Plutocrat For Congress?

Recently Eric, a longtime Blue America supporter in Mandeville Canyon, contributed $500, over ten times the average Blue America contribution. He divided it evenly between 15 candidates and each candidate got $33.33, except Mary Ellen Balchunis, Doug Applegate, Paul Clements and DuWayne Gregory, who got $33.34 each. The same day, another long-time supporter, Susan in Swarthmore sent in $5,000 and each candidate got $333.33. Everyone was really happy to see hefty contributions like those. That's because none of our candidates are like Florida New Dem Randy Perkins. He needed some money for his flailing campaign on Florida's Treasure Coast recently too. So he wrote himself another $1,000,000 check.

Randy wants to be a congressman. So Randy's buying himself a seat. Randy has nothing to offer working families in Florida's 18th congressional district-- but the folks there don't seem to mind. Randy, if he wins, would be replacing another worse-than-zero rich, spoiled congressman, Patrick Murphy. As of the September 30 FEC filing deadline, Perkins had spent $6,236,582 of which $5,802,029 had been self-funded. So the new million makes $6,802,029. I guess he wants that seat bad.

Previously, the only other federal contributions Randy Perkins had ever made were a $2,500 check to Mitt Romney in the hope of defeating Barack Obama, a $28,000 check to the NRCC and checks to conservatives of both parties, like McCain, Rick Perry, Rudy Giuliani and to corrupt Democrats like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Alcee Hastings, and Patrick Murphy (of course)... as well as to the the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the Colorado Republican Campaign Committee. Now he calls himself a Democrat-- he switched his party ID a few weeks before registering as a candidate-- and I don't have the slightest doubt that even if he decides to stay a Democrat after being elected-- a 50/50 proposition-- he'd vote with the Republicans even more than Patrick Murphy did. And before he declared for the Senate, and started pretending to be a Democrat, Murphy voters with the GOP more than any Democrat in the House except 3 of the worst Blue Dogs of all time.

Aside from Perkins, these are the multimillionaires trying to buy House seats by spending a million dollars or more each:

• Paul Mitchell (R-MI)- $3,577,287
• Trey Hollingsworth (R-IN)- $2,582,150
• Martin Babinec (I-NY)- $2,200,000
• Vicente Gonzalez (D-TX)- $1,850,000

All the other multimillionaires who spent over a million dollars lost their primaries, like Maryland Democrat David Trone ($13,414,225), Tennessee Republican George Flinn ($2,795,000), Florida Republican Mark Freeman ($1,627,756), and Texas Republican Glen Robertson ($1,636,459).

Blue America doesn't have any million dollar donors (not even one). Our average contribution is about $45, although far more people give $20 than $200. If you can afford it, please consider contributing to one or more of the progressive House candidates who need some Get Out the Vote dontions this week and next week, by tapping on the Blue America thermometer below:

Could the Billion-Dollar Loser actually be a lower life form than (shudder) Roy Cohn? Tony Kushner thinks maybe so

On NPR's This Week in Politics yesterday, we heard playwright Tony Kushner talking from London with NPR's David Furst about the link between Roy Cohn and Donald Trump.

by Ken

Probably I haven't been paying close enough attention -- and goodness knows, I've tried my hardest to pay as little attention as possible to this whole election thing -- but in all my years of forced Trump-watching, I've managed to miss the link between the Billion-Dollar Loser and his (and his dear old dad's) onetime lawyer, Roy Cohn. But as soon as you think of that rabid legal attack dog imparting his, er, wisdom, to the Younger Donald, and something sure clicks. And especially now that we see the older and scummier Donald as a full-time politician. (I see now that in June the Washington Post's Robert O'Harrow and Shawn Boburg took an extensive look into the Donald-and-Roy connection in a piece headlined "The man who showed Donald Trump how to exploit power and instill fear.")

And when you think about Roy Cohn, who in the land of the living would you be most likely to think of next? If you said playwright Tony Kushner, who made the dying-of-AIDS Roy Cohn a major character in his epic play Angels in America, then you're thinking in the same groove as NPR's This Week in Politics, which yesterday shared a phone interview that David Furst did with Kushner from London. Here's how the Cohn-Trump and Cohn-Kushner connections are established on WNYC's program page for This Week in Politics:

In just about any introduction for Roy Cohn, you find the word 'infamous' within the first sentence or two. He was chief counsel to Joseph McCarthy during the senator's Communist witch hunt of the 1950s. Instrumental in the trial that led to Julius and Ethyl Rosenberg’s executions.  Attorney to mafia bosses. Eventually disbarred for misconduct in 1986.

And in the 1970s and 80s, he was Donald trump's lawyer. Many say, his mentor.

Roy Cohn appears as one of the characters in Angels in America, Tony Kushner's award-winning play and miniseries about New York during the worst years of the AIDS epidemic.

This week, playwright Tony Kushner joins host David Furst to talk about Cohn, Trump and the 2016 race. Kushner is in London, where he's working on his new show, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures.

Now Kushner isn't exactly a fan of Roy Cohn, but he feels a connection to him and his story, which is how he came to put Cohn in Angels in America. At the time of Cohn's death, a closeted gay man felled by AIDS, Kushner was uncomfortable with the homophobic glee in the response of some of Cohn's longtime enemies, and thought the story at least called for some looking into.

Kushner specifies in the interview that he has to be careful to distinguish the real Roy Cohn from the character he created in the play, but he carefully notes that he devoured every source he could find on the subject, and in the interview he surprises David Kurtz at the outset by saying that no, he doesn't see a copy of Roy Cohn in Donald Trump.


TONY SAYS: "IT SEEMS WEIRD TO SAY THIS,
BUT I THINK MAYBE ROY WAS A FINER PERSON"

What? Tony thinks Donald Trump doesn't measure up to the likes of Roy Cohn?


"No, AIDS is what homosexuals have. I have liver cancer," a belligerent Roy Cohn (Al Pacino) insists in response to the diagnosis his doctor (James Cromwell) is trying to deliver, in Mike Nichols's HBO production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America.

Here's Tony K:

I felt, in reading about [Roy Cohn], and I read everything I could get my hands on, that there was something coherent in his core, that he was -- for all of his maliciousness and his ruthlessness and his destructiveness, in the case of the Rosenbergs' execution (he frequently bragged about forcing the judge to send Ethel Rosenberg to death; his malevolence crossed over into judicial murder) -- so he's a very bad person.

