Youth Advocacy
Youth Advocacy
Year 4, Week 46 (296 total reports)
11.02.2026-17.02.2026
REVIEW and ANNOUNCEMENTS
Dr. Jerry Goebel
This is a violent, fascist regime that is damaging our reputation internally and externally. This week, we examine commentaries and articles that tell us how to peacefully fight back.
Visual Stories!
We owe a debt to the people of Minneapolis. Their stance of nonviolence in the face of radical violence by this administration’s masked death squads is a timeless lesson in standing up to oppression. This song, modeled after the anti-T.R.U.M.P. band “Green Day,” focuses on the debt we owe to that city and its leaders. https://youtu.be/Oy3_U_MKpLs?si=9wvNFOJ-qiiaBZ9u
Top Links of the Week
17.02.2026
February 15, 2026
If I can use this blog to point to stellar writers like David Frum and Heather Cox Richardson, then I would be happy. In this commentary by Ms. Cox Richardson, she helps us understand the goings-on at the recent gathering of the 62nd Munich Security Conference. First, she presents the history of the event and the historic relevance of this year’s gathering, where their new report states: “We may be present at its destruction (of the conference). ‘The world has entered a period of wrecking-ball politics. Sweeping destruction—rather than careful reforms and policy corrections—is the order of the day. The most prominent of those who promise to free their countries from the existing order’s constraints and rebuild stronger, more prosperous nations is the current US administration.’” Marcus Rubio was present to do what sycophants regularly do for this administration. While their “Dear Leader” tweets from behind walls in eerily early morning hours, his lackeys are sent to “tone it down” and tell us what Project 2025 really wanted Donald to say. Also present were a number of representatives like Gavin Newsom, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Representative Jason Crow. They pleaded on behalf of keeping the door open for a saner United States in the future, with Crow stating: “Our foreign policy is being turned into an extortion ring for Big Oil, for the Trump family, for elites…” The damage of this administration will be long-lasting, but we can’t just point to them and say, “They’ll be gone soon…” We must also remember all the people that voted—and still support—this administration. And all the people who did not show up to vote. We must be courageous and bold, like the people of Minneapolis, if we hope to end the MAGA era and Project 2025. A slight win at the polls will not be enough in the midterms. With all the manipulations that this administration is preparing to do, we must let the MAGA faithful know their time is done and they will not be tolerated. Let your representatives see and hear you! Do not let your guard down or give up hope. If we can learn anything from the people of Minneapolis, it is that this violent administration can—and will be—defeated.
16.02.2026
A short note to Kristi Noem
Thank you to Robert Reich for this column; it really sizes up what I and apparently many other U.S. citizens are thinking right now. Kristi Noem, who made her early claim to fame by shooting her dog and bragging about it on social media, continues her unethical, immoral, and even illegal campaign to attack the American people on Donald T.R.U.M.P.’s behalf by assigning officers to illegally collect the names of people who say irksome things about her pet project, I.C.E. Essentially, Reich tells her, “Look me up…” He then does a short review of Noem’s stint as a cabinet member and not only the poor job she has done, but also the illegal actions she has taken. If you, like me, post items that might disturb ICE Barbie’s sensibilities. Our names are likely to turn up in her database. Hopefully, the only access she will have to that database in a few years will be from those who visit her in prison.
13.02.2026
How Trump Could Break the 2026 Elections
This is my second blog reviewing this important podcast from David Frum of The Atlantic. Frum continues his conversation with Stephen Richer about how the T.R.U.M.P. Administration could undermine voting in 2026 and beyond. Sadly, it wouldn’t be as difficult as many people think. They both (Frum and Richer) point out that all that this administration needs to do is disrupt voting in key polling stations across the U.S. That’s important, not all the polling places, but less than a dozen key ones. The invasion of the Macon County Elections Office is a dry run of what they could do elsewhere. If they can create the illusion of discrepancy (and just the illusion would do), it would give Speaker Mike Johnson (already one of T.R.U.M.P.’s minions) the ability to refuse to seat members from the House in those districts. This would prevent Johnson from handing over the gavel to the minority House Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and prevent a democratic majority in the House that could call for the president’s impeachment. Stephen Bannon has already said they would send Homeland Security Agents to surround polling stations around the nation, but this strategy reveals that it doesn’t have to be “all” the stations across the nation—or even a lot—only the ones in contested districts that Republicans stand to lose. That’s how the Democrats could lose the next election and how the current administration could maintain power. Let’s hope the Democratic leadership has a strategy to block this possibility and, in the meantime, let’s make sure we “keep our feet down on the street” (as Vaclav Havel and Mark Carney encourage us). Remember, there are Republicans who are beginning to turn against this administration and they need to see our faces and hear our voices. Be courageous, remain resilient, be a dissident.
