Alexander Willis

CIA experts warned in a classified report that Israel could be headed toward “civil war” or “total collapse,” Drop Site News reported Monday after being briefed on the assessment by two U.S. sources.

“The writers of this are Israel experts,” one of the U.S. sources told Drop Site News, speaking on the condition of anonymity for the outlet’s report, which was co-published Monday alongside the news outlet Capital & Empire. “This isn’t a fantastical what if — with the upcoming election and the fissures in Israel we should take seriously their conclusion that Israel is one spark away from real internal conflict.”

Titled “Fracture From Within,” the report was compiled in August by Red Cell, an analytical unit within the agency created after the Sept. 11 attacks to “challenge conventional wisdom in the intelligence community” by producing “alternative analysis,” as described by Foreign Policy.

Drop Site News had the content of the report described to it by the two U.S. sources, with the assessment pointing to several “volatile” pressures that appeared to be "converging" ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 elections, the outlet reported.

Among those pressures straining Israeli society cited in the report are economic struggles, record-high military spending, and mass psychological trauma and “mental illness.” The “deepest fractures in Israeli politics” cited in the report, Drop Site News noted, involved the nation’s growing ultra-Orthodox population, whose men have historically received broad exemptions to Israel’s mandatory military service “while continuing to receive state benefits.”

“Their collective refusal to serve is not rooted in opposition to Israel’s wars, as ultra-Orthodox leaders argue that military service threatens religious life and their obligation to Torah study,” Drop Site News’ report reads. “But after years in which reservists have been repeatedly called away from their jobs and families, the exemption has become a potent source of resentment in Israeli society.”

A political ad airing nationally for GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton left viewers baffled Monday over a scene that appears to show the Texas attorney general tearing down a missing child flyer.

“Yeah I don’t think they thought this through,” quipped Conor Rogers, a D.C.-based Democratic strategist.

The ad was funded by Texas PAC, a Senate Republican leadership-backed super PAC that may spend as much as $200 million on behalf of Paxton in the lead-up to the midterms, with Paxton trailing behind his Democratic opponent, Texas state Rep. James Talarico, in recent polls.

Paxton’s record as attorney general is the focus of the ad, particularly his office’s efforts to combat child trafficking. A narrator is heard boasting about Paxton being “relentless about protecting Texas children” before the ad cuts to a shot of a missing child flyer.

“When missing posters go up, Ken Paxton takes them down,” the narrator explains, accompanied by a video of someone tearing down the missing child flyer.

Critics were left confused by the ad’s choice of words, including Gwen Howerton, a Houston-based writer and photographer.

“Finally, a guy who is willing to get tough on those missing kids,” Howerton sarcastically quipped.

Jody Dean, a veteran Texas broadcaster, said he “almost” felt “sorry” for Paxton’s campaign, adding, “Say it out loud to yourself a few times before you go with it, kids. You'll be glad you did.”

Texas trial attorney Israel Medina took a tongue-in-cheek jab at Paxton for his conduct as described in the ad.

“That p---- Ken Paxton pulls down missing persons posters!” Medina wrote in a social media post on X.

The world’s largest tropical rainforest that serves as a “critical counterweight to climate change” is under threat of complete destruction following the strong electoral performance of a far-right ally to President Donald Trump, one legal expert and former Democratic lawmaker warned Monday.

Flávio Bolsonaro is a Brazilian politician and presidential candidate who “outperformed expectations” Sunday in the nation’s first-round presidential election, sending him into a runoff against incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He is also the son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, another Trump ally who’s serving a 27-year sentence for his role in an attempted coup after his election loss in 2022.

“A Bolsonaro win — aided by Trump and Big Tech billionaires — will be the likely end of the Amazon, the lungs of the earth,” warned Aaron Regunberg, a Rhode Island activist, lawyer and former state lawmaker. “If you have young kids, you are watching them get locked into an extremely dangerous future. You’re not mad enough at the fascists and their collaborators.”

