Top Headline Comments 1-7-14

Happy Tuesday.

Sen. Johnson's Obamacare lawsuit accusing the administration of giving congressmen and their staff special treatment has been filed and Paul Clement is arguing it. Lawgeeks, you can look at the complaint here.

The Chief Justice declined to grant the plaintiffs in one of the Origination Clause lawsuits a stay of Obamacare pending completion of their litigation. The subsidies lawsuits, the contraception mandate lawsuits, the accommodation lawsuits, and Sen. Johnson's lawsuit all have a better chance of success on the merits than the Origination Clause lawsuits, seeing as how the Origination Clause lawsuits lack entirely a basis in law or precedent.

Satanists have unveiled their proposed monument for the Oklahoma state Capitol. They argue that the Capitol is obligated to accept their monument, since it just accepted the donation of a Ten Commandments monument which has since been erected on Capitol grounds. Litigation is pending.

The 5th Circuit panel reviewing the appeal of the Texas HB2 decision -- that is, the abortion limitations bill passed last year over, among other things, the objection of fad Democratic candidate Wendy Davis -- was pretty harsh. For example, Judge Jones asked one lawyer if she would inform the court when more doctors get admitting privileges, adding cryptically, “or have you notified the New York Times?” Lawgeeks, audio of the argument is available here.

Some folks are arguing that Liz Cheney's failed campaign is evidence of the decline of GOP hawks. I think it more likely it's just evidence that people from Virginia should run for Senate in Virginia. In Wyoming, even more than a lot of other places, all politics is local. Cheney just never got traction after the carpetbagger accusations. The folks that think Cheney's campaign is emblematic of a shift against GOP hawks are oddly not drawing the opposite conclusion about Tom Cotton's strong campaign to unseat Arkansas Sen. Pryor. Cotton is a notable war hawk and it looks like he's going to win.

The RNC is putting its first paid media of 2014 in the field. Radio ads hitting Dems on Obamacare will play in 12 states.

Finally, don't miss the bonus podcast with DaveinTexas and Justified's Nick Searcy. And then the regular weekly podcast is linked below. Oh, don't forget to send your "Ask the Blog" questions and comments via the link.

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posted by Gabriel Malor at 06:50 AM

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