Youth Advocacy
✊ Weekly Review & Announcements
12.08.2026-18.08.2026
The Regime of Cowardice
Cowardice is our defining theme this week. We are witnessing a leadership that hides away while leaving others behind as decoys. Concurrently, a complicit Congress refuses to challenge the unchecked installation of a weaponized Justice Department. This system is actively pivoting to protect corruption and carry out personal retribution. It is a regime built on pure, unadulterated cowardice.
A Gift for the Frontlines
For those standing on the frontlines of resistance, your exhaustion is seen, and your resilience is vital. If you are organizing, turning out voters, or monitoring stations for this upcoming November election, I am preparing a direct gift for you. Keep a sharp eye on this space for a completely free digital compilation of my resilience music to fuel your fire on the ground.
🎬 Visual Stories: "They Ain't Gonna"
While this administration actively plots to impose a corporate, mudsill economy that strips the working class to enrich billionaires, our communities are standing shoulder-to-shoulder. We have a different answer: "They Ain't Gonna."
Watch the Anthem
This track is a direct, uncompromising Southern rock and outlaw country confrontation against authoritarian governance and administrative deceit. It is explicitly built to inspire educators, youth advocates, and independent thinkers who refuse to watch our Constitution dismantled
Watch the Visual Story on YouTube: They Ain't Gonna... Video Anthem
Support Independent Advocacy: Stream or purchase the high-quality studio track directly from the Communities of Trust Web Store to keep this mission entirely self-sustaining.
🌍 Join the Movement
Do not let them isolate you. Connect with our community across platforms to coordinate, share resources, and keep pushing back:
Central Hub: Find all primary resources at linktr.ee/docjerr.
Weekly Strategy: Read and share the deep dives on Substack at @drjerrygoebel.
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Community Action: Connect with fellow advocates on Facebook at Doc Jerr Profile.
Direct Inquiries: For keynote speaking events, workshops, or youth advocacy consultations, contact me directly at goebeljerry@me.com.
Articles and Commentary
18.08.2026 | Source: The National Magazine
Tracking the Crisis: Running on Empty
Jump Ship…
The man the U.S. elected was a king of bankruptcy before he was a president. He was a failure in business management, a failure in marriage, and by all measurable means, a failure in morality. Yet, voters chose him. Now he’s bringing the same failing mindset to the nation that elected him. He has depleted U.S. weapons, he has depleted U.S. trust, he has depleted the U.S. oil reserves, he is destroying the U.S. economy, and now we have reports of naval members on the U.S.S. Lincoln depleted of sanitary conditions, safe food, and other essentials of life. The U.S.S. Lincoln is a perfect example of the United States itself. Many are ready to “jump ship.”
And, where is the Commander in Chief? Taking calls from either his golf cart or hiding in a catering cart while leaving staff and journalists to die in his place. If Trump were the captain of the Titanic, he’d be the first to “jump ship.” He’d be pushing women and children out of the way to stock his own lifeboat and leave everyone else behind.
This article, by the editorial staff of The National Magazine, examines the many ways that Trump has “jumped ship” and left the people of the United States depleted… running on empty.
17.08.2026 | Source: NPR
Adults have struggled to set rules for AI in school. These teens figured it out
https://text.npr.org/nx-s1-5853571?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=topic/u.s.politics
I’ve always believed that finding sustainable solutions lies in empowering the people closest to the problem to create them. According to Cory Turner, that is exactly what happened recently when a group of high school juniors and seniors from across the United States were gathered in a mock Senate hearing to create solutions to the issue of AI’s use in schools.
These brilliant young men and women crafted what they called, “The Student’s First Act,” and, according to Turner, included some of the following requirements: “States should provide AI literacy as soon as students get access to classroom devices; AI use should be banned on all graded tests; and teachers can require an oral defense of any project from a student suspected of using AI inappropriately.” (Turner includes a full copy of the bill in his article).
This is a wonderful example of “how it’s done”: Empower the people closest to the problem to develop their own solution, and they will always craft something more sustainable and applicable than anyone else.
15.08.2026 | Source: The Atlantic
A Green Light for Crooks
Casey Michel is an author who wrote the book, “United States of Oligarchy: How America’s Wealthiest Align with Dictators, Weaken the U.S., and Destroy Democracy.” That background surely comes to the fore while analyzing the work of the Republicans and Trump’s Treasury Department under Scott Bessant this week. Here’s how Michel puts it: “On Tuesday, the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced that businesses formed in the United States would no longer need to disclose their actual owners, and that nearly all the data already gathered on such companies would be destroyed.”
As the title of this article suggests, this is basically a “Green Light for Crooks.” Not only has this regime promised to allow wealthy individuals to hide their investments, but they will go on to destroy any information that’s already held about such ownership. This means that drug dealers (or wealthy U.S. citizens) can hide money in any shell company of their choosing. It also means, according to Michel’s: “Now anyone, domestic or foreign, can secretly barrel as much money into American elections as they want.”