But one thing that impressed me was that from the day McCarthy drank himself to death to the day Roy Cohn died, he never abandoned the memory of Joe McCarthy. He defended it; he defended what McCarthy had done; he defended McCarthy himself, as a wonderful person. In reading what Roy wrote about him, and he wrote a lot about him, it seemed to me that this was somebody who actually was capable of loving someone else, and maintaining that love, even when it became very unfashionable to do so.

Which speaks to a kind of character consistency in Roy that I see no evidence of whatsoever in Donald Trump, who seems to me to be a profoundly disloyal person who's so entirely interested in himself to the exclusion of all else, who lives in a world of delusion that's entirely created by his titanic, monstrous narcissism, that loyalty to other people, which requires a kind of object constancy, is completely out of the question.

So he seems to me really nothing like Roy in that sense. It seems weird to say this, but I think Roy was maybe a finer person than Donald Trump.

KUSHNER RECOGNIZES TRUMP-STYLE POLITICAL
TACTICS AS "THE QUINTESSENCE OF McCARTHYISM"


This photo was one of those used to accompany an extensive piece that Trump biographer David Cay Johnston wrote for London's Daily Mail in July, "How Trump made the Mob an offer they could not refuse: He might have made a killing building his first skyscraper, but Donald's shrewdest investment was in the MAFIA."

Which is not to say that Kushner doesn't see the Cohn-McCarthy legacy in Trump. Asked about such things as Trump's practice of systematic character assassination of his opponents and his "relentless conspiracy theories," Kushner says, "It makes complete sense that he learned lessons from Roy, who learned lessons from McCarthy, or McCarthy learned lessons from Roy, or the two of them together cooked up this style."

Then Kushner listens to a pair of audio clips: first, McCarthy raving about "Communist infiltration of the CIA" and our nuclear program and God knows what else; then Trump saying, "She's guilty of a very, very serious crime. She should not be allowed to run. And just in that respect I say it's rigged."

Kushner pronounces this "the quintessence of McCarthyism."

And it has been horrifying but kind of fascinating to watch it happen in real time as opposed to reading about it in the history books. If you say an enormous lie, that you yourself know is a lie, and you just repeat it over and over again, and don't bother to answer any questions about it, and never get yourself in a situation where you're going to have to answer the questions -- I mean, that's where McCarthy made his big misstep, taking on the U.S. armed forces, so soon after World War II, and calling them an organization full of traitors --

and, of course, precipitating the televised hearings that unmasked McCarthy in front of the whole country. This lesson Trump seems to have learned quite well, Kushner suggests, noting that he's "pretty good at avoiding" answering awkward questions.

Mostly he never has to really explain anything, or reconcile any contradictions, and he just repeats whatever lie has popped into his head over and over again, leaving us to simply wonder, "Does he know he's lying now?" And whether the con artist believes his own con is a kind of a mesmerizing question. It's just unfortunately not the question we should be obsessed with in a presidential election.

#

The Republican Deep Bench... Led To Trumpy The Clown

Europeans are rightly freaked out by Trump's decision-- the day after he was officially named his party's nominee-- to publicly make statements to directly undermine NATO solidarity. Richard Sisk, writing for Military.com, pointed out that Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia "could be left to the mercies of Russia during a Donald Trump presidency [and] reacted with alarm and disbelief... 'This won't be good for NATO unity or the security situation,' said Ojars Kalnins, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Latvia's parliament. 'In principle, he is saying the U.S. will not fulfill its promises or obligations,' he said of Trump's plan to base U.S. support on how much alliance members spend on defense... The Baltic states and Poland have particular concerns on Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions following his annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Ukraine. Putin angrily opposed NATO's expansion to include Poland and the Baltic states, and he has stepped up military exercises on their borders while stressing that he has an obligation to protect the large Russian ethnic minority in Latvia... At alliance headquarters in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg quickly rebutted Trump's remarks. Stoltenberg said he wanted to avoid commenting on a U.S. election but added, 'solidarity among allies is a key value for NATO. This is good for European security and good for U.S. security. We defend one another.'"

Republican politicians like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have tried to reassure the world that there's no need to worry and that wiser heads will prevail on Trump to forget all his dangerous, crackpot ideas. Feel reassured?

Eliot Weinberg, writing in this week's London Review of Books gave U.K. readers an exhaustive look at how it's come to this-- how such a patently unqualified and even deranged candidate could have won the Republican Party's nomination. He reminded his readers of Reince Priebus' tweet from last January, "It’s clear we’ve got the most well-qualified and diverse field of candidates from any party in history." Oops. Then he went through the whole horrid "deep bench"-- one mediocrity after another: Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum, Rick "niggerhead" Perry, Bobby Jindal (who bankrupted Louisiana by cutting wealthy people's taxes), Carly "30,000 job losses" Fiorina, Rand "Domino's Pizza had a bad crust" Paul, long-forgotten former governor of NY George Pataki, "someone named Jim Gilmore," Scott "son of a preacher man" Walker, Chris "the Tony Soprano of American politics" Christie, poor Jeb "Low Energy" Bush, Mike "I didn’t major in math" Huckabee, John "widely disliked phlegmatic and abusive" Kasich, Ben "fruit salad of life" Carson, Marco "penis size" Rubio, and Ted "Lucifer in the flesh" Cruz. How could even Trump not have beat them all?

[M]any Republicans, worried about their own re-election, have decided to stay away. Even Ohio governor John Kasich is avoiding the most important Republican event in his state since 1936. They are appalled that, given the ‘well-qualified and diverse field of candidates’, the voters have chosen a man of so little knowledge and such extremist views. Speakers, outside of Trump’s family, Dr Ben Carson and-- perhaps hoping for a miracle from his Lord-- Ted Cruz have been hard to find.

And he leaves his readers to ponder the idea of a Cleveland, thanks to Kasich and the GOP, "jumpy policemen awaiting streets full of demonstrators packing AR-15s."

That Lindsey Graham Magic

Lindsey Graham has always had a tart tongue and he was one of the first of the Deep Bench Republican losers who hissed back at Trump (before dropping out of the race with approximately zero percent support... give or take. He must have been traumatized to see Trump win all 50 South Carolina delegates-- with 32.5%, 10 points higher than second-place finisher Marco Rubio. Trump won every congressional district in the state and every county except Charleston and Richalnd-- and they were both pretty close. Earlier Lindsey got fewer voters than Jim Gilmore's 12 votes in Iowa and just 70 votes in New Hampshire to Trump's 100,406. (Yes, Jim Gilmore beat Lindsey in New Hampshire too-- with 133 votes.)

