Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Scientists discover DNA’s double-helix structure; The Branch Davidian standoff begins in Waco, Texas; Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme assassinated; U2 releases its ‘War’ album.

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

Langston Hughes

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So my activist brother asked me, “Who’s that ranty guy in shirt sleeves?”

Cody Johnston.

“He’s really good.”

Yeah, Some More News.

Nobody likes the Vanity Project Penis Wall O’ Racism. Not even Republicans.

GOP unloads border angst on Pence
By BURGESS EVERETT, Politico
02/26/2019

Vice President Mike Pence faced a wall of resistance from Senate Republicans on Tuesday as he tried to sell President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration on the southern border, according to multiple GOP sources.

The pointed reception at the GOP lunch raised further doubts among Senate Republicans that the administration will be able to hold down defections on a crucial vote to block the president in the coming weeks.

“There was a lot of passion from some of our members. And I think there is some skepticism. People are just genuinely concerned that we’re doing the right thing,” said one Republican senator, who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

Pence told Republicans that Trump’s plan to unilaterally shift billions in military funding to border wall construction was not like President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration, according to four attendees. He argued Trump is using an existing law and money approved by Congress, unlike Obama’s efforts to shield some immigrants from deportation.

The majority of the Senate GOP backs Trump, and many of them urged the party to back the president on Tuesday. But it appeared Pence’s pitch did little to move wavering GOP senators.

“I didn’t think his argument was very good. ‘We’ve got a crisis, that means the president can do this.’ That’s essentially the argument,” said a second Republican senator who is undecided on whether to stand with Trump.

As many as 10 Senate Republicans could support a resolution of disapproval if a vote were held today, according to four GOP senators who attended the lunch and heard Republican senators’ complaints. That’s far more than the four needed to pass the legislation on a simple majority and force Trump to issue the first veto of his presidency. Currently there are three public “yes” votes in the Senate GOP conference.
…
Pence did have some success in shoring up the president’s position, earning plaudits from GOP senators like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Kennedy of Louisiana, who said he was persuasive and convincing in arguing that the border is in a true state of emergency.

Pence is “hoping that people will rally around the president. Senators are going to vote the way they are going to vote. I think this really helped,” Graham said.

“We talked extensively about the factual and the legal basis,” Kennedy added. “I’m going to support the president. I think he’s right factually and I think he’s right statutorily. … There were some people who raised questions about it who will ultimately end up voting for [the disapproval resolution]. I’m not saying all of them.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who previously warned the president against declaring the emergency, acknowledged Tuesday that there was a “fulsome discussion” at the lunch between GOP senators and Pence and Justice Department officials.

And the Kentucky Republican said he himself is not sure about the legality of the national emergency declaration, though he has previously vowed to support the president in a floor vote.

“The [DOJ] lawyer was there to make his arguments. There were some counter arguments. I haven’t reached a total conclusion,” McConnell told reporters. “I personally couldn’t handicap the outcome at this point … but we will certainly be voting on it.”

More from Politico–

Missing from Trump’s wall war: What immigration hawks really want
By NANCY COOK and GABBY ORR, Politico
02/26/2019

President Donald Trump sees his border wall crusade as a base-pleasing 2020 campaign asset, proof that he is the ultimate immigration hardliner.

But his wall may not be built for years, if ever. In the meantime, Trump has yet to deliver on several other campaign promises that immigration hawks call far more important — a failure that could cost him among conservatives demanding results on border security going into Trump’s reelection bid.

Over two years in the White House, Trump has struggled to execute numerous agenda items long on immigration hardliners’ wish list — like finalizing stricter regulations, overhauling the immigration court system, adding additional surveillance technology to the border, doing away with sanctuary cities and making sure employers electronically check the immigration status of all workers.

Instead, Trump has picked high-profile battles over a southern border wall and banning travelers from certain Muslim-majority countries that generated controversy and whipped up parts of his base, but did not do much to stem the flow of illegal immigrants. In fact, the number of illegal crossings at the southern border rose this past fall to levels not seen since 2014 under President Barack Obama, although they still remain low relative to historic numbers.

