April 27. The Presidency
Did I identify in this class how I knew OJ Simpson
killed Nicole? Numerically? No? It's amazing, you know,
there's -- in Jewish culture something called the Cabal
which is the study of numbers in the sense of understanding
the mystery of life in the universe. They study numbers and
so when somebody showed me this it was absolutely convincing
that Nicole -- that OJ killed Nicole, but God was trying to
tell us by numbers. So I need to show you this: 6-12-1994. That was
the day Nicole Simpson was killed along with Ron Goldman. If
you add up the numbers each one six each -- eight nine ten
19 28 they come to 32. And 32 is OJ Simpson's number. So
this is as convincing an argument as anyone can make, and
why am I doing this on the subject of the presidency?
Because done with numbers with the presidency with numbers
do. One thing which didn't pan out in 1980 -- since 1840
every president who was elected on the twentieth years died
in office either natural on assassinated. 1840, 1860, five
years later Lincoln who was 1860, 1880 Garfield was elected
in the year -- in the year 1900 McKinley was elected and he
was killed in 1901. Harding was elected in 1920 and he died because
his wife poisoned him, well that's the rumor anyway. No, not
true that we know of. That's the rumor. In 1940 Franklin
Delanor Roosevelt was elected he died in 1960 John F.
Kennedy was elect; he died. In 1980 Reagan was elected. He
was scheduled to die, but he was dead already. :0) Know what
happened in 1980 is that they say that Reagan did not die in
office because what started this was a curse by the Indians
against William Harrison in the American presidency because
Harrison was an Indian killer. However they say that Reagan
didn't die after being shot because he had Indian blood in
him so they saved him. So the next death should come in the
area whoever is elected in the year 2000. Of natural causes.
Just thought I'd keep you aware of that. Why from natural
causes? Because somebody has calculated that.
Jessica --
(by student) Oh, stupid or what?
(by teacher) It's fun most of it was fun. But that's
taxicab driver.
Every president who was has been assassinated somebody
figured that if you take the years that they became in
office, and the year they were assassinated they add up to
36. Three six. See which sign of the devil that's why they
were assassinated. So I need to show you that just for the
hell of it. I mind you got to get something in that class
who was the first president assassinate in office?
Lincoln. He took office -- he got elected -- he took office in 1861 & was
assassinated in 1865. 1+8+6+1+1+8+6+5-- gives you 36. The next president
assassinated in office by a disgruntled office seeker was
the one that brought out the Civil Service Act; what was his
name? I mentioned it a come of minutes ago too. Named
after a pussy cat. Garfield. 1881 took office & assassinated in 1881. Equals 36.
Whoever did this -- this is called numerology. It's
supposed to tell you about how things are going to occur so
that to be assassinated in office the president has to add
up to 36. The years that Reagan were in office they
wouldn't add up to 36. So that's how we knew he wouldn't
die. Of third president you said was McKinley. He took
office in 1897 was assasinated in 1901. 36. And the last
president assassinated J.F.K. Took office 1961, was
assassinated in 1963. Equals 36. All right. So somebody
did a computer simulation for me and found out that the next
president to be assassinated if they could be assassinated
would be after the year 2060. And I won't be alive to have
this proven by then. However many of you will be because --
but you may not remember anything at that age. You'll be in
your 80s. But for those of you who were alive if a
president is assasinated at that point and it adds up to 36
maybe you'll try and remember that you had this weird
teacher who warned you with this and so just if you can
remember even having gone to college at that time.
Q You saw the similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy,
right?
A I saw that right after the assassination came out.
Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln, and Lincoln had a
secretary named Kennedy. Kennedey's vice president's name
was Johnson, Kennedy was for Lincoln. And it goes on, um,
Lincoln was shot in a theater and the assassin was caught in
a warehouse. Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his
assassin was caught in a theater. The night before Lincoln
was assassinated he was in Monroe, Maryland, and the night
before Kennedy was shot he was in Marilyn Monroe. Yeah so
all of those similarities. That's what you're referring to
right, Jessica? Yeah. That wasn't on the thing. But --
okay. Enough of the stupid introduction.
Let's move onto serious elements of the presidency. Who
knows what some of the requirements are to be president?