From 2019 to 2022, Jair Bolsonaro oversaw a 60% increase in Amazon deforestation, with more than 17,400 square miles of forest cleared, according to the Associated Press. Conversely, Lula oversaw a 45% decrease in deforestation. With Jair Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio Bolsonaro, heading into the runoff with a narrow lead, conservation experts feared another Bolsonaro administration could cause devastation for the vital ecosystem.

“The risk we face is that Brazil could move away from a positive environmental agenda toward a position more similar to the one now adopted by the United States — one of climate denial,” said Márcio Astrini, the executive director of the Climate Observatory, speaking with the Associated Press.

Taciana Stec, who works as a climate policy specialist at the Brazilian think tank Talanoa, suggested that even Brazil’s existing laws governing the Amazon would not be able to stop deforestation under another Bolsonaro administration.

“Given his long history of advocating weaker environmental protections, there is concern that activities now considered illegal could simply be legalized and no longer subject to enforcement,” Stec told the Associated Press.

The Justice Department was forced to release new details that gave further credence to allegations that the agency engaged in a “cover-up” to protect President Donald Trump while it prepared millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein for public release, legal commentator Allison Gill reported Sunday.

“I can see now why they wanted to push it back until after the midterm elections,” Gill, a U.S. Navy veteran and host of the “Mueller, She Wrote” podcast, said in a video published on Sunday by MeidasTouch.

Reports surfaced last year that FBI agents tasked with reviewing Epstein-related files ahead of their release were instructed to “flag” mentions of Trump’s name. Trump is mentioned in the files tens of thousands of times, with Epstein once calling Trump his “closest friend for 10 years.”

Gill, who also previously worked under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, was tipped off last year about the existence of supposed training videos designed to instruct FBI officials on how to properly flag Trump’s name. She filed a public records request to get her hands on the alleged videos but was turned down by the DOJ.

She subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

Gill said that in July, the DOJ “actually admitted” to possessing 75 minutes of training videos, but that they would be “withholding them all.” The DOJ later indicated, according to Gill, that it planned to ask that the lawsuit be dismissed, and on Aug. 23, asked a federal judge for a 90-day extension to file its motion, shifting the deadline to Nov. 23, well after the midterms.

Senior Judge Beryl A. Howell denied the DOJ’s request for an extension and instead ordered the agency to file its motion “with more detail” by Sept. 25, Gill said. It was on Friday that Gill got her hands on the DOJ’s latest filing, in which new details on the agency’s training videos were revealed.

“They describe nine Epstein-redaction training videos, two of which instructed agents to flag certain documents containing certain names, and that they're withholding them all from us, in their entirety, to protect the identities of the FBI and Department of Justice personnel who appear in the videos,” Gill said.

The DOJ described one of the training videos as follows: “Screen recording featuring a live demonstration by [FBI’s Information Management Division] personnel of how to access the investigative files.”

“Notice they're admitting that these are investigative files,” Gill noted. “There was an investigation going on that was shut down.”

Gill said she then “reached out to sources who were there conducting the review in March of 2025” and received a “pretty explosive” confirmation.

“[I] was able to confirm that these videos were training people on how to flag documents containing Trump's name for review by the higher ups,” Gill said. “And I even have a quote from one of the sources who wished to remain anonymous.”

Gill then relayed the quote from her inside source: “Primary criteria for tagging documents for supervisory review as mentioned in the list of training videos was the presence of names from a list of high-profile people which included Donald Trump.”

Despite ultimately voting to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein, Rep. Jeff Crank (R-CO) actively worked against the effort early on, and his opposition to the release will be highlighted in a new attack ad against the Colorado Republican as he faces a “tough re-election race,” The New York Times reported Monday.

“Jeff Crank covered up Epstein’s crimes to protect Donald Trump,” says Sky Roberts, the brother of prominent Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre — who died last year by what was reported to be a suicide — in a new ad reviewed by the Times.

Crank will face off against Jessica Killin, a former Democratic congressional aide and U.S. Army veteran, in what recent polls show to be a tight race.

