Starbucks' Slutty Mermaid Making Waves

Lately, I've seen some changes at the two Starbucks that live less than a block away from the Mother Jones office. Last month, they both started pushing a new blend called "Pike Place Roast" as their regular drip coffee, as part of a campaign to compete with brisk coffee sales at Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's. As part of the campaign, Starbucks re-introduced its 1971 brown-and-white logo featuring a two-tailed mermaid. Okay, technically it's a siren, but regardless, the image of a female figure brazenly spreading its tails has made a few Christians vow to boycott the company.

"The Starbucks logo has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute," explains alarmist Mark Dice, of a Christian group called The Resistance. "Need I say more? It's extremely poor taste, and the company might as well call themselves Slutbucks."

While I'm curious what the value of a Slutbuck is relative to a Schrutebuck, I'm worried that Dice doesn't seem to understand the Starbucks siren is half-fish. She doesn't have legs to spread, much less a vagina to go between them. The fact that Dice doesn't get the difference between a fin and a foot may be an example of what abstinence-only funding does to education, but it's certainly not the first time spunky Christians have boycotted the multinational company.

Just last summer, a group of Christian ladies boycotted Frappuccinos because there was a homosexual-agenda-pushing Armistead Maupin quote on some of the cups. Others have boycotted the company because of anti-God quotes.

All I can say is that if Starbucks goes down, it won't be because of a handful of Christian boycotters. And it won't be because a friend of a CATO Institute vice-president couldn't buy a customized "Laissez Faire" gift card, either. As the WSJ tells it, a Starbucks slump will be due to oversaturation and a faltering economy that makes $4 lattes seem like less of a necessity. Whether that's an act of God or not is for you to decide.

Gag Order Partially Lifted, Israel Obsesses Over Corruption Investigation of Prime Minister

As the sun set on Israel's 60th Independence Day celebrations tonight, Israeli media were partially liberated from a gag order that had restricted their reporting the details of a fast moving and curiously timed corruption investigation of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.

"Olmert suspected of accepting illicit funds from U.S. businessman," a Ha'aretz headline proclaimed:

Guns Don't Kill People, Irresponsible Gun Dealers Do

Eric Thompson sells guns on the Internet. Of course, you may already know that. After all, his Green Bay, Wisc.-based firm, TGSCOM Inc. (www.thegunsource.com), has had some high-profile clients, including Seng-Hui Cho, who massacered 33 classmates at Virginia Tech last year, and Stephen Kazmierczak, who killed five students at Illinois State University last February. And surely for this, Thompson feels sorry. But don't ask him to apologize for his business, for he's committed to placing firearms in the warm, living hands of as many customers as possible... at the lowest possible price.

Since the initial shock of learning he had played a supporting role in at least two school shootings, Thompson has turned infamy into a marketing strategy. In the spirit of there being no such thing as bad publicity, he's taken full advantage of opportunities to appear on television, including his recent FOX News sparring match with Paul Helmke of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. This followed Thompson's visit to Virginia Tech last month, where, almost a year to the day after the shootings, he spoke at an on-campus event sponsored by the Student for Concealed Carry on Campus. A school spokesman called the visit "terribly offensive" and said "the organizers appear to be incredibly insensitive to the families of the victims who lost loved ones and to the injured students still recovering from this horrendous tragedy." But Thompson, who claims to have donated money to a Virginia Tech victims' fund, stands by his decision to appear at the university. It's all part of the "special responsibility" he's been given to "help change people's opinions."

Is Boycotting Wal-Mart Activism?

We want the lowdown on student activism, past and present. Been arrested and regret it? Would your school win the prize for silliest student protest? Was student activism way better when you were in school? Is your cause unique?

Help us put together our best student activism roundup yet. It's our 15th annual! Check out last year's. Answer a few quick questions and you could win some cool prizes.

Click here to begin!

