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War-Making Belongs to Congress―and the Oil Belongs to the People of Venezuela
The question is not whether a particular president’s motives are sincere, nor whether a foreign government is flawed. The question is whether the United States will remain governed by law―or by precedent accumulated through silence.
Jan 09, 2026
The recent Senate debate over U.S. military action in Venezuela exposes a fundamental rupture in American constitutional governance: who has the authority to initiate war. The Constitution answers that question plainly. Yet modern practice―and the arguments advanced in defense of it―have drifted dangerously far from that design. Alongside this constitutional crisis stands a second, inseparable issue: whether the United States may lawfully claim control over the natural resources of another sovereign nation, specifically Venezuela’s oil, under the threat of force.
These questions are not abstract. They determine whether the United States remains governed by law or by precedent accumulated through executive action and congressional silence.
At the center of the debate are two sharply opposed views articulated on the Senate floor. One asserts that the President, as Commander in Chief, may unilaterally use military force whenever he deems it necessary to advance national interests, with Congress relegated to the limited roles of funding restriction or impeachment after the fact. The other insists that the power to initiate war belongs exclusively to Congress, not as a technicality, but as a deliberate constitutional safeguard against impulsive, personalized, or imperial war-making.
Constitutional design and deliberate restraint lie at the heart of the Framers’ intent. Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress―not the President―the power to declare war. Article II assigns the President the authority to command the armed forces once war is authorized and to repel sudden attacks. This division was not accidental. It reflected deep skepticism, shared across the Founding generation, that executives are structurally inclined toward war. James Madison warned that the executive branch is “most prone to it,” driven by secrecy, ambition, and the temptation of unilateral action.
Bombing a foreign capital, removing a sitting head of state, and threatening prolonged military occupation are acts of war by any ordinary, historical, or legal definition. The Constitution does not permit semantic evasions to substitute for authorization.
The Framers, therefore, made war intentionally difficult to launch. They placed the decision in a deliberative body accountable to the people, requiring public debate, recorded votes, and political responsibility. That Congress has too often failed to exercise this duty does not diminish the Constitution’s command. Repeated violations do not convert usurpation into legality. Historical drift explains how power migrated; it does not justify why it should remain there.
Attempts to rebrand large-scale military operations as “law enforcement,” “arrest warrants,” or “limited actions” do not change their substance. Bombing a foreign capital, removing a sitting head of state, and threatening prolonged military occupation are acts of war by any ordinary, historical, or legal definition. The Constitution does not permit semantic evasions to substitute for authorization.
The War Powers Resolution―and the myth of congressional overreach is often invoked as the supposed villain. Critics claim that the 1973 War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional because it allegedly transforms Congress into “535 commanders-in-chief.” This argument inverts constitutional logic. The Resolution does not empower Congress to command troops; it reasserts Congress’s authority to decide whether hostilities initiated by the executive may lawfully continue. It exists precisely because Congress had been sidelined, not because it had seized power.
The statute’s reporting requirements and time limits are accountability mechanisms, not vetoes of military command. Congress’s true failure has not been excessive interference but persistent abdication―avoiding the political responsibility of authorizing war while permitting presidents to act first and justify later. That abdication corrodes checks and balances and transfers the gravest decision a democracy can make into the hands of one person.
Sovereignty, coercion, and Venezuela’s oil bring the constitutional crisis into sharp international focus. The claim that the United States may seize, sell, or administer Venezuelan oil for “mutual benefit” or reconstruction collapses under legal scrutiny. As reaffirmed by the United Nations Secretary-General, Venezuela’s oil belongs to the Venezuelan people. This is not rhetoric; it is a cornerstone principle of international law grounded in state sovereignty and permanent sovereignty over natural resources.
Any alleged “agreement” cited by the Trump administration with a Venezuelan interim authority cannot be credibly described as a genuine agreement at all. Consent extracted under duress is not consent. When a population faces a clear and present threat of escalating military force―further ground operations, hundreds more civilian deaths, and a highly probable invasion―what follows is not agreement but coerced acquiescence. Allowing foreign control of national resources under the shadow of overwhelming military power is not voluntary cooperation; it is survival under threat.
