Ehrensteinland: Satan is a looming presence on the right today.

Smartypants: Battle lines are drawn on the issue of fairness.

His Vorpal Sword: There's a lot more to Foster Friess than aspirin.

PM Carpenter: The Republicans are destroying each other, so let them get on with it.

Blog round-up by Infidel753. Tips to mbru [at] crooksandliars [dot] com.

"Senator Jefferson Einstein, Junior Republican from South Dakota" wants to legalize everything.

Open thread below....

This song was originally written and recorded by Klaatu in 1976 for World Contact Day, "whereby, at a predetermined date and time, [earthlings] would attempt to collectively send out a telepathic message to visitors from outer space". The Carpenters' more famous version came out a year later, and the World Contact Day idea never really took hold. Wow. Got any weirdness you want to share tonight?

Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft (The Recognized Anthem Of World Contact Day)
	Price: $0.99 (As of 02/24/12 04:59 am details)

Workers from the United Steelworkers and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union joined forces Wednesday to launch a thousand mile journey through six states to raise awareness of issues related to lockouts at American Crystal Sugar and Cooper Tires.

“From Fargo to Findlay: A Journey for Justice” is a joint project of the United Steelworkers (USW) and the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM). Locked out workers from American Crystal Sugar Company and Cooper Tire and Rubber Company will embark on a road trip from Fargo, North Dakota, to Findlay, Ohio, in order to focus attention on the most recent wave of greed-motivated corporate attacks on workers and their unions.

Eight members of the USW and BCTGM will travel over 1,000 miles through six states in six days, participating in rallies, fundraisers, and direct actions with local union members and allies along the way. The Journey for Justice will begin on Wed., Feb. 22, 2012, with a rally in Fargo and make stops in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana before concluding on Mon., Feb. 27, in Findlay.

American Crystal Sugar has locked out 1,300 union workers six months ago and Cooper Tires locked out 1,000 workers just after Thanksgiving.

On November 28th, Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. locked out 1,050 members of the United Steelworkers (USW) from its plant in Findlay, OH. The company hired replacement workers through Strom Engineering, the same contractor that supplies replacements for the Crystal Sugar lockout. In 2008, when Cooper Tire was in financial trouble, members of USW Local 207L made concessions worth $31 million to save their plant. Meanwhile, CEO Roy Armes saw his compensation more than double between 2007 and 2010 to over $4.7 million. Workers voted against the company’s unfair proposal and offered to keep working while negotiations continued. The company chose to lock them out instead.

This seems to be part of a regular pattern across the country. Companies are making record profits, paying CEOs and executives massive bonuses while pushing to make unions give up salaries, jobs and workplace rights.

American Crystal Sugar has made record profits in recent years and refuses to negotiate with the union workers unless they agree to a punitive offer in advance -- an agreement their members have already rejected twice.

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A Wisconsin state representative who supported the state's voter ID law is now be accused of voter fraud himself.

A YouTube video titled "Proof Of Voter Fraud In The Wisconsin State Assembly" shows Republican state Rep. Joel Kleefisch getting out of his chair to electronically cast a vote for a member who was away from the Assembly floor.

Wisconsin state Assembly rule 76 clearly says that "[o]nly the members present in the assembly chamber may vote."

On Wednesday, WTMJ's Rob Koebel asked Kleefisch if he broke that rule.

"It depends on how you interpret the rule," Kleefisch replied. "The rule says you have to be present in the chamber. The bathroom counts as the chamber. And the parlor counts as a chamber if you are going to eat."

It wasn't immediately clear which member Kleefisch had been voting for or if that member had been in the bathroom or parlor at the time.

Democratic state Rep. Jason Fields told Koebel that the practice is common among both Republicans and Democrats.

"Yeah, it's done when you have a conversation with your seat mate to know where they are at," Fields explained.

For his part, Kleefisch dismissed the video as an attempt at character assassination of him and his wife, Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch (R), who is facing a recall election.

"We are targets. My wife is under recall. We are targets," the Oconomowoc Republican said. "He shoots specific video of me when he could have shot 24 to 50 people at that time."

Recall elections for Republican Gov. Scott Walker, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and four state senators appear likely to go forward after a judge recently denied Walker's petition for more time to review recall petitions. Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Board posted online more than 850,000 signed petitions calling for the lieutenant governor's recall.

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As if Franklin Graham's comments on MSNBC Tuesday weren't bad enough, CNN decided to bring him on to "explain" and give him a second bite at the Obama-hating apple. This time he was careful to wrap his statement that the President wasn't really a Christian in the mantle of the anti-abortion wedge.

Here is what he said on MSNBC, among other things:

"Islam sees him as a son of Islam... I can't say categorically that [Obama is not Muslim] because Islam has gotten a free pass under Obama."

Wednesday, Kyra Phillips gave him a chance to clarify his answer. First he said he could not vote for Obama because he supported abortion. Okay. Whatever. But then he went on with it.

PHILLIPS: OK, so Franklin, let me ask you this, Franklin then. As long as the president supports a woman's right to have an abortion, will you continue to believe that he is not a Christian?

GRAHAM: No, I've never said, Kyra, I never one time said I don't believe that he is a Christian. Only God knows a man's heart. Only God knows your heart or my heart.

And all of these other candidates, their claim to faith you have to accept what they say. And you have to also look at how a person lives their life. But as it comes to the president, this issue is a big stumbling block for me.

