June 28, 2012 • 34 mins
Depending on who's in office, they're either a presidential tradition or the acts of a despot. Executive orders are not spelled out in the Constitution, yet every president has issued them. Learn about these controversial edicts with Josh and Chuck.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryant's warming up,
getting ready to uh carry this jam out to its conclusion.
(00:24):
I was literally stretching. I know, it's as if you know, well,
I was telling everyone else, not you. Oh yeah, people
out there in podcast land. Yeah, who. I was just
speaking to you. How is everybody great? Need to get
used to this. It's been a while, it has been,
but it feels good to be back in the saddle. Yeah.
(00:45):
My saddle still smells like me gross. Yeah, it's pretty gross,
like leather and geez. Yeah, but I found it has
staying power. Um to you? Doing good? Yes, In the
last like six months, nothing big changed. Two weeks. It's
been longer than that, Hasn't it a little vacation? Yeah?
We don't need talking about that though. It was great
(01:07):
fun California all the way way to go California, California.
Isn't that Board to Death's bands song? I don't know.
Jason Schwartzman, Oh yeah, sure, Yeah, was it Coconut Records. Yeah,
he's had a couple of bands. I didn't recognize it
when you called it Board to Death. Well, it's his
(01:28):
new name. That's Board Death with the haircut. All right,
we should get going here, Chuck. Yes, did you know
that President Barack Obama is planning to take over virtually
the entire U S economy and infrastructure? Uh? No, I
did not know that. Yeah, well, or you Jim Powell
Kato Senior Fellow and author of the book FDRs Folly
(01:52):
Wilson's War, Bully Boy, The Triumph of Liberty. Well, those
are other books. Those are books, not just the book. Um,
you would have known this already because Jim Powell sent
out the alert via the Cato Institute and Force Magazine.
I think that Barack Obama had created this plan a
temp page blueprint of for season control um of the
(02:16):
economy of things like water, usable water, civil transportation, all
forms of energy, all commodities and products, health resources like drugs,
biological products, etcetera. Um under the auspices says there's an
extra is in there of Executive Order one three six
(02:37):
zero three? Is that that we can't wait thing? It's
part of it, um, And and now that you bring
it up, that we can't wait thing is basically this
idea that um Obama is saying, I can't deal with
you Congress any longer, so I'm just gonna start issuing
proclamations like that. So I get the impression from Jim
Powell that he he is against executive orders. In Jim rule,
(03:00):
I can't say that that's necessarily the case, because he
could be a conservative pundit, and if he is, he
may just be against Obama's executive orders. One of the
keys to executive orders is that you're cool with them
if you're guys in the White House. But the moment
another guys in the White House and starts issuing them, Oh,
like this guy is falling and like Nazism is rising again,
(03:21):
and it's just bad, you know. But it is true.
Obama did issue this very sweeping proclamation. Now this isn't
just on a Tuesday. It's supposedly a preparedness plans called
the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order. UM, so there's
an emergency that has to trigger this, and it doesn't
(03:41):
even necessarily it won't be triggered. But the point is
Obama can issue a proclamation proclamation like that, and as
it stands right now, it is law because it's an
executive order, and we're about to talk about those. So
this whole mystery, this whole mystery intro is going to
be explained in the next stroke of the pen. Law
(04:02):
of the land. Kind of cool. Paul Paul Bagala said
that he was a Clinton advisor. He was, and that
pretty much sums up what the in a broad stroke,
what an executive order is. Um, it's a directive. Marriam
Webster defines it. It's not true. Whoever wrote this article
defines it as a directive hand fresh too? Man? Oh
(04:27):
is it? It's pretty nice he's citing stuff from like March.
It is fresh. Yeah. Uh, directive handed down directly from
a president or governor because it's gonna have on the
state level without input from the legislative or judicial branches.
And that's basically it. It's like, I'm the president and
for whatever reason, I want to sign something into law
(04:47):
and not ask anybody else, right, And usually the reason
why is because either there's an emergency and Congress is
stay out of not in session, yeah, um, or Congress
would not necessarily agree with it yea, or or just
is taking an action period. But that's where we get
(05:08):
to the ticklish part about executive orders is there is
a very clear flow of responsibility and in the federal government,
Congress is elected to make the laws and the executive
branch is there to carry out the laws. That's right
with an executive order, the executive branch is making the law. Yeah,
and the presidents do this um even though the Constitution
(05:31):
doesn't say you can. Well, yeah, but they sort of
like hide behind the constitution under the following statements from
Article to executive power shall be vested in the President
of the United States. Okay, so they're saying like, hey, dude,
you can't seeing the constitution, I got power. I don't
have power. He or she he's getting on when you're
listening to this podcast, this could be the future. The
(05:54):
president shall be commander in chief of the Army and
Navy the United States. He or she could say, well,
how am I supposed to do anything? Commander in chief
Army maybe, but can't even sign a law? Right? Well. Plus,
also you use that um because they use executive orders
to direct the movements of the military sometimes. Yeah, well,
times of awards when it's heavily used. Uh. And then
(06:15):
finally he should take care uh that the laws be
faithfully executed. Obviously that should be here. She well, it
is under our ideas of Yeah, but we didn't write
a constitution. No, we wrote a constitution. Somebody needs to
get in just doing those little arrows and should do that. Um.
So that's pretty much the long and short of it,
(06:35):
and that's why it's allowed to go on since George Washington,
since Numero uno, every single president. That's the thing with
executive orders. You don't like executive orders, just wait because
eventually a president that you like is going to start
issuing him. Every single president that we've ever had has
issued executive orders. I think George Washington's um, I think
(06:57):
he issued eight total. So it started out slow. Now
we're up, like President's issued the thousands. FDR who had
the you know, the three term presidency, he issued like
three thousands, something like thirty. That's a lot. But every
single president has issued them. Yeah, I guess in Washington's case,
(07:20):
if we want to go over a little history here, uh,
in April seventeen ninety three, almost in nineteen seventy three,
that would have been a pretty hip George Washington. That
would have been Nixon, Yeah, which was a very hip. Well,
everybody referred to Nixon as like the direct heir of
George Washington. He was probably he's they two were tied
for first as our greatest president. Nixon says that at
(07:42):
least um he uh, yeah, he instructed officers sedtal officers
to prosecute anyone getting in the way of the war
with France. He's like, you can't do that if you're
getting in the way. Congress is out of session. Let
me just go ahead and make this a lot that. Well,
that was the war between England and Frances. Do not
get involved with US and France. Well, just the war
(08:03):
with France. But yeah, it was between England and France,
and like, you know, hey, the America is not getting involved,
and if you do, go to jail, it's on your head. Yeah, exactly.
And then Lincoln followed, um, Congress is out of session again.
So it sounds like it began early on in a
more like legitimate form. Yeah. It was also a time
(08:24):
where like Congress got to the job by behind a horse,
so things took time. Congress isn't here yet, right exactly.
