Posted on July 15, 2026 by John Hinderaker in Fake News, Leftism, Liberals, Media Bias

Bogus Blue Rankings

Liberal news outlets produce a steady stream of state rankings that are designed to make blue states look good, and red states look bad. These rankings are always based on oddball criteria that have nothing to do with what actually makes a state desirable. CNBC, a left-wing outlet, is an excellent example:


A top five state for business? That is an utter joke. Minnesota taxes small businesses more heavily than any other state, and businesses are fleeing the state as fast as they can. That is why job creation in Minnesota is less than one-third the national average.

CNBC also ranked the states as “best states to live in.” In CNBC’s view, the best states to live in are all blue, and the worst are all red–including the states to which people are flocking. John Phelan explains:

This ranking is completely bogus. As I noted last week, these rankings of “Top States for Business” are not correlated in any meaningful way with what businesses actually do, such as start themselves or hire people.

CNBC strips out one component of its “Top States for Business” ranking, “Quality of Life,” and bills it as a ranking of “best states to live in.” Let us remind ourselves of what this measures:

As more companies mandate that their employees return to the office, they are also looking for locations that offer the best quality of life. We rate the states on livability factors like per capita crime rates, environmental quality, and healthcare. With studies showing that childcare is one of the main obstacles to employees entering or re-entering the workforce, we consider the availability and affordability of qualified facilities. We look at worker protections, including livable wage policies, paid leave, and rights to organize. We look at inclusiveness in state laws, including protections against discrimination of all kinds, as well as voting rights and secure election systems. And with surveys showing a sizeable percentage of younger workers would not live in a state that bans abortion, we factor reproductive rights in this category as well.

It is, then, a ranking that equates more “liberal” or “progressive” policies with a higher “Quality of Life.”

Completely absurd. Here is the kicker: John did the math, and it turns out that being one of the “best states to live in,” per CNBC, is negatively correlated with people moving there:

We might expect a ranking of state’s “Quality of Life” to be somewhat correlated with where people choose to live. Once again, however, CNBC’s ranking fails this basic test.

Figure 1 shows the relationship between CNBC’s “Quality of Life” rankings for 2026 and a state’s rate of domestic in or out-migration in 2024-2025 per 1,000 of the 2024 population taken from the Census Bureau. Not only is the relationship negative – in that the lower your CNBC “Quality of Life” ranking the higher is your rate of domestic in-migration – but the relationship is statistically significant.

At this point, you really can only laugh. CNBC’s very “worst states to live in,” the bottom of the barrel in their rankings, are Texas and Tennessee–two states to which Americans are moving in droves. Which means that the rankings are utter BS.

But we knew that already. I hazard the guess that not a single American will be fooled into staying in a blue state, or refraining from moving to a red state, by CNBC’s absurd rankings.

Posted on by John Hinderaker in Democrats, House of Representatives, Israel

House Votes to Continue Aid to Israel

It is ironic that the $3 billion or so that the U.S. provides in aid to Israel is perhaps one or two percent of the amount that is lost to fraud each year. It would be nice if the Democrats got 50 to 100 times as exercised about fraud as they do about aid to Israel.

Today the House of Representatives voted on an amendment offered by outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie to cut off aid to Israel. The amendment was defeated easily:

The US House of Representatives defeats an amendment to cut off aid to Israel, despite nearly half of Democrats supporting it, reflecting the growing rupture between the party and Israel.

The House votes 314 to 104 to defeat the measure, offered as an amendment to a State Department spending bill by outgoing Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

Besides Massie, the only Republican to back the measure, 103 Democrats vote in favor, a sharp departure from previous years in which bills supporting Israel passed almost unanimously.

It is a sign of the times. Still, there were fewer votes for Massie’s measure than many had predicted. The party’s leadership split on the amendment:

The issue has also divided party leaders. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, said on Tuesday he would oppose Massie’s amendment, saying it was “too broad.”

Nicely hedged.

But on Wednesday,the No. 2 House Democrat, Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, said she would support it. “We should not provide a blank check for military aid to any country that does not comply with US law, interests, and values,” she said in a statement.

