Quote Originally Posted by Wales-Bales View Post
Jon, what do you think of Trump's new AG? His first action was issuing an executive order against human trafficking. Trump said he is directing the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security “to undertake all necessary and lawful actions to break the back of the criminal cartels that have spread across our nation and are destroying the blood of our youth.”
I'm not sure what to think about a lot of Trump nominees. Jeff Sessions seems to be a nasty piece of work (from his racist past to his alliance with far right Trump cheerleaders now) and most of his stances are repugnant to me:

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is a four-term junior senator from Alabama who, before being elected to that office in 1996, served as attorney general for the state. Sessions is a conservative Republican who is anti-abortion, anti-immigration, skeptical of climate change and hostile to same-sex marriage. On issues of criminal justice, Sessions has championed “law and order”, stern marijuana prohibition and the unregulated use of civil forfeiture by law enforcement.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...torney-general

However, he may end up doing some good things in office - if only to dampen the hostility. He has done a bit of re-inventing or re-packaging of his profile and record in the past few days and may not live up 100% to the fears of his opponents. Who knows?

A number of Trump appointments (Environment, Israeli ambassador...etc) frighten me. Others (State and Supreme Court) on first impression seem to be stronger and more independent of the policy group around Trump than I expected - and have already challenged Trump and his inner circle. Neil Gorsuch was pretty clear that he wasn't going to be tarred with the attack from Trump on the judiciary around the Islamic immigration and refugee ban. I don't know if that came as a surprise to POTUS or not or whether there are a few deliberate sweeteners in the Cabinet and other appointments mix.

I expect Trump and most of his appointees to be a disaster for the USA and the wider world. However I was taken with the Bernie Sanders reaction to the election outcome about challenging the bad stuff, but holding him to his promises where they could be good or positive. Some of what Trump claimed to believe was close to the Sanders position (even if it was never convincing from Trump) - on globalisation, big finance, jobs, and very likely 'human trafficking'. They were a world apart on almost everything else.