Introduction to the federal bureaucracy

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- [Instructor] We have spent many videos

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talking about the three branches

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of government of the United States,

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the legislative branch,

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which passes the budgets and makes laws.

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The executive branch,
which runs the government,

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and the judicial branch,

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that determines whether
things that are happening

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are constitutional or not
and can interpret the laws.

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When we talk about these separate powers

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and we talk about the checks

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and balances they have on each other,

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the thing that you might
not have thought about

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until this point is how many
employees each of them have.

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So I encourage you to pause this video

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and just make a guess.

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How many employees do
you think each of these

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branches have, or more importantly,

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which of these do you
think is the biggest?

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Well to answer your question,

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the great majority of federal employees

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are within the executive branch.

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We're talking about a very
large number of people.

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If you don't include soldiers,

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we are still talking about
more than 2.5 million

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people under the executive branch.

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If you include soldiers
then we're starting to

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approach closer to four million people

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under the executive branch.

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So what you see on this org chart

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is that most of it sits
under the executive.

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That's because the executive branch

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is charged with running the government.

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So you have the familiar roles,

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the president, the vice-president,

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the executive office of the president.

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Then you have the various cabinet

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departments right over here,

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and I could move to the left and the right

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so you can see them.

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Things like the Department of Agriculture,

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Department of Interior,
Department of Commerce,

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Department of Justice,
Department of Defense,

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Education, State, on and on and on and on.

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Then within each of these departments

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they can be quite, quite large.

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You could be talking about thousands

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or in some cases even tens
of thousands of employees.

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But it's not just about those departments.

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If we go further down in
this diagram right over here,

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you see independent establishments

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and the government corporations

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that are under the executive branch.

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Things like the United
States Postal Service,

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the Peace Corps, you have
the Federal Reserve system.

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These are all under the executive branch.

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When you take all of these
things in total together

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it's known as the federal bureaucracy.

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Now the word bureaucracy might

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conjure up some images for you.

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You might imagine going to some
type of a government office

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and trying to apply for something

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and then having to fill
out a bunch of paperwork,

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or sit in line and then
wait for something.

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And so sometimes it gets a bad name.

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Even the word bureaucratic
tends to mean something that is

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a lot of process and not necessarily

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something that moves quickly
or moves efficiently.

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But it's worth noting that
even though a lot of people,

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we like to pick on the bureaucracy,

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and it is worth debating on how efficient

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government is at certain things,

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we do need some form of a bureaucracy.

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Without a government bureaucracy

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you would not have experts checking

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on whether your food is safe,

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checking on which drugs actually work.

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You would not have thoughtful people

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who are thinking about how
do we run our military,

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how do we determine how we
engage with other countries?

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So we do need a federal bureaucracy.

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These are the folks that are doing things

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like writing and enforcing regulations.

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They're issuing fines
if you have bad actors,

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maybe a corporation that is polluting

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where they're not supposed to.

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Now where do these people come from?

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Well a lot of times the heads of these

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various departments, say
the Secretary of Defense,

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who's at the top of the
Department of Defense,

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or the Secretary of State,
they are political appointees,

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they are appointed by the president

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and confirmed by the Senate,

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we talk about that in other videos.

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But the great majority of the bureaucracy

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does not come from what is
known as political patronage.

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Political patronage is,

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"Hey, you really helped
me with my campaign

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"and I think you're a
pretty decent person,

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"I'm gonna give you a plum job

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"at the top of the bureaucracy."

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And even the word plum job,

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you should maybe take
it with a grain of salt

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because some of these jobs

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do require a lot of responsibility.

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But the great majority of the bureaucracy

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is not from political patronage,

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but it's actually merit-based.

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These are folks, they might
take the civil service exam,

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they might have graduate degrees

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in something that's relevant,

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let's say if they're working in

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the Food and Drug Administration

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they might know a little bit
about chemistry or biology

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and will often, and no
organization is perfect,

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oftentimes people get
promoted for the wrong reason,

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but for the most part

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they're going to be
promoted based on merit.

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So it's completely
reasonable for us to debate

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how large this bureaucracy should be.

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For sure our federal bureaucracy
is sometimes inefficient,

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but we do need it,

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and we're talking about
millions of people,

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many of whom are experts in their field,

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who are really just trying to
help us run our government.


Iron triangles and issue networks

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- [Instructor] Now a related idea to

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just what a bureaucracy is
in our federal government.

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Another question is how
do they get influenced?

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Now one idea that you might see

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in many American government courses

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is the idea of an iron triangle.

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So an iron triangle describes
how various parties might

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influence each other and what
they might do for each other.

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So let's say that there is a group

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that is very interested
in building more roads.

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Maybe there's a group that represents

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all the road contractors
in the United States,

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and they would love more
highways to be built

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because there'd be more business for them.

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And so then that interest group,

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who wants more highways to
be built, they might say,

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hey, congresspeople, we
want more highways built.

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The way that they try to
get favor with Congress

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is through electoral support.

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Now what kind of electoral
support could they give?

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Well, they could donate money
to the congressmen directly.

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They could donate money
to political parties.

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They could try to activate the electorate

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to vote for a congressperson

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who favors their agenda
more than someone else.

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In exchange, congresspeople
could do a few things.

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They could provide more
funding to the bureaucracy

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that is going to build roads,

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and we just talked about that

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bureaucracy in the executive branch.

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That bureaucracy, not only
might they build more roads,

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but if they like those interest groups,

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they might lower their
regulations on them.

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They might give them more contracts

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as they build those roads.

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Another thing that Congress could do

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for the interest group is
pass friendly legislation.

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So maybe pass a law that
makes it easier to build roads

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in a certain part of the
country or in a certain way.

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But the reason why it's
called an iron triangle,

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it's not just about what
do interest groups want.

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It's also what does Congress want?

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What does the bureaucracy want,

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and what do they get from
the other two parties?

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So we already talked about how Congress

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can get electoral support
from interest groups,

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but what can it get from a bureaucracy?

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Congress passes laws and a budget,

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but a bureaucracy, for the most part,

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decides how to execute on that.

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And so if they are aligned with Congress,

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they might execute on those laws

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with a little bit more energy.

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If the bureaucracy, for
one reason or another,

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is not as gung ho about those laws,

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they might drag their feet a little bit.

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And from the bureaucracy point of view?

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Well, we already talked
about how they could get

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funding and political
support from Congress.

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You see that on that part
of the triangle there.

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What do they get from the interest groups?

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Well, we already talked about
the congressional support,

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which they can do by
supporting congresspeople

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who might support favorable
policies for the bureaucracy.

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The interest groups might be able to

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directly lobby Congress, which means,

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hey, we're going to meet with Congress.

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We might even draft some
things for the policy agenda.

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Now a related idea to an iron
triangle in interest groups

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that you might also hear in
an American government course

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is the notion of issue networks.

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One way to think about
issue networks is they are

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essentially more informal
than interest groups.

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Interest groups can be
part of an issue network,

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but an issue network can be, let's say,

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you and I start to get really activated

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about something we get on TV,

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and then we start mailing
our congresspeople,

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and we start blogging about it,

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and we start getting a following,

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and then that starts to
influence an interest group.

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Or an interest group joins with us,

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and then we start to send
messages to Congress.

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We start to provide more
scrutiny on the bureaucracy.

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Then we would be an issue network,

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and as I mentioned, issue
networks might not be formal.

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They might not be a formal, let's say,

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lobbying group or interest group,

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but they can also have
influence in the same way

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that an interest group does.


Congressional oversight of the bureaucracy

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Language: en

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- [Teacher] In multiple videos already,

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we have talked about the
three branches of government

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at the federal level.

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You have the legislative
branch, which is Congress,

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made up of two houses.

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The House of Representatives
and the Senate.

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You have the executive branch
with the President at the head

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of the executive branch.

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And of course you have the judicial.

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Now what we're going to
focus on in this video is

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in previous videos we've talked about that

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the executive branch is in
charge of running the government

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while the legislative
branch, they're the folks

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who either write laws
or control the budget.

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Now what we're going to do in this video

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is dig a little bit deeper in terms of how

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does Congress have oversight
over the executive branch.

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When we think of the executive branch,

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we often think of the President or maybe

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the people who work around the president.

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But the federal bureaucracy
is roughly 2.8 million people,

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and we talk about that in other videos.

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And so, how do we have oversight

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over these 2.8 million people?

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Well first of all, there is
a whole managerial structure

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within the executive branch,

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but on top of that, you
have the legislative branch

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having oversight over
the executive agencies.

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Over these 2.8 million people.

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And there's two primary
means of this oversight.

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The first one is Congress sets the budget.

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This is often known as power of the purse.

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And if Congress doesn't
like how a certain agency

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is spending its money, they
might reduce the budget there.

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If they really think that
some agency's doing a good job

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or needs more resources, they
might give them more resources

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in the next budget.

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The other tool of
oversight that Congress has

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is committee hearings.

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And we have talked about
this in other videos.

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But this is where the
appropriate committee

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within Congress, it might
be within the Senate

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or the House of Representatives,

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will call in leaders
from the executive agency

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that they are overseeing
to ask them questions.

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Hey, why did this not go as we planned?

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Or how do you deal with this situation?

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Or why are you spending more money

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than we thought you were
actually going to spend?

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Now, to be clear, this is
not always going to work.

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When we're talking about
2.8 million people,

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there definitely might
be things that go on

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within these executive agencies
that Congress, of course,

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will not have complete control of

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with just these two levers.

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Or they might not even
know all of the details.

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But they try to do the committee hearings

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in order to get a reasonable understanding

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of what's going on and then
leverage their budgetary powers

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in order to have some level of oversight.

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Now to get a feel for
what this looks like,

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I'm about to show you an example

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of a Senate committee hearing.

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And this is a committee
hearing where they brought in

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some folks from the FBI.

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And what's interesting about this one,

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this is not about national security.

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This committee hearing is about relocating

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or where they put the Federal
Bureau of Investigation

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agency buildings.

00:02:54.110 --> 00:02:57.260
And you can see that there's
definitely a tone of oversight

00:02:57.260 --> 00:02:58.960
in this video.

00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:01.430
- Mr. Matthews, I'm having a hard time

00:03:02.490 --> 00:03:04.380
accepting what you're saying here.

00:03:04.380 --> 00:03:07.080
So I'ma be perfectly blunt about that.

00:03:07.080 --> 00:03:10.900
You now say a major reason for terminating

00:03:10.900 --> 00:03:13.630
the original prospectus was that

00:03:13.630 --> 00:03:16.300
the transfer of the Hoover Building,

00:03:16.300 --> 00:03:19.690
something that you all
wanted, and we didn't want.

00:03:19.690 --> 00:03:21.270
Congress didn't like that idea.

00:03:22.250 --> 00:03:24.300
But you said it was
something you needed to do

00:03:24.300 --> 00:03:26.220
to get it done.

00:03:26.220 --> 00:03:28.010
So now we're supposed to
believe that's the reason

00:03:28.010 --> 00:03:30.690
why you terminated for
something that you wanted.

