AOC Is Not Asking Permission To Be The Best Member Of Congress-- She's Just Being Herself

Early in the campaign Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called me on the phone to ask for a Blue America endorsement. We'd been looking for someone to take on Joe Crowley for a decade, so I knew Digby and Amato would agree that backing her was a good idea, even if her chance to actually win was practically non-existent against Queens Democratic Party Machine boss and "the next Speaker of the House." I told her we'd endorse her and help her raise money for the campaign but that she needed to work on name recognition and then take on Crowley again in 2020. She laughed at me and told me she ws going to win in 2018. I asked her how she thought she could accomplish that. She told me. She convinced me. I was awe-struck. We didn't just endorse her. We spent PAC money, independently-- so she doesn't even know-- on her campaign as well. I couldn't be happier with our "investment." Even beyond ridding Congress of the stench of the corrupt slime bag that was Joe Crowley-- a pillar of a crumbling repulsive establishment-- AOC has already accomplished more since being elected than most members do in their whole tenure. Not everyone understands that-- and among those who do, many do not like it, not one bit.

Ed Rollins, a broken down old GOP hack who now chairs Trump's corrupt Great America PAC, refused to say her name on a right wing talk show referring to her instead as "that little girl."

A far right Republican Party blog, Gateway Pundit, ran a typically silly and hysteric post about her filled with misinformation, trying to make it sound like she's some kind of trust-fund baby because

a- her family moved to Westchester County
b- she graduated from Yorktown High with honors
c- her nickname name for part of the time she was in college was Sandy
and...
d- "A video was discovered this week where Sandy Ocasio-Cortez is seen dancing"

This isn't parody, This isn't DWT making fun of a deluded, brainless right-winger. Those were his words and, yes, he bolded them and enlarged them so they would stand out because... well, we all know about what dancing means. Right? I'm so happy I get to embed it again. It's so great!



And the video credits her as Sandy Ocasio-Cortez. OMG! What a scam! What a scam! When these GOP geniuses started publishing the video on social media, Ocasio had 1.62 million twitter followers. That's been growing everyday since. It's now 2.16 million, higher than Nancy Pelosi's 1.88 million followers, more than Kevin McCarthy's 46,700 followers even combined with @GOPLeader's 210,000 followers. In fact, Miss Ocasio-Cortez now has more twitter followers than any other member of the House. You know why that's important, right? You see how she can bring up ideas that cause everyone from Fox and Fiends to Rachel to start talking about them and put them into the zeitgeist.

Is she too radical? Don't take me laugh. As CNN reported she's "a talented, charismatic young politician who has struck the political world with a force and impact rarely seen among even those who have been at it for a much longer time." And the knives are out for her. That same CNN report: "Fudging the facts in pursuit of 'being morally right'-- as Ocasio-Cortez puts it-- assumes that moral righteousness is an agreed-upon thing. As Trump's decision to institute a travel ban or build a wall around the country show, it's not. Ocasio-Cortez is new to all of this, yes. But the high profile she already enjoys caries with it some responsibility. Namely, to get the facts right. And when you get them wrong, to correct it as quickly as possible rather than trying to justify the error."



Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of The View, "scolded" AOC yesterday on the show. "It is very, very difficult" for her to admire Alexandria when she makes "accusations where you say, you know, the Democrats have done nothing, the establishment of the Democrats have done nothing. And I just want to throw this out to you. John Lewis (D-GA) wasn’t sitting still. [Sen.] Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) wasn’t sitting still... So, you just got in there and I know you got lots of good ideas, but I would encourage you to sit still for a minute and learn the job… You don’t have to be born into it. You don’t have to know it when you step out, but before you start pooping on people and what they’ve done, you got to do something too."

Yeah, Alex From The Bronx, sit still and be a good little girl and in 150 years you may be just like Dianna Feinstein!

Mark Cuban's not as thick-- and is more sympathetic to where OC is coming from than poor old Whoopi. But he had some advice for her too after watching 60 Minutes. He wants her to continue being a radical (whew) but wants her to drop the "partisan language [because] we are all intros together."

Be a radical, Be different. Be a change leader Innovate. It’s your generation’s turn to govern. Go for it. But please leave our bad habit of using partisan language 'Us vs Them', 'Rep vs Dem', 'Libs vs Cons' behind... We are all in this together. Change the Game to Change the World.