“The focus on the wall is a bit myopic,” said RJ Hauman, director of government relations at FAIR, a group that seeks to reduce immigration overall. “They are right to pursue fencing in some areas, but we need to remember: It is just one little cog in a much broader approach. Sometimes the wall can suck all of the air out of the room.”

Often Trump blames this lack of progress on uncooperative Democrats, recalcitrant Republicans and activist judges. But ultimately, the president might bear the blame as the campaign heats up.

How unpopular is the Declaration of Emergency? Thirteen Republicans and counting.

House Votes to Block Trump’s National Emergency Declaration About the Border
By Emily Cochrane, The New York Times
Feb. 26, 2019

The House voted on Tuesday to overturn President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the Mexican border, with just 13 Republicans joining Democrats to try to block his effort to divert funding to a border wall without congressional approval.

House Republican leaders kept defections low after feverishly working to assuage concerns among rank-and-file members about protecting congressional powers and about the precedent that Mr. Trump could be setting for Democratic presidents to use for their own purposes.

“Is your oath of office to Donald Trump or is it to the Constitution of the United States?” Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked her Republican colleagues in a speech on the floor ahead of the vote. “You cannot let him undermine your pledge to the Constitution.”

The resolution of disapproval, which passed 245 to 182, must now be taken up by the Senate, where three Republicans have already declared their support, only one short of the number needed for Congress to ratify a stinging rebuke of Mr. Trump’s efforts.

It remains highly unlikely that opponents will muster the votes to overturn a promised veto of the resolution. But final passage of a measure to assert Congress’s constitutional authority over spending is sure to bolster numerous lawsuits that maintain that Mr. Trump’s declaration is an unconstitutional end run around Congress’s lawful power of the purse.

Many of the 13 Republicans who defected in the House were adamant in their arguments. Representative Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, a veteran lawmaker who once helped manage Republican efforts to remove Bill Clinton from the White House, made it clear he supported the border wall.

But, he said, “insufficient action — however frustrating it may be — is still the prerogative of the legislative branch. It is imperative that no administration, Republican or Democratic, circumvent the will of Congress.”

In the Senate, where lawmakers are required to vote on the resolution in the coming weeks, those concerns persisted. Even Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader and an open supporter of the declaration, declined to offer his opinion on the legal merits.

“We’re in the process of weighing that,” Mr. McConnell said when asked at a news conference on Tuesday. “I haven’t reached a total conclusion.”

“You can’t blame the president for trying to use whatever tool he thinks he has to address it,” he added.
…
Democrats, who overwhelmingly endorsed the resolution of disapproval, framed the vote as an ultimatum on whether lawmakers would buck party loyalty in order to protect Congress’s constitutionally granted powers. Ms. Pelosi, in a floor speech on Tuesday, listed a number of instances in which House Republicans had objected to Mr. Obama’s use of executive power, vowing that “we are not going to give any president, Democratic or Republican, a blank check to shred the Constitution of the United States.”

Representative Joaquin Castro called the vote on the one-page resolution “the most important vote, probably in a generation, on the separation of powers.”

Mr. Castro, Democrat of Texas and the author of the resolution, warned Republicans that if the president’s declaration went unchallenged, the issue would resurface.

“If Congress lets this stand, if the courts let it stand, how am I to tell a future president that gun deaths that number in the tens of thousands every year in this country, or opioid deaths that number in the thousands in this country, are not an emergency?” Mr. Castro said in a brief interview. “Or climate change is not a national emergency?”

“If this becomes a short circuit to get other things done,” he added, “then how is a president not expected to use that tool in the future?”
…
“The Congress of the United States needs to have a spine, and not lay at the feet of the president,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader. “That’s not what the people elected us to do.”

