Donald Trump considers Ted Cruz for U.S. attorney general: report

[Independent voter]

There's a lot of fake news about who Trump is considering to fill his cabinet. It's best to call this a rumor.

And it might be one of those political things where they know Cruz will turn it down but they offer it anyway as a way of mending fences or something.






http://www.nydailynews.com/news/poli...icle-1.2874877

President-elect Donald Trump is eyeing Ted Cruz as the next U.S. attorney general, a person familiar with the matter has revealed.

The 45-year-old Texas senator met with Trump at his namesake tower in midtown Manhattan Tuesday evening, and declined to comment when reporters asked after the meeting if he was under consideration for a cabinet position.

But an unnamed source told Bloomberg Politics later in the evening that Trump's transition team had pitched the attorney general post to Cruz during the meeting.

The Daily News could not independently confirm the report, and Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier declined to back up the claims.

Trump, Pence huddle to narrow list of cabinet appointees

"Cruz is focused on serving Texans in the Senate," Frazier said in a statement. "He was there today to offer help in promoting the conservative policies that were campaigned on and that he's long fought for."
MARCH 3, 2016 FILE PHOTO
Trump repeatedly referred to Cruz as "Lyin' Ted" throughout the contentious Republican primaries. (Paul Sancya/AP)

The potential job offer might come as a surprise to some, as Trump repeatedly slandered Cruz as "Lyin' Ted" throughout the contentious Republican primaries. Cruz, who unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination, in turn refused to endorse Trump during his Republican National Convention speech in July.

Trump took to Twitter after the Tuesday evening meeting to boast about being the only one with knowledge about who will make it onto his administration.

"Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions," he tweeted. "I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!"

Donald Trump starts assembling cabinet, with Chris Christie out

Trump was purportedly mulling ex-Mayor Rudy Guiliani for attorney general, but reports that emerged Monday suggested Giuliani was being considered as secretary of state instead.

[Bajaber]

I don't know how I feel about Ted or even Rudy.

[Wells]

I don't know how I feel about Ted or even Rudy.

Guiliani has an absolutely atrocious record on civil rights. Dude straight up incited a riot back in the day too.

Cruz has not been proven not to be the Zodiac Killer.

[Skroe]

My brother is currently an Assistant District Attorney in New York City (yes, one of those lawyer people on Law and Order). He was planning on making a jump to the Feds in the next year to to two years.

I say 'was' because since Trump's election, he's decided that he refuses to work for the Federal government under Trump, and making Ted Cruz Attorney General would just be more of that. For what it's worth, he described the entire DA's office as "in mourning" after Election day.

Trumpkins: this is what brain drain looks like. Good lawyers, which the government needs, will not in good conscience serve. This seems to be a recurring trend.

[Cybran]

Trumpkins: this is what brain drain looks like. Good lawyers, which the government needs, will not in good conscience serve. This seems to be a recurring trend.

That is fine. Someone has to pick strawberries after the illegals get deported.

[Garnier Fructis]

That is fine. Someone has to pick strawberries after the illegals get deported.

You'll be waiting a very long time. Saying he'll do something and actually being able to do it are very different things.

[derpkitteh]

I say 'was' because since Trump's election, he's decided that he refuses to work for the Federal government under Trump,

what a self-righteous prick, rofl. he should pull himself out of his ass and get over it.

maybe trump should pick that guy that was on the clinton case, trey gowdy. he'd probably be an ok guy for the position.

either him or guiliani. i have to say, i don't agree with guiliani on a lot of things. but i have to like the guy personally, he's got this likeable aura to him. for some reason, he also reminds me of my great aunt that passed away. they got this same vibe. idk if it's both of them being italians or what.

[Garnier Fructis]

what a self-righteous prick, rofl. he should pull himself out of his ass and get over it.

Not wanting to work for someone you consider an idiot is being a self-righteous prick?

[derpkitteh]

Not wanting to work for someone you consider an idiot is being a self-righteous prick?

if you've ever read anything from skroe, his brother is probably the same kind of self-righteous, indignant asshole with this fucking view of government like it's a goddamned religious experience.

they both need to get over their selves and their self-righteous crap of making government a religion. the holy sanctity of the government never existed and never will.

[Cariboulou]

Not wanting to work for someone you consider an idiot is being a self-righteous prick?

Only thing is, he's not working directly for the president so your point is lost.

[Skroe]

Only thing is, he's not working directly for the president so your point is lost.