Maybe he was stoned, unhappy about this:

He still may run-- probably as a Republican (since he is one)-- against Trump in 2020. His perspective: "now would be a great time for the new generation of politicians, across the board, to take a new approach [because] the partisan approach doesn’t work."

So the Whoopster is pissed because she's not cuddling up to old Democrats and Cuban is freaked because, she's not being nice to Republicans. OK. Andrew Kragie dissected her 60 Minutes appearance too. He has questions and is worried about her inconsistencies to his own vision and expectations: "Ever since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won an insurgent primary campaign in June against a well-established party elder, it hasn’t been clear whether she plans to push or pull the Democratic Party to the left. Will the former Bernie Sanders volunteer and self-identified democratic socialist try to push House leadership on policy while remaining well outside the party’s power structure? Or will the youngest woman ever elected to Congress opt to work inside the system, build alliances, and seek institutional power to pull the party toward her position?"

At first, it seemed she would pursue the first route, endorsing a progressive group’s campaign to challenge incumbent Democrats, joining climate activists in a sit-in outside Nancy Pelosi’s office, and refusing to support Pelosi’s return as speaker of the House until late November.

But in a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night, the new congresswoman downplayed her rebellious reputation. Yes, she wants Democrats to be more progressive, but it seems she plans to work within the party rather than launch public attacks from the left.

“We acknowledge that we are part of-- and I am part of-- a larger party,” she told the interviewer Anderson Cooper. “So a lot of that is going to do and deal with building relationships across the party, making sure that we are building consensus around these issues.

“There’s a lot of folks that I think sometimes want to brand me as a flamethrower,” she said. “I think the truth of what I am is I’m a consensus builder.” Breaking into a wide grin, she added, “And I like to think that I’m persuasive.”

Cooper asked her about centrist Democrats who worry that she and other progressives will push the party too far. “While I understand that concern, I think that I’m a much more reasonable person than people tend to make me out to be,” she said.

The 60 Minutes spot was Ocasio-Cortez’s first high-profile interview since taking the oath of office late last week and was likely her longest serious sit-down to date. It’s unusual for a freshman representative to land such a prominent interview, but since her improbable primary win over the summer, she’s been the subject of countless stories in both the mainstream and the right-wing press, fed in part by her unusually transparent approach to public relations. The frenzy has created a feedback loop, with Ocasio-Cortez winning media attention because of all the media attention she’s already received. Still, the 60 Minutes interview did provide some substantive details about how Ocasio-Cortez plans to work in Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez positioned herself as a principled insider rather than a purist outsider. She articulated goals that fall within the mainstream of the post-2016 Democratic Party: “I want to be able to tell my grandchildren that we established a single-payer [health-care] system, tuition-free universities, and that we saved our climate for their future, because we decided to be courageous in the moment and make it happen.”

Yet she also continued to promote progressive policies outside the Democratic comfort zone. For example, she affirmed her goal of reducing U.S. carbon emissions to zero by 2030. When Cooper asked how that unlikely scenario might be possible, she talked briefly and vaguely about “trying to push our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible.” To fund the “Green New Deal” she and other progressives demand, she suggested returning marginal tax rates for the highest earners to levels not seen since the 1970s. Such rates would mean a massive tax hike on what she called the “tippy tops” of personal income.

“What you are talking about, just big picture, is a radical agenda compared to the way politics is done right now,” Cooper said. Ocasio-Cortez didn’t run away from the label. “Well, I think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country,” she said, citing Abraham Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation and Franklin D. Roosevelt creating Social Security.

“Do you call yourself a radical?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she replied. “You know, if that’s what radical means, call me a radical.”

...With the biggest megaphone of all the House progressives, Ocasio-Cortez can help chart the course for the Bernie wing of the party in the House. It will have to decide whether it wants to be a thorn in Speaker Pelosi’s side, like the GOP’s hard-line Freedom Caucus under John Boehner and Paul Ryan, or play nice in public in the hope of influencing leadership behind closed doors. The new congresswoman’s interview suggests she’s got a plan, at least for herself: She’d rather become an influential insider than stay an outside agitator.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by Nancy Ohanian

Reminder: Trump Has Been Very Close With The Mafia For His Entire Career

Roy Cohn and Signore Trumpanzee, two of New York's most notorious villains of the 20th Century

