Competence

Today was super busy at work, but I got through alright I suppose, I had an extremely confusing interaction that I want to share with you.

One of my customers wanted a Pepsi, sometimes they are unclear if they mean they want a bottle of Pepsi or a fountain soda so I asked for clarification, as I do dozens of times a day, so far nothing out of the ordinary, she responds by saying she wants a fountain drink and then gestures to the cups we have on the counter for that purpose, they are plastic soda cups like I am sure you have all seen everywhere and they have the Pepsi logo on them, and she says:

"I like those cups, it makes me feel like I am drinking from a Pepsi cup."

She took a cup and walked off, which is good because I did not know how to respond, I mean, yes? It is exactly like that because that is what it is? There was no hint of humor from her, or anything to indicate she knew how odd that was.

I wasn't mad, I was and am just puzzled.

Anyway shitty tax stuff kept happening today, but I actually want to talk about something else, a third judicial nominee has withdrawn his name after having evidence come to light about being extremely incompetent in all regards, this one at least doesn't have a history of supporting the KKK online, that we know of, so I guess they might be getting better.

The President has an excuse of course, it isn't his fault and he trusts the system to weed the bad ones out, his exact words are “When some of my guys send someone who is not qualified, you do your job.”, this referring to the members of the Judiciary committee.  On the face of it, this statement isn't bad, you could read it as that he trusts the systems in place to prevent errors, but the that ignores that these are his fucking picks.

There are two ways this could have gone, the first is he or his team vetted the guy and decided that despite his extreme lack of qualifications he would, for some reason, make a good judge. I find this hard to believe if anyone remotely competent was involved in the vetting process, which I admit may not have been the case. The second is that he or his team just acted on outside recommendations and didn't vet the nominee at all.

So was it incompetence, or was it ignorance? Either way it should be unacceptable coming from the highest levels of power in the country, they shouldn't be surprised by the internet histories of their nominees, or by their lack of knowledge and experience in the fields they are going to be in charge of.

There is a third option which of course is the likely culprit, that of corruption. He views the presidency as yet another business enterprise, and he has always viewed his businesses as a way to reward or punish those who help/hinder him, he probably doesn't care about these picks, they are given to him and described as "someone who helped us earlier this year" and he just signs off, because that is what you do with your allies, you give them or one of their friends a position with a reasonable amount of power and prestige but also not one that gives them a ton of spotlight, then you mark off the favor in your mental checklist and move on to the next thing.

He truly doesn't care if anyone competent is in these positions, for him the wealth of open slots simply represent a wealth of favors he has available to repay or bribe people.

Of course, they do matter, the positions set legal precedent and directly affect the lives of literally millions, and the presidency is not a CEO position, so every now and again the judiciary committee has to make an effort to look like they have some sort of interest in doing their jobs properly and has to vote down a nominee who is particularly toxic, although they never actually vote, they just say they will and the nominee withdraws his name.

Anyway, this has been another chapter in the ongoing sell off of America, business as usual really.