Welcome to the World of Pulitzer Prize Winning Political Cartoonist Michael P. Ramirez
Leading 05-24-17
After enduring 8 years of a "Lead From Behind" President, Trump is redlining the Obama Legacy
May is National Military Appreciation Month. Michael visited soldiers overseas in early May as part of his work with the USO, but he left us with some beautiful signed prints, limited to just 100. For anyone who loves our men and women of the military. Special pricing for the Military and families of our brave soldiers.
Manchester bombing shows Donald Trump is right
James Robbins, Opinion columnistPublished 3:05 p.m. ET May 23, 2017 | Updated 22 hours ago USA TODAY
In his speech in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, President Trump declared that the fight against terrorism is “a battle between good and evil.” As if on cue, the next day an Islamic State-affiliated terrorist proved the point.
Salman Abedi, 22, was identified by British authorities as the perpetrator of the shrapnel bombing at singer Ariana Grande’s concert in Manchester, where at least 22 were killed and scores injured, many of them children and teens. A self-identified ISIS jihadi praised the “lions of the Islamic State”and promised that this is “only the beginning.”
Abedi’s plan of attack sought to maximize human carnage, using a bomb rigged to tear apart bodies with nails and ball bearings. He targeted young people who would have no inkling of what he was up to as he mingled among them. And the security cordon around the venue provided him with an ideal target group of kids clustered on their way out after the show. The plan was insidious, and effective.
Speaking in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Trump decried the death and injury of “dozens of innocent people, beautiful young children, savagely murdered in this heinous attack upon humanity.” The president is striking the right tone during his trip to rally key allies to his vision of the war on terror. Rather than distancing the conflict from religious symbolism, he is embracing it, visiting Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican — holy centers for the three Abrahamic faiths. And he explicitly casts the struggle as one of good vs. evil, in which the source of the evil must be identified and driven out. He called for “honestly confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires.” And he wants Muslim religious leaders to make clear to prospective terrorists that “piety to evil will bring you no dignity,” and for those who choose violence that “your soul will be condemned.”
Trump’s invocation of eternal damnation contrasted with President Obama’s more moderate and apologetic tone in his speech in Cairo in 2009, when he did not mention “evil” at all. The previous administration sought to downplay moral factors in the terror war. Obama was more committed to the evidence-free belief that extremism was the result of global warming. Or consider then-State Department spokesperson Marie Harf’s hapless view that the solution to terrorism was a good government jobs program.
Trump’s view is more elemental: Terrorists are the “evil losers in life” who need to be driven “out of this earth.” There are no excuses, no apologies, just ruthless condemnation and concerted action. This is reflected in the president’s recent order to Defense Secretary James Mattis to “surround” and “annihilate ISIS.” What it lacks in nuance, it makes up in vigor.
The terrorists have always seen the war in these moralistic terms. Osama bin Laden’s 2002 "letter to the American people" was a comprehensive explanation of the jihadists’ view of the conflict and a harsh indictment of Western liberalism. For the Islamist radicals, any action they take is sanctified by the holy nature of the struggle. The recent ISIS laptop bomb plot (which Al Jazeera says Jordan uncovered, not Israel as The New York Times reported) and Nazi-esque poison experiments on prisoners show that the jihadists are diligently trying to find new and more diabolical ways to make our lives more difficult and dangerous. Read more
James Robbins, Opinion columnistPublished 3:05 p.m. ET May 23, 2017 | Updated 22 hours ago USA TODAY
In his speech in Saudi Arabia on Sunday, President Trump declared that the fight against terrorism is “a battle between good and evil.” As if on cue, the next day an Islamic State-affiliated terrorist proved the point.
Salman Abedi, 22, was identified by British authorities as the perpetrator of the shrapnel bombing at singer Ariana Grande’s concert in Manchester, where at least 22 were killed and scores injured, many of them children and teens. A self-identified ISIS jihadi praised the “lions of the Islamic State”and promised that this is “only the beginning.”
Abedi’s plan of attack sought to maximize human carnage, using a bomb rigged to tear apart bodies with nails and ball bearings. He targeted young people who would have no inkling of what he was up to as he mingled among them. And the security cordon around the venue provided him with an ideal target group of kids clustered on their way out after the show. The plan was insidious, and effective.