Want to sign up to be a Trumpanzee volunteer, even just for phone-banking? The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that "to sign up on Trump's website, potential volunteers must agree to a 2,271-word non-disclosure agreement in which they also promise they won't compete against or say anything bad about Trump, his company, his family members [including Barron] or products-- now and forever." The bizarre requirement means that even online volunteers must sign the form, even if they'll never meet a Trumpanzee family member, attend a Trumpanzee rally, meet a Trumpanzee campaign staffer in person or step inside a Trumpanzee campaign office. Those years and decades with the slimiest and most dishonest lawyer in contemporary American history, Roy Cohn, have certainly rubbed off on Señor Trumpanzee. And in more ways than one.

You may have missed Mark Cuban's twitter storm (above) about the Trumpanzee tax returns that have never been released and, likely, never will be. Cuban pointed to a 2013 deposition in which Trumpanzee said he establishes single-use subchapter S corporations to develop projects rather than use the Trump Organization, basically a branding operation for those projects. Using an S-corporation means that, in Cuban's words, "the entire financial performance of his company becomes part of his tax return." Pass through income, probably the biggest tax loophole Trumpanzee uses to avoid paying taxes, would all be laid out nice and clearly for anyone to see and understand if he ever released his returns. Which, according to Cuban, he never will. Is Trump a crook? Short answer: absolutely, but a crook with fancy and expensive lawyers who can make sure that unlike Al Capone, the government's not going to throw his ass in prison for tax evasion, even if his tax evasion makes Capone look like an upstanding citizen and patriot.

And, speaking of Capone-- and Roy Cohn-- yesterday's Wall Street Journal published the 10,000th look at Trump's too-close-for-comfort decades-long relationship with the Mob. The Journal was very gentle in how it described Signore Trumpanzee's ties with the Mafia. Through his shady businesses in Atlantic City and NYC Signore Trumpanzee, they wrote "sometimes dealt with people who had ties to organized crime." Awkward:



The people the Journal fretted over Signore Trumpanzee dealing with included "a man described by law enforcement as an agent of the Philadelphia mob; a gambler convicted of tax fraud and barred from New York racetracks; a union leader found guilty of racketeering; and a real-estate developer convicted in a stock scheme that involved several Mafiosi," not to mention Mafia lawyer-- and Trump lawyer-- Roy Cohn. A clear hint about how steeped in Mafia criminality Trump was, he insisted in an interview that he is "the cleanest guy there is." They apologized for Signore by mansplaining that "Like many in the construction, real estate and gambling worlds three or four decades ago, especially those who built in Atlantic City and New York, Mr. Trump[anzee] sometimes had to choose whether or not to deal with figures who had sketchy backgrounds. People in the industry say those moments were unavoidable in the days when unions representing construction workers and supply deliverers were controlled by organized crime, which also had a presence in the casino world. That didn’t mean the developers sought out those relationships-- much less that they themselves were gangsters." God forbid! "Trump 'wasn’t going to build Trump Tower without having those connections. Every builder in New York had to do that at that time,' said Michael Cody, the son of a mob-linked union leader Mr. Trump and other builders dealt with."

Because I was the president of a record company people sometimes ask me if I was involved with any of the Mafia figures who completely controlled the radio industry that record companies were dependent on. No matter how good a Madonna or Depeche Mode song was, it wasn't going to reach it's chart potential without payoffs. I never met or even talked to a Mafia character, not while I had my own label and not while I ran one of Warner Bros. We regularly hired independent promoters ("indies") to get our records on the air. And paid them a lot. Rumors indicated which indie dealt with which crime family that controlled which station or group of stations. I never spent any time thinking about it and no one ever talked to me about it. Other record label president took a very different approach and totally immersed themselves in the process. Real estate developers had a similar situation.

Some developers avoided working directly with unsavory figures by operating through a general contractor. Mr. Trump said he preferred to negotiate business matters personally, because he made more money that way.

Referring to a concrete contracting firm that law enforcement said was affiliated with one of New York’s Mafia families, Mr. Trump said: “That was a major contractor. You hear stories that they may have been [mob-controlled].

“In the meantime, I was a builder. I was never going to run for office.… I’d go by the lowest bid and I’d go by their track record, but I didn’t do a personal history of who they are.”