A Vote For McCain Validates Bush

There are, in the minds of many, historical legacies at stake in the 2008 presidential election. From Der Spiegel, via Nitpicker:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Iraq war was perceived as the one chance the neocons had in our time to prove that their theories were right. Is neoconservatism already a historical footnote?

[Neoconservative Lawrence] Kaplan: The near-term argument here is that if John McCain wins the presidential election, neoconservatism will have been vindicated. Because by voting him into office, people will have tacitly given their endorsement to that sort of foreign policy. His advisers are the very people we are arguing about.

Crank Dat Mike Gravel!

Okay, I know, too many nonsensical Gravel videos of late. And I know, the Obama Girl stuff is unforgivably lame. But indulge me. I just love this video. Mike Gravel is willing to sing, profess his love for a woman 52 years his junior, and do the (incredibly freakin' annoying) Soulja Boy dance. He's officially in that I'm-so-old-I-can't-be-humiliated stage. Somebody give this man a reality TV show!

On a more serious note, I'm willing to guess that Mike Gravel doesn't know the meaning of the Soulja Boy lyrics, which are horrifyingly misogynistic. I'm not going to explain them, but you can get answers at UrbanDictionary.com. That song is incredibly popular, even among children, and it really shouldn't be.

Compromise in Michigan: Another Sign of Things to Come

This may be how the Democratic primary race winds down: superdelegates endorsing Obama (and in some cases bailing on Clinton in order to do so) and Michigan and Florida coming to compromises that don't jeopardize Barack Obama's lead. Michigan appears on track to do exactly that.

Michigan Democratic leaders on Wednesday settled on a plan to give presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton 69 delegates and Barack Obama 59 as a way to get the state's delegates seated at the national convention.

Clinton won the Jan. 15 Michigan primary and was to get 73 pledged delegates under state party rules, while Obama was to get 55.

Clinton took 55 percent of the vote in Michigan, where only Kucinich, Dodd, and Gravel joined her on the ballot. "Uncommitted" took 40 percent.

The only question here is whether seating the Michigan delegates through this compromise erases any hard feelings Michigan voters have with Barack Obama. Michigan and Florida have been used a cudgel by Hillary Clinton and her campaign staff. They've pointed to those two states for months as evidence that Barack Obama doesn't truly want to hear the voice of every American — the unstated corollary being that Obama doesn't respect the people of those two states.

I'm betting, however, that Obama can do some internal polling in Florida and Michigan, see if he still has a chance in either state (probably; more likely in Michigan than Florida), and make up with voters there through a little extra attention in the general. And outside groups can work overtime pointing this out.

Superdelegates for Hillary Wavering: A Sign of Things to Come?

Here's Clinton-backer Diane Feinstein talking to The Hill.

"I think the race is reaching the point now where there are negative dividends from it, in terms of strife within the party," Feinstein said. "I think we need to prevent that as much as we can."

Feinstein stressed that Clinton is not an "also-run candidate," but added that there is a question "as to whether she can get the delegates that she needs. I'd like to see what the strategy is and then we can talk further."

Feinstein insists that she isn't revoking her support of Clinton, but that she wants to "talk" with Clinton and see exactly what her strategy is for the rest of the primaries.

Meanwhile, Obama unveiled three superdelegate endorsements yesterday (North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek, North Carolina DNC member Jeanette Council, and California DNC member Inola Henry), and former Clinton supporter George McGovern switched to Obama and urged Clinton to drop out of the race. Today, the Obama campaign announced that John Edwards' campaign manager, former Congressman David Bonior, is endorsing.

Forget the media calls for Clinton to drop out. Forget the fundraising problems. It is the actions of the superdelegates over the next few weeks that will determine whether this race ends now or after all the primaries have been completed in June.

43,000 Troops Listed as Unfit for Combat Deployed Anyway

From USA Today:

More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.

This reliance on troops found medically "non-deployable" is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say....

Unit commanders make the final decision about whether a servicemember is sent into combat, although doctors can recommend against deployment because of a medical issue, Army spokeswoman Kim Waldron said....

