Or you wouldn’t be able to be obstructionists:
This year Senate Republicans are threatening filibusters to block more legislation than ever before, a pattern that’s rooted in — and could increase — the pettiness and dysfunction in Congress.
The trend has been evolving for 30 years. The reasons behind it are too complex to pin on one party. But it has been especially pronounced since the Democrats’ razor-thin win in last year’s election, giving them effectively a 51-49 Senate majority, and the Republicans’ exile to the minority.
Seven months into the current two-year term, the Senate has held 42 “cloture” votes aimed at shutting off extended debate — filibusters, or sometimes only the threat of one — and moving to up-or-down votes on contested legislation. Under Senate rules that protect a minority’s right to debate, these votes require a 60-vote supermajority in the 100-member Senate.
Democrats have trouble mustering 60 votes; they’ve fallen short 22 times so far this year. That’s largely why they haven’t been able to deliver on their campaign promises.
By sinking a cloture vote this week, Republicans successfully blocked a Democratic bid to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April, even though a 52-49 Senate majority voted to end debate.
This year Republicans also have blocked votes on immigration legislation, a no-confidence resolution for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and major legislation dealing with energy, labor rights and prescription drugs.
When you read this story, remember all the hysterical foot-stomping and wailing and gnashing and beating of breasts that took place in late 2004 and early 2005. It is merely more evidence of what I think that the most breathtaking thing about the pigheadedness of the GOP the past few years- how exceptionally short-sighted they are on everything. And I mean everything. Former proponents of the nuclear option will lamely attempt to claim that it only would have applied to the filibustering of judges- you and I know better. Regardless, over and over and over again, the Republicans have acted in a manner that may provide some sort of marginal electoral or political gain in the short-term (Schiavo, anyone?), but damages them and the country in the long term.
If you don’t think the next Democratic President is going to love the Imperial Presidency Bush and Cheney are trying to construct, aided and abetted by a subservient and supine minority (formerly a majority- think that is a coincidence) in Congress, you need your head examined.
Prince Roy
and just think: your two idiotic votes help make this happen!
scarshapedstar
That seems like kinda circular reasoning.
“Republicans, acting like dicks, may increase the dickishness of Congress.” Thanks for pointing that out, media! Be sure and blame it on Michael Moore or some shit.
Ted
Don’t you mean that former proponents of the ‘nuclear option’ will claim that?
cd6
If this is somehow reported accurately that the Repubs are holding up troop withdrawals and negotiated prescription drug benefits, combined with the numbers of Repubs and Dems coming up for reelection in the Senate in 08, we very well could be looking at a Dem supermajority. Stick that in your pipe and go fuck yourself, Mitch McConnell.
Zifnab
Oh give it a fucking rest.
jake
Not to worry, Bush/Cheney will give the remaining Republican Congress critters their balls back when they leave office and Rove will issue some final instructions.
They’ll be shrieking about tyranny, co-equal powers and the bringing our troops out of Iraq before the sanitation crew has started cleaning up after the inaugural parade.
With slightly less snark: I’m really hoping that the next president will draft laws to correct the BushFiasco (TM), rather than leaving things in place.
Yeah I know, clap harder!
John Cole
Yes. I fixed it. Thank you.
Prince Roy
Not bloody likely. Since when does any government official/branch/agency voluntarily cede power? The current candidates are salivating at their chance to wield the new, unprecedented power of the executive. That’s why so many of them are on record against impeachment.
RSA
But we have to appreciate their flexibility: Many people are short-sighted about the future; it takes real screw-ups to be equally short-sighted about the past. If some Republicans appear to have lost their anchor from reality, it’s because they’ve become unmoored in time [cue Twilight Zone theme song].
Ted
Whew. I thought I was possibly having a reading comprehension problem. But I got what you meant.
Zifnab
Honestly, I’m thinking more of the wailing and nashing of teeth the Republicans threw up in Feburary and March when Democrats tried pushing through their own wimpy “Sense of the Senate” resolutions. Remember how McConnell and Lott cried and moaned over how these resolutions didn’t really do anything and shouldn’t be voted on? Now we’ve got legislation that does something and, surprise surprise, we’re not allowed to vote that either.
So, I guess the question I would pose to our esteemed Minority Leader would be, what exactly is the Senate allowed to vote on? Nothing? Because it seems that by your standards, we are allowed to vote on nothing.
