IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK AND QUACKS LIKE A DUCK, IT’S A DUCK:  Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic articulates the desperation of the political left to save Obamacare.  Their newest “it” theory?  The taxing power.  But this theory has as much chance as a snowball in H-E-double hockey sticks.  A “tax” is generally denominated as such to ensure political accountability (it wasn’t in Obamacare– it was called a “penalty”), and more fundamentally, a “tax” raises money to carry out a government program(s). Social Security and Medicare, for example, are exercises of Congress’s taxing power. The individual mandate of Obamacare is a “penalty” because, like all penalties, Congress imposed it as punishment for bad behavior (not buying health insurance).  If it walks like a penalty and quacks like a penalty, it’s a penalty.  Enough said.

HOW THE GUTSIEST PRESIDENT EVER SINGLE-HANDEDLY KILLED OBL.

(H/T: Michael Walsh.)

MORE GOOD NEWS:  The UK’s Mail Online reports that global sex toy sales are soaring, expected to reach an all-time high this year, thanks  in part to the overt support of female celebrities and widespread availability in grocery aisles.

“WTF? Democratic Party of Wisconsin Cancels post-primary Unity Rally.”

I don’t know why the rally was canceled, but there has been widespread, unsubstantiated speculation that the front runner in the primary, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, decided at the last minute not to attend. The rumor being spread is that Tom Barrett does not want to be seen in the company of union leaders and union members for fear of having images of his participation in the rally being used against him by the Walker campaign.

Others are speculating that the whole thing is a last-minute dirty trick perpetrated by supporters of Kathleen Falk… Is it really Barrett who backed out, or did somebody design a set of conditions for the rally that they knew would force Barrett to back out so they could smear him?

Ah, unity!

ANOTHER UNDERWEAR BOMBER is caught.

AT AMAZON, gift cards for Mother’s Day.

PULLING A “CHRIST”:  Now THAT would be something!!!  Didn’t mean to suggest Sen. Lugar would attempt to rise from the political tomb, so to speak.  Just a typo– was referring to Charlie Crist situation here in Florida’s last gubernatorial election.  LOL.  Or MAYBE the typo was divine intervention????

THE FREQUENT FLIERS WHO FLEW TOO MUCH: In the L.A. Times, a look at how American Airlines’ marketing gimmick has been abused by those looking to game the system:

There are frequent fliers, and then there are people like Steven Rothstein and Jacques Vroom.

Both men bought tickets that gave them unlimited first-class travel for life on American Airlines. It was almost like owning a fleet of private jets.

Passes in hand, Rothstein and Vroom flew for business. They flew for pleasure. They flew just because they liked being on planes. They bypassed long lines, booked backup itineraries in case the weather turned, and never worried about cancellation fees. Flight crews memorized their names and favorite meals.

Each had paid American more than $350,000 for an unlimited AAirpass and a companion ticket that allowed them to take someone along on their adventures. Both agree it was the best purchase they ever made, one that completely redefined their lives.

In the 2009 film “Up in the Air,” the loyal American business traveler played by George Clooney was showered with attention after attaining 10 million frequent flier miles.

Rothstein and Vroom were not impressed.

“I can’t even remember when I cracked 10 million,” said Vroom, 67, a big, amiable Texan, who at last count had logged nearly four times as many. Rothstein, 61, has notched more than 30 million miles.

But all the miles they and 64 other unlimited AAirpass holders racked up went far beyond what American had expected. As its finances began deteriorating a few years ago, the carrier took a hard look at the AAirpass program.

Perhaps someday, the L.A. Times will also look at similar excesses that occur daily from those on the top and the bottom who take advantage of the ever-expanding welfare state and venture socialism. Hey, keep rockin’!

TOM BROKAW: WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER HURTING THE PRESS:

He said the annual black-tie affair, which features Washington reporters and editors drinking, joking and partying with Hollywood stars and the city’s top lawmakers — including the president — is contributing to the public’s mistrust of the media.

“If there’s ever an event that separates the press from the people they’re supposed to be serving, symbolically, it is that one.” he said.

Nahh, asking the president-elect to raise gasoline prices via additional taxes immediately after an economic meltdown is a much more concrete sign of how distanced the media have become from their audiences, as Tom himself did in December of 2008.

