An American cattleman. Republicans took control of the House after picking up 60 seats in midterm elections, the largest gain in the House since 1948. Democrats maintained control of the Senate (though they lost six seats), and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid did not lose to Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle. “Harry Reid isn’t just Dracula. He isn’t just Lazarus; he’s our leader,” said Senator John Kerry. “Our whole caucus is thrilled that he’s unbreakable and unbeatable.”TimeNew York TimesThree Iowa Supreme Court judges who ruled in favor of same-sex marriage were voted out of office, and exit polls suggested that …

The Senate Judiciary Committee held confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan, the nominee to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the U.S. Supreme Court. G.O.P senators attacked Kagan by comparing her with former justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom she clerked in the 1980s. According to Republicans, Marshall, the nation’s first African-American Supreme Court judge and prior to that the civil-rights lawyer who successfully argued against segregation in Brown v. Board of Education, was a “well-known activist” and the “epitome of a results-oriented judge.” Senator Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) asked where Kagan had been last Christmas Day, when a Nigerian terrorist …

The wire master and his puppets, 1875. Forty days after its rig started gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP announced that the “top kill” effort, in which mud was used to try to plug the leak, had failed. CEO Tony Hayward said, “I’m sorry,” and, “There aren’t any plumes,” insisting that the leaked oil is all on the water’s surface despite scientists’ sightings of several underwater plumes, including one 22 miles long, six miles wide and more than a thousand feet deep. BP planned to contain the leak by placing a cap over the well, but expected that …

A Christian martyr. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer passed a bill requiring state law-enforcement officers to demand documentation of any person they suspect may be in the United States illegally. “That means that anyone who drives in the city of Phoenix and gets pulled over,” said Phoenix Vice Mayor Michael Nowakowski, “better have a passport or a visa.” The law, said one elected official, “is literally designed to terrorize undocumented immigrants.” Protestors smeared refried-beans swastikas on the state capitol’s windows. The state’s House of Representatives passed a bill requiring future presidential candidates to present a copy of their birth certificates to …

The wire master and his puppets, 1875. The top military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, apologized for a NATO airstrike that killed 27 civilians and wounded 14 near Kandahar; the victims’ convoy was mistaken for Taliban vehicles. “I have made it clear to our forces,” said McChrystal, “that… inadvertently killing or injuring civilians undermines their trust and confidence in our mission.”CNNMullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was second in command to the Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullar Muhammad Omar, was captured in a joint U.S.-Pakistani raid in Karachi.BBCAfter posting to the web a 3,000-word manifesto about the federal tax code, Catholicism, …