Congress is on the way. But there's a big problem,
so you know. And in Lincoln's case, one of his
problems was on the eve of the Civil War, Um,
these militias were getting out of control. One of them
(08:44):
was run by a guy named John Merriman, and he said,
you know what blocked that guy up? Well, he's dangerous.
Right here. They were state militia's, well, militias that were
supposedly like, well, we're from the Carolina, so were the
Carolina militia. But really they were militias. Um. Generally, the
Confederate militias were attacking federal troops and Merriman was like
probably the biggest revel leader at the time, so he
(09:07):
locked him up. And Merriman's lawyers were like, hey, dude,
have you ever heard of habeas corpus? And like he goes,
you know what, that's sticky. How can I get around that?
Oh yeah, I'm suspending John Merriman's right to habeas corpus.
And I'm Abraham Lincoln. If you haven't noticed, check out
the Beard. I'm a vampire hunter. I'm Daniel de Lewis.
I can't wait to see that movie. Ah me too. Um,
(09:29):
it was funny. The preview came on the other night
and Emily thought it was the Daniel de Lewis Spielberg project,
and then it started breaking out into vampire stuff. She's like,
what is going on? A really strange turn? Um, which
is the idea? I think? So he suspended Habeas corpus.
Um explained it to Congress and they said, you know what,
(09:50):
that's probably a pretty good idea in certain cases, so
let's pass the Habeas Corpus Act to allow you to
do this. Yeah, which is a big deal. And didn't it.
It took years and years before anybody ever went back
and repealed it, right, I don't know. It seemed like
it was a while. We talked about it before in
Corpus podcast. Yeah, I can't remember which one it was.
Maybe pardons presidential pardons that actually, so that was not
(10:13):
the first executive order, but that is executive order one. Yeah.
In the nineteen hundreds, the State Department started numbering them
retroactively and they went back to Lincoln's Habeas corpus and
I don't know if they knew it was the first one,
I don't know, But then I think and then the
sixties nineteen sixty two, these things started being published in
(10:35):
the Federal Register, the Daily Publication of New Laws, and
you know office goings on um around Washington, and uh
now it's like once it's published in the Federal Register,
its law, and they're numbered. Teddy Roosevelt, he was big
on him. He was the first one that really kind
of went haywire. He was the first one to crack
(10:56):
a thousand. That's right. Those Roosevelt love big government. They
weren't related, though, were they They were like eight cousins. Oh,
I don't think I knew that. Wow, look at you
teaching me presidential history. It's like my my forte Is
it okay? Because it's certainly not mine? Uh So, Yeah,
Teddy Roosevelt was pretty He wielded a heavy stick. Um,
(11:21):
and then f DR just went berserker in World War
one and two. Teddy spoke softly but carried a big stick.
Yeah that's the term. Or was the FDR that said that.
I didn't mean we did a big heavy stick? Was
the term? I was just saying. I was making a
play on that. No, I know, okay, but I can't
remember if it was Teddy or FDR that said that.
I think it was Teddy. Okay, yeah, walk tall and
(11:43):
carry big sticks. You're thinking of Joe Don Baker. Alright,
moving on, Yeah, where are we now? We are in
World War One and World War Two? When Congress said,
you know what, it's okay f DR because there's a
lot going on. Well not just that between world from
World War One the depression in World War two, it
(12:04):
was like it was Boogie fever on on executive orders. Yeah,
he had no idea. On his first day in office,
he closed the banks for four days. Yeah, which is
actually pretty cool considering that he platformed on this New
Deal and the first thing he did was issue an
executive orders starting the new Deal. It's like hitting the
(12:25):
ground running for three terms. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, hats
off to him. Agree. So that was the first of
thirty two. You said, And the reason why FDR was
able to issue so many are well, there's several reasons. Um,
he was popular, he had a lot of crises to
(12:47):
deal with, and um, well that's pretty much it. So
he he was definitely a believer in centralized power. But
again that kind of flies in the face of the
division of power in federal government as sketched out by
the constitution, right. Um, So not all executive orders are happy,
(13:13):
happily received, or even grudgingly received. Some are just outright rejected.
And some presidents weren't as popular, which might have had
a little something to do with that exactly. So you've
got Roosevelt seting this president thirty five fifty two executive orders.
You know they stand. He was doing things like season
control of minds of industries. Um. He's set up like
(13:36):
cartels for um, everything from like garment industries to the
theater industry. He he created the Works Projects Administration, which
is like we have murals around the country and a
bunch of orchestras and a lot of parks and everything
because he'd put people to work in the depression through
government spending. Right. Interesting like straight up Kanzie and economics. Um.
(14:01):
But he did all of this through executive orders. I
wonder if the National Parks stuff was executive orders from
my Teddy. I don't wonder too. I bet that went
through Congress maybe, so. I don't think Teddy liked talking
to Congress. He just liked that big stick. But the
point is Roosevelt, the second FDR, set this huge precedent
(14:21):
that made it look like, okay, well, presidents have a
lot more power. Apparently America is cool with this. So
Harry Truman comes along and finds out the hard way
that that's not necessarily the case. Yeah. Um. He sort
of pulled a similar move to FDR as far as
wanting to take control of the steel industry. Um. During
the Korean War, they they regulated the price of steel
(14:42):
and fixed it at a I guess a cheap rate
to help out, you know, Uncle Sam, Donald Douglas and
mcdhal douglas. And then that was great, except for the
workers all of a sudden weren't getting paid like they
normally do because we're gonna go and strike exactly. And
Truman was like, hey, we're in the middle of a war.
(15:02):
And they said, we don't care. And he goes, oh, yeah, well,
let me send in some ringers to see what happens.
That's right. And they said, you know what, Ah, talk
to these guys the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, maybe
you can strike up a bargain. And they went, screw
you guys. And he said, all right, we'll talk to
these guys, the Federal Wage Stabilization Board, and they went,
(15:23):
screw you guys, and he went, well, if you're gonna
go and strike, why don't I just seise control of
your factories on the night before. Here's the thing, though,
there's a provision in UM and I guess federal law
called the Taft Hartley Act UM, that says, if there's
a big strike that's going to affect like national security,
(15:44):
there's like the nation has interests in a strike not happening.
The UM, the President and or Congress can call I
think maybe just the president can call upon the Taft
Hartley Act that and invoke the sixty day cooling off
period where it's like, no, you have to go to work,
you have to you guys have to go back to
the table for sixty days, right and figure this out,
(16:08):
or give us sixty days to figure get our ducks
in a row. He didn't do that. He just sees control.
And that being all, combined with the fact that he
wasn't very popular UM, led to this executive order of
his being overturned by the Supreme Court. Yeah, led to
the steel mills basically sued UH in the famous case
(16:29):
Youngstown Sheet and Tube, the Sawyer the Youngest Town ruling
and UM Supreme Court said, yeah, you know what you
should have done this sixty day cooling off period. That's
why it's they're dummy, right. I don't think him dummy.
