Right Wing Watch in Focus

• Our latest Right Wing Watch In Focus is now available: Right Wing Leaders Foment Racial Resentment and Point Fingers to Avoid Accountability.
• Everything you need to know about today's Tea Party rally on The Hill.
• Alan Colmes: Right Wing jumps the shark.
• Kathyrn Joyce on the rise of the "men's rights movement."
• Somebody should tell Bill Donohue that the Colbert Report is satire.
• Americans United: California Teacher Wants To Require Christmas Carols In School.
• Finally, I am guessing that this is going to be extremely awkward for everyone involved.

Our latest Right Wing Watch In Focus has been posted, entitled "Religious Right Targets Maine & Marriage Equality with Money, Anti-Gay Swat Teams and Reprise of Prop-8’s False Fearmongering Strategies":

National Religious Right organizations that bankrolled the effort to put Proposition 1 on the ballot in Maine descended on the state this past weekend with a SWAT team of anti-gay leaders and veterans of last year’s Prop 8 battle in California . The Religious Right’s collective targeting of Maine ’s new marriage equality law demonstrates the huge importance right-wing leaders have placed on reversing gains by marriage equality advocates in the northeast. Religious Right activists must not be allowed to set back this achievement with another massively funded campaign of deception. People For the American Way urges its members and activists to lend support to the excellent Mainer-led campaign No on 1/Protect Maine Equality.

...

Earlier this year, after hard work by local organizers, Maine legislators passed, and the governor signed, marriage equality legislation. Religious Right leaders responded by pouring money into the state to help gather signatures for a veto initiative, and they have imported the strategist and strategies that fueled the dishonorable Prop 8 campaign in California . It’s urgently important to prevent the Religious Right from turning the milestone in Maine into yet another victory in a nationwide war against equality. Equality in Maine must stand. Non-Maine residents can support the No on 1/Protect Maine Equality campaign with donations, participation in phone banking, or even by spending a week in October volunteering for the campaign.

• Our latest Right Wing Watch In Focus is now available: "To Hell with Health Care Reform: Religious Right Leaders Attack Obama, Spout GOP Dogma about 'Socialism' While Fanning Flames on Abortion."
• D.C. lobbying firm Bonner and Associates has been busted sending forged letters opposing climate change legislation to members of Congress and blames it on a "temp" who has been fired, though they seem to have a history of pulling these sorts of astroturf stunts.
• Dick Armey explains why he doesn't believe in global warming: "[T]he lord God almighty made the heavens and the Earth, and he made them to his satisfaction and it is quite pretentious of we little weaklings here on earth to think that, that we are going to destroy God’s creation."
• Matthew Yglesias: Just When You Thought the “Beer Summit” Story Couldn’t Get Any More Ridiculous…
• Jim Burroway takes an in-depth look at NARTH's new "peer reviewed" study proving that sexual orientation can be changed.
• Finally, Steve Benen takes a look at the fascinating new Daily Kos poll showing who does and who does not believe that President Obama was born in the United States.

We have been collecting everything that the Religious Right has been saying about efforts to pass health care reform for an upcoming Right Wing Watch In Focus report and, in doing so, quickly noticed that their primary focus was on claiming that any such plan would lead to public financing of abortion.

Until recently, activists and organization had been primarily making this case individually, but now it looks like several of them have decided to team-up for a nationwide webcast tomorrow evening:

Pro-life groups, including Focus on the Family, are hosting a webcast Thursday at 9 p.m. EDT to educate and mobilize pro-lifers against President Obama's healthcare reform bill, which currently mandates public and private insurance coverage of abortion.

The healthcare reform has hit a roadblock in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Fiscally conservative Democrats, known as Blue Dogs, have balked at the cost of the plan.

Pro-life advocates are hoping the delay allows them to marshal support for amendments that would take the federal funding of abortions out of the bill.

"We are advocating amendments that would simply remove any mandates for abortion, remove any federal subsidies for abortion," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life.

Others agree that this is a watershed event for the pro-life movement.

Marjorie Dannenfelser of the Susan B. Anthony List said: "It is without question the biggest event since Roe v. Wade when it comes to the pro-life issue."

Participants include James Dobson, Charmaine Yoest, Tony Perkins, Frank Pavone, Marjorie Dannenfelser, Wendy Wright, Tom Minnery, Rep. Chris Smith, Richard Land, Day Gardner, and several others, including Mike Huckabee, according to Dan Gilgoff.

Politico has more on their effort:

A coalition of anti-abortion groups is set to open a new front against Democrats’ efforts to restructure American health care, claiming the plans open a back door to publicly financed abortions.

The groups, which are launching a broad campaign on the issue this week, claim that existing health care proposals constitute a stealth “abortion mandate” that will spend taxpayer money on abortions and require insurance companies to cover abortions — allegations that health care reform supporters call misleading.

“President Obama keeps on talking about common ground, and there is really, really common ground on funding issues,” said Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, the group organizing the planned three-week campaign on the issue. “Almost no one wants to fund abortion, regardless of their position on abortion as a whole.”