Many of the associations the Journal explored have been previously reported piecemeal. In the early 1990s, Mr. Trump’s license to operate casinos in Atlantic City was re-examined after a book by reporter Wayne Barrett alleged a number of organized-crime connections. New Jersey officials determined Mr. Trump remained eligible.

In its own examination, the Journal reviewed thousands of pages of legal and corporate documents and interviewed dozens of Mr. Trump’s business associates.

The gambling business now is largely corporate, but at the time when Atlantic City was newly opened to casinos and a family friend suggested Mr. Trump build there, many banks shunned the industry.

“Any project in the gaming arena in general is a difficult project to finance, because of the natural prohibition that a lot of institutions have,” Mr. Trump told New Jersey casino regulators in 1982.

Some of the people he dealt with in Atlantic City illustrate why the FBI agent counseled caution.

Kenneth Shapiro owned part of a site where Mr. Trump wanted to build his first casino. Mr. Shapiro was a Philadelphia scrap-metal dealer and property investor, described by law enforcement as an “agent” of Philadelphia mob boss Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo.

A co-owner of the site was Daniel Sullivan, a gregarious six-foot-five Teamster and labor consultant with a criminal record that included a weapons violation. “He knew a lot of organized-crime figures and they knew him,” said Walter Stowe, a former FBI agent.

Mr. Sullivan also was a tipster to the FBI. Gangsters “knew he was an informant. I don’t know why nobody ever tried to kill him,” Mr. Stowe said.

Mr. Trump negotiated with Messrs. Shapiro and Sullivan, now both dead, to lease their property. “They are not bad people from what I see,” Mr. Trump said at a regulatory hearing in 1982. His project nonetheless faced obstacles because of their involvement.

Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Trump and another partner had a deal to acquire an interest in a drywall company. New Jersey casino regulators told Mr. Trump any dealings with Mr. Sullivan beyond the property lease could delay casino licensing. He backed out of the drywall deal.

When the hotel-casino was near completion, the regulators said Messrs. Shapiro and Sullivan might need casino licenses too, as site owners, but could have trouble getting them. Eventually, Mr. Trump bought the two out.

Mr. Trump also used Mr. Sullivan as an adviser on New York labor issues. These included a 1980 dispute over the use of undocumented Polish workers to demolish the Bonwit Teller store on Fifth Avenue to make way for Trump Tower, Mr. Sullivan said in lawsuit testimony. Mr. Trump, in testimony of his own, said he didn’t know there were undocumented workers at the site.

Mr. Trump told the Journal he knew Mr. Sullivan and considered him “OK” because he traveled with FBI agents. He said he didn’t know of any underworld connection Mr. Shapiro might have had.

Mr. Shapiro was a conduit the Scarfo crime family used to buy influence with Atlantic City’s then-mayor, Michael J. Matthews, according to a 1984 indictment of the mayor. The late Mr. Matthews pleaded guilty to extortion. Mr. Scarfo, now in prison, didn’t agree to an interview.

Mr. Trump, as a casino owner, couldn’t legally contribute to the local politicians who controlled such matters as zoning and signs. Mr. Shapiro told a federal grand jury he secretly gave thousands of dollars to the mayor on Mr. Trump’s behalf, said people familiar with his account.

“Donald was always trying to maneuver politically to get things done,” said Mr. Shapiro’s brother Barry Shapiro.

Kenneth Shapiro said he never was reimbursed for the money given the mayor, according to his brother and two other people. “Donald just reneged; that’s his automatic thing,” Barry Shapiro said.

Asked about this, Mr. Trump said he didn’t make contributions to the Atlantic City mayor. “I’m not interested in giving cash, OK?...The last thing I’m doing is now handing cash.”

As for Mr. Shapiro, “I never remember him asking me for money. He was always straight with me...I didn’t know Shapiro well other than to know that we did a pretty small little land transaction down in Atlantic City, which was fine.”

A major profit source at one Trump casino was a racehorse trader named Robert LiButti. His gambling losses earned Trump Plaza $11 million between 1986 and 1989, state documents show.

Mr. LiButti had been convicted of tax fraud related to horse sales in 1977 and was barred from attending races in New York for trying to conceal his horse ownership. A Trump employee told New Jersey regulators that Mr. LiButti repeatedly invoked the name of gangster John Gotti and called him “my boss,” according to a 1991 state investigative report.