He didn't. But Hugo Black, who is the Chief Justice
at the time, was apparently worried that he defended Truman,
so he invited him over for dinner, and Truman said,
(16:51):
quote Hugo, I don't care for that law of yours,
but by golly, this bourbon is good. Did he really
say that that's awesome? By golly? Whenever they were drinking bourbon? Yeah,
but I wonder which bourbon. I wondered that myself. What
do you what do you guess? I don't know, Okay,
I don't know what they drank back then. Yeah, bourbon wise?
(17:15):
Um so uh. Youngstown was huge though, because it established
some standards as far as the powers of authority that
the president, and they kind of broke it down into
three right. Yeah. They didn't just say no, they said,
here's some guidelines for you and future presidents as far
as the Supreme Court is concerned. You have the most
(17:36):
authority Mr President or Mrs President when you have the
express or implied consent of Congress and you know what
I think. Also, I feel like, if if this thing
sticks around, if this digital recording can stick around long enough,
maybe we should include gender gender neutral president as well. Okay, okay, okay, okay,
number two, Mr Mrs Gender neutral President number one, just
(18:00):
to make sure that there's an inclusion number one, Mr
President or Mrs President or gender neutral president. Uh, you
have the most authority when Congress um has expressed or
implied consent. They've given that to you. Right, they're saying,
lead away, We're we're following you. Number two, you have
a little less authority. We'll call it uncertain authority when
(18:21):
Congress has not imposed the authority because they're indifferent or
did they're just not doing anything. Uh. And they call
it a zone of twilight that the president takes advantage of. Yeah,
it's like Congress is waffling. The president knows what he
she or whatever um gender neutral assignment that the president's
picked wants. And I think isn't this probably when they
(18:43):
sneak him in at the end. It depends. Um. I
think it's also more just like you guys had your
chance to act, right, Um, I acted because you missed
your opportunity, and so sit down and shut up, and
Congress basically says, all right, fine, so is that we
can't wait a thing with that fall under that it depends.
So I think that it's like the way that this
(19:07):
justice put this, that this is how this is the authority,
the division, the levels of authority. The president has supreme
authority to issue an executive order. Whether or not it
stands up is based on the test of time because
you can repeal it, right, it just takes a little time. Right, Well,
there's some different ways to do it. Um. The first
we just saw or what not the first, but one
(19:28):
of them we just saw. It was a clear example
of judicial review. Right, that's what the Supreme Court does.
They're like a a supposedly an unbiased, neutral group of
referees where the federal or the um legislative branch or
the people say, hey, can we get a judgment call
on this law? This seems wrong? And then the Supreme
Court says, yeah, you're in a And then what they
(19:50):
say basically is like the final ruling on a law. Okay,
executive order. Since they have the force of law or
the effective law. Um, they're subject to the same scrutiny
judicial review. Well, in Youngstown. The Supreme Court said, Truman,
you can't do that. So that's one way that an
executive order can be overturned. Another way is Congress can say,
(20:13):
you know what, we just really disagree with you, and
we're going to rewrite the legislation that you're talking about,
but it has to be ratified by Congress, which means
the president has the chance to veto it. Gotcha. So
if you have a really angry Congress and a really
angry president, really polarized, they may go at it and
the president may be able to override this with the veto. Lately, yeah,
(20:38):
it's very polarized. So like what Obama is doing now,
it's like, we can't wait. He's trying to frame it
like it's Congress's fault. And then if Congress is feeling froggy,
they may they may issue legislation that says it. So
there's this one where UM George Bush set up an
executive order about um fetal tissue stem cell banks. I
(20:58):
don't remember exactly what it was, but the Congress um
they they basically said, um, quote the provisions of Executive
Order one to Z six, you'll not have any legal effect,
and that was it, but all that since there's no
rules for this, Chuck, there's no this. This is all interpretation, Bushead.
(21:19):
The balls is back in Bush's court. So all it
is is legislative tennis between the executive branch and the
legislative branch. So how far do you want to take it?
Ping pong? And then also one more thing, the legislative branch,
Congress can just say, well, that's fine, use your executive
order to create this new position. We have appropriation, so
(21:42):
we're just not going to give any money to it.
If you find somebody who will do that position, you
still got to get the funding if it's something requires funding.
So those are the ways you get around executive words.
Or a future president can turn around and provoke it,
which happens all the time or pretty much every time
and the president takes office. Um, thank you for that.
Of course. By the way, you forgot the one court
(22:04):
above the Supreme Court. What the Star Chamber? What is that?
You never saw that movie? No? What is that? That
was Michael Douglas. There was a secret group of judges
that would get together called the Star Chamber, that would
carry out vigilante justice. What movie is that? The Star chamber.
Oh no, I not eighties. It sounds like two gusters there,
(22:29):
all right. So the final way is the least authority,
and the president acts on least authority when he has
an executive order that is uh, just incompatible with what
Congress wants, right, which happens all the time as well.
But again, ultimately, how what how powerful does Congress feel like? Say,
Congress really hates that, but the people are really in
(22:50):
favor of it. Will Congress act? Who knows? I've lost
a lot of faith in the political system, my friend. Yeah,
I say, kind of politan what they want to do
and not necessarily what the people want. Yeah, behind the
banner of this is what the people want. That's a
pretty twenty one century view of American politics. It feels like, yeah, sad,
(23:13):
too much money going on. We're gonna do it one
on campaign finance. I said it, We're gonna do it.
And that will really tell you how kind of dirty
it is these days. Um, So let's talk about some
controversies in modern day executive orders. For instance, Ronald Reagan.
If you were a fan of President Reagan, you don't
(23:34):
think it's controversial that he really took hold of the
economic situation and stripped a lot of the government regulation
that he thought was was hampering growth. People that didn't
like President Reagan, but I didn't think that was such
a good move. No, you know what he did, it's
pretty smart and broad. He purposefully slowed down UM the
(23:57):
federal agencies by making them go through all this like
um cost benefit analysis figuring out like how their decisions
would would impact people. Just kind of hamstrung them. Yeah. Interesting,
he was like, oh, you you have it pretty easy, hunt. No,
you don't know. You have like eighty extra things that
you have to do before you can tell any rules. Yeah,
(24:19):
here's some forms exactly, and the number two pencils. Interesting.
It was kind of ingenious really to fight what he
considered an entrenched bureaucracy by adding more bureaucracy. That's pretty funny.
Adding red tape. UH. President George W. Bush Um with
a lot of controversy. Um said in say, you can
wire tap private American citizens telephones in America without them
(24:43):
knowing about it, And that wasn't even published. That was
a secret one, you know, super secret. Yeah, only the
star Chambers saw that. That's right, And uh, a lot
of people that are fond of civil rights and and
rights of private citizens said, you know, that's that's not
very eight nice. That's not a cool thing to do.
And then his supporters said, dude, the nine eleven hijackers
(25:06):
and a lot of time in the US on a
lot of phones, that's a tough one. Man. You want
to be able to thwart those terrorist plots. Yeah, you do.
That's a that's a quagmire. It is a quagmire. Um.
And then what else? Obama's basically on day one famously
(25:28):
said I'm closing Guantanamo, no more water boarding or any
of this enhanced interrogation stuff. And then what's the third one?
