Author: Larry Elder

The following conversation took place at the Ronald Reagan Library, Simi Valley, California, Friday, Feb. 6, 2004: Larry Elder: Let me tell you what an honor this is. This is like meeting royalty. Nancy Reagan: Thank you very much. Thank you. Elder: Tell me what you consider your greatest accomplishment. Reagan: My greatest accomplishment. Well, […]

Last Sunday was Oscar night, where the leftism of Hollywood — one-third of the “axis of indoctrination” — is on its annual full display. (The other two-thirds are media and academia.) The biggest surprise of the night was a lack of Donald Trump jokes, two at the most. Of course, there were zero sightings of […]

Hillary Clinton has never been asked whether she verbally intimidated alleged rape survivor Juanita Broaddrick. Nor has Clinton been asked whether she spearheaded the so-called “nuts and sluts” strategy to silence and intimidate women who alleged affairs with or sexual abuse by Bill Clinton. The books “Hell to Pay” by Barbara Olson and “No One […]

It’s one thing to disagree with the decision to go to war in Iraq. That, believe it or not, was once a (SET ITAL) minority (END ITAL) view. According to a Gallup poll taken in March 2003, the night after the Iraq war began, 76 percent supported President George W. Bush’s decision. Two months after […]

This fight against radical Islam is also a fight (SET ITAL) within (END ITAL) Islam. Where, we constantly ask, are the voices of “moderation” who question the barbarity committed in the name of Islam? Consider Shams Bandar. Born in Saudi Arabia, this popular singer renounced her Saudi citizenship, lives in Europe and intends to become […]

One of Donald Trump’s talking points and biggest applause lines is how “they” — Japan, China and Mexico — are “beating us in trade” and are “taking our jobs.” He proposes tariffs, for example, on Chinese goods in retaliation for that country’s alleged “cheating.” To someone who is out of work in an industry where […]

First, the facts. Since 2000, 10 percent of Oscar nominations have gone to black actors. Blacks comprise 13 percent of the country’s population, so the Oscar nominations have roughly paralleled the percentage of blacks in the U.S. Here’s how the nomination process works. There are about 6,200 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture […]

Fighting off the temptation to fall asleep during the most recent Democratic — and Donald Trump-less — debate, I wrote these thoughts, observations and questions I hoped would be asked but were not. I end with my opinion about who won the debate — and who lost. No fair cheating and going right to the […]

To Republicans who are livid, fearful, anxious and/or unhappy about the prospect of a Donald Trump nomination and a Donald Trump presidency, consider this. He claims his wealth allows him to self-fund, putting him in a position to downsize and de-corporatize crony government in a way unrivaled in political history. It takes about $1 billion […]

Why the near media-silence over the absurdly long-delayed trial of alleged serial killer Lonnie Franklin Jr.? Franklin would seem to represent ideal grist for the voracious 24/7 national media. There is, of course, murder. He is charged with killing 10 and suspected of killing more. The crimes took place in a big, media-centric city, Los […]

Three NFL teams claim they want to come to Los Angeles, the nation’s second-biggest market. Their current home cities either did not agree to build a taxpayer-funded stadium or are dragging their feet in doing so. Now each of the possibly L.A.-bound teams used to play in L.A., before they left for greener pastures — aka […]

1) Polls show that, by a large margin, Americans feel we’re on the wrong track, both economically and as to foreign policy. Yet none of you offers any criticism of President Barack Obama, who has been in charge for the last seven years. Why, then, should Americans believe that four more years, under your leadership, would […]

The following story is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. I drove past the outdoor parking-lot-turned-Christmas-tree-store several times before I decided to buy my Christmas tree from there. It was fairly close to my home in the Westside of Los Angeles, and business seemed brisk. Must be a nice place. Soon […]

When asked why President Barack Obama insisted on pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said: “I think that the pursuit of the agreement is based on the President’s hope that over a 10-year period with the sanctions being lifted that the Iranians will become a constructive stakeholder in the […]

In October 2014, 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot and killed by Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke. The dash-cam video of the shooting was not released until a few days ago, when ordered by a judge. Right before the video’s release, the county prosecutor announced the intention to charge Van Dyke with first-degree murder. The […]

