‘There’s Always a Reason’

Posted on | July 25, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘There’s Always a Reason’

Among the cardinal principles of military science is unity of command — the man in charge is the man in charge, and bad things happen when command is divided. If we think about the Civil War, for example, the Union effort struggled until Lincoln put U.S. Grant in charge. Before the spring campaign of 1864 opened, Grant and Sherman met to coordinate their planned offensives, east and west, and it was this coordination, made possible by Grant’s authority as overall commander, that finally broke the South’s resistance. We can also consider the problems experienced by Germany in World War II as exemplifying this principle in reverse. Hitler constantly interfered in the dispositions of his generals, and in the defending against the Allied invasion of 1944, the Germans had a divided command in France, with Rommel in charge of the immediate beach defenses, but with Rundstedt in overall command of the theater. Rommel knew that the crucial point was to stop the Allies on the beaches, and wished to bring in the armored reserve for that purpose at Normand, but Rundstedt — under the absurd belief that the Normandy invasion was a feint — refused to release the tanks Rommel needed.

Football is like warfare — either the coach is in charge, or he’s not. If the ownership and management interfere in the coach’s plans, this undermines his authority, and a good coach will not tolerate such a situation. You could ask Nick Saban about this. In 2003, Saban took LSU to the National Championship, and a year later, he was signed to be head coach of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, a team that hadn’t accomplished much of anything since Don Shula’s heyday in the 1970s. They had gone 4-12 in 2004, but in Saban’s first year, they went 9-7 — a significant improvement. The next season, they sank to 6-10, and Saban knew what the Dolphins needed, namely a quarterback. He had one in mind, too:

Nick Saban’s NFL head coaching career lasted all of two seasons but the former Miami Dolphins head coach might have stuck around longer if team doctors didn’t fail Drew Brees for his physical. . . .
“Look when the Miami Dolphins were going to sign Drew Brees, Drew was coming to Miami when I was the coach there. He was going to be the quarterback. That’s all we needed,” Saban said at the Texas High School Coaches Association’s annual convention on Tuesday, via 247sports.
“We just went 9-7 and all we needed was a quarterback to be a playoff team. We were going to sign Drew Brees as a free agent. Dr. (James) Andrews operated on him and I went to Birmingham to see Dr. Andrews, and he said it’ll be fine. Our doctors failed him on the physical. (Drew) was there to sign with us.”
Saban went on to say that he actually told Brees’ agent at the time that he would wait three days before breaking the news so that a deal with the New Orleans Saints could happen. It was at that point that Saban decided it was time to leave the NFL.
“So, I decided right then when that happened that we don’t have a quarterback in the NFL, we’re not going to win. I’m getting out of here. I’m not staying here. I’m not going to be responsible for this,” he said.
“That doctor didn’t know his a– from a handful of sand. Drew Brees plays 15 more years, wins a Super Bowl, goes to nine Pro Bowls. And we didn’t take him in Miami, where he wanted to go. Some things you can’t control. When we left there nobody understood why. Well, that was why. There’s always a reason.”

See? They hired him as a coach, but they didn’t trust his judgment. What kind of madness is this? Nick Saban doesn’t know quarterbacks?

Miami’s loss was Alabama’s gain. Roll Tide.

Category: Football

Liberalism as Organized Ignorance

Posted on | July 25, 2021 | Comments Off on Liberalism as Organized Ignorance

Because I watch a lot of police videos, the YouTube algorithm is always recommending more, the same way it’s always recommending more “how to play” guitar videos for classic rock songs. So in between watching breakdowns of guitar riffs (e.g., “Spirit in the Sky”) Saturday night, I watched a June press conference where police in San Jose, California, explained the shooting of Demetrius Stanley, 31. Watch:

What led to this shooting is that undercover officers were conducting surveillance of Stanley, who was wanted on a warrant related to a March armed robbery that stemmed from a road-rage incident where Stanley pointed a laser-sighted 9mm pistol at a teenager. Stanley was arrested and released on bond for that incident, but then police discovered that, because of a previous domestic violence conviction, Stanley was legally prohibited from possessing firearms. So an arrest warrant was issued for the gun charge, and officers were conducting surveillance to confirm Stanley’s whereabouts. Video clearly showed what happened — Stanley walks out on the street with a pistol, notices someone sitting in an SUV, opens the door of the vehicle and points the pistol at the driver, and is shot in response. The cop had no alternative.