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in February, the panel's chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked Army leaders about an e-mail from the surgeon for the Fort Carson brigade that said medically "borderline" soldiers went to war because "we have been having issues reaching deployable strength."

"That should not be happening," Army Secretary Pete Geren told the committee. "I can't tell you that it's not, but it certainly should not be happening."

This isn't terribly surprising, considering the lengths the military is going to in order to get soldiers on the battlefield.

Former NSC Aide on Clinton, 'Dual Containment,' and HRC's 'Obliterate' Iran Remarks

Gary Sick served in the National Security Council of the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, including as the chief White House aide on Iran during the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis. He currently is a senior researcher and professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, from where he runs a Persian Gulf oriented listserv for Gulf experts, academics, and journalists. He offered these comments there, with permission to share.

Hillary Clinton's warning that the United States could "obliterate" Iran if that country should "foolishly consider" launching an attack on Israel is, of course, pandering to a broad American constituency that wants to hear tough rhetoric about Iran. It is also intended to appeal to a constituency that needs constant reassurance that America's relationship with Israel is secure. And, by addressing a strategic hypothetical that would by any measure be many years in the future ("in the next ten years" in her words), it seems intended to convince doubters that a woman is tough enough - perhaps more than tough enough - to be commander in chief.

Although her use of the word "obliterate" was both excessive and ill-advised, it might be seen as a challenge to Obama to match her toughness, or even as simply pandering shamelessly to a constituency that thrives on political red meat. That is not very flattering to her, but it might be regarded as politics as usual. What makes this statement particularly troublesome is that it cannot be dismissed as mere off-the-cuff responses to a TV interviewer. Rather, it appears to be part of a broader, considered policy that would likely be at the heart of the Middle East strategy of President Hillary Clinton.

The Clinton campaign, while explaining her remarks to skeptics, made it clear that this was no slip of the tongue. Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post reports that the "obliterate" remarks are part of a more extensive plan, first advanced in the debate prior to the Pennsylvania primary, for a new defensive alliance with the Arab states and Israel, in which the United States would extend not only a "security umbrella" over Israel but also "provide a deterrent backup" that would extend U.S. nuclear guarantees to Arab states who renounce nuclear weapons. The apparent author of this strategy is Martin Indyk. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/03/AR2008050301875.html.

Voters Shut Out of Indiana Primary Will Have to Appeal to Higher Authority

I hope someone informs the Supreme Court's mostly Catholic majority that their recent decision to uphold Indiana's voter ID law prevented a convent full of elderly and disabled nuns from casting a vote in yesterday's Democratic primary. In its decision, the court insisted the state had a legitimate interest in depriving lots of people of their right to vote because it would deter phantom fraudsters, even though the state has never had a single documented case of voter impersonation fraud. Clearly, the justices hadn't anticipated the sisters, who don't drive and didn't have much need of ID in the convent. Now shut out of court and the voting booth, the Indiana brides of Christ will have to appeal to God for a remedy.

Burma: Dispatches From a Nightmare

In the wake of the devastation left by Cyclone Nargis in Burma, "huge sections of the Irrawaddy Delta lie cut off from the outside world," writes Paul Danahar for the BBC in Southern Burma. "Monks are leading the cleaning-up process in the residential areas," says one blogger in Rangoon. "No electricity means no water; a real crisis, and people don’t know whether to pray for rain (no roofs) or not for water."

Below, more excerpts from this week's world press coverage of the crisis.

Burma, burmadigest in Burma Digest blog:

Yangon is Ground Zero; there are no more big trees left…Army Battalion no. 11, 22 and 77 are clearing the big roads. Otherwise, it’s mostly kohtu kohta (self-help). Monks are leading the cleaning-up process in the residential areas…

No electricity means no water; a real crisis, and people don’t know whether to pray for rain (no roofs) or not for water…People are using water from Inya Lake….