When students protesting “microaggressions” took over an administrative building at Occidental College in California, they issued 14 demands. The school agreed to all except the first, which required the firing of its president. Similar protests took place concurrently at other colleges nationwide. Occidental’s five-day takeover was organized by Oxy United for Black Liberation, led by […]

In the wake of the Paris attacks, let’s examine the rise of ISIS. During the last Democratic debate, Hillary Clinton gave this unchallenged “explanation” of why we left Iraq — without a stay-behind force. She said, “I think that what happened when we abided by the agreement that George W. Bush made with the Iraqis […]

The Politico headline was blunt: “Ben Carson Admits Fabricating West Point Scholarship.” Except Carson made no such admission. He acknowledged never applying to West Point. But as a top ROTC student in Detroit, there’s little question that had he wanted to go to West Point, he could’ve gotten in. Technically, West Point offers appointments, and […]

Question: What did Reince Priebus not know about CNBC — and when did he not know it? Priebus, chair of the Republican National Committee, sanctioned CNBC’s sponsorship of last week’s debate. When during and after the debate many of the candidates blasted the moderators for their bias, Priebus said that the moderators created a “hostile […]

The narrative following Hillary’s testimony at Congress’ recent Benghazi hearing is clear: Hillary won. She (for the most part) calmly answered all the questions. She nodded approvingly when the Democrats on the committee accused Republicans of engaging in a partisan witch-hunt. We’ve come a long way since bipartisan investigations like the Watergate committee that investigated […]

“Gun control advocates,” reports Politico, “frustrated by repeated failures to pass even moderate restrictions on gun ownership, are trying to forge an alliance with Black Lives Matter and the criminal justice reform movement in a strategy shift aimed at overcoming the lobbying power of the National Rifle Association.” Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently said: […]

Dr. Ben Carson, now second in most polls for the Republican presidential nomination, naturally finds himself under attack by threatened lefties. GQ published an anti-Carson article with the headline “F–k Ben Carson,” except it spelled out the f-word. Comic actor Seth Rogen tweeted “F–k you” to Carson. And a Daily Beast column accused him of […]

Here’s the narrative: mass killers are almost always white men. The Daily Kos recently published a piece with this headline: “How come we can’t tell the truth about the White Mass Killer Problem?” It asks, “Just what the fracking hell is the matter with all these mass-murdering white people?” Certainly mass killers are almost always […]

“The Late Show” host, Stephen Colbert, in an interview with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., said conservative icon President Ronald Reagan actually raised taxes and signed an amnesty bill. Gotcha! To the delight of his audience, Colbert argued that if Reagan could “compromise” by raising taxes and granting amnesty, why can’t the intransigent Republican conservatives of […]

During Q&A at a Donald Trump town hall event in New Hampshire, a man called Obama a “Muslim.” When Trump failed to “correct” him, David Goodfriend, a Democratic strategist and ex-President Bill Clinton staffer, appeared on Newsmax TV calling Trump “a racist bastard.” Memo to the strategist: Islam is a religion, not a race. But […]

Is Vice President Joe Biden in or out? Many praised Biden’s “honesty” for saying to Stephen Colbert on CBS’ “The Late Show”: “I don’t think any man or woman should run for president unless, number one, they know exactly why they would want to be president, and two, they can look at folks out there […]

Despite the lack of evidence that there is an increase in cops shooting blacks, let alone shooting blacks unlawfully, a few recent killings of blacks by cops has spawned the so-called Black Lives Matter movement. But over the past 45 years, per the Centers for Disease Control, police killings of blacks are down 75 percent. What are on the […]

One can be excused if he thought he witnessed a heckler, not a reporter, being ejected from a recent Donald Trump press conference. Jorge Ramos, a so-called “journalist,” works for Univision, and has more than two million nightly viewers. He told Trump, “I have the right to ask a question.” Trump repeatedly told him to […]

Dear Larry: Geez, I cannot fathom the polls that have Donald Trump leading. Either a lot of Republicans are just frustrated or stupid, or both — and they want a bomb-thrower. Or it is pro-Hillary Clinton Democrats voting in those polls. Trump is ruining the race for the serious Republican candidates and thereby helping Hillary […]

Donald Trump stands accused of “trashing the GOP brand” by many of the same GOP politicians and pundits who have no reluctance in “trashing” the most consequential recent decision made by a Republican president — the decision to go to war in Iraq. When asked a few months ago whether he would have authorized the […]