PRESIDENT WHO HIRED COMMUNISTS AND HUNG OUT WITH TERRORISTS SAYS ROMNEY MUST REBUKE ‘EXTREME VOICES.’

INDEPENDENTS FAVOR ROMNEY BY 10 POINTS:  The latest Battleground poll by George Washington University-Politico has Romney up by 10 points (48 to 38 percent) over Obama among independent voters. Overall, it’s a dead heat, with Romney garnering 48 percent; Obama 47 percent.   My only question:  Are there really that many Democrats out there, that with such a wide lead among independents, Romney only comes out 1 percentage point ahead?  Maybe I’m just not good with math.  :(

LUGAR CAN’T BE A “SORE LOSER”:  Thanks to a sharp Instapundit reader, I’ve discovered Indiana Senator Richard Lugar cannot, in fact, run as an independent if he loses to Richard Mourdock in the Republican primary.  This is because Indiana has a “sore loser” law that says (Indiana Code Section 3-8-1-5.5) a person who “is defeated in a primary election . . . is not eligible to become a candidate for the same office in the next general or municipal election.”  So no pulling a Murkowski or Christ for Lugar.

FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE CRULLERS, AND I DID NOT SPEAK OUT: More on Massachusetts’ idiotic upcoming ban on school bake sales from blogger and businessman Matt Holzmann:

The media and the Left were stunned when several of the Supreme Court Justices asked very basic questions about the Constitutionality of both the Health Care Bill and the case of United States versus Arizona on the enforcement of immigration law. They get very upset when their opponents argue about  Constitutionality. Now we know why. They’re not interested nor do they understand the Constitution itself, for if you don’t understand the “why” of things, you cannot understand the thing itself. They want what they want when they want it, to put it succinctly.

And this is how the State of Massachusetts ends up with crazy laws like the ban on bake sales.

Hillary wasn’t kidding when she said in 2004 that she and the rest of the Ruling Class were “going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good,” was she? Where does the intersection occur between a nanny state that has an inexhaustible urge to ban everything, and a welfare state that has a similarly unquenchable desire to tax everything? (Presumably, it’s located somewhere between Detroit and Belgium.)

UPDATE: Bob Krumm emails, “Somewhere between Detroit and Belgium would be in the western North Atlantic, not too far from the hundred year-old wreckage of an infamous ship that was thought to be too well constructed to ever sink.”

Heh, indeed.™

WHAT WOULD THE END OF FOOTBALL LOOK LIKE?

Before you say that football is far too big to ever disappear, consider the history: If you look at the stocks in the Fortune 500 from 1983, for example, 40 percent of those companies no longer exist. The original version of Napster no longer exists, largely because of lawsuits. No matter how well a business matches economic conditions at one point in time, it’s not a lock to be a leader in the future, and that is true for the NFL too. Sports are not immune to these pressures. In the first half of the 20th century, the three big sports were baseball, boxing, and horse racing, and today only one of those is still a marquee attraction.

I’m not sure if this presages the End of Football or the End of Days, but at Breitbart TV, video from the Dallas Morning News of a 55-year-old grandmother auditioning to be a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader. She’s a physical fitness guru and in excellent shape, but if she makes the squad, what would Tom Landry have said about a football team whose oldest cheerleader is nine years older than its head coach?

WILL LUGAR RUN FOR SENATE AS 3d PARTY CANDIDATE?  Faced with a likely loss to tea party favorite Richard Mourdock, will U.S. Senate veteran Richard Lugar (R-IN) bust a Joe Lieberman, Lisa Murkowski or Charlie Crist move and mount a third party bid?  Doubtful, but never underestimate the desire to stay in power.  Indiana’s Senate race is a microcosm of the fight for the soul of the Republican party.

DINING WITH TURKISH OUTCASTS: Claire Berlinski attends a revealing dinner party in Istanbul.

There was the ancient Greek doyenne in whose honor the party was held. “I don’t like Americans,” she said. I offered a frozen smile. Five minutes later she was introduced to the designated long-suffering Jew. “Tell your country that they need to finalize their borders,” she said.

“Shame on you, you anti-Semite,” I said. Everyone looked uncomfortable for a moment, until they mistakenly decided I was charming and spirited. Later, another guest said to me, sotto voce, “We enjoyed your saying that.”

