From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

Bob Garfield is away this week.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

By Friday, the headlines were filled with stories of the U.S. missile strike on Syria.

Frankly, it's too early for us to address that media narrative or dissect the information flow.

So we begin with this week's prevailing political story,

the annihilation of what has been depicted by Democrats as a hallowed tradition, the Senate filibuster,

which as of Thursday could no longer be used to derail a Supreme Court nominee.

This is a Fox News alert. The Senate has voted to go nuclear, meaning the so-called nuclear option.

That's the decision after Democrats blocked a full Senate vote on Judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell making a historic change to the Senate rules to clear the path forward for President Trump's Supreme

Court nominee.

Which means that any party from now on can nominate a Supreme Court justice with a simple

majority.

Since the Republicans lacked the 60 votes needed to end the Democratic filibuster, they

voted instead to change the threshold. Presto, cloture achieved. Philibuster, they voted instead to change the threshold.

Presto, cloture achieved.

Filibuster folded, and only 51 votes required to usher nominee Neil Gorsuch onto the high court.

It's called the nuclear option because the Republicans didn't really change the rule,

as has been reported.

They changed the interpretation of the rule, as has been reported, they changed the interpretation

of the rule, a rather more devious maneuver, but one, the Republicans had enough votes to pull

...