Let's create a task force for detention policies? Right, and
then he signed another executive or two years later saying like, okay,
Guantanamo can stay open. And definitely that was probably not
(25:49):
a good idea. Apparently they're thinking like a significant amount
of money into the facilities. They're adding a soccer or
as the yeah football, um, they are adding programs like
life life education programs like balancing your checkbook or getting
ahold of your finances or getting your g D. They're
(26:12):
turning it into into what resembles a very much a
state prison. It's which basically says you're here for a while. Yeah,
I guess that part's good. I don't know that I
care that these people can play soccer though, Oh yeah,
I'm sure there's a lot of people who are like,
they don't need to play soccer. I don't know, though,
(26:34):
play a little soccer. So I would be such a
bad president. What do the waffler? Dude, I just waffle
over the place. That's a bad idea. Maybe it's a
good idea. Well, that's funny that you said that, because
one of the presidents most known for waffling, especially in
his first year, UM Bill Clinton was also very famous
for his executive orders. Apparently it was like a president
(26:57):
with issue executive oars and it was like one of
these things and everybody would humble. But Clinton made an
art out of it. He waged a war through executive order.
Like remember the Balkan War. Yeah, you, the US entered
it with no um declaration of war from Congress. As
a matter of fact, Congress had that um before them
and they voted, no, we're not going to declare war.
(27:18):
So Clinton just did it himself. He didn't officially declare war,
but through an executive order, he for he told the
Air Force to go join NATO air strikes in the Balkans.
He committed ground troops through executive order to NATO, and
he froze the assets of a bunch of Yugoslavian leaders
in the US, which were like three acts of war
that he carried out through executive order. I noticed that stuff,
(27:41):
though I know they did. It was huge at the
time when we're just too young, and I mean people noticed,
but it wasn't like when times are great economically, a
lot of this stuff is way more apt to slide by.
I think, well, I think also we're looking at it
like ten fifteen years on to where it's like total hindsight.
It's like an older statesman now he's not like the
(28:03):
sleazy scumbag that he used to be, or that's his
appearance at least he does. But he still does that
that two things. I saw an interview with him, like
that was recorded five days ago. He still do it. Yeah,
it's thinking and then he gave like this brilliant answer. Um,
but yeah, he was big on He was big on
those things as well. And his advisor was the one
(28:24):
who said stokeing the pen law of the land. Right,
what were the last minute ones called the midnight Midnight regulations.
That was the one that we talked about. I think,
corpus boy, we've been around the block at this point,
we've done some political stuff. So that's the executive orders.
Huh yeah, look for one coming to a piece of
paper near you, especially if Romney ones. I mean, that's
(28:49):
like the first day executive orders, like traditionally now a
political way of saying I am totally different from this guy.
And here, here, and here three examples, you know, and
they'll they'll trumpet that in the in the campaigns. They well,
here's what I'll do right away. Yeah, I declare craft
cheese awesome. So that's it. If you want to learn
(29:11):
more about um executive orders, type executive in or orders
for the handy search bar at how stuff works dot
com and that will bring up this pretty cool article.
And I said, search bar is time for listener mail.
I'm sorry to do this, Chuck, I know, I just
said it's time for us for mail. It's actually time
for plug fests real quick, because it's gonna be like
(29:32):
the fastest plug fest ever. You ready, Um, so we
have a horror fiction contest and and we're hoping our
listeners will write, um horror fiction that we can read
on the Halloween episode. Go to the blogs at how
stuff works dot com find the post Stuff you Should
Knows Horror Fiction contest Colin. Get your official rules right here,
Read that and then act accordingly. Yeah, really follow the
(29:55):
rules closely because we want you to if you've worked
hard for this to be you know able to win. Yeah,
And and look for other mentions than like social media
and stuff like that, like Facebook and Twitter. But um, yeah,
go check it out and go write something. It'll be cool. Um.
And then also Comic Con right yet, we are going
to San Diego's Comic Con this year for the first
time ever, and we're pretty excited about it. Yeah, yes, right,
(30:19):
and we're going as stuff you should know with Slash
Science Channel people exciting we're doing. We're we're crossover hybrid people,
that's right, like uh, the Toyota Prius exactly. We're the
pre I of the podcasting world. Yes, So Thursday, July twelve,
we will be podcasting live. Um. We don't have the
time just yet, but we will announce that on Facebook
(30:39):
and Twitter and there will be special guests that will
be UH dancing, that will be singing. There will be
gnashing of teeth and wailing and perhaps even vomiting live
on stage. Yeah, by me, that's right at the very beginning, kids,
I won't be able to see straight. I'll be so nervous. Yes, cool, Okay,
that was quick plugfest. Not we're getting good at this
(31:00):
susy dude every time now, Okay, listener, ma'l Josh, I'm
gonna call this UH from a from a pastor to us,
complimenting us, okay, not from the usual hate mailing. Hey,
guys and Jerry. I'm a United Methodist pastor and started
listening to the podcast a few years ago to pass
the time on the long ride between the church I
(31:21):
was ministering in Duke Divinity School, where I was finishing
up seminary. Learning about things like uh cannibalism and delta
force really helped break up the constant stream of theology
and philosophy I was studying. I bet I really enjoyed
the most recent one on whether or not it was
possible to reign frogs. A lot of people that I
talked to in religious settings that don't shy away from hearing, uh,
(31:44):
scientific explanations about biblical material. There are plenty of us
out there who love science and aren't afraid of it
debunking scripture. It actually excites me to hear those sorts
of explanations. You've probably been referred to a time or
two in these uh in the classes I teach in
my current ministry. Setting it tonight, so he talks about
some class a couple of heathens like us. Uh. Mainly,
(32:06):
I'm writing to thank you for a few things. First,
thanks for handling matters of faith with tact um. Whether
you're talking aboutvoodoo or karma, you always handle the subject
matter in a gracious way. See. I like this guy's use.
I like him a lot. I would argue that we're
not always gracious, but I appreciate the compliment. Um. Second,
I remember, back in the Brainwashing episode, Chuck said something
(32:29):
along lines up, I'm going to try it really hard
not to comment about my Baptist upbringing pastures and religious
people in general can be pushy. Chuck, You're passing comment
has been a constant reminder to me to not be
that guy. Um. And Third, you guys are the ones
who introduced me to Kiva and I now make regular
loans and have even gotten some members of the congregation
(32:51):
on board. It's been great to be a part of it.
Keep up good work, Jeff and Jeff dude, Pastor Jeff, Pastor, Jeff,
I would go to your church. Yeah, thank you for
the email. That was awesome. Please keep in touch. We
want to know how your religious career goes. Yeah. And
and if you think Chuck and I are awesome and
(33:13):
gracious and we take criticism well and we get things
generally right, say puppies, Yeah, um, and we do it
all without messing up our hair. What do you want
to hear from you? All right, Chuck? Yes, we want
you to tweet to us immediately. Go compose a tweet
and send it to s Why SKA podcast. You can
(33:35):
join us on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you
Should Know, or you can send us an email. Two
Stuff podcast at Discovery dot kids Don't for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
(33:56):
works dot com? Yeah, h brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, Charles W. Chuck Bryant's warming up,
getting ready to uh carry this jam out to its conclusion.
