"Americans benefit from free trade," said Chocola in a press release this morning. "It forces companies to innovate and compete leading to greater variety, lower prices, and better quality goods and services."

Club for Growth, which advocates and promotes free-market principles, has a long history of denouncing politicians who the group believes are not fiscally conservative enough. (The Club recently declared Donald Trump the "King of Protectionism" in response to his call for a 25 percent tax on Chinese imports.)

Schumer has been outspoken lately in his criticism of China's economic policies following a trip to Beijing earlier this month; and yesterday he declared his intention to unveil "a bunch of legislation" that would encourage the country to play nice with the U.S. by accelerating the appreciation of the yuan.

In the past, Schumer tried to take similar legislative action when he sought to impose a tariff on Chinese imports, which the Club for Growth calls "protectionist."

"Chuck Schumer likes to talk about how he's looking out for the middle class," said Chocola. "But he wants to hit Americans in all income brackets with a massive new sales tax on the goods they buy every day."

UPDATE: A Schumer spokesman emailed a response from the senator. "It is a betrayal of free-trade principles to let China continue taking unfair advantage of the rest of the world's economies. Every major American company that I met with in China told me that China does not trade fairly and their protectionism against foreign firms is getting worse. There is no bigger step we can take to promote U.S. job creation, particularly in the manufacturing sector, than to confront China's currency manipulation and I intend to do just that." 

NYPIRG notes Trump gave money to lots of NY Democrats, including Eliot Spitzer, David Paterson, Kathleen Rice, etc. Overall, "$395,391.66 of this money has gone to Democrats, compared to $172,150 to Republicans," the group notes.

The Club for Growth continues their critique of Trump, reminding people Trump tried using eminent domain to build a limousine parking lot in New Jersey. The Club's president Chris Chocola went on MSNBC last night to trash Trump. "I hestitate to come on the show because we're doing exactly what he wants: talk about him," Chocola said.

But Chocola, and others, seem compelled to begin treating Trump as something of a real candidate, after a few recent polls showed him leading an undeveloped Republican field. The Group's effort would seem to be an attempt to cut off his candidacy at the pass, before his scheduled announcement sometime in June.

Meanwhile, The New York Times' David Brooks said there is something aspirational about Trump's brazen embodiment of capitalism. Washington Post's Richard Cohen said there's lot of unflattering info in Trump's background, but yes, he probably won't stop any time soon.

Note: Trump is the father in-law of the Observer's publisher, Jared Kushner.