Photo credit: Mark Manne (www.markmanne.com) Lee Papa is the fearless political blogger known as "the Rude Pundit" (rudepundit.blogspot.com) his tens of thousands of weekly readers make him one of the most widely-read left-wing bloggers out there, which, as he says, "is like living in an air-conditioned room in Hell." When not proudly lowering political discourse, he is a regular guest on the nationally-syndicated radio program The Stephanie Miller Show. His one-man shows have sold out to audiences in New York and Canada because filthy stories are big in both places.

Introduction

Lee Papa

This book is unfair, and I am imbalanced. Of course, I have drugs that take care of the latter, the pole for the delicate tightrope walk of chemicals in my brain, although tequila is probably flicking the cable a bit. As for the unfairness? Well, at least I'm honest. I'm not presenting this as the truth (even if it is) or a cor-rective to a mostly conservative media. No, this almanac is a chronicle of our accelerating descent into madness in this America, and it's an attempt to toss out an anchor, put on some brakes, or at least claw the earth with our finger¬nails to try to stop our plunge off the cliff.

The results of the congressional elections of 2010 were a warning sign: if you dance with the capitalist devil, you are going to get burned. The Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and the GOP gains in the Senate, as well as in gubernatorial and state legislative races were the next act in a passion play for our democracy that is being scripted to near-perfection by corporations. This occurred in the wake of the Citizens United decision in the Supreme Court, which said, in essence, corporations can anonymously pour cash into elections because they have the same speech rights as real people.

And the Tea Party and all their teabaggage? That was merely playing the buffoons and yokels for everything they're worth. For what is the end result of their "ideology"? A modified anarchy? A Frito-Lay-sponsored oligarchy? It is that each of us should have the right to squat in our shitpiles of ignorance, isolated from one another, coveting our precious money, fellating our guns and fucking ourselves against our 50-inch LED screens in our multi-mortgaged, soon-to-be foreclosed on hovels, and if the world outside our caves goes to hell, well, that's because people don't understand how wonderful it is to engorge your faces with poisoned food and asthmatically heave your chest through polluted air and travel on shattered roads and bridges while picking your un¬medicated scabs in order to get to work at Wal-Mart for shit wages. If that's the America you want, then give it another couple of years.

Photo credit: Mark Manne (www.markmanne.com) Lee Papa is the fearless political blogger known as "the Rude Pundit" (rudepundit.blogspot.com) his tens of thousands of weekly readers make him one of the most widely-read left-wing bloggers out there, which, as he says, "is like living in an air-conditioned room in Hell." When not proudly lowering political discourse, he is a regular guest on the nationally-syndicated radio program The Stephanie Miller Show. His one-man shows have sold out to audiences in New York and Canada because filthy stories are big in both places.

Introduction

Lee Papa

This book is unfair, and I am imbalanced. Of course, I have drugs that take care of the latter, the pole for the delicate tightrope walk of chemicals in my brain, although tequila is probably flicking the cable a bit. As for the unfairness? Well, at least I'm honest. I'm not presenting this as the truth (even if it is) or a cor-rective to a mostly conservative media. No, this almanac is a chronicle of our accelerating descent into madness in this America, and it's an attempt to toss out an anchor, put on some brakes, or at least claw the earth with our finger¬nails to try to stop our plunge off the cliff.

The results of the congressional elections of 2010 were a warning sign: if you dance with the capitalist devil, you are going to get burned. The Republican takeover of the House of Representatives and the GOP gains in the Senate, as well as in gubernatorial and state legislative races were the next act in a passion play for our democracy that is being scripted to near-perfection by corporations. This occurred in the wake of the Citizens United decision in the Supreme Court, which said, in essence, corporations can anonymously pour cash into elections because they have the same speech rights as real people.

And the Tea Party and all their teabaggage? That was merely playing the buffoons and yokels for everything they're worth. For what is the end result of their "ideology"? A modified anarchy? A Frito-Lay-sponsored oligarchy? It is that each of us should have the right to squat in our shitpiles of ignorance, isolated from one another, coveting our precious money, fellating our guns and fucking ourselves against our 50-inch LED screens in our multi-mortgaged, soon-to-be foreclosed on hovels, and if the world outside our caves goes to hell, well, that's because people don't understand how wonderful it is to engorge your faces with poisoned food and asthmatically heave your chest through polluted air and travel on shattered roads and bridges while picking your un¬medicated scabs in order to get to work at Wal-Mart for shit wages. If that's the America you want, then give it another couple of years.