What are some constitutional? Natural born citizen. They
have to be born in the United States. Now we're not sure
what that means because it's never been challenged who about
somebody who was born in an American air base overseas. The
candidate for was a man named Barry Goldwater. Goldwater
had been born in Arizona territory before it became a
state. Some people questioned as to whether or not he could
be elected president. However, he didn't get elected so
there was no challenge to it.
What other qualifications? 35 years old. Why 35? They
put 25 for house, thirty for the Senate, and 35 for the
president. I guess they considered that fairly mature at
that time. Of course 35 year olds are immature. 35 was!
-- I think I mentioned this before -- the life expectancy at
that time. Most when they talk about life expectancy most
deaths took place in the first two years of life. That's if
you survived the first two years, you survived, but it's the
first few years. Life expectancy today is 73 for a male and
77 for a female.
What's the third requirement to be president of the
constitution anybody know that one if you did I'd be
surprised. It's fourteen years of residence. You have to
be fourteen years of resident. Meaning you had to have
lived in the United States proper for fourteen years. It
doesn't say whether it's continuous or not.
So you have to have been born an American citizen, you
had to be here fourteen years before you could run for
president. Those are the constitutional requirements but
there are some written requirements. What are some of the
unwritten requirements to be president? Anybody? All
president's have been what? White. It's an unwritten
requirement that all presidents that somebody running for
president is white. Does that mean a black man can't win
the presidency? Let's say that up until recently the odds
are against it. Could Colon Powell have a chance?
Possibly. Maybe there's a chance in your lifetime for a
black man to become president. But notice the word man and
that's another requirement. We have had no female
presidents that we know of. Well there was a female Pope
that nobody new about in the 9th century, 10th century,
900s. She described her life throughout her life as a
male. Sort of an interesting little side light so maybe one
of our presidents was really female; which one?
Q (by student) England had a female president, right? I
forget her name.
A England? You talking about Margaret Thatcher, but
that's not president. The prime minister.
When will we have a female president? Well I think now
the odds are that in our lifetime at some point what about
the next election? I don't think Elizabeth Dole will get
the nomination, but I do think that's a good point that
Elizabeth Dole will go on the ballot as vice presidential
candidate because the republicans are hurting in the
campaign to win women over to their vote. To vote for the
republican party. Obviously if whatever is George Bush
whoever is elected president dies in office she could become
president.
I do think that the first woman president or the first
black president that we have will be a republican. Despite
the fact that generally blacks and women have been voting
democrat. Why? Because they're not as threatening as
democratic women and blacks. Why are democratic women and
blacks more threatening? Because they want change more
readily where the republicans are generally more willing to
go slow and therefore there's a better chance that the
republicans will vote for a woman, for blacks, who is a
republican.
What other requirements? Besides woman, I mean besides
male, white. Married. All our president's have been
married. That's right, except some that were widowers. They
had been married previously. An unmarried person is still
questioned in our society. And people will always raise the
questions of their sexual orientation. If they had not been
married this has been done of course numerous times with
Jerry Brown to the extent that at one point he always made
sure that he had Linda Ronstat with him, and Koch in New
York -- questions were raised. I think it's one thing to
win a state governorship, it's another thing to win a
national presidency election. Married, we have only had one
divorced president. He was divorced before he was
president; who was that? Reagan. Yeah Reagan is the only
president we had -- who was divorced. So again the
stability of the family quote un quote becomes part of the
necessity, however what was interesting was that in the last
campaign for president, where Dole got the nomination,
almost every one of the major candidates except for Buchanan
had been divorced and the republicans were the ones that
talked family values and here you had a bunch of people who
were divorced.
Any other unwritten requirements? Religion. What
religion? Well they have to have some sort of religion.
Oh, okay. Yeah, Americans see themselves as a religious
nation, but not only of being some religion specifically
every president has been Protestant. Except for J.F.K. He
was the only catholic president. And there was a very
vicious campaign. It's very hard to describe to you people
today, but if you lived in the Bible belt you would.
Catholics are hated in the South of the United States even
worse than Jews and that's because they see them as devil
worshipers and they see the Pope as the leading devil and
they did argue throughout the South and other parts of our
country that if Kennedy were elected, the Pope would run the
country. And therefore, perhaps there's a better chance for
a catholic to be elected. But the head of the Baptist
church southern Baptist church million of people made the
statement that while it was okay for Jews to vote for who
will govern them, that Jews should not be allowed to run for
office because it's a Christian country and only Christians
should rule. So when you have that kind of a statement
coming out of a heavily southern religious background you
can see why I will say without any question in my mind that
we will not in your lifetime or my lifetime see a Jewish or
Muslim or Hindu president. How could they light the
Christmas tree? I mean anything's possible but this country
still has not opened that door yet.
