The push for emergency legislative action came as the U.S. president expressed his intention to further intervene in Venezuela, Jake Johnson reports.
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar attending pro-Palestine demonstration at the University of Texas at Austin, April 25, 2024. (ScreamOfTheNight /Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0)
Members of the U.S. Congress on Saturday demanded emergency legislative action to prevent the Trump administration from taking further military action in Venezuela after the president threatened a “second wave” of attacks and said the U.S. will control the South American country’s government indefinitely.
Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said that “Congress should vote immediately on a War Powers Resolution to stop” President Donald Trump, whose administration has for months unlawfully bombed boats in international waters and threatened a direct military assault on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.
“Trump has no right to take us to war with Venezuela. This is reckless and illegal,” said Casar. “My entire life, politicians have been sending other people’s kids to die in reckless regime change wars. Enough. No new wars.”
Another prominent CPC member, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), said in response to the bombing of Venezuela and capture of its president that “these are the actions of a rogue state.”
“Trump’s illegal and unprovoked bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president are grave violations of international law and the U.S. Constitution,” Tlaib wrote on social media. “The American people do not want another regime change war abroad.”
Trump’s illegal and unprovoked bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president are grave violations of international law and the U.S. Constitution. These are the actions of a rogue state.
The American people do not want another regime change war abroad.
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) January 3, 2026
Progressives weren’t alone in criticizing the administration’s unauthorized military action in Venezuela. Establishment Democrats, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and others, also called for urgent congressional action in the face of Trump’s latest unlawful bombing campaign.
“Without congressional approval or the buy-in of the public, Trump risks plunging a hemisphere into chaos and has broken his promise to end wars instead of starting them,” Schiff said in a statement. “Congress must bring up a new War Powers Resolution and reassert its power to authorize force or to refuse to do so. We must speak for the American people who profoundly reject being dragged into new wars.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said he will force a Senate vote next week on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution to block additional U.S. military action in Venezuela.
“Where will this go next?” Kaine asked in a statement, adding:.
“Will the president deploy our troops to protect Iranian protesters? To enforce the fragile ceasefire in Gaza? To battle terrorists in Nigeria? To seize Greenland or the Panama Canal? To suppress Americans peacefully assembling to protest his policies? Trump has threatened to do all this and more and sees no need to seek legal authorization from people’s elected legislature before putting service members at risk.”
“It is long past time for Congress to reassert its critical constitutional role in matters of war, peace, diplomacy, and trade,” Kaine added. “My bipartisan resolution stipulating that we should not be at war with Venezuela absent a clear congressional authorization will come up for a vote next week.”
The lawmakers’ push for legislative action came as Trump clearly indicated that his administration isn’t done intervening in Venezuela’s internal politics — and plans to exploit the country’s vast oil reserves.
During a press conference on Saturday, Trump said that the U.S. “is going to run” Venezuela, signaling the possibility of a troop deployment.
“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” the president said in response to a reporter’s question, adding vaguely that his administration is “designating various people” to run the government.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump, War Secretary Pete Hegseth during a press conference Saturday on the U.S. invasion of Venezuela and seizure of President Nicolas Maduro. (Video still/White House/X)
Whether the GOP-controlled Congress acts to constrain the Trump administration will depend on support from Republicans, who have largely applauded the U.S. attack on Venezuela and capture of Maduro. In separate statements, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) described the operation as “decisive” and justified.
Ahead of Saturday’s assault, the Republican-controlled Congress rejected War Powers Resolutions aimed at preventing Trump from launching a war on Venezuela without lawmakers’ approval.
One Republican lawmaker who had raised constitutional concerns about Saturday’s actions, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, appeared to drop them after a phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
But Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) noted in a statement that both Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “looked every senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change.”
“I didn’t trust them then, and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress,” said Kim. “Trump rejected our constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.”
Jake Johnson is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
If seeking this vote was like finding a needle in a haystack which woould give better odds ?
Wating .
Poly market got a cracker ?
Will China dump US bonds in response to this regime change for oil scam?
You mean continue to dump them, almost certainly? It’s been quietly dumping them for a while.
Continuity of agenda. The decades long Neo-Con, Zionist, war on Venezuela, Cuba, China, Russia, Sudan, Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia, Guinea-Bisseau, Eritrea, Chad, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon throughout D& R administrations alike, is being more blatantly illegally fought by the Oligarch Buffoon in Chief as the sun sets over the US Empire. The plutocratic Uni-party allowed the executive this power, and now that they have, the D wing cries about it. How fitting.
100% correct. Love the response.
The United Nations Security Council will convene an emergency meeting to address the situation in Venezuela at 10 AM on January 5, 2026.
The whole world will be watching…
Don’t hold your breath !
The UN has been shown to be a powerless talking shop, nothing has changed, nothing will change.