00:03:30.690 --> 00:03:34.610
Secondly, the consolidation,
one of the major reasons

00:03:34.610 --> 00:03:38.020
for the consolidation on
costs is to save rental costs.

00:03:38.020 --> 00:03:40.070
That's what you've told us all along.

00:03:40.070 --> 00:03:41.910
That it's more expensive to have places

00:03:41.910 --> 00:03:44.270
outside of the central location.

00:03:44.270 --> 00:03:45.980
And now you're saying it's a wash.

00:03:47.070 --> 00:03:48.730
Can you understand why
I'm hanging a hard time

00:03:48.730 --> 00:03:52.300
accepting the information
you're presenting?

00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:56.193
- Yes, Senator.

00:03:56.193 --> 00:03:58.610
So with respect to your
first question, the issue--

00:03:58.610 --> 00:04:00.236
- And quickly 'cause I heard-- we have

00:04:00.236 --> 00:04:03.080
your written statement on the
transfer of the buildings.

00:04:03.080 --> 00:04:05.400
I agree with you on the
transfer of the building.

00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:07.430
Didn't makes sense.

00:04:07.430 --> 00:04:09.800
But you insisted on it.

00:04:09.800 --> 00:04:12.930
- Well I would say personally
I came here in August.

00:04:12.930 --> 00:04:15.740
- Your agency insisted
on it in the prospectives

00:04:15.740 --> 00:04:17.770
that they submitted,
they insisted that this

00:04:17.770 --> 00:04:19.200
be part of the deal.

00:04:19.200 --> 00:04:21.660
- Yes, they did, and I
suggest that was a mistake.

00:04:21.660 --> 00:04:23.270
- And I've suggest that the information

00:04:23.270 --> 00:04:27.070
you're giving us right now
maybe likewise a mistake.


Executive and legislative disagreements with the Supreme Court

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:01.440
- [Instructor] In many videos already,

00:00:01.440 --> 00:00:04.140
we have talked about our
three branches of government

00:00:04.140 --> 00:00:06.240
in the United States, but
what we're going to do

00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:08.080
in this video is focus a little bit more

00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:09.940
on the judicial branch.

00:00:09.940 --> 00:00:10.910
As we've talked about,

00:00:10.910 --> 00:00:15.306
the judicial branch's main goal
is to be the final authority

00:00:15.306 --> 00:00:18.250
on the United States Constitution.

00:00:18.250 --> 00:00:19.900
And the main check that they have

00:00:19.900 --> 00:00:22.440
on the legislative and executive branches

00:00:22.440 --> 00:00:25.351
is that they can deem
things that are happening

00:00:25.351 --> 00:00:26.930
in the other branches,

00:00:26.930 --> 00:00:29.030
say a law that gets passed by Congress

00:00:29.030 --> 00:00:31.710
or an executive order from the president,

00:00:31.710 --> 00:00:33.980
as being unconstitutional.

00:00:33.980 --> 00:00:37.750
They can also interpret the
laws that have been passed.

00:00:37.750 --> 00:00:39.870
And so that's where they get their power.

00:00:39.870 --> 00:00:42.480
Now another interesting thing
about the judicial branch

00:00:42.480 --> 00:00:44.500
that we've talked about
is unlike the executive

00:00:44.500 --> 00:00:47.276
and legislative branch,
where these folks are elected

00:00:47.276 --> 00:00:50.300
on a semi-regular basis,
the Supreme Court,

00:00:50.300 --> 00:00:51.874
these are lifetime appointments.

00:00:51.874 --> 00:00:55.096
Once someone is nominated by the president

00:00:55.096 --> 00:00:57.760
and then confirmed by the Senate,

00:00:57.760 --> 00:01:01.770
they're in the Supreme Court for life.

00:01:01.770 --> 00:01:02.630
And so the question is

00:01:02.630 --> 00:01:04.670
is when the Supreme Court does something

00:01:04.670 --> 00:01:07.220
that say, the president
or a member of Congress

00:01:07.220 --> 00:01:09.673
disagrees with, what can they do?

00:01:09.673 --> 00:01:11.740
Well, there's a couple of options here.

00:01:11.740 --> 00:01:15.360
One option, let's say
that a clause of a law

00:01:15.360 --> 00:01:17.080
is deemed unconstitutional.

00:01:17.080 --> 00:01:19.200
So let's say that there's a law here

00:01:19.200 --> 00:01:21.550
and this part of it, the
US Supreme Court says,

00:01:21.550 --> 00:01:24.240
"No, that's not consistent
with the Constitution,"

00:01:24.240 --> 00:01:27.360
sometimes, the legislature
might decide to,

00:01:27.360 --> 00:01:29.570
hey, let's try to pass another law

00:01:29.570 --> 00:01:33.660
that clarifies that clause
in a way that is in line

00:01:33.660 --> 00:01:36.400
with the Constitution, or
we'll do a whole other law

00:01:36.400 --> 00:01:40.630
that's worded different,
but it has the same purpose.

00:01:40.630 --> 00:01:43.270
And so the legislative
branch can't overrule

00:01:43.270 --> 00:01:46.639
the judicial branch, but they
can try to revise their laws

00:01:46.639 --> 00:01:49.420
to get more in line with their intent

00:01:49.420 --> 00:01:52.560
but not get the negative judicial review.

00:01:53.430 --> 00:01:56.120
The president also has some levers.

00:01:56.120 --> 00:01:58.260
There's examples in
history of the president

00:01:58.260 --> 00:02:01.550
just outright ignoring a judicial verdict.

00:02:01.550 --> 00:02:04.640
For example, Thomas Jefferson,
during the Embargo Act

00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:05.600
during his administration,

00:02:05.600 --> 00:02:07.520
this is during the Napoleonic Wars,

00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:10.170
and those warring nations
were taking advantage of

00:02:10.170 --> 00:02:13.720
American vessels and seamen,
and Thomas Jefferson decided,

00:02:13.720 --> 00:02:15.850
hey, we don't want to have
trade with those countries.

00:02:15.850 --> 00:02:18.090
There are aspects of those
that the Supreme Court,

00:02:18.090 --> 00:02:20.040
including some Jefferson appointees,

00:02:20.040 --> 00:02:22.870
decided were unconstitutional
but Jefferson just kind of

00:02:22.870 --> 00:02:25.477
kept executing the way he wanted to.

00:02:25.477 --> 00:02:27.330
You fast-forward a few decades

00:02:27.330 --> 00:02:29.301
to the beginning of the Civil War,

00:02:29.301 --> 00:02:33.170
President Lincoln decided
that, hey, there's some people

00:02:33.170 --> 00:02:35.580
causing some trouble and
we need to detain them,

00:02:35.580 --> 00:02:38.040
and we know there's a constitutional right

00:02:38.040 --> 00:02:40.780
of habeas corpus that says
that people should be allowed

00:02:40.780 --> 00:02:44.510
to go to court to decide
whether the detention is legal,

00:02:44.510 --> 00:02:46.530
to decide whether they should be detained,

00:02:46.530 --> 00:02:49.680
but President Lincoln decided
to suspend habeas corpus

00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:51.520
in certain parts of the country,

00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:53.750
which the Supreme Court
was not happy with.

00:02:53.750 --> 00:02:55.980
But he decided to just go ahead with it

00:02:55.980 --> 00:02:57.620
with the argument that it was necessary

00:02:57.620 --> 00:02:59.127
to preserve the Union.

00:02:59.127 --> 00:03:02.652
And perhaps the most famous
example of a president

00:03:02.652 --> 00:03:05.903
not being happy with
verdicts of the Supreme Court

00:03:05.903 --> 00:03:10.903
was FDR, as he took office in the midst

00:03:10.920 --> 00:03:12.190
of the Great Depression.

00:03:12.190 --> 00:03:14.208
There's a whole series of federal programs

00:03:14.208 --> 00:03:16.354
that he was trying to pass,

00:03:16.354 --> 00:03:19.787
and the Supreme Court started
to strike down many of these,

00:03:19.787 --> 00:03:22.600
saying that, hey, this was not the role

00:03:22.600 --> 00:03:25.139
of the federal government,
or this was overreaching

00:03:25.139 --> 00:03:26.916
by the executive.

00:03:26.916 --> 00:03:29.473
And so FDR was not happy with this,

00:03:29.473 --> 00:03:32.854
and so he actually proposed
to the legislative branch

00:03:32.854 --> 00:03:36.821
the Judicial Procedures
Reform Bill of 1937,

00:03:36.821 --> 00:03:38.910
which essentially said, hey,

00:03:38.910 --> 00:03:40.860
as soon as a Supreme Court justice is over

00:03:40.860 --> 00:03:43.050
70 and a half years old, I
should be able to appoint

00:03:43.050 --> 00:03:45.610
another Supreme Court justice, up to six,

00:03:45.610 --> 00:03:47.879
and it turns out there
were exactly six justices

00:03:47.879 --> 00:03:50.160
who had already reached that age,

00:03:50.160 --> 00:03:52.650
so he essentially wanted
to pack the Supreme Court

00:03:52.650 --> 00:03:56.260
with six new justices
that would agree with him,

00:03:56.260 --> 00:03:58.630
that would allow him to do what he wanted.

00:03:58.630 --> 00:04:00.810
The legislative branch did not pass

00:04:00.810 --> 00:04:04.530
his Judicial Procedures
Reform Bill of 1937,

00:04:04.530 --> 00:04:06.710
but some historians think
that it had the impact

00:04:06.710 --> 00:04:08.500
that he wanted, because it seems,

00:04:08.500 --> 00:04:11.750
and we don't know for sure,
after he even tried to do this,

00:04:11.750 --> 00:04:14.930
the judicial branch seemed
more friendly to FDR.

00:04:14.930 --> 00:04:17.130
So maybe they said, "Hey, you know,

00:04:17.130 --> 00:04:19.670
"maybe we don't want to
mess with this guy too much

00:04:19.670 --> 00:04:21.840
"because eventually he
might be successful.

00:04:21.840 --> 00:04:24.170
"Instead of having nine
Supreme Court justices,

00:04:24.170 --> 00:04:25.350
"we'll have 15."

00:04:25.350 --> 00:04:27.590
People sometimes call
this the switch in time

00:04:27.590 --> 00:04:28.730
that saved nine.

00:04:28.730 --> 00:04:31.120
But to get an appreciation of
how people thought about it,

00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:33.515
I have some political
cartoons from the time,

00:04:33.515 --> 00:04:36.110
and these are fun to just
pause and take a look at it.

00:04:36.110 --> 00:04:38.380
So this says Trying to
Change the Umpiring.

00:04:38.380 --> 00:04:41.320
So this is the Supreme Court,
President Roosevelt here,

00:04:41.320 --> 00:04:43.928
and he's saying "Listen. I
don't like your decisions.

00:04:43.928 --> 00:04:46.480
"From now on, you're
going to have to work with

00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:49.130
"someone who can see things my way!"

00:04:49.130 --> 00:04:51.572
and you can see all the different
bats that he tried to use

00:04:51.572 --> 00:04:55.070
and they were all ruled out by the umpire.

