Trump’s Map Drivel: Repeated Lies, Untrue Lies, and Gross Fabrications (January 15, 2018)

It has become past irksome trying keep up with Trump.45’s constant stream of untruths, misstatements, mischaracterizations, and let’s put the plain truth on the table, flat out lies, spoken through his pearly white veneered teeth to the public at large.

Major journalistic organizations now require more fact checkers and Pinocchio assessors than reporters , writers, researchers, and editors combined in a vain effort to keep up with yesterday’s pile, and are falling further and further behind every day.

Trump.45 is the reigning Champion Energizer Bunny of alternate facts and plain bunkum.

Wall Street Journal Interview (Thursday, January 11, 2018)

Towards the middle of his distressingly bad press week just ended, with respect to immigration, DACA, the Big ,Fat, Beautiful Border Wall, a pending Government Shutdown this Friday, accusations of blatant racism leveled against him, MLK’s legacy and Trump’s hogging in for selfish credit, the North Korea Crisis, the Hawaii Nuclear Alert fiasco on Trump’s watch while he was blissfully playing golf, and who knows what all else, Trump welcomed the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for an actual sit-down interview.

President Donald Trump sat down for an interview Thursday morning with four reporters from The Wall Street Journal: Rebecca Ballhaus, Michael C. Bender, Peter Nicholas and Louise Radnofsky. White House attendees included Communications Director Hope Hicks, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Director of the National Economic Council Gary Cohn.

Here is the expedited transcript of that interview. Portions of the interview were off the record, and have been excluded from this transcript.

Sadly for Trump.45 the entire session was taped. And there were four, count ’em four, WSJ witnesses. Just remember, the WSJ is owned and operated by Truump.45’s good friend and fellow billionaire conservative, none other than Rupert Murdoch.

Here’s just one gem from the session Asked about the various congressional Russian investigations, Trump.45 promptly did a patent-pending duck and pivot:

WSJ: Do you think they’re close to ending the probe?

Mr. Trump: I hope so. Hey, look, I got elected president. I won easily, 306 or 304, depending on your definition, to 223. I won a race that should never be won by a Republican because it’s so stacked in the Democrats’ favor. I mean, if you figure California, New York, and Illinois, you start off with losing that—you have to run the entire East Coast and every— and the entire Midwest.

I won an election that should never be won, because the Electoral College is far harder to win than the popular vote. The popular vote, for me, would have been much easier.

(emphasis added)

So, over the weekend Trump.45 returned to a very favorite multiply, overused chestnut. His election was unprecedented for a Republican because he had to carry the entire East Coast, which is rigged strictly for the Democrats.

This confidently bald assertion is now, as it always has been, and will always be, since he started saying it, complete and absolute rubbish.

It doesn’t take a Ph.D. degree in cartography or demographics or geography to give the lie to this ludicrous piffle.

We’re talking about the skills of a very average U.S. fifth grader here, one who stays awake in geography or social studies class..

Basic Elementary School Knowledge

The U.S. East Coast states, a.k.a., the Gang of 14.

The fourteen states that have a shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean are, from north to south, the U.S. states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida..

Pennsylvania* does not border the ocean, and is officially not an East Coast state. However, like all the real East Coast States. Pennsylvania does have some water shoreline, a lakeside shorefront on the western part along the Great Lakes, like seven other states: to wit, Ohio, Indiana , Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New York.

New York, unlike Pennsylvania, is big enough to have both ocean real estate and Great Lakes shore real estate.

Pennsylvania has a shoreline, just not an Ocean shoreline, so it is not an East Coast State. For the record, Vermont is also not an East Coast state, since it also lacks an Ocean shoreline.

This is long settled geography man, not some fevered dream imaginings of a misanthrope.

Map of U.S. East Coast Staes

For those who like Trump.45 may have trouble reading and decoding the words, here is a visual map image to help set the scene, while pointing a finger at the relevant elements.

Here is a largely numerical list of all the real 14 states on the East Coast, with their 2016 number of electoral votes, the official 2017 state population estimates (as of July 1), and each state’s voting results from the 2016 presidential election.

Certain conclusions are blindingly obvious, even approached with 5th^th grade arithmetic skills.

Trump.45 was a three time loser on the East Coast. No matter how you slice and dice the results, he lost by total number of states won (10 losses, 4 wins) by total population of states won (58.5 million in states he lost against 46.7 ,million in states he won), and by total electoral votes won (99 electoral votes lost versus 69 electoral votes secured).

