I am truly disappoined and depressed.

Understand that I have been a life long Registered Republican. But when Bush authorized torture and searches without warrants, I became an Independent because we are not the people who condones such behavior.

So when Barack Obama promised to change the way Washington works, I signed on 100%.
I was at an organizing meeting the day he announced, and attended a lot more meetings. I made telephone calls to voters in California, Texas and South Dakota. I wrote a check every month and on election day, I drove little old ladies to vote.

The point is that I really put some skin in the game because I thought it was important for the future of the country, and that is why I am now disappointed and depressed.

To be fair, Obama has done some really good things. Bob Gates is doing a really good job of reigning in an out of control defense department. Arne Duncan has stuck a finger in the eye of the teacher's union AND the NCAA. You gotta love that guy. General Shinsiki and his right hand person, Tammy, are really fixing the VA. You have to agree that Hilary, George and Richard have made amazing progress in how the world looks at us.

But on the big deals, Obama has been a total failure so let's walk through them.

1) Healthcare. An utter failure because it does absolutely nothing to slow down, let alone stop, the out of control health care costs. He turned to whole thing over to Nancy and Harry, the most incompetent members of Congress and they promptly sold it out to big Pharma and hospital lobbyists. It is so ugly that costs are already increasing and a RECORD number of Americans now have no coverage whatsoever.

2) The Economy. Fifteen million Americans are unemployed. Fifteen million more Americans are working short hours. Forty-four million Americans are now living in poverty. And this is all because he has surrounded himself with some of the dumbest human beings, i.e, Economists, and he doesn't seem to understand that all the programs they have produced are UTTER failures.

3)Financial Reform. This bill is a huge piece of garbage because it does not do the single most important job it should have done, e.g., it completely failed to take Too Big To Fail off the table. As a result, the next huge financial crisis is just a matter of time. Goldman Sachs, et al, are already at work finding ways around the restrictions in this stupid piece of legislation. Judging by their previous work, I have every confidence that Wall Street will screw all of us while making incredible riches for themselves. Obama just caved into the big money from Wall Street. Just check who are his big campaign contributors.

4)Afghanistan. This is a little bit more complicated and the jury is still out. Cheney, et all, bitched endlessly about the time Obama took to make a decision about AF/PAK as the region is now called. Compare that with Bush's overnight decision to invade Iraq. Obama has said that he did that to demand 100% commitments from the military that they would be able to win (whatever that means) if he gave them what they wanted. Fair enough and a good idea. But now David Petraeus (whom I have huge respect for)is already weaseling about the withdrawal date. Obama has screwed himself by being too clever by half. We are going to be in AF/PAK when your grandchildren are born.

But here is the thing that has finally broken my back/spirit/whatever. Today, Obama appointed Elizabeth Warren to be an "Assistant" to Timmy Geithner instead of nominating her to run the consumer protection agency she devised ten years ago. Don't believe any of the complete bullshit that the White House is offering for an explanation of this piece of complete cowardice. Here are the real facts. Timmy hates Elizabeth because she threatens the profits of his patrons on Wall Street. (And if you don't understand that fact, read earlier entries here.)

So here we are three years later. Instead of producing real change, Obama has sold out to his Wall Street contributors. He is already a millionaire. How much is enough? Apparently, there is "NO Enough"!

I don't remember being more depressed in my entire life, and it has been a long one. I guess, more than anything I feel betrayed, and that is a truly bad thing.

So what I am going to do is to take a long road trip and look at this incredibly beautiful county that is being stolen from us people we have sent to Washington to manage this country, and who have sold us out completely. Yes, I going to lick my wounds (and yours) in private.

I will be back with this rant in November when the elections are over and I have run out of road trip money.