MEXICO, ALAS, has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world to work as a journalist. Three were killed this week alone for what they reported.

WHY COLLEGES DON’T TEACH THE FEDERALIST PAPERS: In case you missed Elizabeth Foley’s link yesterday to Peter Berkowitz’s new article in the Wall Street Journal,  here’s an excerpt:

Most astonishing and most revealing is the neglect of The Federalist by graduate schools and law schools. The political science departments at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Berkeley—which set the tone for higher education throughout the nation and train many of the next generation’s professors—do not require candidates for the Ph.D. to study The Federalist. And these universities’ law schools (Princeton has no law school), which produce many of the nation’s leading members of the bar and bench, do not require their students to read, let alone master, The Federalist’s major ideas and main lines of thought.

Of course, The Federalist is not prohibited reading, so graduates of our leading universities might be reading it on their own. The bigger problem is that the progressive ideology that dominates our universities teaches that The Federalist, like all books written before the day before yesterday, is antiquated and irrelevant.

Particularly in the aftermath of the New Deal, according to the progressive conceit, understanding America’s founding and the framing of the Constitution are as useful to dealing with contemporary challenges of government as understanding the horse-and-buggy is to dealing with contemporary challenges of transportation. Instead, meeting today’s needs requires recognizing that ours is a living constitution that grows and develops with society’s evolving norms and exigencies.

Except when the reverse is needed by liberals, a topic that Jonah Goldberg devotes a chapter in The Tyranny of Clichés to discuss.

IS IT ME, OR IS THIS $590,000 CAR JUST PLAIN UGLY? It’s a Nissan Juke-R.  Okay, maybe it’s “cute,” in a VW Bug-on-steroids sort of way. But personally, I’d save $400,000 or so and go for the Maserati Granturismo.

MMMMMM…… CAVIAR AND CRAB POTATO CHIPS:  Go figure.  Apparently the Russians love ’em.  An interesting story in the China Post about some freaky variations of the snacks we love.

BRAVE NEW WORLD (IS HERE!): At the New York Post, Kyle Smith writes:

If Orwell’s “1984” is a cautionary tale about what we in the capitalist West largely avoided, Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” is largely about what we got — a consumerist, post-God happyland in which people readily stave off aging, jet away on exotic vacations and procreate via test tubes. They have access to “Feelies” similar to IMAX 3-D movies, no-strings-attached sex, anti-anxiety pills and abortion on demand. They also venerate a dead high-tech genius, saying “Ford help him” in honor of Henry Ford just as today we practically murmur “In Jobs We Trust.”

In many ways the book, which was published 80 years ago this winter, has become sci-non-fi. It is still developing, taking on additional richness according to the times in which we read it.

“Brave New World” is a satire set in a unified and peaceful 26th-century “World State” in which a frustrated London loner named Bernard Marx feels unease with the serene functionality of the ingeniously well-ordered society around him. After a chance encounter on vacation, he brings to London a Shakespeare-loving “savage” named John from outside the tech bubble (he grew up untouched by modernity on an Indian reservation in New Mexico) who becomes even more distraught by what has happened to mankind.

And according to Slate, the world of Blade Runner isn’t too far off, either: “I (Robot) Thee Wed.” Although the photo that accompanies the Slate article is a reminder that the robot designers have an awfully big Uncanny Valley to cross first.

THE HILL: REPUBLICAN TO REVIVE LIGHT-BULB WAR: Well, good. Clearly we need more freedom of choice and diversity in this market; the stash of 100-watt light bulbs I purchased at the end of last year can only hold out for so long.

SPINY LOBSTER AND OVERCRIMINALIZATION:  Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) introduce The Freedom from Over-Criminalization and Unjust Seizures Act of 2012, S. 2062 and H.R. 417.  Goal:  decriminalizing a lot of stupid stuff that shouldn’t be a federal crime in the first place.

It probably won’t surprise anyone that since I aspire to being the mad-cat-woman of science fiction (Yes, the competition is stiff.  Well, actually it’s soft, fuzzy and on occasion purrs) I love the idea of cat cafes and I’m thrilled to see them expanding out of Japan.  I wonder if the FDA would allow it to flourish here.

NOW THAT’S USEFUL!:  A new iPhone app allows you to control how long a recipient can view pics you send, and prevents saving or dowloading. Sexting made truly private?