The Senate on Friday confirmed a handful of ambassadors and State Department officials, including the American ambassadors to Sweden and Norway — a move that came after Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, lifted his months-long hold on the nominations which were in place because of his objection to the Iran nuclear deal.
In the Senate any one senator can put a “hold” on a nomination, and Cruz had been blocking the speedy consideration of a number of nominations for the past seven months.
An aide to Cruz said that he decided to lift his hold Friday because “he feels that after seven months that the American people are very aware of the negative consequences of this deal.”
Also contributing to the decision to lift his hold was the fact that the Senate unanimously passed Cruz’s bill Friday to rename the plaza in front of the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. as “Liu Xiaobo Plaza,” after pro-democracy dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Liu Xiaobo.
That legislation still needs to pass the House where Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., has introduced a similar bill.