Yoest’s group plans to release a letter to Barack Obama on Thursday in which it cites, according to its reading of proposed legislation, “our belief that the bills are intended to include abortion.”

The noisy, contentious health care debate — which has grown pointedly acrimonious in recent days — has proceeded largely without reference to abortion. But the decision of these high-profile conservative groups to launch the new campaign under the rubric “Stop the Abortion Mandate” may change that and provide a new obstacle to the reform legislation.

The leaders involved include Christian conservatives such as James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family; Family Research Council President Tony Perkins; and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Dr. Richard Land, who will be launching the push in a webcast Thursday evening.

“We just realized how urgent the situation was, what was at stake,” said David Bereit, the national director of 40 Days for Life, another group involved in the campaign, which will focus on generating pressure on members of Congress to insist on an explicit ban on abortion within the legislation.

Over the last few days, we posted two new Right Wing Watch In Focus pieces analyzing the Right's response to the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

A Justice For All: Themes from the Right -- Nomination Day

Right-wing political and legal groups and pundits responded to President Barack Obama’s nomination of federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court by cranking up their well-funded attack machine, following their pre-fab attack script (they have been attacking her for months as a potential nominee), launching ads against her confirmation, and threatening to use the nomination as a political bludgeon against Democrats from more conservative states.

A Justice For All: Themes from the Right -- Day 2

The second day of right-wing attacks on Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor continued many of the themes of the first day’s attacks, mostly distortions of her judicial record and public remarks and distortions of President Obama’s desire for judges who exhibit empathy. National Review published a wave of anti-Sotomayor commentary on its website. (Some of this information may have been distributed on Day 1 but didn’t make our initial analysis.)

We are also going to start regularly posting some of the raw material we use in these RWWIF analysis pieces on the blog, as well.  Here is the news from yesterday:

Committee for Justice

Using Sotomayor to Define Obama

The Democrats have the numbers to make a Sotomayor confirmation all but inevitable, but Ed Morrissey picks up on another opportunity that her nomination affords the GOP.

“They have an opportunity to use the hearings to show Sotomayor as a routine appellate jurist with a spotty record who got elevated to this position as an act of political hackery by a President who couldn’t care less about his responsibilities to find the best and brightest for the job.”

Like many of Obama’s other appointments, it demonstrates a lack of executive talent and intellectual curiosity on his part. This appointment makes an argument for more Republicans in the Senate after the midterms, if for no other reason than to force Obama to start putting a little effort in making his nominations."

Bloomberg - Sotomayor Took Cautious Approach in Cases on Race, Gun Rights

Her detractors say Sotomayor, 54, was trying to divert attention from the cases, hoping to prevent Supreme Court review and possibly enhance her resume for a promotion.

“It makes me wonder whether she’s just cautions by nature or whether she was already thinking about being appointed to a higher court,” said Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice in Washington and a critic of the Sotomayor nomination. He said Sotomayor might have been “covering her tracks” by limiting the scope and prominence of the opinions.

The Washington Post - Battle over Obama’s nominee begins

Curt Levey, executive director of the conservative legal group Committee for Justice, said her judicial record would probably not be enough to stop Sotomayor's confirmation, given the Democratic dominance in the Senate, but her speeches are another matter.

"The best predictor of whether a controversial nominee can be stopped is whether the case against her is based on more than just her legal analysis," he said.

Although Levey acknowledged that his description of Sotomayor as a "wild-eyed judicial activist" would be hard to extract from her record on the bench, he said "her words are the best indication" of how she would see her role as a justice.

The New York Times - Obama Hails Judge as ‘Inspiring’

Other conservatives said they would focus on her ruling in a New Haven affirmative action case or on how she might rule on same-sex marriage.

“Abortion is in some sense a stale issue that has been fought over many times, but gay marriage is very much up for grabs,” said Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a legal group. “Gay marriage will be bigger than abortion.”

Judicial Confirmation Network

Wendy Long Calls on Obama Administration to Provide Transparency via YouTube

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' comments yesterday that "We can all move past YouTube snippets and half sentences and actually look at the honest-to-God record" raise an important question for Mr. Gibbs. The Duke University comments by Judge Sotomayor are quite clear and unequivocal. Is Mr. Gibbs suggesting that Judge Sotomayor was lying in the tape or that she really didn't mean it?

President Obama promised the American people a transparent presidency. In that spirit, we are calling on White House Press Secretary Gibbs to post the Duke University video on The White House web site and let the American people judge her comments.

JCN has also launched a website campaigning against Sotomayor, it can be found here.

The Durango Herald - Sonia Sotomayor, Nominee has intriguing history, solid qualifications

Recognizing that personal history is at least a factor - if not a significant one - in judicial decision-making is an important step, and one that Sotomayor has taken.

She has already been criticized for it. Wendy Long, a spokeswoman for the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said Sotomayor's background will trump fairness. "Judge Sotomayor will allow her feelings and personal politics to stand in the way of basic fairness," Long said.

