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.