TED Talks
TED: The shocking move to criminalize nonviolent protest | Will Potter
In 2002, investigative journalist and TED Fellow Will Potter took a break from his regular beat, writing about shootings and murders for the Chicago Tribune. He went to help a local group campaigning against animal testing: "I thought it...
Crash Course
Equal Protection: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, Craig is going to talk about the most important part of the Constitution - the Fourteenth Amendment. In particular, we're going to discuss the "equal protection" clause and how it relates to our civil rights. So we've spent the...
Crash Course
Search and Seizure: Crash Course Government and Politics
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...
Crash Course
Freedom of the Press: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, Craig is going to finish up our discussion of the First Amendment with freedom of the press. Like an individual's right to free speech, the press has a right, and arguably responsibility, to tell the public what the government is...
TED Talks
TED: The big myth of government deficits | Stephanie Kelton
Government deficits have gotten a bad rap, says economist Stephanie Kelton. In this groundbreaking talk, she makes the case to stop looking at government spending as a path towards frightening piles of debt, but rather as a financial...
TED Talks
TED: American bipartisan politics can be saved -- here's how | Bob Inglis
Former Republican member of the u.S. Congress Bob Inglis shares an optimistic message about how conservatives can lead on climate change and other pressing problems -- and how free enterprise (and working together across ideologies) hold...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The dark history of the Chinese Exclusion Act | Robert Chang
In 1882, the United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first federal law that restricted immigration based explicitly on nationality. In practice, the Act banned entry to all ethnically Chinese immigrants besides...
Crash Course
Congressional Decisions: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig breaks out the crystal ball to try and figure out why our congresspeople do the things that they do. We’ll talk about the three motivating factors of congressional decisions - constituency, interest groups, and political...
MinuteEarth
Unintended Consequences | MinuteEarth Explains
In this collection of classic MinuteEarth videos, we learn that for pretty much every action we humans take, there’s an unintended consequence we didn’t see coming.
Crash Course
Bureaucracy Basics: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig Benzine discuses bureaucracies. Bureaucracies tend to be associated with unintelligible rules and time-wasting procedures, but they play an important, though controversial, role in governing. From the FDA to the EPA,...
Crash Course
Discrimination: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, Craig is going to wrap up our discussion of discrimination by looking more closely at those “discrete and insular minorities” referenced in the 14th Amendment. We’ll talk about instances of discrimination of Asian, European, and...
MinuteEarth
How Fighting Wildfires Makes Them Worse
Today's wildfires burn, on average, twice the amount of land they did in 1970. The reason? We've been working too hard to put them out. Want to learn more about the topic in this week's video? Here's a keyword/phrase to get your googling...
Crash Course
Social Policy: Crash Course Government and Politics
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...
TED Talks
Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea
What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto -- a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.
Crash Course
Structure of the Court System: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig Benzine is going to talk about the structure of the U.S. court system and how exactly it manages to keep things moving smoothly. We’’ll talk about trial courts, district courts, appeals courts, circuit courts, state...
Crash Course
Due Process of Law: Crash Course Government and Politics
This week Craig is going to continue our discussion of due process. Technically, we started last week with the 4th amendment and search and seizure, but this week we’re going to look at the 5th and 6th amendments and how they ensure a...
Crash Course
Market Economy: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today, we’re going to take a look at how the government plays a role in the economy. Specifically, the way the government creates and maintains our market economic system. Now sure, the government’s role in the economy can be...
Crash Course
Foreign Policy: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today Craig finishes up our series on U.S. Government and Politics by talking about both the least and most important aspect of government: foreign policy. Foreign policy is important because it has the potential to affect the largest...
Crash Course
Age of Jackson Crash Course US History
In which John Green teaches you about the presidency of Andrew Jackson So how did a president with astoundingly bad fiscal policies end up on the $20 bill? That's a question we can't answer, but we can tell you how Jackson got to be...
Crash Course
Controlling Bureaucracies: Crash Course Government and Politics
In which Craig Benzine tells you how we keep bureaucracy in check. So we've spent the last few episodes telling you all about what bureaucracies are and why they are formed. And throughout we've hinted about this ever-expanding power...
Crash Course
Gerrymandering: Crash Course Government and Politics
Today Craig is going to talk about a topic that makes voters and politicians alike ANGRY! We're going to talk about Gerrymandering - that is the process in which voting districts are redrawn in a way to favor one party during elections....
TED-Ed
TED-ED: How do executive orders work? - Christina Greer
On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln legally changed the status of over 3 million people from "slave" to "free." But his emancipation proclamation wasn't a law - it was an executive order. The framers of the American Constitution made...
Crash Course
Testing Your Product and Getting Feedback: Crash Course Business Entrepreneurship
To figure out if an idea is as good as we think it is, we have to talk to our customers. We’ve said it over and over again. We have to ask them what they like, dislike, want, or need, and we want honest feedback about our product or...