March 12 2026, When Power Abuses, the People Respond | Power to the People News
March 12, 2026 | ICE posed as cops, defied court orders, and left death cards in communities. Here's what happened this week — and what you can do about it.
When Power Abuses, the People Respond
Something is being tested right now — not just policies, but the foundational commitments of democratic life. Across the country, the same pattern is playing out in different arenas: those with power quietly expanding it, and those without it finding ways to push back. The stories below are not isolated incidents. They are a portrait of a system under pressure, and of people refusing to simply accept it.
💥 Your Power in Action: What You Can Do Today
🔊 Tell Congress: Block Trump’s Election Denier Pick to Lead DHS,
👉 Power up: Reject Markwayne Mullins Confirmation, ☎️ Call your Senator at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to vote NO on Mullin for DHS
📢 Be the change Tell State AGs: Block the Warner-Paramount Mega-Merger
Make your voice heard: 🚫 Not One Dime for Trump’s War, 📋 Sign the petition: Tell Congress: Stop Trump’s Illegal War in Iran
🎬 Speak out now: Tell Your Secretary of State: No ICE at the Polls.
🚨Use your voice: Stop the next Great Recession before it starts
BONUS: 🗳️ Make your voice heard Register to vote, vote in every election, and help your community do the same. Reproductive freedom is won and lost at the ballot box.
BONUS: 👑🚫 Drive the change Sign up for the next national No Kings Day of Action and show up in solidarity with everyone whose rights are under attack.
The movement for progress and power to the people starts here.
📰 Stories Shaping Power to the People Right Now
The Surveillance Dressed as Safety
A bipartisan package of “child online safety” bills — including the Kids Online Safety Act — is advancing through the House. The catch: there is no way to verify age without verifying identity, which means these laws would effectively end online anonymity for everyone. Civil liberties groups warn the result would be mass surveillance that exposes whistleblowers, protest organizers, undocumented immigrants, and LGBTQ+ youth. The Heritage Foundation has publicly stated it intends to use KOSA to scrub LGBTQIA+ and abortion content from the internet. And the primary beneficiaries of mandatory ID verification? The very Big Tech companies — including Meta and Elon Musk’s X — that these bills claim to regulate. The Intercept
A War Nobody Voted For
Six days of Operation Epic Fury cost more than $11.3 billion, according to a closed-door Pentagon briefing to senators — and that number doesn’t include personnel, preparation, or ongoing operations. Munitions replacement costs alone exceed $10 billion. Trump called it a “short-term excursion.” His Defense Secretary called it “only just the beginning.” Seven American service members have died. Congress was never asked to authorize any of it. Politico / NBC News
Stripping Workers, One Contract at a Time
The Treasury Department has unilaterally terminated collective bargaining agreements covering roughly 150,000 federal workers across 37 agencies — stripping union representation in disciplinary cases and halting ongoing negotiations. A federal court issued an injunction to block it. A Ninth Circuit panel cleared the way anyway. Workers remain on the job while the ground shifts beneath them. Seattle Times / AP
Detroit’s Line in the Sand
Detroit police officers violated department policy by calling Border Patrol during routine traffic stops, leading to detentions of immigrants who hadn’t been charged with any crime. When the chief initially moved to fire the officers, ICE posted on X encouraging them to join federal ranks. He backed down. The city has maintained a welcoming policy since 2007. The federal government is now working to dismantle it. Guardian
The Electoral Endgame
The Trump administration is pushing legislation that would impose strict federal voter ID requirements and expand state authority over election administration in ways critics say open the door to partisan interference. Voter suppression, gerrymandering, and administrative manipulation are not new tools — but the scale, speed, and institutional backing are. This is Project 2025’s electoral strategy moving toward law. Mother Jones
Children Detained for Protesting
In Quakertown, Pennsylvania, a student protest against ICE led to police confrontations, arrests, and extended juvenile detention. Video of the confrontations spread quickly. Parents and community members are demanding answers about why minors exercising their constitutional right to protest were held — and what message authorities intended to send. Seattle Times
Bureaucratic Punishment, No Law Required
Immigrants released from ICE detention are reporting that their documents — work permits, identification cards — were kept by the agency, making it nearly impossible to work, access services, or rebuild their lives. No judge ordered it. No law requires it. It is administrative punishment carried out without review. Mother Jones
The True Cost of Oil Dependency
The U.S.-Israeli operation on Iran sent oil prices surging, disrupted global shipping, and spiked U.S. gas prices by more than 25 cents per gallon in a single week. Meanwhile, Greenland’s fishermen — on an island the Trump administration covets but whose people it ignores — are watching their livelihoods dissolve as Arctic sea ice retreats, fishing waters shift, and halibut populations shrink from desperate overfishing. And scientists publishing in Science warn that Trump’s rollback of Endangered Species Act protections, combined with NOAA’s pivot from ocean science to mineral prospecting, may accelerate irreversible coral reef collapse before the next El Niño even arrives in 2026. Taken together, these are not separate crises. They are the compounding costs of choosing extraction over resilience. Seattle Times
🔥 What Comes Next: The Work Is Ours
None of what’s described here is inevitable — and none of it will reverse itself. Writing in The Nation, commentators are calling on Democrats to establish a formal, public-facing accountability project: documenting abuses, building an evidentiary record, developing legal theories for future prosecution. The argument is simple. Impunity accelerates authoritarian behavior. When officials believe consequences are impossible, abuses escalate. Accountability, even prospective accountability, raises the political cost of lawbreaking now.
But formal institutions are only one part of the response. The rest belongs to people — communities demanding answers in Quakertown, Detroit residents pushing back against federal pressure, scientists issuing public warnings at professional and personal risk, workers refusing to quietly accept the erasure of their rights. Democracy does not sustain itself. It is sustained by people who treat it as something worth defending.
That work has always been ours. Right now, it is more urgent than it has been in a long time.
Together, we can champion our rights, freedoms, and democracy, hold our leaders accountable to the people’s will, and inspire voters to make a meaningful difference.
Laurie Woodward Garcia
(paid with hugs and kisses, not bought by special interests)
Leader, People Power United
People Power United | In this community, we will always speak out against racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, misogyny, sexism, ageism, ableism, sizeism, elitism, transphobia, misogynoir, and bigotry!
Join the Resistance
This is our moment to rise, resist, and reclaim our democracy. Millions of Americans are already refusing to back down — in the streets, at the ballot box, and in their communities.
The blueprint for fascism is written. The resistance starts here.