Gedanken

Yeah, the mechanism is creaky, but it still works.

• Jake Tapper was interviewing Curt Schilling (whom I respect as a pitcher, much as I do Jim Bunning, but whose politics I despise, much as I do Jim Bunning's, but Bunning is retired and Schilling never pitched a perfect game.  I have standards) when the latter got ... weirdly anti-Semitic and tried to lasso Mr. Tapper into playing that game.  He wants to run against Elizabeth Warren. Mostly the voters in Massachusetts have better sense than to elect him, but he was a hero of the Red Sox curse-breakers.  (Karoli Kuns, Crooks and Liars.  See also the update.)
• Yastreblyansky takes a whack at Mr. Brooks (following Driftglass's thorough evisceration of a Brooks column, linked in both posts) and points out that Mr. B. is trying to legitimize Mr. "No Sex, Just Lies on Videotape" O'Keefe, apparently in the name of "repairing moral capital." And this is where I have to say that when I hear conservatives talk about morals or morality, I (a) make sure my wallet is in a safe place and (b) start scanning the media for the incoming scandal, because there's always a brewing incoming scandal.  
• I like the idea of balancing the budget; I have, however, noticed that the people who are supposed to bear the belt-tightening are never legislators, millionaires, billionaires, or large and/or multinational businesses.  Also, when taxes were "lowered," fees for the services formerly covered by taxes were imposed.  Also, remember inflation, the bugaboo of the '70s?  It never really went away.  It just slowed down.  Somewhat.  
• Speaking of economics, naked capitalism has an article by Lynn Parramore on what economists fail to understand about race.  (A lot, apparently.)

  Asked if there have been improvements in the way academic economics tackle issues of inequality since his student days in the 1970s, Darity does not have particularly good news:
  
  “Actually, I think it’s shifted even further to the right so that alternative approaches are even more marginalized now,” he says. “The ideological content of economics is masked somewhat by the high degree of technical requirements. So in some respects I think economics is even less open than it was when I was first exposed to the field.”

  "Stratification economics" looks at this situation.
• When I see the term "intellectual elite" in the first paragraph of an article, I reach for my revolver tend to suspect the point of view of the rest of the article, and this is a piece that raises all sorts of red flags ("red" flags, get it?), but being reminded of the long history of the populist tendency in the United States and the dangers thereof (yes, I said "thereof."  The pearls are in the next room) is useful.  (Anis Shivani, AlterNet)

  Whether or not Trump is a neo-fascist is less interesting than tracing his similarities to European right-wing populists like Jean-Marie Le Pen, Jörg Haider, Umberto Bossi, Gianfranco Fini, and others. It can’t be denied that every extreme right-wing movement has a tendency to slip into overt fascism at times, as when entire populations are targeted for exclusion and punishment. But to understand Trumpism we are better off searching for familiar strains in American populism, from Father Coughlin to George Wallace, from Huey Long to Pat Buchanan. I mention Long, the populist governor of Louisiana during the Great Depression, because there are elements of Trump’s critique that have something of the redistributive element as well, though Coughlin’s charismatic media presence, Wallace’s appeal to white supremacy and Buchanan’s America First xenophobia and protectionism are clearer markers of Trumpism’s homegrown origins.
  
  [...]
  
  Trumpism and allied movements cannot take on globalization without also taking on multiculturalism. The neo-populists see no way around neoliberal globalization except through overcoming multiculturalism. They see those unfairly benefiting from the multicultural model as being the cause of their misery, their perpetual uncertainty in the new economy, because there is no telling when their jobs might be permanently lost due to lower wages in other countries or because of unfair competition from immigrants who ought to have less of a rightful claim than natives. Whether it’s called France for the French, Germany for the Germans, or Make America Great Again, the idea is the same.

  It is an unwritten rule that invoking -isms is a hallmark of stuff trying to sound profound.
• "Why the Media is Botching the Election." (Brian Beutler, New Republic.  Say no more.  I can say no more.)

• The dark carnival that is the Trump Campaign continues to limp onto the ash heap of history by butt-scooting it's crackpot theories and racist demagoguery all over the hallowed ground of Gettysburg. I'm not sure which Trump brain-wizard decided that the sight of a doomed racist cause making a suicidal charge into the teeth of overwhelming force was the very best metaphor on which to begin the final chapter of the campaign of their unhinged orange fire demon, but I hope they got their money up front.

  Driftglass. Who is running his annual fundraiser. SEND HIM SOME MONEY!
  
• ETA:  [Yes!  I know!] Bruce Springsteen does not care for Trump.  (Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, at AlterNet)

Probably more than you want on a Saturday afternoon. Take your time.