Your 12.11.19 Playpen

With impeachment upon us, I have a question to ask those of you who are right of center.  It’s a serious, non-snarky, question.

Quite simply, why do you think Republican members of Congress are willing to jump off the cliff, logically speaking, in defense of the POTUS?  There are a number of defenses that have been raised that are flat-out contradicted by the evidence.  Or even more clownish arguments, like this one.

"In modern history, we've never gone after impeaching a president in the first term" — Kevin McCarthy argues that there's a precedent against impeaching presidents before their second term 😂 pic.twitter.com/lPJMJGlIQy

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 9, 2019

I’m not questioning defending Trump from being impeached.  He’s the head of the party and we’re in tribal times.  I get all that.

What I don’t get is why risk your dignity with all the nonsense.  Wouldn’t it be easier and less deserving of mockery to say, yes, what he did with Ukraine was wrong, but it doesn’t amount to an impeachable offense?

I know part of the reason for the sideshow is in hopes of muddying the waters so the public will be confused, but the polling shows that hasn’t happened.  So why continue to go down this road if you’re a member of Congress who wants to be taken at least somewhat seriously?

Again, I’m not trolling, so I would appreciate it if you would respect that in your comments.  I’m genuinely curious about this.

Final 2019 Mumme Poll

Fun while it lasted, right?

A full quarter of you didn’t make it to the final vote.  Given the ignominious end to Georgia’s regular season, I can’t say I’m surprised.  But I ain’t mad — the reason I killed the MP the first time around is because we limped into the final ballot of the season with less than two dozen voters standing.

We had a total of 188 who did show up for this and, on average, they had five teams on their ballot.

Here’s the breakdown by conference:

How we spent our time on this:

No surprise there.  No surprise, either, that the participation rate from Georgia residents was the lowest of the season, at 59%.

And here’s our prediction on the national champs:

For comparison’s sake, the final selection committee rankings:

Random bits of wisdom:

• We’re consistent, anyway.  This week, again, had no unanimous selections, which means LSU was the only team to appear at any time during the balloting this season on 100% of ballots cast — and that was only once.
• Three teams in Tier One (appearing on 90+% of all ballots cast), as has been the case for the past few weeks, with a much larger drop to fourth than before.  Still, only four teams — the ones in the CFP — appeared on at least half the ballots cast.
• Alabama gets a lot more love from us than the selection committee.  (For the record, I think we’re more accurate than they are about it.)
• We match the selection committee’s top six, again, without the expense or the hat wearing concern.  And I doubt the committee members reached their decisions in ten minutes or less.

A couple of final points worth mentioning:

Here’s the complete list of all 65 ballots for the final Coaches Poll.  It doesn’t take a genius to see numerous examples of bias and conflicts of interest throughout.  And I’ll bet any amount of money you want that it took them (more accurately, their SIDs and them) a lot more time than 10 minutes to fill out.  The Coaches Poll isn’t credible and hasn’t been for a while, which is why I started the Mumme Poll in the first place.  At this point, it’s an anachronism, but if they want to keep playing at it, they really ought to take a hard look at approval voting.

Finally, I want to give a big shout out to Peyton, my partner in crime in running the poll this season.  He’s the wonk and there’s no way I could have done this as well as it played out without his kind assistance.  Gracias, man.

The MP will be back for Week Six, 2020.

My Week 15 Mumme Poll ballot

My last ballot of the season looks exactly like its immediate predecessors.

• Clemson
• LSU
• Ohio State

Those three teams separated themselves from the pack a few weeks ago and, for me, nothing’s changed.  Hopefully, that’s going to make for what should be a fantastic CFP.

Time spent on my ballot?  Two minutes, tops.

Fabris bowl pool announcement

Many of you should be receiving invites this morning to the bowl pick ’em, so check your mail box.  Those who don’t get an invite, but want to join, click here to get started.

I believe there are 40 games to pick and games start on the 20th.  (According to the admin, spreads will lock on the 15th, so keep that in mind in making your picks.)

Have fun!

Week 15 Mumme Poll ballot link

It’s the last one for the 2019 season, so you might as well go ahead and make it count.  Link is here.

Mr. Manners

One more thing — yeah, it was a hugely disappointing loss, especially since we thought this team was capable of more.  And, yeah, as I indicated in my last post, there are certainly things that need fixing.

In any event, because of the nature of the beast, I’ve let you guys vent your hearts out for the last day.  It’s time for those of you who have been showing your ass to pull your pants up now.

If you can’t find a way to have a civil discussion with other readers here, go find another place to vent, because you clearly value your moral authority more than I do.  Feel free to disagree, but do so in a way you would if you were in a face to face conversation.  With your mother listening.

“People can say, well, Coach Smart wants to play ’Man ball.”

Between Kirby last night acknowledging his awareness of the blog’s preferred term for his coaching philosophy and Greg McGarity calling me earlier this year to discuss athletic department finances, it appears I need to revise my opinion on whether Butts-Mehre pays the slightest attention to GTP.

I hope that doesn’t mean I have to clean up my language.