Live at the Necropolis: Lords of Synth – Adult Swim

I am jaded and cynical. He’s guilty, guilty, guilty you Morans and pretending that he isn’t is to live in the opiod orange haze that envelopes him.

Pretty Poppies. Sooo tired Toto.

No ‘new’ in news, just in 3D IMAX and whatever Dolby it is that includes the vibrating chairs.

Like them vibrating chairs.

Anyway, hope you have your Microwave Popcorn ready (What? If you think I’m above Microwave Popcorn or am willing to spend more than 2.5 minutes preparing it you are sadly mistaken), because this is how Watergate started.

Cohen to Testify That Trump Engaged in Criminal Conduct While in Office
By Rebecca Ballhaus and Warren P. Strobel, Wall Street Journal
Updated Feb. 26, 2019

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer, plans on Wednesday for the first time to publicly accuse the president of engaging—while in office—in criminal conduct related to a hush-money payment to a porn star, a person familiar with his expected testimony before Congress said.

Appearing before the House Oversight Committee, Mr. Cohen also plans to make public some of Mr. Trump’s private financial statements and allege that Mr. Trump at times inflated or deflated his net worth for business and personal purposes, including avoiding paying property taxes, the person said. The financial statements were developed by Mr. Trump’s accountant, the person said. The Wall Street Journal hasn’t seen those statements.
…
Some Republican lawmakers attacked Mr. Cohen ahead of Wednesday’s hearing. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.) tweeted Tuesday at Mr. Cohen: “Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends? Maybe tonight would be a good time to chat.”

Lanny Davis, a lawyer for Mr. Cohen, called the tweet a “new low.”

Mr. Cohen’s testimony on Wednesday is expected to focus on his “behind-the-scenes” accounts of working for Mr. Trump for over a decade, a period during which Mr. Cohen plans to say he witnessed “lies, racism and cheating” by Mr. Trump, the person said.

Mr. Cohen is expected to recount racist remarks Mr. Trump allegedly made to him, including instances in which Mr. Trump allegedly questioned the intelligence of African-Americans and criticized their lifestyle choices, the person said.
…
In his testimony Wednesday, Mr. Cohen will provide documentation of his reimbursement for the $130,000 Clifford payment, which he received in monthly installments of $35,000 throughout 2017, the person familiar with his testimony said. Mr. Cohen intends to show the panel a signed check, the person said.

Mr. Trump signed some of the checks reimbursing Mr. Cohen, which Mr. Cohen began receiving after Mr. Trump took office, according to another person familiar with the payments.

The payments to Mr. Cohen were characterized by Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg as legal fees, but federal prosecutors have said the monthly invoices weren’t in connection with any legal services Mr. Cohen provided at that time.

After the 2016 election, Mr. Weisselberg authorized a payment of double what Mr. Cohen had paid Ms. Clifford to cover related income taxes, as well as adding a $60,000 bonus, the Journal has previously reported.

In the wake of the Journal’s revelations, federal prosecutors investigated Mr. Cohen’s activities, raided his home, hotel room and office, and began probing the business practices of the Trump Organization, including whether it committed campaign-finance violations. The Trump Organization investigation, spearheaded by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, is continuing, people familiar with the matter said.
…
Mr. Cohen agreed to testify before the committee at the behest of its Democratic chairman, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, after postponing his scheduled hearing last month, citing public statements by Mr. Trump he saw as threats toward members of his family.

In August Mr. Cohen implicated the Republican president in two federal crimes when he told prosecutors Mr. Trump directed hush-money payments during the 2016 campaign to Ms. Clifford and to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who alleged she had an affair with Mr. Trump.

The person familiar with Mr. Cohen’s anticipated testimony said Mr. Cohen would provide “evidence of criminal conduct since Mr. Trump became president,” but other than saying it involved the Clifford payment, wouldn’t offer more specifics before Wednesday’s House hearing.