Petrol was 10,000 kyats to the gallon yesterday (maybe less today, because the govt. petrol pumps are selling petrol today). Candles have gone up from 100 to 300 kyats for a medium-sized candle; chicken is 10,000 kyats to the viss; eggs are 280 kyats (100% increase); pebyoke (baked beans) is 400 kyats for 10 ticals (doubled price)…

Tin roofing has gone up from 5000 to 30,000 kyats. General labourers are charging 7000 kyats per day just to drag logs away…

Rangoon has gone backwards 20 years.

"Merchant of Death" Indicted in U.S. Federal Court

It was just over two months ago that Viktor Bout, the elusive Russian arms trafficker, was jailed in Thailand after being felled by a months-long DEA sting operation. He remains in a Bangkok prison, pending extradition to the United States, where (short of a plea agreement) he will most likely face federal prosecution in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Yesterday, U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia and Acting DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart unsealed the federal indictment (.pdf) against Bout, charging him with four counts of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism.

An excerpt from the press release announcing the indictment:

Between November 2007 and March 2008, Bout agreed to sell to the FARC millions of dollars' worth of weapons—including surface-to-air missile systems ("SAMs"), armor piercing rocket launchers, AK-47 firearms, millions of rounds of ammunition, Russian spare parts for rifles, anti-personnel land mines, C-4 plastic explosives, night-vision equipment, "ultralight" airplanes that could be outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Bout agreed to sell the weapons to two confidential sources working with the DEA (the "CSs"), who represented that they were acquiring these weapons for the FARC, with specific understanding that the weapons were to be used to attack United States helicopters in Colombia...

A Step Towards Victory at the FEC

Yesterday, President Bush put forward a revised list of nominees for the Federal Elections Commission. As we've reported in-depth, the FEC currently only has two of its customary six commissioners, meaning the body that regulates all federal elections lacks the quorum necessary to do its job. Bush's new slate of commissioners, and the Republicans' new willingness to play ball in the confirmation process, suggests that a fully functioning FEC may be on the horizon.

Here's the deal. Formerly, the nominees were Democrat Robert Lenhard, Democrat Steven Walther, Republican David Mason (the sitting Chairman), and Republican Hans von Spakovsky (HVS). Democrat Ellen Weintraub was already sitting on the FEC. The problem with that roster was that von Spakovsky was objectionable to Democrats, who saw him as the GOP's point man on minority disenfranchisement in his previous activities. Democrats wanted to vote on each nominee individually, leading to the likely rejection of HVS and the acceptance of everyone else. Final result in the Democrats' scenario: a FEC with three Democrats and a sole Republican. The Republicans rejected the idea and said instead that all the nominees, including HVS, had to be approved together. Deadlock ensued.

Republican Primary Results of Note

Our friends at Reason provide a solid round-up of Republican primary races that were resolved yesterday. Some good news and some bad. Anti-war Republican Walter Jones of North Carolina, subject of a sympathetic 2006 Mother Jones cover story, beat back a challenge from a pro-war candidate.

"I think more and more Republicans are starting to understand after five years that the Iraqis need to step up and take responsibility," Jones said.

Jones retained some strong military support in his district, particularly among retired Marines and other veterans.

"We are close to the veterans and they knew it," Jones said.

On the other hand, anti-sanity Republican Dan Burton of Indiana, subject of a scathing 2008 Mother Jones blog post, topped a Republican primary challenger by seven points, a sizable victory but a much smaller one than Burton is accustomed to in primary or general elections. For more on Burton, see this 1997 MoJo piece from deep in our archives.

Clinton: Damn the Pundits, Full Speed Ahead

The morning after, the Clinton crew was unbowed. As Hillary Clinton on Tuesday night was being creamed by Barack Obama in North Carolina and eking out a narrow victory in Indiana, pundits throughout Cable News Land were pronouncing her dead, dead, dead. Tim Russert said the race was over. But when a reporter on the campaign's morning conference call, asked Howard Wolfson, Clinton's communications director, if there had been "any discussions about not going forward," he said, "No discussions." And he seemed to mean it.

