(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) The House is expected to vote on Thursday on a bipartisan War Powers Resolution aimed at blocking President Donald Trump from launching an attack on Venezuela amid a major US military buildup in the Caribbean and threats of a regime change war to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Contact your House Representative and tell them to support H.Con.Res.64, which directs the president to remove “United States Armed Forces from hostilities within or against Venezuela that have not been authorized by Congress.”
The bill was introduced by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and has received 31 co-sponsors, including three Republicans: Reps. Thomas Massie (KY), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), and Don Bacon (NE).
“The Constitution does not permit the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn’t attacked the United States,” Massie said in a statement when the bill was introduced. “Congress has the sole power to declare war against Venezuela. Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.”
Another War Powers Resolution that was introduced in the House by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) aims to stop President Trump’s bombing campaign against alleged drug boats in Latin America and is expected to be brought to the floor for a vote on Wednesday.
Meeks’s bill, H.Con.Res.61, also has 31 cosponsors, but no Republicans have signed on despite the growing criticism over the September 2 attack on a boat that involved multiple strikes to kill survivors.
“The Trump Administration has not provided a credible rationale for its 21 unauthorized military strikes on vessels in the Western Hemisphere, which have resulted in the extrajudicial killings of dozens of individuals,” Meeks and other high-ranking Democrats in the House said in a statement when the legislation was introduced on November 18.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
