You can’t fix yesterday
Dear President-Elect Trump:
In a few days, you will become the most powerful human on the planet, the President of the United States of America, the Commander in Chief of our Armed Forces and the uncontested leader of the free world. Whether I like it or not, just as your predecessor was, you will be my President. I do not believe I have to remind you of the world chaos resulting from the recent years’ lack of American leadership. That may sound biased coming from the mouth of an American, but facts speak for themselves. You are charged with the safety of Americans – all of us even the stupid ones – not only at home, but around the world. There is an old military adage that says an army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep. Be the lion you promised to be.
You were bold and bombastic in your challenge to the status quo or rather quid pro quo that exists between America’s corporate world and Washington’s political establishment. I admit my concerns as through your life you have been quite the successful player in that world. The real world exists outside that bubble. The real world elected you. Your challenges to the media are certainly long past due, but kicked dogs do bark the loudest and some bite but, do not let lies or fake news as they call it now go unchallenged.
You, “the” deal maker, have promised us big league or is it bigly? Not sure if anyone has figured that out yet. You promised to make us great again. We are already great but sorely lacking America centered leadership. That is why ideology prevalent in our own land including inside our Whitehouse believe we need to be taken down a peg or two – that we need, on a world scale, to level the socialist playing field. It is an expression used ad nauseum during the past decade. We do not need to level a doggoned thing. You cannot build prosperity by bringing everyone down. Instead, we need to pull everyone up. Everyone is potential winner waiting for arrival of good leadership. General George Patton correctly assessed “Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. … The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.” No one remembers who lost the Super Bowl. So do not worry Mr. President. If you deliver as promised, Americans will never tire of winning and our friends around the world will never tire of it either.
You put terrorism, defense, immigration and border security, trade, medical care, education, the courts, energy, tax reform, jobs and economy onto your plate along with some things I probably failed to mention. Most assuredly all of that is broken, but that is a big plate brother. A promise to make America great again by fixing those issues is what got you elected. Those are your deliverables, your personal contract with Americans. You have to deliver big or bigly or big league. Just remember what General Patton said, Americans will not tolerate a loser. Ask the Democrats.
You are unquestionably a successful man albeit one who badly needs a haircut. I am sure you faced great challenges before, but in none of them were you solely responsible for the safety and security of a nation. On January 20, 2017 when you walk into the Oval Office as “the man”, I am certain the enormity of that will hit you like a ton of steel. I am also quite sure that you do not need any business or leadership tips from me, but that never stopped me before.
You can’t fix something that happened hundreds of years ago, a few years ago, or even a few days ago. What happened is written into the books. You cannot plead ignorance of it or pretend it did not happen, but you cannot fix it. You can’t fix yesterday any more than you can predict tomorrow or ten minutes from now for that matter. Do not refight yesterday’s battles. That is where some would like to keep you focused. They are losers and hope to make you one also. So leave them behind and do not spend valuable time focused on the past. Focus on getting it right today and going forward every day. Or in language you may prefer. Win. Start fresh. Aim to win every day. Do that and America wins every day and just maybe we will get to see again what winning and greatness look like.
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. – James 4:13-14
Mr. President, you are but a mist. Do not dawdle.
© 2017 J. D. Pendry
Category: Politics
Well said, JD.
His forward looking attention is just what appeals to so many of us. That is what made him so successful in business. Sure, he had failures. Haven’t we all? Trump’s ability to focus down the road instead of lamenting about what might have been is exactly what we need.
Yes. We still like winning.
It is good to remember that all of us are “but a mist” – and our troubles and concerns are but swirls in the mist.
There was a couplet that used to be displayed in kitchens when I was a youngster that is still true today:
Only one life, will soon be passed.
Only what’s done for Christ will last.
^^THIS^^
Under Obama 10 governorships, 11 Senate Seats, and 70 House seats became Republican. Trump won a small victory percentage wise to become president. There is a lesson in those first two sentences, you touch on this with your words JD, here’s hoping the Republicans understand the lesson as well as you do.
I remain to be convinced that they will understand and act accordingly.
Put the past behind? Yes. There is no other solution, but to let go of it and move on.
Good article, JD.