00:04:55.070 --> 00:04:58.040
The NRA, the AAA, these are all different

00:04:58.040 --> 00:04:59.760
government institutions or programs

00:04:59.760 --> 00:05:01.370
that FDR was trying to set up

00:05:01.370 --> 00:05:02.850
in order to fight the Great Depression,

00:05:02.850 --> 00:05:04.610
as part of his New Deal.

00:05:04.610 --> 00:05:07.704
And they say, "New Deal Acts
declared unconstitutional."

00:05:07.704 --> 00:05:09.888
I have another political
cartoon right over here,

00:05:09.888 --> 00:05:11.737
and it's from that same period in time.

00:05:11.737 --> 00:05:15.180
Do We Want A Ventriloquist
Act In The Supreme Court?

00:05:15.180 --> 00:05:18.831
And you see Uncle Sam here
and then you have FDR,

00:05:18.831 --> 00:05:21.430
and it looks like he's
got his hand controlling

00:05:21.430 --> 00:05:25.580
these puppets and it says,
"Yes, yes, we all vote yes!"

00:05:25.580 --> 00:05:27.186
and even FDR did not get his way

00:05:27.186 --> 00:05:30.600
with his court-packing plan
as it's sometimes called,

00:05:30.600 --> 00:05:34.480
let me write that down,
his court-packing plan,

00:05:36.040 --> 00:05:38.980
as I mentioned, some historians
believe that it did help

00:05:38.980 --> 00:05:41.106
influence the court being a
little bit friendlier to him,

00:05:41.106 --> 00:05:44.250
and a somewhat irony of it
is at the end of the day,

00:05:44.250 --> 00:05:47.206
because FDR served so
many terms in office,

00:05:47.206 --> 00:05:49.940
he was able to make eight out of nine

00:05:49.940 --> 00:05:51.830
Supreme Court appointments.

00:05:51.830 --> 00:05:54.332
So in a lot of ways, he did determine

00:05:54.332 --> 00:05:57.080
the inclinations of the Supreme Court

00:05:57.080 --> 00:06:00.490
for many decades to come well
after his administration.


The president's bully pulpit

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:01.690
- [Instructor] What we're
going to do in this video

00:00:01.690 --> 00:00:04.530
is talk about what is often referred to as

00:00:04.530 --> 00:00:07.860
the Bully Pulpit of the
United States President.

00:00:08.770 --> 00:00:10.400
It's making reference to the idea

00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:12.430
that the President has a platform

00:00:12.430 --> 00:00:14.190
from which they can convince people,

00:00:14.190 --> 00:00:16.860
that they can convey their own message.

00:00:16.860 --> 00:00:19.920
There are explicit powers in
the United States Constitution

00:00:19.920 --> 00:00:22.290
about what the President
can and cannot do,

00:00:22.290 --> 00:00:24.990
but just as being that singular executive

00:00:24.990 --> 00:00:26.320
at the top of the Executive Branch,

00:00:26.320 --> 00:00:29.140
people are gonna pay
attention to what they say.

00:00:29.140 --> 00:00:31.240
This term, bully pulpit, probably isn't

00:00:31.240 --> 00:00:33.510
exactly what you imagine it to mean.

00:00:33.510 --> 00:00:36.490
It actually comes to us
from Theodore Roosevelt,

00:00:36.490 --> 00:00:38.710
that's a picture of Theodore
Roosevelt giving a speech.

00:00:38.710 --> 00:00:41.510
He was president from 1901 to 1909.

00:00:41.510 --> 00:00:43.430
He was actually the youngest person to

00:00:43.430 --> 00:00:44.680
hold the office of President.

00:00:44.680 --> 00:00:47.560
He took office when President
McKinley was assassinated,

00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:49.990
and this is a quote from 1909,

00:00:49.990 --> 00:00:53.450
from Lyman Abbott, who
wrote for "The Outlook".

00:00:53.450 --> 00:00:55.710
"Half a dozen of us
were with the President,

00:00:55.710 --> 00:00:58.110
Theodore Roosevelt, in his library.

00:00:58.110 --> 00:00:59.970
He was sitting at his desk reading to us

00:00:59.970 --> 00:01:01.790
his forthcoming message.

00:01:01.790 --> 00:01:03.720
He had just finished reading a paragraph

00:01:03.720 --> 00:01:06.810
of a distinctly ethical character
when he suddenly stopped,

00:01:06.810 --> 00:01:09.180
swung round in his swivel chair and said,

00:01:09.180 --> 00:01:11.680
'I suppose my critics
will call that preaching,

00:01:11.680 --> 00:01:14.250
but I have got such a bully pulpit!'"

00:01:15.310 --> 00:01:16.900
Theodore Roosevelt was famous for

00:01:16.900 --> 00:01:18.950
using the term "bully" a lot,

00:01:18.950 --> 00:01:20.510
and it doesn't mean to pick on people

00:01:20.510 --> 00:01:22.530
in Theodore Roosevelt's context.

00:01:22.530 --> 00:01:24.720
He used it as great, wonderful.

00:01:24.720 --> 00:01:26.740
Bully for you, good for you.

00:01:26.740 --> 00:01:28.390
When he said "a bully pulpit",

00:01:28.390 --> 00:01:30.290
he's saying, "I have such a great platform

00:01:30.290 --> 00:01:31.500
from which to speak."

00:01:31.500 --> 00:01:32.620
He's not saying I have a platform

00:01:32.620 --> 00:01:34.380
from which to pick on people.

00:01:34.380 --> 00:01:37.070
And this was before mass media

00:01:37.070 --> 00:01:39.710
became a significant
influence in politics.

00:01:39.710 --> 00:01:42.180
At this time, recorded audio was

00:01:42.180 --> 00:01:43.770
just starting to become a thing.

00:01:43.770 --> 00:01:47.120
Television was not an
influence in politics.

00:01:47.120 --> 00:01:49.870
But you can imagine,
once you have mass media,

00:01:49.870 --> 00:01:51.860
especially radio, television,

00:01:51.860 --> 00:01:54.360
and now social media
becoming a major factor,

00:01:54.360 --> 00:01:56.510
this bully pulpit has only gotten

00:01:56.510 --> 00:01:59.610
more and more and more significant.

00:01:59.610 --> 00:02:01.940
One of the strongest
examples of Presidents

00:02:01.940 --> 00:02:05.790
using their bully pulpit is
the State of the Union address.

00:02:05.790 --> 00:02:07.350
State

00:02:07.350 --> 00:02:08.390
of

00:02:08.390 --> 00:02:09.620
the Union.

00:02:09.620 --> 00:02:12.180
The Constitution does
call for the President

00:02:12.180 --> 00:02:15.520
to make reports to Congress
on the state of the union,

00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:17.930
but early Presidents,
like Thomas Jefferson,

00:02:17.930 --> 00:02:19.730
just sent a written report.

00:02:19.730 --> 00:02:21.620
But, eventually, over time, the President

00:02:21.620 --> 00:02:23.230
started giving live reports to

00:02:23.230 --> 00:02:25.810
the joint houses of Congress
in the form of a speech,

00:02:25.810 --> 00:02:28.070
and then in 1947,

00:02:28.070 --> 00:02:31.570
you have Truman's State
of the Union is televised.

00:02:31.570 --> 00:02:33.110
Truman

00:02:33.110 --> 00:02:33.943
televised.

00:02:35.380 --> 00:02:38.400
Today, the State of the
Union is given every January,

00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:39.590
this is a major event.

00:02:39.590 --> 00:02:43.380
All the major networks show
it, the nation pays attention.

00:02:43.380 --> 00:02:45.100
What Theodore Roosevelt was talking about

00:02:45.100 --> 00:02:47.960
becomes even more powerful
for modern presidents

00:02:47.960 --> 00:02:51.080
that have mass media at their disposal.

00:02:51.080 --> 00:02:54.030
To get a good, tangible
sense of this power

00:02:54.030 --> 00:02:58.950
that a President has, I'm gonna
show you a video from 1981.

00:02:58.950 --> 00:03:01.360
This actually will not be a
State of the Union address.

00:03:01.360 --> 00:03:03.880
This is an address that
President Reagan gives

00:03:03.880 --> 00:03:06.810
to the nation on federal tax reduction.

00:03:06.810 --> 00:03:08.990
Just so that you have context
on what the world was like,

00:03:08.990 --> 00:03:11.600
or what the United
States was like, in 1981,

00:03:11.600 --> 00:03:14.560
they had stagflation, a stagnant economy

00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:17.280
with a lot of inflation
and high interest rates.

00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:19.080
I remember, at the time, my mom had,

00:03:19.080 --> 00:03:21.700
I think it was a 17% interest
rate on her mortgage,

00:03:21.700 --> 00:03:23.980
which was incredibly, incredibly high.

00:03:23.980 --> 00:03:25.730
What you're going to
see is President Reagan

00:03:25.730 --> 00:03:29.010
making a direct plea
to the American people

00:03:29.010 --> 00:03:33.860
to convince their representatives
to support his tax plan,

00:03:33.860 --> 00:03:35.880
and think about what President
Reagan was able to do

00:03:35.880 --> 00:03:38.170
that Thomas Jefferson, or
even Theodore Roosevelt,

00:03:38.170 --> 00:03:39.520
could have only dreamed of.

00:03:41.040 --> 00:03:43.980
- The best way to have a
strong foreign policy abroad

00:03:44.910 --> 00:03:47.060
is to have a strong economy at home.

00:03:48.830 --> 00:03:51.420
Now, the day after tomorrow, Wednesday,

00:03:51.420 --> 00:03:53.610
the House of Representatives
will begin debate

00:03:53.610 --> 00:03:56.480
on two tax bills, and once again,

00:03:56.480 --> 00:03:57.830
they need to hear from you.

00:03:58.700 --> 00:04:00.710
I know that doesn't give you much time,

00:04:00.710 --> 00:04:02.160
but a great deal is at stake.

00:04:03.390 --> 00:04:05.910
Let me add, those representatives

00:04:05.910 --> 00:04:09.150
honestly and sincerely
want to know your feelings.

00:04:09.150 --> 00:04:12.250
They get plenty of input from
the special interest groups.

00:04:12.250 --> 00:04:14.350
They'd like to hear from their home folks.

00:04:15.470 --> 00:04:18.320
Let me explain what the
situation is and what's at issue.

00:04:19.250 --> 00:04:22.160
With our budget cuts, we
presented a complete program

00:04:22.160 --> 00:04:24.240
of reduction in tax rates.

00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:26.670
Again, our purpose was
to provide incentive

00:04:26.670 --> 00:04:29.490
for the individual,
incentives for business

00:04:29.490 --> 00:04:32.750
to encourage production and
hiring of the unemployed,

00:04:32.750 --> 00:04:34.970
and to free up money for investment.

00:04:36.010 --> 00:04:38.680
Our bill calls for a 5% reduction in

00:04:38.680 --> 00:04:41.700
the income tax rates by October 1st,

00:04:41.700 --> 00:04:45.760
a 10% reduction beginning July 1st, 1982,

00:04:45.760 --> 00:04:48.790
and another 10% cut a year later.

