Happy Monday. On this day in 1879, Albert Einstein was born and would become the first Jewish boy who didn't disappoint his parents by not becoming a doctor or a lawyer.

AFTER CANCELING HIS FRIDAY NIGHT RALLY over concerns of escalating violence as thousands protested his speech in the University of Illinois at Chicago, Donald Trump spent the weekend encouraging concerns about escalating violence.

THE BILLION-DOLLAR BABY told NBC’s Meet the Press Who Enable Donald Trump that he would consider paying the legal fees for John McGraw, a 78-year-old man who sucker punched Rakeem Jones, a protester at a Trump rally, for the crime of “not acting like an American.”

THAT IS OBVIOUSLY CODED DOG-WHISTLE LANGUAGE for not marrying a Slovenian model twenty-five years your junior and manufacturing your ties in China.

THE ESCALATION OF VIOLENCE AT TRUMP RALLIES comes after months of the GOP frontrunner taunting, demonizing and describing exactly how he’d like to assault protesters, which makes it seem like this is just another beautifully choreographed event in a masterful campaign designed to distract us from the fact that Trump knows less about government than an average 8th grader with a blog.

SEEKING TO INJECT LIFE into America’s struggling cable TV economy, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders appeared on CNN for the third time in a week last night – this time in a Town Hall event that showed their commitment to remaking a network that hasn’t enjoyed steady ratings since Larry King was objectively lucid.

SPEAKING BETWEEN COMMERCIALS for the network’s Race for the White House re-enactment series (narrated by Kevin Spacey!), the candidates staked out bold positions against racism and dying of curable diseases.

THEN CAME THE PART OF THE DISCUSSION where moderators would normally pivot to the candidates’ personal wine, steak, and bottled water brands, except – and this is really awkward – Clinton and Sanders don’t have any. Somehow both made it past Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee and Martin O’Malley without owning so much as a single vineyard.

AFTER HIS CALLS TO VOTERS FOR MARCO RUBIO in his home state of Michigan led to Rubio’s fourth place finish with less than 10 percent of the vote, Mitt Romney is continuing his campaign as Donald Trump’s most successful campaign surrogate.

THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT now basically has one hope of stopping Donald Trump from easily cinching the Republican nomination before its National Convention – Ohio.

ROMNEY WILL BE APPEARING at two campaign stops with the state's governor John Kasich on Monday, reminding voters that he both suckled up to Trump for an endorsement in 2012 and then lost Ohio and the presidency in the second biggest popular vote landslide since 1988.

YOU'LL RECALL ROMNEY FLED the 2016 GOP primary in early 2015, becoming the only adult ever scared off by Jeb Bush. As the one candidate with the resources, wherewithal and tax evasion tactics to take on Trump directly, he left a feckless GOP field spinning like bumper cars as Trump peed on them from a steel-reinforced lifeguard seat situated at the center of the rink. Now it's likely too late.

THIS WEEKEND, AMERICA REALIZED that Richard Simmons, the man who had devoted himself to supporting the morbidly obese, a group our society tends to shun with morbid indifference, had "vanished from public view, and many who know him best say they haven’t had any contact in more than two years," the New York Daily News reported.

BUT SIMMONS ACTUALLY SEEMS to be pretty active online, tweeting and Facebooking and Instagramming like pretty much every other 67-year-old in a crop top.

IN AN INTERVIEW WITH TODAY'S SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, Simmons said this morning, "Richard's fine, you haven't seen the last of me," a message that reassured millions of Americans over 50, leading them to regain their appetite... and resume overeating again.

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NO, BERNIE SANDERS HAS NOT GIVEN PRIVATE SPEECHES TO BANK OF AMERICA, unless you count the hour he once spent yelling at an ATM that charged him a mystery fee.

OPEN VIEWING—China is trying to crack down on funeral strippers who are often hired to attract attendees, as large funeral crowds are seen as a sign of good fortune in the afterlife, according to guys who really like strippers.

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