On the call, Wolfson, deputy communications director Phil Singer, and chief strategist Geoff Garin were forward-looking. They claimed to be "happy" about the 1.8-percent win in Indiana--but without sounding at all jubilant about the squeaker. As for North Carolina--where she lost by 14 points--they claimed "progress" there and pointed to the fact that she beat Obama among white voters by 24 points (as if the increasing racial polarization within the Democratic primary electorate is something to celebrate). They acknowledged that Clinton had in recent weeks loaned her campaign nearly $6.5 million--and claimed it was a sign of her commitment to moving ahead and, of course, fighting for real people. They repeated the campaign's call to seat the disputed delegations of Florida and Michigan, and they indicated they were ready to rumble in the upcoming primaries. Voters in those states, Garin said, should be given the ability "to express their voice." He added, "All we are doing is suggesting the process ought to play out."

In other words, damn the pundits, full speed ahead. It appeared that Clinton--faced with three alternatives: fighting on as if nothing has changed, dropping out, or planning a graceful exit strategy--has for the time being settled on option one.

Would Seating Michigan and Florida Change the Race?

Short answer? No. Here is MSNBC's First Read:

...on the delegate front, if Florida and Michigan were seated as is and Obama got the uncommitted delegates in Michigan, Clinton would net an additional 32 delegates from Florida and 18 from Michigan -- for a total net of 50. So add those numbers into the current pledged delegate count and Obama still would lead in the pledged delegate count by more than 100, approximately 110 in fact. So let's use 110 as the baseline. For Clinton to overtake him in the pledged delegate lead using THEIR math on Florida and Michigan, she'd need to win 75% of all remaining delegates. That's an impossible task. Most importantly, knowing the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee the way we THINK we do, the likelihood of the committee NOT punishing Florida and Michigan in some way (say a cut in half of their delegates a la the Republicans) would then make this FL/MI exercise moot.

I made a less precise version of this point yesterday in a post about how shifting expectations affected the race.

NY Times Op-Ed Plugs MoJo Article on Corporate Espionage

Last month, MotherJones.com broke the story that a private security firm, Beckett Brown International, had spied on Greenpeace and other environmental groups while working for its corporate clients. In today's New York Times, Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser cites the Beckett Brown story and others like it, arguing for congressional hearings on corporate espionage. Doesn't seem hearing-worthy? Maybe you don't know the full story of Beckett Brown. From the piece:

BBI, which was headquartered in Easton, Maryland, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, worked extensively, according to billing records, for public-relations companies, including Ketchum, Nichols-Dezenhall Communications, and Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin. At the time, these PR outfits were servicing corporate clients fighting environmental organizations opposed to their products or actions. Ketchum, for example, was working for Dow Chemical and Kraft Foods; Nichols-Dezenhall, according to BBI records, was working with Condea Vista, a chemical manufacturing firm that in 1994 leaked up to 47 million pounds of ethylene dichloride, a suspected carcinogen, into the Calcasieu River in Louisiana.

Or what about this, from an internal Beckett Brown document cited in our piece:

Received a call from Ketchum yesterday afternoon re three sites in DC. It seems Taco Bell turned out some product made from bioengineered corn. The chemicals used on the corn have not been approved for human consumption. Hence Taco Bell produced potential glow-in-the-dark tacos. Taco Bell is owned by Kraft. The Ketchum Office, New York, has the ball. They suspect the initiative is being generated from one of three places:

1.Center for Food Safety, 7th & Penn SE

2.Friends of the Earth, 1025 Vermont Ave (Between K & L Streets)

3.GE Food Alert, 1200 18th St NW (18th & M)

#1 is located on 3rd floor. Main entrance is key card. Alley is locked by iron gates. 7 dempsters [sic] in alley—take your pick.

#2 is in the same building as Chile Embassy. Armed guard in lobby & cameras everywhere. There is a dumpster in the alley behind the building. Don't know if it is tied to bldg. or a neighborhood property. Cameras everywhere.