Catsy
I can actually see Obama and Edwards voluntarily rolling back most elements of the Imperial Presidency. Not so much with Hillary.
But any of the above would be orders of magnitude less malignant and destructive to this nation than even the best GOP candidate in the field.
jg
They are not short sighted. I’m sure the ministry of truth will put forth lots of news articles and talking head motions in opposition to the unitary executive if there’s a dem in the white house. It won’t matter that they previously argued for it because you know, good luck getting anyone to listen to you while you’re pointing that out.
Gotta maintain political order, if reality serves that, fine. Otherwise just make something up.
Ted
I think the congressional Democrats are wisely, if cynically, against impeachment because getting Bush out of office early would be the best thing for the GOP right now. When the leader of your opposition party is so despised, I guess it’s not a good idea to remove him and put someone less loathed in his place. It would be best for the country as well, but we are talking about politicians.
Ted
For our lovely and capable media, it’s safe to report that Al Gore said he invented the Internet. But we shall not talk about Trent Lott saying “the filibuster is wrong” a mere two years before he stood behind Mitch McConnell while McConnell explained why the minority GOP is filibustering almost everything on the table.
Chad N. Freude
Impeachment is a lose-lose situation and it’s not going to happen, but I would love to see the debate in the House on drawing up articles of impeachment.
jake
Perhaps, but what happens when another ruthless bastard winds up in the White House? He won’t have to do any work, the system will already be fucked, people will be used to it and it will be impossible for either party to suddenly say “Oh no you don’t!” after supporting it for several years.
I think I’ll pass on that one, ‘cos I don’t want to emigrate and I don’t want to buy a gun.
Psycheout
Yeah sure, but we all know that the nuclear option was about judges, not general legislative business. It was very honest of you to pretend otherwise. But you live in ‘reality based’ land where you make up reality to suit your lefty views.
The Congress that legislates least, legislates best.
Pb
I don’t know, who’s the next Democratic President, and what’s their stance on, say, Habeas Corpus? Personally, I’m rooting for more of a Thomas Jefferson over a John Adams, if you know what I mean…
Pb
Welcome back, Darrell–how honest of you to change your handle!
John Cole
Me, in the post:
Psycheout, in the comments:
Anyone with half a brain and the slightest sense of honesty would recognize that using the nuclear option to break the filibuster for judicial nominees would lead to an unscrupulous majority party breaking it for everything simply because the legislation was super-duper important.
mrmobi
Another pearl of wisdom from Gruppenfuhrer Psycheout.
You’ve drowned the government in the bathtub, and now you have advice for us? Fuck you. Fuck you very much.
scarshapedstar
The Executive that Orders least, Orders best.
How come you never hear that one?
Dave
Not to mention there is not enough time to make it happen. While I’m sure history will reinforce what we already know, that this is them most incompetent administration in my lifetime (maybe even in the history of the U.S.), I’m actually hoping the next White House occupant declassifies most of what this administration has tried to hide so we can see exactly how much damage has been done.
Bruce Moomaw
I have no objection to disposing of the filibuster. In a democracy, majorities are SUPPOSED to be able to get their policies passed and their nominees confirmed, dammit –except in infrequent cases where a supermajority is a good idea for specialized reasons, such as treaty ratification and running a deficit (where we DON’T have such a rule yet, but should!)
The filibuster didn’t even exist during this country’s first 15 years, during which the Senate could shut off debate by a simple majority vote — until that noble figure Aaron Burr, in his very last act as Vice President, talked the Senate into allowing absolutely unlimited debate, since after all they were all Gentlemen and would surely never abuse the privilege. By the time they realized their mistake, it was too late; Burr’s Revenge on the US was complete, and every attempt to re-eliminate the filibuster was — you guessed it — filibustered. Woodrow Wilson finally managed to force the Senate to allow debate cutoff by a 2/3 vote after three Senators threatened to single-handedly filibuster the US into never being able to declare war on Germany (Wilson accused them of “treason” and stirred up a public uproar); and it got reduced again to a 3/5 vote in 1975 after its usefulness to racist Southern senators in blocking any civil rights legislation finally evaporated.
I say the hell with it, no matter which party is using it — and I agree with Sanford Levinson that the Democrats should have allowed the GOP to use their threatened Nuclear Option to get rid of it during the debates over Roberts and Alito. Instead, as Levinson says, the Dems — with their usual strategic acumen — “saved” the filibuster in return for rolling over flaccidly anyway on the confirmation of those two men. Brilliant!