The hearing would be the first time Mr. Cohen alleges that Mr. Trump committed a crime while in office. While the payments to both women were made in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Mr. Trump has faced questions from reporters about his possible knowledge of Mr. Cohen’s subsequent reimbursement for the Clifford payment, as well as about whether he discussed with Mr. Cohen efforts to conceal the payment after the Journal first reported its existence in January 2018.

The president has denied the sexual encounters with the women as well as ordering Mr. Cohen to arrange the payments to them.

In December, federal prosecutors in New York for the first time directly implicated the president in the payoff scheme, referring to him in court papers as “Individual-1,” alleging that Mr. Trump had played a key role in the hush payments, as the Journal had previously detailed in its reporting.
…
Mr. Cohen plans to give his most detailed public account to date of Mr. Trump’s alleged direction of the hush payments, as well as how Mr. Trump was involved in efforts to conceal them from the public weeks before the 2016 election, according to the person.

He also plans to allege that Mr. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, was involved in those efforts, the person said.

The Journal first detailed Mr. Cohen’s account to prosecutors of Mr. Weisselberg’s involvement in November. Mr. Weisselberg was granted immunity by federal prosecutors in the investigation and testified before a grand jury, according to a people familiar with the matter.
…
In a memo released last week, Mr. Cummings said that in addition to the hush-money payments, Mr. Cohen’s testimony would focus on the president’s compliance with tax laws, his “potential and actual conflicts of interest,” his business practices and “the accuracy of the President’s public statements,” among other matters.

Mr. Cohen won’t answer questions related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump or any of his associates colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, according to a person close to Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump has denied collusion, as has Russia.

Mr. Cohen is expected to explain why he lied to Congress in 2017 to play down Mr. Trump’s involvement in efforts during the campaign to build a Trump Tower in Moscow but isn’t expected to say whether Mr. Trump had directed him to make those misstatements, according to the person familiar with Wednesday’s planned testimony. Mr. Cohen will tell the committee that Mr. Trump continued to inquire about the project months past January 2016—the month Mr. Cohen cited before Congress in 2017 as when the project ended, this person said.

Mr. Cohen is set to speak before the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday.

Republicans on the Oversight Committee plan to try to undercut and discredit Mr. Cohen’s testimony by raising questions about his motivations for speaking to Congress.

Republicans plan to ask Mr. Cohen the reason for the “sudden righteousness” that led him to plead guilty and implicate the president in crimes, according to a GOP lawmaker on the committee. They also plan to ask who is paying his legal fees; why he fired his former attorney, Guy Petrillo; and to whom he has spoken about his conversations with investigators, the lawmaker said.

In a letter last week to the chairman, GOP Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina accused the panel under Mr. Cummings’s leadership of being “out to attack the president for partisan gain,” noting that Mr. Cohen had previously lied to Congress in a 2017 hearing. They said they intended to question Mr. Cohen about his “conduct throughout his professional life and any other financial dealings he has had, including with his father-in-law.”

The documents Mr. Cohen plans to discuss in his public testimony partly reflect a way for Mr. Cohen to deflect attacks from Republican members of the committee, the person familiar with his plans said, adding: “He expects to be called a liar.”

So is Cohen the new John Dean? He’d like you to think so. His evidentiary value is in verifying documents and tapes seized during his search warrants are the real thing.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Germany’s Reichstag burns, giving the Nazis under Adolf Hitler a pretext to seize absolute power; A cease-fire ends the Persian Gulf War; Actress Elizabeth Taylor born; Children’s TV host Fred Rogers dies.

We deal here with the right of all of our children, whatever their race, to an equal start in life and to an equal opportunity to reach their full potential as citizens. Those children who have been denied that right in the past deserve better than to see fences thrown up to deny them that right in the future.

Thurgood Marshall

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The only things wrong with this is that Chris Christie is not in jail and I don’t think Baroni is being sincere in his regret.

He only cares that he got caught.