In the ad, Roberts, a constituent of Crank, accuses the Colorado Republican of refusing to meet with Giuffre’s relatives and also criticizes him for “blocking the release” of Epstein-related files.

“He has no business being in Congress,” Roberts is heard saying in the ad, according to the Times. “When he had the chance to expose the truth and release the Epstein files, he repeatedly voted to cover them up.”

Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA) launched a discharge petition last year which, with enough signatures, would force a House floor vote on a bill that would compel the Justice Department to release all of its files on Epstein. Crank did not sign the petition and later cast a procedural vote to block an early effort to force the release of the files.

Crank ultimately did vote to release the files after the bill had received Trump’s blessing — a development that came after an aggressive campaign from the White House to block the files’ release — but for Roberts, it was too little, too late.

“At the end of the day, the bare minimum of this job in this role is to hear your constituents,” Roberts said, according to the Times. “How can you stay with your constituents and vote according to their needs if you have no idea what their needs are?”

Computer equipment and communications were seized in Brazil’s largest city as part of a new Brazilian investigation announced Sunday into “possible external interference by the United States” in the nation’s presidential election, Agencia EFE reported.

On Sunday, Brazil held its first-round presidential election, which pitted Flávio Bolsonaro — a far-right politician supported by President Donald Trump — against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s progressive incumbent president and frequent Trump critic. Bolsonaro “outperformed expectations” Sunday after receiving 47% of the vote to Lula’s 45.1%, forcing the two into a runoff.

Brazil’s Federal Police, however, launched an investigation into whether the United States had unlawfully interfered in Brazil’s election, executing two search and seizure warrants in São Paulo on Friday.

At the heart of the investigation is a report from The Guardian that revealed the Trump administration planned to divert taxpayer dollars to fund groups opposing what it called “judicial overreach and censorship” by Brazil’s judicial system. Brazil’s Federal Police argued the Trump administration’s plan was designed to "destabilize and undermine the institutionality of the Brazilian Judiciary," Agencia EFE reported.

“Brazil's Federal Police is now officially investigating the US intervention in the election,” wrote journalist and analyst Benjamin Norton in response to Agencia EFE’s report. “The Trump admin openly supported far-right US puppet candidate Bolsonaro.”

Fears mounted ahead of Brazil’s first-round presidential election on Sunday after the Trump administration suspended all U.S. consular services in Brazil just two days before the election, a move critics described as “unprecedented.”

Bolsonaro is a lawyer, politician, and son of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president who’s currently serving a 27-year sentence on charges related to an attempted coup after his election loss in 2022. Trump imposed a 50% tariff on Brazil last year in response to Jair Bolsonaro’s prosecution, which he called a “Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY.”

“The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace,” Trump wrote in a July 2025 letter to Lula. “This Trial should not be taking place.”

In what NBC News described Sunday morning as a “rushed withdrawal,” the Trump administration appears to have ended a U.S.-British military partnership that dates back to 1950 after authorities foiled a suspected terror plot.

Last month, local residents near Royal Air Force Fairford — a British air base used by the United States for more than 75 years — were evacuated after a “major incident” initially believed to involve explosives was declared by local law enforcement. Five men were arrested in connection with the incident and remain under investigation.

On Sunday, the Trump administration confirmed that “all U.S. bombers” deployed to RAF Fairford “have been re-deployed to their home stations in the United States” in what NBC News called a “hasty” process, a development that left countless journalists in shock.

“B1, B2 and B52 bombers will now operate from the USA while airmen and their families have returned home to America,” wrote British journalist Ben Leo in a social media post on X.

“The United States has basically said ‘enough’ in a damning indictment of its military alliance with Britain. This is big.”

In a follow-up post, Leo added, “What’s interesting (and damning) about this is the Americans likely feel the UK can’t guarantee the safety of its aircraft and personnel at a MILITARY BASE.”

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL), a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump who’s suggested dogs were superior to Muslims, suggested the U.S. withdrawal was due to Britain’s Muslim population, despite Muslims making up around 6% of England and Wales’ population. Fine has frequently referred to Muslim migration as an “invasion.”