Coalition for a Fair Judiciary

Human Events.com - Republicans Withhold Full Judgment on Sotomayor

Conservative grassroots groups began to weigh in on the Sotomayor nomination immediately yesterday, among them the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary, a group of over 350 organizations working together during the confirmation process in support of most of President George W. Bush’s nominees, Harriet Myers being the exception.

“Although Justice dons a blindfold when weighing the scales of justice, Sotomayor admits that she lifts that blindfold so as to peek at her own complexion and the skin color of the parties before her,” said Kay Daly, President of the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary.

“That might explain why she held it was constitutional for white firefighters to be denied promotion based on their skin color. Sotomayor's own words should be her nomination's undoing.”

Gary Bauer

OneNewsNow - Sotomayor-discriminatory and unqualified?

Gary Bauer is chairman of American Values. He says while the American people should celebrate Sotomayor's story of overcoming poverty after growing up in New York City's South Bronx, it is not a reason to select her as a justice for the nation's highest court.

"Unfortunately, when you do look at the reasons for putting somebody on the Supreme Court, their judicial philosophy -- whether they respect the rule of law, whether they'll be impartial or not -- she fails on those criteria, so I'm disturbed by the selection," he notes.

“She is somebody who believes in reverse discrimination,” he contends. “We have evidence that she thinks it's okay to discriminate against white Americans because she's inclined toward believing in quotas.”

Pat Robertson

Newsmax - Pat Robertson: Sotomayor Nomination an ‘Outrage’

Robertson cited Sotomayor’s views on judicial activism as he criticized her nomination during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Tuesday.

“I think Obama has reached out to one of the most left-wing judges that there is in the United States,” Robertson said. “I think it's an outrage.”

Richard Land

Christian Post - Justice Sotomayor? – More for Some, Less for Others?

“Lady Justice is blindfolded for a reason: she’s supposed to be impartial, not empathic. Empathy belongs in the legislature and the executive branch, and not in the judicial branch. Sotomayor is a living, breathing example of making the law subjective and relative, rather than objective and impartial.”

Family Research Council

Hill Blog Question of the Day: Will Sotomayor face serious opposition?

I hear all over the place that Ms. Sotomayor has a “compelling story” that makes her more in tune with her feelings. With all due respect to the popular daytime television queen, a judge needs to be more like John Roberts and not Oprah Winfrey.

That is why this process can not be rushed and why the role of the Senate Judiciary Committee is so important in properly vetting any nominee to ensure that the nominee has the requisite competence, temperament, character, knowledge of the law, and experience to make a good jurist.

LA Times - GOP looks for alternate route to block Sotomayor’s path

Conservative critics are already spotlighting a ruling by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, including Sotomayor, that found that the 2nd Amendment's protection of citizens' gun rights did not apply to state or local regulations.

"These senators will jeopardize their seats if they vote to support an anti-gun radical for the Supreme Court," said Ken Blackwell, a senior fellow with the conservative Family Research Council.

USA Today - Supreme Court pick Sotomayor faces nomination politics

For now, though, it shows Obama has united liberals behind his pick and left conservatives scouring her record for ammunition.

"How aggressive the effort is depends on whether more comes to light," said Tony Perkins of the conservative Family Research Council. "This is still kind of in the discovery process."

Many of Sotomayor's potential opponents, ranging from groups opposing abortion rights to those backing gun rights, have not committed to an aggressive campaign against her.

Today's best reporting on the Right from around the web:

• RH Reality Check says that North Dakota's "Personhood bill," SF 1572 would grant every fertilized egg in the state full rights, and any intentional death of that fertilized egg would constitute murder and could have national implications.
• Good As Your responds to the Right's repeatedly attempts to turn Tim Gill into their bogeyman.
• Salon has a good article by Kathryn Joyce, author of "Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement," on a woman who eventually left the movement: "She'd had her first three children by cesarean section, but after coming to the Quiverfull conviction, she was swayed by the movement's emphasis on natural (even unassisted home) birth. During one delivery, she suffered a partial uterine rupture and 'felt like I'd been in a major battle with Satan, and he'd just about left me dead.' The doctor who treated Garrison lectured her for an hour not to conceive again, but she felt that stopping on her own would be rebellion. When she turned to her leaders for inspiration, she received a bleak message: that if she died doing her maternal duty, God would care for her family. For six months, she couldn't look at the baby without crying."
• Finally, our latest Right Wing Watch In Focus is now available:

Efforts to bring down discriminatory legal barriers to marriage equality have met with fierce resistance led by Religious Right organizations. Anti-equality leaders routinely blur the distinction between civil and religious marriage in order to portray legal marriage equality as a threat to their religious liberty. The truth can be a powerful weapon against that deception: when Americans understand that allowing same-sex couples to be legally wed would not require any church or congregation to bless or perform such weddings, support for legal equality jumps substantially. In fact, it is Religious Right leaders who undermine the constitutional principles of religious liberty and equality under the law by demanding that their own religious view of marriage be imposed by law on all Americans, including those whose religious beliefs and traditions support full marriage equality for same-sex couples.