For reference, see this from four years ago when Obama's nominees were getting held up due to this "rule".

Now:

No longer will "blue slips" be allowed to deny a nominee a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and vote on confirmation. In the past, senators have sometimes barred a nominee from their state by refusing to return their slip to the committee, thus preventing a hearing and confirmation.

"The majority"--that is, Republicans--will treat a blue slip "as simply notification of how you're going to vote, not as an opportunity to blackball," McConnell told me. The use of blue slips, he noted, is not a Senate rule and has "been honored in the breach over the years." Now it won't be honored at all.

The only people shocked by this are the Democrats, who are shocked by everything.