Youth Advocacy
October 13, 2026
📢 Weekly Review and Announcements
Welcome to this week's briefing. As always, the core purpose of this blog is to completely bypass the daily, superficial distractions used by the current regime to overwhelm and confuse the public. Instead, we pull back the curtain to analyze long-term trends, helping you understand the architecture of this authoritarian administration on a deeper level. Our ultimate mission remains unchanged: to aggressively advocate for our young people by confronting the two greatest existential threats to their generation today—the rapid demise of democracy and the unchecked, unregulated growth of artificial intelligence.
If you are a voting advocate standing on the frontlines to protect fair elections, don't forget to access your free musical resource package. You can immediately download your complimentary compilation album filled with powerful protest anthems via the hidden Anthems Portal. Additionally, youth mentors can access dedicated regional tools through our hidden Advocates Portal.
📋 Current Briefings:
The Foundation of Our Future: Robert Reich analyzes how public backlash against nationalist politics creates an opportunity for democratic resurgence during the midterm elections, provided election results are certified against potential authoritarian interference.
Trump Is an Easy Mark for Putin: David Frum details how the current administration risks Western security alliances for personal financial gain, framing the midterms as a crucial defense against permanent autocratic rule.
Under the Gun: Understanding America’s Defense Spending Paradox: Joshua Keating explains how bureaucratic inertia and erratic leadership have left the United States military dangerously depleted of essential munitions despite record defense spending.
Making a “Killing” on Fossil Fuels: Troy Farah highlights how the current administration profits heavily from rising oil and gas stocks driven by conflicts abroad, while domestic trucking businesses collapse under the weight of soaring fuel prices.
Spectacle Politics: Jillian Wilson breaks down the administration’s reliance on shock-value optics, connecting the defense secretary's sudden push for a historic, livestreamed military execution to a broader pattern of erratic, diversionary political theater ahead of the midterms.
🎥 Visual Stories
Music has always been the heartbeat of true resistance, turning collective anxiety into focused defiance. We invite you to step away from the noise and experience a visceral story of democratic resilience. Watch the official visual presentation for the powerful anthem "Take It Back" directly on the Jerry Goebel YouTube Channel. Let the rhythm reset your resolve, and share it with the advocates in your network who need to hear it most.
🖋️ Articles and Commentary
Source | Raw Story
Full-throttled dictator Trump may have one last resort if Dems win midterms
The Foundation of Our Future
Robert Reich is pessimistically hopeful about the midterm elections. He believes the Republicans will finally lose at the voting booth due to their full-throated support of Donald Trump. But… he adds this strong caveat: “We may soon witness the beginning of the end of this daymare — unless Trump goes full-throttled dictator and prevents votes for Democrats in the Senate and House from being certified.”
Reich analyzes the conditions that made the Trump revolution possible, beginning in the 1980s when the elite rich began receiving tax favoritism under Reagan’s “Trickle Down Economics.” Of course, instead of trickling down, the rich used their newfound tax breaks to buy more political clout and deepen their economic advantage. It is this, that Reich believes led to the anger of many voters who saw the “American Dream” slip out of their reach. Trump took advantage of that frustration and many bought into his lies. Here’s Reich’s take on the situation:
“Trump has channeled their anger into rage at carefully selected scapegoats — immigrants, trans people, Black people, ‘socialists,’ women, Muslims — and asserted white male Christian nationalism as a cure-all.”
‘But it’s become evident to a growing number of Americans that white male Christian nationalism has cured nothing whatsoever. It’s just made it more difficult for us to join together to reestablish the basic bargain.”
Reich believes that the midterms, if the popular vote is certified, will allow the majority of citizens to take back the reins of the economy and “get big money out of politics.”
If, he says, we can get Trump and his Supreme Court out of politics, we have an opportunity to “lay the foundation of our future.”
The “ifs” are up to us. It begins with turning out a supermajority to say we are done with this regime. Demanding the vote be certified. Willing to make our voice heard through peaceful demonstrations if the Republicans block the results. The “If” belongs to us.
The foundation of the future is in our hands.
Source | The Atlantic
Trump Is an Easy Mark for Putin
If…
David Frum is one of the podcasts that I regularly listen to. I find his insights well-researched and deeply stimulating. In this commentary, Frum offers us insights into how Russia is using Trump to further its own ends in the world. I think Frum sums the article up in a quote by Nancy Pelosi, who said to Trump’s face, “With you, all roads lead to Putin.”
