DC Morning: America to drown tax day sorrow

—Dairy Queen will hand out free ice cream today in front of the IRS building in Washington, D.C., from noon-1 p.m. The menu probably won’t have Berry Cherry Smoothies, a dish DQ retired some time around 2003 despite evidence that the smoothie craze was just getting started. Chinese glam food chain P.F. Chang’s will cut 15% from your bill today, Dunkin Donuts will give you a free donut, and Starbucks will have free refills. All of these things, if consumed one after the other, supposedly will make you feel better about the interest-free loan you made to Uncle Sam, the poor odds for passage of a smart, job-creating tax reform bill, and the increasing likelihood that your chronic sloppiness led you to make the kind of filing mistake that will result in you being audited for omitting an IKEA receipt. Also, you forgot to turn on the crockpot before you left for work and that chicken is probably going to spoil in this heat.

—“More than 85 percent of the construction industry is not unionized,” writes The Daily Caller’s Aleksandra Kulczuga, and the industry as a whole suffers from 25 percent unemployment. Now, thanks to a new White House contracting policy, that second number may get bigger, as non-union construction workers are considered by Pres. Obama to be unfit to work on large government contracts. This is not because non-union workers get less competent as the numbers get bigger–though wouldn’t that be something!–but because a new White House policy “encourages” agencies “to require union labor” on any government contract valued at more than $25 million. This despite the aforementioned unemployment, hard times for everyone but unions, and the fact that the move signals an end to competitive bidding for government contracts.

—“If Crist were to file as an independent for the general election, he would get 32 percent of the vote, compared to [Republican candidate Marco] Rubio’s 30 percent and [Democratic candidate Kendrik] Meek’s 24 percent,” report the polling gurus at Quinnipiac. Running as an independent would require Crist to file as one by the end of the month, wear a flak jacket to work for the rest of his term as governor, and find a way to win back the moderate wing of the Democratic Party, because it’s likely that splitting Rubio’s vote would get Crist kicked out of the Tallahassee old boy’s club.

—“Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class,” reports the New York Times. While that fact doesn’t seem to distinguish the movement all that much from the GOP, this nugget certainly does: “While most Republicans say they are ‘dissatisfied’ with Washington, Tea Party supporters are more likely to classify themselves as ‘angry.'” It’s like, “Oh, I am very unhappy because now that Democrats are in control I can find no one to hand-feed me peeled grapes,” versus “I am gonna choke you if you don’t stop screwing things up.” How serious are Tea Partiers about bucking the establishment? According to The Hill, “Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (Ariz.), House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) were not asked to speak at the April 15 rally in front of the Washington Monument.” SPEAKING OF! If you’re heading to today’s rallies,

“—Ex-AK Gov. Sarah Palin (R) spent more money to de-ice her private jets than she did donating money to candidates during the first 3 months of the year, according to new filings made with the FEC,” reports Hot Line On Call. “The filings show Palin’s political wing, Sarah PAC, paid a FL-based airplane service company $14K to de-ice a private jet. The PAC spent more than $16K — twice as much as it donated to individual candidates — on hotels from New Orleans to New York City to Richland, WA.” The filings show lots of other things, all of which suggest that the answer to, “Who will give the GOP that little push over the wall in 2010?” is not “Sarah.”

—Earlier this week UK clothing store Primark removed padded children’s bikinis from its shelves in response to pressure from parents and other Concerned Citizens. While most reasonable people seem to agree that dressing up an 7-year-old look like a consenting adult could have serious psychological repercussions, the Guardian’s Laurie Penny says otherwise. “In countries where children are routinely well fed, a significant minority of seven-year-old girls have already started puberty, and most foster a natural curiosity about bodies and intimacy. Rather than encouraging healthy sexual exploration or promoting education, campaigns to protect girls from ‘sexualisation’ assume that sexuality itself is a corrupting influence on young women.” in other news, scientists believe they have discovered why normal people hate journalists.