I think I want future of course the immigration has made
some dramatic changes at least in California and obviously
the Islamic population here has grown dramatically and
therefore it is possible in the future in California to
possibly have a governor that is not Christian. We have two
senators in California who were both Jewish, so California
does not reflect the country by any means. However, the
recent polls have shown that George Bush the third would
actually beat Al Gore in California. That's scaring the
hell out of the democrats because California is now in the
last election went overwhelmingly democrat. That is why I
do believe I don't like making political predictions because
they're difficult to make but I do believe Diane Feinstein
is a possible candidate for the vice presidency. She is
well-liked in California. She has been very successful in
getting things for the state, and with that in mind, the
democrats would probably make a wise choice. I know that
they would like to put a candidate on the ballot from
California. Gray Davis is another bland politician similar
to Gore. I don't think they want somebody who is that bland
having another bland president. Diane Feinstein is anything
but bland. I think she's a very articulate person. Barbara
Boxer is not quite liked by any means. So, yeah I do think
that -- it will be interesting to see a debate between the
vice presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole versus Diane
Feinstein. I think it's a very strong possibility. Again
as I say politics is difficult to predict.
Another reality is that most have been elected in their
50s. Not true of all. The oldest president was -- God,
time flies. You don't know who the oldest president was?
Bush -- although old, was not the oldest. Who was older than
Bush? Reagan. He got elected at 69. I think Bush was 68
last time and he -- he left office at the age of 77. The
Dole -- he was 72 years of age and nobody seemed to make an
issue of his age at that point. So age has become less of a
factor as it used to be. The youngest elected? Kennedy was
the youngest elected. He was not the youngest to serve as
president? Teddy Roosevelt. He was 42. Kennedy was
elected at 42, but became basically 43 in his presidency
early. Again that means that Clinton was fairly young man
comparatively at 45 to be elected president. And he is now
what? 51 or 52?
So speaking about Clinton, I was thinking about how he
get hassled for the hamburgers and donuts and being
overweight. At the most he probably weighed about 240,
6'1", which is overweight but not dramatically. Today I
don't really think somebody who was obese could get elected.
And who was obese? Taft. He weighed 350 pounds at the
height of 6 foot. They had to build a special bathtub in the
White House called the swimming pool. No. they really did.
It's possible, you know, you never know in politics. The
Mayor of Fremont is an extremely big man. I'm not sure if
he's 350 pounds, but he's at least 300 at 6'5" but as a
whole, the appearance today because of television is in
actual very major factor unless the person was charismatic.
Speaking about height, I think it will be very difficult
today for an extremely short person to be elected
president. Who was the shortest president? Well, we had
two that were about the same height according to the books.
One was James Madison the other one was Martin Van Buren.
Five three. I think there would be too many. Everybody
would be playing what's his name? Too short to live song.
Randy what? Newman. Thanks. I knew one of these
interpreters knew. They know more than everybody else.
Then all you young kids and they're in their 30s. Um, I
figured if they're in their 30s, I'm in my forties.
Tallest president? Lincoln. Probably the thinnest,
too. At 6'5" he probably weighed 170 pounds. The
fascinating part about Lincoln is his sports were wrestling
and weight lifting. He was very very wiry strength. You
know strength doesn't come from muscles alone. In fact most
of the strength comes from tendons and the ligaments
attachments and that's why you see some very muscular people
who were not extremely strong like Arnold Swartzenager, but
well built. Where his training partner which you guys don't
know I mean you know Arnold. He was far stronger then he
was and he was 5'6" and weighed 170 pounds. Okay.
Presidents usually have a vice presidential candidate with
them to balance the ticket. The strange election in 1992
where you had two candidates from the same part of the
country, the South, both of the same age, 45 and 46, Gore
and Clinton was very unusual. Usually if you're a young
candidate you have an old vice president candidate. If you
have a candidate from the West then the vice president is
from the East. You want to balance out your ticket. And
best example of that was the Kennedy election when they
chose Johnson to be the vice president. They never got
along. Kennedy did not like Lyndon Johnson, but it was a
balancing of the ticket.
Well, that leads us to the power of the presidency.