“LiButti was a high-roller in Atlantic City,” Mr. Trump said in an interview. “I found him to be a nice guy. But I had nothing to do with him.”

Jack O’Donnell, who ran Trump Plaza in the late 1980s, said, “It isn’t like [Mr. Trump] saw LiButti once or twice-- he spent time with him, saw him multiple times,” and even attended a birthday party for Mr. LiButti’s daughter.

The daughter declined to be interviewed but confirmed to Yahoo News that Mr. Trump attended a birthday party for her.

It was illegal in New Jersey for casinos to keep high-rollers happy by giving them cash gifts. Regulators, in a ruling that didn’t cite Mr. Trump personally, fined Trump Plaza for funneling Mr. LiButti $1.65 million via gifts of expensive cars quickly converted into cash.

Mr. Trump agreed in 1988 to buy a horse from Mr. LiButti for $250,000, Mr. O’Donnell said in a book he wrote after quitting Trump Plaza. The horse, named D.J. Trump, had cost the LiButti family just $90,000 a year earlier, according to Blood Horse magazine. Mr. O’Donnell said Mr. Trump aborted the deal after the horse had a health problem.

Mr. Trump didn’t respond to questions about the horse and the birthday party.

...A lawyer Mr. Trump relied on and socialized with in his early years was the hard-driving attorney Roy Cohn. Among Mr. Cohn’s clients were several gangsters, including Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, co-owner of a concrete company important to New York builders. Former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res said that during heated negotiations with contractors, Mr. Trump would pull out a photo of Mr. Cohn and say, “I’m not afraid to sue you and this is who my lawyer is.”

Mr. Trump called that “totally false.” He said people in the construction industry “don’t get scared by holding up a picture.”

Mr. Trump was a character witness for Mr. Cohn in proceedings that led to the lawyer’s disbarment shortly before his death in 1986.

Mr. Cohn had many clients who, like Mr. Trump, weren’t mob-affiliated, such as the late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. “Roy was a great lawyer if he wanted to be,” Mr. Trump said in an interview.

Messrs. Cohn and Trump had a common associate in Teamsters official John A. Cody. Mr. Cody had a lengthy arrest record and was close to mob bosses Carlo Gambino and Paul Castellano, according to a Justice Department memo from 1982, when Mr. Cody was convicted of racketeering.

Mr. Cody led a powerful union local that represented drivers who delivered cement to New York construction sites.

When he called a strike, Mr. Trump still received cement for Trump Tower, said Mr. Cody’s son, Michael.

“My father wasn’t that generous, unless there was a reason,” Michael Cody said.

...In the 2000s, Mr. Trump dealt with another figure who had gangland ties. It happened when a small real-estate firm called Bayrock Group rented space in Trump Tower, two floors below Mr. Trump’s offices, and negotiated deals with Mr. Trump to put his name on buildings and give him equity in them. One person Mr. Trump worked with at Bayrock was Felix Sater.

In the early 1990s, well before Mr. Trump knew him, the Russian-born Mr. Sater was a stockbroker but lost his license and went to prison after he jabbed a margarita glass into a man’s face in a bar fight.

Later in the 1990s, Mr. Sater was involved in a Mafia-linked scheme to pump up marginal stocks, dump them on unsuspecting investors and stash the profits abroad. The scheme relied on gangsters from three mob families for protection, said a Justice Department news release. It quoted the New York police commissioner at the time as saying the operation could have been called “Goodfellas Meet the Boiler Room.”

Mr. Sater pleaded guilty to racketeering, cooperated with prosecutors and had his conviction sealed. It was then, around 2000, that he joined Bayrock and sometimes dealt with Mr. Trump on real estate.

Bayrock’s projects included the Trump SoHo condos in New York and Trump International Hotel & Tower in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Its marketing in Fort Lauderdale included a letter in which Mr. Trump said, “This magnificent oceanfront resort offers the finest and most luxurious experience I have ever created.”

The New York Times described Mr. Sater’s criminal history in an article in 2007. Mr. Trump, giving a court deposition days later, said he was unaware of it until then.

Two federal press releases in 2000 had referred to Mr. Sater’s past, one from the National Association of Securities Dealers and one from the Justice Department. The Justice Department one announced the indictment of 19 people in the pump-and-dump stock scheme Mr. Sater was part of, including several it identified as members of La Cosa Nostra.

