Stevenson’s army, September 23

As you’ll learn when we discuss the Senate, there are many ways to obstruct and delay in addition to the filibuster. Democratic Leader Schumer invoked one Tuesday. The rule [XXVI, 5] requires unanimous consent for any committee to meet more than 2 hours after the full Senate has convened, and never after 2pm. This will limit Judiciary hearings on the Supreme Court nominee.
Meanwhile, candidates to become House Appropriations Chair in the next Congress are endorsing the return of earmarks.

Save the date: December 11 is when funding for the new fiscal year runs out, assuming the Senate agrees to the Continuing Resolution that passed the House with strong bipartisan support.
The Hill says DOD is planning full US withdrawal from Afghanistan by next May.
The National Security Adviser is pressuring DOD to add funds for the Navy. It’s unusual for someone in that position to do such budget stuff.
Politico says CIA is censoring and limiting what it send to WH about Russia

Lee Drutman, whose writings about interest groups I’ve assigned, says the US political parties are collapsing  and some kind of transformation is coming.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).