Systemic Error Podcast

What happened A federal judge refused the Trump administration’s request to dismiss former Stars and Stripes ombudsman Jacqueline Smith’s lawsuit alleging First Amendment violations, AlterNet reported. Judge Amit Mehta also denied Smith’s request for immediate reinstatement, ruling that she had not shown she was likely to prevail on the merits at that preliminary stage. The decision followed a Sep...

What happened AlterNet reports that Republican campaigns and allied groups spent heavily on Senate television advertising through September 2026 without gaining a comparable advantage in airtime or polling. AdImpact calculated that Republicans spent $563 million across nine battlegrounds, versus Democrats’ $375 million, but their 26 percent broadcast-spending advantage produced only 7 percent more...

What happened RawStory reports that President Donald Trump told supporters at a Monday-night rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego, calling that a “very small price to pay” while predicting that the war would end soon. The audience cheered. The two cities have roughly 5.3 million residents combined, according to figures cited by RawStory. San Diego C...

What happened RawStory reports that President Donald Trump brought aide Natalie Harp onstage during a Monday-night rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, to deliver an executive order concerning purchases of tax-free red-dyed diesel. Trump signed it before the crowd, called Harp a “perfect person,” and compared the presentation to “The Price Is Right.” On Tuesday’s “Morning Joe,” MS NOW co-host Willie G...

What happened At an October 6, 2026 rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, President Donald Trump repeatedly stumbled while campaigning for Gov. Jim Pillen and Sen. Pete Ricketts, according to RawStory’s account of reporting by several outlets. Most notably, Trump called “Jim Walz” the “worst governor in history,” apparently combining Pillen’s first name with the surname of Democratic candidate Lynne Wa...

What happened RawStory reports that MIT biosecurity researcher Kevin Esvelt argued Russia’s response to the unexplained death of a 28-year-old technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute did not resemble the response to a routine laboratory-acquired plague infection. He cited quarantines across several hospitals, reported involvement by the Federal Security Service, hazmat precautions...

What happened Raw Story columnist Jason Miciak argues that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche could face professional discipline and possible state scrutiny that a presidential pardon would not erase. The concrete exposure described is a June 22, 2025 New York bar complaint signed by 101 former federal and state judges; the article says the 69-page filing alleges abuse of Justice Department powe...

What happened RawStory, summarizing NPR’s reporting, says FBI counterintelligence staffing has fallen to roughly 50% to 60% of authorized positions in many field offices, with some offices cutting the number of counterintelligence squads in half. Agents and analysts have been redirected toward violent crime, gangs, and immigration—the priorities President Donald Trump emphasizes while campaigning...

What happened RawStory columnist Ray Richmond writes that President Donald Trump told a rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles or San Diego and called that “a very small price to pay.” Richmond interprets the remark as encouragement for Iran to attack millions of Americans in two cities that overwhelmingly reject Trump politically. The column says the crowd cheered...

What happened AlterNet reports that the Justice Department appealed to the conservative 11th Circuit for access to information concerning 2020 election workers in Fulton County, Georgia. The filing misspelled “north” twice, but the substantive failure came earlier: U.S. District Judge William Ray ruled in July that the demand was unreasonable and would not produce information supporting any viable...

What happened AlterNet reports that the Trump administration did not invite observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to monitor the November 3 midterm elections. If that remains unchanged, this would be the first U.S. federal election since 2002—and the first of seven midterm elections during that period—without OSCE observers. The State Department said the OSCE shou...

What happened AlterNet reports that a newly unsealed, court-appointed monitor’s report found that Stephanie Ameiss, whose firm AZ Truthfinder received a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office contract for sensitive internal investigations, omitted significant parts of her background from her résumé. Those omissions included six years as lead investigator for Understanding the Threat—classified by the So...

What happened Former New Jersey governor and EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman told AlterNet that the Republican Party she left in 2022 is unlikely to return after Donald Trump leaves its leadership. Her answer to the headline’s extinction metaphor is blunt: the old GOP is gone because, in her assessment, the party has become a “cult” whose positions change with Trump’s commands rather than...