Anyone who watched that briefing would understand why this happened, but the usual suspects didn’t wait to learn the facts:

Protesters are demanding justice for a man who was shot and killed by San Jose police officers on Monday night.
Dozens of people marched on the Guadalupe Freeway to police headquarters Tuesday evening. They chanted the name of Demetrius Stanley.

“Demanding justice,” as if the simple fact that the slain suspect was black was somehow conclusive proof that an injustice had occurred. Indeed, the niece of the slain man invoked history as justification:

With over 300 people, protesters were able to take the nearby Highway 87, blocking traffic for several minutes, on the way to the police station. Protesters chanted, “No justice! No peace! No racist police!” “Black lives matter!” and “Say his name! Demetrius Stanley!” as they made their message heard to other San Jose locals. . . .
After the chanting subsided, speeches were given by Demetrius’ family, including his niece, Nia Stanley, who said Demetrius was her “best friend.” She states, “I would like the bastards who killed my uncle, my best friend, the only reason that I stayed in this state, to bring their coward faces out so I can see the men who allowed my uncle to bleed and die on the street I called home for so long! But they will not do that, because they’re cowards. They hide behind guns! They hide behind bulletproof vests! They hide behind a badge and a title! They are nothing!” . . .
She called on protesters, “In the name of Demetrius, my uncle, I ask that we never stop fighting. Fighting for all the thousands of Black lives that have been lost, that have been taken by the ones who do nothing but support this system that has kept us under since we were brought here on ships! They will pay, even if it means that I fight for the rest of my life, they will pay.”

Ma’am, you were not “brought here on ships,” and the circumstances of your ancestors’ arrival are not what got your uncle shot dead by cops. While I am unfamiliar with police procedures in, say, Sierra Leone or Ghana, I think it reasonable to conclude that a suspect who pointed a pistol at police officer in Freetown or Accra would also get shot, just the same as anywhere in the United States. Cops carry guns for a reason, after all, and they are not trained to lose gunfights. But the shooting of Demetrius Stanley didn’t happen just anywhere, it happened in San Jose.

San Jose isn’t Alabama or Mississippi. You can talk all you want about “the system” and slave ships, but San Jose was never part of that. There were no cotton plantations in Santa Clara County, and I’m doubtful the KKK ever had much influence there. As for the current demographics of San Jose, the city’s population is less than 30% non-Hispanic white, 33% Hispanic, 32% Asian, 16% “other,” and about 3% black.

Even if we did not know the specific details of Demetrius Stanley’s death, does it make sense to jump to the conclusion that racism explains this shooting? Is San Jose a bastion of right-wing Trump voters upholding “systemic racism”? Let us consult Wikipedia:

In the California State Senate, San Jose is split between the 10th, 15th, and 17th districts, represented by Democrat Bob Wieckowski, Democrat Dave Cortese, and Democrat John Laird respectively.
In the California State Assembly, San Jose is split between the 25th, 27th, 28th, and 29th districts, represented by Democrat Alex Lee, Democrat Ash Kalra, Democrat Evan Low, and Democrat Mark Stone, respectively.
Federally, San Jose is split between California’s 17th, 18th, and 19th congressional districts, represented by Democrat Ro Khanna, Democrat Anna Eshoo, and Democrat Zoe Lofgren, respectively.

All of San Jose’s elected representatives are Democrats. The governor of California is a Democrat, as are both of the state’s U.S. Senators. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden got nearly 64% of the vote in California, and almost 73% of the vote in Santa Clara County. There may be more liberal places in American than San Jose, but certainly the city is not a reactionary stronghold of white supremacy.

Who was it, by the way, who pushed for the law that made it illegal for anyone with a domestic violence conviction to possess firearms?

Oh, that’s right — it was liberals!

It was liberals who pushed for the federal Violence Against Women Act in Congress, just as it was liberals in California who pushed for their state law against domestic violence perpetrators owning guns.

Notice that Demetrius Stanley’s niece didn’t mention any of this? She also didn’t mention that the pistol her uncle pointed at the cop was an illegal “ghost” gun and that, furthermore, the pistol had a high-capacity magazine illegal under California law. As a conservative, I oppose laws banning high-capacity magazines, just as I oppose VAWA. America was getting along just fine before such laws were enacted and, if you study social trends, there’s not much reason to think the country is getting better, generally, nor that places dominated by liberals are a shining beacon of opportunity for black people (or anyone else, for that matter).

