Systemic Error Podcast

Crime scene tape. (Photo credit: Matt Gush / Shutterstock) The “Family Values” Project Is a Cage A Killing at the Exit Cerina Fairfax spent nearly two years trying to leave her marriage while still sharing a Virginia home with her husband. State law required parents of minor children to wait a year before filing for divorce, and Justin Fairfax used additional legal tactics to prolong the process....

U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) looks on as U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) presides over a vote whether to hold Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in contempt for having invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to questions about the government’s COVID-19 pandemic res...

U.S. President Donald Trump walks after disembarking Marine One following a visit to North Carolina, at the Ellipse near the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 16, 2026. REUTERS/Aaron Schwartz The Demolition Politics Behind the Kennedy Center Placard A Photograph, Not a Verdict A photograph shows President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One examining a board labeled “Kennedy Center DE...

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as enters the White House, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 28, 2026. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno The Governing Style Is Theft, Blame, and Sabotage Blame Down, Loyalty Up The source material describes a government that keeps punching down while covering for the people actually doing the damage. Ukraine gets blamed for inflation after resisting Russia. Russia’s aid to Ira...

U.S. President Donald Trump looks on before boarding Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, U.S., September 7, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Lee The Presidency as a Blame Machine A Majority He Cannot Hide Behind The immediate facts are spare but revealing: Republicans face endangered Senate seats, Donald Trump’s approval is deeply underwater, a...

FILE PHOTO: Masked law enforcement officers, including HSI and ICE agents, walk into an immigration court in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., May 21, 2025. REUTERS/Caitlin O’Hara/File Photo Twelve Minutes to Manufacture an “Unlawful Voter” An Enforcement System Built for Accusations The Trump administration’s “Unlawful Voter Initiative” reportedly gave federal agents twelve minutes per voter investigation,...

U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 8, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci The Election Is “Perfect” Only When Trump Wins Power Is the Point The central fact is not that Donald Trump distrusts elections. It is that the president commands executive power while his allies control Congress and have declined to restrain him. The reported campaign against mail voting, voter access, el...

U.S. President Donald Trump holds a model of an arch monument during a ballroom dinner in the East Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 15, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Trump’s Arch Would Turn Arlington’s Dead Into His Backdrop The Monument Is the Message The proposed 250-foot arch at Memorial Circle is not an innocent piece of infrastructure. It is a 25...

U.S. Representative Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) sits on a motorcycle outside the U.S. Capitol after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax bill, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 3, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno Derrick Van Orden’s Politics of Intimidation The Threat Is the Message Rep. Derrick Van Orden said he wanted to “f---...

U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he attends the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) dinner at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 8, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard “Anything Could Happen With Me” Is Not a Foreign Policy The Power to Escalate Donald Trump is presenting a possible return to large-scale war with Iran as a personal choice: whether he wants...

(REUTERS) Fear Is the Platform When Power Has No Defense The Party in Charge Republicans gathered in Dallas as the party controlling the presidency and the House. That is the essential fact beneath the spectacle. Donald Trump sets federal policy. Steve Scalise leads the House majority. Republican lawmakers passed Trump’s budget legislation. The consequences flowing from tariffs, war, immigration r...

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sits in a wheelchair, as he is pushed on his way to speak to reporters outside the Senate Chamber after he returned to Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci The Missing Camera Is the Story A Senator Returns Without Public Proof Mitch McConnell returned to the Senate after nearly three months away following a hospitalizati...

U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) speaks to reporters outside of his office, following the postponement of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s confirmation vote, due to concerns of Senator Cornyn and Senator Thom Tills (R-NC) about the Trump administration’s so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” settlement agreement between U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration that created a fund for...

Maine state flag. (Photo credit: rarrarorro / Shutterstock) The Family Feud Is Not the Scandal A Sister’s Refusal Anita Charles says she will vote against her brother, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles, because his campaign contradicts the values they were raised with. She points to his anti-abortion politics, his divisive rhetoric, his unrenounced association with former House Spea...

FILE PHOTO: Jimmy Kimmel arrives at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles, U.S., September 12, 2022. REUTERS/Aude Guerrucci/File Photo The Censor’s Veto Arrives Before the Censor Calls The Interview That Television Would Not Carry Jimmy Kimmel says a planned interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was diverted from ABC to YouTube becaus...

U.S. Representative Randy Fine (R-FL) leaves after the House of Representatives passed a war powers resolution on the ongoing conflict with Iran on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 23, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Lee Randy Fine’s Loyalty Test Comes With a 70,000-Job Price Tag The Threat Is the Story Britain was reportedly considering restrictions on goods produced in Israeli settlements in the...

REUTERS /Evelyn Hockst Election Sabotage Disguised as Postal Procedure The Power Is Federal The Trump administration is attempting to impose new federal controls on absentee voting less than two months before the 2026 midterms. Through an executive order and a proposed Postal Service rule, it would subject ballot designs to federal review, mandate new envelope specifications and require states to...

REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein The Empty Seats Are Not the Scandal A Presidency Disguised as a Blooper Reel In his September 10 speech, Donald Trump addressed a sparsely attended Republican midterms convention by falsely describing it as packed, distorting inflation history, scapegoating transgender people, boasting about international respect amid costly conflicts, and demanding personal electoral loya...

U.S. President Donald Trump with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on June 16, 2025, in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok/Flickr) The Trade War Is Not a Misunderstanding. It Is Presidential Power Without Discipline. The Decision Came From the Top Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canada, and Americans are absorbing the...

U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) looks on as U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) presides over a vote whether to hold Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), in contempt for having invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to questions about the government’s COVID-19 pandemic res...

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives with incoming Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh for Warsh’s swearing-in ceremony at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 22, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst The “Collision” Is Trump’s Demand for Monetary Obedience A Rate Hike, Not a Mystery On September 16, the Federal Reserve raised its target range by a quarter percentage point to 3.75–4 percent. Its st...

REUTERS Ken Cedeno Trumpapalooza Is a Loyalty Ritual Disguised as a Turnout Strategy The Man at the Center Donald Trump proposed a national Republican convention built around himself. Republican strategists hoped the Dallas spectacle would mobilize reluctant GOP voters before the midterms. But G. Elliott Morris’s September 10 analysis of more than 11,000 interviews with self-reported registered vo...

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Ratcliffe in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper The CIA’s “Adult in the Room” Is Serving the Man Who Owns the Room The Decision-Maker Is John Ratcliffe The relevant fact is not that the CIA marked its 79th anniversary on September 18. It is that CIA Director John Ratcliffe controls the authority, personnel, and public credib...

U.S. Vice-President JD Vance at the Lake Lucerne Summit at the Buergenstock resort in Obbuergen, near Lucerne, Switzerland, Sunday, June 21, 2026. URS FLUEELER/Pool via REUTERS The Plea Is the Strategy Power Asking to Be Judged as a Bystander JD Vance is not an opposition candidate begging voters for an opportunity to govern. He is the vice president, speaking for an administration that has held e...

Independent journalist Tara Palmeri at Dallas convention (Photo: screen capture) The Credential Was the Message A Question the Convention Could Not Control Independent journalist Tara Palmeri entered Donald Trump’s Dallas convention with three survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse and asked Republican congressional candidate Robert Burke about releasing the investigative files. The conversation was...