Okay, so you knew Barbara Lee’s House resolution to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq was gonna go nowhere. But perhaps you didn’t know what else was in the bill. According to the congressional newspaper The Hill, Lee will use the appropriations process to force legislators to vote on each separate provision in the withdrawal resolution. These include: reparations of up to $10,000 for each Iraqi who successfully files a claim for damages with the government; banning all American companies from extracting oil in Iraq; and requiring the federal government to finance the removal of all landmines in the country. Since the odds of Congress passing any of these provisions are about as low as our tawdry editorial standards, why are Lee and the rest of the Progressive Caucus pushing so hard? Hill reporter Jonathan Kaplan suggests the lefty legislators have to been seen doing, um, something to satisfy their base. “The more liberal House Democrats believe that if they don’t act quickly and decisively to express their opposition to the Iraq war, they will alienate voters on the biggest issue that propelled them into office,” Kaplan writes.
FOLLOW US