As lotto fever spreads across America, "prove your wonkiness by declaring that government-sanctioned lotteries make for poor economic policy" fever spreads across America's liberal think tanks. Rick Santorum fruitlessly combed through the Constitution in search of the freedom of religion/barf clause. And Mitt Romney is poised to win Tuesday's primary in Wisconsin -- a state that is near the country where he basically let his dog Seamus die in the wilderness in the 1980s. In Dog Heaven, there are no kennels. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Friday, March 30th, 2012:
'CHEER UP, THERE'S ALWAYS HLN,' ETC - MSNBC.com: "Current TV has fired Keith Olbermann...Eliot Spitzer will replace Olbermann starting Friday night, the network announced....Olberman got into a contretemps with the network over his role during Republican primary election coverage last December. But the host has a history of butting heads with management and other bosses, starting with ESPN, including MSNBC and now with the leadership at Current... 'Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it," the network wrote in a letter to viewers published on its website." [MSNBC.com]
WISCONSIN: MITT ROMNEY LOOKS POISED TO MAINTAIN THE STATUS QUO - A nation turns its lonely eyes to the Badger State: "Two new polls in Wisconsin show Mitt Romney leading Rick Santorum by a comfortable margin with just four days remaining before Tuesday's Republican primary. The results suggest that time is running out for Santorum in a state some dub as 'win or go home' or a 'last chance' for the former Pennsylvania Senator. The most recent survey, released on Friday by NBC and Marist College and conducted March 26-27, shows former Massachusetts Gov. Romney with a seven-percentage-point lead over Santorum (40 percent to 33 percent), with Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) at 11 percent and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), with 8 percent, running far behind. The NBC/Marist results are virtually identical to a survey fielded earlier in the week (March 22-25) by the Marquette University Law School that found Romney leading by eight points (39 to 31 percent), followed by Paul (11 percent) and Gingrich (5 percent)." [HuffPost's Mark Blumenthal]
Rick Santorum doesn't exactly have his eye on the prize: "On Friday, as Mitt Romney continued to consolidate establishment support for his presidential candidacy within the Republican Party, getting the endorsement of Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc) days ahead of the Wisconsin primary, Rick Santorum soldiered on in a seemingly different quest. Santorum wrote a 2,400-word essay essentially defending the substance of what he was trying to convey a month ago when he said that former President John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech on church and state made him want to 'throw up.'" [HuffPost's Jon Ward]
THE MALL IS SINKING - HuffPost DC: "Early indications show that 'the National Mall has sunk by one millimeter since last year's 5.8 magnitude earthquake in central Virginia.'"
HOW TO AVOID AWKWARD ENCOUNTERS, POLITICS-STYLE - Politico's Byron Tau filed this pool report around 4:15 pm: "Air Force One wheels down in Portland, ME at 4:09. Greeting President Obama is Mayor Michael Brennan of Portland. A spokesman for Maine Gov. Paul LePage said that the governor was not in Portland today." No word on whether LePage was off destroying pro-labor artwork.
HUFFPWND - Reuters: "AOL Inc on Friday won the dismissal of a lawsuit by unpaid bloggers who complained they were deprived of their fair share of the roughly $315 million that the company paid last March to buy The Huffington Post website.
U.S. District Judge John Koeltl rejected claims by social activist and commentator Jonathan Tasini and an estimated 9,000 other bloggers that they deserved $105 million, or about one-third, of the purchase price." Pfft. [Reuters]
Just to clarify, *our* compensation packages consist mostly of Natty Ice and string cheese.
PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS HATED RICK SANTORUM - Sam Stein and Jason Cherkis: "Ryan Miner remembers watching a fat piece of sausage splatter with a thud against a picture of Sen. Rick Santorum adorning the side of the senator's campaign RV. It was fall 2006, and Miner, then a Santorum intern, was helping feed a group of Pittsburgh Steelers fans tailgating outside of Heinz Field. But it was a tough sell -- especially because the Santorum volunteers were peddling snacks and campaign literature to rowdy, buzzed hordes. The crowd eventually turned on the volunteers, and a weapon of choice was Polish. 'Fuck you, Rick Santorum!' Miner recalls the sausage-tosser shouting. In short order, the tailgaters assailed the Santorum volunteers with whatever they could get their hands on: sausage, cookies, half-empty cups of beer, and beer cans