00:04:48.790 --> 00:04:51.790
A 25% total reduction over three years.

00:04:53.140 --> 00:04:55.920
But then, to insure the
tax cut is permanent,

00:04:55.920 --> 00:05:00.040
we call for indexing
the tax rates in 1985,

00:05:00.040 --> 00:05:02.260
which means adjusting them for inflation.

00:05:03.290 --> 00:05:06.230
As it is now, if you get
a cost of living raise

00:05:06.230 --> 00:05:09.290
that's intended to keep
you even with inflation,

00:05:09.290 --> 00:05:11.150
you find that the increase in

00:05:11.150 --> 00:05:13.490
the number of dollars
you get may very likely

00:05:13.490 --> 00:05:16.030
move you into a higher tax bracket,

00:05:16.030 --> 00:05:19.100
and you wind up poorer than you were.

00:05:19.100 --> 00:05:20.950
This is called bracket creep.

00:05:21.830 --> 00:05:24.300
Bracket creep is an insidious tax.

00:05:24.300 --> 00:05:25.900
Let me give an example.

00:05:25.900 --> 00:05:30.710
If you earned $10,000 a year in 1972,

00:05:30.710 --> 00:05:31.780
by 1980,

00:05:32.730 --> 00:05:35.632
you had to earn $19,700

00:05:35.632 --> 00:05:38.040
just to stay even with inflation,

00:05:38.960 --> 00:05:41.140
but that's before taxes.

00:05:41.140 --> 00:05:45.820
Come April 15th, you find your
tax rates have increased 30%.

00:05:46.890 --> 00:05:48.750
Have you been wondering why you don't seem

00:05:48.750 --> 00:05:51.260
as well off as you were a few years back?

00:05:51.260 --> 00:05:53.960
It's because government
makes a profit on inflation.


Expansion of presidential power

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.290 --> 00:00:01.890
- [Instructor] What we're going
to talk about in this video

00:00:01.890 --> 00:00:05.130
is the expansion of presidential power.

00:00:05.130 --> 00:00:08.150
We've already seen that the
Constitution talks about

00:00:08.150 --> 00:00:10.760
the different powers that
a president would have.

00:00:10.760 --> 00:00:12.860
But as we've gone forward in history,

00:00:12.860 --> 00:00:15.680
the Constitution hasn't
imagined every circumstance

00:00:15.680 --> 00:00:18.265
that the president might face,
and so there have been times

00:00:18.265 --> 00:00:20.950
when the presidents have used powers

00:00:20.950 --> 00:00:23.870
that aren't explicitly
given in the Constitution.

00:00:23.870 --> 00:00:26.720
For example, as early as 1803,

00:00:26.720 --> 00:00:28.664
you have the Louisiana Purchase,

00:00:28.664 --> 00:00:32.710
where you have Thomas
Jefferson buying land

00:00:32.710 --> 00:00:34.960
from Napoleon's France.

00:00:34.960 --> 00:00:37.390
It does not say explicitly
anywhere in the Constitution

00:00:37.390 --> 00:00:39.830
that presidents are allowed to buy land

00:00:39.830 --> 00:00:41.370
from foreign countries.

00:00:41.370 --> 00:00:44.450
You fast-forward a good bit
to the Great Depression.

00:00:44.450 --> 00:00:46.810
You have Franklin Delano Roosevelt

00:00:46.810 --> 00:00:51.810
who serves four terms in
office, four terms in office,

00:00:52.110 --> 00:00:55.920
and also starts creating all
of these various agencies

00:00:55.920 --> 00:01:00.920
in order to help stimulate the
economy, so creates agencies.

00:01:02.120 --> 00:01:03.800
And many of the things that he did

00:01:03.800 --> 00:01:07.970
were not explicitly listed
as powers of the president.

00:01:07.970 --> 00:01:10.740
And as you can imagine, as
any member of the government,

00:01:10.740 --> 00:01:13.140
especially the president,
starts taking on powers

00:01:13.140 --> 00:01:14.770
that aren't explicitly listed,

00:01:14.770 --> 00:01:17.630
it make make other people
a little bit afraid.

00:01:17.630 --> 00:01:19.810
And so in reaction to some of this,

00:01:19.810 --> 00:01:21.445
there have been actions taken.

00:01:21.445 --> 00:01:24.940
For example, because
FDR had his four terms,

00:01:24.940 --> 00:01:27.970
you have the 22nd Amendment.

00:01:27.970 --> 00:01:31.160
And the 22nd Amendment says
that no one can be elected

00:01:31.160 --> 00:01:33.800
to the office of the
president more than two times,

00:01:33.800 --> 00:01:36.920
and no one can serve more
than 10 years in office.

00:01:36.920 --> 00:01:38.690
The 10 years would become a problem if

00:01:38.690 --> 00:01:41.290
you can take on office in the second half

00:01:41.290 --> 00:01:42.840
of someone else's administration

00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:45.400
and then you get elected twice.

00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:50.020
And so the 22nd Amendment
was really a check on

00:01:50.020 --> 00:01:53.180
this type of expansion
of presidential power.

00:01:53.180 --> 00:01:56.380
Later on, you have things
like the War Powers Act.

00:01:56.380 --> 00:02:01.380
Let me write that, War Powers
Act, which is from 1973,

00:02:03.670 --> 00:02:07.070
and this is at the end of the Vietnam War.

00:02:07.070 --> 00:02:08.250
Congress has been concerned.

00:02:08.250 --> 00:02:10.154
How did we get embroiled in the war,

00:02:10.154 --> 00:02:12.360
a war, that in the early days,

00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:15.433
did not have any type of
official authorization

00:02:15.433 --> 00:02:19.020
from Congress, but American
troops were put on the ground

00:02:19.020 --> 00:02:19.960
in a foreign country.

00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:23.640
And so the War Powers Act in
1973 says that a president

00:02:23.640 --> 00:02:27.730
has to get congressional
buy-in within 60 days

00:02:27.730 --> 00:02:30.099
of committing American troops.

00:02:30.099 --> 00:02:32.950
But to help us understand this issue,

00:02:32.950 --> 00:02:35.920
let's go all the way back
to the Federalist Papers.

00:02:35.920 --> 00:02:39.090
Remember, the Federalist Papers
were written in an attempt

00:02:39.090 --> 00:02:42.070
to get the Constitution ratified.

00:02:42.070 --> 00:02:44.120
And for the sake of this
video, we're going to focus on

00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:48.790
Federalist number 70, written
by Alexander Hamilton.

00:02:48.790 --> 00:02:52.619
In Federalist number 70,
Alexander Hamilton makes the case

00:02:52.619 --> 00:02:55.985
why you need to have a single individual

00:02:55.985 --> 00:02:58.160
who has significant power

00:02:58.160 --> 00:03:00.090
at the head of the Executive Branch.

00:03:00.090 --> 00:03:03.640
And you can imagine this would
have made some people wary

00:03:03.640 --> 00:03:06.070
because the United States
had just gotten independence

00:03:06.070 --> 00:03:08.010
from George III, a king,

00:03:08.010 --> 00:03:10.040
and so some people might
have been wary about kings,

00:03:10.040 --> 00:03:12.710
and might have wanted, maybe
not one person in charge,

00:03:12.710 --> 00:03:13.941
or maybe a committee in charge.

00:03:13.941 --> 00:03:16.240
But this is what Hamilton wrote.

00:03:16.240 --> 00:03:18.610
Energy in the Executive
is a leading character

00:03:18.610 --> 00:03:20.950
in the definition of good government.

00:03:20.950 --> 00:03:23.330
It is essential to the
protection of the community

00:03:23.330 --> 00:03:26.550
against foreign attacks;
it is not less essential

00:03:26.550 --> 00:03:29.020
to the steady administration of the laws;

00:03:29.020 --> 00:03:31.730
to the protection of property
against those irregular

00:03:31.730 --> 00:03:34.850
and high-handed combinations
which sometimes interrupt

00:03:34.850 --> 00:03:38.420
the ordinary of justice;
to the security of liberty

00:03:38.420 --> 00:03:41.220
against the enterprises
and assaults of ambition,

00:03:41.220 --> 00:03:43.900
of faction, and of anarchy...

00:03:43.900 --> 00:03:47.530
A feeble Executive
implies a feeble execution

00:03:47.530 --> 00:03:48.580
of the government.

00:03:48.580 --> 00:03:51.960
A feeble execution is but another phrase

00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:55.649
for a bad execution; and
a government ill executed,

00:03:55.649 --> 00:03:59.520
whatever it may be in
theory, must, in practice,

00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:01.170
a bad government...

00:04:01.170 --> 00:04:05.490
That unity is conducive to
energy will not be disputed.

00:04:05.490 --> 00:04:08.151
Decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch

00:04:08.151 --> 00:04:12.506
will generally characterize
the proceedings of one man

00:04:12.506 --> 00:04:16.400
in a much more eminent
degree than the proceedings

00:04:16.400 --> 00:04:19.750
of any greater number, and in proportion

00:04:19.750 --> 00:04:21.123
as the number is increased,

00:04:21.123 --> 00:04:24.660
that qualities will be diminished...

00:04:24.660 --> 00:04:28.150
So he's making the argument
for an energetic executive,

00:04:28.150 --> 00:04:29.060
and he's saying that,

00:04:29.060 --> 00:04:32.480
"Look, that power needs to be one person."

00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:35.070
Otherwise, it's going
be diluted amongst many,

00:04:35.070 --> 00:04:37.740
and the more people you have
at the top of the executive,

00:04:37.740 --> 00:04:41.090
then these qualities of
energy, of decisiveness,

00:04:41.090 --> 00:04:42.130
are going to be diminished.

00:04:42.130 --> 00:04:42.963
And it's interesting.

00:04:42.963 --> 00:04:45.200
He also talks about secrecy,
which you don't always view

00:04:45.200 --> 00:04:47.260
as a positive, but maybe the argument is

00:04:47.260 --> 00:04:48.930
if you really need to execute well,

00:04:48.930 --> 00:04:51.050
you don't have to tell
everyone what you're doing,

00:04:51.050 --> 00:04:53.100
especially if you're
trying to conduct a war

00:04:53.100 --> 00:04:56.130
and you don't want national
secrets to get out.

00:04:56.130 --> 00:05:00.240
The plurality of the Executive
tends to deprive the people

00:05:00.240 --> 00:05:03.003
of the two greatest
securities they can have

00:05:03.003 --> 00:05:07.380
for the faithful exercise
of any delegated power.

00:05:07.380 --> 00:05:09.620
So here he's further
building the case that hey,

00:05:09.620 --> 00:05:11.490
if you have many people in the executive,

00:05:11.490 --> 00:05:13.010
at the head of the executive,

00:05:13.010 --> 00:05:17.850
it's going to deprive the
people of two great securities.

00:05:17.850 --> 00:05:20.700
First, the restraints of public opinion,

00:05:20.700 --> 00:05:23.900
which lose their efficacy,
as well on account

00:05:23.900 --> 00:05:27.340
of the division of the censure
attendant on bad measures

00:05:27.340 --> 00:05:30.780
among a number, as on
account of the uncertainty

00:05:30.780 --> 00:05:33.210
on whom it ought to fall.