Trump is selling out Ukraine, Europe, and the United States for a retirement luxury “Dacha” in Putin’s Russia. His non-elected ambassadors, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, stand to make additional millions from deals they are creating in clandestine meetings with Putin’s envoys. Here’s what has been uncovered so far: “The New York Times reported last week about an even more brazen Russian offering: a multibillion-dollar oil deal for assets owned by Russia’s Lukoil, which would directly benefit a Trump donor and two Middle Eastern groups that have done business with Kushner or Witkoff’s family.
Trump is a traitor who has sold out the United States for his own interests. The stockpile of billions he has created will be used to keep the Trump family (and his close supporters) in power for decades—if he has his way. If…
What stands between the Trump Regime and permanence is the mid-term election. If Trump—and his white nationalist supporters—have their way, this will be the last fair election in the United States—and we don’t even know how fair this election will be. Trump has already blocked an international agency (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE) from observing the U.S. elections, and there’s already proof he will deny any results unfavorable to the Republican Regime.
We can stop this regime IF…
If… we turn out in overwhelming numbers. If… we demand the certification of elected officials, no matter the obstacles this Republican Regime attempts to use to block the results. If… we are prepared to (as Vaclav Havel says) “put our feet down on the street.”
Our vote against Trump and his regime is also a vote against Putin, it is a vote against Netanyahu, it is a vote against Elon Musk, a vote against Pete Hegseth, a vote against ICE unleashed in our cities. It is a vote against publicly broadcast executions, against unsupported wars abroad, and tariffs choking our economy. It is a vote against undermining historic international friendships and undermining NATO.
If… we show up in mass. It is a vote for future generations. A vote for civil and human rights.
If…
Source | Time
Under the Gun: Understanding America’s Defense Spending Paradox
High on War; Low on Ammo
Author, columnist, and expert on foreign policy and national security, Joshua Keating is well-positioned to explain why the United States is high on war and low on ammo. He cites an historic disastrous decision by British Military leaders to attack entrenched German troops at the Battle of Aubers, France. Troops were seriously depleted because the English forces didn’t have enough artillery to support the invasion. It led to new policies reorganizing the British’s defense production, and ultimately, the fall of Prime Minister H.H. Asquith.
Currently, the U.S. finds itself in a similar predicament in Iran. For a number of reasons, which Keating cites, we have drained our stock of support ammunition dry. In fact, Keating tells us, “A CSIS report warns that the U.S. would likely run out of some types of long-range missiles after just a week of combat in a war over Taiwan.”
Of course, the Trump regime denies this and claims there are “virtually unlimited amounts of Mid to High Grade Ammunition.” But, it is obvious—even according to the pentagon’s own accountants that this is a lie.
Similar to the oil crisis that the U.S. faces, Trump blames this shortage on Ukraine. He says they are using up our missiles for their defense. But, that too, is a lie. The problem is much deeper than Ukraine and this regime simply doesn’t have the mental resources (or administrative capabilities) to respond.
Despite the fact that the United States spends more on its military than the next seven largest countries combined (including Russia and China), that spending goes largely to other critical sources and high-cost items like Aircraft Carriers and military personnel. It is also not in the interest of weapons manufacturers to retool their factories for weapons production when it could only be a short-term project.
U.S. weapons are extremely expensive while the weapons we are defending against are not. Keating points out that shooting an Iranian drone with a Cruise Missile is what Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) calls, “throwing a Ferrari at a frisbee.”
Finally, our military is running out of money and missiles because this regime is fighting on too many fronts. Keating reminds us of “when the USS Ford was diverted from the Mediterranean to Venezuela and then back to the Middle East again as the administration jumped from one conflict to another. The ship would spend a record 326 days at sea—a mission that included food shortages, sewage leaks, and a nearly disastrous fire.”
Military priorities change at the whim of an irrational president who cannot sustain a long-term vision, but also at the direction of a director who is more concerned about cliches, like, “No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no radicals. Just warriors.” Cliches don’t win wars, neither do public assassinations. But Hegseth’s war is not with Iran, it is with his own personal addictive demons and we are at the whim of two madmen.
We are a military that is high on war and short on ammo.
