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.