It's going to be a big stumbling block for many Evangelical Christians. That is the way it is. He's the one who made the issue by supporting abortion and so he has to live with that.

Later, he expanded:

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(h/t Video Cafe)

Since the tea party took over the HOUSE they have targeted abortion and woman's health care in bill after bill after bill.

First, congressional Republicans attempted to deny statutory rape victims access to Medicaid-funded abortions (twice). Then GOP-dominated state legislatures pushed record numbers of laws limiting abortion rights, including proposals that could have treated killing abortion providers as "justifiable homicide." Yet in the past six months, social conservatives have widened their offensive, and their new target is clear: Not satisfied with making it harder to obtain legal abortions, they want to limit access to birth control, too.
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The first sign of the new assault came last October, when Mississippi activists and congressional Republicans pushed legislation on the state and federal level, respectively, that would have treated zygotes—a.k.a. fertilized human eggs—as legal "persons." If the definition of legal personhood is changed so that it begins when sperm meets an egg, hormonal birth control or barrier devices that prevent zygotes from implanting in the uterine wall could become illegal, making using an IUD tantamount to murder. Yet some 40 percent of House Republicans and a quarter of their allies in the Senate back bills that would do just that.

Then came Virgina's draconian vaginal ultrasound bill that even Gov. Bob McDonnell walked back on some. But obviously he's still talking nonsense on the issue because ultrasounds have always been one of the leading tools for the anti-abortion movement to wield . And Marco Rubio's bill is really appalling.

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During what could be the final Republican debate of the 2012 presidential primary season, Mitt Romney decided to double down on his prior statement that Iran will attain a nuclear weapon if President Obama is re-elected. More fearmongering straight out of the Johnson playbook from back in 1964.

Romney: Iran Will Get Nukes If Obama Is Re-Elected:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney doubled down on his claim that a second Obama term will bring a nuclear Iran.

"We must not allow Iran to have nuclear weapon. If they do, the world changes. America will be at risk. And some day nuclear weaponry will be used. If I'm President, that will not happen. If we re-elect Barack Obama, it will happen," he said at the CNN Republican debate on Wednesday night.

Rick Santorum was right there with Romney but we happily got some push back from Rep. Ron Paul who reminded the audience that somehow we've managed to negotiate with countries that were much more of a threat than a country surrounded by our military bases that has yet to attain a single weapon.

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Marco Rubio would be problematic for Mitt Romney for many reasons. There's the small matter of his embellishments around the story of his parents' immigration from Cuba. There is the question of his free-wheeling ways with money that wasn't his. He pals around with wife beaters, and sometimes even hires them. But all of that would probably not stop Willard from considering Rubio for the ticket, because after the shameless pandering he has done on immigration, he needs to boost his image in the Latino community with someone they might relate to.

However, I wonder how Hispanics would react if they knew Marco Rubio was a Mormon. Now he may not be Mormon in good standing at this time, but he was baptized into the Mormon Church and was active there until he returned to the Catholic Church at age 13. Via Buzzfeed:

Rubio was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with his family at around the age of eight, and remained active in the faith for a number of years during his early youth, family members told BuzzFeed.

Rubio spokesman Alex Conant confirmed the story to BuzzFeed. Conant said Rubio returned to the Catholic church a few years later with his family, receiving his first communion on Christmas day in 1984 at the age of 13.

The revelation adds a new dimension to Rubio's already-nuanced religious history—and could complicate his political future at a time when many Republicans see him as the odds-on favorite for the 2012 vice presidential nod. Vice presidential candidates are traditionally chosen to provide ethnic and religious balance to a ticket. Mitt Romney's Mormonism and Rubio's Catholic faith would already mean the first two members of minority traditions on a Republican ticket in American history. Rubio's Mormon roots could further complicate that calculation.

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During some of CNN's follow up to the potentially final Republican primary debate this Wednesday night, Anderson Cooper asked former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer what he thought about Newt Gingrich's statement during the debate that "the elite media" didn't ask President Obama about a vote he took back in 2008 as a Senator that would have made "infanticide legal."

Rather than point out, as TPM noted that Gingrich's inflammatory rhetoric was dubious at best, Fleischer decided to go on an attack of the media as well, and asked if the same sort of "hardball" questions of a similar ilk were asked of the Democratic candidates back when President Obama and Hillary Clinton were embroiled in their primary race.

Sorry Ari, but Newt didn't get a "hardball" question. Here's what John King asked Gingrich that he thought was such a tough question:

KING: Let's get right back to questioning the four contenders for the Republican nomination. We take a question now from cnnpolitics.com. You can see it up on the screen here.

Since birth control is the latest hot topic, which candidate believes in birth control, and if not, why? As you can see -- it's a -- it's a very popular question in the audience, as we can see. Look, we're not going to spend a ton of time on this but it is -- please.

So apparently asking someone whether they believe women should be allowed to use birth control in the wake of Republicans attacking women's ability to afford to have access contraception is now considered "hardball."

This coming from the same man that was overpaid by the Susan G. Komen foundation for such sage advice as their recent attack on Planned Parenthood, which somehow never seems to be a topic for discussion at CNN when they're got him on there.

Why CNN thinks any of us should care what this overpaid Bush lackey and apologist who's obviously on the wrong side of women's reproductive rights if he thinks he can make a buck off of it has to say about anything that involves women's health, ever, is beyond me, but it just looks like just more of CNN's continued move to do their best to become Fox-lite.