Systemic Error Podcast

What happened AlterNet reports that President Donald Trump waived sanctions against Russia two days before they were due to take effect under federal law, submitting the required certification that the waiver served U.S. national interests without publicly explaining that judgment. He also announced that the United States would buy 300,000 tons—about 2.2 million barrels—of Russian diesel. The outl...

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What happened AlterNet reports that Republican Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers and prominent supporters, including Donald Trump and Sen. John Kennedy, attacked Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed as a “jihadist” and questioned whether he supported America or terrorist groups abroad. El-Sayed, a Muslim American doctor and advocate for Palestinian rights, denied ties to the Muslim Brotherhood...

What happened AlterNet reports that biographer Michael Wolff questioned whether Donald Trump’s political brand can survive the backlash to an attack ad from Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy. The ad featured Amy Acton’s mother calling her daughter a serial liar while invoking a childhood in which Acton’s mother lost custody after her second husband allegedly abused the childr...

What happened AlterNet reports that former Olympic canoeist David Hearn’s legal team asked the Justice and Interior Departments’ inspectors general to investigate the federal prosecution of Hearn, whose charges over alleged damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool were later dropped. Attorney Michael Bromwich alleges that U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro and other Jus...

What happened AlterNet does not establish that President Donald Trump personally considered and rejected Richard Nixon’s 1971 strategy. Its interview instead argues that Nixon acted during a fundamentally different crisis: the United States was days from a possible dollar default under the collapsing Bretton Woods system. Historian Luke Nichter says no comparable monetary emergency exists today. N...

What happened AlterNet argues that a degrading campaign ad from Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy attacking Democratic opponent Amy Acton reflects a decade-long normalization of misogynistic and dehumanizing Republican rhetoric. The commentary says Donald Trump defended the ad as “very powerful” and blamed the press for portraying it negatively. The piece contends that Trump’s repeated...

What happened AlterNet reports that Washington attorney Beth Wilkinson has represented clients across sharp political and commercial divides, including Donald Trump, Jimmy Kimmel, Disney, Brett Kavanaugh, major corporations, and media mogul David Ellison. The central claim is not that her legal strategy has collapsed, but that mounting partisan pressure may make this kind of flexible, elite repres...

What happened AlterNet reports that the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to take up 13 additional cases involving major parts of its second-term agenda. The disputes include an asylum ban, transgender military service, foreign-student deportations, university grant cuts, immigration bond hearings, federal prosecutors’ removal, nationwide injunctions, land use, horseracing, legal fe...

What happened AlterNet, citing reporting by The Washington Post’s John Woodrow Cox, says the Trump Justice Department pressured immigration judge Emilly Donoso Stevens after a supervisor ordered her to reverse four rulings at the direction of unidentified “higher-ups.” She was later removed from detained-migrant cases while remaining on the bench in Annandale, Virginia. Donoso Stevens alleged that...

What happened AlterNet does not establish what Melania Trump is “really after.” It reports that she announced on Friday what the article characterizes as a limited truce or ceasefire connected to children displaced by Russia’s war against Ukraine. Her senior adviser Marc Beckman said 34 children had been reunited across six events. The article then offers two speculative explanations: Daily Beast...

What happened AlterNet reports that former Illinois Republican lawmaker Joe Walsh and journalist Jim Acosta argued on Friday that President Donald Trump is showing serious cognitive and physical decline. They cited his public speech, apparent bruising, complaints about his hand, and fixation on projects such as a Washington, D.C., golf course. Neither man offered a medical diagnosis. Despite the h...

What happened AlterNet argues that the Trump White House demands acceptance of claims that collapse under basic scrutiny. Its lead example is the administration’s assertion that Melania Trump initiated talks for a localized ceasefire in Oleshky, Ukraine. The report says neither the Russian nor Ukrainian government immediately confirmed that account. The article also describes Donald Trump defendin...

