The ROOT RANT:

 

By Wayne Allyn Root, former Libertarian Vice Presidential Nominee

 

The progressive left’s lynching of Rush Limbaugh reminds me of why conservative talk radio is successful and leftists can never duplicate that success.

 

For years liberals have tried to compete with conservative talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh, to no avail. Why is liberal talk radio an abysmal failure? Simple…talk radio is all about going to and from…WORK. People listen to talk radio in their cars during morning or afternoon drive time, to and from work. The magic ingredient leftists and progressives don’t understand is you have to appeal to people who work.

 

Who drives to and from work? Taxpayers! Taxpayers working to put food on the table, pay a mortgage, raise a family, and yes, pay the damn taxes. And, the vast majority of taxpayers are fiscal conservatives angry at the way government spends and squanders the tax dollars they have worked so hard to earn. That makes them fans of conservative talk radio hosts like Rush.

 

On the other hand, many (but not all) people sitting at home during commuter drive time are waiting for their welfare, food stamps, aid to dependent children, and other government entitlements to be delivered to them. Others, whose unemployment is running out, are plotting how to qualify for disability. These people tend to vote Democrat to keep that “Obama Money” coming their way. They are not the typical conservative talk radio listeners.

 

The sit-on-the-couch-in-the-daytime crowd watches the boob tube. That is why daytime TV is dominated by time-wasting, mind-numbing, soap operas and low brow TV talk shows (almost all of which have a liberal/progressive agenda). Daytime television advertising is dominated by ambulance-chasing lawyers aimed at Democrat freeloader viewers looking for another get-rich-quick opportunity where they can play the victim and blame anyone but themselves.

 

Having lost the battle for the talk radio airwaves…badly…the Obama-loving progressive cabal has now taken a different tact. Now, they want to destroy the careers of the conservative talk radio hosts through protests and email campaigns aimed at the advertisers. It’s a strategy called “If you can’t beat ‘em, lynch ‘em.”

 

As always, this is based on a major difference between liberals and conservatives. Those who work and pay taxes don’t have time to complain or protest. We’re too busy working so we can pay our “fair share” of the tax burden. “Fair Share” by the way means essentially 100% of the taxes are being paid by 50% of the population (almost all of whom drive to and from work) while the other 50% (many of whom sit at home collecting government handouts) complains and protests that we should be paying even more. And how about the business owners- they are probably the single biggest audience for conservative talk radio. That “greedy” top 3% of income earners pays more taxes than the other 97% combined. No wonder they’re angry.

 

The business owners and the top 50% who are part of the taxpaying group don’t have time to watch MSNBC, let alone send letters to complain.   But, many of the other 50%, the typical leftist voter, has plenty of time. They don’t work or pay taxes. They are sitting home collecting checks from government, watching Oprah, the View, MSNBC, and the so-called mainstream media, who all tell them how terrible conservative talk radio is. And, they have plenty of time to write letters and emails and make calls complaining about what they are told are the “vile words” of some conservative talk show host.

 

That explains why Rush Limbaugh is under assault for calling a female law student who had the audacity to demand the most insulting entitlement yet- free contraception- a bad word. Was it a bad choice of words? Yes. Rush should have just called her a “sexual freeloader.” She can have all the sex she wants…but she has no right to ask taxpayers to pay for it. That’s the only issue here. She wants S&H- “sex and handouts.”

 

The left is trying to destroy Rush by sending emails and making calls to his advertisers. It’s nice to know progressive Democrats have all this time to waste in the middle of the day. Me? I’d be working three jobs. I’d be burning the phone lines putting deals together. I’d be looking for ways to better myself. But hey, I’ve got a mortgage to pay, taxes to pay, and a family to support. Silly me. That’s how I made it into the 3%.

 

Have you noticed these despicable tactics are only used by the progressive left. Conservatives have not tried to destroy HBO host and big-time Obama donor Bill Maher, who uses much more vile language to describe women- in particular, Sarah Palin. http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-maher-calls-sarah-palin-the-c-word-during-his-stand-up-act

 

Or to destroy leftist MSNBC host Ed Schultz for using the exact same word as Rush to describe a female conservative talk show host. http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/ed-schultz-suspended-from-msnbc-after-calling-laura-ingraham-a-right-wing-slut/2011/05/26/AGOcV2BH_story.html

 

Or to destroy leftist radio host Mike Malloy for mocking Christians of faith who were killed by tornados in the Midwest. http://www.mediaite.com/online/liberal-radio-host-ridicules-tornado-victims-their-god-keeps-smashing-them-into-grease-spots

 

Their comments defined “vile.” Yet where are the howls of protest about these vicious, despicable comments? Where is the media, or women’s rights organizations? Cat got your tongue? The double standard is as wide as the Grand Canyon.

 

But it all starts and ends with the difference between conservatives and leftists. We’re too busy working and paying taxes to waste our valuable time protesting and complaining about Bill Maher. We’ll leave that to the leftist S&H “sex and handouts” crowd.