(00:24):
I was literally stretching. I know, it's as if you know, well,
I was telling everyone else, not you. Oh yeah, people
out there in podcast land. Yeah, who. I was just
speaking to you. How is everybody great? Need to get
used to this. It's been a while, it has been,
but it feels good to be back in the saddle. Yeah.
(00:45):
My saddle still smells like me gross. Yeah, it's pretty gross,
like leather and geez. Yeah, but I found it has
staying power. Um to you? Doing good? Yes, In the
last like six months, nothing big changed. Two weeks. It's
been longer than that, Hasn't it a little vacation? Yeah?
We don't need talking about that though. It was great
(01:07):
fun California all the way way to go California, California.
Isn't that Board to Death's bands song? I don't know.
Jason Schwartzman, Oh yeah, sure, Yeah, was it Coconut Records. Yeah,
he's had a couple of bands. I didn't recognize it
when you called it Board to Death. Well, it's his
(01:28):
new name. That's Board Death with the haircut. All right,
we should get going here, Chuck. Yes, did you know
that President Barack Obama is planning to take over virtually
the entire U S economy and infrastructure? Uh? No, I
did not know that. Yeah, well, or you Jim Powell
Kato Senior Fellow and author of the book FDRs Folly
(01:52):
Wilson's War, Bully Boy, The Triumph of Liberty. Well, those
are other books. Those are books, not just the book. Um,
you would have known this already because Jim Powell sent
out the alert via the Cato Institute and Force Magazine.
I think that Barack Obama had created this plan a
temp page blueprint of for season control um of the
(02:16):
economy of things like water, usable water, civil transportation, all
forms of energy, all commodities and products, health resources like drugs,
biological products, etcetera. Um under the auspices says there's an
extra is in there of Executive Order one three six
(02:37):
zero three? Is that that we can't wait thing? It's
part of it, um, And and now that you bring
it up, that we can't wait thing is basically this
idea that um Obama is saying, I can't deal with
you Congress any longer, so I'm just gonna start issuing
proclamations like that. So I get the impression from Jim
Powell that he he is against executive orders. In Jim rule,
(03:00):
I can't say that that's necessarily the case, because he
could be a conservative pundit, and if he is, he
may just be against Obama's executive orders. One of the
keys to executive orders is that you're cool with them
if you're guys in the White House. But the moment
another guys in the White House and starts issuing them, Oh,
like this guy is falling and like Nazism is rising again,
(03:21):
and it's just bad, you know. But it is true.
Obama did issue this very sweeping proclamation. Now this isn't
just on a Tuesday. It's supposedly a preparedness plans called
the National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order. UM, so there's
an emergency that has to trigger this, and it doesn't
(03:41):
even necessarily it won't be triggered. But the point is
Obama can issue a proclamation proclamation like that, and as
it stands right now, it is law because it's an
executive order, and we're about to talk about those. So
this whole mystery, this whole mystery intro is going to
be explained in the next stroke of the pen. Law
(04:02):
of the land. Kind of cool. Paul Paul Bagala said
that he was a Clinton advisor. He was, and that
pretty much sums up what the in a broad stroke,
what an executive order is. Um, it's a directive. Marriam
Webster defines it. It's not true. Whoever wrote this article
defines it as a directive hand fresh too? Man? Oh
(04:27):
is it? It's pretty nice he's citing stuff from like March.
It is fresh. Yeah. Uh, directive handed down directly from
a president or governor because it's gonna have on the
state level without input from the legislative or judicial branches.
And that's basically it. It's like, I'm the president and
for whatever reason, I want to sign something into law
(04:47):
and not ask anybody else, right, And usually the reason
why is because either there's an emergency and Congress is
stay out of not in session, yeah, um, or Congress
would not necessarily agree with it yea, or or just
is taking an action period. But that's where we get
(05:08):
to the ticklish part about executive orders is there is
a very clear flow of responsibility and in the federal government,
Congress is elected to make the laws and the executive
branch is there to carry out the laws. That's right
with an executive order, the executive branch is making the law. Yeah,
and the presidents do this um even though the Constitution
(05:31):
doesn't say you can. Well, yeah, but they sort of
like hide behind the constitution under the following statements from
Article to executive power shall be vested in the President
of the United States. Okay, so they're saying like, hey, dude,
you can't seeing the constitution, I got power. I don't
have power. He or she he's getting on when you're
listening to this podcast, this could be the future. The
(05:54):
president shall be commander in chief of the Army and
Navy the United States. He or she could say, well,
how am I supposed to do anything? Commander in chief
Army maybe, but can't even sign a law? Right? Well. Plus,
also you use that um because they use executive orders
to direct the movements of the military sometimes. Yeah, well,
times of awards when it's heavily used. Uh. And then
(06:15):
finally he should take care uh that the laws be
faithfully executed. Obviously that should be here. She well, it
is under our ideas of Yeah, but we didn't write
a constitution. No, we wrote a constitution. Somebody needs to
get in just doing those little arrows and should do that. Um.
So that's pretty much the long and short of it,
(06:35):
and that's why it's allowed to go on since George Washington,
since Numero uno, every single president. That's the thing with
executive orders. You don't like executive orders, just wait because
eventually a president that you like is going to start
issuing him. Every single president that we've ever had has
issued executive orders. I think George Washington's um, I think
(06:57):
he issued eight total. So it started out slow. Now
we're up, like President's issued the thousands. FDR who had
the you know, the three term presidency, he issued like
three thousands, something like thirty. That's a lot. But every
single president has issued them. Yeah, I guess in Washington's case,
(07:20):
if we want to go over a little history here, uh,
in April seventeen ninety three, almost in nineteen seventy three,
that would have been a pretty hip George Washington. That
would have been Nixon, Yeah, which was a very hip. Well,
everybody referred to Nixon as like the direct heir of
George Washington. He was probably he's they two were tied
for first as our greatest president. Nixon says that at
(07:42):
least um he uh, yeah, he instructed officers sedtal officers
to prosecute anyone getting in the way of the war
with France. He's like, you can't do that if you're
getting in the way. Congress is out of session. Let
me just go ahead and make this a lot that. Well,
that was the war between England and Frances. Do not
get involved with US and France. Well, just the war
(08:03):
with France. But yeah, it was between England and France,
and like, you know, hey, the America is not getting involved,
and if you do, go to jail, it's on your head. Yeah, exactly.
And then Lincoln followed, um, Congress is out of session again.
So it sounds like it began early on in a
more like legitimate form. Yeah. It was also a time
(08:24):
where like Congress got to the job by behind a horse,
so things took time. Congress isn't here yet, right exactly.
Congress is on the way. But there's a big problem,
so you know. And in Lincoln's case, one of his
problems was on the eve of the Civil War, Um,
these militias were getting out of control. One of them
(08:44):
was run by a guy named John Merriman, and he said,
you know what blocked that guy up? Well, he's dangerous.