Obviously the main power of the presidency is spelled out
and that's where we will spend most of your time dealing
with the constitutional powers of the president. Yet, how
those constitutional powers are carried out, to a large
extent is based in the personality of the president, how
they perform their leadership functions. So power from the
Constitution, power from personality, there is also power in
the presidency from tradition. Many things that other
presidents have done and asserted continues on for future
presidents. So that's tradition.
Then there's power in the presidency that comes from
congressional legislation. Congress often gives the
president extra powers. One such extra power given by the
Congress to Clinton was taken away by the Supreme Court. It
was declared unconstitutional. The Congress passed the
republican Congress in the hopes that they'd have a
republican president. A line item veto. It was held by 43
state governors. What it did was it gives the president who
is often thought of as America's ombudsman -- did I define
it before the last exam? Well I think it's on this word
list. Is it on this word list? Yes? Once again it is a
people's representative in Scandinavian countries. Somebody
that represents the people. Why is the president America's
ombudsman? He is the only person elected that represents
everybody. Now again he's elected through an electoral
college, but still from the whole country. Every other is
represented to represent their own narrow districts. Their
own narrow constituents. The president his constituency is
everybody. So even the president as the ombudsman it was
believed that if given the line item veto the president
could get rid of the extra pork. By pork we're referring to
the fat in the budget that goes to help each individual
district.
In other words, they work things out. This district gets
a dam, the other district gets a road, and both may be
unnecessary. We refer to that as log rolling when the old
story log rolling well, you vote for my bill, I'll vote for
yours. Scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Since the
president doesn't really need to have one area, they believe
that the president should have a right to cross out what he
considered to be the fat in the budget. Line item veto
allowed the president to cross out section that governs a
bill. Right now, the Constitution says the president has a
veto. But that veto has been interpreted to mean that if
the president vetoes a bill of 800 pages, because he doesn't
like one line, the all 800 pages are dead. The line item
veto would allow him to eliminate that one line. However,
Congress gave it to him with that intent, but they gave it
to him only in budgetary issues. And the courts said that
that was created a constitutional power that the president
didn't have. Now maybe if they had given it to him as a
line item veto for everything at that point it might have
been okay. I'm not sure. It's still questionably, but by
giving it to him for just line item vetoes it doesn't work.
Just for budget issues so it was declared unconstitutional.
So again when the president vetoes something he has to veto
the whole bill, not just one line. That's a power -- a kind
of power that Congress can do. Sometimes it's
constitutional, sometimes it's not.
The last power that the president has in a sense maybe
not the last, but the last one I'm talking with is his power
to be head of his political party. As head of his political
party he can force the kinds of thing he wants because he
can determine which people in the party want to get money
for re election who he's going to support who he's going to
go against. And so the power of the political party also to
get the legislation introduced because he's not allowed to
introduce legislation. Somebody in his party has to.
So to recap. The powers of president come from the
Constitution. Comes from his personality. Comes from
tradition. Comes from Congress, and also comes from his
party. Do I need to recap again? One more time. Powers of
the president comes from the Constitution, comes from his
personality. Comes from tradition, it comes from Congress
and it comes from his political party. Constitution,
personality, tradition, Congress, political party. First of
the all the Constitution is American CEO. It is a term used
by corporations nowadays. Chief executive office. The
president is the chief executive officer of the country. It
is his job to carry out the law. As chief executive officer
he has directly working for him about two and a half million
government employees. Two and a half million people are
under him. We call the people in the executive branch many
times bureaucrats. They run the bureau. They run the
agencies of government, but they report to the their
superior who is supposed to report to the cabinet member who
is supposed to report to the president. He gets a salary of
$200,000 a year. Now that's not a lot of money. For me it
is, but it's not a lot of money considering the status that
he has. Corporate leaders get more than that. In fact the
president of Ohlone college gets about $125,000 a year. But
no corporate leaders get usually large sums of money, um,
vice-presidents, president's. GM makes about $8 million a
year. That's not counting stock bonuses. The president's
salary has not changed in thirty years. Obviously all of
you are aware of that basically he's got a lot of perks. He
doesn't have to pay for anything. From food to house, it's
all covered. And then of course there are donations of
clothing given to him by some of the companies and there are
also other kinds of goodies that he gets. Reagan was famous
for his love of jelly bellies and the company which I think
is in Oakland used to supply him for all his meetings
because all of a sudden here at Ohlone all of their
administrators would have jelly bellies sort of the passed
onto a jelly belly world while Ronald Reagan was president.
