Systemic Error Podcast

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...

What happened AlterNet reports that speculation about Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney receiving a Nobel Peace Prize nomination drew criticism from Fox News host Laura Ingraham and political commentator Ari Goldkind. Ingraham argued that Carney was being celebrated for confronting President Donald Trump despite Canada’s economic strain; Goldkind likewise dismissed the idea. The reporting does n...

What happened AlterNet reports that Republican Senator Eric Schmitt tried to accuse former Special Counsel Jack Smith of perjury during a Wednesday Senate hearing, only to reveal that his supposed evidence concerned the wrong basketball game. Schmitt claimed text messages placed Smith at an Atlanta Hawks game with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on February 3, 2024; the messages report...

What happened At a Wednesday press conference, Blanche repeatedly denied that Justice Department attorney Kurt Olsen had resigned or left his investigation. According to AlterNet, Blanche said Olsen remained employed “exactly where he was before” and blamed inaccurate media reporting for the dispute. A reporter had asked about reports that Olsen and Joe diGenova had departed a Florida-based invest...

What happened RawStory reports that Republican Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds dismissed solar power as a “fad” at a campaign event in Daytona Beach Shores, arguing that it consumes land and cannot provide consistent electricity after dark. He promoted small modular nuclear reactors as a steadier alternative. His Democratic opponent, David Jolly, said solar should be part of Florida’...

What happened AlterNet reports that former Republican strategists Sarah Longwell, Jonathan V. Last, and Tim Miller challenged pundit and former McConnell staffer Scott Jennings’s claim that he had a substantive conversation with Sen. Mitch McConnell about foreign policy. Citing videos of McConnell using a wheelchair and appearing to struggle to communicate, Longwell questioned whether the conversa...

What happened AlterNet reports that Fox News polling gave President Donald Trump a blunt political warning: voters view the cost of living as the country’s leading problem and largely disapprove of his economic performance. In the September 11–14 survey of 1,211 registered voters, 34 percent named living costs as the most important issue, while 63 percent said the Trump administration had made the...

What happened AlterNet reports that Ken Paxton privately said Donald Trump’s September Republican convention in Dallas hurt GOP candidates rather than helping them. In leaked audio from a Washington fundraiser the following Thursday, Paxton said his numbers—and those of other Republicans—dropped after the roughly $50 million event. The New York Times obtained the recording from an attendee who str...

What happened AlterNet reports that the Trump administration expanded the amount of imported lean beef eligible for lower tariffs by 300,000 metric tons—about 661 million pounds—to restrain ground-beef prices. The White House said domestic supply could not meet demand at reasonable prices after ground beef cost about 8 percent more in August than a year earlier. Purdue economists estimated the imp...

What happened AlterNet reports that New Republic writer Ross Rosenfield used Italian historian Carlo Cipolla’s 1976 theory of human stupidity to interpret Donald Trump’s administration. Rosenfield argues that Cipolla’s warning becomes especially relevant when people who harm others without benefiting themselves acquire control over armies, monetary policy, media influence, and regulatory instituti...

What happened AlterNet, citing the Financial Times, reports that President Donald Trump and administration officials entered “emergency talks” over sharply rising diesel prices while the U.S. war with Iran continued. The administration considered restricting diesel exports, including a possible ban, but the White House said Trump was still evaluating options and had made no decision. According to...

What happened AlterNet reports that Atlantic writer Adam Serwer identifies Trump’s fear as the possibility that public criticism can influence Supreme Court justices. Serwer argues that Trump projects this fear when he attributes rulings against him to pressure from the “Radical Left,” then attacks the Court himself in hopes of shaping its next decision. During his 2024 campaign, Trump suggested t...

What happened RawStory reports that Sen. Eric Schmitt used a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to accuse former special counsel Jack Smith of meeting Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis at an Atlanta basketball game in early 2024. Smith said he attended a game in Maryland, not Georgia, undermining the premise of Schmitt’s accusation. After the hearing, reporters repeatedly asked whether S...

What happened AlterNet reports that an NBC News road trip along Interstate 80 in August found widespread voter anger that could damage President Donald Trump’s Republican Party in the midterm elections. Voters cited higher prices, rising interest rates, foreign wars, job anxiety tied to artificial intelligence, and collapsing confidence in federal officials. The reporting identified vulnerable Rep...

What happened AlterNet reports that Natalie Harp, President Donald Trump’s personal aide and so-called “human printer,” helps manage the information placed before him: flattering coverage, social-media material and other content aligned with his preferences. According to CNN’s reporting as quoted by AlterNet, Harp showed Trump media clips before he barred CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White Ho...