“Britain has fallen. The United Islamic Kingdom is no longer a reliable ally of the United States,” Fine wrote in a social media post on X.

The final online post of a British banker who reportedly died by suicide shortly after outing Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s business ties to Jeffrey Epstein left several critics speechless on Sunday.

Simon Andriesz, a former employee of Lutnick’s Cantor Fitzgerald Group, used his insider knowledge to dig through the Justice Department’s millions of released Epstein-related files and unearth emails that exposed business dealings between the top Trump administration official and the convicted sex offender. Subsequent reporting revealed Lutnick’s business dealings with Epstein took place as recently as 2014.

While Lutnick was forced to backtrack on his previous statements regarding Epstein, he has not been charged with a crime or accused of any wrongdoing.

Andriesz was found dead last week in an apparent suicide, immediately raising suspicion among countless onlookers, and even drawing the attention of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY). And on Sunday, a number of critics stumbled upon Andriesz’s final post on X, the content of which some found to be chilling.

“I am the British whistleblower who reported evidence concerning Howard Lutnick, his links to Jeffrey Epstein, and Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC to the FBI in 2020–21,” reads a post from an X account widely reported to belong to Andriesz.

“The personal consequences of whistleblowing, and the retaliation I say followed, have been devastating for my family and me… Follow me here on X and on LinkedIn. I intend to share more of the evidence and the story behind what happened.”

Of course, the aforementioned post would end up being Andriesz’s last, with Andy Agathangelou, the founder of a nonprofit organization that had hosted whistleblowing events with Andriesz, confirming to The Banker that Andriesz, 57, had been found dead.

“He said the retaliation had already wrecked his life, and that he was about to publish more,” wrote German author and former financial journalist Oliver Janich in a social media post on X. “Then he was dead at 57. They called it suicide. I don’t buy it.”

Peg Aloi, a writer and film critic, expressed hope that Andriesz’s “untimely death” would be “investigated and the truth revealed,” and Patrick Howley, a citizen journalist based in Washington, D.C., argued that despite Andriesz’s death, “the truth about Lutnick will never die.”

Outrage erupted Sunday after Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) openly admitted to his plan to block the seating of a Democratic congressional candidate should they win in November.

As reported by the New York Post on Saturday, Burchett was planning to block the seating of Democratic congressional nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier of New York should she defeat her GOP opponent, Jomo M. Williams, next month. Williams’ “chances of winning are slim,” the conservative New York Post noted, given the voting history of New York’s deep-blue 13th Congressional District.

The Post reported that Burchett’s plot was motivated by a now-deleted online post from Avila Chevalier in which she joked about using the American flag as a napkin, which Burchett described as “disavowing” the U.S. Constitution. And on Sunday, Burchett confirmed the Post’s reporting, writing that he was “100%” planning to block Avila Chevalier’s seating in January should she win her election.

“It's actually very pathetic and not funny at all that [Burchett] doesn't see the irony of trying to block Chevalier from being seated because she said she used the flag as a napkin,” wrote Ari Cohn, a Chicago-based First Amendment lawyer. “If disavowing the Constitution is disqualifying, he should be expelled from the House.”

Cohn continued, arguing that Burchett’s plot was “shameful and embarrassing to anyone with a 3rd grade civics education,” a sentiment that was mirrored by veteran Tennessee journalist Jamie Satterfield, who responded to Burchett’s “100%” comment by writing, “100 percent moron.”

Burchett sparked outrage last month after boasting about being given a free “ride” on Air Force One to attend a Tennessee-Texas football game in his own district, with critics labeling Burchett’s boast as “tone deaf.”

The Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi made a case that Americans’ “digestive health has become a bizarre” — but potentially effective — “talking point” for Democrats heading into the midterms, one that could sink GOP candidates come November.

Mahdawi flagged Trump’s yearslong fixation on toilets, citing his bizarre but oft-repeated claims that Americans were being forced to flush toilets well over a dozen times, which he blamed on Environmental Protection Agency standards.

