Suffering is Rising and American Bombs Keep Falling: Doggett Speech on House Floor as GOP Stifles Debate on Yemen
***Press Release***
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 12, 2018 | Contact: Kate Stotesbery 202-225-4865 |
Suffering is Rising and American Bombs Keep Falling: Doggett Speech on House Floor as GOP Stifles Debate on Yemen
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, spoke on the floor of the House today on GOP attempts to again block a vote on U.S. support for the Saudi coalition in Yemen. As Republicans stifle this provision within a rule on the Farm Bill, Rep. Doggett gave a speech which you can watch here, and which is reproduced in part below, as prepared:
"What cruel irony—that this rule dealing, in part, with too much food in America may starve millions in Yemen. As this Congress invests in food for America, we pour tax dollars into stripping Yemeni children of theirs. In that remote place of which most Americans know little, 85,000 children have died and another 12 million are on starvation's brink. This very day, more children will be lost to starvation and disease. In an eloquent plea this week, Nick Kristof reports on ‘an eight-year-old boy who is starving and has limbs like sticks He gazes stolidly ahead, tuning out everything, [as his] body focuses every calorie simply on keeping the organs functioning…weighing just over 30 pounds.' He notes, ‘United Nations officials warn that this could become the worst famine in a generation.' And Mr. Kristof rightly concludes, ‘The bottom line: Our tax dollars are going to starve children.'
Suffering is rising and American bombs keep falling. When the Saudi coalition attacked a school bus, killing 40 little children, scrawled across the bomb were markings that meant: Made in America.
With today's rule, Trump's enablers here in Congress tell him to keep it up. To keep supporting the murderous Saudi regime for whom they can see no evil and hear no evil, even when there is a recording of the Saudi murder and dismemberment of an American resident available to listen to. This rule today prohibits a fair debate and vote here, because Republican leaders know that so many members of both parties can no longer stomach the atrocities. Atrocities that are supported by American tax dollars. They fear that a bipartisan majority of this House would reject what has become a wretched stain on our Nation. Last month, this same Trump enablers buried consideration of our resolution with a bill about gray wolves; today they bury Yemenis with a bill about American agricultural abundance.
As Americans celebrate a joyous Christmas, the Trump Administration will continue writing the epitaph for the mass graves in Yemen. Let's reject this Rule today and put a stop to this egregious wrongdoing."
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