Morning news:
China, U.S. agree to limit greenhouse gases
NY Times:
After two Colorado lawmakers who supported strict new gun-control laws were voted out of office in a special recall election last year, the National Rifle Association and its allies celebrated their huge win in the battle over gun laws in state capitols. But that particular victory did not last.
Even as Coloradans elected a Republican senator for the first time in a dozen years and handed Republicans control of one chamber of the state legislature, voters did an abrupt about-face when it came to the recalls. The two pro-gun Republicans elected during the recalls were handily beaten this month by Democratic candidates — one of whom once worked for the gun-control group founded by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City.
Cliff Schecter:
One of the Midterms’ Little-Noticed Big Losers: The NRA
The Washington state background check win was a big [Bidenism] deal. Several others like it prove that people want progressive things.
LA Times:
Strategists on both sides say gun issues played little role in this fall’s campaign, in either Pueblo or Colorado Springs.
Allies of Morse did, however, take particular pleasure in Herpin’s defeat by Democrat Michael Merrifield, who once worked for Bloomberg’s anti-gun group.
As for the former lawmaker, his feeling is less a sense of vindication than an attitude of I-told-you so.
He noted that both Senate districts are heavily Democratic and even the relatively meager turnout for Tuesday’s midterm election far exceeded the 20% of voters who cast ballots in the September 2013 recall vote.
So, there you have it. Gun issues trump everything, except when they don't. And sometimes they aren't playing the role advocates on either side say they do.
More politics and policy below the fold.
Charlie Cook:
Bad Decisions Came Back to Haunt Democrats in Midterms
Americans reeling from the economy still resent the policy choices that President Obama and congressional Democrats made early on.
Yes, except that polling says for most Americans one of those policy choices
(Obamacare) didn't drive the election.
Read these next two together. Reihan Salam:
How Republicans Can Get Things Done
What the GOP can learn from Democrats about how to govern.
How to accept incremental change.
Ezra Klein:
What Democrats can learn from Republicans
How to focus on down ballot elections.
Michael Cohen:
The announcement Friday that the Supreme Court will once again be looking at the issue of whether Obamacare passes legal muster has created an outpouring of gnashing of teeth among liberals. For good reason. It was only two-and-a-half years ago, after all, when the Court was one vote short of ruling the law unconstitutional. Surely with a second chance at the apple, the Court will use this opportunity to eviscerate the signature achievement of Barack Obama’s presidency. Not so fast.
There’s good reason to believe that Obamacare is safe, but even if the Court were to rule against the government, it creates as many political problems for Republicans as it does for the White House.
WSJ:
In what promises to be a nail-biting event worthy of a Hollywood script, rocket scientists Wednesday will attempt the challenging task of trying to land a probe on the surface of a comet.
After a decadelong trek through the solar system, the European Space Agency’s spacecraft Rosetta made a historic rendezvous with a comet known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August. The craft is now in orbit just 6 miles above the comet’s surface. If all goes well, a small probe called Philae will descend from the mother ship and become the first craft to ever survive a landing on a comet.
