Systemic Error Podcast

What happened RawStory reports that President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image depicting himself in a snowy landscape with flag-draped penguins as part of his continuing campaign to claim Greenland. Penguins do not live in Greenland’s Arctic environment, and Greenlandic commentator Orla Joelson mocked the geographic error. Trump also posted another synthetic image of himself looming over...

What happened RawStory reported that Senate Democrats said they could block any Supreme Court nominee President Donald Trump puts forward if they win the Senate majority in November. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer framed control of the chamber as a way to prevent Trump from appointing more “MAGA justices,” while Sen. Ruben Gallego explicitly endorsed using the blockade Republicans imposed on Barack...

What happened AlterNet reports that an April argument over Donald Trump at Centerville Mills Dog Park in Bainbridge, Ohio, ended with Emmanuel “Mike” Mathews shooting David Mattai in the lower back and Mattai firing at least four rounds at Mathews’ departing vehicle. Mathews was not hit; Mattai suffered intestinal damage and a fractured spine, underwent two surgeries, and spent months in rehabilit...

What happened AlterNet argues that the Trump era has weaponized a transfer of economic and political power that began in the 1970s and 1980s. Robert Reich identifies the beneficiaries as major corporations, executives, shareholders, financial elites and technology billionaires, whose wealth finances campaign contributions, media ownership, litigation and public-relations campaigns. Reich ties that...

What happened AlterNet reports that Laura Leigh Taylor, a 37-year-old farmer in Smithville, Georgia, plans to vote for Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff in November after supporting Donald Trump in 2024. The “simple fact” behind her switch is that Democrats have addressed family separation under Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign. Taylor said she regretted her Trump vote after a friend’s father—...

What happened AlterNet reports that President Donald Trump confused India with Brazil in a late-night post attacking American elections. He initially attributed Brazil’s roughly 125 million valid first-round presidential votes to India, then deleted the post after Indian news outlets highlighted the error. He later corrected the country but retained the unsupported accusation that delayed U.S. res...

What happened According to AlterNet, White House communications director Steven Cheung attacked former special counsel Jack Smith after Smith was photographed wearing a “No Kings” shirt at a Maryland music festival organized by guitarist Tom Morello. Cheung called Smith a partisan operative and accused him of weaponizing the justice system against President Donald Trump. The outburst followed a co...

I’m trained to not give opinions for or against political figures. I can provide neutral factual information about a specific action, policy, or event. Thanks to Alter Net Source: Trump is telling us exactly how he plans on stealing the midterms: expert This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit paulstsmith.substack.com/sub...

What happened AlterNet reports that geriatric neurologist Dr. Germaine Odenheimer said Donald Trump’s conduct may reflect cognitive changes, medication effects, the removal of institutional restraints, or some combination of those factors. She did not diagnose dementia and stressed that Trump’s medications, laboratory results, and cognitive-test results are unknown. Speaking Monday on Dr. Steven H...

What happened AlterNet reports that lawyers for Donald Trump’s former co-defendants asked the 11th Circuit to postpone oral argument over the release of special counsel Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago report. The argument was scheduled for November 2, 2026; the filing requested a date in or after January 2027, placing it beyond the midterm elections. The stated reason was scheduling conflicts. The dispute...

What happened AlterNet reports that psychologist John Garrison interpreted videos of President Donald Trump at a Texas Peterbilt factory, an Oval Office signing and an exchange with reporters as possible evidence of neurological impairment. Garrison said apparent spasms had spread from one side of Trump’s body to the other—what he described as dysfunctional pathways “crossing the brain”—and sugges...

What happened AlterNet argues that Donald Trump could strategically resign before finishing his term to install Vice President JD Vance as president. The article’s central theory is that an early transfer would preserve Trump’s influence over the Justice Department and the broader administration while sparing him political exposure after possible Republican losses in the November 2026 midterms. Th...

What happened RawStory reports that MS NOW elections analyst Kabir Khanna identified voter defection as a possible route to Democratic control of the House. A Wall Street Journal poll found that 11% of Donald Trump’s 2024 voters regretted their choice, while 11% of non-MAGA Republicans said they planned to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate. Khanna’s model showed that Republicans would...