Back in early March Lindsey was on CNN, saying the GOP should have expelled Trump from the day he came down the escalator to call Latino immigrants "rapists." Lindsey to Wolf Blitzer: "He took our problems in 2012 with Hispanics and made them far worse by espousing forced deportation,” Graham said. “Looking back, we should have basically kicked him out of the party... The more you know about Donald Trump, the less likely you are to vote for him. The more you know about his business enterprises, the less successful he looks. The more you know about his political giving, the less Republican he looks. We should have done this months ago."

Instead they gave him the party and, as you've probably heard, Lindsey has hopped on board the Trump train. Gone are the days of him telling audiences that "This is not about who we nominate anymore as Republicans as much as it’s who we are. This is a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party. What is conservatism? If it’s Donald Trump carrying the conservative banner I think not only do we lose the election, but we’ll be unable in the future to grow the conservative cause." Poor dear. By mid-May he was changing his tune, giving Trump suggestions to try to act less insane because if he's going to beat Hillary he'd have to remember that "crazy loses to crooked." (Never mind that he's well aware businessman Trump is a fraud and a cheat whose picture belongs in a dictionary next to the definition of the world "crooked.") And then a few days ago, he was back on CNN saying Trump has a 50/50 chance to win and that he's warming up to him. Ah, yes, the evil of two lessers now haunts American politics.

And now, ole Lindsey is campaigning for Trump among rich Republicans in Florida. No more of that "unfit for office" stuff and no more hissing about he wouldn't vote for Trump or Hillary. Today, after Trump petted him on the head with a phone call about Middle East policy, Graham is wagging his tail and-- at the very least-- it's now all about... the lesser of two evils.

How Many End Of The Republican Party Articles Will We See Over The Next Year?

Trump isn't as "un-Republican" as people sometimes paint him. Like the House Republicans, Trump seems to have agreed to making repealing Dodd-Frank, a bill meant to protect Americans from Wall Street excesses. "Trump told Reuters in an interview Tuesday that he will produce a plan that’s 'close to a dismantling' of the 2010 financial regulation law that came in response to the 2007-2008 financial crisis." Trump doesn't expect voters to judge him based on policy as much as on entertainment value and some kind of patina of "strength." He's disdainful of policy and doesn't seem to have a grasp of it. For a self-centered sociopath like Trump, everything is just about him and what he can get over on a gullible electorate. Wednesday Sahil Kapur pointed out that making profits has always trumped principles and values for Trump. For example, "Trump has been tough on American companies that have moved jobs to other countries. That hasn’t stopped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee from investing in them."

Matt Taibbi pinpointed the end of the GOP as the moment the RNC kissed his ring after Cruz's defeat in Indiana. It was, wrote Taibbi for Rolling Stone, "the death of the modern Republican Party," a party "undone by a surge of voter anger that was in significant part their own fault. In recent years, the Koch brothers/Tea Party wing of the GOP had purged all moderates from the party, to the point where anyone who was on record supporting the continued existence of any federal agency, said Mexicans were people, or spoke even theoretically about the utility of taxes was drummed from the candidate rolls. Their expected endgame here was probably supposed to be the ascension of some far-right, anti-tax, anti-government radical like Scott Walker, or even Cruz. Instead, this carefully cultivated 'throw the bums out' vibe was gluttonously appropriated by Trump, who turned the anger against the entire Republican Party before surging to victory on a strongman's platform of giant walls, mass deportation and extravagant job promises that made the moon landing or the Bernie Sanders agenda of free college look incrementalist in comparison."

Taibbi seems to think they got exactly what they deserved. He wrote of Trump that he's "a seemingly unrepentant non-Republican more likely to read Penthouse than the National Review." He managed to paint his last-standing Republican opponent, Ted Cruz, as "the son of a presidential assassin's accomplice, and himself an infamous uncaptured serial killer... During the campaign, surprising numbers of Americans were even willing to believe Cruz might also be the Zodiac Killer. The infamous Bay Area murders began two years before Cruz was born, but 38 percent of Floridians at one point believed Cruz either was or might be the Zodiac. Were they serious? In an age when Donald Trump is a presidential nominee, what does 'serious' even mean? As ignominious an end as this was for Cruz, it was a million times worse for the Republican establishment. The party of Nixon, Reagan and two Bushes had needed a win by Cruz, a man not just disliked but loathed by the party elite, to stave off a takeover by Trump."

Trump's naked disdain for the less-glamorous American flyover provinces he somehow keeps winning by massive margins continued to be one of the livelier comic subplots of the campaign.

From seemingly wondering if Iowans had eaten too much genetically modified corn to thanking the "poorly educated" after his Nevada win, Trump increasingly doesn't bother to even pretend to pander. This, too, is a major departure for the Republican Party, whose Beltway imageers for decades made pretending to sincerely prefer barns and trailers to nightclubs and spokesmodels a central part of their electoral strategy.

Not Trump. Hell, he went out of his way to brag about being pals with Tom Brady in the week before the Indiana primary, and still won by almost 20 points. Given the level of Colts-Patriots antipathy, this is a little like campaigning in Louisiana wearing a BP hat, or doing a whistle-stop tour through Waco with Janet Reno.

...After 9/11, it felt like the Republicans would reign in America for a thousand years. Only a year ago, this was still a party that appeared to be on the rise nationally, having gained 13 Senate seats, 69 House seats, 11 governorships and 913 state legislative seats during the Obama presidency.

Now the party was effectively dead as a modern political force, doomed to go the way of the Whigs or the Free-Soilers.

After Indiana, a historic chasm opened in the ranks of the party. The two former President Bushes, along with Mitt Romney, announced they wouldn't attend Trump's coronation at the convention in Cleveland. Additionally, House Speaker Paul Ryan refused to say he would support the nominee.

There were now two Republican Parties. One, led by Trump, was triumphant at the ballot, rapidly accruing party converts, and headed to Cleveland for what, knowing the candidate, was sure to be the yuugest, most obscene, most joyfully tacky tribute to a single person ever seen in the television age. If the convention isn't Liberace meets Stalin meets Vince McMahon, it'll be a massive disappointment.

From there, this Republican Party would steam toward the White House, which, who knows, it might even win.