“I regret to inform you that the president is once again responsible for a national conversation about toilets,” Mahdawi wrote in an op-ed published in The Guardian.

“In a fitting encapsulation of Trumpism, explosive diarrhea has become a midterm talking point. Food recalls and stomach-churning parasites have been a mainstay of the news this year and Democrats are milking the issue.”

Trump’s second term has been plagued by multiple outbreaks of foodborne illness, including a deadly cyclospora outbreak tied to lettuce produced by Taylor Farms, a food producer that donated $1 million to MAGA Inc. just days after the Trump administration postponed a key food safety compliance deadline. A multistate Salmonella outbreak linked to jalapeños affected Americans across at least 27 states, and another outbreak tied to sprouts sickened more than four dozen Americans.

As noted by Mahdawi, Democrats have seized on the foodborne illness outbreaks in their midterm messaging, including the Democratic Party apparatus itself, Rep. Gabriel Amo (D-RI), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

“To be fair, the number of food recalls during Trump’s second term is not remarkably different than it was under Joe Biden. What is different, however, is the scale of the problem. The US only recently declared the end of the largest ever recorded cyclosporiasis outbreak, which was linked to contaminated lettuce.”

Mahdawi warned that were Republicans to somehow maintain control of Congress after the midterms, Americans’ digestive health would likely suffer.

“If you thought the diarrhea-inducing lettuce was bad, then I’m afraid things only look likely to get worse,” Mahdawi wrote. “If Trump isn’t reined in at the midterms, the whole country is going down the toilet.”

President Donald Trump will host this year’s Group of 20 summit at his own Miami-area golf club — an “act of self-dealing,” The New York Times argued, made possible by years of “unmistakable” threats that cowed GOP lawmakers into silence.

As noted by the Times, the announcement of the summit’s location had “generated practically no protest,” standing in stark contrast to Trump’s 2019 attempt to host the annual Group of 7 summit at the same golf club, which he ultimately scrapped amid backlash.

Trump, the Times argued, had “effectively moved the goal posts of what is considered out of bounds,” allowing his latest act of “self-enrichment” to move forward in large part due to his “unmistakable” threats to GOP lawmakers over the past several years.

“There are at least three major differences from seven years ago: First, Mr. Trump has fashioned a more pliant party by systematically using primaries to purge Republicans who defied him, sending an unmistakable warning to those remaining to stay in line,” the Times’ report reads.

The Times also cited Trump’s dismantling of government accountability mechanisms and his newfound indifference “to criticism over possible ethical concerns” as reasons for the muted reaction to the G20 decision. Trump told the Times in January he “got no credit in the first term” for purportedly reining in his family’s business ventures.

“Trump didn’t just move ethical lines, he swallowed them like a plate of spaghetti,” quipped David Clinch, veteran journalist and co-founder of Media Growth Partners, in a social media post on X Sunday, reacting to the Times’ report.

Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance argued that the Trump administration’s “corruption” was “so rampant” that it was “difficult to keep up with,” and political scientist Larry J. Sabato, reacting to the Times’ report, declared Trump to “easily” be “the worst in presidential history.”

During her final days as Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem “delivered a windfall to one of her political donors” by authorizing the purchase of five airplanes at what experts said were significant markups, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The purchase of luxury jets by the Homeland Security Department (DHS) has been previously reported, but Noem and current DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin have both pointed fingers at each other regarding the purchases. According to newly obtained documents, however, the Times concluded that “the records made clear” the jet purchases were “one of the last acts of Ms. Noem’s turbulent 14-month tenure.”

“Hours before Kristi Noem left her job as D.H.S. secretary, her agency bought 5 planes from a donor at a big markup, records show,” wrote Times journalist Nicholas Nehamas, one of the authors of the report, in a social media post on X. “They were supposed to fly deportees but have largely sat idle — a striking symbol of gov. waste under President Trump.”