Source | Salon
Trump gets richer while gas prices soar
Making a “Killing” on Fossil Fuels
This article, by Salon News Editor, Troy Farah, opens up an exploration of why the Trump regime has no interest in renewable energy or ending the Iran War. And… as all things Trump… the answer is greed. Trump is literally making a “killing” on fossil fuels. The higher the price, the more he makes.
Here is one example that Farah cites: “Trump has caught plenty of these profits, with an August report from the Joint Economic Committee finding that the president ‘owned as much as $45.6 million in oil and gas company stocks in 2025, a portfolio that is now worth as much as $61.1 million given the surge in oil and gas stocks driven by Trump’s war in Iran.’”
Meanwhile, China—who have invested heavily in alternative energy—has not only a plethora of power, but too much. In fact, Youyuan Huang, executive vice chairman of BTR New Material Group, the world’s top maker of battery anode materials, said “China’s grid is a very strong and stable one . . . but we’ve installed too much green energy.”
The Trump regime continues to distribute external blame for the price of diesel, which, according to Farah, has caused at least 16 U.S. trucking companies to go bankrupt and is currently costing truckers almost $1000 each time they fill up their trucks. The regime is fond of saying it is Ukraine’s fault (for bombing Russian oil refineries). And, of course, it is Iran’s fault—though this self-initiated war of Trump’s could be ended at any time. But it won’t be… not as long as Trump continues to get rich off this war and the fossil fuel shortages. Yes, the president is literally making a killing off this shortage. He doesn’t have the concerns of the U.S. or the globe in mind, only his own fortune and power. Farah sees only one way to remedy this gross state of affairs: “The solution is to nail these people to the consequences of their decision. They don’t want to end this crisis, so we must make them.”
Source | ABC News
Hegseth says Hasan execution will be public
Spectacle Politics
On October 7th, according to HuffPost reporter, Jillian Wilson, President Trump was interrupted 12 times by hecklers at a rally for Ken Paxton in the deep red state of Texas. In addition to using the podium to attack his attackers, Trump did something perhaps never-before-seen in the annals of presidential behavior. He stuck his tongue out at a heckler. (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-heckled-body-language_l_6ac7b0eae4b0e825de12ad33?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=user%2Fhuffingtonpost)
Most of us, as adults, would have to spend a great deal of time trying to remember—if ever—the last time we stuck our tongue out at someone. It is not just a sign of helplessness, but also a sign of infantile petulance. It is a sign that we have given up cognitive responses.
On October 8th, Pete Hegseth announced that Nidal Hassan, a former Army Major who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood, Texas, would be executed publicly by firing squad. Currently, the Army has no protocol for public execution by firing squad. The last public execution by the military was carried out in Kentucky in 1936, and the last person executed by firing squad in the military was in 1945.
There is no doubt that Hassan is guilty of the heinous crime he is charged with. He was caught on the scene. He was shot in the back (and crippled) during the arrest.
Donald Trump himself decided that the execution should be carried out by firing squad shortly after the botched execution attempt of Christa Pike in Tennessee.
At this point, we know that everything that this regime is doing is purely for optics/spectacle. Purely to try and win back votes in an upcoming election that appears like it will be a disaster for Trump and the GOP. I’m interested in who advised this tongue-displaying puerile president that a public execution would be good optics.
This is nothing but spectacle politics.
This can’t be just the brainchild of Testosterone Pete. Was this another fiasco concocted by Stephen Miller, because of his hatred for all things not white? No doubt a public execution would appeal to a President who has stooped to tongue protrusion as a defense mechanism. But who instructed him that this would garner votes prior to midterms when they are losing “bigly” on the economy, the Iran War, and the tariff fiasco? Or, is this just another attempt to keep voters from bringing up the Epstein files?
No doubt there will be some people who are morbidly curious enough to watch the military shoot a crippled man bound in a wheelchair. Is that the audience the White House is now looking towards to secure this election? Is this the spectacle that will pull back the MAGA base that is growing ambivalent to their childish master?
It will be interesting now to see who this regime will attempt to force to cover this spectacle or will it only be shown on Trump’s private network: Trump TV: The Essential Network. Will he force billionaires to attend and pay for admittance as he has done with so many of his balls and state dinners? Is this the follow-up to cage wrestling on the White House lawn?