If you really want to reduce dangerous one-party control in this country, the proper way to do it is to departisanize the Justice Department by passing a Constitutional amendment requiring a Congressional supermajority to confirm (and at intervals reconfirm) the Attorney General, and giving him veto power over the President’s other DoJ employees.
jake
You’ll have to excuse Psycheout. S/he’s feeling a bit cranky since s/he knows Brownback will become PotUS when the Winter Olympics in take place in Hell.
cleek
WTF. they can’t even control the Congress they have today. what on earth makes you think it’s going to be any different if they win the presidency too ?
they’re a bunch of spineless sea slugs. the Reps might be criminal and 100% wrong on everything, but they play to win. the Dems won but refuse to step up and use the tools they have at their disposal to do the things that need to be done. they’re not going to shame the Reps into playing by the old rules, so why do they insist on following them themselves ?
Cassidy
It wouldn’t take that much. Simply voting in legislators who don’t preach rhetoric over substance in their campaigns would be a good start.
Dave
Except the United States was set up so the majority didn’t run roughshod all over the minority. Why do you think the Senate has equal representation of all states vs. the House which is population based.
Google Republic vs Democracy.
Dave
Find one and they’ll probably have my vote regardless of what letter is after their name. However, they don’t exist much anymore.
Cassidy
It wouldn’t be that hard. Problem is that the loudest voices of oposition hold stances that are mostly made up of rhetoric. The possible representatives are just living up to the (lack of) standards set by the constituency.
Rome Again
Well, if/when that happens, I’ll be screaming about that too, okay?
Rome Again
What planet are you living on? Congress doesn’t listen to their constituents anymore. They do what they wish to do, which is tow the Bush Administration ship of state to the shoreline. The former Rubberstamping Republicans of the last congress are not listening to anyone but their beloved Cheney. he goes to speak to them on Tuesdays. Why does he not talk to Democrats as well? He only speaks to Republicans (and I’m sure Lieberman is invited too). Partisan interference from the administration has set the agenda for what Congress does.
Punchy
History prof Bruce Moomaw, golf clap. Dammit, it’s Saturday, and I’m not supposed to be learnin’ stuff.
Can you post this historical shit more often?
Bruce Moomaw
Me: “I have no objection to disposing of the filibuster. In a democracy, majorities are SUPPOSED to be able to get their policies passed and their nominees confirmed, dammit—except in infrequent cases where a supermajority is a good idea for specialized reasons, such as treaty ratification and running a deficit (where we DON’T have such a rule yet, but should!)”
Dave: “Except the United States was set up so the majority didn’t run roughshod all over the minority. Why do you think the Senate has equal representation of all states vs. the House which is population based.”
Beg pardon? As pointed out by Robert Dahl 9arguably America’s most prestigious political scientist) in his short and indispensable 2002 book “How Democratic is the American Constitution?”, we got our grotesquely misproportioned Senate (over the furious public objections of both Hamilton and Madison) not because of any reasoned argument about “distribution of power among states”, but simply because the small states (led by Delaware’s Convention delegate Gunning Bedford) explicitly threatened to traitorously ally with some European power against the infant republic if they were NOT given such disproportionate clout (for which Bedford, entirely correctly, was called a traitor by some other delegates during the Convention).
It was as intellectual a debate as Al Capone could ever have wished — an entirely naked, unashamed power grab — and in the only Federalist Paper on the Senate’s apportionment (#62), Madison bemoans and ridicules our Senate apportionment as “peculiar”, and sadly adds that it was the only way to get the Constitution passed and that even a seriously flawed Constitution is better than none. (As he and Hamilton — the latter in a fiery spech at the Convention — pointed out, rightful protection of minority political rights obviously has nothing to with giving some Americans far more voting clout just because they’re lucky enough to live in the right place.)
The result is that, ever since, rural Americans have had thir votes count for far more than those of urban Americans simply because big cities are all located in big, and Senate-underrepresented, states (which is also the only reason why Ameican politicians feel obligated to blather during their campaigns about the virtues of the rural life). It also means that — right now — the votes of exactly 19% of Americans count as much as the votes of the other 81% in the Senate. Charming.
scarshapedstar
Very true. It was set up so that the minority ran roughshod all over the majority.
