Systemic Error Podcast

What happened AlterNet reports that White House officials and Republicans fear their political support may be collapsing, according to journalist Jonathan Lemire. He cited an Associated Press-NORC poll in which 17 percent of U.S. adults approved of President Donald Trump’s handling of living costs and 26 percent approved of his handling of the economy. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Lemire said 68 perc...

What happened AlterNet reports that the Trump administration used federal money to air three television advertisements encouraging Americans to vote in the November 3 congressional elections. At least one reportedly relies heavily on footage from Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, and the campaign has cost $2.5 million so far, with spending plans said to reach $100 million. Trump characterized the adve...

What happened Ken Paxton may lose some disaffected Republican votes not to Democratic nominee James Talarico, but to Libertarian Ted Brown. AlterNet, citing The Bulwark’s Lauren Egan and a Texas Democratic strategist close to Talarico’s campaign, reports that Brown could receive 3 or 4 percent in the Texas Senate race as some John Cornyn voters recoil from both Paxton and, potentially, Talarico. T...

What happened A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump could not unilaterally fire Roger Rogoff, the court-appointed U.S. attorney for Western Washington. According to AlterNet’s account of reporting by Politico, U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian held that Rogoff legally occupied the office after taking his oath on July 15 and ordered the administration to recognize him as U.S. attorney...

What happened AlterNet reports that retired federal judge J. Michael Luttig warned Republicans could try on January 3, 2027, to prevent a duly elected Democratic House majority from taking office. His warning is a forecast, not a reported plan: Luttig argues that Donald Trump has pressured Speaker Mike Johnson and House Republicans to portray a possible November 3 midterm defeat as fraudulent and...

What happened Senator Steve Daines told Republican voters unhappy with MAGA candidates to “get over” their anger and vote for the party anyway. As AlterNet reported, the retiring Montana senator warned Thursday at the Richard Nixon Foundation’s Grand Strategy Summit that Republicans could suffer losses in the 2026 midterms comparable to their 2006 defeat. Daines blamed part of the danger on Trump-...

What happened AlterNet reports that President Donald Trump floated Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy as a possible replacement for former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Speaking to reporters on the White House South Lawn, Trump said Doocy was earning too much at Fox and that he had “lost him” after the correspondent negotiated his latest contract. Leavitt left the White House after...

What happened On CNN’s Thursday News Central , Democratic National Committee strategist Sawyer Hackett disputed former Trump administration official Matt Mowers’s claim that the economy under President Donald Trump presented a “mixed picture.” AlterNet reports that Hackett argued inflation was higher than when Joe Biden left office, while the job market had slowed, the economy had contracted, and...

What happened AlterNet reports that during a Thursday executive-order signing, President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members and other allies applauded for an unusually long time. New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie interpreted the scene as evidence that Trump’s subordinates were afraid to be the first person to stop. Bouie compared the social dynamic—not the consequences—to accounts of officials ap...

What happened RawStory reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plans to announce a 20 percent reduction in positions reserved for generals and admirals, doubling the 10 percent overall reduction he ordered in May 2025. Pentagon officials told The Wall Street Journal that the armed services would have until Jan. 1, 2027, to complete the new cuts. Hegseth is expected to announce the plan during...

What happened RawStory columnist Jason Miciak argues that Republican senators’ complaints about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are an indirect challenge to President Donald Trump. But the column does not establish that senators are “plotting” Hegseth’s removal or using him as a proxy to target Trump. It offers two critical Senate quotations—one from an unnamed source—and interprets their tone as e...

What happened RawStory reports that Texas Attorney General and Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton privately said Donald Trump’s two-day midterm convention in Dallas hurt Republican polling. Asked at a Washington fundraiser whether Trump was “a little bit of a drag,” Paxton replied that “everybody’s numbers dropped” after the convention and that the situation was “not good.” The New York Times...

What happened AlterNet reports that Autumn Daniels was billed $410 by Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Illinois, after an April emergency-room visit in which staff registered her, checked her vital signs and sent her to the waiting room. Daniels, suffering a severe migraine and vomiting repeatedly, left after four hours without seeing a doctor or receiving treatment. She obtained care at anoth...