12.02.2026
How Trump Could Break the 2026 Elections
There is so much in this podcast from The Atlantic, by David Frum, that I’m going to do something unusual and take two days to discuss it. This podcast delves into three important topics. First, Frum examines the racist and idiotic video posted by T.R.U.M.P. featuring the Obamas as simians, which was posted, then rapidly removed (apparently, as soon as the sycophants around the president found out what their doddering overseer had been doing with his phone late at night). This is how Mr. Frum reviews it, “When the president is acting like some kind of internet troll, some kind of Klansman with access to an AI machine, he discredits everything that his administration is doing that looks like something that another administration might also do.” Secondly, Frum goes on to interview Stephen Richer, the former Republican County Recorder of Maricopa County, who has probably been closer to Ground Zero in this administration’s attempts to undermine the 2020 elections than any other authority. Frum points out that Richer’s bravery and fortitude during the attacks directed at him while county recorder are unmatched. Here’s how Richer recalls it… “It’s like Whac-a-Mole. And weirdly, the burden of proof always seems to be on those of us who won all the court cases, those of us who won all of the audits, and yet it’s on us to disprove every single wild-eyed allegation. I really hate that framework—I think it should instead be on the movant, so to speak, on the people who are alleging the thing, to have to bear the burden of proof.” Richter and Frum analyze the recent break-in at the Georgia elections office. They recount that some of the wilder conspiracy theories circulating are that the election was rigged by Maduro from Venezuela, and that—in exchange for his release—he will admit to using some “Magical Software” to fix the 2020 elections. Tulsi Gabbard’s presence was not requested by anyone (although T.R.U.M.P. said that Pam Bondi was behind it), but Gabbard felt she was not getting enough air time with “Dear Leader” and being on the scene would increase her presence within his inner sphere. The bottom line is this: Europe is passing laws that punish a politician if they lie to people; the U.S. is backwards. If there is anything this administration excels at, it is conspiracy theories, and—even if they are outlandish—Richer’s point is that the burden of proof is on disproving them, not proving them. This administration has weaponized falsehood, and the onus is on us to verify the validity of what they say. One thing is certain: if it comes out of the lips of this administration, ask these questions: 1) Is it verifiable? and 2) What do they benefit by lying? Tomorrow, we will cover more of this conversation and look at Frum’s third area, the 250th anniversary of the publishing of the literary series, “The [History of the] Decline and Fall of Rome.”
11.02.2026
The US slips to its lowest-ever rank in a global corruption index
Pam Bondi meets with the House Judiciary Committee today, and according to this poll by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), that hearing couldn’t be more timely. The U.S., according to Hanna Ziady of CNN Business, is slipping in transparency and increasing in the perception of corruption by its own citizens. Now, the United States has reached a point where we awaken daily to a new atrocity committed by this administration against its own people. Most of those atrocities are fueled by a justice department, led by Pam Bondi, that does whatever this administration tells it to do. Let’s hope that today’s hearing makes that clear and that the Democratic leadership will do more than whine about the situation. Polls like this reveal how deeply the fabric of the democracy in the U.S. is fraying. Coupled with the 2025 Human Rights Watch report on the declining state of civil rights in the United States, these combined reports should leave lawmakers (and those who voted for this administration) ashamed. This is the direct result of those who voted for this administration—or stayed home instead of voting. This is the country they are responsible for; there is no possible way anyone can say, “We didn’t expect this…” T.R.U.M.P. made it clear he was going to be a dictator, and they elected him anyway. But this attack can be blunted, as the people of Minneapolis revealed, by organized, consistent acts of nonviolence. We are strongest when we take to the streets together. When our voices are united. When we act like we believe that courage is stronger than corruption.