So the people “demanding justice” are damned fools. Every time a case like this comes to public attention, you’ll always find some intellectuals on TV talking about “root causes.” Well, I don’t have a Ph.D. and I’m not on the faculty of any Ivy League university, but in examining the death of Demetrius Stanley, I cannot avoid the conclusion that if there was any “root cause” for this situation, it was liberalism. And yet here, as in every other situation, you find that the failure of liberal policies always leads to liberals demanding more liberalism.

Turn on the TV and watch the parade of idiots marching and chanting. Ignorance is always dangerous, but is usually scattered amongst the population in a random and haphazard way. The genius of liberalism is that liberals attract all the ignorant people, and organize them for political action, in many cases constituting an effective majority.

Is anyone surprised that liberalism has deadly consequences? Only fools are surprised. And these are the kind of fools who voted for Joe Biden.

Category: California, Crime

FMJRA 2.0: Camouflage

Posted on | July 25, 2021 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Camouflage

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Turns out there’s three songs with this title: the original by Stan Ridgway (probably better known as the lead singer of Wall of Voodoo), a cover by Sabaton, and a completely different song by Brad Paisley, which was funny enough to make me pull off the road at the Ranger station because I was laughing so hard.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

“Did somebody say camouflage?”

Rule 5 Sunday: Rumiko Manbagi
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

‘Build a Path to Citizenship’
EBL

Mystery Gunmen in D.C.
Bacon Time
357 Magnum
EBL

Aspiring Podcaster Update
357 Magnum
EBL

The First Rule of Censorship Club
Dark Brightness
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Blank Generation
A View From The Beach
EBL

Mindless Carnage Continues in Chicago
First Street Journal
357 Magnum
EBL

Philly to Chicago: ‘Hold My Beer’
First Street Journal
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.19.21
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

Texas Democrats Spreading COVID-19
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.20.21
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

Democrats to Rural America: ‘Vote for Us, You Ignorant Racist Hillbilly Yokels!’
The Pirate’s Cove
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.22.21 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.23.21 (Morning Edition)
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

Fact Check: Were 2020 Polls ‘Rigged’? Is There Even Any Need to Ask Anymore?
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.22.21 (Evening Edition)
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

Top Linkers for the week ending Friday, July 23:

EBL (16)
357 Magnum (13)
A View From The Beach (8)
Proof Positive (6)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Return of the Aspiring Rapper Update

Posted on | July 24, 2021 | Comments Off on Return of the Aspiring Rapper Update

A few headlines from recent months:

Aspiring rapper fatally shot by 2 men
on moped in Washington Heights:
law enforcement source
— WPIX-TV, Sept. 4, 2020

Aspiring rapper found dead
in trunk of longtime friend
— WJAX-TV, Oct. 27, 2020

San Antonio murder suspect is
aspiring rapper also charged
in deadly Austin shooting
— KSAT-TV, Jan. 28, 2021

Aspiring rapper pleads guilty
to stealing $4M from his job
to fund music career
— Rollingout, Feb. 5, 2021

Manager for aspiring rapper
speaks about Cobb County
triple homicide, felony charges
— WAGA-TIV, July 12, 2021

Accused Times Square shooter
is aspiring rapper out on bail
for weapons charges
— New York Post, July 16, 2021

Former St. Johns running back,
aspiring rapper dead after
Johns Island shooting
— WCIV-TV, July 22, 2021

Last weekend, we brought you the stories of such aspiring rappers as Jacquavius Dennard Smith, a/k/a “9lokkNine,” of Orlando, Zerail Dijon Rivera, a/k/a “Indian Red Boy,” of Los Angeles, and the Jacksonville war between rival rap gangs led by Kenyatta “Yungeen Ace” Bullard and Charles “Foolio” Jones. Remember the Urban Dictionary definition:

Aspiring Rapper
North American euphemism for a member of the urban criminal class. This unusual occupation is usually mentioned in conjunction with the subject either being slain or being taken into custody for a violent or property-related crime. A relative of the subject usually points out that the subject’s demise or incarceration comes at an extremely inopportune moment, occurring just as the subject was “turning they(sic) life around.”

