Rolling Stone: Sherrod Brown Has a Message for America: Listen to Scientists, Not Donald Trump
WASHINGTON — Sherrod Brown was pissed off.
For days, the U.S. Senate had delayed crafting a massive coronavirus relief bill as the economy went into free fall. Rather than work through the weekend, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had flown home to watch Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh swear in a local right-wing judge. And now, one of McConnell’s fellow Republicans, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, was trying to delay yet again, this time citing parliamentary rules.
Brown had heard enough.
“I think you just watched what’s wrong with this place,” he growled from behind desk 88 on the Senate floor. Jabbing his finger in the air, his mop of curly salt-and-pepper hair looking more unruly than usual, he walked out from behind his desk, threw open the doors to the Senate floor, and pointed down the hall to McConnell’s office as he berated the Republican leader for not negotiating a relief bill as fast as possible while working Americans suffered.
“Who can say anything but this is a national crisis?” Brown asked. “We’re going to make our unwillingness to do anything contingent on some parliamentary trick? No.”
