Harry Reid pledges to extend the Senate session to push through more of Barack Obama’s nominees

 Ted Cruz has come under fire from so-called conservative leaders in the Republican establishment because they claim it provided Harry Reid with an opportunity to push through many of Barack Obama’s previously stalled nominees. They claim that if Ted Cruz had not done this none of these nominations would have been confirmed but I state here and now that I believe that is a lie.

  I maintain the position, as can be read in the link above, that this is simply not the case because Harry Reid had already stated he was open to holding the lame-duck Senate in session in order to confirm as many nominees as possible before the new Republican-led Senate took control.

  In my opinion Ted Cruz’s actions did nothing more than reverse the order of the proceedings but the establishment Republicans saw an opportunity to attack a man they hold in contempt because he is not willing to toe the establishment line–and it appears to be working.

  Now Harry Reid may have confirmed my position as he is once again pledging to keep the session open for another week to confirm another 23 of Barack Obama’s nominees.

  Here is more:

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid pulled out one of his most familiar threats during perhaps his last week as majority leader, pledging to keep the Senate in session through the weekend to get 23 of President Barack Obama’s nominations confirmed and pass bills extending billions in tax breaks and providing terrorism risk insurance to commercial buildings.

The Senate already worked one Saturday this month, so why not another?

While the Nevada Democrat is not yet warning senators that the chamber could work on Christmas, his remarks on Monday morning were clearly aimed at getting Republicans to relent on procedurally fighting him and wrap up the Senate’s business as soon as possible.

Now that Reid has set up votes on nominees including Vivek Murthy to be surgeon general, White House adviser Tony Blinken to be deputy secretary of state, Sarah Saldana to be director of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and a dozen lifetime judicial appointments, he is now trying to use the inevitability of their confirmation to speed up the Senate’s work and allow its lame-duck lawmakers to finally join House members and head home for the year.

Though Republicans will take over the Senate in January, as long as Democrats hold the majority and can keep their members in town ahead of the holidays they can unilaterally confirm all these nominees due to last year’s “nuclear option” rules change.

   Does anyone really believe that if Ted Cruz had not done what he did that Harry Reid would have admitted defeat and relented in his pursuit to confirm as many nominees as possible? Do you really believe the soon to be former Majority Leader of the Senate would have simply backed down if he was not offered this so-called opportunity to push through these nominees? I don’t and neither should you!

  It is time for us to stop letting the Democrats, the establishment Republicans, and the mainstream media control the narrative…