Speaking in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Trump decried the death and injury of “dozens of innocent people, beautiful young children, savagely murdered in this heinous attack upon humanity.” The president is striking the right tone during his trip to rally key allies to his vision of the war on terror. Rather than distancing the conflict from religious symbolism, he is embracing it, visiting Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican — holy centers for the three Abrahamic faiths. And he explicitly casts the struggle as one of good vs. evil, in which the source of the evil must be identified and driven out. He called for “honestly confronting the crisis of Islamist extremism and the Islamist terror groups it inspires.” And he wants Muslim religious leaders to make clear to prospective terrorists that “piety to evil will bring you no dignity,” and for those who choose violence that “your soul will be condemned.”
Trump’s invocation of eternal damnation contrasted with President Obama’s more moderate and apologetic tone in his speech in Cairo in 2009, when he did not mention “evil” at all. The previous administration sought to downplay moral factors in the terror war. Obama was more committed to the evidence-free belief that extremism was the result of global warming. Or consider then-State Department spokesperson Marie Harf’s hapless view that the solution to terrorism was a good government jobs program.
Trump’s view is more elemental: Terrorists are the “evil losers in life” who need to be driven “out of this earth.” There are no excuses, no apologies, just ruthless condemnation and concerted action. This is reflected in the president’s recent order to Defense Secretary James Mattis to “surround” and “annihilate ISIS.” What it lacks in nuance, it makes up in vigor.
The terrorists have always seen the war in these moralistic terms. Osama bin Laden’s 2002 "letter to the American people" was a comprehensive explanation of the jihadists’ view of the conflict and a harsh indictment of Western liberalism. For the Islamist radicals, any action they take is sanctified by the holy nature of the struggle. The recent ISIS laptop bomb plot (which Al Jazeera says Jordan uncovered, not Israel as The New York Times reported) and Nazi-esque poison experiments on prisoners show that the jihadists are diligently trying to find new and more diabolical ways to make our lives more difficult and dangerous. Read more
Trump Must Banish the Era of Leading From Behind
Nile Gardiner / @NileGardiner / May 19, 2017 THE DAILY SIGNAL
Nile Gardiner, a leading authority on transatlantic relations, is director of The Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Read his research.
Four months after taking office, President Donald Trump is taking his first foray onto the world stage. Over the course of the next seven days he will travel to Europe and the Middle East, visiting four countries as well as the Vatican: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Belgium, and Italy. Across the Atlantic, he will take part in a mini-summit in Brussels, as well as the G7 summit in Taormina, Italy.
The president’s overseas tour is an important opportunity to project U.S. leadership, stand shoulder to shoulder with key U.S. allies, and strengthen partnerships that have formed the bedrock of U.S. strategic interests for decades.
In Europe, there will be intense scrutiny of Trump’s participation in the NATO mini-summit, at a time of mounting Russian aggression. His message in Brussels must be loud and clear: The United States will resist any attempt by Moscow to threaten the sovereignty of the Baltic states and NATO member states in Eastern Europe.
At the same time, the president should reiterate his earlier calls for increased defense spending by all NATO members. NATO’s European partners can and must do more to invest in their own defense. It is unacceptable that just five NATO countries currently meet the agreed minimum spending commitment of 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.
Nile Gardiner / @NileGardiner / May 19, 2017 THE DAILY SIGNAL
Nile Gardiner, a leading authority on transatlantic relations, is director of The Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Read his research.
Four months after taking office, President Donald Trump is taking his first foray onto the world stage. Over the course of the next seven days he will travel to Europe and the Middle East, visiting four countries as well as the Vatican: Saudi Arabia, Israel, Belgium, and Italy. Across the Atlantic, he will take part in a mini-summit in Brussels, as well as the G7 summit in Taormina, Italy.
The president’s overseas tour is an important opportunity to project U.S. leadership, stand shoulder to shoulder with key U.S. allies, and strengthen partnerships that have formed the bedrock of U.S. strategic interests for decades.
In Europe, there will be intense scrutiny of Trump’s participation in the NATO mini-summit, at a time of mounting Russian aggression. His message in Brussels must be loud and clear: The United States will resist any attempt by Moscow to threaten the sovereignty of the Baltic states and NATO member states in Eastern Europe.
At the same time, the president should reiterate his earlier calls for increased defense spending by all NATO members. NATO’s European partners can and must do more to invest in their own defense. It is unacceptable that just five NATO countries currently meet the agreed minimum spending commitment of 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.