#3 is doable but behind locked iron gates at rear of bldg.

Want more of the dirty details? Read the full story.

With the Media Seemingly Decided, Clinton Faces Three Options

It took a long time for the results from Lake County, Indiana, to be filed on Tuesday night. Was it long enough for the conventional wisdom to be cemented?

As the hours passed into the night yesterday, Hillary Clinton's chances dimmed. By mid-evening, she had lost North Carolina by 14 points and was clinging to a diminishing lead in Indiana. By 10 pm, the political world was all staring at the same situation: Clinton, up on Obama by an unexpectedly low 30,000-40,000 votes in Indiana, endangered by the still-absent results from the northwestern county known as Lake County, home of Gary and just outside of Chicago.

As the pundit class waited for Lake County to tabulate, Clinton's precarious position became the only topic of conversation. On MSNBC, Tim Russert declared the race over, saying that Clinton had no realistic path to the nomination after the events of the day. Chuck Todd, normally beholden to the numbers and unaccustomed to bold proclamations, conceded that Russert may have been correct. On CNN, David Gergen said that Clinton's ability, seen repeatedly in the campaign, to respond with a victory when her campaign was on the precipice had finally failed her. Democratic superdelegate and CNN contributor Donna Brazile stated that it was in the best interests of the Democratic Party to unify around one candidate. In fact, the entire broadcasting team at CNN, seemingly over a dozen people, was so dismissive of the New York Senator's chances that Clinton surrogate Lanny Davis complained about the coverage on air.

But then, after midnight, Lake County finally submitted its result and Clinton won Indiana by two points, momentarily jeopardizing the media narrative already in the making. But it appeared that Obama's miserable two weeks leading up to election day Tuesday set the bar for him so low that his 14-point victory in North Carolina and his two-point loss in Indiana were effectively a victory in the media's eye, which, jaundiced by the expectations game, doesn't see a win as a win and a loss as a loss. Adam Nagourney, the New York Times's lead political reporter, published a news analysis Wednesday morning that began, "In this case, a split was not a draw." The Drudge Report ran a simple headline under a picture of Obama: "The Nominee."

And maybe rightfully so. Clinton won Indiana by 23,000 votes. That means if 12,000 late-deciding Indianans had woken up on the other side of the bed, or seen one fewer Clinton ad, or had one more conversation with their Obama-loving granddaughter, the election would be, for all practical purposes, completely over. And besides, Obama's lead in the delegate count grew because of a split decision in Indiana and a significant delegate pickup in North Carolina. Moreover, Clinton now has fewer pledged delegates with which to close the gap. She must now win a staggering percentage of the superdelegates to overturn Obama's lead in the pledged delegate count.

That that leaves her with three options.

Clinton Continuing On... For Now

"We've let states like Kentucky and West Virginia slip out of the Democratic column for too long... [it is] so important that we count the votes of Florida and Michigan. It would be a little strange to have a nominee chosen by 48 states."

In Clinton's speech in Indiana moments ago, she made it clear that she isn't quitting the Democratic race in the face of tonight's disappointing results. (The fact that the Clinton press office blitzed out an email to reporters spinning the night's results suggests the same.) West Virginia's primary is May 13, Kentucky and Oregon are May 20, Puerto Rico is June 1, and Montana and South Dakota bring up the rear on June 3. Obama will likely get beat badly in West Virginia and Kentucky (polling shows him getting murdered in both states). If you accept the conventional wisdom forming by the minute that Hillary Clinton has no path to the nomination, and if you accept the idea that the superdelegates' primary role is to officially hand the nomination to the best and most likely candidate, in order to protect him or her from dangerous primary challengers, the logical time for the superdelgates to step in and start endorsing would be... now.

That said, Hillary Clinton's supporters have shown time and time again that they are most willing to step up for their candidate when she is in trouble. The post-loss fundraising appeals from Bill and Hillary really open up the pocketbooks. Furthermore, as I've said before, the Clintons are at their best when their backs are against the wall.