I’m not at all sure what fixing yesterday means, but that’s okay. I can live w/o knowing. As for sage advice for Trump, here’s mine: If you can’t do what’s right, at least don’t get caught.
I wasn’t particularly thrilled about Trump from the getgo, as some may or may not recall. But so far he seems to be mostly moving in the right direction. My hopes remain tempered with caution, but I’m beginning to think I might have been wrong. We shall see.
However, I was, am, and will remain ecstatic that Hillary Clinton lost.
So we can’t blame Obama for eight years like the lefties blame Bush? Sounds right to me, time to take the high road.
Republicans just destroyed the office that provides ethics oversight to Congress.
So much for draining the swamp.
Corrupt shitbags.
Yeah, the Ethics Committee has been so effective the past 8 years.
Oh, like “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
But that is so Juvenal.
And who was it that has had “the phone and the pen” to enact EO after EO because “I won”?
Who didn’t go after the AG for his “Fast and Furious” op that got at least one LEO killed and probably more?
Who politicized the IRS to go after conservative groups? Covered up for a Sec of State that left four men to die in Libya? Shoved a healthcare plan down the throats of working Americans while saying “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”? Made a mess out of the foreign affairs of this country to the point that we are Russia and China’s bytch?
Here’s a reminder Commissar – it’s the JEF… The Lightworker… that man that has brought about so much “racial healing” over the last 8 years.
Lars confirms his hypocrisy. Again. No surprises there.
I won’t defend the action. After all, the critters are scoundrels. I will, however, point out that “draining the swamp” remark was made by two people recently. It was made by Trump in October, during his campaign, and he has nothing whatsoever to do with this action. The second recent reference to it was made by none other than Nancy Pelosi, who is being widely quoted now. She was,. after all, the paragon of virtue, the ethics queen, was she not? Sure she was, if you overlook her abuse of the speaker privilege to use military a/c and, of course, the insider trading scandal involving her and her husband. Or how about that ethically sound stance of ‘we’ll learn what’s in the bill after we pass it.’ So, Commissar, why did you invoke that line about draining the swamp? Which one were you referencing, Trump, who had nothing to do with this or Botox Bitch Pelosi?
Do not confuse the DNC created witch hunting OCE with a “non-partisan” ethics oversight effort in the House.
Weird how DNC dominated efforts are always nonpartisan but anything that is actually nonpartisan is “conservative” or “fringe” or “partisan”.
Nice try, but no dice. We are onto your deceptions and prevarications.
Really! The “corrupt shitbags” are in one of the parties you and your ilk identify with, proglodyte. Here’s a hint, it starts with a “D” and ends with “rat.”
And our daily dose of bovine flatulence arrives on schedule. Ever feel guilty about your verbal contributions to global warming, Dickless?
Hey, stop it!!! Will you???
You’re confusing the Piuperdink!! He does not want facts and ‘who dunnits’ thrown at him! What’s with you guys that you don’t understand that?
How about in 2013, shutting down national highways because drivers could get views of national monuments from them?
Yeah, if you’re going to talk about doing stoopid thing srepeatedly, that bony-assed twit in an overpriced suit is still trying to screw the taxpayers (including those who voted for him) so that everything will be blamed on Trump.
After all, if you’re going to leave behind a ‘legacy’, make sure that your successor gets blamed for it if it pisses people off.
Certainly, someone with a university background as you, as well as someone who’s a commissioned officer, would understand the idea of getting the facts straight before talking about a specific topic. You claim that the Republicans destroyed that office. However, a Google search for the topic shows that they were considering weakening/adjusting that office. Other links show that the Republicans wanted to gut that office.
Destroying that office, as indicated in your quote above, implies that it was eliminated. It wasn’t. Also, keep in mind that it was Donald Trump that initially talked about draining the swamp, not the Republicans who you accuse of “destroying” that office.
Also, get this. Donald Trump slammed them for considering that action, reminding them that their focus should be elsewhere. Actions being taken against that office center on the fact that it is unfair. Donald Trump acknowledges that, but reminds them of their priorities.
What is corrupt is attempting to twist this around to communicate something else. We, in PSYOP, identify that as propaganda.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-03/house-gop-votes-to-strip-ethics-office-of-independent-status
thebesig – he’s hoping to hook up with trigglypuff, that’s probably the reason he talks out of his rectal sphincter so often.