 

 

 

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee. He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He is the best-selling author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold & Tax Cuts.” His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com

 

By Wayne Allyn Root

 

 

How would you like to retire with $6 million? $8 million? $10 million? All you have to do is become a government employee to hit the jackpot.

You don’t believe me? Do the math. I recently talked with a retired New York City toll taker. His salary averaged about $70,000 per year over 20 years. But in his last few years he worked loads of overtime and added in accumulated sick days to get his salary in those final years up to $150,000. His pension is based on his final years’ salary. This is a common pension-padding ploy.

 

This retired toll taker will now get a taxpayer funded pension of $120,000 a year for the rest of his life. He’s only 50 years old. The average 50-year old male has a life expectancy of almost 80. With automatic cost of living increases, that’s a bill to taxpayers of $5 Million for the next 30 years- for not working. THREE TIMES WHAT HE EARNED WHILE WORKING.

 

But here’s a frightening question- what if he lives to 90? Or 100? His pension could rise to $6 or $8 million or higher.

 

Multiply this times 21 million government employees (on the federal, state and local level) and you now get a sense of one of the biggest spending problems bankrupting America. Obama constantly boasts that he has “saved” government employee jobs. Well that’s not a positive. It’s a negative. Every government job you saved costs taxpayers millions in bloated salary, obscene pension, and free healthcare for life.

 

Are these stories the exception, rather than the rule?

 

Over 77,000 federal government employees earned more than the Governor of their state (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/31/77000-feds-paid-more-than-governors/?page=all).

 

On the federal level, it was just reported by USA Today that the average federal civil servant compensation is $123,049 per year (http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm). That’s more than double what private sector workers earn (average of $61,051).

 

Since 2000, federal government employee compensation has grown by 36.9% versus 8.8% for private sector employees.

 

But it’s at the state and local level that the worst problem exists.

 

In Las Vegas (Clark County) the average firefighter earns $199,678 per year (http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/dec/30/cost-cutting-ideas-center-salaries). When he retires at age 45 or 50, we owe his pension for life. But here’s the clincher- when he finally dies, the taxpayer has to continue paying the pension to his spouse. Add up the damage to the economy. It is catastrophic. Talk about a 1 per center- a single firefighter could retire with $8 to $10 million for not working for the rest of his life. This is madness.

 

Now I agree that policemen and firefighters are heroes. But should all heroes retire on 6-figure pensions, paid by taxpayers? It would be nice if they could, but it’s unaffordable. It will bankrupt a nation. Ask Greece. Or ask California.

 

But the reality is that police and firemen make up a small portion of government employees. Recent studies prove the average janitor that works for government makes over $600,000 more in his career than a private sector janitor. Are janitors heroes too? This goes on at every level of government.

 

The Las Vegas Review Journal had three stories in one day recently that sums up this national outrage.

 

Let’s start with the Las Vegas teachers union. It was reported that more than a third of the union’s entire $4.1 million annual budget went to pay just nine union leaders (http://www.lvrj.com/news/leaders-of-clark-county-teachers-union-see-big-jump-in-pay-140472673.html). The Teachers Union Executive Director received $632,546, while the CEO of the union-created Teachers Health Trust was paid $546,133. So next time you hear educators scream “it’s for the kids,” you’ll know the truth. It’s for the unions.

 

Article number two was about those highly paid Las Vegas firefighters. It turns out they weren’t satisfied with making almost $200,000 per year. They also abused sick leave, rigged work schedules to pump up their pensions, and appear to have engaged in widespread disability fraud (http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/firefighters-gamed-the-system-again-140473303.html). Do you understand this kind of abuse is going on across America?

 

Article number three was about a now retired Las Vegas homicide detective and possible police brutality (http://www.lvrj.com/news/retired-lieutenant-demands-inquiry-into-las-vegas-police-shootings-140467923.html). It had nothing to do with pensions. But interestingly, the retired homicide detective they quote in the story is 47 years old. He’s 47 and already retired? Want to bet that you and I are on the hook for $5 to $10 million in pension and health benefits from now until the day he dies- for not working.

 

These aren’t CEO types. These are average government employees retiring with the equivalent of $5 to $10 million. Do you know any small business owners who retire with $5 to $10 million? They are few and far between. But that’s exactly what a private sector employee would need in the bank on the day of his or her retirement to match the $100,000 per year pensions (plus health care benefits and cost of living increases) of government employees paid out over 30 to 50 years. Keep in mind that government employees never risk a dollar of their own money. They have lifetime job security. And they rarely work beyond 9 to 5, let alone weekends or holidays.

 

Yet government employees are paid millions by taxpayers to retire early, often on pensions fattened by gaming the corrupt system. This is a national disgrace that is bankrupting America.

 

This is the scandal that makes Bernie Madoff look like a small-time crook.

 

 

 

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee. He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Congressional Committee. He is the best-selling author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold & Tax Cuts.” His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com

 

By Wayne Allyn Root, Former Libertarian Vice Presidential Nominee

Newt Gingrich may have won South Carolina. But this wasn’t a Newt victory, as much as it was a devastating rebuke to the national media.