According to the Times, the planes in question — one of which was outfitted with a “stand-up bar, two bedrooms, marble showers and a table covered in manta ray skin” — were purchased from Daedalus Aviation Corporation, chaired by William Walters, who in 2024 gave $10,000 to American Resolve, a political action committee (PAC) created to support Noem.

Daedalus Aviation Corporation told the Times that Walters was unaware of the PAC’s affiliation with Noem, despite the PAC’s website “prominently” displaying a photo of Noem’s face.

The newly obtained records also revealed that DHS purchased the planes far above market value, leading Daedalus Aviation Corporation to net as much as $100 million in profit.

“I hope they came with buckets of caviar each, otherwise it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” said Richard Aboulafia, an expert on aircraft markets and managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, speaking with the Times about the DHS plane purchases. “This does not resemble any aspect of an airline marketplace.”

Attorney and political commentator Ben Meiselas was left stunned Sunday by new photos of President Donald Trump, which Meiselas argued depicted the president in rough physical shape.

Trump spoke at Butler High School in Vandalia, Ohio, Saturday night during a rally, one in which he admitted to taking a daily high-dose aspirin against his doctor’s advice, praised himself for having “among the highest IQs anywhere in the world,” and mourned the loss of his “simple life” before entering politics.

The event, which also saw Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy nearly drop a child, was labeled as a “MAGA clown show” by Meiselas.

“What in the hell just happened? What was that? I've never seen anything like it,” Meiselas said in a video published by MeidasTouch Sunday morning. “This whole MAGA Republican clown show, as we approach the midterms, it's absolutely a sight to behold.”

What first caught Meiselas’ attention, however, were photos of Trump returning to Washington, D.C., after the rally.

“He left Dayton, Ohio, he arrived back in Washington, D.C., slumped over, struggling to walk around,” Meiselas said.

One of the photos of Trump Meiselas shared, captured just after 11 p.m., showed the president with his mouth agape, and another showed his head resting on his chest while standing.

At 80 years old, Trump has faced growing questions regarding his physical and mental health. He’s been observed exhibiting a number of potential health condition symptoms, including apparent facial drooping, severe bruising and swollen ankles. Bruce Davidson, a prominent clinical professor of medicine at Washington State University, said earlier this year that he believed Trump had suffered a stroke.

Clinical and forensic psychologist John Paul Garrison has made similar observations to Davidson, flagging multiple instances of Trump exhibiting what he argued to be signs of focal motor seizures.

Thomas Robb, a 79-year-old Arkansan and national director of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), celebrated his organization’s “growing” support ahead of the midterms in a new interview published Sunday with Al Jazeera’s Phil Lavelle.

“Support for us is growing, there’s no question about that!” Robb, who ultimately succeeded David Duke as leader of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in 1989, told Lavelle.

Robb is also the leader of the Christian Revival Center in Boone County in northern Arkansas, where the KKK leader said Black people weren’t welcome. The church’s website openly urges attendees to “Honor Your Birthright,” specifically naming “Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Celtic, Scandinavian, and related peoples of Europe.” The church’s website also includes a warning against those who have “cursed Israel.”

“We wanted to see how much, if any, influence this group or its message has ahead of the midterms,” Lavelle said in a narration over his interview with Robb. “The Klan is trying to publicly rebrand around family and faith, though [Robb] tells us the robes are still used at times, and race is still at the top, determining who, in its leaders’ eyes, belong in America.”

In the interview, Lavelle asked Robb his thoughts on non-white political figures such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.

“Well, first of all, they’re not Americans,” Robb said.

Lavelle pushed back, noting that El-Sayed was born in Michigan. While not born in the United States, Mamdani is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

“I don’t care where he’s born, he’s not American,” Robb said, going on to argue that only “white” people could be considered Americans.

Robb also spoke out against criticism of President Donald Trump over rising costs amid his deeply unpopular war against Iran.

“They’re not looking at the things that Trump did to really restore America. Build the wall… I mean, theoretically, I could say I don’t care if gas prices are $20 a gallon!”