00:05:33.210 --> 00:05:35.250
So he's saying the
restraints of public opinion

00:05:35.250 --> 00:05:38.760
don't work as well if there's
many people at the top.

00:05:38.760 --> 00:05:41.440
If many people are making
these executive decisions,

00:05:41.440 --> 00:05:43.050
then they don't know
who to hold accountable.

00:05:43.050 --> 00:05:44.500
They don't know who to blame.

00:05:45.730 --> 00:05:49.800
And secondly, the opportunity
of discovering with facility

00:05:49.800 --> 00:05:53.181
and clearness the misconduct
of the persons they trust,

00:05:53.181 --> 00:05:56.205
in order either to their
removal from office

00:05:56.205 --> 00:06:00.890
or to their actual punishment
in cases which admit of it...

00:06:00.890 --> 00:06:03.630
So once again, they're
saying if it's one person

00:06:03.630 --> 00:06:05.840
leading the executive and
they do something bad,

00:06:05.840 --> 00:06:06.750
you can punish them.

00:06:06.750 --> 00:06:08.186
You can remove them from office.

00:06:08.186 --> 00:06:10.450
But if it's many people, who do you blame?

00:06:10.450 --> 00:06:12.881
It might not be easy to
hold them accountable.

00:06:12.881 --> 00:06:15.730
But then if we fast-forward to 1973,

00:06:15.730 --> 00:06:18.380
think about the situation
that the country was in.

00:06:18.380 --> 00:06:21.710
We were at the end of the Vietnam War.

00:06:21.710 --> 00:06:24.090
President Nixon was going through

00:06:24.090 --> 00:06:26.180
the Watergate investigations,

00:06:26.180 --> 00:06:29.850
and you have the author
Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

00:06:29.850 --> 00:06:32.570
writes The Imperial presidency.

00:06:32.570 --> 00:06:34.120
And it says right over here,

00:06:34.120 --> 00:06:37.530
"The Pulitzer Prize-winning
historian traces the escalation

00:06:37.530 --> 00:06:40.750
"of Presidential power and
considers what Congress

00:06:40.750 --> 00:06:42.390
"and the people can do about it."

00:06:42.390 --> 00:06:45.670
And here is an excerpt of what he wrote.

00:06:45.670 --> 00:06:48.300
Secrecy seemed to promise government

00:06:48.300 --> 00:06:52.750
three inestimable advantages:
the power to withhold,

00:06:52.750 --> 00:06:56.420
the power to leak and the power to lie...

00:06:56.420 --> 00:06:59.210
So it's clear that Arthur
Schlesinger is not as big of a fan

00:06:59.210 --> 00:07:01.889
as secrecy as Alexander Hamilton was.

00:07:01.889 --> 00:07:05.030
The power to withhold held out the hope

00:07:05.030 --> 00:07:08.205
of denying the public the
knowledge that would make possible

00:07:08.205 --> 00:07:11.800
an independent judgment
on executive policy.

00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:15.370
The mystique of inside
information -- "if you only knew

00:07:15.370 --> 00:07:18.760
"what we know" -- was a
most effective way to defend

00:07:18.760 --> 00:07:20.510
the national security monopoly

00:07:20.510 --> 00:07:23.760
and prevent democratic
control of foreign policy...

00:07:23.760 --> 00:07:25.250
So he's saying, look, if you allow people

00:07:25.250 --> 00:07:26.930
to just not tell you things,
they'll just say, hey,

00:07:26.930 --> 00:07:28.300
if you only knew what we knew,

00:07:28.300 --> 00:07:29.950
you would do what we're
doing, but we can't tell you

00:07:29.950 --> 00:07:32.020
what we know, so you
just have to trust us.

00:07:32.020 --> 00:07:35.060
The power to leak meant the
power to tell the people

00:07:35.060 --> 00:07:37.010
what it served the government's purpose

00:07:37.010 --> 00:07:38.850
that they should know...

00:07:38.850 --> 00:07:41.020
So once again, they can
hold secret, and say,

00:07:41.020 --> 00:07:43.240
"Hey, trust us. We're doing
what's the right thing,"

00:07:43.240 --> 00:07:44.660
but then they could selectively leak

00:07:44.660 --> 00:07:46.930
so that only certain information gets out

00:07:46.930 --> 00:07:50.800
that once again, could be in
the interest of those in power.

00:07:50.800 --> 00:07:54.310
The power to withhold and the
power to leak lead inexorably

00:07:54.310 --> 00:07:55.995
to the power to lie.

00:07:55.995 --> 00:07:59.050
The secrecy system instilled
in the executive branch

00:07:59.050 --> 00:08:01.900
the idea that foreign
policy was no one's business

00:08:01.900 --> 00:08:05.940
save its own, and the
uncontrolled secrecy made it easy

00:08:05.940 --> 00:08:08.540
for lying to become routine.

00:08:08.540 --> 00:08:10.916
It was in this spirit
that Eisenhower concealed

00:08:10.916 --> 00:08:14.160
the CIA operations it was
mounting against governments

00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:15.340
around the world.

00:08:17.530 --> 00:08:20.310
It was in this spirit that
the Kennedy administration

00:08:20.310 --> 00:08:23.870
stealthily sent the Cuban
brigade to the Bay of Pigs,

00:08:23.870 --> 00:08:27.700
and stealthily enlarged
American involvement in Vietnam.

00:08:27.700 --> 00:08:30.060
It was in this spirit that
the Johnson administration

00:08:30.060 --> 00:08:34.680
Americanized the Vietnam War,
misrepresenting one episode

00:08:34.680 --> 00:08:37.530
after another to Congress and the people--

00:08:37.530 --> 00:08:40.740
Tonkin Gulf, which was
the resolution based on a

00:08:40.740 --> 00:08:42.810
perceived attack on an American ship,

00:08:42.810 --> 00:08:45.324
which was later judged
to be just an explosion,

00:08:45.324 --> 00:08:48.022
the first American
ground force commitment,

00:08:48.022 --> 00:08:52.440
the bombing of North
Vietnam, My Lai and the rest.

00:08:52.440 --> 00:08:54.810
And the My Lai Massacre
is a famous massacre

00:08:54.810 --> 00:08:58.420
that eventually got out
and it showed a massacre

00:08:58.420 --> 00:09:01.080
of civilians in Vietnam.

00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:02.680
But I'll let you decide.

00:09:02.680 --> 00:09:04.270
And it doesn't have to be the case

00:09:04.270 --> 00:09:06.632
that Alexander Hamilton was right 100%

00:09:06.632 --> 00:09:10.350
or that Arthus Schlesinger is right 100%.

00:09:10.350 --> 00:09:12.850
It could be the case that,
well, for the most part,

00:09:12.850 --> 00:09:15.660
it is important for an
executive to have some degree

00:09:15.660 --> 00:09:16.590
of secrecy.

00:09:16.590 --> 00:09:18.403
Even some of the things
that Arthur Schlesinger

00:09:18.403 --> 00:09:20.776
has talked about, where
we're talking about

00:09:20.776 --> 00:09:24.230
the Bay of Pigs or we're talking
about the CIA operations,

00:09:24.230 --> 00:09:25.880
remember, this was during the Cold War.

00:09:25.880 --> 00:09:28.570
You had the Soviet Union out
there with all of its spies.

00:09:28.570 --> 00:09:30.000
If it knew what was going on,

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:32.100
it might be able to
undermine American actions.

00:09:32.100 --> 00:09:35.740
So some degree of secrecy
absolutely was necessary,

00:09:35.740 --> 00:09:37.760
but on the other hand,
maybe there is a point

00:09:37.760 --> 00:09:41.400
that sometimes that secrecy
does allow those in power

00:09:41.400 --> 00:09:44.840
to do things that would
make the general public

00:09:44.840 --> 00:09:46.970
very upset about their actions.


Senate checks on presidential appointments

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:02.220
- [Narrator] Presidents
of the United States have

00:00:02.220 --> 00:00:05.710
many powers, but perhaps
one of the most influential

00:00:05.710 --> 00:00:09.040
of these powers is the
power of appointment.

00:00:09.040 --> 00:00:12.870
They can, of course, appoint
members of their cabinet.

00:00:12.870 --> 00:00:16.453
They can appoint ambassadors,

00:00:16.453 --> 00:00:21.453
ambassadors, and they can appoint judges.

00:00:22.090 --> 00:00:24.900
We could talk about
federal judges generally,

00:00:24.900 --> 00:00:27.580
but perhaps most importantly,
they can appoint members

00:00:27.580 --> 00:00:31.420
of the Supreme Court, the
United States Supreme Court,

00:00:31.420 --> 00:00:34.700
and that is a very influential appointment

00:00:34.700 --> 00:00:39.170
because these are positions
that will last for a lifetime,

00:00:39.170 --> 00:00:42.490
but this power is not unchecked.

00:00:42.490 --> 00:00:45.930
These appointments need to be confirmed

00:00:45.930 --> 00:00:50.410
by the United States
Senate, and many times,

00:00:50.410 --> 00:00:53.400
the confirmation process
goes relatively smoothly,

00:00:53.400 --> 00:00:55.881
but sometimes, especially
when we're talking

00:00:55.881 --> 00:00:58.470
about lifetime judicial appointments,

00:00:58.470 --> 00:01:01.400
especially to the United
States Supreme Court,

00:01:01.400 --> 00:01:05.290
things can get quite heated,
and perhaps the best example

00:01:05.290 --> 00:01:06.123
of that is something

00:01:06.123 --> 00:01:07.940
that has happened quite
recently relatively

00:01:07.940 --> 00:01:10.270
to the making of this video.

00:01:10.270 --> 00:01:14.760
2016 was an election year.

00:01:14.760 --> 00:01:16.950
In February of 2016,

00:01:16.950 --> 00:01:20.420
you have associate Justice
Scalia passes away.

00:01:20.420 --> 00:01:22.850
Now this is a really,
really big deal because,

00:01:22.850 --> 00:01:27.520
as we talked about, Supreme
Court appointments are for life,

00:01:27.520 --> 00:01:30.210
and so in theory this is now a time

00:01:30.210 --> 00:01:33.270
where the president
would make a nomination.

00:01:33.270 --> 00:01:36.830
Now the president does make a nomination.

00:01:36.830 --> 00:01:38.970
President Barack Obama in March

00:01:38.970 --> 00:01:43.030
of 2016 nominates Merrick Garland.

00:01:43.030 --> 00:01:44.910
Now the Republicans are not happy,

00:01:44.910 --> 00:01:47.320
and Republicans control
both houses of Congress,

00:01:47.320 --> 00:01:51.130
but most important for this
video, they control the Senate,

00:01:51.130 --> 00:01:53.550
and the reason why they are not happy is

00:01:53.550 --> 00:01:55.770
Justice Scalia was considered to be

00:01:55.770 --> 00:01:57.480
the conservative backbone

00:01:57.480 --> 00:01:59.740
of the United States Supreme Court,

00:01:59.740 --> 00:02:01.990
and if all of a sudden he
is replaced with someone

00:02:01.990 --> 00:02:05.860
who leans to the left, who leans liberal,

00:02:05.860 --> 00:02:08.590
that could change the tone.

