memeorandum: IRS not investigating Nikki Haley for tax fraud (Alicia M. Cohn/The Hill)

9:35 AM ET, March 31, 2012

Top Items:

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

Current TV Dismisses Keith Olbermann — 5:13 p.m. | Updated Current TV said Friday afternoon that it had terminated the contract of its lead anchor, Keith Olbermann, scarcely a year after he was hired to reboot the fledgling channel in his progressive political image.

Keith Olbermann / TwitLonger:

TwitLonger — My full statement: — I'd like to apologize to my viewers and my staff for the failure of Current TV. — Editorially, Countdown had never been better. But for more than a year I have been imploring Al Gore and Joel Hyatt to resolve our issues internally …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, PJ Media, Politico, Business Insider, Towleroad News #gay, TMZ.com, Mediaite, NewsBusters.org, Conservative Hideout 2.0, TalkLeft, TVbytheNumbers and Weasel Zippers, more at Mediagazer »

Current TV:

Open letter to the viewers of Current — To the Viewers of Current: — We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet. We are more committed to those goals today than ever before.

Discussion: Politico, Hollywood Reporter, Gothamist, Scared Monkeys, Guardian, Watts Up With That?, Liberal Values and dallasmorningviewsblog …, more at Mediagazer »

Keach Hagey / Politico:
Olbermann out, Spitzer in on Current TV

Discussion: Business Insider, iOwnTheWorld.com and Truthdig

Keach Hagey / Politico:
Current TV fires Keith Olbermann

Discussion: Wonkette and americanthinker.com

David Dayen / Firedoglake:
Olbermann Fired From Current TV

Discussion: The Daily Caller

Alicia M. Cohn / The Hill:

IRS not investigating Nikki Haley for tax fraud — South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's office Friday provided IRS documentation that she is not facing investigation for tax fraud, calling accusations that she was “totally contrived.” — Haley denied the rumors of a looming tax indictment on Thursday.

Discussion: The Reaction, Washington Monthly and The State

Cynthia McFadden / ABCNEWS:
No IRS Investigation into SC Governor Nikki Haley

Discussion: Palmetto Public Record, RedState and FITSNews

host.madison.com:

Federal court strikes down parts of collective bargaining law — MORE (2) — A federal judge on Friday upheld most of Gov. Scott Walker's controversial collective bargaining law, but struck down key parts of it by ruling that the state cannot prevent public employee unions …

Discussion: 2012.talkingpointsmemo.com, Firedoglake and Talking Points Memo

Bruce Vielmetti / JSOnline:
Federal court strikes down parts of union law

Discussion: Althouse

Daniel Bice / JSOnline:
Barrett will run in recall election

Discussion: Daily Kos, Washington Post, Althouse and msnbc.com

Patrick Marley / JSOnline:
GAB sets historic recall elections; GOP to field fake Dems

Discussion: RedState, The Blotter, The Maddow Blog, Taegan Goddard's … and Guardian

Michelle Singletary / Washington Post:

Mega Millions: Why I threw away common sense and bought a ticket — We played. — My husband and I decided to do a financially unwise thing and take a chance at winning the $640 million dollar Mega Millions lottery. It's not a smart use of even a dollar because the odds of winning are, well, astronomical — 1 in 176 million.

Discussion: Hot Air and Prairie Weather

Gary Strauss / USA Today:
Winning Mega Millions ticket bought in Maryland!

Discussion: JustOneMinute, The Informer and Real Time Economics

Brad Plumer / Ezra Klein:
Mega Millions frenzy: Can you ever beat the lottery's long odds?

Discussion: msnbc.com, Runnin' Scared, CBS News and Real Time Economics

Robert Shrum / The Week:

Will a Tea Party Supreme Court guarantee Obama a second term? — The court's conservative wing appears ready to engage in some despicable judicial activism on ObamaCare. Politically, at least, the justices are doing Obama a favor — Recall the scorn toward health reform dripping from the lips of Injustice Antonin Scalia.

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland and protein wisdom

Jonathan Cohn / The New Republic:
Obamacare Is On Trial. So Is the Supreme Court.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Crooks and Liars, The Volokh Conspiracy, No More Mister Nice Blog, Lawyers, Guns & Money, American Prospect and Balkinization

Andrew Theen / Bloomberg:

Obama Campus Fervor Losing to Apathy as Students Sour on 2012 — On election night 2008, freshman Meagan Cassidy left Lake Forest College and hopped a train to Chicago to celebrate Barack Obama's impending victory. — “There was probably no better place to be,” Cassidy said in a phone interview.

Discussion: Shot in the Dark and The Lonely Conservative

Wall Street Journal:

EPA Backpedals on Fracking Contamination — Texas Water-Pollution Suit Dropped; Third Recent Setback on Drilling for Agency — The Environmental Protection Agency has dropped its claim that an energy company contaminated drinking water in Texas, the third time in recent months that the agency …

Matthew O'Brien / The Atlantic Online:

Wall Street Thinks It Knows the Future of Obamacare—Why? — Nobody except Justice Anthony Kennedy knows what will happen to Obamacare. But Wall Street, whose predictive powers are dubious, thinks it does. The proof is in the healthcare stocks. — The below chart shows Aetna's stock price the past week.

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog, Prairie Weather, Ezra Klein and Health Care at the High Court

Jamie Klatell / The Hill:

Obama: Buffett Rule tax hike will ‘make this country a little fairer’ — President Obama urged lawmakers to “make this country a little fairer” and pass legislation that would raise taxes on those making more than $1 million annually. — “Congress is going to vote on what's called the Buffett Rule …

Discussion: Politico

New York Times:

A Health Law at Risk Gives Insurers Pause — As the Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the federal health care law, one option that had seemed unthinkable to its designers and supporters now seems at least possible: that the court could strike down the entire law.

Discussion: Prairie Weather

Jonathan Stempel / Thomson Reuters News …:

Unpaid bloggers' lawsuit vs Huffington Post tossed — 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.

Discussion: his vorpal sword, Politico, JIMROMENESKO.COM and Althouse, more at Mediagazer »

Curtis Dubay / The Heritage Foundation:

No Fooling: U.S. Now Has Highest Corporate Tax Rate in the World — This April Fool's Day, the joke is on all of us. That's because as of April 1, the U.S. now has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. — Our high corporate tax rate has long made the U.S. an uncompetitive place for new investment.

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and Doug Ross

John Brownlee / Cult of Mac:

This Creepy App Isn't Just Stalking Women Without Their Knowledge, It's A Wake-Up Call About Facebook Privacy [Update] — This app is meant to all be in good fun, but it's potentially a weapon in the hands of stalkers. — “Boy, you sure have a lot of apps on your phone.” — “Well, it's my job.”

Discussion: msnbc.com, The Verge, Firedoglake, TechCrunch and Gawker

Alexander Burns / Politico:

Romney campaign: Release all transcripts of all meetings with foreign leaders — Via National Journal, the Mitt Romney campaign ratchets up the transparency game in a novel direction, in response to a call for Romney to release decades' worth of tax returns:

Discussion: CNN