No. And this is why. Specifically applicable to lawyers.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...istration.html

But let’s suppose the incoming administration has no inclination toward what I called the “nightmare scenario” of crushing the opposition. Let’s suppose the nightmare scenario is just that: the paranoia of Trump opponents who got the shock of their political lives last Tuesday. Then the argument for service becomes compelling.

But one-off nightmare issues might still crop up. Rounding up millions of Mexicans is an obvious example. From the point of view of government lawyers, the dragnet would be packed with cutting-edge legal issues, litigations, conference calls, and high-level excitement. It would also be filled with opportunities to tell yourself that you are fighting for the lesser evil, down there in the weeds of the Fourth Amendment and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement regulations.

Or honoring the campaign pledge to bring back torture. So much solid law to overcome! And so many opportunities to fight for the lesser evil! No waterboarding, only sleep deprivation and stress positions. Not the military, only the CIA. Not all captives, only captives about whom there is evidence they might know something. And no mere probable cause that they know something, but clear and convincing evidence. (Or should it be beyond a reasonable doubt?) A good day’s work fighting the good fight for the lesser evil.

But what if involvement in any of these things makes you sick, as it should? How far can you compromise your moral principles? Here, I will take a cue from another philosopher, Avishai Margalit, in his powerful book On Compromise and Rotten Compromises. Margalit is not a moral purist, and he does think that lesser-evil arguments are sometimes genuine justifications. Margalit’s fundamental argument is that there is a difference between bad compromises and rotten compromises. Bad compromises: yes, if they are the only way to do good or mitigate harm. Rotten compromises—never.

And what is a rotten compromise? It is a compromise where you participate in assaults on fundamental human dignity. That’s a vague and porous standard, but if you are a lawyer with a conscience, you know it when you see it—provided you don’t loophole-lawyer your own conscience. Mass dragnets and deportations, torture and degrading treatment, targeting policies that accept excessive civilian casualties or ignore war crimes, deliberate failure to repress anti-Muslim hate crimes: All of these are assaults on human dignity, and compromising your principles on them is a rotten compromise. When it comes to rotten compromises of your principles, exit takes precedence over voice and loyalty. Exit doesn’t necessarily mean resigning, although it may. It certainly means refusing to participate.

Trump's policies are immoral and it would be their job to execute them. Which is why they won't put themselves in that position.

- - - Updated - - -

what a self-righteous prick, rofl. he should pull himself out of his ass and get over it.

They're called principles. Intellectual people have them.

[tikcol]

Great choice, I can't believe he didn't think of this before

- - - Updated - - -

No. And this is why. Specifically applicable to lawyers.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...istration.html



Trump's policies are immoral and it would be their job to execute them. Which is why they won't put themselves in that position.

- - - Updated - - -


They're called principles. Intellectual people have them.

Immoral? Please. Immoral..

Mind telling me who decided they're immoral?

Was it *** or was it yourself?

[derpkitteh]

They're called principles. Intellectual people have them.

intellectuals don't go on ass-blasted temper tantrums because their holy god government is proven to not be the sacred cult you believed.

there's only a few core principles that should be considered anyway, and conservatives in general tend to lack those in the first place.

[Skroe]

Great choice, I can't believe he didn't think of this before

- - - Updated - - -



Immoral? Please. Immoral..

Mind telling me who decided they're immoral?

Was it *** or was it yourself?

Well to start with a "Muslim registry" or (an any race/religion-registry) is deeply immoral, as are imposing a religious test for immigrants.

Or bringing back torture in interogations. Despite excellent empirical evidence from experienced interrogators that it simply does not work.

Or how about rounding up and deporting millions of people (even 3 million). You do realize that doing so would be on the scale of the largest refugee crisises in the world today, correct? For comparison's sake 4.8 million people have fled Syria to surrounding countries... not much of a greater number. And Trump would be engineering such mass relocation artificially.

These are all, text book, the kind of things that we've been through and then a decade or a generation later, we're societally all ashamed of. The Trumpkins know exactly where this leads... and they want to keep walking anyway? You guys fall asleep in your history class? We know _exactly_ how this ends. With National Shame. Every time.

Take torture for example - waterboarding. Even IF it works (it doesn't, but lets say it does), that is what you want the American ideal to be associated with? Inflicting suffering... inflicting pain, upon those in our mercy and custody? That is what you want the real legacy of the Founders to be? A nation, 240 years removed whose security services impart the kind of pain that the founder's contemporaries experienced at the hand of their British masters? Where is the honor in that?

What ever happened to being 'better' than that? We dishonor our forebearers and disgrace ourselves when we act in a way that is not in keeping with our highest principles... not with our darkest desires.