00:02:08.590 --> 00:02:11.360
That could change the sentiment

00:02:11.360 --> 00:02:13.080
of the United States Supreme Court

00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:17.450
for a generation or maybe
even generations to come.

00:02:17.450 --> 00:02:20.330
So they invoke their power in the Senate,

00:02:20.330 --> 00:02:23.110
which is controlled by Mitch McConnell,

00:02:23.110 --> 00:02:24.850
who is the Senate majority leader.

00:02:24.850 --> 00:02:26.960
He decides to take a hard stance,

00:02:26.960 --> 00:02:29.710
and even though President
Obama had nominated

00:02:29.710 --> 00:02:32.480
Merrick Garland, the Republicans
make the argument that,

00:02:32.480 --> 00:02:35.840
"Hey, this is a
presidential election year.

00:02:35.840 --> 00:02:37.580
"We're just gonna wait things out,"

00:02:37.580 --> 00:02:39.850
so they refused to have
hearings on Merrick Garland,

00:02:39.850 --> 00:02:43.120
much less vote on his nomination,

00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:45.600
and so they essentially
just wait out the clock

00:02:45.600 --> 00:02:47.660
through the presidential election,

00:02:47.660 --> 00:02:49.930
and then at the presidential election,

00:02:49.930 --> 00:02:52.480
you have a Republican who
gets elected, Donald Trump,

00:02:52.480 --> 00:02:55.370
and so then they are able to help get

00:02:55.370 --> 00:02:58.950
Donald Trump's appointment
for that seat approved,

00:02:58.950 --> 00:03:00.130
and even that is a little bit

00:03:00.130 --> 00:03:02.560
of an interesting political story.

00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:06.430
So this is a classic example
of a congressional check

00:03:06.430 --> 00:03:08.520
on a presidential power,

00:03:08.520 --> 00:03:11.590
and this one in particular
gets people on both sides

00:03:11.590 --> 00:03:13.580
of the aisle a little bit worked up.

00:03:13.580 --> 00:03:15.080
Democrats would say,

00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:18.600
"Wow, you did not consider an
appointment by a president,

00:03:18.600 --> 00:03:20.420
"and you waited out
many, many, many months

00:03:20.420 --> 00:03:22.090
"just to get an outcome you wanted?"

00:03:22.090 --> 00:03:23.460
While Republicans might say,

00:03:23.460 --> 00:03:26.020
"Wow, Mitch McConnell was
really principled here,

00:03:26.020 --> 00:03:29.450
"and he really used the
Senate's constitutional power

00:03:29.450 --> 00:03:33.000
"to place an appropriate
check on the president."

00:03:33.000 --> 00:03:34.880
I will let you decide.


Divided government and gridlock in the United States

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:02.110
- [Instructor] We have this diagram here,

00:00:02.110 --> 00:00:05.850
party divisions of the
United States Congress.

00:00:05.850 --> 00:00:08.590
And what this helps us visualize

00:00:08.590 --> 00:00:12.790
is which parties controlled
the various houses of Congress

00:00:12.790 --> 00:00:15.960
as well as which party was in
control of the White House.

00:00:15.960 --> 00:00:19.030
So for example, during Lyndon
Johnson's administration,

00:00:19.030 --> 00:00:21.540
he was a Democrat, that's
why this colored in in blue,

00:00:21.540 --> 00:00:23.700
and then we see in this light blue color,

00:00:23.700 --> 00:00:26.200
the Senate leaned towards the Democrats,

00:00:26.200 --> 00:00:28.590
and the House in this dark blue color

00:00:28.590 --> 00:00:31.020
leaned towards the Democrats as well.

00:00:31.020 --> 00:00:32.950
But then when you get to Richard Nixon,

00:00:32.950 --> 00:00:35.280
you have one party, the Republicans,

00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:37.680
controlling the White House,

00:00:37.680 --> 00:00:40.990
while the other party, the
Democrats, controlled Congress.

00:00:40.990 --> 00:00:42.760
And so this situation right over here

00:00:42.760 --> 00:00:45.540
is known as a divided,

00:00:45.540 --> 00:00:48.330
divided government.

00:00:48.330 --> 00:00:50.740
And as we look down this diagram,

00:00:50.740 --> 00:00:53.790
we see that it is not that unusual.

00:00:53.790 --> 00:00:56.600
Gerald Ford had a divided government.

00:00:56.600 --> 00:00:59.450
Ronald Reagan had a
somewhat divided government

00:00:59.450 --> 00:01:02.970
where the House significantly
leaned towards the Democrats,

00:01:02.970 --> 00:01:04.450
although the Senate started to lean

00:01:04.450 --> 00:01:07.140
a little bit towards the Republicans.

00:01:07.140 --> 00:01:08.860
But then if we go further down in time,

00:01:08.860 --> 00:01:11.920
we see more and more divided governments.

00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:14.590
So if we go all the way
down to at least the present

00:01:14.590 --> 00:01:17.890
when this video was created,

00:01:17.890 --> 00:01:22.160
we see that George H. W. Bush
faced a divided government.

00:01:22.160 --> 00:01:23.470
He was a Republican.

00:01:23.470 --> 00:01:27.610
You had the House and the Senate
lean towards the Democrats.

00:01:27.610 --> 00:01:29.980
Bill Clinton, at the
beginning it wasn't divided,

00:01:29.980 --> 00:01:32.980
but most of his administration,
he had a divided government.

00:01:32.980 --> 00:01:35.420
George W. Bush had a divided government

00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:37.330
near the end of his administration.

00:01:37.330 --> 00:01:39.660
And Obama dealt with a divided government

00:01:39.660 --> 00:01:42.020
during the second 1/2 of his first term,

00:01:42.020 --> 00:01:44.330
and his second term.

00:01:44.330 --> 00:01:46.260
One question is why does it matter

00:01:46.260 --> 00:01:48.000
if you have a divided government

00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:52.100
like we had, let's say, in this
time period right over here?

00:01:52.100 --> 00:01:55.270
Well, one negative of it that
some people will often cite

00:01:55.270 --> 00:01:59.380
is that you might have some
form of extreme partisanship.

00:01:59.380 --> 00:02:02.360
And partisanship is just a word

00:02:02.360 --> 00:02:04.870
that says that the
various political actors

00:02:04.870 --> 00:02:06.510
will think more about their party

00:02:06.510 --> 00:02:08.080
and their political ideology

00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:11.810
than maybe what is in their
best interest for the people.

00:02:11.810 --> 00:02:15.590
Or they would try do things in
order to get political points

00:02:15.590 --> 00:02:18.480
as opposed to just good governance.

00:02:18.480 --> 00:02:21.500
And one byproduct of partisanship

00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:25.300
would be a phenomenon known as gridlock.

00:02:25.300 --> 00:02:27.220
You might've heard the
word gridlock before

00:02:27.220 --> 00:02:28.360
when it comes to traffic.

00:02:28.360 --> 00:02:30.610
Gridlock is when there's
just so much traffic

00:02:30.610 --> 00:02:35.110
that nothing is moving, that
people just can't get around.

00:02:35.110 --> 00:02:36.860
And it essentially means the same thing

00:02:36.860 --> 00:02:38.320
in a political context.

00:02:38.320 --> 00:02:40.110
If you have a divided government,

00:02:40.110 --> 00:02:42.570
and one party isn't allowing,

00:02:42.570 --> 00:02:45.370
if everything that the Congress
passes the president vetoes,

00:02:45.370 --> 00:02:47.020
or if everything that
the president wants to do

00:02:47.020 --> 00:02:49.020
the Congress doesn't
wanna work along with him,

00:02:49.020 --> 00:02:50.590
well, then nothing might happen,

00:02:50.590 --> 00:02:53.400
and you might get to a gridlock situation.

00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:56.050
And for a lot of people,
that's a significant negative.

00:02:56.050 --> 00:02:57.250
But there are some viewpoints

00:02:57.250 --> 00:02:59.640
that maybe a divided
government isn't as bad

00:02:59.640 --> 00:03:01.410
as it sometimes looks.

00:03:01.410 --> 00:03:03.410
Some people would argue that
you don't want the government

00:03:03.410 --> 00:03:05.210
always doing exactly what they want

00:03:05.210 --> 00:03:07.720
when you have a non-divided government.

00:03:07.720 --> 00:03:09.230
In fact, if you have a divided government,

00:03:09.230 --> 00:03:11.710
they'll only do things that
really, really, really,

00:03:11.710 --> 00:03:15.790
really matter where there is
more of a broad consensus.

00:03:15.790 --> 00:03:18.270
There's also this view
from Mitch McConnell,

00:03:18.270 --> 00:03:22.350
who's the current leader of the US Senate,

00:03:22.350 --> 00:03:24.400
that it's actually
easier to get things done

00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:26.570
during a divided government.

00:03:26.570 --> 00:03:27.930
This is a part of an article

00:03:27.930 --> 00:03:30.440
from the New York Times written in 2011.

00:03:30.440 --> 00:03:33.380
It says, "Divided government
is the perfect time

00:03:33.380 --> 00:03:36.460
"to do big things, the perfect time,"

00:03:36.460 --> 00:03:39.020
Mr. McConnell said in a recent session

00:03:39.020 --> 00:03:41.730
with New York Times reporters and editors.

00:03:41.730 --> 00:03:44.790
He cited three fairly recent examples

00:03:44.790 --> 00:03:46.950
of major legislative bargains

00:03:46.950 --> 00:03:49.820
that were struck with one
party in the White House

00:03:49.820 --> 00:03:52.620
and another running
things on Capitol Hill,

00:03:52.620 --> 00:03:56.220
the 1983 overhaul of Social Security

00:03:56.220 --> 00:03:58.930
negotiated between President Ronald Reagan

00:03:58.930 --> 00:04:00.800
and Speaker Tip O'Neill.

00:04:00.800 --> 00:04:02.880
Ronald Reagan was, of course, Republican,

00:04:02.880 --> 00:04:06.740
and Speaker of the House,
Tip O'Neill, was a Democrat.

00:04:06.740 --> 00:04:09.860
Sweeping 1986 tax law changes.

00:04:09.860 --> 00:04:11.480
Once again, under Ronald Reagan.

00:04:11.480 --> 00:04:14.750
And the welfare reform package of 1996

00:04:14.750 --> 00:04:17.330
negotiated between President Bill Clinton

00:04:17.330 --> 00:04:19.940
and Congressional Republicans.

00:04:19.940 --> 00:04:22.070
Clinton, of course, was a Democrat.

00:04:22.070 --> 00:04:24.070
"None of those things in my view

00:04:24.070 --> 00:04:26.400
"would have occurred
in unified government,"

00:04:26.400 --> 00:04:30.160
Mr. McConnell said, referring
to control of Congress

00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:32.650
and the White House by one party.