As if U.S. politics weren’t replete with dirty money enough once Mitch McConnell shepherded “Citizens United” through a cash-hungry Congress.
These oligarchic policies will further imbed politics into the hands of the wealthy, and they will not be stopped by the regime and Republicans who favor them as a primary means to raise money and retain power. Welcome to Trump’s America: Land of the thieves and home of the corrupt. Trump voters: “This is on you…”
14.08.2026 | Source: TNR
The Endless, Maddening Wait for a Woman President
“A promise just a little too far away to be kept…” that’s how Ana Maria Cox describes the promise of a woman being elected to the United States’ presidency. She researches and offers insights on the history and offers insights into why women have almost been president so many times, but voters continue to deny them the office. I thought her most insightful comment was: “The history of people telling women they will not become president is rage-bait. ‘Never’ is always ‘never.’ But a march through the history of ‘soon’ leaves a mark on the heart. Over one hundred years of ‘someday’ makes each next chance feel even further away, not closer. Certainly, women are not the only group that hasn’t had their turn in the Oval Office; our grief is not unique—or rather each intersectionality can claim its own particular shade of mourning. What all women can share is the familiar sense of a promise just a little too far away to be kept.”
Maria Cox speaks about four women who possibly have a shot at the office in the 2028 Presidential election: Gretchen Whitmer, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kamala Harris, and possibly, Amy Klobuchar (especially if she wins the race for Governor of Minnesota).
The journalist also addresses social-psychological issues of why women have “almost made it” using the term, “pluralistic ignorance”; when people say they are willing to do something (like vote for a woman), but given the opportunity, consistently do not.
I, like many others, would like to be part of the generation that sees this glass ceiling finally shattered. In fact, I long for it. Living in Mexico right now, I see the impact that a woman president can have on a country. Claudia Sheinbaum has brought universal free health care to all citizens of this country. Pew Research Center puts her favorability rating at 64%, and some polls go as high as 68% (Enkoll/El Pais). The United States has twice elected a rapist and pedophile to the Presidency over women, and he now has an historically low approval rating of 32%. The closest thing to a health plan that the U.S. has is being dismantled in favor of tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy. I honestly pine for this “…promise just a little too far away to be kept.”
13.08.2026 | Source: Huffpost
Trump Abandons Air Force Crew, Secret Service, Press And His Own Staff As Expendable Bait
Yesterday we looked at how the Republican Congress “Smells of Helplessness.” I think they will go down in history as the “Cowardly Congress” (if not something worse along the lines of “Traitorous…”).
Yet, the ranking coward is the man they follow, the Predator in Chief, Donald J. Trump.
Many of you know—or have seen the memes of Trump abandoning his illegal “Gift Plane” from Qatar, by hiding in a catering truck and being taken to a different jet.
Why? Because his new Qatar Play Thing isn’t secured properly.
In this article by S.V. Date, the journalist identifies a number of alternatives available to Trump so that his staff and the press corp (probably up to 100 plus people with crew and Secret Service) wouldn’t have been like they were flying in a clay pigeon.
Instead of choosing any of these options, Don, the cowardly lion (liar), had the press pull down their window shades (so they didn’t see him creeping away) while he snuck into a military aircraft and jetted away. When both planes arrived safely at Mildenhall Air Base in England for refueling, Trump was secreted back aboard the original plane so it would look like he never left.
Presidents have changed modes of transportation in the past due to security risks, but no president has been so cowardly, so reckless with the lives of others, and so inept in trying to fool others that he was actually “braving it out” on the original flight.
This is the cowardly leader, adored by a cowardly Congress. If this Congress “smells of helplessness,” this president reeks of it.
12.08.2026 | Source: Alternet
Total 'impotence': How Trump broke wounded Republicans
Republicans had a chance to stop Trump from appointing his mafiasque consigliere, Todd Blanche, to head the Department of Justice (now the DOR: Department of Retribution), but, in typical Republican fashion, they caved.
This article by Matthew Rozsa looks at how even the lame-duck Republicans that Trump undermined caved in to their master.
A couple of terms that captured my attention were Rozsa’s use of “Lawfare.” For the intentional way this regime has used the courts to bury people with lawsuits. That is only going to increase under Blanche.
He also cites Nick Cattagio, from The Dispatch, speaking about Sen. Bill Cassidy about the Senators’ approval of Blanche, saying: “That vote was morally indefensible but legible as a matter of expedience…”
Cassidy also said that he voted for Blanche because Trump’s next pick “could be worse.”
Rozsa goes on to say that the way Senate Republicans are voting, “smells of helplessness…”
That typifies this Republican Congress to me; they “smell of helplessness.”
Let’s make sure we do not accept this odor or take it on ourselves. Let us encourage each other to not “smell of helplessness” and reject any person for public office that does.