The Justice Department release said a Genovese crime-family soldier, Ernest “Butch” Montevecchi, had protected Mr. Sater from an extortion effort.

Mr. Montevecchi declined to comment.

In a 2009 court proceeding, Mr. Sater described the Bayrock real-estate business, which is no longer active, as one he “built with my own two hands” and where he was probably the No. 2 person. In an interview, Mr. Sater said he had atoned for his crimes by cooperating with the government in the pump-and-dump case and on national-security matters. He declined to answer questions about Mr. Trump.

Signore Trumpanzee told the Journal that when you deal with the Mafia, "in the end, you lose. You can solve some problems short term, but long term, you’ve got a disaster." Let's hope that disaster is Trumpanzee's and not America's.


UPDATE: Not That Trump Is The Only Corrupt Candidate With Mafia Ties...

Yesterday the Smoking Gun reported that the most corrupt of the Democrats' Senate candidates, Patrick Murphy, whose construction business has often been in partnership with Trump, has also been in bed with the Mob. Although Murphy gets massive campaign contributions from Wall Street, from his father and from a wealthy Saudi family, according to the Smoking Gun Murphy took maxed-out "campaign contributions from a pair of Florida businessmen identified by the FBI as members of the Colombo organized crime family"-- $5,400 apiece from John Staluppi and John Rosatti during the current cycle. Aside from being Mafiosi, both are registered Republicans.

Rosatti, 72, and Staluppi, 69, are each extremely wealthy due to their ownership of numerous car dealerships in Florida and New York. Both men are Brooklyn natives, convicted felons, superyacht owners, and, according to FBI records, prized Mafia “earners.”

...Rosatti’s and Staluppi’s involvement with the Colombo gang is detailed in FBI debriefing reports with an assortment of mob turncoats, including former ranking members of the crime group.

During the deadly early-90s fight for control of the Colombo family, Rosatti and Staluppi initially sided (and financed) insurgent forces seeking to oust imprisoned boss Carmine “The Snake” Persico. But the pair subsequently switched allegiances mid-war after paying a visit to jailed Colombo captain Dominick “Donny Shacks” Montemarano, a staunch Persico supporter. The duo’s charge of heart is detailed in an FBI report of a debriefing of Salvatore Miciotta, a crime family captain.

The Rosatti-Staluppi flip was later the subject of a bugged conversation between Persico allies. “We got those two guys with us, Staluppi and Rosatti. They’re with us now, right?” one hoodlum asked. “Yeah,” a second wiseguy replied.

...At the time of Scarpa’s 1988 reports, Staluppi was working with Donald Trump on the production of a series of Cadillac stretch limousines. The Trump Golden Series and Trump Executive Series vehicles were the first time the developer had licensed his name for a product.

More On The Drift Towards Partisan Realignment

At one point Trump was sending out feelings to see if Mark Cuban, an actual self-made billionaire, would run with him. Cuban laughed at the prospect and this weekend endorsed Hillary in Pittsburgh, his hometown, mentioning along the way that Trump has gone batshit crazy. Cuban is friendly with Trump-- they have many similarities-- and says he "told him directly, at some point you have to learn, at some point you have to read and that that job is all about uncertainty and if you don't do the work, that is not good for this country. And he just doesn't do the work." At the event he ripped on Trump: "You know what we call a person like that-- the screamers, the yellers, the people that try to intimidate you? You know what we call a person like that in Pittsburgh? A jagoff. Is there any bigger jagoff in the world than Donald Trump?" He baited the Trumpanzee by saying his own TV show, Shark Tank "kicked The Apprentice's ass," something that is sure to get Trump tweeting any second now.

"In Hillary Clinton's America, the American Dream is alive and well," said Cuban, who isn't much of a political donor but has given 6 times more to Republicans than to Democrats. "There is no place that knows that better than Pittsburgh because we are an American Dream city." At one point he had claimed that Trump's campaign was "probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long long time." He describes himself as a libertarian who wants a social safety net, although he's flirted with joining the GOP. Well; no more flirting... he's found an ex-Republican who calls herself a Democrat but who has a similar middle-of-the-road policy perspective that he has.

Turns out, the Houston Chronicle wasn't the only newspaper to rush to endorse Hillary after watching the two conventions. Up in New Hampshire, the Concord Monitor's editors not only endorsed Clinton, they made a compelling case for why Republicans should vote for her. They began with a progressive vision, even citing how Bernie has at least appeared to have influenced her.