We should not torture, even if terrorists "have it coming" because doing so little by little erodes what makes us better than China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and empires of the past at an ideological level. We would in fact, not be doing things better. We would be the same old horror hidden under a veneer of democracy. Sometimes the ends do justify the means, but not when the might of the state is so recklessly let loose against the individual... no matter who that individual is. We must do better than that.

In my brother's example, he is the most noble and honorable person I know. He interned at a major New York City law firm. He went to a great law school and got excellent grades. He could easily be making several hundred thousand dollars a year at a private firm. But he choose to become a prosecutor, making ~$65k, to make the world a better place little by little, in one of the hardest communities for law enforcement in the country. He wants to make a difference.

Trump is a moral affront to him. He'll have no part in it, because the things I described are the kinds of things he'd be expected to implement should Trump "succeed". Integrity and honor may not matter to the rabble. But to people with a moral center like my brother, who has no malice in his heart for anyone and is a far better person than I, they will not serve.

[derpkitteh]

Immoral? Please. Immoral..

Mind telling me who decided they're immoral?

Was it *** or was it yourself?

conservatives always pick and choose what is and isn't moral. that's their whole ideology.

to be a conservative in the first place is to lack basic human empathy, so it's always funny to watch them call things immoral.

infracted - trolling

[Cybran]

Take torture for example - waterboarding. Even IF it works (it doesn't, but lets say it does), that is what you want the American ideal to be associated with? Inflicting suffering... inflicting pain, upon those in our mercy and custody? That is what you want the real legacy of the Founders to be? A nation, 240 years removed whose security services impart the kind of pain that the founder's contemporaries experienced at the hand of their British masters? Where is the honor in that?

What ever happened to being 'better' than that? We dishonor our forebearers and disgrace ourselves when we act in a way that is not in keeping with our highest principles... not with our darkest desires.

We should not torture, even if terrorists "have it coming" because doing so little by little erodes what makes us better than China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and empires of the past at an ideological level. We would in fact, not be doing things better. We would be the same old horror hidden under a veneer of democracy.

http://thevietnamwar.info/the-contro...oenix-program/

Torture
The forms of torture used to extract information during interrogation at PICs included rape, gang rape, rape using snakes, eels and other hard objects, rape followed by murder. Other torture techniques included “the airplane”, “the water treatment”. Sometimes the suspects were suspended upside down and then beaten harshly by rubber hoses, nightsticks and whips.

Some reports revealed that the interrogation process also featured the use of electric shocks (“the Bell Telephone Hour”) which was rendered by attaching military field telephone wires to the genitals and other sensitive organs of the body. In some cases, the suspects were subjected to police dog attacks as well as having dowels forced into their ear canals and the tapping through brain until the victim died.

Most of the individuals who went through these tortures die during the interrogation. There are a few who managed to survive, but often were killed later anyway. These tortures were carried out by South Vietnamese officers while CIA and other special forces supervised the whole act behind the scenes.

With the passage of time, the possibility of being considered an informant for the Viet Cong became very frightening for the general population. No one wanted to be imprisoned where they may face torture and death.

Too late for that, hombre. You can drop the righteous indignation schtick.

[Skroe]

conservatives always pick and choose what is and isn't moral. that's their whole ideology.

to be a conservative in the first place is to lack basic human empathy, so it's always funny to watch them call things immoral.

My brother is not a conservative. Not remotely. He's liberal on many things, but it's not that clear cut as there are some things he's more to the center on. He's really not a political person in general and doesn't think of it in those terms for the most part.

[Atrea]

conservatives always pick and choose what is and isn't moral. that's their whole ideology.

to be a conservative in the first place is to lack basic human empathy, so it's always funny to watch them call things immoral.

I wouldn't say they pick and choose, per se.

Their mantra is, "whatever I do is okay, whatever anyone else does is subject to my (often contradictory) approval."
This is different from the liberal mantra of, "whatever you do is wrong, me pointing it out to you makes me better than you".

The former is less obnoxious, sure - but when you elect lawmakers with that sort of thinking, then there's where shit starts to get crazy.
Meanwhile, the latter simply remains obnoxious regardless of who is saying it.

I'll take obnoxious over batshit crazy any day though.

[Skroe]

http://thevietnamwar.info/the-contro...oenix-program/


Too late for that, hombre. You can drop the righteous indignation schtick.

Hence the whole national shame thing. We must be better than we have been in the past.

Don't you have a crate factory or something to get to by the way?

[Flarelaine]

Hence the whole national shame thing. We must be better than we have been in the past.

Don't you have a crate factory or something to get to by the way?

He may have gotten promoted. They just elected a pro-Russian president.