Organizations within his network have reportedly funded at least 40 groups advising Project 2025, per NBC News.
Leo is also linked to Project 2025 co-author #Roger#Severino
—VP of Domestic Policy at Heritage
—who served as the Director of the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Trump.
Severino began his career at the “Becket Fund for Religious Liberty” where Leo sits on the board of directors.
Severino is one half of a “Catholic Right” power couple.
The other half is Leonard Leo protégé Carrie Severino, who previously clerked for Becket and Clarence Thomas.
It was Roger Severino who wrote the section of Project 2025 outlining a plan to withdraw the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill (mifepristone),
which is also under attack in a case pending before the Supreme Court.
If the religious right fails to convince the Supreme Court, Project 2025 is their “Plan B” (pun intended).
Leo and his network are also linked to #Kevin#Roberts,
a rabidly partisan fundamentalist Catholic activist,
who has served as president of Heritage since 2021.
In 2020, Roberts had been featured on the Resources page of “WhereYouAre,” which calls itself a “collaboration of people in touch with … centers of Opus Dei in Texas.”
#Opus#Dei is a “small but powerful” group “within the Catholic Church” whose members “abide by strict conservative teachings''
and “believe they are called to serve God” not only in their personal lives, but also in their professions, per the Australian Broadcasing Center.
Many of Opus Deis’ members keep their membership a secret.
Leo reportedly belongs to Opus Dei.
Leo also sits on the Napa Legal Institute’s board of directors,
a faith based organization whose chairman of the board is #Timothy#Busch,
one of Leo’s closest allies.
Bush co-founded Napa Legal’s sister organization, the Napa Institute, whose annual conference in July 2022 included Kevin Roberts as a speaker. Leo is a Napa Institute donor.
In December that year, Busch announced that the Napa Institute would open an office near the U.S. Capitol within the headquarters of the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN),
a global Catholic-themed television and radio network.
The month before, Kevin Roberts had been interviewed during an EWTN broadcast where he called himself an abortion “purist”
and said that he wanted “not a single abortion happening in this country.”
Roberts reconnected with Leo’s network in 2023 when he spoke during “A Duty to God and Country,”
an event organized by the Catholic Information Center (CIC) and Napa Institute.
As noted, Leo sits on CIC’s board of directors.
Meanwhile, Project 2025 (Heritage) Director #Paul#Dans belongs to the New York chapter of the Federalist Society, which is co-chaired by Leo at the national level,
while #Steve#Bannon, Project 2025’s unofficial media partner, has served with Leo on the board of directors of Reclaim New York (founded by #Rebekah#Mercer).
Bannon, you may recall, has closely aligned himself with proponents of the so-called “rad trad” (radical traditional) Catholicism movement
and specifically said that he wants to destroy the administrative state,
an express goal of Project 2025.
As observed by Media Matters, Bannon has repeatedly used his War Room perch to normalize Project 2025’s radical agenda.
This incredibly sweet boy, purring louder than the TV … just farted on me. I have never had a cat who cropdusts this much. EVER. You’re lucky you’re cute, #Roger. #CatsOfMastodon#Caturday
“C’mon, fuckos. Time for bed.” These two have been curled up in this position for the last hour. Rather than disturb them, I extricate myself from the recliner and leave them be. You’d never know they were wrasslin’ like one told the other their mama sewed socks that smell two hours ago. Damned bonded pair chaos twins. #CatsOfMastodon#Zapp#Roger#OrangeCatsFTW
Regan advisor warned that Free College would create a Dangerous Educated Proletariat
It’s important to understand how Americans came to #owe the current cumulative total of more than $1.6 trillion for higher education.
In 1970, Ronald Reagan was running for reelection as governor of California. He had first won in 1966 with confrontational rhetoric toward the University of California public college system and executed confrontational policies when in office. In May 1970, Reagan shut down all 28 UC and Cal State campuses in the midst of student protests against the Vietnam War and the U.S. bombing of Cambodia. On October 29, less than a week before the election, his education adviser #Roger A. #Freeman spoke at a press conference to defend him.
Freeman’s remarks were reported the next day in the San Francisco Chronicle under the headline “Professor Sees Peril in Education.”
According to the Chronicle article, Freeman said, “We are in #danger of producing an #educated#proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be #selective on who we #allow [to go to college].”
“If not,” Freeman continued, “we will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed people.”
Freeman also said — taking a highly idiosyncratic perspective on the cause of fascism —“that’s what happened in Germany. I saw it happen.”