This paper examines the causes of the rise in vacancies on the federal courts in recent decades. Under President Barack Obama, the number of vacancies on the federal courts has sharply jumped. This is due to firm opposition by Senate Republicans, who have used the various procedural tools of that body to make it difficult for nominees to get confirmation. This antagonism is the result of a shift in how the parties view the courts and their role in the American political process. The Warren Court's expansion of substantive due process rights increased the Court's powers to the chagrin of conservatives. Republicans responded by blocking the nomination of Abe Fortas for Chief Justice; Democrats retaliated by defeating several of Richard Nixon's nominees to replace Fortas. These battles, and the prominence of legal issues such as abortion, would culminate in the vicious fight over Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Court, which influenced increasingly bitter fights in recent decades. I also propose a possible solution to the obstruction problem, inspired by procedures used in jury selection.

Ginn Woods, a 161 acre tract of woodlands located in northern Delaware County, contains one of the largest remaining sections of old growth forest in East Central Indiana. Located approximately 15 miles north of Muncie, it has been regularly used by Ball State students and faculty for education and research for over 60 years. Despite this frequent use, little formal botanical exploration has been published. This study presents a comprehensive inventory of the vascular flora found in the woods and documents the composition and sizeclass distribution of the canopy tree species. The 370 species represent 237 genera and 94 families based on family classification by Gleason and Cronquist (1991). A total of 123 species were recorded for the first time in Delaware County. Of the 370 species listed, 56 or 15.1 % are non-native or naturalized species, thus indicating that the native species are dominant. The overstory canopy species are typical of a beech-maple woods with Acer saccharum and Fagus grandifolia as overallco-dominant species. However the importance of Fagus grandifolia varies in the sections known as North, South and Nixon Woods. With the fragmentation of regional ecosystems into isolated forest systems by urbanization and agricultural development, the maintenance and preservation of original communities becomes more difficult. Ginn Woods is one of the few remaining remanents of old growth forests in East Central Indiana and serves as an important reserve of the native flora of this area. The inventory and overstory tree species analysis provided by this study establishes important baseline data to which future studies can be compared.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306 / Department of Biology

The incarceration rate in the United States has increased dramatically in the period since 1945. How did the United States move from having stable incarceration rates in line with global norms to the largest system of incarceration in the world? This study examines the political and intellectual aspects of incarceration and theories of criminal justice by looking at the contributions of journalists, intellectuals and policy makers to the debate on whether the purpose of the justice system is rehabilitation, vengeance, deterrence or incapacitation. This thesis finds that justice and the institution of the prison itself are not immutable facts of modern civilization, but are human institutions vulnerable to the influence of politics, culture and current events.

The subject of this thesis is the Imperial Presidency. Arthur Schlesinger is the author of this term in the realm of Political Science. His book was a reaction to the gradual accretion of political power in the office of the President of the United States. Imperial Presidency is described by variables: a) The President overreaches his powers given to him by the Constitution of the USA; b) The President is not limited by other branches of power. The theories behind this thesis are called the unilateral action theory and the unitary presidency theory. After designating variables in the thesis we should be able to answer the question: "What kind of political behaviour describes imperial presidency?"

This MA thesis titled as - India-U.S. Relations in the Late 1960s and in the First Half of the 1970s - focuses on mutual relations of the U.S. on one side and India on the other. It elaborates various events, which influenced these relations during the late 1960s and in the first half ot the 1970s. The result of this work is the confirmation that the U.S., in its foreign policy strategy, strictly followed the principle of realpolitik. Thanks to that their interests, however, often collided with those of India. Its effort of rapprochment with the PRC, during which Pakistan played an important role as the main communication channel between both countries, was a 'thorn in the side' of India's top officials, including its Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The U.S. foreign policy, which was mainly in hands of the National Security Advisor of President Richard Nixon Henry Kissinger, had to logically prefer an alliance with Pakistan. This, of course, was not welcomed by India because these two Asian countries waged several wars against each other and had strained relations since their birth. Thus, in spite of the fact that India might seem as the best American partner, given its strong democratic principles, the opposite was true. Nixon/Kissinger, in defiance of all obstacles, did not relent and remained firm...

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From the Committee of 100 to the Committee to Re-elect the President: The Political Campaigns of Richard M. Nixon offers the reader a comprehensive biography of Richard M. Nixon through the lens of his political campaigns. This thesis illustrates how Richard Nixon became one of the fiercest campaigners in 20th century American political history. This thesis, furthermore, examines the key staff and strategy of each campaign Nixon waged. This thesis, additionally, presents to the reader insight on how Nixon often fought his campaigns independently from the Republican Party and how he relied on the help of a few dedicated men.

In 1969, Richard M. Nixon became the thirty-seventh President of the United States. He brought with him an aggressive foreign policy aimed at retarding the escalating Cold War and ending America's war with Vietnam. In his inaugural address, he exclaimed that under his leadership the United States was going to enter an era of negotiation, leaving the age of confrontation behind. Determined to create a structure of peace around the world, Nixon and his administration fashioned a policy to reflect their goals. This study seeks to understand why the Nixon administration allowed the Middle East to fall into the peripheries of their foreign policy. A conflict as devastating as the October War was certainly the kind of incident Nixon and his advisors wished to avoid. Between the years of 1969 and 1973, they worked tirelessly in the Middle East and around the globe to secure a more hospitable international climate; so why, despite their efforts, did the Arab-Israeli conflict spiral so devastatingly out of control?

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