My interpretation is that pretty much all the Democrats in Congress would love to cut off aid to Israel, but the time is not yet right. While anti-Semitic elements dominate among Democratic activists, most Americans continue to support the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

Posted on by John Hinderaker in Europe, Immigration, United Kingdom

What Were They Doing In England?

If you wonder why a clear majority of Europeans oppose their governments’ suicidal immigration policies, this case tells you everything you need to know:

A gang of asylum seekers who raped a woman on Brighton beach and filmed the “predatory and callous” attack have been jailed for up to 21 years each.

Abdulla Ahmadi, 26, from Iran, and Ibrahim Alshafe, an Egyptian, attacked the woman, who was “incapacitated” and “staggering in the street”, in the early hours of October 4 last year.
The victim, who cannot be identified, was “led into the darkness to be used as a sexual plaything”, the jury at Hove crown court was told.

Moments later the pair were joined by Karin Al-Danasurt, 21, also from Egypt, who filmed the attack on his phone. He laughed and repeatedly called the woman: “Dirty bitch, dirty bitch.”

The court noted that the rapists showed no remorse, presumably because their religion told them that what they did was A-OK.

The rapists knew each other and at the time of the attack were living at an asylum hotel in Lower Beeding, near Horsham in West Sussex, the court was told.

Ahmadi and Alshafe met on a small boat from France, arriving in the UK in June 2025. Alshafe and Al-Danasurt, who reached the UK in October 2024, were room-mates at the hotel.

So they were being supported at taxpayer expense. Why?

[Alex Norris, the border security and asylum minister, said] “I want to be absolutely clear — there is no place for foreign criminals in the UK. Sex offenders will be denied refugee protection, and we will do everything in our power to get them out of the country.”

But why were they in the country in the first place? Why did England want them? Also, there is this:

Following his conviction it was reported that Al-Danasurt had arrived in the UK after allegedly being convicted of murder in Egypt. The court was told this had still not been independently verified or confirmed.

Most European countries have accepted a quota of “refugee seekers” out of a misguided sense of duty, or guilt. A few, like Poland, have flatly refused. No one actually thinks the “refugee seekers” provide a net benefit to the host country, and in the U.K., urban politicians have been saying that rural areas–the Cotswolds, for example–should be made to take their “fair share” of asylum seekers. Again, no one thinks the presence of these people is desirable.

Meanwhile, all across Western Europe those who are trying to push back against mass third-world immigration, on behalf of the majority, are being censored, suppressed and in some cases barred from running for office.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Donald Trump, Minnesota, Republicans

Put a MyPillow over it

Minnesota Republicans have not won a statewide election since Tim Pawlenty was reelected governor in 2006. We have a road that has been made more difficult this year by the performance of ICE during Operation Metro Surge. The performance of ICE has done much to offset the disgust of Minnesotans with the massive fraud that has proliferated under Governor Tim Walz. It resulted in Walz abandoning his quest for an absurd third term for govenor. I wrote about that in the Examiner column “Exit Tim Walz, stage Biden.”

Here is a trivia question for political junkies. Who was the last Republican to serve as Minnesota Attorney General? I happen to know because I saw him speak at my high school before the election. I was a sophomore at the time — a long time ago. The year was 1966. His name was Douglas Head. He served one term.

Republicans now have two plausible gubernatorial candidates in the upcoming August 11 primary. Kendall Qualls is the endorsed candidate. House Speaker Lisa Demuth is challenging him. I intend to vote for Demuth, but I like Qualls as well.

MyPillow man Mike Lindell is also contending in the primary for the nomination. Today President Trump has done his best to preserve the perfect losing record of Minnesota Republicans over the past 20 years by endorsing Lindell. With Lindell at the top of the Republican ticket, we can rest assured that another wipeout awaits in the races for statewide office. It won’t help Republicans running for legislative office either, where Republicans more or less held their own in 2024.

The New York Times has posted a few polls of the Republican gubernatorial contest here. They were conducted either for a Republican client or by a pollster deemed not to meet the Times’s criteria. They all show Lindell to be in the thick of it — “plausible” in that sense.