Clinton wants to rebuild America’s infrastructure, and in the process “pass the biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II.”

She wants to work with Bernie Sanders “to make college tuition free for the middle class and debt-free for all.”

She wants to make it easier for those who dream of opening a small business to get credit, and to invest in job training so anyone who wants a good job can get one.

And on and on. Her speech was full of dreams and aspirations for the next phase of American life. But unlike her opponent, Clinton is grounded in reality.

If every voter had the chance to sit down one-on-one with Clinton and Trump to ask them how they would accomplish all they promise, they would hear Clinton speak with intelligence and authority. If Trump has that ability, he has kept it hidden. Not once during his campaign has he spoken about any issue with anything resembling deep understanding. Instead, he promises to surround himself with smart people. What he doesn’t get is that a president must possess the wisdom to know what advice is in the nation’s best interest and what advice could cost American lives and livelihoods.

Unlike most voters, we had an opportunity to sit down with Clinton to talk about policy, and her depth of knowledge on every single issue we covered was astounding.

We also sat down with Jeb Bush, and he’s the same way. He is much more comfortable rolling up his sleeves and diving into health care or tax policy than trying to convert complicated ideas into campaign-friendly soundbites and catch phrases. And Lindsey Graham, too. Our discussion with him focused almost exclusively on ISIS and the upheaval in the Middle East. When Trump says he knows more about ISIS than the generals, it’s laughable; if Graham said it, which he never would, it would be a difficult claim to disprove. And then there’s John Kasich. Ask him about Ohio’s economy, and his eyes light up. He doesn’t have much of an appetite for Republican red meat-- he prefers to discuss job creation and balanced budgets.

All three can run policy circles around Trump, but they weren’t very good at insults, tweets and slogans short enough to fit on the front of a baseball hat, so they never made it to the convention stage. For whatever reason, Republican voters wanted a simple candidate this time around and that’s what they have.

We just can’t understand how a Republican who supported Bush, or Kasich, or Graham can vote for Trump when they have a kindred spirit in Clinton. We don’t understand how a Republican who supported George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon or Dwight Eisenhower-- or George W. Bush, for that matter-- can vote for Trump.

Beyond party affiliation, Trump has little in common with any past president. All the nation’s great political leaders have been policy people-- just like Clinton. And despite what Trump would have you believe, that’s worked out pretty well for America.

Not a real Democrat

Moderate Republicans like Mark Cuban and Hillary Clinton aren't necessarily real Democrats, even if they become partisan brawlers. Most ex-Republicans who go blue, turn out to be mainstays of the Republican wing of the Democratic Party who destroy the party's foundations from within-- like Florida numbskull Patrick Murphy has proven in Congress. A rare exception is Elizabeth Warren, who started out as a Republican but was too intellectually honest and rigorous to go the New Dem or Blue Dog route. But... a very rare exception. Most of the Republicans who have made the jump are pure garbage when it comes to policy and-- once they get recruited to run and elected to Congress courtesy of conservative Democrats like Steve Israel, Debbie Wassermann Schultz, Steny Hoyer and Chuck Schumer-- just vote with their old teammates most of the time anyway, the way Brad Ashford (NE), Patrick Murphy (FL) and Filemon Vela (TX) do. Currently, the DCCC is trying to pass off "ex"-Republicans Monica Vernon (IA), Charlie Crist (FL), Tom O'Halleran (AZ), Mike Derrick (NY), and Randy Perkins (FL) as Democratic candidates for House seats. Tap the thermometer and you'll find real Democrats who won't have to be cajoled into supporting progressive legislative initiatives in Congress:

You Don't Need To Be A Career Politician To Run For Office... But There ARE Worse Things Than Career Politicians

It isn't only the KKK and American Nazis who have been inspired by Trump's candidacy. All kinds of egomaniacs with gigantic senses of entitlement and self-importance want to run for office as well. Kanye West must have thought that if Trump can get as far as he is, how hard could it be? And this week we have Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who says his policy positions aren't the same as Trump's but--

I love the fact that he has changed the game… The idea of imperfect candidates with forceful ideas opens the door for a lot of people that would not have previously run.