Bridgegate conspirator blames Christie’s ‘cult and culture’ ahead of prison sentence
By RYAN HUTCHINS, Politico
02/26/2019

One of the conspirators behind the George Washington Bridge lane closing scandal blamed the “cult and culture” of Chris Christie before being sentenced Tuesday to 18 months in federal prison.

The bizarre political stunt, which became known as Bridgegate, was designed to help the Republican governor’s career, but ended up halting his march toward the White House.

Bill Baroni, a former Republican state senator who served as Christie’s top appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was convicted in November 2016 after a dramatic, six-week trial in federal court.

Appearing before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Wigenton on Tuesday, Baroni said he takes full responsibility for what he has done, though he blamed his actions on the hard-edge political style imposed by those loyal to Christie. Before his appointment to the staff of the bi-state Port Authority, Baroni said, he thought he had a clear sense of “right and wrong.”

“When I went to work at the Port Authority — when I went to work for Chris Christie — that line disappeared. I wanted to be on the team. I wanted to please him,” Baroni told the court. “I chose to get sucked into his cult and his culture.”

Baroni said he did nothing to stop the political scheme, which involved closing lanes to the world’s busiest bridge to cause severe traffic problems over the course of several days in September 2013.

Baroni said he’s ready to be punished and wants to work to make amends.

“I’m broken. So much good that I have done in my life I destroyed,” Baroni said, openly crying as he stood to face the court. “I deeply disappointed my friends and my family and my father. I’m so sorry.”

Tuesday’s court appearance came nearly two years after Baroni had been sentenced to 24 months in prison by the same judge. Baroni and his co-defendant, Bridget Anne Kelly, later appealed their convictions and were able to convince a federal appellate court to toss some of the counts against them, opening the window for the shorter stint in prison.

“The facts haven’t changed,” Wigenton said, calling the crimes an “outrageous display” and an “abuse of power.”

She also ordered Baroni to complete a year of supervised release, 500 hours of community service and pay nearly $22,000 in fines and restitution.

In a decision in November, a panel of judges sitting on the Third Circuit upheld the seven wire fraud and conspiracy counts on which Baroni and Kelly were convicted, but dismissed two civil rights-related convictions.

Kelly, who was one of Christie’s deputy chiefs of staff, is still fighting her conviction, hoping to plead her case before the U.S. Supreme Court. She was previously sentenced to 18 months.

With the help of a third conspirator, David Wildstein, who pleaded guilty and testified against the others, Baroni and Kelly helped orchestrate a scheme to close local access lanes to the bridge, tying up traffic for hours in the densely-populated Bergen County town of Fort Lee. The plan was meant to punish Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor, who refused to endorse Christie, a Republican, in his reelection bid.

Christie was never charged in the case and insists he had nothing to do with the scheme. But testimony during the trial painted an unflattering picture of his administration and damaged his presidential aspirations. Some testimony also contradicted Christie’s previous statements about when he was notified of the lane closures.
…
Federal prosecutors had urged Wigenton to consider imposing the same 24-month sentence she had delivered in 2017 — just above the new guideline range of 12 months to 18 months. Baroni, they argued, did not accept full responsibility for his actions, minimizing his role in the scandal.

“What he’s actually acknowledged is something far, far less than what actually happened,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lee Cortes said.

He said Baroni’s claim that he lost his way is true.

“But just saying it like that doesn’t fully grapple with the conscious choices he made over and over and over again,” Cortes said.

Every Republican is guilty of cheating.

Every last one.

To be fair there is a Left case to make against the EU based on Corporatist Regulation and Labor reservations about free movement diluting the Demand for Labor and reducing wages, both of which are very real. Just about half the Party falls in the Leave camp so moves in support of Remaining in the EU risk losing base support. Moreover an important part of Jeremy Corbyn’s career has been made expressing just this sentiment (regardless of how he really feels which, since I’m not a mind reader, I can’t know and Corbyn has been deliberately cagey in his public pronouncements).