He ran the table on nothing; instead he got tromped.

Donald J. Trump (Official Portrait): Why is this Man Smiling? He Lost the 2016 Election by 3 Million Votes and Still Got Elected President

As a matter of actual fact, not alternative opinion, along the entire East Coast he did worse than in any other part of the country, except the evil 9^th Circuit Court states he is always going on about. He significantly underperformed his overall U.S campaign results by regional elsewhere.

Overall in the 2016 election, Trump.45 won 30 states (60%), on the East Coast he won just 4/11 (36%). Overall, Trump.45 won 304 electoral votes (56.5%), on the East Coast he won just 69 0f 168 (41.1%). Overall, Trump.45 won 46.1% of the popular vote, on the East Coast he won in states with 46.7 million versus a total of 105 million residents (44%) of the region’s total population. His performance lagged badly across the board on the East Coast.

What are we to conclude, using 5^th grade logic? Loser, Loser, Loser. A Triple Plated Platinum Loser. Loser forwards, backwards, and Upside Down.

In point of fact Trump.45’s victory hinged on the turn of three Great Lakes States: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, to stay with the watery metaphor.

Of course, what is notable is that Trump.45 obviously won the total electoral college vote (though of course not the popular vote) across the entire country, so he won the election for President. For any normal man or woman, a total victory would be balm enough to sooth their troubled souls.

One of only 45 men who have reached this lofty goal in more than 200 years.

Not Trump. He must claim Total Victory in all aspects and spheres, large and small, against any facts and evidence to the contrary. His insistence on spouting obvious lies and disgorging vindictive, petty bias to boost his fragile personal ego is unpresidential, morally bankrupt, psychologically unhealthy, and pathetic.

The hazard for America is that a man like Trump.45 who is willing to repetitively and willy nilly lie about relatively inconsequential matters is thus rendered unfit to be trusted on really serious matters he must engage on behalf or our Nation. A False Leader.

Trump.45 is not Number #1 for the Ages in All Things. Never has been, never will be. Intellect, Business, TV, and politics alike. Sorry, Donnie.

A Final Twist of the Geographer’s Stake

In America we have an historical and culturally relevant boundary called the Mason-Dixon Line, which should be familiar to any U,S High School graduate paying attention to 10^th grade U.S history or social studies classes.

Official Mason-Dixon Crown Colony Survey Marker: Maryland-Pennsylvania Border (Lord Calvert Arms shown)

The Mason-Dixon Line (named after surveyors Mason and Dixon, 1763-1767) established the formal crown colony borders in the late 18^th century, before America declared its independence from Great Britain. The line runs largely along the 39^th parallel, or roughly along the Pennsylvania Maryland border extending westward into the Ohio valley. There is an east-side southern dip in the official line that puts Delaware on the Northern Side of the line. After 1781, when Pennsylvania outlawed slavery within its states borders, the Mason-Dixon line defined the boundary of the free state slave state demarcation until the U,S, Civil War. States on the Northern side were Free States. States to the South of the line were the Slave states.

Culturally for Americans until the Civil War, south of the Mason-Dixon line was Dixie and slave territory, and the Old South. North of the Mason-Dixon line was not.

Look at the chart above. Trump’s 2016 wins were all South of the Mason-Dixon line. But even for the Old South geographic region in 2016, Trump.45 fell short;, losing two states solidly south of the old Mason-Dixon line (Virginia and Maryland).

Modern Day Wooden Mason-Dixon Line Boundary Marker (Rail Trail)

Even after his Alt-Right, extended racially divisive rhetoric, Trump.45 couldn’t even hold fast to the territory belowthe historical Mason-Dixon line. A failed Rebel. Lost to a woman no less.

Hillary Rodham Clinton (D): Why is this Woman Smiling? She Won by 3 Million Votes, and Still Lost the 2016 Presidential Election

Proudly, for America on this Martin Luther King’s birthday holiday in 2018, the actual Mason-Dixon line is no more. It was abolished and the Union was preserved at the end of our bloody Civil War in 1865. It has taken more than 150 years to get here, but America is not going to go back. As emotionally resonant as so much of Trump.45’s vicious and hostile views may strike a chord in some of his devoted voters, they are on the wrong side of history and progress.

The Mason-Dixon Line, and what it stood for, is dead, folks.

Trump.45’s presence is a temporary pause and aberration, not a permanent course reversal. Bannonism’s world view is stuffed.

