Hey folks, I know it’s Saturday, and I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news. But as I promised you from day one—I don’t sugarcoat. I bring you the inside story the way I hear it, the way I know it. No spin, no filter, no corporate agenda. Just the truth.
Donald Trump has completely lost it. He’s not only planning to go to war with Venezuela—to manufacture a crisis that gives him cover to implement Project 2025 and stay in power forever—but he’s also preparing to go to war with America itself. Plans are on the table to unleash the National Guard on cities like Chicago and Portland. And make no mistake, folks: none of this is about the safety or security of our country. It’s all part of Trump’s authoritarian playbook—an orchestrated campaign of chaos designed for one purpose only: to cement himself in power for good.
My sources tell me this is the week. Plans are being drawn to deploy the National Guard into Chicago—and possibly another city, maybe Portland. And you won’t believe it until you see it with your own eyes: Donald Trump is now using AI-generated propaganda that he blasts out on Truth Social and the White House even reposts. Complete with helicopters, fire, and his chilling line, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” And now he’s going even further, threatening, “Chicago is about to find out what the Department of War is all about.” This isn’t satire. It’s not a movie trailer. It’s the President of the United States openly fantasizing about turning our cities into war zones.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called it an “invasion.” Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson said flatly, “Unconstitutional.” And yet, Trump doesn’t care. He’s already renamed the Department of Defense into the Department of War, bragging that America needs a “warrior ethos.” Folks, that isn’t policy—it’s the vocabulary of dictatorship.
But here’s where you have to look deeper.
While the cameras are fixed on Trump threatening to occupy American cities, my sources are telling me the bigger play is brewing south of our border. Preparations are already underway for military strikes against Venezuela.
You’ve heard the drumbeats: warships in the Caribbean, F-35s to Puerto Rico, a $50 million bounty on Nicolás Maduro. He says it’s about gangs and terrorism. But let me tell you what it’s really about: declaring a state of war that gives him cover to do whatever he wants. No oversight. No due process. Eleven men blown up in international waters, no trial, no evidence, just his word—and we’re supposed to accept it.
This is how autocrats seize power. Manufacture chaos at home, declare enemies abroad, and then insist that only one man—the “strongman”—can keep order.
It’s Putin’s playbook. It’s Xi’s playbook. It’s Kim’s playbook. And Donald Trump is begging to be accepted into their club.
Think about what this means.
A president who does nothing to stop Russia’s daily attacks on Ukraine. Who stands silent while Putin kidnaps over 25,000 Ukrainian children. Who laughs nervously as Xi, Putin, Kim, and Modi mock him at their parades. Yet, when it comes to his own people, his own cities, he’s ready to send in troops.
It’s grotesque. It’s un-American. And it’s a warning.
What Trump is preparing isn’t just a deployment. It’s the beginning of a doctrine: Trump versus America. If he can frame Chicago as “the enemy,” then he can frame anyone—any governor, any journalist, any protester, any survivor—as an enemy of the state. And from there, it’s one step to the death of democracy.
And if you think that’s shocking, you won’t believe this. While Trump is preparing to send the National Guard into Chicago and preparing for war abroad, he’s also busy turning the White House into his personal Mar-a-Lago
My sources tell me that just yesterday, he quietly unveiled a new “Rose Garden Club” — a members-only society with buy-in at a staggering $500,000 a head. Yes, you read that right: half a million dollars just to secure access. Trump has literally transformed the people’s Rose Garden into a private playground for the wealthy elite, just as he did with Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Cocktail parties, whispered deals, donors rubbing shoulders with lobbyists — all from inside the very heart of American democracy.
At the unveiling, Trump boasted that the Rose Garden was now “a place where our members can gather with congressmen, senators, and leaders to talk business and make America strong again.” In other words, he’s selling direct access to power—half a million dollars for a seat at the table.
Here is the transcript of the speech Trump delivered at the opening of the Rose Garden Club:
This is more than just a grift. It’s a message. He is not planning on leaving. He’s planting roots in the White House as though it were his personal estate, a gilded club for sale to the highest bidder. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the great leaders who saw the White House as a sacred trust of the people — they would be turning over in their graves. Trump has reduced it to another cash register, another hustle, another monument to himself.
Folks, this is what dictatorship looks like: while the nation burns, Trump uses the Rose Garden to sell access to the White House.
I want to take this moment and talk to you from the heart. I’m not trying to scare you, but I need you to understand just how serious this is. What’s transpiring right now—the planned attacks on Venezuela, the deployment of National Guard troops into American cities, the Rose Garden being turned into a half-million-dollar pay-to-play club—it all points to one thing: Donald Trump is not preparing to leave power. He is preparing to stay in power forever.
And if we don’t stand together now, if we don’t raise our voices now, there will come a day when we wake up and regret that we didn’t do everything we could while we still had the chance. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: everybody can do something. Spread the message. Become a subscriber. If you can, become a paid subscriber. Contribute. This is how we fight back.
I want you to remember something about me. I wasn’t always on this side of the fight. I was once deep inside Trump’s circle. I saw firsthand how the deals were made, how the lies were spun, how the money flowed and the corruption spread. I know these people because I lived in their world—and I chose to break free, to speak the truth, to risk everything to expose what I saw.
I can’t change my past, but I can use it to warn you about the future they are building.
My son Aaron is on the frontlines exposing Trump and his inner circle, being attacked by his minions for daring to report the truth. And I’m risking my freedom every single day to bring you information the media won’t touch, stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Why? Because I know these people. I know what they’re about to do. That’s why I’m sounding the alarm—because if we don’t save our democracy now, it may be too late.
