Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) did not mince words on CNN this morning, explaining why he and his fellow Democrats are boycotting the vote on Tom Price for HHS Secretary and Steve Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary.
Brown sits on the Senate Finance Committee, which of course has a Republican majority that will vote for Mister Repeal Obamacare and Mister Goldman Sachs no matter what.
But Sherrod Brown and the other Democrats won't vote yes, won't vote at all, and that's the rub. If they don't show up to vote, there isn't a vote. Committee Chairman and full-time animated fossil Orrin Hatch was visibly confused and upset by the surprise move to boycott the vote:
Note that what confuses Hatch is not that the Democrats disagree with these two criminals, but that they would put up a fight about it knowing that the Republicans are going to give their consent anyway. Everybody knows the Republican Senate is going to give Trump everything he wants, regardless of the qualifications or criminalities of the nominees.
Sherrod Brown is not confused, however: He is standing up for his constituents who need homes and healthcare.
I live in zip code 44105 in Cleveland. Ten years ago that zip code had more foreclosures than any zip code in America. I know what that does to people's lives when they are foreclosed on, and I want secretary-designate Mnuchin to tell us what he did. He's called the "king of foreclosures" by a number of people because of his work with this One West Bank. Congressman Price came out last night in "The Wall Street Journal," another very conservative newspaper in America, and said Congressman Price lied about a stock transaction-- he had basically inside information or was given an advantage that few had while he was in the House and working on health care bills and amendments. He was buying and selling stocks. We want to know more about this before we vote on them. It's what the American public wants to know. these are two people, if they are willing to lie to Congress like this on something as important as foreclosures and health care, what would they do in these very important jobs?
Of course they're willing to lie. They know they are in no matter what they do. The chairman of the committee said so.
And don't forget this golden minute-and-eight-seconds, which for my money is still the most Watergate Hearing moment since Watergate:
