Last Thursday, Senate Democrats voted to remove the threat of filibuster from most judicial and executive branch confirmations.
Not so scary, really.
Essentially, they said that the majority has the right to govern as a majority. Small-d democracy finally being applied to the Senate which has been in the hands of Big-D Democrats for the last 7 years.
The showdown that led to this rule change was remarkable in it’s blatant disregard for the Constitution of the United States. Senate Republicans were attempting to nullify the law that had established that the DC appeals court would have 11 judges presiding. The Republicans did not put forward and pass a bill to change the number of judges: they blocked the Senate from voting on the confirmation of the three judges needed to fill the court’s vacancies.
The Washington press corps and their sycophants in the punditry were quick to issue warnings about how terrible this would be: for Democrats. The Friday news cycle was filled with scare stories: “Democrats will pay the price”, “Harry Reid’s blunder”, “Democratic overreach will come back to haunt them”, “You did it: more Scalias for you!”, “No filibuster means more rapes!!”.
Of course, as is often the case, the woe-is-you’ers were completely missing the point and 100% wrong.