The other Republican Party was revealed in the end to be a surprisingly small collection of uptight lawyers, financiers and Beltway intellectuals who'd just seen their chosen candidate, the $100 million Jeb Bush, muster all of four delegates in the presidential race. Meanwhile, candidates whose talking points involved the beheading of this same party establishment were likely to win around 2,000.

Like French aristocrats after 1789, those Republicans may now head into something like foreign exile to plot their eventual return. But whether they will be guillotined or welcomed back is an open question.

This was all because they'd misplayed the most unpredictable and certainly most ridiculous presidential-campaign season Americans had ever seen.

If this isn't the end for the Republican Party, it'll be a shame. They dominated American political life for 50 years and were never anything but monsters. They bred in their voters the incredible attitude that Republicans were the only people within our borders who raised children, loved their country, died in battle or paid taxes. They even sullied the word 'American' by insisting they were the only real ones. They preferred Lubbock to Paris, and their idea of an intellectual was Newt Gingrich. Their leaders, from Ralph Reed to Bill Frist to Tom DeLay to Rick Santorum to Romney and Ryan, were an interminable assembly line of shrieking, witch-hunting celibates, all with the same haircut-- the kind of people who thought Iran-Contra was nothing, but would grind the affairs of state to a halt over a blow job or Terri Schiavo's feeding tube.

...In the weeks surrounding Cruz's cat-fart of a surrender in Indiana, party luminaries began the predictably Soviet process of coalescing around the once-despised new ruler. Trump endorsements of varying degrees of sincerity spilled in from the likes of Dick Cheney, Bob Dole, Mitch McConnell and even John McCain.

...Democrats who might be tempted to gloat over all of this should check themselves. If the Hillary Clintons and Harry Reids and Gene Sperlings of the world don't look at what just happened to the Republicans as a terrible object lesson in the perils of prioritizing billionaire funders over voters, then they too will soon enough be tossed in the trash like a tick.

No, The Republican Establishment Doesn't Have What It Takes To Save America From The Trump Menace

Last week, Trump won Nebraska overwhelmingly-- 61.4% against Cruz's 18.4% and Kasich's 11.4%. Trump won every single country in the state, including the two biggest cities, Omaha and Lincoln. Over the weekend, the state Republican Party held it's state convention. Sen. Den Fischer's nephew, Sam Fischer introduced a resolution to reprimand Senator Ben Sasse for his outspoken attacks on Trump and for leading the anti-Trump movement. The resolution passed-- around 400 of the Republican officials and activists voting for it while, perhaps, a half dozen voted against it.

Further north, Wisconsin Republicans are avoiding Trump like the plague. The most positive thing anyone says about him is that he's the lesser of two evils when you compare him to Hillary. Sean Duffy's congressional district in the northwest corner of the state goes as far south and east as Wausau and it was one of only two districts that Trump one. Duffy, a Ryan satellite, isn't enthusiastic about him but told the media that "We can't let Hillary Clinton bring four more years of Barack Obama." From Gov. Walker, Senator Johnson and Speaker Ryan on down, almost everyone is jump hoping Trump doesn't cause too much down-ticket damage in the state. No one thinks Walker, Ryan and every other GOP zombie will continue withholding their endorsements from Trump. Conservatives fall in line; it's part of their nature.

Although... there are still a tiny handful still trying to derail Trump for the good of the nation. Phil Rucker and Bob Costa sorted through the impotence on Saturday for the Washington Post. They "delved into the world of reality television for someone who might out-Trump Trump: Mark Cuban, the brash billionaire businessman and owner of the Dallas Mavericks." Cuban says there isn't enough time and, like almost everyone they approached, turned them down politely, unwilling to be the sacrificial lamb.

A band of exasperated Republicans-- including 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, a handful of veteran consultants and members of the conservative intelligentsia-- is actively plotting to draft an independent presidential candidate who could keep Donald Trump from the White House.

These GOP figures are commissioning private polling, lining up major funding sources­ and courting potential contenders, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republicans involved in the discussions. The effort has been sporadic all spring but has intensified significantly in the 10 days since Trump effectively locked up the Republican nomination.

Those involved concede that an independent campaign at this late stage is probably futile, and they think they have only a couple of weeks to launch a credible bid. But these Republicans-- including commentators William Kristol and Erick Erickson and strategists Mike Murphy, Stuart Stevens and Rick Wilson-- are so repulsed by the prospect of Trump as commander in chief that they are desperate to take action.

Their top recruiting prospects are freshman Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), a conservative who has become one of Trump’s sharpest critics, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who withdrew from the Republican presidential race May 4. Romney is among those who have made personal overtures to both men in recent days, according to several people with knowledge of the former Massachusetts governor’s activities.

...[T]empering the current talks on the right are fears that an independent conservative candidate could forever be a pariah by splintering the Republican vote and ensuring victory for the Democratic nominee.

“The career of the individual would come to an end, and he would have a difficult spot in history for being responsible for putting Hillary Clinton in the White House,” said Patrick J. Buchanan, a conservative who unsuccessfully ran for president in 2000 on the Reform Party ticket.

Buchanan was dismissive of the current efforts. “These are the mice trying to bell the cat-- only they can’t get one mouse to go out and do it,” he said.

...The third-party plotters represent only a sliver of what in the primaries became known as the “Never Trump” movement. Many Republicans opposed to him-- from former Texas governor Rick Perry to Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.)-- now are lining up behind the presumptive nominee, if not always enthusiastically.

“You’re talking about a very shallow group,” said Ed Cox, chairman of the New York Republican Party and a Trump supporter. He criticized most of the organizers as conservatives who care more about “their own intellectual constructs” than the “voice of the people.”

Two central figures in the draft talks are Kristol, who edits the Weekly Standard, and Erickson, a talk-radio host. While Kristol acts as a lone operator and has huddled privately with Romney and other Republicans, Erickson leads an organized group with former Senate staffer Bill Wichterman and others called Conservatives Against Trump, which has been meeting regularly for months.

Coburn, known for his fiscal conservatism, and Sasse have been atop the group’s recruit list for some time. Wichterman is among those who have reached out to Coburn. Friends of the 68-year-old former senator said he is listening but is unlikely to pull the trigger, in part because of health concerns.

Earlier this spring, Kristol had his eyes on Mattis, who is revered by conservatives for his public break with the Obama administration. The general, now a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, met for several hours in mid-April with Kristol, Wilson and GOP consultant Joel Searby at the Beacon Hotel in Washington to go over how a campaign could work.