Rome Again
And wouldn’t you know, Gunning Bedford had a school district named after him as a result.
Delaware, as the capital of corporate entities, has an extra advantage as well. A very small state, with equal senatorial representation, and lots of Delaware incorporated entities including all the big banks using that power (Biden – MBNA ring a bell?) with many of those corporations residing outside of the state of DE, to get their way.
ThymeZone
Democracy depends upon the submission of the minority.
I didn’t say that, William F. Buckley did about two years ago in an essay about Iraq.
It’s the reason why Iraq, as we currently envision it, is doomed. Governance is not rule. And in this republic, as in Iraq, governing requires the participation of all the parties to it. Majority, and minority. The slimmer the majority, the more true this obviously must be.
There can be no slimmer majority than 51-49 in a body of 100, can there? We report, you decide.
What exactly are you all missing here? Get rid of the filibuster? Sure. Why not advocate the harvesting the moon’s green cheese while you are at it?
Ain’t gonna happen. Shouldn’t happen. Whatever mechanisms exist to force the opposing sides to either cooperate, or perish together, should be reinforced, not weakened.
ThymeZone
Yeah, it is, I don’t like the idea of 81 percent of the people kicking around the other 19 percent.
If it takes the “peculiar” apportionment of the Senate to provide more balance, so be it.
Pb
Sure… how about 50-49? Get well, Sen. Tim Johnson!
Zifnab
Well, if you don’t count women, blacks, people under the age of 21, people without property, and people who aren’t members of a specific political party, then I’d have to totally disagree with you.
That said, the system really was designed to govern with the majority but protect the minority. But for some reason, people failed to implement it that way. After all, as we’ve seen with the Bill Of Rights, its only so much scrap paper when no one wants to follow it.
ConservativelyLiberal
What a contrast. Over at RedNeckState, Pejman Yousefzadeh has a front pager called “Now The Media Notices Filibusters” that is the exact opposite of the message here. Unabashedly, they twist things around and think that they can rewrite history whenever convenient. I remember the ‘upperdownvote! Give us an upperdownvote!’ that we were endlessly berated with, and the threats of the nuclear option being pulled. Damn obstructionist Dems. The Repubs were all over the news channels repeating this mantra over and over.
The Dems are a bunch of idiots for allowing themselves to be bullied around by the right. The Repubs play hardball like pros, and the Dems only excel at whiffleball. More aptly put, the Repubs like bowling, and they use the Dems as the pins.
We need leaders, real statesmen, and all we have are politicians…
Dave
…well that’s fine and dandy, but that changes what about how the US functions?
ugly slut
If you don’t think the next Democratic President is going to love the Imperial Presidency Bush and Cheney are trying to construct, aided and abetted by a subservient and supine minority (formerly a majority- think that is a coincidence) in Congress, you need your head examined.
And, I’m sure John Cole will be the first to bow and scrape before Empress Cankles–
Make up your fricking mind!
1)The Bushhitler is the ‘mostest evil-est’… Evah! (thus, there can be no possible chance that any Dem would ever act as badly as Cheney’s puppet has)- and any Dem elected to the Presidency in the future will surely immediately act to ‘disavow’ and ‘reverse’ any illegal positions or statements that “Halliburton Inc.” has advanced in support of “Empire!”… )– OR
2)The Bushhitler is the ‘mostest stupidest’… Evah! (thus, there is no possible chance that any Dem would ever act as stupidly as Cheney’s puppet has)- and any Dem elected to the Presidency in the future will surely repeal all the ignorant shit Bush has signed- I’d personally start with McCain-Feigold, NCLB, Medi(S)care Drugs, ‘Homeland Security’, the TSA, etc.– OR
3)Dems will surely act just as bad as Repubs when given the chance- but, you should VOTE DEM!- while you whine like a inbred hilljack with a government job…
Admit it! When you see “Hillary” and “Billy-Jeff” Clinton- your brain interprets it as “Hillbilly Jackoff”… and you think you’re voting for yourself!
P.S.–Tell Bobby Byrd he’s a damn good Klansman- you might get yourself a federally-funded raise! (The Robert Byrd Memorial Ass-Suck Chair?)
