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Afghanistan War Episode 3: No End in Sight

With the 16th anniversary of the beginning of the Afghanistan War fast approaching, President Trump has announced that he has approved a new strategy in Afghanistan, which will require sending an additional 4,000 troops to the area. Having denounced the war while running for president last year, Trump has now decided to make America’s longest war his own with this new plan.

Live Blog: The Gorsuch Cloture Vote in the Senate (Ended)

Starting at 9:00 AM (Central) on April 6, 2017, Jeffrey and I live blogged the Gorsuch cloture vote in the Senate. As we expected, Senate Republicans used a technique commonly referred to as the nuclear option to break a Democratic filibuster. For background, here are three posts that Jeffrey and I wrote on this subject:

The Nuclear Option: How Senate Republicans May Follow Democrats’ Lead to Confirm Neil Gorsuch

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee held confirmation hearings for President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch. At the conclusion of the hearings, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) announced that he would support a filibuster against the Supreme Court nominee. This raised the question whether Republicans would use the so-called nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations to confirm Gorsuch. If so, they would be following in the footsteps of former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who in 2013 used the nuclear option to eliminate the filibuster for all nominations other than to the Supreme Court.

Federalism Theory Part 1: Johannes Althusius

My next three posts will discuss theories of federalism. The ultimate goal of these next posts is to establish an understanding of federalism before addressing the American Federal Republic. To accomplish that goal I will examine the federalist theories of Johannes Althusius, Niccolo Machiavelli and Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brede et de Montesquieu. This first post will explore the political ideas of the Johannes Althusius book, Politica.