I did not vote for Barack Obama. I was already convinced that he was not to be trusted because he went back on his promise to filibuster the FISA Amendments Act, because he abased himself before the Israel lobby AIPAC, because his health care bill was not promising universal care and it was most certainly not single payer. There were other problems, too.

Since he took office, he has done some pretty good things, and some very bad ones. He has gone back on his promise for open and transparent government as he maintains W.'s fraudulent interpretation of the state secrets exception. And, just as happened with Bush, the courts have consistently overruled his interpretation that an entire case can be tossed based on the absurd premise that dealing with something in the public record already will—somehow—reveal secrets, rather than have state secrets apply only to a piece of evidence or an individual witness.

He has proposed a "judicial" system based on the grotesque premise that there will be several tracks to put the accused on, so that whatever the situation is—the details of an individual's circumstances—there will be a way to ensure that the government will prevail. Or, if that is not possible because a witness or the accused has been tortured, the alleged terrorist will still end up being imprisoned with no charges and no process because—even with no evidence—he's just too dangerous.

Remember, I am not making this up. These are all proposals that have come from Obama.

Recently, the Department of Justice submitted a brief against a suit brought by a same-sex couple in California. That brief was written by three people, one of whom is a holdover from the Bush regime who is a Morman. The content of the brief reinforced every stereotype one might have about that religion: implying that gay marriage is in the same class as pedophilia and incest. 

Obama also refuses to sign an executive order to suspend the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy instituted under that great liberal, Bill Clinton. DADT is denying equal rights for gay service members and destroying their military careers by tossing them out of the military at the rate of two every day.

Obama could have used the stop-loss policy (the premise that the armed forces can not spare these people) to stop DADT. But, he won't do that.

How is any of this different from what W. did? It isn't—except for one thing: Obama made claims that he was a supporter of LGBT rights, that he was going to stop secrecy and unconstitutional behavior by government. Bush gave us exactly what we expected and what, in essence, he promised.

Now, to prove, once again, that Obushma is indeed a lying sack of shit who is, in so many ways giving us a third term of W, he has used a signing statement to claim that he doesn't have to follow the dictates of a bill he is signing! 

Congress passed (and don't get me started on these war criminals) the bill that will provide money to continue killing Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, and Americans while the United States continues and expands the occupation of Afghanistan, continues the occupation of Iraq and expands the Pakistan invasion. 

But (small favors) they added some restrictions onto the part of the bill giving the International Monetary Fund money to pay off European banks and continue it's exploitive policies.

In case you are unfamiliar with the IMF, it is the arm of international capitalism that is used to bleed third world countries for the benefit of first world investors.

A frequent method for the IMF is to not give money to help countries pay their debts unless they destroy their social service programs: health, education, labor, climate, etc.

Consequently, the Congress decided to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to do certain things that would protect some of these social programs. 

Obama feels that these provisions would interfere with his executive authority, and used a signing statement to say that he would not follow parts of the Act.

I will not argue the constitutionality of the bill, but the president must either go along with a bill he signs, or veto it. This is why Obama said the following on December 20, 2007:  

"[I]t is a clear abuse of power to use such [Presidential signing] statements as a license to evade laws that the president does not like or as an end-run around provisions designed to foster accountability. 

"I will not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law."

So who is that behind the blackface? It looks more and more like George W. Bush.