memo.  If he had tried a little harder, he probably could have crammed in some ominous warning about homosexuality and hit for the right-wing cycle.  

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Leonard Leo Posts Archive

Right Wing Leftovers
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 07/01/2009, 5:58pm
In retrospect, this 2002 Mark Sanford ad seems a tad hypocritical.Operation Rescue is now going to start targeting Leroy Carhart.The Federalist Society's Leonard Leo has been elected chairman of the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom.Ken Hutcherson lashes out at President Obama over the LGBT event at the White House.Three of Rep. Michelle Bachmann's fellow Republicans are apparently getting fed-up with her Census nonsense.In news that should send shivers down your spine, Steve Dillard's name is among those the state judicial nominating commission has submitted to the... MORE >
Right Calls to "Take Off the Gloves" Against Non-Existent SCOTUS Nominee
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Thursday 05/14/2009, 12:35pm
Ben Smith reports that right-wing groups met with several Republican Senators yesterday to plot strategy on how to defeat President Obama's Supreme Court nominee:Leaders of some of the social and judicial conservative groups planning an all-out fight over the Supreme Court nominee met with Republican Senators yesterday, a source says, passing on a couple of the items that came up in the meetings.Centrally, it remains unclear how broadly the Republican leadership will commit to a fight, particularly on this first nominee, and so that's the question currently being arbitrated.One of the... MORE >
Federalist Society Downplays Its Power
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Friday 11/21/2008, 1:33pm
It seems like it was just a few days ago that I was pointing out that the Federalist Society's claims that it was just some non-political debating society was entirely bogus. Now comes an article in the Washington Post saying that, after eight years of driving the Bush Administration's "efforts to change the federal judiciary," the Federalist Society must now be prepared to find itself out in the wilderness, which Federalist Society head Leonard Leo laughed off, saying that nothing would really change because the organization was really just a debating society all along:... MORE >
Terrorism and Abortion and Judges, Oh My!
SUBMITTED BY: Kyle Mantyla, Wednesday 09/06/2006, 4:50pm
On today’s edition of “The 700 Club,” Pat Robertson lamented that the Republicans are facing very real difficulties in getting their right-wing base motivated for the upcoming elections, because unlike previous elections, the Right can’t just focus on “judges, judges, judges, judges” this time around and is therefore growing “dispirited” by things like the war in Iraq and growing deficits. [View the video highlight: Broadband or Dial-Up.]  Given that “judges, judges, judges, judges” has been the primary mobilization... MORE >