Author: Larry Elder

The Los Angeles City Council asked Mickey Kantor, President Clinton’s ex-secretary of commerce, to head a commission to assess the shape of American’s second largest city. The report pulled few punches. Los Angeles, said the report, “suffers from a crisis in leadership and direction.” L.A., it says, risks becoming “a city in decline.” These problems […]

When liberal pro-Obama scholars question the legality of President Barack Obama’s actions to implement Obamacare, the issue of illegal presidential use of power moves from partisan to frightening. George Washington Law School’s Jonathan Turley is the second most quoted law professor in the nation and a two-time Obama voter. He recently testified before Congress on […]

When blacks gave 80 percent of their vote to the Democratic Party in 1964, black activist Malcolm X called them “political chumps.” White voters, X said, “are so evenly divided that every time they vote, the race is so close they have to go back and count the votes all over again. Which means that […]

Sunday’s Academy Awards event showcased Hollywood’s finest. Beautiful people in beautiful clothes saying lovely things about their industry — a politically “progressive” business that gives nearly all of its political contributions to Democrats. Democrats, of course, purport to believe that “the rich” do not pay their “fair share” in taxes. Democrats also believe in gender […]

Ted Nugent apologized. Now it’s Spike Lee’s turn. Rocker Ted Nugent, a Republican and a fierce defender of the Second Amendment, said this about President Obama: “I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame, enough Americans to be ever-vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel like the ACORN […]

Richie Incognito, an NFL Miami Dolphin, is a clubhouse bully who was suspended for traumatizing teammate Jonathan Martin. A new NFL investigative report found that Richie, a white, soon-to-be free agent veteran, abused Martin, a black player then in his rookie season. The report accuses Incognito and two other players of using racially charged abusive […]

Michael Sam appears to be a fine young man. But, no, he isn’t the first openly gay male U.S. athlete to play in a major sport. And “brave”? Can we please dispense with the absurd Jackie Robinson comparisons? Wake me when a black collegiate pro prospect “comes out” as a Republican. A starting senior on […]

Dylan Farrow, now 28 years old, is the adopted daughter of Oscar-winning director Woody Allen. In “An Open Letter From Dylan Farrow,” published in The New York Times, Dylan accuses her father of inappropriately touching her “for as long as I could remember.” She said: “When I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me […]

Democratic fundraiser/actor Ben Affleck — and the next big-screen “Batman” — recently gave an interview to Playboy. His own bias against Republicans, he admits, prevents him from fully enjoying a Republican actor’s performance. “It’s … hard,” said Affleck, “to get people to suspend disbelief.” Affleck said: “When I watch a guy I know is a […]

The Rev. William Barber, head of North Carolina’s chapter of the left-wing NAACP, recently said this about black, tea-party-supported Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, S.C.: “A ventriloquist can always find a good dummy.” Sounds like Barber might have mentored an ex-high school classmate with whom I recently had the following exchange: Ex-Classmate: “Uncle Tom in […]

The media quickly came up with a term for the apparently politically orchestrated George Washington Bridge traffic jam: “Bridgegate.” Now what catchy term do the media attach to the explosive new book castigating the incumbent wartime commander in chief? “Gatesgate”? Hardly. Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is suspected of orchestrating, for political payback, a […]

CNN’s Candy Crowley seems absolutely, positively astonished that Republicans could oppose raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits. To her Republican guest, Crowley asked this “question”: “If I am an unemployed American … or if I am a minimum wage worker and I see Republicans who say, ‘You know what? It’s artificial, it messes […]

Michael Steele, then-chair of the Republican National Committee, criticized Obama’s stimulus plan as “a wish list from a lot of people who have been on the sidelines for years … to get a little bling, bling.” Steele, who wanted to expand the GOP’s appeal to young voters, used the expression to, in Steele’s words, “take […]

PolitiFact has awarded their “Lie of the Year” to President Barack Obama for his promise that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” PolitiFact, a feature of the Tampa Bay Times, purports to rate the truthfulness of statements/assertions made by politicians. The accurate are rated “true,” then slide down the scale […]

At an out-of-town memorial service for my dear friend and mentor, Alan Schonberg — a business titan known for his warmth, grace and generosity — I saw “Paul,” a man I’ve known some 30 years. It had been a long, long time. Paul, like me, is a black attorney. Unlike me, he is a Democrat, […]

President Barack Obama recently asserted, “Thanks in part to the Affordable Care Act, also known as ‘Obamacare,’ the cost of health care is now growing at the slowest rate in 50 years.” So, you may be losing your health care coverage, and you may end up paying more — but, hey, rising costs are slowing […]

The “knockout game” — and the media underreporting of it — combines the breakdown of the family with the media’s condescending determination to serve as a public relations bureau for blacks. The “game” is a dare in which a young man — all the perps appear to be male people of color, mostly blacks — […]

Asked whether she needed to apologize to the formerly insured who have lost their health insurance plans, former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, “Did I ever tell my constituents that if they liked their plan they could keep it? I would have if I’d ever met anybody who liked his or her plan. […]

When PunditFact — the new offspring from the folks at PolitiFact — contacted me, they wanted sources for “all of the claims” in the following statement I made Nov. 4 on CNN’s “Crossfire”: “In 1900, at all three levels of government — federal, state and local — government took less than 10 percent of the […]

When the weapons hunters failed to find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so began one of the greatest slanders on a president in history: “Bush lied, people died.” Never mind that, in building the case for war in Iraq, President George W. Bush relied on the unanimous opinion of all 16 U.S. […]

“World War II Vets Under Attack by Blacks.” Can you imagine such a headline in The New York Times — or anywhere else, except perhaps some in underground racist tract? But for the second time in three months, an 80-plus-year-old WWII veteran was murdered by black suspects. In Washington, 88-year-old Delbert Belton, who fought and […]

Add another actor to the list. Chris Noth, currently starring in “The Good Wife,” played Detective Mike Logan on “Law & Order” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” and “Mr. Big” on “Sex and the City.” Noth has now outed himself — as yet another liberal. Worse, his moronic anti-GOP, anti-tea party comments put him […]

Guy walks into a restaurant. Says to the waitress, “I’d like some scrambled eggs and some kind words.” She brings the eggs. The guy smiles, “Now how about the kind words?” Waitress whispers, “Don’t eat the eggs.” This brings us to the fact that urban public school teachers are about two times more likely than […]

A national network reporter, during an interview about about the government shutdown, actually told me: “Democrats believe government should do some: things. Republicans don’t believe government should be doing anything.” Where had we heard that characterization of the GOP? “‘Anarchist’? Why in the world wouldn’t I use the term anarchy?” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, […]

Note to congressional Democrats: You can change your mind on Obamacare. It’s allowed. Really. You can. We won’t tell. If MSNBC’s anti-gun lefties like Ed Schultz can do a 180 on a hot-button issue like guns, then Democrats can change their minds about President Obama’s signature Obamacare. More on this later. President Barack Obama promised […]

Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is worried. In a recent speech at Boise State, O’Connor said: “Less than one-third of eighth-graders can identify the historical purpose of the Declaration of Independence, and it’s right there in the name. … The more I read and the more I listen, the more apparent it is […]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., after another mass shooting, predictably wasted no time in demanding still more gun control legislation. This week, a killer with a valid ID entered the Washington Navy Yard in southeast D.C., a military facility where 16,000 people — mostly civilians — work. He killed 12 people and wounded several others at […]

Given the evidence of the superiority of capitalism in achieving prosperity, isn’t it astonishing we still debate its merits? Filmmaker Michael Moore actually made an anti-capitalism “documentary” called “Capitalism: A Love Story.” Moore says: “Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is […]

Sen. Barack Obama snatched the 2008 democratic nomination from Sen. Hillary Clinton for many reasons, none more important than Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War. All of Obama’s major opponents — Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C. and then-Sen. Clinton, D-N.Y. — had voted for authorization for war. […]

President Barack Obama said that an introduction of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war would constitute a “red line” with “enormous consequences” that “would change [his] calculus.” That was a year ago. This past March, Obama said, “We will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people, or the transfer of […]