Bruce Moomaw
What it changes is the argument you made that the Senate SHOULD have been set up that way. The Senate was misapportioned not for any rational or moral reason, but as a power grab pure and simple by the small states — they did it solely becaue they thought (correctly) that in that situation they could get away with it. (Thus Hamilton’s and Madison’s shared fury.) And so the tyrannization of a large majority of Americans by a small minoirity who are lucky enough to live in the right places has been institutionalized ever since.
And my second point was that the filibuster also has nothing to do with defending the proper political rights of the minority, and the Framers never created it for that reason. It too is an outrageous injustice imposed on us for two straight centuries by an accidental loophole in the Constitution, and by the bad luck of chance history.
When the Framers really did set out to preserve the justified political rights of minorities, they said so, by gum, and they also made clear just how they intended to do it. Neither the Senate’s setup nor the filibuster ever had anything to do with that. They have always been cancerous growths on the American body politic.
sal
No, no, no. Bush doesn’t care if his Imperial Presidency notion survives him. By the time courts and/or Congress strike it down, he’ll be gone. He’s not worried about the powers President Clinton, Obama, Edwards, whoever, will have. He’s already shit on the rug, and when eventually told he can’t do it, will be able to raise a big middle finger from Crawford.
In the unlikely event it does come to a head before he’s gone, well, he’s got the Faithful Five on the Supremes. They will faithfully give him the power, and faithfully deny it to President Clinton et al.
Jeez, this is basic Bush 101.
Hey, here’s a question. I’ve read the Constitution, the actual whole document, a few times, and can’t find the words “executive privilege” anywhere. Can any strict constructionists help me out here? Thanks.
ConservativelyLiberal
That is easy! Just start reading the Constitution, and note each time you come acress a letter that is used in the phrase “executive privilege” and volia, you have it!
Come up with something more challenging next time, that was too easy… ;)
liberal
Dave wrote,
But the damndest thing is that they never do this kind of thing, do they.
liberal
Bruce Moomaw wrote,
I agree. Last time, perhaps around the time of Alito etc, didn’t some historians claim that over its long lifetime, the filibuster has mainly been an instrument of reactionaries?
liberal
Bruce Moomaw wrote,
But doesn’t the Constitution grant Congress the right to appoint what we call these days “special prosecutors”?
I know there’s a bunch of legal stuff about this, regarding statute and whatnot, but I would have thought Congress could go this route. Maybe not; I haven’t heard it mentioned in the past few days.
Nell
“Republicans successfully blocked a Democratic bid to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April, even though a 52-49 Senate majority voted to end debate.”
Mathematically impossible; that should be ‘a 52-47 Senate majority’. The error’s in the original story.
liberal
Dave wrote,
That’s true, and that’s a good thing.
It’s not so clear to me that the setup of the Senate had anything to do with the principle of protecting minority rights.
Besides, I don’t see anything valuable in protecting the minority of “people who live in political entities called states which have fewer people than average.” I don’t object to it a priori, but empirically it I see nothing in favor of it, and a lot against. (Against: (1) Leads to economic distortions in the form of heavy government subsidy of agriculture. (2) Rural states tend to be reactionary.))
IIRC, because of the way the Senate is set up, 11% of the population can hold the other 89% hostage on anything. (Not sure if that stat assumes the existence of the filibuster.)
That’s f*cked up.
liberal
OK, I see Bruce had the Senate issue covered at July 21st, 2007 at 5:43 pm much better than I did.
Nell
“hoping the next White House occupant declassifies most of what this administration has tried to hide so we can see exactly how much damage has been done.”
“But the damndest thing is that they never do this kind of thing, do they.”
Sure they do. Clinton declassified a ton of information on U.S. support for the dirty war of Guatemala’s military government against its people. That’s just one example, but there are others.
Of course, it might have been a signal for those of you who voted for Bush that virtually his first action on taking office was to make his father’s presidential records secret. It was for me (though I didn’t vote for either Bush or Gore).
liberal
Thymezone wrote,
Bizarre.
(1) Why do you think “people who live in underpopulated states” are a minority worth protecting?
(2) With this silly quote, and your equally silly Whatever mechanisms exist to force the opposing sides to either cooperate, or perish together, should be reinforced, not weakened., why not just change the voting requirements in both houses to 100%?
demimondian
No. The only part of the government which has the power to investigate law breaking for the purposes of enforcement is the Executive branch. The Congress has investigative powers, but only within its own purview of legislation, confirmation, or impeachment.
demimondian
Byt the way, I love the article’s claim that the Democrats had a “razor-thin” win in 2006. Sorry, puppy, the Democrats won in a landslide, gaining five seats previously held by Republicans by 0.2% margins or greater. James Webb’s individual victory was razor thin, but somehow extending that to the Dems as a whole is utterly bizarre.