Aspiring rappers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, have been busy lately:

In the latest chapter of Baton Rouge rap drama, two local rappers were arrested this week in Miami after federal agents searched a south Florida house belonging to Fredo Bang and arrested his associate Lit Yoshi, who was already out on $1.82 million bond and now faces additional charges stemming from yet another gang shooting.
The raid came after investigators linked Lit Yoshi, whose real name is Mieyoshi Edwards, to an April 2020 shooting in Slidell — and several months after a Baton Rouge judge told him to stop treating his house arrest as a “paid vacation” in south Florida.
Edwards, 22, already faced seven counts of attempted first-degree murder in Baton Rouge. His existing charges stemmed from two shootings that detectives attributed to a simmering feud between rival Baton Rouge record labels. Edwards relocated to Florida after posting bond last August, a move the judge called prudent for his safety.
He was living in Miami with Fredo Bang, whose real name is Fredrick Givens. Both young men have established themselves as relatively successful rappers and are members of the Top Boy Gorilla gang, which goes by TBG.
Givens was on parole after pleading guilty to illegal use of weapons and simple criminal damage to property following a 2015 shooting outside a Baton Rouge apartment complex. He was arrested Thursday on a parole violation after police and federal agents found guns inside his house and a stolen car outside, his attorney confirmed.
Law enforcement officials had previously announced they were investigating Givens and Edwards in connection with a May 2019 shooting in Miami targeting NBA YoungBoy, founder of a rival rap gang. Neither has been charged in that case, though a judge ruled in February that evidence from the Miami incident and the Slidell shooting could be used against Edwards in his ongoing attempted murder case.

Seven counts of attempted murder, out on bond and hanging around Miami with a paroled felon — a career goal to which all rappers aspire.

PREVIOUSLY:

Category: Aspiring Rapper Update

In The Mailbox: 07.22.21 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | July 23, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.22.21 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Under The Same Sky – Scathach/Skadi

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: A Collection Of COVID Info
357 Magnum: Another Failure Of The Victim Selection Process
EBL: Cosmic Sin, also, People Who Don’t Watch CNN Now Will Pay To Watch CNN+?
Twitchy: Dan Crenshaw Uses Poorly Aged Dem Quotes To Nuke Avid Axelrod’s “Next-Level Gaslighting” About Vaccine Hesitancy
Louder With Crowder: Student Testifies That Teacher Assigned Mandatory “Equity” Survey She Wasn’t Supposed To Tell her Parents About
Vox Popoli: Vermont Is Doomed, also, AL Governor Effectively Resigns
According To Hoyt: Strange Ideas, also, It’s Not The Worst of Times
Monster Hunter Nation: How Stupid Are File 770 Readers? This Stupid, also, How To Write A Fanzine China Mike Glyer Style

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: America’s Lackluster Beach Towns
American Greatness: TX Starts Jailing Illegals On State Trespassing Charges, also, CNN’s Sparsely Attended Biden Town Hall Flops In The Ratings
American Power: The Contradictions Of Ibram X. Kendi
American Thinker: Monkey Business From Red China – COVID Part II?
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Misery Index Friday
Babalu Blog: Cuban-American Democrat Calls On Media To Stop Pushing Cuba’s Communist Regime Narrative, also, When Repression Knocks At Your Door
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For July 23
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted Americans, also, Court Rejects Viasat’s Attempt To Halt SpaceX Starlink Launches
Cafe Hayek: Dan Sutter Interviews David Henderson On COVID-19
Da Tech Guy: My Advice To Those Trying To Push The Vaccine, also, Draft Women, Red China’s Bad Japan Move, & Now I’ve Seen Everything – Under The Fedora
Don Surber: Germany Suspends Bad Reporters, While America Promotes Them, also, Fed Predicts Highest Inflation In 31 Years
First Street Journal: Nothing Is Private Anymore, also, I’m Surprised That The Usual Suspects Aren’t Out Protesting Already
The Geller Report: Democrat Councilman Wants DC Broken Down Into Separate Bantustans, also, Righteous Japan – Olympics Has Moment Of Silence For Slain Munich Olympians For The First Time
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Starting A Solar System
Hollywood In Toto: Shyamalan Returns To His Old Habits, also, Heaton’s “Hideous” Ode To LA
The Lid: Operation Allies Refuge – Help For Our Brave Afghan Terps
Legal Insurrection: More Voters Want BLM Riots Probed Than January 6, also, Cleveland Indians Wuss Out, Change Name
Nebraska Energy Observer: The American Spirit
Outkick: Guardians Everywhere Likely To Be Offended By Cleveland Baseball Team’s New Name, Even Space Jam‘s Director Thinks LeBron Sucks, also, Kansas Leaving Big 12 Too?
Power Line: Another Climate Alarm Loses Its Mojo, also, About Those German Floods
Shark Tank: PR Looks To Senator Rubio To Lead On Humanitarian Crisis Caused By Commonwealth’s Status Quo
Shot In The Dark: A Big Ol’ Slug From The Poisoned Chalice, also, Foreshadowing
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Question of South Africa, also, We’re One Step Closer To Creating Catgirls
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, also, Haze Gray & Underway – Almost
Transterrestrial Musings: A Partial Victory In My Lawsuit, also, Failure To Launch
Victory Girls: Fired January 6 DEA Agent Lured By FBI?
Volokh Conspiracy: Sixth Circuit Concludes CDC Eviction Moratorium Is Unlawful
Weasel Zippers: Biden Says He Was On The Judiciary Committee “150 Years Ago”, also, Texas Couple Charged With Smuggling 89 Illegals In Stolen Trailer
The Federalist: Whitmer Kidnapping Case Reveals The FBI’s New Counterterrorism Target Is You, also, Red Chinese Tech Firm Huawei Hires Tony Podesta For His Biden Connections
Mark Steyn: We Have Met The Enemy Part XIII, also, Buncoed In Moose Pasture