But soon after, Mattis backed away from the idea because he wasn’t ready to risk politicizing his reputation with a campaign that had little hope for success, according to two people familiar with his deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss those conversations. Through a spokesman, Mattis declined to be interviewed.

Kristol then reached out to Romney, asking for a meeting to request his assistance. The two met May 5 at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Washington, where they talked about possible contenders. Kristol detailed their discussion the next day to The Washington Post, which irked some Romney associates.

When asked this week to comment on further developments, Kristol declined.

“These conspiracies for the public good are time and labor intensive!” he wrote in an email. “In any case, things are at a delicate stage now, so I really should keep mum. Suffice it to say that serious discussions and real planning are ongoing.”

Trump happily tweeted this nonsense over the weekend:

And then, a few hours later, ominously, this:

Patriotic Americans of all political persuasions can contribute to Bernie's surging campaign here. After all, it's crucial for our children and grandchildren... and for the entire world. Can you imagine the damage Trump will do to America? As President Obama said at Rutgers yesterday, in reference to him, "ignorance is not a virtue."

Republicans Use The Same Lesser-Of-Two-Evils" Argument That Hillary Supporters Use

When he was running against Trump, Rick Perry said "he offers a barking carnival act that can be best described as Trumpism: a toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued. Let no one be mistaken--Donald Trump’s candidacy is a cancer on conservatism, and it must be clearly diagnosed, excised, and discarded." Thursday Perry discarded his diagnosis and announced he would not just vote for this cancer on conservatism but will do everything he can to help get him elected. Marveling at Trump's marketing and branding skills, he told CNN that Trump "is one of the most talented people who has ever run for the president I have ever seen." Hillary's campaign pointed out that Perry had once remarked that Trump's "comments... should completely and immediately disqualify him from seeking our nation’s highest office." But poor Rick Perry isn't the only GOP opportunist who's changed his tune on Trump.

Poor Dr. Ben who once warned Republicans that Trump's "level of dishonesty... should be something that concerns all of you guys" is now heading up Trump's search for a running mate. He hasn't quite allowed himself to be debased on a Chris Christie level... but he's just a couple steps away.

And speaking of poor Christie, who was just named the head of Trump's transition team, often referred to Trump as "a carnival barker" and warned Republicans that "showtime is over; we are not selecting an entertainer-in-chief," which is an indictment of Trump that sounds a lot like what President Obama had to say about him Friday, is now a professional Trump sidekick and punching bag.

Little Marco, sweating for the VP nod-- or at least a cabinet gig in an administration that will never be-- has come around to seeing Trump as a fine potential president. Just last March he had told fellow Republicans that Trump is "the most vulgar person ever to aspire to the presidency," noting 2 weeks alter that he is "absurd, offensive, [and] ridiculous." Rubio warned Republicans Trump is "a con artist" who is "an embarrassment" and "unelectable" and that he "has not proven an understanding of these issues or the preparation necessary to be the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force in the world." Those were the days he was laughing at Trump for spraying on orange tans and wearing pancake makeup and insinuating Trump's howling personality defects stemmed from a complex developed because of a small, deformed penis.



Thursday, Trump told Fox News viewers that "We always had a very good relationship, Marco and I. And then it got a little bit nasty for a period of time. And then we had the election. That was a tough time for Marco. Marco’s a good guy. A really nice guy. And I like him. But not necessarily with respect to any position (on the ticket). But it could happen."

Until he endorsed Trump the other day as a kind of lesser-of-two-evils, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul always seemed outraged that Trump admitted on the debate stage that it was his practice to buy (like in "bribe") politicians. Yes, that even sounds wrong to some Republican politicians. But there was more that Paul understood about Trump that freaked him out-- and rightfully so: "What worries me most about Donald Trump other than all the other crazy things is that I believe that he wants power." Remember when you thought Rand Paul seemed a kind of serious when he asked if the emperor has any clothes brains?



Now Paul is tarnishing his own brand by cuddling up with Trump. A libertarian publication, reason.com explained the invocation Paul is making about Trump being a lesser-of-two-evils:

"You know, I've always said I will endorse the nominee," said Paul. "I think it's almost a patriotic duty of anyone in Kentucky to oppose the Clintons, because I think they're rotten to the core, I think they're dishonest people, and ultimately I think we have to be concerned with what's best for Kentucky."

Paul cited Clinton's recent comments about eliminating coal jobs as reason enough for Kentucky voters to oppose her.

The libertarian-leaning Republican isn't wrong about Clinton's awfulness. But Trump-- a thin-skinned lunatic who peddles conspiracy theories, encourages violence and censorship, prefers big government, and loathes the free market-- is just as bad, and arguably much worse, including and especially from a libertarian perspective.

There is virtually no issue where Trump's views align with libertarianism (his continued support for eminent domain, a policy that virtually no one else in the GOP or libertarian movement supports, is perhaps the best example of this). And while it's true that some conservatives can be counted on to advance libertarian positions on a handful of issues, this doesn't apply to Trump, because he isn't even a conservative. He's a member of the authoritarian populist right-- a segment of the population that shares nothing in common with libertarianism.

Paul knows all this, of course. To his credit, he was one of the first Republican presidential candidates to stand up to Trump on the debate stage. (Trump, demonstrating his remarkable lack of self-awareness, responded by mocking Paul's hair.) I presume that at this point, Paul thinks it's best for his political future if he doesn't burn any additional bridges with Trump people.

He may wish to reconsider that, however. A whole host of influential, thoughtful Republicans are refusing to support Trump. Paul Ryan has declined to back Trump (at least "for now," he said). Mitt Romney will not endorse Trump. National Review writers are openly considering voting for likely Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson. Republican strategist Mary Matalin has officially switched her party identification to Libertarian.

Given that conservatives and Republicans can't bring themselves to vote for Trump, it would be a little bizarre for the nation's most well-known libertarian-leaning Republican politician to endorse the least libertarian GOP nominee since Richard Nixon.