They do share a lot in common, when it comes to “reasoning” and demeanor, don’t they?
You have to remember that crypto-commies/SJW’s love propaganda and PSYOPs are part of their bag of tricks.
There’s no “s” at the end of “PSYOP”.
Soldiers that went to PSYOP reclass with me got smoked when they said, “PSYOPS”, as PSYOP puts together the first three letters of “psychological” and the first two letters of “Operations” into a single “PSYOP”.
Both sides use PSYOP, when they advance an argument, attempt to convince, etc.
We make a distinction, identifying our efforts as PSYOP… Information based on the facts in proper context… As opposed to propaganda, taking the facts out of context, twisting information, distorting things, etc.
The latter is what Major Commissar, USAR, and the others love to do here and elsewhere.
and please, cancel the damn Twitter account and communicate like an adult – thinking before just broadcasting whatever thought comes to mind. We’ll all be better off for it.
FWIW – Trump used his Twitter account to scuttle that proposed independent Ethics Committee reorg.
I’m not twitter-headed, but Trump does seem to have a strategy of bypassing the mediots and going straight to the people using the platform. So far – it works.
And I suspect he is generally intentional in his actions – on and off Twitter.
“Communicate like an adult” – you mean let yourself get set up by a media that hates you to twist what you said? I doubt he will do that.
actually, I was thinking more along the line of “thinking before you send out a tweet instead of after.” Let’s just say Twitter has been a mixed blessing for him, in my opinion. I’m not necessarily sure his ‘unfiltered’ tweets over the last year have been as productive as other commenters here – seems like they have instead provided fodder for the detractors instead. He doesn’t need to be helping his detractors. But, I’m not a believer – I voted against Hillary, not for Trump.
I’m impressed that they listened to him. Trump came out and said scuttling the committee was stupid, so they canned the idea.
Reckon they’re figuring out who’s the boss??
“and please, cancel the damn Twitter account and communicate like an adult”
Sure, right after Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, et al do.
So it is super cool for the liberal elite to “tweet” but not for Trump?
“thinking before just broadcasting whatever thought comes to mind. We’ll all be better off for it.”
I guess you would rather he spew talking points?
Status Quo is a cocksucker.
The MSM is already butt hurt that Trump doesn’t allow them to follow him around and use them as the primary source for getting his message out. If he’s using Twitter to bypass them and get his message out, then good on him.
At least he’s not like the JEF and posting photos of himself being all ghettofabulous and talking about himself…
I’ve decided that there is a method to this madness of using Twitter.
He knows that all he is ever going to get passed on through the media is sound bites, which are about the same length as Twitter comments.
He also knows that the media has been viciously wrong in their coverage of actual, longer statements he has made, such as in his press conferences, speeches, and rallies.
By taking to Twitter, he controls the sound bites. The press almost has to get the quotes verbatim. Also, when the New York Times writes twenty column inches of BS about a single tweet, even a Democratic newspaper reader or editor can spot the quote.
Right now, I’m in support of anything that pisses Commissar and his fellow commies off. Warm up the train engines. Pack your bags Lars. You know what’s coming., right? Get out while you can!
The Piuperdink likes to use trigger words like ‘partisan’ and ‘corrupt’, but it’s all part of his meme, you see.
Isn’t it about time he got an actual job and kept himself busy? If he did that, he wouldn’t have time to annoy people here. He’d be too busy annoying them elsewhere.
He’s trying to hook up with the SJW leader on the East Coast, Trigglypuff… plus Commissar want us to pay for his lifestyle (tofu grape nuts, triple soy decaf chai tea with whip, shopping at the local Hammer and Sickle Co-Op, etc.).
He who shall not be named does have a real job. We talked about it a couple of weeks ago.
He’s the night shift specimen cup monitor at the Berkley branch *Cum-N-Go* sperm bank. Although there is some speculation that he still has that job after being caught drinking from the cups.
And the topper is (if he still has a job) his minimum wage pay just went up to $15.00 an hour as of the first of the year, so you know he’s just rolling in the dough.
Oops, pen and ink change.
Second paragraph, last line, delete *from the cups*.
Insert *on the job*.
Rumor has it that he also has a side-gig sucking cock behind dumpsters in the “hood” at Berkeley.