What happened Sen. Jim Justice urged the Trump administration to reconsider immigration sweeps that remove long-established community members, telling Politico on Tuesday that officials should admit when enforcement has gone wrong and adjust. RawStory reports that Politico journalist Rachel Shin described his remarks as “a remarkable break” from the administration. Justice’s criticism followed com...

What happened RawStory reports that prominent Republicans are calling Democratic candidates “weird,” reviving an insult Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz used against Donald Trump, JD Vance and other Republicans during the 2024 campaign. Sen. Tim Scott used it at a Republican convention in Dallas, Vance directed it at Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, Trump has applied it to Texas Senate nominee James...

What happened RawStory reports that Sen. Marsha Blackburn sued former special counsel Jack Smith in federal court in Tennessee, seeking $1 in nominal damages and the return of phone records obtained during Smith’s investigation. The complaint alleges that a May 2023 subpoena to Verizon for Blackburn’s call logs around the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack violated her constitutional rights by preven...

What happened AlterNet columnist D. Earl Stephens rejects the claim that Democrats need to project more “joy” to reconnect with voters. His response was prompted by PBS NewsHour co-host Geoff Bennett’s interview with Fox News commentator Jessica Tarlov, who argued that Democrats need sustained engagement with conservative audiences, more cultural connection, and leadership that includes joy. Tarlo...

What happened RawStory, citing The Washington Post’s review of confidential board documents and tax filings, reports that the Kennedy Center’s Trump-appointed leadership exhausted its $21 million bank credit line, depleted much of its debt reserve and withdrew $10 million from the Washington National Opera’s $10.3 million endowment. Arts-management professor Karen Gahl-Mills described the institut...

What happened RawStory reports that Sen. Eric Schmitt used a Senate Judiciary hearing to call former special counsel Jack Smith a “total dirtbag,” a “villain,” and an alleged perjurer. Schmitt presented messages that he said showed Smith traveling to Atlanta to coordinate with local prosecutors, but the purported evidence confused the Atlanta Hawks with the Iowa Hawkeyes; according to the outlet,...

What happened RawStory reports that former special counsel Jack Smith told a Senate panel on Tuesday that his investigation had developed what he described as proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Donald Trump committed serious crimes against the United States. Smith said he would make the same prosecutorial decision regardless of a former president’s party. His statement was not a convic...

What happened RawStory reports that Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and retired Air Force brigadier general, called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s handling of senior military officers “indefensible.” On CNN, Bacon cited the firing or stalled promotions of 80 generals and admirals and said he had heard concerns from active-duty personnel. Hegseth also plans to reduce positions reserved for...

What happened Jim Acosta said Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt of Missouri should be “hiding in a cave” after Schmitt’s conspiracy theory involving former special counsel Jack Smith and Atlanta reportedly collapsed during a televised exchange on Tuesday. AlterNet does not explain what Schmitt alleged or what evidence disproved it, so the precise substance of that failure cannot be established from thi...

What happened RawStory reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted a 36-second official video on September 30, 2026, showing service members running and exercising outside the Pentagon under the slogan “This is War.” Hegseth had appeared earlier that morning wearing a shirt bearing the same phrase. Veterans, former Pentagon personnel, journalists and political strategists mocked the produ...

What happened Rachel Maddow argued on NBC’s “Late Night” that Donald Trump’s unpopularity is damaging Republicans’ midterm prospects because GOP candidates remain publicly aligned with him instead of distancing themselves. RawStory, citing The Daily Beast’s account of the Tuesday-night interview, reported that Maddow described Trump as “radioactive” and said his approval rating was in the low 30 p...

What happened AlterNet’s headline overstates the evidence: no one already knows who will win the 2026 midterms. Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center wrote in The Washington Post that his model, based on generic congressional-ballot polling and the previous three midterms, projected Democrats winning between 225 and 232 of the House’s 435 seats. That is a forecast, not a result. Polli...