That’s why I’m asking you, personally, to stand with me in this fight.
I don’t have billionaires behind me. I don’t have corporate sponsors. What I do have is you.
We are more than just a community—we are building a movement. A resistance rooted in truth, powered by ordinary people refusing to be silenced.
Trump is betting on fear. But our strength is solidarity.
So I’m asking you:
Spread this message far and wide. Share it in your group chats, on your socials, at your kitchen tables. Let people know what’s really happening.
Subscribe. If you haven’t yet, join us. Every new subscriber makes this movement harder to ignore.
And don’t forget—pick up your copy of my book, Shadow Diplomacy, at LevRemembers.com. Trump never wanted you to read it, because it lays out the exact playbook of shadow dealings.
This is not just about Chicago. This is about whether America becomes another chapter in the book of failed democracies—another dictatorship where one man rules by fear.
I refuse to let that happen. And I know you do too.
So stand with me. Spread this message. Support this movement. Because together—we are not just witnesses. We are the resistance.
God bless you. God bless America.
—Lev Parnas
And another view on current events by Heather Cox Richardson:
From Heather Cox Richardson, Political Historian: September 6, 2025 (Saturday)
“Today the social media account of President Donald J. Trump posted an AI-generated image of Trump as if he were Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore from the 1979 film Apocalypse Now in front of the Chicago skyline with military helicopters and flames and the caption “Chipocalypse Now.” Kilgore loved the war in Vietnam in which he was engaged; his most famous line was “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Over the image, Trump’s social media post read: “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’ Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” The words were followed by three helicopter emojis, symbols the right wing uses to represent former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s goons’ disappearing political opponents by pushing them out of helicopters.
Although it has become trite to speculate about what Republicans would say if a Democratic president engaged in the behavior Trump exhibits daily, this open attack of the president on an American city is a new level of unhinged. Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo wrote: “The president of the United States just declared war, actual military war, not a metaphorical one, on a major American city, and one governed by his political opponents.” He added, accurately: “In any other period, this would be impeachment-worthy.”
Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker called attention to the gravity of Trump’s post: “The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.” Under the words “Know your rights, Illinois,” and “Stay safe and stay informed,” the governor’s social media account posted information about Americans’ rights in both English and Spanish.
Trump’s threats against American citizens are outrageous, but they also feel desperate. Trump’s popularity is tanking, the economy is faltering, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing a chorus of calls to resign or be fired, and the American people are taking to the streets. Thousands of people turned out today in Washington, D.C., for the “We Are All D.C.” march to protest the presence of troops in the city, and in Chicago for the “Chicago Says No Trump No Troops” protest. The protests are notable for the seas of signs the peaceful protesters carry.
And then, with Congress back in session, there is the resurgence of the issue of Trump’s appearance in the Epstein files. Last week, the White House warned Republicans that voting to release the Epstein files “would be viewed as a very hostile act to the administration.” Yesterday, Trump reiterated his claim that the agitation for the release of the files is a “Democrat HOAX…in order to deflect and distract from the great success of a Republican President.”
Also yesterday, lawyers for the Justice Department asked a federal judge to keep the names of two associates who received large payments from Epstein in 2018 secret. Days before the payments, the Miami Herald had started to examine the sweetheart deal Epstein got in 2008. One associate received a payment of $100,000, and the second received $250,000. As part of his plea deal, Tom Winter of NBC News reports, Epstein got a guarantee that the associates would not be prosecuted.
Last night, Trump hosted the inaugural dinner of what the White House is calling the “Rose Garden Club” in the newly-paved White House Rose Garden, telling those assembled that they were there because they are loyal to the president. “You’re the ones that I never had to call at 4:00 in the morning,” Trump told them. “You are the ones that have been my friends, and you know what I’m talking about.”
Yesterday, talking to reporters about the Epstein files, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said that Trump was “an FBI informant to try to take this stuff down.” The idea that Trump was secretly working to bring Epstein down is common fare among conspiracy theorists, but as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo suggests, Johnson’s embrace of it might well be an attempt to spin material in the files before it becomes public.
Marshall notes that journalist Michael Wolff, who interviewed Epstein at length during Trump’s first presidency, says that Epstein suspected it was Trump who told the authorities about his systemic sexual assault of girls. But if so, Marshall explains, this is damning rather than exonerating.
It’s pretty well known that Trump and Epstein had a falling out in 2004 after Trump went behind Epstein’s back to buy an estate in South Florida that Epstein wanted. But at the time, Trump was headed toward bankruptcy, and it was not clear where he was getting the money to buy the estate.
Marshall calls attention to a recent interview in which Wolff said that Epstein suspected Trump was laundering money for a Russian oligarch—and indeed, Trump did flip the property to a Russian oligarch for a profit of more than $50 million a few years after buying it—and threatened to sue Trump, bringing the money laundering to light. At that point, the Epstein investigation began.
According to Wolff, Epstein believed Trump had notified the police about what was going on at Epstein’s house, which he knew because he was a frequent visitor. Marshall speculates that Johnson mentioned that Trump was an informant because that information could well be in the files the Department of Justice has, and they’re trying to spin it ahead of time to make it sound like Trump was a hero.
But both Wolff and Marshall note that if indeed Trump turned the FBI onto Epstein, it shows he knew what was taking place at Epstein’s properties.
Johnson’s claim that Trump was an FBI informant suggests Trump’s team is worried that as more and more people get access to the files, it will be increasingly difficult to hide what’s in them. Trump’s demand for Republicans’ loyalty suggests that at least some of them are starting to recalculate it. And that, in turn, might have something to do with why he is putting troops in the streets.”
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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