They tried to give Bush broccoli, but he made some real
nasty comment about broccoli. So he started dropping it
off. Presidents do have a lot of -- well let's go back to
Reagan. One -- Reagan was being criticized about having to
know about money and not having to use it because everything
was paid for. So one day he created a photo taken with one
of his advises. They had him go into a Hallmark store and
buy his wife Nancy a Valentine's card and he made sure that
the cameras saw him paying for it out of cash. I think
funnier was the other day just a few weeks back Clinton was
in a store buying something. He pulled out his American
Express card and it was no good anymore. It had expired.
He never bothered to -- so he had to borrow money because he
didn't have any from the secret service agent with him. But
I think Visa missed a spot. They could have made a great
cartoon. Even the president can't use American express.
Could have been -- you know I guess they didn't want to play
him too much. Does anybody remember that? I didn't see
it. Those are the kinds of things that I enjoy the news
about because I think they're a little fun stuff. Horrible
stuff like this massacre, I can do without, but it's
reality.
The president also gets perks when he leaves office.
You saw the movie Guarding Tess some of you, the film
Guarding Tess? That was about three years ago. In any case
the president and his wife get secret service protection for
the rest of their lives. Now I'm not sure that's a perk,
but it's a reality. And of course the government pays
millions of dollars. Children if they're under 18 also get
secret service protection which will be unusual for most
presidents, but they're happening. The Kennedy certainly.
The president gets a library when he leaves office not for
him but for the public. They build a library wherever he
wants it to be built which will house all his papers and
information from his term in office which costs millions of
dollars. Most of it is kept by well a part of it is an
upkeep that's paid for by private donations. But most of it
is paid for by government. The president when he leaves
office gets a secretary. Paid for by the government and
it's the attitude is that he's going to have a lot of
correspondence pertaining to the president and he needs
somebody in helping him in answering and tide to the
answering the correspondence. The president gets free
franking. He has franking privileges. Mailing. Postage.
It's name after Benjamin Franklin, the first post master
general. The president has a lot of offers for speaking
engagements which are well paid. President Reagan when he
left office within a week or so spent a week in Japan on a
which netted him two million dollars for a week's worth of
speeches. Not too bad a deal including air fare. Probably
cost the government about thirty million dollars a year
because we now have four former president's still alive.
Let's see, Bush, Reagan still alive, um, Ford, and Jimmy
Carter, is that it? Yeah, I guess that's it.
The president is also according to the Constitution
commander in chief of the armed forces. Commander in chief
of the armed forces meant that all of the military personnel
are under his command ultimately. There is probably a
million and a half to two million people in the military in
this country. The president as commander in chief can --
does better said appoint all commissioned officers, all
officers from second lieutenant and up are appointed by the
president. With approval of the Senate. Not the House, not
Congress, but the Senate. That tradition comes from England
where the King was not only the commander in chief or the
queen. Now of the armed forces, but they also appointed the
officers. As commander in chief he cannot declare war. He
can ask for a declaration of war, but congress has the
right, only right to declare war. Yet, he does have a right
to extend American forces into emergency situation to
protect American lives and share or to meet our
commitments. Meet our treaty commitments. There have been
only five declared wars the president has sent troops into
battle in which troops died over two hundred times. And the
biggest action of that nature was the Vietnam war which was
not a war because it was not declared. Where 55 thousand
Americans died, lost their lives, in battle. Obviously the
most recent action taken by the president? Was the support
of the NATOs position to send troops not necessarily ground
troops, but air troops and helicopter attacks into Serbia.
However, in 1973, congress upset about the Vietnam war not
being a war, passed the War Powers Act. The war powers
act. 1973 war powers act. It was passed actually over in
Nixon's veto, but he passed it anyways because they were
upset with the Vietnam situation. The attempt -- the War
Powers Act was an attempt by Congress to restore ability to
declare war. Feeling that the -- had usurped that U.S.
It has four provisions.
One, the president is supposed to consult with the
congressional leaders. If the president is contemplating
into sending troops into action the president is supposed to
consult with the congressional leaders. Two, if the
president sends troops into action he must notify Congress
within forty hours that he has sent troops into action. Now
the two kickers, three, if Congress does not declare war
within sixty days, if Congress does not declare war in sixty
days, Congress can cutoff the funding. They may cutoff the
funding if they do not declare war within sixty days. If war
is not declared within ninety days all funding must be cut.