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Category: Linkagery

Fact Check: Were 2020 Polls ‘Rigged’? Is There Even Any Need to Ask Anymore?

Posted on | July 23, 2021 | Comments Off on Fact Check: Were 2020 Polls ‘Rigged’? Is There Even Any Need to Ask Anymore?

In Goldfinger, the eponymous villain tells James Bond: “Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action’.” This is a fair appraisal of the alleged “mistakes” in 2020 presidential polls, as John Nolte explains:

Most pollsters, including all the media pollsters, blew 2016 and really blew 2020, and now they’re blaming former President Donald Trump for their own failure.
Something called the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) released a report this week that admits 2020 national polling was the worst in 40 years and state polling was the worst in the history of state polling.
The far-left Politico reports the AAPOR is blaming – you guessed it – Trump [emphasis added]:

The most plausible — yet still unproven — theory is that the voters the polls are reaching are fundamentally different from those they are not. And Trump’s rantings about the polls being “fake” or rigged only exacerbate that problem.
“If the voters most supportive of Trump were least likely to participate in polls then the polling error may be explained as follows: Self-identified Republicans who choose to respond to polls are more likely to support Democrats and those who choose not to respond to polls are more likely to support Republicans,” the report reads. “Even if the correct percentage of self-identified Republicans were polled, differences in the Republicans who did and did not respond could produce the observed polling error.”

Oh, okay, guys… Then please explain to me why some pollsters got it pretty close to correct in 2016 and 2020?
Nowhere in Politico’s write-up of this pile-of-shit autopsy does anyone acknowledge the handful of pollsters who came out of 2020 looking pretty good. Among them, are Rasmussen, Trafalgar, and IBD/TIPP.
Obviously, someone knows how to poll even with all those mean Trumptards out there looking to screw up the polling game.
Good grief, this is not difficult.
We all know the problem, we all know the answer to the problem, and still, the pompously named AAPOR is pretending no one knows how to poll in TrumpLand, and nothing will ever improve.
Honestly, how hard would it be to mimic the methodology of pollsters who did it right in 2020? Not hard at all. But nowhere in the Politico report does anyone suggest that pretty gosh-darned simple idea (the far-left Politico sure doesn’t) because these serial liars aren’t interested in getting it right.

Exactly so. The problem with most 2020 polls is plainly evident — the “weighting” of their samples (especially in terms of self-identified Republican/Democrat/Independent voters) was wrong, and this “weighting” problem was so wrong that it could not have been accidental. The fact that a handful of pollsters were able to “weight” their samples accurately, so as to predict the election outcome within a few points, raises the question of why other pollsters did not do the same, given that all of the public polling companies publish their R/D/I numbers.

This was enemy action, as Goldfinger would say — polls as partisan propaganda for Democrats, part of a deliberate disinformation campaign intended to sow discouragement among Republicans. Among the very worst polls were those associated with prestigious major news organizations. For example, CNN’s final national poll, released Oct. 28, the Wednesday before Election Day, had Biden leading by 12 points — TWELVE POINTS! — which was nearly eight points higher than the 4.5 actual margin. You cannot be that wrong by accident. Here, from page 28 of CNN’s final poll report, is the key description of their methodology:

A total of 1,005 adults were interviewed by telephone nationwide by live interviewers calling both landline and cell phones. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Among the entire sample, 33% described themselves as Democrats, 28% described themselves as Republicans, and 39% described themselves as independents or members of another party.
All respondents were asked questions concerning basic demographics, and the entire sample was weighted to reflect national Census figures for gender, race, age, education, region of country, and telephone usage.