Like sociopaths? Not that Congress doesn't already have some of those. Think no further than Darrell Issa (R-CA) or Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), the former a car thief and arsonist-for-pay turned politician and the latter a medical-doctor-who-specialized-in-drugging-his-patients-and-having-sex-with-them turned politician.

Cuban-- who in the past has feuded with his fellow rebel billionaire-- is hosting a Monday mega-rally for Trump at his Dallas arena. The Republican frontrunner called to ask about using the venue and Cuban saw the opportunity to strike a deal. “Our arena is amazing and his checks will clear,” explained the Mavericks owner.

Cuban is not the only famous, and famously, rich guy moved to reevaluate his view that the only people to succeed in public service are second-rate hacks who are full of baloney. Inspired by seeing one of their own do it, a slew of flamboyant moguls are giving politics a second look.

“Why would having government experience be a plus for a presidential candidate?” asked one-time multi-millionaire software pioneer John McAfee. The former fugitive from authorities in Belize who was arrested on DUI charges in Tennessee last month is now running for president. “I’d rather have a Trump, or I’d rather have a man on the street who has no knowledge of government.”

Unlike hip-hop mogul Kanye West, who may or may not have been sincere when he announced at the MTV Video Music Awards that he would seek the White House in 2020, McAfee is unambiguously serious about his campaign. He filed the papers for a third-party presidential bid with the FEC on Tuesday.

...Cuban-- who is not now planning to run for any specific office-- said he believes top American executives and entrepreneurs could “absolutely” hold their own in government and politics.

He is less impressed with the country’s top politicians. “Would I hire any of the other candidates? Maybe Marco Rubio,” Cuban said.

Cuban added it’s “too early to tell,” whether Trump could succeed at governing. He said he would be open to serving in a Trump administration “if he promises to do exactly what I tell him to do. ... Otherwise, it's highly unlikely.” [Update: Cuban might run next year.]

Billionaire financier Carl Icahn, on the other hand, has come around to the idea of public service under a President Trump.

In the 1980s, as Trump was penetrating the American consciousness, Icahn was shaking up the business world with a hard-charging corporate takeover of air carrier TWA.

In June, after Trump said he would name Icahn as his Treasury secretary, Icahn wrote in a statement that he would not take the position. But after the first Republican primary debate on Aug. 6, Icahn tweeted that he would be willing to accept Trump’s offer after all.

Trump’s run has also drawn billionaire car dealer Ernie Boch Jr. into the political process. Boch, who also inherited a family business from his father, said Trump’s run has energized him to become an active supporter of a national political campaign for the first time in his life.

Boch-- known in Massachusetts for appearing in quirky television commercials for his dealerships-- had never met Trump before this summer but said he is “fascinated by the man” and that he has been a longtime admirer of Trump’s business career. “He’s been the guy since the ‘80s.”

After lying in bed one night this summer and finding the businessman’s face on every news network as he flipped through television channels, Boch decided to host a fundraiser for Trump.

He called up conservative radio host Howie Carr, who has hosted Trump on his program, and Carr gave Boch a phone number for Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.

Boch called Lewandowski, a Massachusetts native who told the car dealer he was a fan of Boch’s rock band, Ernie and the Automatics (one benefit of being a rebel billionaire is that people have heard of your passion projects) and arranged for the event in about 10 minutes.

Boch said that after observing Trump up-close at the fundraiser-- which featured his personal drone hovering overhead taking aerial camera footage and a large, expressionist portrait of Trump displayed on an outdoor patio-- at his mansion outside of Boston, he determined that Trump is more authentic than career politicians.

He said he is now willing to do whatever is asked of him to assist Trump’s campaign and would be willing to serve in a Trump administration. Boch added that a group of his wealthy, normally apolitical, friends who attended the fundraiser were similarly impressed and have asked him to broker a meeting with the campaign so that they, too, can offer their services.

He said the group wished to remain private, but offered, “These are people who have more money than they know what to do with and can do whatever they want.”

Although the new WMUR poll released this morning showed that Trump-- for the first time--had lost his lead in New Hampshire, going into the CNN debate (Carson is within the margin of error)-- we still have to ask ourselves, how does this end? Badly. I'd be less than eager to see the GOP run Tom Brady for office... or any of the most beloved stars of MSNBC's program Lockup Raw get recruited to run for political offices, perhaps Fleece Johnson or Christian Knighten or... Raul Leon, this guy, a perfect successor to Chuck Schumer: