1. Snowe's caving in on President's wiretapping
   Olympia Snowe seems to be going out of the way these days to prove she's not a moderate anymore, that she's a go-along Republican and a Bush enabler.
   
   Her initial verbal outrage in December at the President's pronouncement that yes, he did violate the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by wiretapping American citizens without a warrant, was appropriate. But by last week, she had caved in to her party's pressure.
   
   Olympia Snowe's support for a small "oversight" committee that might hear what the President wants to tell them about what he's been doing, but which has no authority to do anything about anything it might see as troublesome, is inexcusable. Refusing to investigate the President's violation of this law, even to the point of making those violations retroactively legal, amounts to a dismemberment of the balance of power within the three branches of government.
   
   This is serious stuff, and it appears Olympia Snowe is not up to the task of protecting our rights, of protecting us citizens from the abuses of our own government.
   
   Olympia Snowe has become part of the problem in Washington.
   
   
2. Dubai ports deal
   Like most Americans, I was astonished to learn about the Dubai ports deal, the plan for the United Arab Emerits to buy and run port facilities in a dozen or so U.S. ports. But I was also astonished to learn who they would be buying them from -- a British firm who already owned them.
   
   I am opposed to this deal, not because the UAE is an Arab nation, but because it is a foreign entity. I am opposed to ANY foreign ownership of our port facilities. That includes nice English-speaking foreigners like the British.
   
   They are OUR ports. Remember the "two if by sea" cry of Paul Revere? Port security is a matter of national security, and having the Coast Guard acting as cops on the water is not enough.
   
   Beyond the national safety issue, I have a problem with the idea of foreign corporations or foreign governments making money off our ports. That's a strange twist on the sad labor issue of "outsourcing." To coin a phrase, let's call it "in-sourcing." They buy American property, hire a few Americans as longshoremen, but take their profits home with them. WE need those profits. We need the taxes on those profits. We need to take care of ourselves first, the global marketplace be danged.
   
   The argument can be further made that port facilities are part of the nation's critical infrastructure, like our interstate highway system, and should be owned, maintained and run by the government, not private corporations, even American ones.
   
   
3. Food Safety law passed by House, fate in Senate unclear
   The House of Representatives in Congress just passed a bill designed to gut food safety and labeling laws. H.R. 4167, the National Uniformity for Food Act, would eliminate current state or local laws and prevent the enactment of future laws that impose stricter requirements for food safety than current federal standards. This bill would reduce food safety laws to the federal government's "uniform" lowest common denominator, wiping out laws in at least 30 states from California to Maine.
   
   This federal law would nullify local and state laws that now empower consumers with essential information about what's in our food-such as toxic chemicals, mercury, potential allergens, and genetically engineered ingredients. The federal law does not set a minimum standard, it forbids states from adopting ANY standard that is beyond a federal provision.
   
   As an organic farmer, I am very aware of food and food labeling, and I am troubled not only by this law, but by how easily it passed the House 283-139 on March 8. The fate of this law in the Senate is unclear, and Senator Susan Collins has said it will probably not see the light of day this year. Senator Olympia Snowe has expressed tentative support for this bill, should it reach the Senate floor for a vote.
   
   With food safety becoming a major issue in this era of global warming and GMO plantings, we should have MORE local and state oversight of our food supply, not less. This is entirely the wrong direction for this issue to go.
   
   
4. Add depleted uranium to Iraq War issue
   I have been reminded recently that I have not specifically mentioned the issue of depleted uranium in my anti-Iraq War remarks. Since I've long been against that absurd use of radioactive material, I will correct that oversight right now.
   
   We should not now use, nor should we ever have used, depleted uranium in weaponry, exposing our troops to the radioactivity while the shells are still in the vehicles before being fired, and exposing the countryside and all still-living things in it once the ordnance has been launched and exploded. I am not impressed by the fact that the inclusion of this material hardens the shells and makes them more penetrating. The inclusion of this material turns a lethal weapon of limited range and known force into a weapon of mass and long-term destruction.
   
   The use of this material is immoral and inexcusable and should be stopped immediately. And we should plan on cleaning up the mess it has made once we vacate a military area where it has been used.
   
   And of course we need to take care of the military men and women who have been harmed by exposure to this dangerous material in the course of their assigned duties.
   
   
5. Impeachment, Censure, Yes
   I've been publicly calling for impeachment proceedings since last summer. In my prepared remarks for the Iraq Forum that Tom Allen held last July (posted here) I talk about impeachment near the end:

   ...Third and finally, I think we need to seriously look at impeachment, of impeaching a president, a vice-president, and a defense secretary for their high crimes of lying to the American people and of waging an unprovoked war of aggression against a sovereign nation that had not attacked us, had not threatened to attack us, and did not have the means to attack us. This too is a major step for the American people and the U.S. Congress to undertake. But our Founding Fathers, in their wisdom and understanding of human nature and the potential for the misuse of vast power, provided us in our great Constitution with a way of dealing with such abuses of power. We are looking here at so much more than what the meaning of the word "is" is. As the bumper sticker says, when Clinton lied, nobody died.

   Since then I've signed on to Rep. John Conyers bill for a committee to investigate possible impeachment charges. I've also supported Sen. Russ Feingold's recent call for a censure of the President for his admitted and unapologetic violation of the FISA law.
   
   The list of possible routes toward impeachment has grown long:
   • the lies that got us into the Iraq war,
   • the torture of our war prisoners and "enemy combatants,"
   • the secret CIA prisons in foreign countries,
   • the denial of habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo Bay detainees
   • the admittedly illegal spying on Americans by the Bush administration,
   • the outing of a CIA agent by the vice-president's office,
   • the incompetence at FEMA and Homeland Security,
   • the corruption in the Iraq reconstruction contracts.
   
   The bottom line, of course, is that no matter how bad things get, impeachment is highly unlikely if not impossible as long as the Republicans are in control of both houses of Congress. The only way the agenda will change in the Washington is for Democrats to regain the majority. In the Senate, it means replacing six sitting Republican Senators with Democratic Senators. In Maine, the only seat we have any say about this year is the one now held by Republican Senator Olympia Snowe.
   
   Send me to Washington and I will vote to start those investigations, and to follow through wherever they may lead.

Imagine would have you imagining a strong, outspoken, pro-choice, pro-labor woman Democrat representing Maine in the U.S. Senate.

Inside/Outside Strategy explains the dual processes of getting us where we want to be politically.

Wiretapping takes George Bush to task over the illegal wiretapping of American citizens, and Senator Olympia Snowe's "disappointing" complicity in stopping a Congressional investigation.