Last week Bobby Jindal also joined the lesser-of-two-evils Trumpist Society. "I do think he'll be better than Hillary Clinton, I don't think it's a great set of choices. If he is the nominee, I'm going to be supporting my party's nominee. I'm not happy about it ... but I would vote for him over Hillary Clinton." He must have a very low opinion of Hillary. Before dropping out of the presidential race he told Republican voters that Trump is an "unserious and unstable narcissist" with "no understanding of policy." Jindal was cutting: "He's full of bluster but has no substance. He lacks the intellectual curiosity to even learn." But now he's fit for the White House? OK. Jindal penned an OpEd for the Wall Street Journal on his new found Trumpism yesterday. "I was one of the earliest and loudest critics of Mr. Trump," he claimed. "I mocked his appearance, demeanor, ideology and ego in the strongest language I have ever used to publicly criticize anyone in politics. I worked harder than most, with little apparent effect, to stop his ascendancy. I have not experienced a sudden epiphany and am not here to detail an evolution in my perspective... I think electing Donald Trump would be the second-worst thing we could do this November, better only than electing Hillary Clinton to serve as the third term for the Obama administration’s radical policies. I am not pretending that Mr. Trump has suddenly become a conservative champion or even a reliable Republican: He is completely unpredictable. The problem is that Hillary is predictably liberal... I do not pretend Donald Trump is the Reaganesque leader we so desperately need, but he is certainly the better of two bad choices. Hardly an inspiring slogan, I know. It would be better to vote for a candidate rather than simply against one."

At least the #NeverTrump crowd doesn't have to eat crow while bending over backwards to find something good to say about him. Jeb Bush-- like the other Bush's won't vote for him, let alone campaign for him. I'd bet that in the privacy of a voting booth he'll vote for Hillary, the more dependable conservative in the race. Jeb never veered away from reminding Republican voters that Trump is "not qualified to be president" as well as "not the Commander-in-Chief we would need to keep our country safe" and just "an actor playing the role of the candidate for president" who is "one part unhinged and one part foolish." He also publicly called him "a jerk" and "misinformed at best" who "doesn't believe in the greatness of our country." For his part, Trump said he doesn't want Bush's endorsement, although he has been blasting Bush and Graham for not honoring their pledge to support the winner of the primary. I sometimes guess duty to country must trump duty to Reince Priebus.

Lindsey Graham won't vote for him either and how could he, after calling him "a nut job" and a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot" who is "ill-suited for the job" and "a loser as a person." He accused him not just of being "unfit to be commander-in-chief" but of "helping the enemy of this nation," empowering radical Islam" and "undercutting everything we stand for." Like most Americans Graham thinks Trump "doesn't have a clue about anything" and that Trump in the White House "would lead to another 9/11." Graham likes Clinton and sees eye to eye with her on foreign policy and on the military and I know for sure he's looking forward to voting for her.

Romney hasn't run against Trump-- though many people are urging him to, as a third party conservative-- and he's sticking by his judgment that Trump is "a phony" and "a fraud" who "lacks the temperament to be president" and is "playing the American people for suckers." Trump, he doesn't hesitate to tell people is "very, very not smart" when it comes to foreign policy.

Cruz, Fiorina and Kasich haven't announced their intentions towards Trump yet, although it might be galling for Kasich to walk back his comment about Trump having "created a toxic atmosphere, pitting in group against another and name calling." I guess for a VP nomination, though...

No one was more allied with Trump for most of the campaign more more personally vitriolic about him than Cruz, who harbors more disdain and sheer hatred for Trump than anyone else who ran, calling him "a pathological liar," "utterly amoral," "a bully," "a narcissist at a level I don't think this country has ever seen," and "a sniveling coward." He told the country that Trump "will betray you on every issue across the board," while being "out of his depth" and "intricately involved in the corruption of Washington for 40 years." How do you pivot away from that? I wouldn't be surprised if he waits a week or two and shows us exactly how.

KKK Imperial Wizard Backs Trump While George Will Whines About Making Hillary A One-Term President

In a recent interview with the Imperial Wizard of the KKK, Richmond's NBC-TV affiliate, WWBT, reports why the Klan is backing Trump and find themselves in the #NeverCruz kamp:

"I think Donald Trump would be best for the job," said the Imperial Wizard. "The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes in, we believe in. We want our country to be safe."

The Imperial Wizard said he supports Trump’s calls to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States.

"If Donald Trump dropped out tomorrow I would support Kasich before I would Ted Cruz because he is not an American citizen," said the Imperial Wizard. "Even if I agree with some of the things that Ted Cruz says, I would not support him because he was born in Canada. He is not an American citizen."

The list of Republicans on the #NeverTrump team is puny and without the power to sway the GOP primary base from nominating a fascist for president. Many are self-aggrandizing Hate Talk Radio blowhards with personal grudges-- Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Steve Deace, Charlie Sykes, Michael Berry-- and Republicans retiring from Congress at the end of the year anyway-- Scott Rigell (VA), Richard Hanna (NY) and Reid Ribble (WI)-- or members in blue districts about to get wiped out in November, like Carlos Curbelo (FL) and Bob Dold (IL). Friday Politico reported that Stop-Trump fever has broken and everyone is ready to get on board. After all, on Friday didn't Indiana Gov. Mike Pence-- too scared of Indiana Republicans to do otherwise-- half endorse Trump in a speech meant to rally the base to Ted Cruz? In Boehner's Lucifer remarks about Cruz, he was certainly indicating he prefers Trump. Professional "moderate" billionaire Jon Huntsman: "We've had enough intraparty fighting. Now's the time to stitch together a winning coalition. And it's been clear almost from the beginning that Donald Trump has the ability to assemble a nontraditional bloc of supporters… The ability to cut across traditional party boundaries-- like '80, '92 and 2008-- will be key, and Trump is much better positioned to achieve that."

Now, it looks like it’s the opposition-- not Trump-- who is dividing the GOP.



“We are not doing anything in the interest of party unity,” said Katie Packer, founder of the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC, which put out a blistering anti-Trump ad Friday afternoon. “We do not think there is anything noble about wrapping our arms around a candidate who isn't a Republican, doesn't have a serious policy agenda and has not secured a majority of Republican votes.”

“I'm willing to do anything in my power to stop Trump from hijacking our party,” Packer continued.

But pro-Cruz and anti-Trump forces are running out of options to prevent Trump from becoming the nominee. If the real estate developer and reality television star scores a big win in Indiana on Tuesday, Cruz’s only remaining strategy may be a hostile takeover of the Republican National Convention-- a move GOP insiders still see as possible but certainly one that could severely damage the party.

Trump’s growing list of elected allies are encouraging Cruz to discard any such thinking.

"It’d hurt the very party that they want to represent,” Rep. Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) told Politico on Friday. "That’s not good and that’s why I believe that the establishment and people in Washington should say this is over. Donald Trump is clearly, clearly who the people want.”