 

Study the poll numbers. Yes, Romney really dropped the ball with the tax return issue and the 15% capital gains issue, but the numbers started flipping from a Romney landslide to a Newt Gingrich landslide only after the ABC television interview with Newt’s ex-wife. And voters made the final decision to change their votes only after hearing Newt strongly and courageously scold and shame the media in the South Carolina Presidential debate on Thursday.

 

Make no mistake about it- this was a resounding rebuke of the mainstream media. They were kicked in the teeth.

Read on. I’ll tell you why they deserved it.

 

America may hate politicians, they may hate Congress, they may even give Obama among the lowest ratings in modern history at this point in a Presidency. But the media has now sunk to even lower depths than the politicians.

 

And deservedly so.

 

Only days ago I pointed out what a travesty it was that the media sharks were in a feeding frenzy to destroy Romney over taxes, Gingrich over ex-wives, and Ron Paul over 20 year old newsletters, but seemed to lack the same level of enthusiasm about Obama’s mysterious past. But the biased leftist media doesn’t care. Par for the course.

 

This same mainstream media also snickers at the idea that Obama is a socialist. Funny how they ignore a brand new Pew poll that proves that liberal Democrats not only favor socialism over capitalism, but by a wide 59-33 margin they see socialism as a positive. Even more shocking is that the same poll proves that a large majority of African American voters (Obama’s staunchest supporters), by a 55-36 margin, also see socialism as a positive. Shouldn’t alarm bells be ringing in the mainstream media?

 

Well, the alarm bells aren’t ringing for a good reason. The mainstream media is made up of radical, extreme, progressive leftists who also see socialism as a positive. Want proof? Let’s head back to my Columbia University days. You know, the same place where my classmate Barack Obama was indoctrinated…oops, I mean educated…in the philosophy of radical socialism.

 

Something extraordinary happened on March 30, 1981 at Columbia University. I was sitting in the biggest political science class at Columbia University. Perhaps 200 or more students in a theatre in the round. If Obama was attending Columbia at the time, as he claims, and he was a Political Science major, as he claims, he would almost certainly have been in this class.

 

On this date in history my hero Ronald Reagan was shot. The reaction in that large political science class that day tells you all you need to know about the media. Because all these years later, when I read Columbia College Today magazine, with updates on my classmates’ careers, it is extraordinary how many of them are now leading members of the mainstream media.

 

As I sat in class that day listening to the professor lecture, a strange loud noise came from the back of the room. The entire class turned around. The doors in back burst open and a breathless student ran in and screamed, “They just shot Reagan. President Reagan has been assassinated.” Can you imagine what the response was at that moment of horror from the future leading members of America’s media? Take a wild guess.

 

A standing ovation. Wild celebration. High fives. Cheering. Fists pounding the air. My classmates were jumping up and down and hugging each other like they had just won the lottery. It was the happiest day of their lives! And I can’t forget the words wafting through the air in the midst of this celebration, “YES, they killed that bastard Reagan!”

 

Reagan was my hero. He felt like a second father to me. I got sick to my stomach and ran out of the class. I raced into the bathroom and vomited, then sat on the bathroom floor with tears streaming down my face. I thought my hero President Reagan was dead. Worse, I realized my ultra-liberal classmates were not just your run-of-the-mill leftists. They were socialists and Marxists who openly hated America, despised capitalism, and were cheering for the death of a man simply because he was a conservative and capitalist. I was dazed, disgusted and disillusioned.

 

Please keep in mind that many of these same men and women now run the American media. They are at the very top of many of the most important television news shows and news organizations. And they proved that day (and throughout my 4 years at Columbia) that at their core they despise conservatives, conservatism, patriotism, and the exceptionalism of America.

 

This is the same media expected to give a “fair shake” to a conservative Presidential candidate like Mitt, Newt or Ron Paul? Not a chance.

 

Now you know why the media is so desperate and obsessed with digging up dirt on Newt’s ex-wives, Mitt’s old taxes, or Ron Paul’s 20-year-old newsletters. But this same media seems to have no interest in digging up Obama’s mysterious and questionable past. They sit across from Obama, tingling, lobbing softball questions, while gazing into their fellow socialist’s eyes. Now it all makes sense. Now the pieces of the puzzle fit.

 

The sudden turnaround in South Carolina after a media “hit piece” on Newt is the first sign that the American people are finally starting to understand how biased the media really is.

 

Now you know why the mainstream media had their teeth kicked in on Saturday in South Carolina.

 

And…they deserved it.

 

 

 

Wayne Allyn Root is a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee and the author of “The Conscience of a Libertarian.” He now serves as Chairman of the Libertarian National Campaign Committee. He is a regular guest on Fox News and hundreds of radio shows across America. He is also a gun-slinging, riverboat gambling, entrepreneur and capitalist evangelist. His web site: www.ROOTforAmerica.com