What's the deal with Executive Orders?

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. 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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

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, 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 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. 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 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 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.

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, 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, 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, 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 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, 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? 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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.

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 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 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, 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 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,

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 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 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, 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

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 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 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

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 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, 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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 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 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 join us on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you

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