On Thursday afternoon, the House of Representatives opened a brief pro forma session, the second this week, in hopes of passing the $19.1 billion disaster relief bill the Freedom Caucus maniacs have already successfully blocked not once, but twice. Make it three times, with today. This time the bomb thrower was Rep. John Rose, a Tennessee freshman. He did not, however, block a two-week extension of the flood insurance program, which otherwise would have expired Friday at midnight.
This is after months of delay in the Senate, which got the first relief bill from the House back in January. Donald Trump's insistence that no more money could go to Puerto Rico (which still hasn't received all of the money approved in aid bills from last year) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's toadying to him kept assistance from coming to the floor there until last week. All of this spring's natural disasters happening in states where Republican senators are going to be running for reelection finally kicked the bill loose in the Senate, and they finally talked Trump into letting them have it. It was passed in the Senate last week after the House had already recessed for Memorial Day, and here we are.
House Republicans will always be there to fuck things up, and that's what they're doing now, not allowing it to pass with unanimous consent. There will be a roll call vote on the bill next week, and it will pass. The only thing that these maniacs will have achieved is delaying critical assistance, some of which is going to their own constituents.