Right here. They were state militia's, well, militias that were
supposedly like, well, we're from the Carolina, so were the
Carolina militia. But really they were militias. Um. Generally, the
Confederate militias were attacking federal troops and Merriman was like
probably the biggest revel leader at the time, so he
(09:07):
locked him up. And Merriman's lawyers were like, hey, dude,
have you ever heard of habeas corpus? And like he goes,
you know what, that's sticky. How can I get around that?
Oh yeah, I'm suspending John Merriman's right to habeas corpus.
And I'm Abraham Lincoln. If you haven't noticed, check out
the Beard. I'm a vampire hunter. I'm Daniel de Lewis.
I can't wait to see that movie. Ah me too. Um,
(09:29):
it was funny. The preview came on the other night
and Emily thought it was the Daniel de Lewis Spielberg project,
and then it started breaking out into vampire stuff. She's like,
what is going on? A really strange turn? Um, which
is the idea? I think? So he suspended Habeas corpus.
Um explained it to Congress and they said, you know what,
(09:50):
that's probably a pretty good idea in certain cases, so
let's pass the Habeas Corpus Act to allow you to
do this. Yeah, which is a big deal. And didn't it.
It took years and years before anybody ever went back
and repealed it, right, I don't know. It seemed like
it was a while. We talked about it before in
Corpus podcast. Yeah, I can't remember which one it was.
Maybe pardons presidential pardons that actually, so that was not
(10:13):
the first executive order, but that is executive order one. Yeah.
In the nineteen hundreds, the State Department started numbering them
retroactively and they went back to Lincoln's Habeas corpus and
I don't know if they knew it was the first one,
I don't know, But then I think and then the
sixties nineteen sixty two, these things started being published in
(10:35):
the Federal Register, the Daily Publication of New Laws, and
you know office goings on um around Washington, and uh
now it's like once it's published in the Federal Register,
its law, and they're numbered. Teddy Roosevelt, he was big
on him. He was the first one that really kind
of went haywire. He was the first one to crack
(10:56):
a thousand. That's right. Those Roosevelt love big government. They
weren't related, though, were they They were like eight cousins. Oh,
I don't think I knew that. Wow, look at you
teaching me presidential history. It's like my my forte Is
it okay? Because it's certainly not mine? Uh So, Yeah,
Teddy Roosevelt was pretty He wielded a heavy stick. Um,
(11:21):
and then f DR just went berserker in World War
one and two. Teddy spoke softly but carried a big stick.
Yeah that's the term. Or was the FDR that said that.
I didn't mean we did a big heavy stick? Was
the term? I was just saying. I was making a
play on that. No, I know, okay, but I can't
remember if it was Teddy or FDR that said that.
I think it was Teddy. Okay, yeah, walk tall and
(11:43):
carry big sticks. You're thinking of Joe Don Baker. Alright,
moving on, Yeah, where are we now? We are in
World War One and World War Two? When Congress said,
you know what, it's okay f DR because there's a
lot going on. Well not just that between world from
World War One the depression in World War two, it
(12:04):
was like it was Boogie fever on on executive orders. Yeah,
he had no idea. On his first day in office,
he closed the banks for four days. Yeah, which is
actually pretty cool considering that he platformed on this New
Deal and the first thing he did was issue an
executive orders starting the new Deal. It's like hitting the
(12:25):
ground running for three terms. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, hats
off to him. Agree. So that was the first of
thirty two. You said, And the reason why FDR was
able to issue so many are well, there's several reasons. Um,
he was popular, he had a lot of crises to
(12:47):
deal with, and um, well that's pretty much it. So
he he was definitely a believer in centralized power. But
again that kind of flies in the face of the
division of power in federal government as sketched out by
the constitution, right. Um, So not all executive orders are happy,
(13:13):
happily received, or even grudgingly received. Some are just outright rejected.
And some presidents weren't as popular, which might have had
a little something to do with that exactly. So you've
got Roosevelt seting this president thirty five fifty two executive orders.
You know they stand. He was doing things like season
control of minds of industries. Um. He's set up like
(13:36):
cartels for um, everything from like garment industries to the
theater industry. He he created the Works Projects Administration, which
is like we have murals around the country and a
bunch of orchestras and a lot of parks and everything
because he'd put people to work in the depression through
government spending. Right. Interesting like straight up Kanzie and economics. Um.
(14:01):
But he did all of this through executive orders. I
wonder if the National Parks stuff was executive orders from
my Teddy. I don't wonder too. I bet that went
through Congress maybe, so. I don't think Teddy liked talking
to Congress. He just liked that big stick. But the
point is Roosevelt, the second FDR, set this huge precedent
(14:21):
that made it look like, okay, well, presidents have a
lot more power. Apparently America is cool with this. So
Harry Truman comes along and finds out the hard way
that that's not necessarily the case. Yeah. Um. He sort
of pulled a similar move to FDR as far as
wanting to take control of the steel industry. Um. During
the Korean War, they they regulated the price of steel
(14:42):
and fixed it at a I guess a cheap rate
to help out, you know, Uncle Sam, Donald Douglas and
mcdhal douglas. And then that was great, except for the
workers all of a sudden weren't getting paid like they
normally do because we're gonna go and strike exactly. And
Truman was like, hey, we're in the middle of a war.
(15:02):
And they said, we don't care. And he goes, oh, yeah, well,
let me send in some ringers to see what happens.
That's right. And they said, you know what, Ah, talk
to these guys the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, maybe
you can strike up a bargain. And they went, screw
you guys. And he said, all right, we'll talk to
these guys, the Federal Wage Stabilization Board, and they went,
(15:23):
screw you guys, and he went, well, if you're gonna
go and strike, why don't I just seise control of
your factories on the night before. Here's the thing, though,
there's a provision in UM and I guess federal law
called the Taft Hartley Act UM, that says, if there's
a big strike that's going to affect like national security,
(15:44):
there's like the nation has interests in a strike not happening.
The UM, the President and or Congress can call I
think maybe just the president can call upon the Taft
Hartley Act that and invoke the sixty day cooling off
period where it's like, no, you have to go to work,
you have to you guys have to go back to
the table for sixty days, right and figure this out,
(16:08):
or give us sixty days to figure get our ducks
in a row. He didn't do that. He just sees control.
And that being all, combined with the fact that he
wasn't very popular UM, led to this executive order of
his being overturned by the Supreme Court. Yeah, led to
the steel mills basically sued UH in the famous case
(16:29):
Youngstown Sheet and Tube, the Sawyer the Youngest Town ruling
and UM Supreme Court said, yeah, you know what you
should have done this sixty day cooling off period. That's
why it's they're dummy, right. I don't think him dummy.
He didn't. But Hugo Black, who is the Chief Justice
at the time, was apparently worried that he defended Truman,
so he invited him over for dinner, and Truman said,
(16:51):
quote Hugo, I don't care for that law of yours,
but by golly, this bourbon is good. Did he really
say that that's awesome? By golly? Whenever they were drinking bourbon? Yeah,
but I wonder which bourbon. I wondered that myself. What
do you what do you guess? I don't know, Okay,
I don't know what they drank back then. Yeah, bourbon wise?