Clearly. But George Will is now claiming that it is the duty of the Republican Party or the Republican Party establishment to prevent Trump from getting into the White House even if he wins the nomination, as he's about to. The damage Trump is doing to his beloved GOP has barely even begun, he hisses menacingly from the sidelines.

Trump would be the most unpopular nominee ever, unable to even come close to Mitt Romney’s insufficient support among women, minorities and young people. In losing disastrously, Trump probably would create down-ballot carnage sufficient to end even Republican control of the House. Ticket splitting is becoming rare in polarized America: In 2012, only 5.7 percent of voters supported a presidential candidate and a congressional candidate of opposite parties.

At least half a dozen Republican senators seeking reelection and Senate aspirants can hope to win if the person at the top of the Republican ticket loses their state by, say, only four points, but not if he loses by 10. A Democratic Senate probably would guarantee a Supreme Court with a liberal cast for a generation. If Clinton is inaugurated next Jan. 20, Merrick Garland probably will already be on the court-- confirmed in a lame-duck Senate session-- and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen G. Breyer will be 83, 80 and 78, respectively.

...Were he to be nominated, conservatives would have two tasks. One would be to help him lose 50 states-- condign punishment for his comprehensive disdain for conservative essentials, including the manners and grace that should lubricate the nation’s civic life. Second, conservatives can try to save from the anti-Trump undertow as many senators, representatives, governors and state legislators as possible.

...If Trump is nominated, Republicans working to purge him and his manner from public life will reap the considerable satisfaction of preserving the identity of their 162-year-old party while working to see that they forgo only four years of the enjoyment of executive power. Six times since 1945 a party has tried, and five times failed, to secure a third consecutive presidential term. The one success-- the Republicans’ 1988 election of George H.W. Bush-- produced a one-term president. If Clinton gives her party its first 12 consecutive White House years since 1945, Republicans can help Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, or someone else who has honorably recoiled from Trump, confine her to a single term.

In The Wake Of Trump... How Bad Will The Destruction Be?

Bruce Bartlett was a Kemp guy who went on to work for Reagan and Bush I in policy positions that pushed the GOP's economics. During the Bush II term he strayed firther and further from Republican Party party line and helped write Bush II out of the conservative movement.

Last year he started warming to the idea of a Trump run for the presidency as a way to cure what ails the GOP. "I love Donald Trump," he wrote at the time, "because he exposes everything about the Republican Party that I have frankly come to hate. It is just filled with people who are crazy, and stupid, and have absolutely no idea of what they are taking about. And the candidates, no matter how intelligent they may be, just constantly have to keep pandering to this lowest common denominator in American politics."

Simon Maloy discovered that he's developed that theme as the months rolled forward and Trump started looking more and more inevitable, which Bartlett sees as a death sentence for the Republican Party as it has developed since the Reagan days. Bartlett hates those developments so much that he actually voted for Trump, who he clearly detests, in the Virginia primary. "I think the Republican Party is sick," he told Maloy. "it just doesn’t know it. And I think anything that speeds up its demise is to the good, because then it can reinvent itself and return as something healthy. Or you could use an addiction metaphor, where people have to hit bottom so that they can reach out and ask for help before they can cure themselves. I think that Trump is a symptom of a disease of rampant stupidity, pandering to morons and bigots and racists and all the sort of stuff that defines today’s Republican coalition. And I just think it’s awful. It’s terrible for the country in a great many ways that I don’t need to tell you. And I think that we need to have a healthy two-party system. We need to have a sane, functioning conservative party and a sane, functioning liberal party. And I think that half of that equation, at least, is not working, and it affects the other half."

He also told Maloy that "giving Trump the nomination is the surest path to complete and total destruction of the Republican Party as we know it. And I look forward to him getting the nomination for that reason. I think he will have a historic loss. I think he may well bring in a Democratic Senate. But more importantly, my hope is, at least, that he will lead to a really serious assessment of the problems of the Republican Party, and lead to some opening of thought, opening of discussion, conversation among groups that have been sidelined for quite a long time. Mainly moderates and people of that sort who have been just pushed to the sidelines in favor of ever more rabid, nonsensical, right-wing authoritarianism."

Better yet, he says he doesn't think it matter whether Trump gets the nomination or not at this point "because he’s already succeeded in destroying the Republican coalition as far as the general election is concerned. Because, look, if he doesn’t get the nomination, he’ll probably do everything in his power to guarantee that whoever does get the nomination is defeated. So either way the party is looking at historic losses, historic defeat. And I think that is really, really a wonderful thing." He goes so far as to say some conservatives will just give up on the GOP altogether and vote for Hillary.

Maloy: "One name I wanted to bring up is that of the House Speaker, Paul Ryan, who’s been positioning himself of late as this Trump alternative, a voice of reason and rational discourse. He’s very popular within the party and seems like a natural candidate to shift into that post-Trump leadership role. Do you see any way in which someone like Ryan who has that popularity but is still extremely conservative, particularly on economic policy, do you see him as being able to effectively reform the GOP at all?" Barlett's response should send shudders down Ryan's spine:

No. I think Ryan is in a much more serious position than people think he is. He’s slowly sliding into the same problems that destroyed John Boehner, which is he has a bunch of lunatics in his caucus who are effectively able to be the tail that wags the dog. What Ryan would have to do is make peace with the Democrats and be willing to have a governing coalition made up of Democrats and enough Republicans to get legislation passed and be a Speaker for not just the majority party, but for some kind of fusion party.

But I don’t think he’s got the support and I also don’t think it’s in his nature to be that kind of leader. The only way he could get reelected as Speaker would be with Democratic votes, and that sort of thing simply doesn’t happen. So he would just be signing his own political death warrant if he tried to do something like that, and then he would disappear from view.

What Pieces Of The GOP Will Be Left Post-Trump For The Kochs To Pick Up?

Trump is fuming-- or something. Kasich and Cruz and ganging up on him and Republican primary voters better not buy into it... or else. Or else what? Or else, he'll disappear and no more free comedy routines from him any more. Yesterday, at a rally in Maryland, he said, "They fight like hell for six months, and they're saying horrible things, the worst things you can imagine. And then one of them loses, one of them wins. And the one who loses says, 'I just want to congratulate my opponent. He is a brilliant man, he'll be a great governor or president or whatever.'"



Then the threat: "I'm not sure you're ever going to see me there. I don't think I'm going to lose, but if I do, I don't think you're ever going to see me again, folks. I think I'll go to Turnberry and play golf or something." Probably too little too late, but the remnants of the onced vaunyed, now decimated and tattered Deep Bench are finally uniting against Trump.