So, from a raw sample that was D+5, the consequence of CNN’s “weighting” process was a 12-point advantage for Biden, and even with the benefit of hindsight, they cannot admit where the problem lies.

As glaring as this “enemy action” factor is in the worst 2020 national polls — and CNN’s poll was complete garbage — it was even more obvious in certain so-called “battleground” states that on Election Day proved to be solid for Trump. Consider the case of Iowa, which has been trending “red” for the past decade or more. If you were following the Real Clear Politics average, you might have thought in October that Joe Biden was on the verge of winning Iowa, because beginning in late September, a series of polls showed him either leading or tied with Trump in the Hawkeye State. I remember checking the RCP Electoral College map, which showed Iowa as a “toss-up,” watching Biden (supposedly) pull into a lead there, and thinking: “Damn, if Trump can’t even win Iowa . . .” The specter of a 1980 Jimmy Carter-style wipeout loomed as a shadow over the final month of the campaign. And why? Bad polls.

Not just off by a few points either, but astonishingly wrong — so wrong that only “enemy action” can explain how wrong they were. Consider the New York Times/Sienna College poll of Oct. 18-20, which had Biden leading Trump in Iowa by three points, 46%-43%. Just ask yourself, how likely was it, in the third week of October 2020, that 11% of Iowa voters were still undecided. Do you see my point here? Such a high number of undecided voters less than two weeks before an election ought to raise doubts, even if the numbers otherwise don’t seem strange.

But the numbers in this NYT/Sienna poll were very strange indeed. In 2016, Trump beat Hillary by nearly 10 points — 51%-42% — in Iowa, and so when NYT/Sienna claimed Biden was ahead by 3 points, what they were predicting was a 12-point swing in Iowa. Was that even possible?

Of course not. On Election Day, Trump won 53%-45% in Iowa — meaning that the NYT/Sienna poll missed it by 11 points. “Enemy action.”

Or consider the historical “bellwether” state of Ohio. I clearly recall the unreal experience of being on the ground there in October:

Brilliant yellow maple trees surround my mother-in-law’s home in rural Ohio, and the roads in her part of the state are lined not only with the colorful foliage of late October but also with signs expressing support for President Trump’s election. Anyone can look at the results from 2016 and see that Trump racked up majorities of 2 to 1 or more in this part of Ohio — 72 percent in Morrow County, 71 percent in Crawford County, 67 percent in Knox County, 66 percent in Richland County, 64 percent in Marion County. In fact, Trump won 80 of Ohio’s 88 counties four years ago, defeating Hillary Clinton by an eight-point margin statewide.
If you believe the polls, Joe Biden is neck-and-neck with Trump in Ohio.

And if you believed those polls, you were a damned fool. Trump beat Biden in Ohio 53%-45%, matching the 8-point margin by which he defeated Hillary there four years earlier. So why did so many people believe the race was “neck-and-neck” in the Buckeye State in October? Bad polls — and again, as in Iowa, NYT/Sienna shows up among the culprits, with an early October poll that had Biden leading 45%-44% in Ohio, i.e., nine points off the final. But the real stinkeroo among Ohio polls — arguably the worst single poll of the entire campaign — was Quinnipiac University’s Oct. 1-5 poll, which had Biden ahead in Ohio by five points, 50%-45%, missing the actual result by 13 points.

Anyone looking at the RCP Average of Ohio polls in mid-October would have believed that Trump was on the ropes there. Of the nine Ohio polls conducted between Sept. 17 and Oct. 27, Biden led in six of them, Trump led in two, and one showed a tie, so that in late September, Biden led by 3.3% in the Ohio RCP Average, and as late as Oct. 30, it was still a virtual tie. Only in the final few days did the Ohio RCP average shift slightly in Trump’s favor — by a single point, when in fact he won by 8 points and, everyone ought to be able to admit in retrospect, it was never really possible for Biden to win Ohio, nor was it likely he could even make it very close. The polls were wrong all along — “enemy action.”

When Trump said the polls were “rigged,” he was simply stating a fact.