The decision to go to war is not merely strategic. It is moral, constitutional, and irrevocable.
International law does not recognize resource transfers imposed by force or intimidation as legitimate. To do so would resurrect a doctrine of conquest the modern international order was built to reject. If oil may be seized in Venezuela today because military pressure makes resistance impossible, it may be seized anywhere tomorrow by any power willing to invoke its own version of “national interest.”
Such actions erode not only international norms but the United States’ own legal and moral standing. They convert foreign policy from diplomacy into extraction and military power from defense into appropriation.
Democratic accountability and the cost of war demand a return to constitutional first principles. The decision to go to war is not merely strategic. It is moral, constitutional, and irrevocable. It places citizens in harm’s way, reshapes international relations, and unleashes consequences that last generations. That is precisely why the Constitution assigns the initiation of war to Congress.
Congressional authorization does not weaken national security; it strengthens it by conferring legitimacy, public consent, and strategic clarity. History shows that when the United States has truly been attacked, Congress has acted swiftly and decisively. What the Framers sought to prevent was not defense, but adventurism―wars launched without deliberation, accountability, or consent.
Allowing one individual to initiate war, seize foreign leaders, and appropriate another nation’s resources without congressional approval collapses the separation of powers and invites abuse. It replaces law with discretion, deliberation with impulse, and sovereignty with force.
In the end, the question is not whether a particular president’s motives are sincere, nor whether a foreign government is flawed. The question is whether the United States will remain governed by law―or by precedent accumulated through silence. On that question, the Constitution is unambiguous.
War begins with Congress.
And Venezuela’s oil belongs to Venezuelans.
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It Is Long Past Time to Block the Bombs to Israel
The people of Gaza have already waited too long, but now there can be no other course but rapid action to end US complicity in the genocide Israel is conducting with the help of US weapons funded by our tax dollars.
Sep 20, 2025
Many people in the United States are understandably jaded by our current politics. Partisan divisions and corporate special interest domination of the agenda seemingly stymie solutions to our myriad problems, leaving ordinary citizens frustrated at our collective inability to advance sustainable solutions.
And yet, there are times when a situation is so dire, and the answer so clear, that mass common sense spreads like wildfire. This is such a time, with regard to mass public revulsion to Israel’s genocide (with a growing number of Members of Congress calling Israel's actions a genocide, including U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and forced starvation of the Palestinian population ofGaza. By all accounts, Israel could not sustain this humanitarian calamity without U.S. weaponry, and recent U.S. public opinion polls show a decisive turn against Israel’s actions.
It is long past time to block the bombs to Israel.
The Biden Administration’s support for Israel was bad, but predictably, Trump has been worse, accelerating transfers of bombs and guns with monolithic Republican, and far too much Democratic, support, in spite of Israel’s clear violations of U.S. and international law in its mass killing of civilians and denial of life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza.
That situation is changing, as at the end of July, a majority of Democratic and Independent Senators voted to prevent two proposed weapons transfers to Israel. Not a single Republican joined them in this or the previous two rounds of votes on Joint Resolutions of Disapproval on specific weapons transfers to Israel since last November, all introduced by US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT). More votes of this kind will likely follow, as the Senate allows for expedited, privileged resolutions on certain matters, whereas issues are much more easily bottled up by the majority in the House of Representatives.
However, the House is far from silent on this issue, as a growing number of Democratic and (again, no Republican) Representatives have signed on as cosponsors on HR 3565, the Block the Bombs to Israel bill introduced by US Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL). The bill now has 47 cosponsors, and the number is steadily rising.