Trump must think his endorsement can help Lindell over the top of the divided vote in a multicandidate field or have his own poll showing him to be in the lead. I think his endorsement of Lindell is a demoralizing joke.

I wrote about Lindell, most recently, in “Mike Lindell proves me a fool.” He may do it again. You never know.

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Sports, Thanks for clearing that up

The view from Haaland

Erling Haaland was the star of Norway’s World Cup soccer team. He returned to Norway carrying the Whiskey Raccoon he picked up in Dallas during his visit to Wild Bill’s Western Store. Like Freddy, Haaland is helping us see ourselves as others see us — with renewed appreciation. Now that Halland has returned home, I have imbibed Aakash Gupta’s mareketing retrospective on X:

Nike pays Erling Haaland roughly $20 million a year to be photographed with their products. A family-run western store in Dallas just got the same treatment for free. Better than free: Haaland paid them $750 for a taxidermy raccoon hugging a whiskey bottle.

The backstory makes it better. Haaland walked into Wild Bill’s Western Store during Norway’s World Cup run and bought cowboy hats, exotic boots, a longhorn belt buckle, and a shirt reading “Y’all can kiss my Dallas.” The owner says Haaland knew nothing about cowboy hats and had to be fitted for his first one.

Then Norway’s Cinderella run ended in the quarterfinals, and the tournament’s breakout star, seven goals, carried the raccoon off the plane in Oslo himself. Caption: “It followed me home.” Then he ran an Instagram poll asking fans to name it.

The results for a boot shop that’s been family-owned since the 1970s: the Whiskey Raccoon is sold out. The Dallas shirt is nearly gone. Their $500 Belligerent Squirrel, a taxidermy squirrel smoking a cigarette and holding Jack Daniel’s, is down to low stock. Local shoppers are lining up at a store most of them had walked past for years.

Sports brands run entire celebrity seeding departments trying to manufacture exactly this: a global superstar genuinely delighted by a product, on camera, unprompted. Every one of those campaigns reads as an ad, because it is one.

Brands spend $20 million a year renting Haaland’s image. Wild Bill’s sold it to him for $750.

This is too funny.

One literate observer on X concisely comments: “No one has loved America this much since Toqueville[.]”

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Anti-Semitism, Books, Higher education

A word to Howie Carr

Boston media’s great Howie Carr linked to my post “Unsafe At MIT.” My purpose was to draw attention to the book of that title by MIT Professor Yossi Sheffi, published on July 7.

Before publication, the New York Times took note of the book in a fair-minded story by higher education reporter Mark Arsenault. Perhaps most notably, Barton Swaim wrote about the book in his July 8 Wall Street Journal column “The intifada at MIT.”

Assuming all goes according to plan, my own review of the book is forthcoming at the Washington Free Beacon next month. In the meantime, I recommend the book to the attention of intersted readers. It’s one of those “you can’t put it down” books. At least I couldn’t.

Dear Mr. Carr: Professor Sheffi identifies MIT administrators and even a professor, all of whom deserve to be named and shamed. He raises questions about the outside groups that helped the malefactors on campus torment Jewish students following the October 7 massacre. Local angles abound in Professor Sheffi’s account. I’m sure your listeners would be interested in hearing you explore them with Professor Sheffi. Please let us know if you follow up!

Posted on by Scott Johnson in Hezbollah, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Trump Foreign Policy

In lieu of a Strait update

I had intended to provide a status report on the current situation in the Strait of Hormuz, but would prefer to let time provide additional the clarity another day or two might afford. In lieu of a Strait update, let’s tune in to Hugh Hewitt’s 8-minute segment with former Israeli Amabassor to the United States Michael Oren yesterday. Oren is the historian and author of the memoir Ally (2016) as well as the indispensable narratives of Power, Faith and Fantasy (2007) and Six Days of War (2002).

In the interview Hugh cites Emanuel Fabian’s Times of Israel story “Beneath Beaufort’s strategic bulwark, a Hezbollah lair built to attack Israel is unearthed” and Barak Ravid’s Axios story “Scoop: Trump tells Netanyahu to move forces out of Syria and Lebanon.” I don’t know about the facts underlying Ravid’s current story. However, Ravid is an unreliable narrator. Oren is not.