Additional Articles by Kelleigh Nelson
The Federalist Society, friend or foe
My view is that regardless of whether you think prohibiting abortion is good or whether you think prohibiting abortion is bad, regardless of how you come out on that, my only point is the Constitution does not say anything about it. It leaves it up to democratic choice. Some states prohibited it and some states didn’t. What Roe vs. Wade said was that no state can prohibit it. That is simply not in the Constitution. —Justice Antonin Scalia
Our new President is doing what he promised he’d do, and his first week has been absolutely thrilling. He told us that a top priority is to place pro-life justices on the Supreme Court. We need to help him do that, thus the reason for this article.
Judge Gorsuch’s Pastor Attends Women’s March
In my previous article, Say No To Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court, I urged pro-lifers to speak out immediately, and veto Neil Gorsuch. John Malcolm, a lawyer at the Heritage Foundation, believes that Gorsuch would be less contentious than some of the other Supreme Court nominees because he doesn’t have a record of strident comments that would fuel a confirmation fight. Of course he’s less contentious, he’s not pro-life. We are not getting the truth, and neither is our President!
Susan Woodward Springer is senior Pastor to Judge Neil Gorsuch, and on participating in the Women’s March said, “I have never felt so connected to humanity.” Judge Gorsuch is an usher at her pro-abortion church. Remember, there were no pro-life women allowed at the Women’s March. Does Gorsuch sound like a Scalia to you?
An independent, published ranking of judges said Gorsuch is not even in the top 100 most conservative federal appellate judges. See this important article, Judged by the Company You Keep.
Pro-Life Supreme Court Justices
Our new president gave us a list of 21 justices for the Supreme Court to replace Antonin Scalia. His plan was to fill the vacancy with a strong originalist and pro-life justice. The Federalist Society was instrumental in providing the list of names, along with the Heritage Foundation. Not many of their suggestions were pro-life, and top that off with all of them being very young, which would give the court a justice who could rule for abortion another 40 years.
Some candidates would be terrific, while others are like David Souter. The Federalist Society leaders helped rally support for Senate confirmation of “Obamacare is a tax,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., but they also rallied support for Alito.
Without true pro-life justices on the high court as our President promised us, Trump’s margin of victory disappears in a state like Michigan, a state Trump carried by barely 10,000 votes based on immense efforts by pro-lifers there. Trump must not be misled to break his pro-life pledge for the Supreme Court. Most importantly, every Republican President after Hoover made a lousy first choice for Supreme Court. We can’t allow President Trump to go down the same destructive path. See Nancy Thorner’s article, Latest Contender to Replace Scalia, Judge Neil Gorsuch, is Not Pro-Life.
Let’s take a quick overview of the Federalist Society, who founded them, who is on their board, and just exactly who funds them, which will shock you. Here is their 2015 Form 990.
Founders of the Federalist Society
From their own website, “The Society is about ideas. We do not lobby for legislation, take policy positions, or sponsor or endorse nominees and candidates for public service. While overall the Society believes in limited government, its members are diverse and often hold conflicting views on a broad range of issues such as tort reform, privacy rights, and criminal justice.”
As I mentioned in my previous article, the Federalist Society began at Yale Law School, (home of Skull and Bones), Harvard Law School (that bastion of higher liberal learning), and the University of Chicago Law School, (home of Bill Ayers and where protestors disallowed Trump rally). It originally started as a student organization which challenged what its members perceived as the orthodox American liberal ideology found in most law schools. These three Ivy league schools are known as having a Marxist agenda.
The Society’s notable membership has included Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Justice Scalia actually served as the original faculty advisor to the organization. Other members include Pro-Constitutional Convention Professor Randy Barnett of Georgetown University; Former Energy Secretary, David Schizer who clerked for Ruth Bader Ginsberg; and Alex Kozinski, former Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The Society was also started by a group of prominent so-called conservatives, including former Attorney General Edwin Meese; Solicitor General and Reagan Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork; former Indiana Congressman, David McIntosh, now head of pro-amnesty and anti-Trump Club of Growth; Lee Liberman Otis; Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Steven Calabresi.
Let’s take a look at just a few of them.
Edwin Meese
In 1967, when Ronald Reagan was Governor of California, legislators introduced a therapeutic abortion bill which allowed abortion, “when it would gravely impair the physical or mental health of the mother,” the latter of which opened the door for many more abortions. His legal affairs secretary, Edwin Meese, and press secretary, Lyn Nofziger supported it and urged Reagan to sign it.
Meese is on the board of both the Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation. He is also with the liberal Hoover Institution; whose members include Henry Kissinger, Heritage Fellow Richard Allen who drafted NAFTA, CFR member Condoleezza Rice, and education change agent, Chester Finn.
Spencer Abraham
Abraham is an Arab American who was secretary of energy under George W. Bush. He was actually awarded the “Defender of the Melting Pot” award from the National Council of La Raza for his efforts on the immigration issue of blocking supposed cuts to legal immigration. He is also a fellow of the Hoover Institute.
Steven Calabresi
Libertarian Calabresi is the Chairman of the Federalist Society, and is pro same-sex marriage.
In his essay posted on SSRN, Calabresi’s primary originalist case for a right to same-sex marriage runs something like this. Laws forbidding same-sex marriage violate principles of freedom and equality, and therefore they violate the Fourteenth Amendment, which of course was one of the Reconstruction-era constitutional amendments. [Link]
Calabresi also endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president. Despite my respect for Giuliani, Rudy is pro-choice. One wonders if that was the reason for Calabresi’s endorsement.