It is mandated they have no choice that they cannot fund the
action if it's gone beyond ninety days if there's no
declaration of war.
Presidents have not accepted it has really been an issue
sometimes been debated but there hasn't been a large
movement to challenged it. Presidents have sometimes
ignored it, but they've never been up to the sixty day limit
since Vietnam or the ninety day limit obviously. Yet I
think what's going to happen in Serbia is that we will have
fighting troops there to at least sixty to ninety days. I
don't think this is going to end as Desert Storm did in a
hundred hours or something. And so I think it will really
test real strength of the War Powers Act. I don't think
it's going to be enforced in all candor I think it will go
beyond ninety days. Congress will ignore it even though
they passed it in '73 and say we're doing this through NATO
and doesn't apply. They'll back away from their own war
powers act and I think that next year I probably won't have
to talk about it. It will be moot. Moot; it's
meaningless. It's meaningless. So it will be one subject
I'll cut out, but right now it's still sitting there.
Any questions on the War Powers Act? The next major
power of the president is within the legislative. Why will
president cannot introduce legislation? All legislation
must come to the president and the president is given a
veto. Meaning he has the ability to say I do not want this
legislation. If he decides to veto a bill, he has to say
why and then that bill goes back to Congress. Congress has
the right to override the veto with a two thirds vote of the
House and Senate. They can void the veto, but it takes two
thirds. It is very difficult to get two thirds to override
a presidential veto even if the bill passed by more than two
thirds. Many people don't want to upset the president.
Historically, only four percent of presidential vetoes have
been overturned. Only four percent. That mean 96 percent
have been upheld. So the veto is a very powerful force.
Just the threat of the veto gets Congress scrambling to see
what they can do to workout with the president an acceptable
piece of legislation that he will not veto. Recent years
it's probably been a higher percentage even than the four
percent. I'm sorry lower percentage.
When Bush was president he vetoes 36 bills in the four
years that he was president. Of those 36 bills 35 vetoes
were sustained. Only one was overridden and the one that was
overridden was during a period when Bush was a lame duck
president. What do I mean by lame duck? Well it's when
he's leaving office. He can't get reelected and so usually
considered that he's sort of the broken power. His leg is
broken. Whatever you want to call it. So people don't have
to do much for him. He was a lame duck president. He had
been elected out of the office and it was after November.
He vetoed a bill that would place certain regulations on
cable companies. Congress overrode him. One thing is safe,
leaders in Congress know that people hate their cable
companies. Used to be AT&T. When it was one national
company, but now that it's broken up into little companies
and so many phone companies we don't know who to hate but
the fact is that we do hate the cable. Justifiably so.
This rip us off. Their prices go up. They have a monopoly
and up until recently cities began to put pressure on them.
They never answered their phone lines. So it was a safe bet
that you could support regulation of cable companies. That's
going to be off again soon. Of course many people are
moving to satellite dishes.
The president has the regular veto. He also has a pocket
veto. A pocket veto. That's, you know, I told you I hated
explaining electoral college; I hate talking about
international time zones; I also hate describing the pocket
veto. It isn't hard, but difficult to understand it. So
we'll start with one basis the president we said has a veto
or the president can sign a bill into legislation. What
happens is the president should not want to sign a bill. He
doesn't sign is a bill, yet he didn't veto it. What happens
to that bill? Anybody? Can't stay in limbo, so what
happens to it? It becomes a law anyway within ten days.
Okay. Within ten days any bill the president doesn't sign
for whatever reason, be out of the country because he
doesn't want to sign it, becomes a law without his signature
within ten days. Now the pocket veto deal with the last ten
days of his session of Congress. In the last ten days if a
bill comes to the president and he doesn't sign it, then the
ten day limit doesn't apply. That bill is dead. Let me use
it in more graphic even though not valid. If a session of
Congress were 365 days which it's not, but if it were if a
bill came to the president within any one of the 355 days of
365 and the president didn't sign it, there were ten days
left in the year, that bill would become a law
automatically without his signature. But at day 355 he
doesn't sign it, if that bill comes to the president's desk
at that time and he doesn't sign it, that bill dies. It
doesn't stay in limbo. It's dead. Can it be overridden by
Congress? No. The pocket veto is extremely strong it can't
be overridden. They could reintroduce it in the next session
but then go through 9 whole process again. So anytime in
the last ten days the bill dies permanently.