00:04:32.650 --> 00:04:34.790
"The differences are always big,

00:04:34.790 --> 00:04:36.670
"but if you can bridge the differences,

00:04:36.670 --> 00:04:39.230
"then you can survive."

00:04:39.230 --> 00:04:41.340
The beauty of divided government,

00:04:41.340 --> 00:04:42.470
very few people say that,

00:04:42.470 --> 00:04:44.380
the beauty (laughs) of divided government,

00:04:44.380 --> 00:04:46.310
in the eyes of Mr. McConnell

00:04:46.310 --> 00:04:49.020
is that it provides both parties

00:04:49.020 --> 00:04:51.840
with near bulletproof political cover

00:04:51.840 --> 00:04:54.060
since neither can attack the other

00:04:54.060 --> 00:04:56.090
after legislation is passed,

00:04:56.090 --> 00:04:58.240
while it also gives both parties

00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:01.530
the ability to take political credit.

00:05:01.530 --> 00:05:02.970
So I'll leave you there.

00:05:02.970 --> 00:05:04.410
I want you to think about it.

00:05:04.410 --> 00:05:06.880
Do you agree with Senator McConnell

00:05:06.880 --> 00:05:10.050
that divided government can
actually be a good thing?

00:05:10.050 --> 00:05:12.800
Or do you think this notion
of divided government

00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:14.660
and partisanship does lead to gridlock,

00:05:14.660 --> 00:05:18.110
and for the most part it is a bad thing?

00:05:18.110 --> 00:05:20.290
And then we could also think
about our system of government,

00:05:20.290 --> 00:05:23.270
because our system of
government definitely allows

00:05:23.270 --> 00:05:25.310
for things like gridlock to occur,

00:05:25.310 --> 00:05:28.070
while many other systems
like a parliamentary system,

00:05:28.070 --> 00:05:31.750
you always have the majority
or a ruling coalition party

00:05:31.750 --> 00:05:33.750
also in charge of the executive,

00:05:33.750 --> 00:05:36.640
so you're not likely to
have this type of gridlock.

00:05:36.640 --> 00:05:37.473
So think about it.

00:05:37.473 --> 00:05:38.940
Which system do you like?

00:05:38.940 --> 00:05:41.760
And is a divided government
a good or a bad thing?


Introduction to lipids

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.330 --> 00:00:02.310
- [Instructor] What we are
going to do in this video

00:00:02.310 --> 00:00:05.320
is talk a little bit about lipids.

00:00:05.320 --> 00:00:06.610
Now, a lot of times,

00:00:06.610 --> 00:00:10.800
lipids are strongly associated with fats,

00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:12.730
and that's not incorrect.

00:00:12.730 --> 00:00:14.230
Fats are lipids,

00:00:14.230 --> 00:00:17.680
but not all lipids are fats.

00:00:17.680 --> 00:00:20.140
A better definition or
a better association

00:00:20.140 --> 00:00:22.700
for lipids would be a class of molecules

00:00:22.700 --> 00:00:27.260
that you often see in biological
systems that are not so

00:00:27.260 --> 00:00:29.180
water

00:00:29.180 --> 00:00:30.190
soluble.

00:00:30.190 --> 00:00:32.270
And I didn't say outright hydrophobic,

00:00:32.270 --> 00:00:34.890
which means not attracted to water,

00:00:34.890 --> 00:00:36.490
because there are definitely lipids

00:00:36.490 --> 00:00:38.240
that have parts that are hydrophobic,

00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:40.690
that are trying to get
away from the water.

00:00:40.690 --> 00:00:42.850
But there is other parts
that are hydrophilic,

00:00:42.850 --> 00:00:43.850
that like the water,

00:00:43.850 --> 00:00:47.800
that would be attracted
to water molecules.

00:00:47.800 --> 00:00:50.100
Now, in terms of roles
they play in the body,

00:00:50.100 --> 00:00:53.210
and we can think of fat molecules here,

00:00:53.210 --> 00:00:55.380
well, they definitely play a role

00:00:55.380 --> 00:00:57.590
in terms of energy

00:00:57.590 --> 00:00:58.540
storage.

00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:00.630
Whenever I look at my belly,

00:01:00.630 --> 00:01:02.830
I just like to think of all that energy

00:01:02.830 --> 00:01:05.670
that is there covering my six-pack.

00:01:05.670 --> 00:01:08.580
They could be involved in signaling.

00:01:10.370 --> 00:01:13.250
In future videos, we're
going to study hormones,

00:01:13.250 --> 00:01:15.390
and hormones are nothing but molecules

00:01:15.390 --> 00:01:19.820
that help transmit a signal
from one part of the body

00:01:19.820 --> 00:01:21.670
to another part of the body.

00:01:21.670 --> 00:01:25.400
And many of these hormones are lipids.

00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:28.440
They're also involved in membranes.

00:01:28.440 --> 00:01:30.470
So a lot of the time in biology,

00:01:30.470 --> 00:01:32.840
we're gonna talk about cellular membranes

00:01:32.840 --> 00:01:35.850
and how they're formed
with these phospholipids.

00:01:35.850 --> 00:01:38.120
And we'll see these
phospholipids, in particular,

00:01:38.120 --> 00:01:40.630
have one end that's trying
to get away from the water

00:01:40.630 --> 00:01:43.020
and another end that is
attracted to the water.

00:01:43.020 --> 00:01:47.140
And that's actually what
makes them good for membranes.

00:01:47.140 --> 00:01:50.040
Just going back to fats,
let's actually take a look

00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:53.040
at what some of these
lipid molecules look like.

00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:59.010
So this right over here is
an example of a fat molecule,

00:01:59.010 --> 00:02:02.000
but the general structure
you're going to have is

00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:04.340
these three fatty acids.

00:02:04.340 --> 00:02:06.750
So that's one right over there,

00:02:06.750 --> 00:02:08.330
one fatty acid,

00:02:08.330 --> 00:02:10.960
two fatty acids,

00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:13.540
and three fatty acids

00:02:13.540 --> 00:02:16.490
that are connected to a glycerol.

00:02:16.490 --> 00:02:18.360
And don't worry too much
about the words here.

00:02:18.360 --> 00:02:19.860
You'll study them more when you get

00:02:19.860 --> 00:02:21.660
to an organic chemistry class.

00:02:21.660 --> 00:02:24.360
But that's where this word
triglyceride comes from,

00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:27.410
tri- for your three fatty acids

00:02:27.410 --> 00:02:29.950
and -glyceride from a glycerol.

00:02:29.950 --> 00:02:34.950
And triglyceride is, in
fact, another word for fat.

00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:40.180
And what makes a triglyceride
not so soluble in water?

00:02:40.180 --> 00:02:43.410
Look at these long hydrocarbon
chains where you just

00:02:43.410 --> 00:02:45.940
essentially have a bunch
of carbons and hydrogens.

00:02:45.940 --> 00:02:49.570
Those parts, remember, things
that are soluble in water,

00:02:49.570 --> 00:02:51.310
they tend to be polar molecules,

00:02:51.310 --> 00:02:54.360
things that have a partial
charge on one end or another

00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:55.780
or even a full charge.

00:02:55.780 --> 00:02:58.090
But when we look at
these hydrocarbon chains,

00:02:58.090 --> 00:03:00.660
they tend to not have
these partial charges on

00:03:00.660 --> 00:03:02.770
one side or another,

00:03:02.770 --> 00:03:07.120
and so that doesn't make
them so soluble in water.

00:03:07.120 --> 00:03:09.420
And another word that you sometimes hear

00:03:09.420 --> 00:03:14.030
associated with fats,
saturated or unsaturated fat.

00:03:14.030 --> 00:03:15.700
That's really referring to what's going on

00:03:15.700 --> 00:03:17.470
on these hydrocarbon chains.

00:03:17.470 --> 00:03:18.900
If the carbons are as bonded

00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:20.970
to as many hydrogens as they can,

00:03:20.970 --> 00:03:22.810
well, then you're talking
about a saturated fat.

00:03:22.810 --> 00:03:24.700
It's saturated with hydrogens.

00:03:24.700 --> 00:03:27.000
If it's not bounded, if it,
in theory, it could bond

00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:30.120
to more hydrogens because it
has some double bonds in there,

00:03:30.120 --> 00:03:31.640
well, then it's unsaturated.

00:03:31.640 --> 00:03:34.260
Maybe in a future video, we'll
talk about the health issues

00:03:34.260 --> 00:03:36.980
of saturated versus unsaturated fat.

00:03:36.980 --> 00:03:39.760
Sometimes in popular
culture, fat gets a bad name

00:03:39.760 --> 00:03:42.450
because everyone's trying
to get their six-packs

00:03:42.450 --> 00:03:45.860
or whatever else, but it's
very important to realize that

00:03:45.860 --> 00:03:48.100
without fats you would die.

00:03:48.100 --> 00:03:50.990
Many vitamins, which are
not so soluble in water,

00:03:50.990 --> 00:03:53.170
making them, in fact, lipids,

00:03:53.170 --> 00:03:57.810
need fat in order to be
absorbed into the body properly.

00:03:58.730 --> 00:04:02.240
But as I also mentioned,
all lipids are not fats.

00:04:03.560 --> 00:04:05.820
Here are more examples of lipids,

00:04:05.820 --> 00:04:07.150
and I'm not gonna go into detail

00:04:07.150 --> 00:04:08.980
into their molecular structure.

00:04:08.980 --> 00:04:11.120
But you see something similar here.

00:04:11.120 --> 00:04:14.500
They all have long chains of hydrocarbons

00:04:14.500 --> 00:04:17.210
that aren't so soluble in water.

00:04:17.210 --> 00:04:19.910
These parts right over
here would be hydrophobic,

00:04:19.910 --> 00:04:21.680
hydrophobic.

00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:24.680
But what's interesting, especially
about this sphingomyelin,

00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:27.150
which is involved in your
myelin sheath in the brain,

00:04:27.150 --> 00:04:29.670
it helps electrically insulate neurons,

00:04:29.670 --> 00:04:31.160
it's also involved in membranes,

00:04:31.160 --> 00:04:33.040
it makes up a substantial part

00:04:33.040 --> 00:04:35.850
of the phospholipids in membranes,

00:04:35.850 --> 00:04:38.320
is that this sphingomyelin right over here

00:04:38.320 --> 00:04:41.230
has a part that actually is hydrophilic.

00:04:41.230 --> 00:04:42.810
And as we'll see later on,

00:04:42.810 --> 00:04:45.717
that's what makes things,
molecules like this,

00:04:45.717 --> 00:04:48.530
phospholipids, this is
a sphingophospholipid,

00:04:48.530 --> 00:04:50.770
makes them good for membrane structures.

00:04:50.770 --> 00:04:53.230
Because the part that's
attracted to the water

00:04:53.230 --> 00:04:54.490
could be on the outside,

00:04:54.490 --> 00:04:56.740
and the part that's not
attracted to the water

00:04:56.740 --> 00:04:58.010
could be on the inside.