Over the August congressional recess, pro-peace organizers around the country raised the call to Ban the Bombs to Israel, including by protesting at congressional town hall meetings. Perhaps the most notable was that of Missouri freshman US Rep. Wesley Bell, who ousted progressive incumbent Cori Bush, who had introduced a bill advocating a ceasefire, with Bell receiving over $12 million in campaign cash from the pro-genocide organization AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee). Security at the event forcibly removed peaceful, nonviolent protesters.
The bill is as close as we have to a de facto arms embargo on Israel, as it would ban transfers of seven specific offensive weapons systems, from bunker busting bombs to tank ammunition to white phosphorus artillery munitions. While House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republican majority will probably not allow the bill to advance, even to consideration by a House committee, building support to Ban the Bombs to Israel can help put pressure on President Trump (who recently blurted out that Israel had lost its "total control" of Congress) to exert leverage on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to end his inhumane slaughter in Gaza.
In addition to further votes on Joint Resolutions of Disapproval on specific weapons transfers to Israel, the Senate could also move privileged measures including a War Powers Resolution to prevent further support for Israel’s actions in Gaza, or an inquiry under section 502(B) of the Foreign Assistance Act for Israel’s clear violations of U.S. law. Or, the Senate could attach language such as that in the House Block the Bombs bill as an amendment to an Appropriations Bill.
None of those actions would be an easy lift, and would not be likely to pass (or override an expected presidential veto) but the reality now is the political tide has turned decisively against Israel.
Perhaps the simplest way to look at this is that advocates for peace and human rights have done their job, and the public has responded, as only 8% of Democrats approve of Israel’s actions in Gaza, with the overall number at only 32%, according to a recent Gallup poll.
So now it’s time for Congress to represent the will of the people, and do its job. It is far past time to help end the nightmare in Gaza by blocking the bombs to Israel.
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Trump 'Took a Hatchet' to Major US Climate Report by Dismissing All Its Authors
"The only beneficiaries of disrupting or killing this report are the fossil fuel industry and those intent on boosting oil and gas profits," said one person who was working on the 6th National Climate Assessment.
Apr 29, 2025
Hundreds of scientists and experts working on the National Climate Assessment were dismissed by the Trump administration via email on Monday, casting doubt on the future of the federal government's flagship climate report, which was slated to come out by 2028.
On Monday, those working on the 6th version of the report received an email from the Trump administration that the scope of the assessment is being "reevaluated in accordance with the Global Change Research Act of 1990"—in reference to the legislation that mandated the creation of the National Climate Assessment.
"We are now releasing all current assessment participants from their roles," continued the email, the text of which was included in a Monday statement from the group the Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Today, the Trump administration senselessly took a hatchet to a crucial and comprehensive U.S. climate science report by dismissing its authors without cause or a plan," said Dr. Rachel Cleetus, a senior policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists and an author for the 6th National Climate Assessment (NCA) on the coasts chapter, said on Monday. "People around the nation rely on the NCA to understand how climate change is impacting their daily lives already and what to expect in the future. While not policy prescriptive, the findings of previous reports underscore the importance of cutting heat-trapping emissions and investing in climate resilience to protect communities and the economy."
"The only beneficiaries of disrupting or killing this report are the fossil fuel industry and those intent on boosting oil and gas profits at the expense of people's health and the nation's economic well-being," added Cleetus.
Since entering office, Trump has signed executive orders aimed at bolstering oil, gas, and coal and installed Cabinet members with ties to the fossil fuel industry.
The assessment, which is required by Congress, has been released every few years since 2000 and gives a rundown of how global warming is impacting different sectors of the economy, ecosystems, and communities. The energy and environment focused outlet E&E News reported Tuesday that the report is "seen by experts as the definitive body of research about how global warming is transforming the country."
The report last came out in 2023. That National Climate Assessment established that the "effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region" of the United States. The report's authors warned that absent deeper cuts in fossil fuel emissions and accelerated adaption efforts compared to what's currently underway, "severe climate risks to the United States will continue to grow."
Earlier in April, the Trump administration enacted cuts to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which oversees the production of the National Climate Assessment.
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