Questions on the pocket veto? Its a tough one. I'll go
over it again when I get to the legislative branch.
Q That why towards the end of congressional term or
whatever it is they also have those like four five days
where they're there forever and like -- trying to get stuff
done?
A Yeah a lot of the stuff is done at the last moment. It's
amazing I guess that's just human nature in the sense of
procrastination, but the reason for the pocket veto was just
that was to force the legislatures to get the stuff to the
president earlier, so he's not stuck getting things out
hoping he won't get to something stand it. So the fraimers
put in the pocket veto so to make sure the stuff would get
to the president early. However in negotiations line union
contract the last minute deadline is when you really resolve
the final issues and you know I was at a meeting the other
day um to set up certain standards for hiring a tech
position for the library which would be for working with
on-line courses and I was sitting there and apparently you
know the English department had an opening? They received
187 applications. Ninety percent of them came in with the
last two days even though the position had been advertised
for six months. People wait for the last minute. And
that's surprising to me, but it shouldn't be. To me, if I
want a job I'd get that thing out as soon as I could. So
I'd look go apparently most people do which is why most of
you cram your studying in before the exam. That's the
reality.
There are some other powers of the president that are
perhaps not as strong, but they are certainly powers. The
president according to the Constitution appoints all high
government officials. All high government officials are
appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate.
With the consent of the Senate. So the Senate, not the
House, not Congress; the Senate. Has to approve any
appointment the president makes. And that includes his
staff as well. His personal staff he pays out of a budget
they don't need approval. His press secretary, his chief of
staff, they're hired by him with the budget. They don't
need Senate approval, but the cabinet members do. He
appoints all ambassadors with the approval of the Senate.
All ambassadors must be approved with the consent of the
Senate and by the way a good portion of those ambassadors
are appointed by the president because they gave a lot of
money to his campaign. The person who gives the most money
to his campaign gets the best post. That's usually is court
of Saint James they become ambassador to England. The
reason in part is that if you have a lot of money they need
your money in those posts because those people run a lot of
social events and much of that is paid for good portion of
it is paid for out of their own pocket because it's the
budget are not large enough. The most favorable post would
be England, France, Russia, um, major country. Yeah Russia
is a post because it is a major country. China's short of a
status position. Even though it may not be the same kind of
living as France or England. Really? China's a major
post? Yeah. George Bush held a post as ambassador of China
that's helped him get famous during the Nixon
administration. Americans have always liked the Chinese.
But to be honest another important post is Japan. I think
so too. But I mean, it's funny because you know the -- for
a while there Japan was supposed to be our friend and
Chinese or enemy because of Chinese communist, but it was
difficult to dislike the Chinese because through all the
industries -- and yet the Japanese was a country that we
just never liked dramatically so I think people are happy to
be back liking the Chinese and disliking the Japanese.
Weird. History is -- the back grounds is weird because it
continues --.
Q Because the American Chinese or the American Japanese
have a big competition together with technology?
A Yeah the economic element is that but I can it's more
than that. I'm not sure what it is, but there seems to be
something underlying it. That perhaps the Japanese reject
our friendship and we had to force it on them quote un quote
on their -- where it was the British who forced the opening
of the doors on China.
Well in any case, the president also appoints judges in
the federal system that's over not just Supreme Court judges
over a thousand judges are appointed by the president with
the advice and consent of the Senate. Now here's a
different word here: Advice and consent. Which means that
the president is expected to consult with senators from the
area that that judge is going to be appointed to and they
do. It's part of the patronage. The senator makes a couple
of recommendations. The senator makes the appointment that
senator owes them something. Owes the president something.
When it comes to the Supreme Court while he may ask advice
in those places he knows the people he's appointing much
much better. So a little different.
