So today, Craig is finally going to start talking about politics. Now up until this point we've specifically been looking at government - that is answering the questions of who, what, and how in relation to policies. But politics is different in that it looks at why certain policies are made. We're going to start today by looking at public opinion - specifically how the public does (and does not) influence our elected officials.

This week Craig talks about police searches and seizures. Now, the fourth amendment says that you have the right to be protected against "unreasonable searches and seizures" but what exactly does this mean? Well, it's complicated. The police often need warrants issued with proof of probable cause, but this isn't always the case - such as when you're pulled over for a moving violation. We'll finish up with the limitations of these protections and discuss one group of people in particular that aren't protected equally - students.

In which Craig Benzine teaches you about the US Governments Separation of powers and the system of checks and balances. In theory, the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, and the Judicial Brach are designed to keep each other in check and to keep any branch from becoming too powerful. In reality, the system was designed to keep the President from becoming some kind of autocrat. For the most part, it has worked. Craig will call in the clones to explain which powers belong to which branches and to reveal some secret perks that the Supreme Court justices enjoy.

Today, Craig is going to talk about employment discrimination, and we're going to focus primarily on women in the workforce. Discrimination against women tends to be handled somewhat differently in the courts as they are not a minority. Even so, the courts need a method for challenging issues to help further important government interests - this is called intermediate scrutiny. (If you'll remember, strict scrutiny is the most rigorous form of judicial review and rational basis review is the least rigorous.) So we'll talk about things like disparate impact and sexual harassment in the workplace and how these cases are handled in the courts.

So today Craig is going to talk about where our political opinions come from. Of course, most people’s politics are grounded in their ideologies, but there are also other external influences such as the government itself, interest groups, and the media. So we're going to talk about how these influencers factor into the overall public opinion and how their roles have changed over time. Now this stuff may seem like common sense, but it’s important to know where our opinions come from, especially when you consider how quickly the media landscape is changing.

Today, Craig is going to talk about social policy - in the United States this means achieving one of three goals: protecting Americans from risk, promoting equal opportunity, or assisting the poor. Many Americans strongly believe in individualism, that is self-reliance, but since the Great Depression and the New Deal the government’s role has increased significantly. We’re going to focus on two social policies that came out of the New Deal - Social Security and what we tend to think of as “welfare” - and talk about why they’re still around now and potentially the future. These and other social policies are not without controversy, as things tend to be when involving our tax dollars, and we’re going to talk about that too.

In which Craig Benzine talks about the structure of the U.S. court system and how exactly it manages to keep things moving smoothly. You'll learn about trial courts, district courts, appeals courts, circuit courts, state supreme courts, and of course the one at the top - the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s all quite a bit to manage with jurisdictions and such, but it's important to remember that the vast majority of cases never even make it to court! Most are settled out of court, but also terms like mootness and ripeness are used to throw cases out altogether. Today, we're going to focus on how cases make it to the top, and next week we’ll talk about what happens when they get there.

This week Craig Benzine talks about what happens when a case makes it to the Supreme Court of the United States (or the SCOTUS). We're going to focus on court procedure today. We talk about how to petition to get your case heard, how written arguments, or briefs, are made, what actually happens on the courtroom floor, and of course the variety of ways the SCOTUS issues opinions on cases.

In which Craig Benzine breaks down the different types of bureaucracies. I mean sure, they’re all part of the executive branch, but some work more directly with the President than others. Some bureaucracies exist solely to independently regulate industry whereas others are expected to operate like corporations and make a profit. And on top of all that, some of these agencies have sub-agencies! It can all get pretty complicated, so we’ll try to discuss some of the most significant agencies out there and the ones you hear a lot about on the news. We’ll talk about how they seem to have steadily gained more and more power, and of course, we’ll talk about what all the agencies are for in the first place!

Chapters:
Introduction: Types of Bureaucracies
Executive Departments
Sub-agencies of Executive Departments
Independent Agencies
Independent Regulatory Commissions
Government Corporations
Functions of government bureaucracies
Where do bureaucracies get their power?
Credits