What happened AlterNet reports that political analyst David Rothkopf expects the Jeffrey Epstein controversy to become “much, much bigger” after the midterm elections, particularly if Democrats gain congressional power, call witnesses, or obtain new information. That is Rothkopf’s forecast, not a reported new revelation from the files. Rothkopf made the argument while discussing President Donald T...

What happened President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily waiving penalties for highway use of cheaper red-dyed diesel, but CNN analyst Matt Egan said the measure would provide only modest relief and would not address the forces driving diesel prices. AlterNet reported that diesel averaged about $6.32 a gallon and had risen nearly 80 percent so far that year. Egan estimated that f...

What happened AlterNet reports that Digger , a $180 million climate-disaster film starring Tom Cruise, failed at the box office. The film depicts an oilman whose Greenland drilling triggers ecological catastrophe, then reveals that this narrative is a play performed in a future already devastated by those decisions. The review praises the film’s climate politics, elaborate structure and visual amb...

What happened AlterNet reports that Giffords PAC, the gun-control organization founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords, launched ads in two Republican-leaning House districts as part of a planned $10 million intervention ahead of the November 2026 midterms. The “new issue” is gun policy, deployed alongside public-safety arguments in races national Democrats have not typically treated as top-tier tar...

What happened The venue Elie Mystal identifies as “where Republicans go to do what voters reject” is the Supreme Court. AlterNet reports that Mystal, writing in The Nation on Monday, argued that Republican-aligned litigants use the Court to pursue outcomes they could not secure through elections, including challenges involving the National Voter Registration Act, Title IX, gun restrictions, protec...

What happened AlterNet reports that Tennessee officials intend to attempt to execute Christa Pike again if she recovers from a coma after two failed lethal-injection attempts. Pike remained hospitalized in critical condition with significant injuries to both arms; the state’s pentobarbital injections reportedly entered her arm tissue rather than her veins. The execution process lasted more than tw...

What happened A new Alliance for Youth Power PAC/YouGov poll found Donald Trump deeply unpopular among Michigan voters ages 18 to 29: 78% viewed him unfavorably and 19% favorably. AlterNet reports that the survey, released Monday less than five weeks before the November election, also showed young voters favoring Democratic candidates by wide margins in Michigan’s statewide races. Among respondent...

What happened RawStory reports that Jonathan V. Last, an anti-Trump conservative editor at The Bulwark, warned that even a decisive Democratic midterm victory would not guarantee a Democratic presidential win in 2028. His “doomsday scenario” is that Republican candidates could blame a Democratic-controlled Congress for national problems, present themselves as insurgents and retain the White House....

What happened RawStory reports that conservative podcaster Ben Ferguson called former special counsel Jack Smith’s “No Kings” shirt “pretty rich,” falsely accusing Smith of trying to overturn an election. Smith wore the Bruce Springsteen tour shirt at the Power to the People Fest in Columbia, Maryland, on Saturday. Fox News host Harris Faulkner introduced the shirt after noting that Smith had test...

What happened RawStory reports that Sen. Thom Tillis defended his vote to confirm Attorney General Todd Blanche after “The View” co-host Ana Navarro challenged Blanche’s refusal to examine reported payments by Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev toward Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding celebrations in the Bahamas. When Tillis called Blanche qualified to give President Donald Trump honest advice, Navarro shoute...

What happened RawStory reports that two unnamed U.S. sources briefed Drop Site News on a classified CIA assessment warning that Israel could face civil war or “total collapse.” The August report, titled “Fracture From Within,” reportedly described several pressures converging ahead of Israel’s October 27 elections. Neither RawStory nor Drop Site News obtained the document itself, and the reporting...

What happened RawStory argues that Senate Republicans’ hostile questioning of former special counsel Jack Smith reflected loyalty to Donald Trump and an effort to divert attention from the Epstein files. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Republican senators Eric Schmitt and John Kennedy attacked Smith’s credibility, while ranking Democrat Dick Durbin welcomed him. Smith answered...