Now notice again we're not talking the Congress. We're
not talking the House. We're talking the Senate. In 1968 an
amendment was added to the Constitution. The 25th that the
president has a right to appoint a vice president when the
vice presidency is vacant. This is 1968. When the vice
presidency is vacant the president can appoint a vice
president with approval of the Congress. In this case the
House and Senate must approve the vice-president's
appointment. What was strange was that at that point 1968,
nobody thought much about it. However in 1973, the vice
president of the United States who had been president
elected in 1969 his name was Spiro Agnew resigned because of
income tax fraud. And Richard Nixon and the president
appointed the new vice president his name Gerald Ford. A
well like by both democrats and republicans a good choice
lots of speeches in the congress 25 years. However what was
not anticipated happened. In 1974, Richard Nixon resigned
because of the scandals which we often refer to as Water
Gate, and so Ford becomes president and he appoints Nelson
Rockefeller his vice president with the approval of Congress
for the first time in history, maybe the last time, who
knows, we had both a president and a vice president neither
of whom had been elected by the American public and simply
because almost foreshadowing what was going to happen an
amendment was introduced in 1968 that allowed that to
happen. The country didn't fall apart, but it certainly was
strange. Ford became president and of the worst one of the
first acts was to take advantage of another power the
president which is what? Pardon. He pardoned Richard
Nixon. Now Richard Nixon had not been charged with any
crimes. He wasn't convicted of any. Now that's a strange
ability. The presidential pardon is open ended. In most
states governors can only pardon somebody whose been
convicted of a crime, but on the federal level you can
pardon anybody. The president. And the question arose what
if Nixon decided he wanted to pardon himself? We don't know
but many people said it wasn't possible because Nixon would
never say pardon me. Pardon me.
Other powers of the president? Other powers of the
president? The president can adjourn Congress if they can't
agree on a time of adjournment. The president can call
special sessions of Congress. Now, based on those powers of
Congress I want to talk about three powers that are from
tradition. We mentioned that the president is the chief
executive officer. Under that auspices, presidents from
Washington on have developed executive orders. This is a
tradition not in the Constitution. Executive orders allow
the president to do what heads of companies do; issue an
order to the staff and agencies. For example, it was Richard
Nixon who issued an executive order telling all governments
agencies that they could not do any business with any
company that discriminated against blacks. It was Harry
Truman who issued an executive order that said that the
military had to be integrated. They're like laws because
they're done because the president ordering people under his
command and the most famous was issued by Franklin Roosevelt
that is executive order 9066. Once again what was executive
order 9066? Placing the Japanese in relocation
concentration camps.
Under another power of the president to appoint
ambassadors, the president can recommend treaties. A treaty
has to be passed by two thirds of the Senate. If the
president recommends a treaty it takes two thirds; that's
hard to accomplish. So presidents have developed something
known as executive agreements.
In the last thirty or forty years presidents have been
making special agreements with the help of foreign
countries. The power of a treaty but not as extensive as a
treaty. An agreement between our president and the head of
another country. Often having the force of the treaty.
President's have also claimed since George Washington even
though they didn't use the word executive privilege. The
first time the word executive privilege came into use was
during the Eisenhower administration. Executive privilege.
What is mean? It means the president has refused to share
information with the other branches of the government
arguing that it would be detrimental to the executive
branch. They have argued that they are separate and they do
not have to give information to the other branches. In 1973,
Nixon refused to turn over the Water Gate tapes to
Congress. When congress found out that Richard Nixon had
been having a tape recorder running in the oval office he
demanded Nixon refused it went to the Supreme Court in the
United States versus Richard Nixon. The Supreme Court ruled
that there was such is a thing as executive order --
executive privilege. They used the term executive
privilege. However they said that it will only be something
that would be damaging to the presidency to the executive
branch and these tapes would not and therefore they ordered
the tapes turn over to congress and Nixon complied. He
turned the tapes over. Many people were quite surprised.
Although 18 minutes on one tape disappeared. They tried to
show how one woman accidentally got rid of 18 minutes.
Everybody wonders what that 18 and a half minutes contained.
It's amazing that they didn't destroy all of the tapes, but
that would have probably made him look even worse.
We covered the power of the presidency by personality,
earlier by talking about leadership and countries. So we
talked about how Congress can give president power what
about the political party? Well again as I indicated, the
president can influence people how to vote, to veto his
programs, because he can determine which money from the
political party goes and what kind of party support that
candidate is going to get in the future and therefore he has
a pretty strong hold of members of his political party to be
sure that they stick by his side with him and support him
verbally or with a vote publicly. Okay. See you on
Thursday. Bring your popcorn whatever else you take to the
movies with you. What are re going to watch? An old film.
Andy Rooney goes to Washington. Is it captioned? No, it's
done in '74.
