[NOTE: And another that languished in my drafts folder…again probably because I was having Trump Overload Fatigue.] 

[ALSO: I’ve added to it because CNN’s new right wing CEO let Trump have another “town hall” and it looks like the media is going to let it happen all over again…]

Via Digby…

The coup lawyer’s extremist past

Here’s a thread about a NY Times profile of John Eastman, the loon who tried to get Mike Pence to overthrow the government on January 6th:

So it appears that @maggieNYT & @nytmike wrote a profile of John Eastman, Trump’s coup lawyer, but didn’t recount his long record of extremist activity.

Since they omitted this crucial information, here’s a short thread of what’s missing in this article

Eastman is anything but a “little-known but respected conservative lawyer.”

He has a decades-long history leading hate groups, especially those against LGBT people. He is the chairman of the “National Organization for Marriage,” a highly funded group opposing marriage equality

Eastman has called homosexuality “barbarism” and said on video that he supported a Ugandan law that made homosexual acts a life-sentence offence.

Eastman’s NOM group is intimately affiliated with the “World Congress of Families,” a radical anti-LGBT group funded by Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin.

You should go read the whole thing, especially for the links. He’s a read piece of work. But for some reason the Times considered that not fit to print. Alas, they’re not alone in that. It seems there is an entire subculture our commercial news media regards as off limits for any sort of serious examination and reportage:

Eastman’s actions urging Mike Pence to impose Trump dictatorship on the U.S. are part of a huge tradition of Christianist thought which obsesses over dying for Jesus and “spiritual warfare” with liberal Christians, atheists, and Muslims

This tradition has received almost zero coverage in American media because to report on it and to disclose that its adherents are in the very highest echelons of Republican power instantly destroys the “access journalism” that has so corrupted our media.

This is something most voters still do not understand about what the republican party has become since it turned away from its focus on business and “free enterprise” and became the party of culture war (though I argued previously that it was in fact always that…). And that near total ignorance of the danger to our country and to the American dream of liberty and justice for all is entirely on our commercial news media that have decided not to report on it, out of some notion journalism requires staying neutral regardless of what it is you’re reporting on.

That’s something this guy was loath to do, back when journalists weren’t afraid of or in bed with fascists…

There surged around me an evil-smelling stink, men and boys reached out to touch me. They were in rags and the remnants of uniforms. Death already had marked many of them, but they were smiling with their eyes. I looked out over the mass of men to the green fields beyond, where well-fed Germans were ploughing….

[I] asked to see one of the barracks. It happened to be occupied by Czechoslovaks. When I entered, men crowded around, tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled 80 horses. There were 1200 men in it, five to a bunk. The stink was beyond all description.

They called the doctor. We inspected his records. There were only names in the little black book — nothing more — nothing about who had been where, what he had done or hoped. Behind the names of those who had died, there was a cross. I counted them. They totaled 242 — 242 out of 1200, in one month.

As we walked out into the courtyard, a man fell dead. Two others, they must have been over 60, were crawling toward the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it.

In another part of the camp they showed me the children, hundreds of them. Some were only 6 years old. One rolled up his sleeves, showed me his number. It was tattooed on his arm. B-6030, it was. The others showed me their numbers. They will carry them till they die. An elderly man standing beside me said: “The children — enemies of the state!” I could see their ribs through their thin shirts….

We went to the hospital. It was full. The doctor told me that 200 had died the day before. I asked the cause of death. He shrugged and said: “tuberculosis, starvation, fatigue and there are many who have no desire to live. It is very difficult.” He pulled back the blanket from a man’s feet to show me how swollen they were. The man was dead. Most of the patients could not move.

I asked to see the kitchen. It was clean. The German in charge….showed me the daily ration. One piece of brown bread about as thick as your thumb, on top of it a piece of margarine as big as three sticks of chewing gum. That, and a little stew, was what they received every 24 hours. He had a chart on the wall. Very complicated it was. There were little red tabs scattered through it. He said that was to indicate each 10 men who died. He had to account for the rations and he added: “We’re very efficient here.”

We proceeded to the small courtyard. The wall adjoined what had been a stable or garage. We entered. It was floored with concrete. There were two rows of bodies stacked up like cordwood. They were thin and very white. Some of the bodies were terribly bruised; though there seemed to be little flesh to bruise. Some had been shot through the head, but they bled but little.

I arrived at the conclusion that all that was mortal of more than 500 men and boys lay there in two neat piles. There was a German trailer, which must have contained another 50, but it wasn’t possible to count them. The clothing was piled in a heap against the wall. It appeared that most of the men and boys had died of starvation; they had not been executed.

But the manner of death seemed unimportant. Murder had been done at Buchenwald. God alone knows how many men and boys have died there during the last 12 years. Thursday, I was told that there were more than 20,000 in the camp. There had been as many as 60,000. Where are they now?

I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it, I have no words. If I have offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I’m not in the least sorry….

This is an excerpt from The Inglorius Padre Steve’s World blog. You should go read the whole post for more context as to why Murrow was there as early on as he was. It was Eisenhower who called for Journalists to visit Buchenwald and document the horrors. Paton saw it and also wrote about what he saw. But it is Murrow’s I Could Not Care Less If My Reporting This Offends You that sticks with me these days.

Can you imagine the New York Times and CNN both-sidesing it? Just a few years ago I could not. Now I can.

And this has been another edition of Why I Cancelled My Subscription To The New York Times And You Should Too…