Don’t forget the Free Cheese supplemental income. He saw a rusty grenade, once.
YEAH, but rumor has it he already got in trouble there for drinking while on the job.
He knows people, got off with a slap on the ass.
Minimum wage $15/hr? Yeah, but he only works one hour per week.
That’s the problem with overdoing it on that whole minimum wage thingy.
So y’all let the libiot derail yet another topic? What exactly did that accomplish?
Well said, JD.
I enjoy reminding him of his actual worth to society. It’s good for my blood pressure.
Oh please, leave poor red on the head, like the dick on a dog alone, can’t you understand how he is suffering with Cankles defeat? Let him go in his corner with his hot cocoa and pet his puppy!
And please, fuck off cocksucker~!
I often see posters and commenters here and on other web sites echoing the meme, ‘I held my nose while voting for Trump’, or some variation of this meme. I see this as a form of virtue signaling, but I have to ask the question: to whom is the poster/commenter virtue signaling? He/she is not impressing nor influencing me – the meme just annoys me as being childish. If you voted for Trump, you made that decision so live with it. If you didn’t vote for Trump, suck it up buttercup.
To them: virtue signaling.
To us: BS flag signaling.
One of the arguments put forward, here and elsewhere, was that we shouldn’t vote for someone like Gary Johnson in order to prevent Hillary from being elected. Some of us accepted that because of what we feared Hillary would do, not because we thought that Donald Trump was a particularly good candidate. I like how he has been driving lefties nuts over the last few months, but I don’t like how he smeared men I admire like Ted Cruz. If you think that’s “virtue signaling” I don’t know what to tell you. I also don’t see why I should pretend that any of this isn’t so.
65W58:
“… I don’t like how he smeared men I admire like Ted Cruz…”. I too admire Cruz and would have voted for him. However, politics and reality are brutal.
I did not care to be in combat, but I did not hesitate to shoot. I’ve lived with those decisions. There is no pretense in thinking I was virtuous for those decisions. I see virtue signaling (strong on the left)as having crept into our culture and many do not even realize they are doing it. Look around – how many folks do you see/know who are truly virtuous? I have a brother who is a priest, and even he has his faults.
Study Trump’s how-to-win tactics. It took me a bit of study to come around to him, but his actions speak louder than words. His electioneering tactics were brilliant – some times brutal, yet more frequently with finesse (though rarely reported). It is no different than being in combat, e.g. shoot ’em or outflank and capture. It is easy to compare Trump’s ‘Art of the Deal’ with Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’.
I’ll take a leader any day who is willing to let the other guy die for his country, whether he accomplishes this via finesse or judiciously applied brutality (hopefully unnecessary). Trump has the potential to make it a really interesting 4-8 years.
Yeah I’ve been in combat too. The left have been the ones prosecuting “the culture wars” (and as one commentator put it “going around and shooting the survivors after they won”), to a certain extent Trump is a reflection of that, maybe that’s what we need, but I think we had other alternatives in the primaries. Some months ago I posted a link to this article that I think is still relevant which fleshed out some of my thoughts http://www.claremont.org/crb/basicpage/after-the-republic/
Ted Cruz is a real Constitutionalist and our best chance to restore our Constitutional order, maybe Trump will be better than I expect-we’ll see-but he did smear Cruz and I won’t just overlook that.
One more thing. Regarding “virtue signaling” the most odious aspect of that is that those who practice it seem to think that that is all there is to virtue. Making a show of how virtuous you are is a pretty good sign that you are in fact not virtuous-it being it’s own reward etc.
68W58: +1
Semper Fi if you were Navy/Marine, otherwise pfffttt! : )
(Never miss a chance to get a cheap shot in)
No-we had to stay for a whole year.
😀
I won’t presume to know who will be nominated to the Supreme Court but, man, Trump could do a helluva lot worse than Ted Cruz. If Druz doesn’t make it for the Scalia seat, there will be at least one more when Ginzburg dies or moves to New Zealand. As for their fellow travelers, I wish none fatal harm, but comatose or catatonic I’m good with.
I too like Cruz, but I don’t think he’d accept a Supreme Court nomination. He’s still young and wants a couple more shots at being Prez….