(17:15):
Um so uh. Youngstown was huge though, because it established
some standards as far as the powers of authority that
the president, and they kind of broke it down into
three right. Yeah. They didn't just say no, they said,
here's some guidelines for you and future presidents as far
as the Supreme Court is concerned. You have the most
(17:36):
authority Mr President or Mrs President when you have the
express or implied consent of Congress and you know what
I think. Also, I feel like, if if this thing
sticks around, if this digital recording can stick around long enough,
maybe we should include gender gender neutral president as well. Okay, okay, okay, okay,
number two, Mr Mrs Gender neutral President number one, just
(18:00):
to make sure that there's an inclusion number one, Mr
President or Mrs President or gender neutral president. Uh, you
have the most authority when Congress um has expressed or
implied consent. They've given that to you. Right, they're saying,
lead away, We're we're following you. Number two, you have
a little less authority. We'll call it uncertain authority when
(18:21):
Congress has not imposed the authority because they're indifferent or
did they're just not doing anything. Uh. And they call
it a zone of twilight that the president takes advantage of. Yeah,
it's like Congress is waffling. The president knows what he
she or whatever um gender neutral assignment that the president's
picked wants. And I think isn't this probably when they
(18:43):
sneak him in at the end. It depends. Um. I
think it's also more just like you guys had your
chance to act, right, Um, I acted because you missed
your opportunity, and so sit down and shut up, and
Congress basically says, all right, fine, so is that we
can't wait a thing with that fall under that it depends.
So I think that it's like the way that this
(19:07):
justice put this, that this is how this is the authority,
the division, the levels of authority. The president has supreme
authority to issue an executive order. Whether or not it
stands up is based on the test of time because
you can repeal it, right, it just takes a little time. Right, Well,
there's some different ways to do it. Um. The first
we just saw or what not the first, but one
(19:28):
of them we just saw. It was a clear example
of judicial review. Right, that's what the Supreme Court does.
They're like a a supposedly an unbiased, neutral group of
referees where the federal or the um legislative branch or
the people say, hey, can we get a judgment call
on this law? This seems wrong? And then the Supreme
Court says, yeah, you're in a And then what they
(19:50):
say basically is like the final ruling on a law. Okay,
executive order. Since they have the force of law or
the effective law. Um, they're subject to the same scrutiny
judicial review. Well, in Youngstown. The Supreme Court said, Truman,
you can't do that. So that's one way that an
executive order can be overturned. Another way is Congress can say,
(20:13):
you know what, we just really disagree with you, and
we're going to rewrite the legislation that you're talking about,
but it has to be ratified by Congress, which means
the president has the chance to veto it. Gotcha. So
if you have a really angry Congress and a really
angry president, really polarized, they may go at it and
the president may be able to override this with the veto. Lately, yeah,
(20:38):
it's very polarized. So like what Obama is doing now,
it's like, we can't wait. He's trying to frame it
like it's Congress's fault. And then if Congress is feeling froggy,
they may they may issue legislation that says it. So
there's this one where UM George Bush set up an
executive order about um fetal tissue stem cell banks. I
(20:58):
don't remember exactly what it was, but the Congress um
they they basically said, um, quote the provisions of Executive
Order one to Z six, you'll not have any legal effect,
and that was it, but all that since there's no
rules for this, Chuck, there's no this. This is all interpretation, Bushead.
(21:19):
The balls is back in Bush's court. So all it
is is legislative tennis between the executive branch and the
legislative branch. So how far do you want to take it?
Ping pong? And then also one more thing, the legislative branch,
Congress can just say, well, that's fine, use your executive
order to create this new position. We have appropriation, so
(21:42):
we're just not going to give any money to it.
If you find somebody who will do that position, you
still got to get the funding if it's something requires funding.
So those are the ways you get around executive words.
Or a future president can turn around and provoke it,
which happens all the time or pretty much every time
and the president takes office. Um, thank you for that.
Of course. By the way, you forgot the one court
(22:04):
above the Supreme Court. What the Star Chamber? What is that?
You never saw that movie? No? What is that? That
was Michael Douglas. There was a secret group of judges
that would get together called the Star Chamber, that would
carry out vigilante justice. What movie is that? The Star chamber.
Oh no, I not eighties. It sounds like two gusters there,
(22:29):
all right. So the final way is the least authority,
and the president acts on least authority when he has
an executive order that is uh, just incompatible with what
Congress wants, right, which happens all the time as well.
But again, ultimately, how what how powerful does Congress feel like? Say,
Congress really hates that, but the people are really in
(22:50):
favor of it. Will Congress act? Who knows? I've lost
a lot of faith in the political system, my friend. Yeah,
I say, kind of politan what they want to do
and not necessarily what the people want. Yeah, behind the
banner of this is what the people want. That's a
pretty twenty one century view of American politics. It feels like, yeah, sad,
(23:13):
too much money going on. We're gonna do it one
on campaign finance. I said it, We're gonna do it.
And that will really tell you how kind of dirty
it is these days. Um, So let's talk about some
controversies in modern day executive orders. For instance, Ronald Reagan.
If you were a fan of President Reagan, you don't
(23:34):
think it's controversial that he really took hold of the
economic situation and stripped a lot of the government regulation
that he thought was was hampering growth. People that didn't
like President Reagan, but I didn't think that was such
a good move. No, you know what he did, it's
pretty smart and broad. He purposefully slowed down UM the
(23:57):
federal agencies by making them go through all this like
um cost benefit analysis figuring out like how their decisions
would would impact people. Just kind of hamstrung them. Yeah. Interesting,
he was like, oh, you you have it pretty easy, hunt. No,
you don't know. You have like eighty extra things that
you have to do before you can tell any rules. Yeah,
(24:19):
here's some forms exactly, and the number two pencils. Interesting.
It was kind of ingenious really to fight what he
considered an entrenched bureaucracy by adding more bureaucracy. That's pretty funny.
Adding red tape. UH. President George W. Bush Um with
a lot of controversy. Um said in say, you can
wire tap private American citizens telephones in America without them
(24:43):
knowing about it, And that wasn't even published. That was
a secret one, you know, super secret. Yeah, only the
star Chambers saw that. That's right, And uh, a lot
of people that are fond of civil rights and and
rights of private citizens said, you know, that's that's not
very eight nice. That's not a cool thing to do.
And then his supporters said, dude, the nine eleven hijackers
(25:06):
and a lot of time in the US on a
lot of phones, that's a tough one. Man. You want
to be able to thwart those terrorist plots. Yeah, you do.
That's a that's a quagmire. It is a quagmire. Um.
And then what else? Obama's basically on day one famously
(25:28):
said I'm closing Guantanamo, no more water boarding or any
of this enhanced interrogation stuff. And then what's the third one?
