#jonathan capeheart

[ustrumpnews]

[cmhoughton]

Analysis | What John Kelly got wrong about Rep. Frederica Wilson and the Johnson family

Donald Trump, John Kelly, Frederica Wilson, Niger

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

But the Warsaw Philharmonic strikes up and all Jonathan Capeheart hears is "Old Shep". "We write symphonies"?

In that one line, taken in context with everything else Trump said, what I heard was the loudest of dog whistles. A familiar boast that swells the chests of white nationalists everywhere.

Is it "a familiar boast"? It's not clear to me that pre-Trump it was a boast at all among "white nationalists". I see that the wine writer Andrea Frost has observed that (in Europe) "given music, we write symphonies", but she seems fairly antipathetic to Trump and an unlikely stray at the alt-right dog pound. At any rate, Capeheart is eager to dispel the notion that symphonies are the work of tub-thumping white nationalists like Mozart and Mahler. Get a clue, losers:

Those symphonies Trump says "We write" (ahem) would be real lame without the influence of the Middle East and Muslims. According to Salim al-Hassani, chairman of the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilization and editor of "1001 Inventions," which chronicles "the enduring legacy of Muslim civilization," told CNNyears ago that the lute, musical scales and the ancestor of the violin are all part of that legacy.

So Beethoven's Eroica, Brahms' Fourth, Tchaikovsky's Sixth would be "real lame" without "the influence of the Middle East and Muslims".

So says a senior writer in the establishment newspaper of America's capital. On the basis of what? A lone reference to the umpteenth lavishly-funded straw-clutching special-pleading Islamofest created to explain why the casual observer is entirely wrong to conclude that the Muslim world is culturally moribund and entirely irrelevant to the planet's artistic, scientific and economic progress (with the single solitary exception of oil that they require foreigners to get out of the ground for them).

OK, so they hate Trump. They probably hate Steyn too. I get it. But why the constant need to denigrate Western achievements and Western civilization? Especially when the haters are some of the luckiest beneficiaries of Western civilization. Do these idiots really think they would have the same charmed lives if they had grown up under “the enduring legacy of Muslim civilization?

[oneequalworld]

Apologies and Jonathan Capeheart

Jonathan Capeheart at the Washington Post has used Rush Limbaugh’s non-apology as a stepping stone to discuss apologies in general, and how Limbaugh compares to others in recent news. He especially compares Limbaugh to former Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman.

Capehart rightfully has bone to pick with Limbaugh and essentially deems his words a non-apology. But what he thinks is necessary for an apology comes into play when he breaks down Mehlman’s own apology.

To Jonathan Capehart, it seems, the difference has to be in not just saying the words of the apology, but also acting on them.

Mehlman— as the 2004 reelection campaign manager for President George W. Bush — was a key part of a machine that denigrated the families and relationships of gay men and lesbians across the country. He was there when the GOP used the same-sex mar