00:04:58.010 --> 00:05:00.210
And so you can form these membranes

00:05:00.210 --> 00:05:03.040
that a cross-section of which
would look something like this

00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:05.950
where the circular parts
are the part that want,

00:05:05.950 --> 00:05:08.570
the parts that want to
be around the water,

00:05:08.570 --> 00:05:10.850
while these tails right over here,

00:05:10.850 --> 00:05:12.630
these are the hydrophobic chains

00:05:12.630 --> 00:05:14.360
that want to go away from the water.

00:05:14.360 --> 00:05:15.320
And this is, in fact,

00:05:15.320 --> 00:05:17.610
what cellular membranes actually look like

00:05:17.610 --> 00:05:20.670
if you were zoom really,
really, really far in.

00:05:20.670 --> 00:05:22.090
I'll leave you there.

00:05:22.090 --> 00:05:26.730
Between lipids, carbohydrates,
proteins, nucleic acids,

00:05:26.730 --> 00:05:29.870
we've really covered
the major macromolecules

00:05:29.870 --> 00:05:32.140
that you will see in biological systems.

00:05:32.140 --> 00:05:35.230
Once again, what makes
them macromolecules?

00:05:35.230 --> 00:05:36.610
Well, they can be composed

00:05:36.610 --> 00:05:39.510
of many, many, many, many, many atoms.

00:05:39.510 --> 00:05:41.870
They aren't small molecules.


Introduction to nucleic acids and nucleotides

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:01.610
- [Narrator] We are
now going to talk about

00:00:01.610 --> 00:00:06.120
what is perhaps the most
important macro molecule in life,

00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:09.840
and that is known as nucleic acid.

00:00:09.840 --> 00:00:12.640
Now first of all where
does that name come from?

00:00:12.640 --> 00:00:16.580
Well scientists first
observed this in the nucleus

00:00:16.580 --> 00:00:19.840
of cells and so that's where
you get the nucleic part.

00:00:19.840 --> 00:00:21.890
And it has some acidic properties

00:00:21.890 --> 00:00:23.920
and so that's where you get the acid part.

00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:27.580
And perhaps the most
famous of the nucleic acids

00:00:27.580 --> 00:00:32.580
is deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA for short.

00:00:33.950 --> 00:00:36.490
And we'll go into some
depth in this as we go

00:00:36.490 --> 00:00:38.500
through our journey in biology,

00:00:38.500 --> 00:00:42.390
but you might already know
that this is the molecule

00:00:42.390 --> 00:00:46.150
that stores our hereditary information.

00:00:46.150 --> 00:00:50.720
This DNA, to a large
degree, makes you you.

00:00:50.720 --> 00:00:53.190
And it's known as a macro molecule,

00:00:53.190 --> 00:00:55.550
and we've talked about macro
molecules in other videos,

00:00:55.550 --> 00:00:57.020
we've talked about carbohydrates,

00:00:57.020 --> 00:00:59.150
and we have talked about proteins.

00:00:59.150 --> 00:01:01.000
And DNA is a macro molecule

00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:04.200
because it can be made of
many millions of atoms.

00:01:04.200 --> 00:01:06.460
Just to get a sense of it,
you can see right over here,

00:01:06.460 --> 00:01:11.460
the double helix of DNA,
where you have one side

00:01:11.670 --> 00:01:13.920
of your helix right over
there and then another one

00:01:13.920 --> 00:01:16.430
right over here and then
you kind of have these rungs

00:01:16.430 --> 00:01:18.610
of this twisted ladder.

00:01:18.610 --> 00:01:22.400
A DNA molecule, let's
say in the human genome,

00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:23.830
a chromosome, for example,

00:01:23.830 --> 00:01:27.260
is primarily a really long DNA molecule.

00:01:27.260 --> 00:01:29.600
And they can have on the
order of a hundred million

00:01:29.600 --> 00:01:31.900
rungs to this ladder.

00:01:31.900 --> 00:01:34.950
Now another thing to appreciate
like many other macro

00:01:34.950 --> 00:01:38.380
molecules, DNA, or
nucleic acids in general,

00:01:38.380 --> 00:01:43.160
they are polymers in that
they're made up of building block

00:01:43.160 --> 00:01:47.040
molecules and those building
blocks for nucleic acids

00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.230
and DNA is the most famous nucleic acid

00:01:49.230 --> 00:01:52.880
and RNA, Ribonucleic acid
would be a close second.

00:01:52.880 --> 00:01:56.380
But the building blocks of
them are known as nucleotides.

00:01:56.380 --> 00:01:57.213
Nucleotides.

00:01:59.602 --> 00:02:03.000
And we see some examples
of nucleotides over here.

00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:05.590
This is deoxyadenosine monophosphate,

00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:10.020
which would be a nucleotide found in DNA.

00:02:10.020 --> 00:02:12.030
You can see the various parts of it.

00:02:12.030 --> 00:02:15.830
You have a phosphate
group right over here.

00:02:15.830 --> 00:02:20.830
You have a five carbon sugar,
which in this case, is ribose.

00:02:21.100 --> 00:02:24.210
And then you have what is
known as a nitrogenous base.

00:02:24.210 --> 00:02:25.440
And why is it called nitrogenous?

00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:28.320
Well all those blue
circles represent nitrogen

00:02:28.320 --> 00:02:31.470
and we've seen this before,
the grays are carbons.

00:02:31.470 --> 00:02:34.800
And the reds are oxygens
and the whites hydrogens.

00:02:34.800 --> 00:02:36.450
And so this part of the molecule

00:02:36.450 --> 00:02:38.380
has some basic characteristics.

00:02:38.380 --> 00:02:40.480
While this phosphate group at the end this

00:02:40.480 --> 00:02:42.380
has some acidic characteristics.

00:02:42.380 --> 00:02:45.540
And what happens is they
get stacked onto each other

00:02:45.540 --> 00:02:49.380
where the ribosephosphates
alternate to form

00:02:49.380 --> 00:02:51.680
the backbone of this DNA molecule.

00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:52.900
You can see it right over here

00:02:52.900 --> 00:02:54.850
where you have a phosphate and a ribose

00:02:54.850 --> 00:02:56.410
and a phosphate and a ribose.

00:02:56.410 --> 00:03:00.630
And then you have the
nitrogenous base forming

00:03:00.630 --> 00:03:03.000
part of the rung of the ladder.

00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:06.150
And the way that DNA
stores information is,

00:03:06.150 --> 00:03:08.630
every one of these nitrogenous
bases right over here

00:03:08.630 --> 00:03:13.150
this is adenine, it has a
complimentary nitrogenous base

00:03:13.150 --> 00:03:16.580
on the other to complete
that rung of the ladder.

00:03:16.580 --> 00:03:20.680
So adenine matches with thiamine and DNA

00:03:20.680 --> 00:03:23.480
and we'll see in future videos in RNA,

00:03:23.480 --> 00:03:26.140
it's a nitrogenous base known as urasil,

00:03:26.140 --> 00:03:29.020
and guanine matches with cytosine.

00:03:29.020 --> 00:03:30.810
Don't worry too much about this now,

00:03:30.810 --> 00:03:33.080
we'll go into some depth
in this in future videos

00:03:33.080 --> 00:03:36.690
when we talk about DNA and how
information is stored in it.

00:03:36.690 --> 00:03:39.290
But for the sake of this
video, just appreciate

00:03:39.290 --> 00:03:42.130
that the monomer for a nucleic acid

00:03:42.130 --> 00:03:44.970
like DNA is a nucleotide.

00:03:44.970 --> 00:03:48.950
So monomer, and to be very
clear, this would not be

00:03:48.950 --> 00:03:53.010
the only monomer, the
analogous nucleotide in RNA,

00:03:53.010 --> 00:03:55.940
which stands for ribonucleic acid would be

00:03:55.940 --> 00:03:58.250
adenosine monophosphate right over here.

00:03:58.250 --> 00:04:00.490
You can see the difference between the two

00:04:00.490 --> 00:04:02.110
that we have an oxygen right over here,

00:04:02.110 --> 00:04:04.410
and we don't have an
oxygen right over here.

00:04:04.410 --> 00:04:06.680
That's why this is
called deoxy, and that's

00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:09.580
why it's deoxyribonucleic acid.

00:04:09.580 --> 00:04:11.270
You're missing one of those oxygens

00:04:11.270 --> 00:04:13.690
on your five carbon sugar.

00:04:13.690 --> 00:04:17.910
But adenine as I mentioned is
not the only nitrogenous base.

00:04:18.880 --> 00:04:22.020
You could have a nucleotide
where the nitrogenous base

00:04:22.020 --> 00:04:26.030
is thiamine, and so once
again, this looks very similar

00:04:26.030 --> 00:04:28.390
but notice what is going on over here.

00:04:29.660 --> 00:04:32.220
You could have a nucleotide
that looks like this.

00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:35.220
Once again, you have your
five carbon sugar here,

00:04:35.220 --> 00:04:38.590
you have your phosphate group,
but the nitrogenous base

00:04:38.590 --> 00:04:40.590
here keeps on changing.

00:04:40.590 --> 00:04:43.060
And it's the order of
these different nucleotides

00:04:43.060 --> 00:04:47.670
that actually encodes
the information in DNA.

00:04:47.670 --> 00:04:49.380
Now one question you
might say is, well look,

00:04:49.380 --> 00:04:51.210
if I have this part of
the molecule that has

00:04:51.210 --> 00:04:54.330
basic characteristics, why
is it considered an acid?

00:04:54.330 --> 00:04:56.360
Well look at how this
molecule is structured.

00:04:56.360 --> 00:04:58.940
The basic parts form the
rungs of this ladder.

00:04:58.940 --> 00:05:00.460
So they're not going to be as reactive

00:05:00.460 --> 00:05:02.420
because they're really
tied, they're closer

00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:05.200
to the inside of the molecule
while the acidic parts,

00:05:05.200 --> 00:05:07.040
the phosphate groups are on the outside.

00:05:07.040 --> 00:05:08.680
So they're going to be more reactive.

00:05:08.680 --> 00:05:11.240
And so the molecule as
a whole is going to have

00:05:11.240 --> 00:05:13.620
an acidic characteristic.

00:05:13.620 --> 00:05:14.960
I'm going to leave you there.

00:05:14.960 --> 00:05:16.530
In future videos we're going to go into

00:05:16.530 --> 00:05:19.720
a lot more depth in the
importance of nucleic acid,

00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:22.390
especially DNA and RNA.

00:05:22.390 --> 00:05:26.600
And to just appreciate how
amazing these molecules are.

00:05:26.600 --> 00:05:30.270
Some folks theorize that
the first signs of life

00:05:30.270 --> 00:05:34.400
were nothing more than
self-replicating RNA molecules

00:05:34.400 --> 00:05:38.390
that eventually got enclosed
in some type of membrane

00:05:38.390 --> 00:05:41.150
structures, which eventually
started forming the

00:05:41.150 --> 00:05:44.900
genetic machinery of a cell etc, etc, etc.

00:05:44.900 --> 00:05:48.530
So this is why these
nucleic acids are sometimes

00:05:48.530 --> 00:05:53.530
considered the most fundamental
macromolecules to life.