The Democrats have been so spineless for so long. I expect they will complain for a few days or weeks, then let it drop. I will be shocked if they actually do anything to slow Trump’s rampage down. Their corporate- and war-friendly policies have made them extremely unpopular with most Americans. I am a registered Democrat (at this point just so I can vote in their primaries), and I detest what the Democrats have become. Are they as bad as Trump? No, but that isn’t saying much at all.
This. Personally, I think Congress is relieved Trump bypassed them so they don’t have to be on record. Pretty sure they would have authorized the attack, but that would have been unpopular with a lot of voters. So now they’ll make some noises bleating at Trump, then they’ll go along with it.
The upper middle class whom the D party really represents were bewildered by the last election. Because it wasn’t important to them, they didn’t understand the reality of places like the Rust Belt–obvious to anyone who bothered to look. So what the party bailed out Wall Street after ’08 while millions among the majority working class who lost jobs, pensions, houses got nothing? Both parties have the same wealthy and corporate sponsors. And let’s not forget the Biden Dept. of State was run by neocons trained by Dick Cheney. The Ivy D elite is smoother and much more articulate, but they, too, are mesmerized by power. They’re quite willing to conspire with the Rs, shown by their behavior in NYC. Some dissident Ds may tell the truth, but they will be hit with a barrage of propaganda accusing them of being unAmerican. Ray McGovern’s acronym MICIMATT is right on: Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence Media Academia Think Tank complex.
Make America Grotesque Again – Check!
Make America Grate Again?
For some observers there was never any lag in the “metric.”
Depending on how far Washington intends to press things, there is the potential for an effective populist-nationalist based years long counterinsurgency.
With ELN, Cuban intel and other long-time committed leftist elements around the northern half of South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, the potential is there. Of course, as of now Rodriguez is the President, so it remains to be seen how far the Washington-Zio-militarist empire will take things.
People must understand that the number one reason Washington orchestrated this sick little regime change war on Venezuela is bc Maduro, and Chavez before him, led a sovereign state that consistently and incisively leveled hard hitting criticisms against the Zionist entity in every international forum possible. Moreover, Maduro and Chavez also fostered very friendly relations with the top heroes of the Palestinian freedom fighting struggle in Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. The billionaire Jewish supremacist class simply does not allow any of this!
We are about out ,oil is going dry , drugs are high and just cash in no account .
————
AI Overview
News about the “life of oil” and its potential depletion has been a recurring theme throughout history, often surging during times of crisis and driven by specific theories like “peak oil.” These predictions have frequently been proven wrong due to new technologies and discoveries.
Early Predictions and the Mid-20th Century
Concerns about running out of oil date back to the early 20th century:
In the 1910s, the U.S. Bureau of Mines argued the U.S. would run out of oil within twenty years.
In the 1930s, fears of an immediate shortage were often overshadowed by concerns of oversupply and price deflation following new oil field discoveries.
The modern “peak oil” theory gained prominence in the 1950s when geologist M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil production would follow a bell-shaped curve and peak between 1965 and 1975, a prediction that proved uncannily accurate for conventional U.S. production until new technologies emerged.
The 1970s Energy Crises
The 1970s were a pivotal period where oil depletion news reached a fever pitch, driven by geopolitical events:
The 1973 oil embargo by OPEC members caused significant shortages, soaring prices, and long lines at gas stations in the U.S., making the nation acutely aware of its vulnerability and dependence on foreign oil.
The Iranian Revolution in 1979 sparked a second oil shock, reinforcing public fears of an impending and permanent scarcity.
During this era, prominent figures, including President Jimmy Carter, warned the nation about a looming “energy crisis,” which many policymakers and the public mistakenly believed was due to imminent global oil depletion rather than supply disruptions.
The 2000s and the “Shale Revolution”
The narrative shifted again in the 2000s and 2010s:
Peak Oil Resurgence: In the mid-2000s, with rising oil prices and declining production in established fields (like the North Sea), the “peak oil” theory re-entered the mainstream news, with many analysts predicting a global peak between 2010 and 2015.
Technological Shift: These predictions were largely upended by the U.S. “shale revolution,” which employed new extraction technologies like hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling to access vast unconventional oil resources previously considered inaccessible. This dramatically increased U.S. oil production and led to a global oil glut in the 2010s.
Peak Demand Emerges: As supply concerns eased, a new hypothesis emerged: “peak demand”. This theory suggests that global oil use might peak due to technological advancements (like electric vehicles) and climate change policies, rather than the physical limits of the resource itself.
Ultimately, while oil is a finite resource, the timeline to its “depletion” has been a constantly shifting story in the news, heavily influenced by economic factors, political events, and technological innovation.
Thanks Earl for this useful analysis and timeline.