Columnist.
In a recent interview with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, CNN's Jake Tapper said, "I would just ask, as a fellow American, if you could consider whether or not dialing down the temperature — trying to bring down the temperature — might be a healthier thing both for your campaign and for the nation at large." And PBS' Tavis Smiley — who once said Ronald Reagan "tortured" blacks — calls Trump a "religious and racial arsonist."
Former Grand Wizard of the KKK David Duke recently made positive comments about Republican front-runner Donald Trump. He did not endorse Trump's candidacy. But it came close enough for Trump's critics — within and without his party — to hammer him for failing to issue an immediate and sufficiently full-throated denunciation of Duke. "Voting for these people, voting against Donald Trump at this point, is really treason to your heritage," said Duke on his radio program a couple weeks ago. "I'm not saying I endorse everything about Trump. In fact, I haven't formally endorsed him. But I do support his candidacy, and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do."
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, I think raising the awareness of the drug problem, traveling around and promoting that, and I think we did do some good.
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 or Bernie Sanders jokes. Before the Oscar show, actor Will Smith and his wife, actress Jada Pinkett Smith, and director Spike Lee blasted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its second consecutive year without major black Oscar nominees.
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 Left to Lie To" by Christopher Hitchens depict Hillary Clinton as the puppet master behind the hiring of lawyers and private detectives to dig up dirt on her husband's accusers. Bolstering the credibility of Hitchens' book is a foreword written by respected historian Douglas Brinkley, a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC and other networks. Is this true?
"Accusing a commander in chief ... of knowingly lying to start a war is serious business."
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 the invasion, a Gallup poll found 79 percent of Americans thought the war was justified — about half of those said, "The war will be justified regardless of whether (weapons of mass destruction) are found." But in the last GOP debate, Republican candidate front-runner Donald Trump took things to a new level. He not only called the decision to go to war "a big, fat mistake" (and, post-debate, proclaimed it "a disaster") but also said: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none."
This fight against radical Islam is also a fight *within* 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 a citizen of a European country. On an Egyptian channel called Dream TV, Bandar said to the astonished host, "We have been fighting and shedding blood for 1,400 years, and now we are blaming America and Britain?"
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 foreign workers do what he or she once did, Trump-like protectionism sounds appealing. But Trump actually proposes punishing the American consumer. As economist Milton Friedman says, protectionism discriminates against low prices.
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 Arts and Sciences. The Academy is divided into 17 branches, with the actor division — of 1,138 members — the largest. Actors nominate actors in each of the four categories — lead and supporting, actor and actress — listing up to five names ranked in order of preference. The five nominees come from the highest-ranked names with the most votes beyond a minimum threshold. So all actor members literally "write in" their personal choices.
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 end. It's a falsehood that although the U.S. spends more on health, we don't get more — we do. Survival rates for many cancers, for example, are higher in the U.S. than in comparable developed countries.
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 to run — and win — the presidency, and fundraising normally occupies much of the candidates' time. To get that kind of money, the average candidate spends time courting and currying favor with "special interests." This means unions, environmentalists, corporate welfare-ists and others give money and, in exchange, expect their interests to be at the very least listened to, if not carried out once in office.
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 Angeles, as opposed to some obscure small town or rural community in a fly-over state ignored by national media.
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 more taxpayer money than L.A. offered. The two competing L.A. stadiums, where a team or two might or might not be playing, *supposedly* are being built (or will be built) without tax dollars: one in L.A.-adjacent Inglewood, the other in nearby Carson.
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 be any different from the last seven?
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 I found a nice, fluffy, well-shaped tree. "How much?" I asked a smiling salesman. "$60," he said, showing me the price tag I had overlooked, "Good deal." Then he said, "Are you Larry Elder? Big fan." "Guilty," I said. "Is this your place?" "No," he said, "I'm an actor, just doing this part-time to make a few bucks for the holidays."
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 international community. That — that as their economy begins to grow again, that — that they will abandon their ideology, their theology, their revolutionary principles, their meddling in various parts of the region. And, frankly, I believe that's very unrealistic."
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 excessive charge and the timing were done, presumably, to mollify potential protesters because the prosecutor called the investigation "ongoing."
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 members of Oxy's Black Student Alliance (BSA) and Coalition at Oxy for Diversity and Equity (CODE).
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 to leave by 2011, is that an Iraqi army was left that had been trained and that was prepared to defend Iraq."