Oh, take a chill pill, aGrimmy-poo! Some people just say things to say them, nothing else. We have a secret ballot, don’t we? What do you care about how someone voted, when it’s really more important that they actually DID go and vote?
Ex-PH2: Hey, I’m insulted; it’s “aGrimmy Poo-Poo Head”. I take that title seriously. Earned as a corpsman collecting stool samples. When I came back from Nam, I decided to study what my service oath meant (hmmm, a day late and a dollar short as usual). Studying the Constitution et al, I recognized even then that both R’s and D’s were screwing over the Constitution, so I went Independent. I don’t care how any one person votes. I just hope they would do the diligence I do in selecting a candidate; I am frequently disappointed – far too much herd mentality out there. For me, there is never a perfect candidate and it is always a choice of the lesser of two weevils. Not that it makes a difference in the grand scheme of things, but I make a choice and live with it, win or lose. My point in the post concerning virtue signaling has become a pet peeve of mine and a concern that it is creeping into the conservative world. I am surrounded by liberals in their Priuses who want to save the world via the latest cause de jour. None can think of the consequences of their virtuous cause any further than their high-in-the-air noses. Virtue signaling is insidious – creeping in slowly like slime on a window frame. It is destructive. We can strive to be virtuous, but the minute one signals one’s virtue, it is lost to pridefulness. The same thing is true of honor. I would describe you, me, and the better percentage of TAH folks as striving to be honorable, but would each of us describe our own person as truly honorable? Probably not (if we are honest) for we all have failed occasionally in that regard. In short, I am getting really tired of so many with their noses in the air. Cripes, let’s just get drunk and make fools of ourselves like we used to do, go to confession to erase our sins, and then rinse/repeat. That way there is no reason to signal one’s virtue. On the practical side, why… Read more »
I see your point and raise it with this: virtue signaling is simply another form of attention whoring. ‘Hey! Look At MEEEE! See what I did!!!’ It is equivalent to the 3-year-old’s ‘Mommy, look what I did!’, after getting into the cabinet under the sink and spilling dish detergent all over the kitchen floor. And who gets to clean up that mess? Well, no – clean up your own mess and stop preaching crap at me because TRUMP! offends you, and I just do not care. This ‘virtue signaling’ is more and more obvious now in the SJW crowd at the 18 to 28 year level. It’s obnoxious, it smacks of the toddler’s need to have Mommy inspect the mess they made, and it also says they don’t understand the boundaries of good manners and common decency. Their so-called ‘inclusiveness’ is really ‘exclusion’ and ‘shunning’. Therefore, when someone says ‘I don’t like So-and-so but I voted for him because the other choice was worse’, you do have to ask why it is so VERY important to let all the rest of us know about it. Personally, I only cared that the opposition did not win. But she’d have been nearly powerless, fettered by a GOPer Congress and plagued by bad health. My guess was that she’d have been gone from that office within 18 months, regardless. Ergo, when I see someone as ignorant and self-serving as the Piuperdink using words like ‘corrupt’ about a businessman, I can only attribute that to his lazy-assed approach to life, and the blatantly obvious part that says he’s never done anything on his own, never created anything, never invented anything or produced anything new. That holds true for the entire crowd of birdbrained overgrown children that he belongs to: make bad choices and someone will clean up your mess for you. And if something doesn’t work because you didn’t read the instructions, it’s someone else’s fault. The large majority of those people like the Piuperdink have never come up with an original idea. I have yet to see ANY of them do anything that… Read more »
OK. So how is what you just said not a form of the same sort of virtue signaling?
What? Saying that I don’t care? That isn’t virtue signaling. Maybe it was somewhat long-winded, but so what? Others did the same thing.
If we could fix yesterday, what would we do today?
Are you trying to make my brain blow up? What if yesterday wasn’t broken? Then what? We would have to break something today in order to have something to fix tomorrow.
Never break today what you break tomorrow….
“CAN” break tomorrow dammit!
If we fix yesterday, can we fix yesterday, tomorrow?
Only on Tuesdays, during a full moon.
What if Tuesday falls on an odd number?
Even odds that it would be disallowed upon appeal.
I will gladly pay you Tuesday, for a Hamburger Today.
– Wimpy, sidekick to Popeye and classic Democrat financial strategist.