But the time for long term political positioning is past and it is high time for Labour to take a stand, which is basically all of the above. Labour is now simultaneously in favor of-

1. A very soft Labour Brexit (unlikely to pass)
2. An extension (highly likely to pass)
3. And huzzah, a Second Referendum (also likely but not a sure thing)

Jeremy Corbyn: we’ll back a second referendum to stop Tory no-deal Brexit
by Jessica Elgot, The Guardian
Mon 25 Feb 2019

Jeremy Corbyn has finally thrown his party’s weight behind a second EU referendum, backing moves for a fresh poll with remain on the ballot paper if Labour should fail to get its own version of a Brexit deal passed this week.

The decision to give the party’s backing to a second referendum follows a concerted push by the shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, and the deputy leader, Tom Watson, who fear any further delay could have led to more defections to the breakaway Independent Group (TIG), whose members all back a second referendum.

Although the move has delighted MPs who are backing the People’s Vote campaign, Corbyn is likely to face determined opposition from dozens of MPs in leave seats if the party whips to back a second referendum, including a significant number of frontbenchers.

The former shadow minister Lucy Powell said she believed at least 25 MPs would vote against any whip to back a second referendum, meaning that it would face an uphill struggle to pass the Commons without significant Conservative support.

A private briefing sent to Labour MPs on Monday night and seen by the Guardian makes it clear that Labour’s policy would be to include remain as an option in any future referendum.

“We’ve always said that any referendum would need to have a credible leave option and remain,” the briefing said. “Obviously at this stage that is yet to be decided and would have to be agreed by parliament.”

The briefing also makes it clear that the party would not support no deal being included on the ballot paper. “There’s no majority for a no-deal outcome and Labour would not countenance supporting no deal as an option,” the briefing says. “What we are calling for is a referendum to confirm a Brexit deal, not to proceed to no deal.”

The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, indicated on Monday evening that both she and Corbyn would campaign for remain if there were a future public vote.

“We would have a referendum on whatever deal it is that may or may not pass through parliament and we would be saying to people: ‘Do you want this, or do you want to remain?’” she told Channel 4 News.

Thornberry said she “would certainly be campaigning for us to remain” in those circumstances and, when asked if Corbyn shared that view, she added: “If it’s a choice between a disastrous Tory Brexit or no deal, and remaining, then that is what we will have to do.”

The redrawing of Labour’s objectives is likely to stem any fresh flood of resignations to TIG, whose members include the former Labour MPs Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie as well as the ex-Tory MP Anna Soubry, all key figures in the People’s Vote movement.

Corbyn told MPs the party would back a fresh poll as a final resort in order to stop “a damaging Tory Brexit being forced on the country”.

Speaking to MPs on Monday night, a week after seven MPs who backed a referendum quit the party, Corbyn said Labour would first table its own version of a Brexit deal, including a permanent customs union.

That amendment is set to be tabled to the government’s Brexit motion on Wednesday, when Labour will also whip to back another amendment tabled by Yvette Cooper and the Tory Oliver Letwin, which would legislate for a delay to the UK’s exit date in order to avoid no deal.

May is expected to make a last-ditch attempt to avoid a serious cabinet rebellion over that amendment this week. The Guardian reported last week that at least four cabinet ministers and almost a dozen junior ministers and many others on the government payroll were ready to rebel and vote for the measure.

The prime minister’s most likely option is a pledge to let MPs vote on delaying Brexit if the withdrawal deal does not pass by 12 March, though Cooper and Letwin’s backers have suggested they will reject that approach.

Party sources said Labour would not introduce or back any amendment for a second referendum this week, but see the crunch point at the next opportunity – likely to be the next meaningful vote on the Brexit deal that May has promised to hold by 12 March.

The reason this is smart and should have been done long ago is May’s deal is terrible (not for the reasons European Research gives) and a No Deal is worse than that. A Labour Brexit has no chance without a General Election so it’s kind of a fantasy and a Second Referendum at least gives you a chance to shuffle the deck.

Plus it has the advantage of being ‘democratic’.

Ron Burgundy