ThymeZone
The answer is obvious, and I have already stated it quite clearly.
All minorities are worth “protecting,” otherwise you cannot have a confederation.
If you doubt any of this, just keep an eye on Iraq for the next five years. You’ll get an example of what happens when this principle is ignored in a volatile situation.
demimondian
Hey, um, TZ — no fair. Under clause 62 of the revised revised revised revised definition of the troll collusion paradigm of 2004, I post the stupid concern trollery, and you post obnoxious responses thereto. How can I be a concern troll when you post insightful responses before my posts get written?
ThymeZone
Again we are out of synch. This happened last week when you were being really funny, and stealing what I thought was rightfully my material.
Please have your people contact my people and let’s get back on track.
Bruce Moomaw
Yep, Dave, thanks to the filibuster, Senators representing exactly 11% of the people can totally block the will of Senators elected by 89% of the people. And even without the filibuster, that figure is 19 to 89. Isn’t that lovely?
I don’t know what to do about this — except that it MIGHT be possible to get a Constitutional amendment through allowing a big state to break itself up into smaller ones without requiring the permission of Congress. There would certainly be no conceivable “principled” argument against this — after all, you could hardly argue that this would “allow big states to pick on little states” — but then principle, as I’ve said, is hardly the controlling force in this situation. It’s more a matter of “We have the power — so what are you gonna do about it, huh?”
(By the way, Texas — uniquely among states — ALREADY has this right. As a precondition for joining the Union, Texas insisted on the right to break itself up into as many as five smaller states without asking for permission from Congress. Ten Senators from Texas — now, there’s a vision… I vaguely recall reading years ago that in the 1920s the Texas legislature actually did vote to split the state into East Texas and West Texas, but it was vetoed by Gov.Miriam “Ma” Ferguson; however, I’ve never been able to find any confirmation of this and so my memory may be wrong.)
But as for the filibuster, the Dems CAN get rid of that any time they choose. Drop the Nuclear Option, and then immediately use that sinister little clause in Article Three, Section Two of the Constitution that allows Congress to override most Supreme Court decisions any time it chooses by stripping the Court of its jurisdiction, so that the constitutionality of the Nuclear Option can then never be questioned. Neither party, since “Marbury v. Madison”, has ever dared to use that potential stick of dynamite in the foundations of American democracy — until the Senate GOP recently used it to prevent the Court from allowing Gitmo detainees to challenge their detention. So now, as I see it, All’s Fair…
Rome Again
We already have Texas styled government, I’d rather get away from that.
ThymeZone
OMFG, you really have descended into something here. Even on the crapper for an hour after a big cup of Dark Roast, I couldn’t come up with a whopper like that.
That’s right, what we need is more states. And the states will break themselves up.
Brilliant! Let us now close this thread on such a note of creativity, and drink a toast!
Look, if anyone out there has a problem with the fact that the GOP made a deal with the devil and sold its soul to idiots, Young Earth Creationists and Neocons to get power, and did it on a bedrock of partisan negativity and demagoguery, and now we have a lot of work to do to fix the mess … talk to the goddam motherfuckers who voted for these people and put them in office. Let THEM figure out how to restore order, and fast, if they want to have a party left in two years. OTherwise fuck them.
Don’t bother me with this shit. I didn’t sell my soul to the fucking devil, and I am not going to sit by while we dismantle the baroque and sedate mechanisms of the republic so that we can hurry and fix all the damage they did over there. Because someday those “repairs” will come back to haunt me.
Trying to consolidate power in a legistlative majority is not much different from trying to consolidate power in the executive. It’s just slower. Consolidation of power is not the fucking answer to consolidate of power. The answer to consolidation of power is diffusion of power, which is why the republic is built the way it is. Power is the problem, for crissakes. Not the solution.
Read the frigging Gettysburg Address. It’s about why we had a civil war. It’s all about whether you can have a confederation without the various factions tearing the thing apart. If you don’t want a confederation, then declare the US to be the United States of Iraq, and be done with it. You assholes who voted for Bush created the mess in Iraq, maybe your legacy is to leave the same mess behind here too?
Not if I have anything to say about it.