David McIntosh
McIntosh is the co-chairman of the Federalist Society. The former Indiana Congressman now heads Club for Growth. He was an avid NeverTrumper. In fact, his organization spent $1million in a Trump smear campaign in Iowa which featured lies and fabricated information. Why? Because Club for Growth is avidly pro-amnesty. They also begged Trump for a million dollars, and he turned them down. McIntosh backed both Cruz and Rubio in the 2016 campaign. The pro-abortion Koch brothers have funded Club for Growth, and the Club sponsors the pro-Constitutional Convention American Legislative Exchange Council.
And…McIntosh is the disgraced former Congressman who was caught forging the letterhead of Alliance for Justice, and manufacturing a phony news release. Caught red-handed, he eventually admitted that he’d issued the fake release which included false AFJ financials. His apology to House Dems and to the AFJ was not accepted.
Stephen Moore was the original founder of Club for Growth and a recent fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He is now one of President Trump’s economic advisors.
Ed Whelan
Harvard law school graduate, Ed Whelan, is a close ally to the Federalist Society, as well as being a contributor to the Trump hating National Review, as are both Neil Gorsuch and William Pryor. Whelan doesn’t even support Trump’s pro-life pledge, and earlier Whelan stridently opposed Trump and even insisted that Catholics should not back him at all. Of course, he has blustered against Andy Schlafly’s attempt to fulfill our President’s pledge for pro-life justices. Whelan pretends that Gorsuch’s book against assisted suicide gives him pro-life credentials. It doesn’t. All the pro-aborts on the Supreme Court voted against a constitutional right to assisted suicide. Gorsuch is no better.
Leonard Leo
Leonard Leo, is executive vice president of the Federalist Society, and let’s make it clear, it is not a pro-life organization and has never had a pro-life presentation at its annual conference for decades. Mr. Leo is steering Trump away from his pledge to nominate a pro-life justice to the U.S. Supreme Court.
This ostensibly pro-life adviser to Trump, Leonard Leo, is not even helpful in honoring the pledge and has recommended candidates who are not pro-life and who will not overturn Roe v. Wade. Mr. Leo even stated on Bloomberg Law radio that he does not envision the new Court, with Trump-nominated justices, overturning Roe v. Wade. [Link]
The Federalist Society Donors
Their website states, “90% of the funding comes from individuals and foundations; the other 10% comes from corporations. The Society does not take money from any political party or group affiliated with a political party or from the federal government.”
In 2013, the Federalist Society held their annual dinner with guest speakers Supreme Court Justices Alito and Thomas, and Federal Appellate Judge Diane Sykes. This was a $200-per-plate black-tie fundraising dinner, funded in part by the Koch brothers. [Link]
“By headlining this fundraiser, Judge Sykes is clearly in violation of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges and Justice Thomas would be as well—if only the Supreme Court was bound by an ethical code,” Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) said in a statement. The ethical codes are there to ensure that outside interests do not sway judicial decisions.
Here is a list of the sponsors for this dinner. Recognizable names are Chevron, Verizon, Google, Facebook, and Time Warner, none of whom are pro-life standard bearers.
Take a gander at the list of donors who attended this dinner. Among those who gave $100,000 are the following:
Koch Industries, David Koch, and their Claude Lambe Foundation each gave $100,000. David Koch is pro-abortion.
Google and Microsoft are among donors who gave $100,000 or more, according to the society’s annual report for 2015. I dare say, neither Google nor Microsoft have ever promoted pro-life.
The Sarah Scaife Foundation is a big donor. Sarah Scaife was the mother of wealthy businessman Richard Mellon Scaife, who donated up to $30 million to the Heritage Foundation. Richard Mellon Scaife funded Planned Parenthood, and even took an ad out in the WSJ promoting taxpayer funding. [Link] His mother, Sarah, had Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, into her home every Sunday afternoon for tea. [Link]
Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and her husband, George, gave between $50,000 and $100,000. Why? Because they are pro-life, and there are great pro-life people within the Society. Kellyanne Conway has done great things for our new president, a president we’ve not seen the likes of since Calvin Coolidge.
George Conway is a New York lawyer and Federalist Society member, and has been nominated for Solicitor General in Trump’s administration. They are both soundly pro-life. [Link]
Those donating $25,000 to $49,000 included:
Amway Multi-Marketing Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation. These are the in-laws of Betsy DeVos, nominated for education secretary.
Verizon and Google also donated.
In the final category is Delta Airlines, Google, ExxonMobil Corporation, Facebook, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pepsi, Co. None of whom support life.
Conclusion
The Federalist Society obviously has overstepped its proper role in this process, pushing some of the members’ own agenda in an unprecedented way. If published reports are correct, all the finalists are young, Federalist Society candidates who are not as qualified (or as pro-life) as other candidates our President should be interviewing and choosing.
I am thrilled with the election of Donald J. Trump as our 45th President, and his promise to choose pro-life justices gained many endorsements and votes. If we eliminate Judge Gorsuch, the next judge who will be floated by the pro-abortion portion of the Society will be Judge Thomas Hardiman.
Phyllis Schlafly was one of the first to endorse him. Her son, Andy Schlafly, should be contacted by our President because he has done the research on all of these candidates.
There are three pro-life justices who should be nominated, Justice Charles Canady – number one choice, or Judge Jennifer Elrod or Judge Edith Jones. Urge our president to do so. I believe he will keep his promise.
[P.S. In order to wake up the population, we need to reach more people. Please use this material, and call into talk radio programs (like Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh etc.) and mention NewsWithViews.com on the air while discussing the content of this article, write letters to newspaper editors, and speak to your friends. Spread the word, and in doing so, we have a chance to save America.]
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© 2017 Kelleigh Nelson – All Rights Reserved