Let's create a task force for detention policies? Right, and
then he signed another executive or two years later saying like, okay,
Guantanamo can stay open. And definitely that was probably not
(25:49):
a good idea. Apparently they're thinking like a significant amount
of money into the facilities. They're adding a soccer or
as the yeah football, um, they are adding programs like
life life education programs like balancing your checkbook or getting
ahold of your finances or getting your g D. They're
(26:12):
turning it into into what resembles a very much a
state prison. It's which basically says you're here for a while. Yeah,
I guess that part's good. I don't know that I
care that these people can play soccer though, Oh yeah,
I'm sure there's a lot of people who are like,
they don't need to play soccer. I don't know, though,
(26:34):
play a little soccer. So I would be such a
bad president. What do the waffler? Dude, I just waffle
over the place. That's a bad idea. Maybe it's a
good idea. Well, that's funny that you said that, because
one of the presidents most known for waffling, especially in
his first year, UM Bill Clinton was also very famous
for his executive orders. Apparently it was like a president
(26:57):
with issue executive oars and it was like one of
these things and everybody would humble. But Clinton made an
art out of it. He waged a war through executive order.
Like remember the Balkan War. Yeah, you, the US entered
it with no um declaration of war from Congress. As
a matter of fact, Congress had that um before them
and they voted, no, we're not going to declare war.
(27:18):
So Clinton just did it himself. He didn't officially declare war,
but through an executive order, he for he told the
Air Force to go join NATO air strikes in the Balkans.
He committed ground troops through executive order to NATO, and
he froze the assets of a bunch of Yugoslavian leaders
in the US, which were like three acts of war
that he carried out through executive order. I noticed that stuff,
(27:41):
though I know they did. It was huge at the
time when we're just too young, and I mean people noticed,
but it wasn't like when times are great economically, a
lot of this stuff is way more apt to slide by.
I think, well, I think also we're looking at it
like ten fifteen years on to where it's like total hindsight.
It's like an older statesman now he's not like the
(28:03):
sleazy scumbag that he used to be, or that's his
appearance at least he does. But he still does that
that two things. I saw an interview with him, like
that was recorded five days ago. He still do it. Yeah,
it's thinking and then he gave like this brilliant answer. Um,
but yeah, he was big on He was big on
those things as well. And his advisor was the one
(28:24):
who said stokeing the pen law of the land. Right,
what were the last minute ones called the midnight Midnight regulations.
That was the one that we talked about. I think,
corpus boy, we've been around the block at this point,
we've done some political stuff. So that's the executive orders.
Huh yeah, look for one coming to a piece of
paper near you, especially if Romney ones. I mean, that's
(28:49):
like the first day executive orders, like traditionally now a
political way of saying I am totally different from this guy.
And here, here, and here three examples, you know, and
they'll they'll trumpet that in the in the campaigns. They well,
here's what I'll do right away. Yeah, I declare craft
cheese awesome. So that's it. If you want to learn
(29:11):
more about um executive orders, type executive in or orders
for the handy search bar at how stuff works dot
com and that will bring up this pretty cool article.
And I said, search bar is time for listener mail.
I'm sorry to do this, Chuck, I know, I just
said it's time for us for mail. It's actually time
for plug fests real quick, because it's gonna be like
(29:32):
the fastest plug fest ever. You ready, Um, so we
have a horror fiction contest and and we're hoping our
listeners will write, um horror fiction that we can read
on the Halloween episode. Go to the blogs at how
stuff works dot com find the post Stuff you Should
Knows Horror Fiction contest Colin. Get your official rules right here,
Read that and then act accordingly. Yeah, really follow the
(29:55):
rules closely because we want you to if you've worked
hard for this to be you know able to win. Yeah,
And and look for other mentions than like social media
and stuff like that, like Facebook and Twitter. But um, yeah,
go check it out and go write something. It'll be cool. Um.
And then also Comic Con right yet, we are going
to San Diego's Comic Con this year for the first
time ever, and we're pretty excited about it. Yeah, yes, right,
(30:19):
and we're going as stuff you should know with Slash
Science Channel people exciting we're doing. We're we're crossover hybrid people,
that's right, like uh, the Toyota Prius exactly. We're the
pre I of the podcasting world. Yes, So Thursday, July twelve,
we will be podcasting live. Um. We don't have the
time just yet, but we will announce that on Facebook
(30:39):
and Twitter and there will be special guests that will
be UH dancing, that will be singing. There will be
gnashing of teeth and wailing and perhaps even vomiting live
on stage. Yeah, by me, that's right at the very beginning, kids,
I won't be able to see straight. I'll be so nervous. Yes, cool, Okay,
that was quick plugfest. Not we're getting good at this
(31:00):
susy dude every time now, Okay, listener, ma'l Josh, I'm
gonna call this UH from a from a pastor to us,
complimenting us, okay, not from the usual hate mailing. Hey,
guys and Jerry. I'm a United Methodist pastor and started
listening to the podcast a few years ago to pass
the time on the long ride between the church I
(31:21):
was ministering in Duke Divinity School, where I was finishing
up seminary. Learning about things like uh cannibalism and delta
force really helped break up the constant stream of theology
and philosophy I was studying. I bet I really enjoyed
the most recent one on whether or not it was
possible to reign frogs. A lot of people that I
talked to in religious settings that don't shy away from hearing, uh,
(31:44):
scientific explanations about biblical material. There are plenty of us
out there who love science and aren't afraid of it
debunking scripture. It actually excites me to hear those sorts
of explanations. You've probably been referred to a time or
two in these uh in the classes I teach in
my current ministry. Setting it tonight, so he talks about
some class a couple of heathens like us. Uh. Mainly,
(32:06):
I'm writing to thank you for a few things. First,
thanks for handling matters of faith with tact um. Whether
you're talking aboutvoodoo or karma, you always handle the subject
matter in a gracious way. See. I like this guy's use.
I like him a lot. I would argue that we're
not always gracious, but I appreciate the compliment. Um. Second,
I remember, back in the Brainwashing episode, Chuck said something
(32:29):
along lines up, I'm going to try it really hard
not to comment about my Baptist upbringing pastures and religious
people in general can be pushy. Chuck, You're passing comment
has been a constant reminder to me to not be
that guy. Um. And Third, you guys are the ones
who introduced me to Kiva and I now make regular
loans and have even gotten some members of the congregation
(32:51):
on board. It's been great to be a part of it.
Keep up good work, Jeff and Jeff dude, Pastor Jeff, Pastor, Jeff,
I would go to your church. Yeah, thank you for
the email. That was awesome. Please keep in touch. We
want to know how your religious career goes. Yeah. And
and if you think Chuck and I are awesome and
(33:13):
gracious and we take criticism well and we get things
generally right, say puppies, Yeah, um, and we do it
all without messing up our hair. What do you want
to hear from you? All right, Chuck? Yes, we want
you to tweet to us immediately. Go compose a tweet
and send it to s Why SKA podcast. You can
(33:35):
join us on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you
Should Know, or you can send us an email. Two
Stuff podcast at Discovery dot kids Don't for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
(33:56):
works dot com? Yeah, h brought to you by the
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