“No milkshake for you!” What happens at the Bohemian Grove

When people refer to the ‘old boys network’, they usually think of gatherings in boardrooms, country clubs, and the like. But there is a weird variation of it that is less well known and that is the Bohemian Club that takes place for two weeks annually at a place called the Bohemian Grove. A sociological study of the club suggests that at these gatherings very little plotting and scheming takes place. In fact, such things are actively discouraged. What is encouraged is drinking and playfulness bordering on the downright gross and ridiculous. What that does is build social cohesion among the movers and shakers in society, because when men (and it is open only to men) let their hair down and act silly in a group, it apparently creates bonds among them.
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Republican debate differed in style if not in substance

Last night’s 12th Republican debate was decidedly different in tone from the previous ones, even if the actual content consisted of the same right-wing extremist positions we have heard before. There were no insults and name calling, no interrupting and talking over each other, and no repeated requests to the moderators to be called upon to rebut someone else. The moderators tried a couple of times early on on to get the others to respond to Donald Trump’s statements but they did not take the bait.
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How Trump lies so successfully

Donald Trump can truthfully call Ted Cruz a liar but there is no question that he is a much bigger liar. The difference is that he gets away with it because he has figured out that when you say something on TV, huge numbers of people hear it and assume it to be true. When fact-checkers later look into your claims and publish the truth, many fewer people (usually just those following politics closely) hear the refutations. So he wins.
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The Dump Trump movement tries again for possibly the last time

The Republican and Washington and media establishments have failed to stop the rise of Donald Trump and their critics have accused them of not taking him seriously until it was too late.

One evening last June, some of the Republican Party’s wealthiest donors gathered for a cocktail party at an exclusive resort in Deer Valley, Utah, during a three-day retreat hosted by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

They had just heard from six presidential hopefuls. Tom Duncan, the CEO of tool-maker Positec Tool Corp, chatted with a few attendees about a fantasy ticket to secure the White House in November 2016: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, with Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his running mate.
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Giving Trump his due

Whatever else one might say about Donald Trump (and there is always plenty to say), there is no question that he has exposed the seedy underbelly of the lies that the Republican party has been feeding its supporters over the years, that the policies that the party advocates will benefit them when in reality it benefits just the one-percenters. Trump’s success shows that the voters are catching on that they’ve been had on that issue, though they may have just replaced an old con with a new one, that Trump will solve their problems.
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Resurgent Sanders, Triumphant Trump

Last night’s primary results produced a shock win for Bernie Sanders in Michigan where polls had had him trailing Hillary Clinton by about 20 points almost right up to the election. On the morning of the election yesterday, the poll guru Nate Silver had predicted a greater than 99% probability of a Clinton victory. Harry Enten says that “Sanders’s win in Michigan was one of the greatest upsets in modern political history.”
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