Gordon Smith's Vile. So Is His Company.

But don't take *my* word for it; check out Open Left's Matt Stoller's piece on the matter regarding Mr. Smith's company, Smith Frozen Foods, and its use of sewage water (since, quite possibly, the 1980s) to irrigate the crops that eventually get all froze-up and poured into bags with the Smith Frozen Foods label slapped smugly on the front.

On more than one occasion, Smith Frozen Foods, the company owned by Gordon Smith, has violated Oregon's laws against having coliform bacteria in their drinking water.  The presence of coliform bacteria may indicate environmental contamination, fecal contamination or E. coli bacteria.

What is coliform bacteria?

Coliform bacteria are organisms that are present in the environment and in the feces of all warm-blooded animals and humans.

Sick!  Eck!  Puke! -- *gags*  I'm so grossed out I have to get up and go wash my hands before I can even finish writing this post, just to help ease my mind a bit.

*disappears into the bathroom; sounds of much soap-use and splashing echo forth*

'Kay.  Back.  Still totally viscerally disturbed by the poo-water-on-the-food thing.

*shudders*

Anyway, as Matt says, you don't usually see such a direct link between big agribusiness and conservative members of Congress; there's, more often than not, a middleman (helloooo lobbyists).  In Gordon Smith's case, his use of feces-water on food sold to an unsuspecting public, and the gains resulting therefrom, went straight into his campaign war-chest.

Oregon?  Please feel free to join me in preventing (the utterly immoral) Mr. Smith from going back to Washington.  No matter the size of his (ill-gotten) campaign budget.

(Also?  I'm personally not averse to seeing his business get slammed for about a zillion violations, once he does get canceled out of the Senate club membership.  Drain his pocketbook a little a lot.)

(But then, I'm not very nice.)