Ted Cruz and John Kasich are joining forces in a last-ditch effort to deny Donald Trump the Republican presidential nomination.

Within minutes of each other, the pair issued statements late Sunday saying they will divide their efforts in upcoming contests with Cruz focusing on Indiana and Kasich devoting his efforts to Oregon and New Mexico. The strategy-- something the two campaigns have been working on for weeks-- is aimed at blocking Trump from gaining the 1,237 delegates necessary to claim to GOP nomination this summer.

The extraordinary moves reflect the national strength Trump has shown and the inability of Republicans who oppose the New York billionaire to come together to stop him. Dividing up some of the remaining primary states by putting forward one strong alternative to Trump in each could be enough to take away delegates and curb Trump's run to the nomination.

Charles Koch had a pro-Clinton (Hill and Bill) weekend, which mortified the conservative Democrat still pretending she's a progressive 'til she can knock Bernie out of the primary race. Koch violated Godwin's Law and compared Trump to Hitler during an interview with Jonathan Karl for ABC News. He said Trump’s support of a registry for Muslims “reminiscent of Nazi Germany” and that banning Muslim's entering the country is “antithetical to our approach... That’s reminiscent of Nazi Germany. I mean that’s monstrous." Koch also told Karl that he's encouraging his whole network to stay away from what promises to be an ugly Cleveland mess in July. And he's not buyimg into the whole Ryan as White Knight saving the party from chaos and catastrophe. Nope, all that can save the kind of predatory political mercantilism that passes for conservatism today from Trump now is... Hillary. The whole GOP mess may well be falling apart before our eyes. Watch:

Trump's Not The Only One Like That... Do You Remember Leona Helsmely? And There's Steve Wynn

Remember Leona Helmsley? She had her moment of tabloid fame in the '80s. A crooked real estate agent whose real estate license was suspended, she married an elderly, rich real estate developer who owned the Helmsley Palace, right down the blocked from my NYC office. She was a billionaire who refused it pay contractors who worked for her and was eventually found guilty of tax evasion (and extortion). That's when she became infamous and a poster child for what Bernie refers to as "the millionaire and billionaire class." At the trial a housekeeper who worked at the Helmsley mansion in Connecticut testified that Leona bragged to her that "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

Leona's trial began June 26, 1989, in New York City before federal Judge John M. Walker. Her chief defense lawyer was Gerald A. Feffer, from the elite criminal defense firm of Williams and Connolly. The chief prosecutors were DeVita and Rudolph Giuliani. The evidence against Leona was overwhelming, and the public animosity toward her for her arrogant attitude on taxes was shared by the former contractors and Helmsley Hotels employees who testified against her. Feffer, who had once headed the criminal tax division of the U.S. Justice Department and was an expert on tax fraud cases, couldn't stem the avalanche. On August 30, 1989, the jury found Leona guilty on 33 of the charges against her.

All that remained was the sentencing. Leona begged the court for mercy:

I'm guilty of a serious crime. I'm more humiliated and ashamed than anybody could imagine. I feel as though I have been living through a nightmare for three years.

Walker sentenced Leona to four years in prison and a fine of more than $7 million. In his sentencing order Walker made it clear that he found Leona's expression of remorse to be too little and too late given the severity of her crimes. Walker addressed his comments directly to Leona:

You bear full responsibility for this scheme. It was carried out under your direct orders for your benefit. Unlike many defendants who come before the court, you were not driven to this crime by financial need. Rather, your conduct was the product of naked greed. Throughout its course you persisted in the arrogant belief that you were above the law. Moreover, since the indictment and the trial, you have displayed no remorse or contrition. I trust that the sentence today will make it very clear that no person, no matter how wealthy or prominent, stands above the law.

After countless appeals and legal maneuvering, Helmsley finally began her sentence on April 15, 1992-- ironically, the day income taxes are due. She served 18 months in jail and was released in October 1993. Harry Helmsley died in 1997 and left his considerable fortune in real estate to Leona. Almost immediately, she began to sell off his real estate holdings.

She was later convicted of a felony-- firing an employee for being gay-- and was forced to sell the Helmsley Palace because felons aren't allowed to have liquor licenses. Once "the Queen of Mean" was out and they changed the name to the Palace, I started staying there and it became my home in New York. A few years after I retired, I stopped staying there, realizing what an unconscionable waste of money it was.

This week I've been booking hotels for an upcoming trip to Russia, Azerbaijan and Finland. I'm finding it perfectly easy to avoid the outrageous rates that corporations happily pay for their executives and then write off on their taxes as expenses. Instead of $700/night 4 Seasons and Ritz Carltons, there are comparably comfortable and well-located hotels for a fraction of the price. And with a better clientele. I mean who wants to be anywhere near people like Leona Helmsley or others from the millionaire and billionaire class? She was once furious that a waiter at the Helmsley Palace brought a cup of tea that had a drop of liquid in the saucer and she smashed it out of his hands, fired him and then demanded he get on his hands and knees and beg to get his job back. You want to be in a room with someone like that?

No, me neither. But another billionaire hotelier, Steve Wynn, apparently does. The Mob-connected Republican casino owner-- his big political contributions this cycle have been for Marco Rubio and Pennsylvania wing-nut Pat Toomey-- "tossed a verbal grenade," according to CNBC, "into the class wars." Channeling his inner-Leona Helmsley:

In a presentation to investors Wednesday night, Wynn-- founder of Wynn Resorts-- said his company is like a luxury brand that focuses on people with money. He explained that an environment that attracts and caters to the wealthy will attract everyone else.

"Rich people only like being around rich people," he said. "Nobody likes being around poor people, especially poor people... This company caters to the top end of the gaming world. We’re sort of Chanel or Louis Vuitton, to use the comparison, the metaphor of the retail business. But unlike Chanel and Louis Vuitton, we are able in our business to cater to all of the market. By making our standards so high."

Maybe he should run for office too before Trump completely poisons the market for out-of-touch billionaires. Trump once told a Daily Show audience that "My entire life, I’ve watched politicians bragging about how poor they are, how they came from nothing, how poor their parents and grandparents were. And I said to myself, if they can stay so poor for so many generations, maybe this isn’t the kind of person we want to be electing to higher office. How smart can they be? They’re morons." Wynn backs Trump's candidacy and Trump is lucky his fans don't watch the Daily Show.

Trump and Wynn, crooked billionaires who hate poor people