Worse for the faithful minority supporters who have yearned for the heat of Trump.45’s emotional appeal, he is not a man standing among you. Trump.45 is laughing on the inside at all the little people he thinks are too foolish or ignorant to know some basic elementary school geography and history when he spouts his repetitive loop-lie about running the East Coast table on election night, as he has several times. Grossly Self-pattulation by the Fearless Leader

It’s not true, he know it’s not actually true, and he trusts his followers and viewers of Fox News won’t snap to the persistent fakery.

Trump.45’s real genius, if such it is, is to disguise and bury his deeper lies under the protective cover of simpleton lies more easily sussed out. A Ukranian-Russian (Matryoshka) nested wooden doll set of unseen lies and falsehoods, One inside another.

A Painted Carved Wooden Set of Ukrainian Russian Matryoshka Nested Dolls

A folk-art tradition believed to date from around 1890. The skill is in the painting of the figurines. Typically a set may consist of up to seven nested dolls. A very skillful carved matryoshka nested doll set may contain as many as 31-pieces one inside the other. Trump.45 could be a true verbal competitor.

An Imagined Matrryoshka Doll Collection of Trumpian Doll Set Lies in Storage Ready for Public Consumption

Just keep looking inside each figurine.

May we in America finally be rid of this laughable Trumpian falsehood (oh! just say it non-Pc, big fat lie) about running the East Coast in the Presidential election? Or must we bear it again and again as Trump.45 scuttles around to find a dark hiding place to avoid the Russian investigation homing in on him?

*There is a weak argument to be made that although Pennsylvania does not have direct ocean access (the primary criterion for being labelled an East Coast state, it is part of a tidal estuary to the north of Delaware Bay which does have connection to the ocean.

Connecticut’s ocean connection is directly via a long stretch of Long Island Sound coast, a deep ocean inlet.

A Sound is a large sea or ocean inlet larger than a bay, deeper than a bight, wider than a fjord, or it may identify a narrow sea or ocean channel between two bodies of land.

In sum, Connecticut’s Long Island Sound coastline trumps Pennsylvania’s Delaware Bay tidal estuary.

The exact technical details depend on the size and definition of sounds, bights, inlets and bays., factors too complicated to describe here in simple terms by yours truly. I defer to the experts.

We think the traditional distinction of which states are on the East Coast (ocean front based) is the best choice.

The exact technical details depend on the size and definition of sounds, bights, inlets and bays., too complicated to describe here in simple terms by yours truly. I defer to the experts.

The US. East Coast then comprises the traditional 14 states, and excludes Pennsylvania.. And that is not high school geography, but the conclusion is nevertheless sound and defensible.

O.K., O.K. Giving full faith and credit to Pennsylvania as an East Coast state (contrary to accepted good geographic practice), just for the hell of it, and to be especially nice to Man Baby Trump.45’s feelings of bitter rejection, let’s add Pennsylvania’s numbers to the mix: Pennsylvania, 20 electoral votes, and 12.81 million population in 2017.

Well, lookie here. Trump.45 still comes out a Double Gold loser on the states won and electoral votes won categories, and he eeks out a 0.8% win in the third total state population comparison, by 900.000 residents out of a total of 118..94 million in the 15 states. Two out of three, still a mainline liar loser.

I’m too tired right now to count the actual votes in each state for both candidates (reflecting voter turnout most accurately), but Trump.45 could actually still be a three time loser. The other results are fixed and immutable whether the field is 14 (standard definition) or 15 states (loosey-goosey rigged for Trump.45). We’ll have to see.

Viewed with rosy glasses in the best possible light, Trump.45 is a solid-gold second place Presidential election competitor along the entire U.S. East Coast, however generously you define it. So the prior conclusion remains, there is no way in hell Trump.45 ran the East Coast. He is a liar and a poseur.

Enough already with the self-generated fan fiction.

America needs job results from the Top Man, not self-serving mushy dreck.

Now, what about all those other claims he laid on the WSJ reporters I the same interview.

Oh boy!. I’m glad they got him on tape. Meanwhile the White House is pushing back this morning that Trump.45 said “I’d” not “I” when referring to a cordial relationship with the Short Fat Rocket Man of Korea during the interview. Everybody released tape excerpts. Listen for yourself. To me, the WSJ tape was clear and a decent length high quality audio segment The ‘comparable’ WH version was a short, muddy , low quality audio clip. The WSJ says it stands by its team reporting. I agree. Huckabee Sanders, always soldiering on, says not.

What else is new?