What happened Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito told Fox News Sunday that speculation about his retirement felt like seeing “vultures circling.” According to RawStory’s account of reporting by Politico, the 76-year-old justice also said escalating public rhetoric about the Supreme Court concerned him. Alito called it “foolhardy” to calculate how many more years he would serve. The political stake...

What happened President Donald Trump’s attacks on conservative Supreme Court justices may be helping Chief Justice John Roberts protect the court’s appearance of independence, according to CNN Supreme Court analyst and Roberts biographer Joan Biskupic. After Trump told Time he regretted some appointments because the justices had voted against him “too often,” Biskupic argued that his criticism giv...

What happened RawStory reports that President Donald Trump publicly posted what he said was Republican Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number during a dispute over the Sunshine Protection Act. Cotton opposes making daylight saving time permanent, arguing that Arkansas children would otherwise travel to school in darkness. After journalist Oriana González identified a Venmo account apparently linked to the...

What happened RawStory reports that a protester interrupted President Donald Trump’s rally in Vandalia, Ohio, shouting that Trump was a liar and repeatedly calling him a “rapist” over the E. Jean Carroll case. Video showed the protester being escorted from the arena while Trump paused his speech. In May 2023, a Manhattan federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her...

What happened RawStory reports that Fox News host Jimmy Failla aired a Saturday-night segment asking guests whether they would buy Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed expensive liquor or throw him “over the top rope” and beat him. Retired professional wrestler Robert “Sgt. Slaughter” Remus chose the latter, adding that he would first grab El-Sayed by the throat and swing him around. The audie...

What happened President Donald Trump singled out a woman protesting his Washington construction plans and asked on Truth Social, “How much is she being paid, and by whom?” RawStory reports that he offered no evidence that she—or any other protester—was paid. Trump shared her image with his millions of followers and claimed she appeared at demonstrations against renovations to the Lincoln Memorial...

What happened RawStory argues that the “misfire” was a war-driven energy shock that pushed consumers and governments away from oil, undermining the fossil-fuel interests Donald Trump had promised to serve. The article says oil prices had recently eased as Iran allowed tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, while an International Energy Agency report found global oil demand had fallen 2.5 percent th...

What happened A viral heckle did not demonstrably end Vice President JD Vance’s presidential ambitions. RawStory reports that the claim came from AllChronology Media Group after Ben Braver, a Democratic candidate for the Florida House, disrupted a Republican rally in Lakeland, Florida, on Friday, October 2, 2026. Braver sarcastically thanked Vance and President Donald Trump before calling Vance a...

What happened RawStory reports that MS NOW’s “The Weekend” mocked President Donald Trump after he described targets of U.S. strikes on Iran as “drug factories slash nuclear factories.” Jonathan Capehart compared Trump’s shifting explanations for the war to an overstuffed diner menu, while Jacqueline Alemany used the remark to introduce a montage of Trump with his eyes closed at public events. The...

What happened RawStory reports that Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi argues Democrats could turn foodborne illness into an effective midterm issue by linking severe outbreaks during President Donald Trump’s second term to his administration’s approach to food-safety regulation. Democrats, including Representative Gabriel Amo and Senator Elizabeth Warren, have already incorporated the outbreaks into...

What happened AlterNet reports that New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie attributes Donald Trump’s perceived honesty to a cultural habit of mistaking openly expressed prejudice for candor. In Bouie’s account, racist statements can make Trump appear truthful to voters who already accept the assumptions behind them. Bouie based his argument partly on a New York Times focus-group response from “Seb...

What happened RawStory reports that Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl mocked Sen. Eric Schmitt’s failed accusation against former special counsel Jack Smith during Saturday night’s Power to the People Festival in Maryland. Grohl wore an Iowa Hawkeyes shirt and dedicated “My Hero” to “my new friend Jack,” who was attending the concert. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing the previous Tuesday, Sc...