Obama's SCOTUS Pick Is About to Make History

Merrick Garland is about to break a century-old record without breaking a sweat. As of Wednesday, President Obama's nominee to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court will have gone 126 days without being confirmed, besting the 125-day record America's first Jewish justice, Louis Brandeis, set in 1916, per Reuters. With Senate Republicans beginning a seven-week vacation, "he is sure to keep on waiting," notes the Huffington Post. As nominees within the last 40 years have waited an average of just over two months for a hearing, this "is not just an insult to a good man" but a threat to "our most important institutions," Obama writes at the Wall Street Journal. (More US Supreme Court stories.)