What happened AlterNet reports that President Donald Trump told a Friday rally in Fort Myers, Florida, that the United States would “take Cuba on our way back from Iran.” He described American ships stopping off Cuba and Secretary of State Marco Rubio “finish[ing] up the thing.” The remark invoked military force but, as reported, was not accompanied by a formal policy announcement or operational p...

What happened Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr. said it would be time to “take away gramps’s phone” if President Donald Trump accepted Vladimir Putin’s supposed promise that surrendering additional Ukrainian cities in the Donbas could earn Trump a Nobel Prize. As AlterNet reports it, Jenkins was mocking what he sees as Trump’s susceptibility to flattery, not describing a document...

What happened The Trump Justice Department is appealing U.S. District Judge George Wu’s refusal to approve a proposed settlement with TikTok. As AlterNet reports, the agreement would resolve a 2024 children’s-privacy complaint while vacating a 2019 Federal Trade Commission consent order requiring TikTok to pay $5 million and comply with continuing safeguards. Wu ruled in the Central District of Ca...

What happened AlterNet reports that former Republican communications officials Doug Heye and Tara Setmayer condemned Attorney General Todd Blanche and congressional Republicans after President Donald Trump said he had directed the Justice Department to intervene in Alaska elections if Republicans lose. The report says Blanche signaled no objection to serving that political purpose, but it does not...

What happened President Donald Trump privately complained that Donald Trump Jr. showed poor judgment by allowing Russian businessman Umar Kremlev to pay for a post-wedding celebration in the Bahamas, according to reporting cited by AlterNet from The Wall Street Journal. Trump said his son repaid Kremlev, but the supplied reporting provides no details about when, how, or in what amount. AlterNet al...

What happened AlterNet, citing New York Times reporting, says Georgia gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson and Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy invested in GloriFi, a MAGA-branded financial company that filed for bankruptcy months after launching its website. Its backers included right-wing billionaires Peter Thiel, Ken Griffin and Jeff Sprecher. Jackson later invested millions more in...

What happened AlterNet reports that cultism expert Dr. Steven Hassan joined Chad Kultgen, Haley Popp, and their mother, Mary Lou Kultgen, on their podcast to discuss her continued support for Donald Trump despite policy views that clash with the Republican agenda. She opposed ICE’s conduct in communities, supported universal healthcare, and wanted the United States out of the war in Iran, yet said...

What happened AlterNet argues that Robert Mueller’s May 29, 2019 statement—“If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so”—should have destroyed Donald Trump’s political career. Mueller did not accuse Trump of a crime. He said his office could not clear him and explained that Justice Department policy barred charging a sitting president. The comm...

What happened AlterNet reports that Attorney General Todd Blanche refused on NBC’s August 16, 2026, broadcast of “Meet the Press” to pledge independence from the White House, arguing that no attorney general should do so. The article’s central claim is that Blanche is more dangerous than President Donald Trump because he is converting Trump’s demands into Justice Department policy and legal action...

What happened AlterNet reports that conservative writer Nick Catoggio fears a major Republican electoral defeat would not moderate the party but drive it toward even more extreme candidates. The article does not establish that the “massive GOP defeat” in its headline has occurred; Catoggio is discussing what Republicans might do after a prospective November drubbing. Catoggio cites former New Jers...

What happened AlterNet reports that Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy spent $4 million promoting an attack ad in which Democratic candidate Dr. Amy Acton’s estranged mother accused her of lying about her childhood trauma. Acton responded with court records showing that her stepfather was indicted in 1978 for raping her when she was 12 and that her mother had accused her of ly...

What happened AlterNet reports that Rep. Brandon Gill of Texas, a Trump favorite, was being considered for expulsion from the House Freedom Caucus. According to Axios reporting cited by AlterNet, caucus members accused Gill of benefiting from introductions to the group’s donors while failing to support colleagues financially or participate sufficiently in difficult votes. Gill nevertheless retaine...