Oh, Right

After the last election, I wrote the following:

"In a national level, Democrats have picked up the House, while it looks like Republicans will maintain their hold on the Senate. A divided government once again, and I have to confess, it couldn't come too soon. Hopefully a split between the various branches will render our government completely ineffective, unable to take a shit without going through reams of bureaucracy first, and a paralyzed government is exactly the kind of government I like."

The bickering over the Democrats' recent non-binding resolution has brought my attention to the fact that -- while a power squabble rendering both parties ineffective is all well and good -- one of the things that a legislative branch *can* be effective at is, say, serving as a check on the executive. Which doesn't seem to be happening.