For generations, California represented the American Dream—a place where families moved in search of opportunity, good-paying jobs, and a better life. Today, the Golden State is earning a very different reputation.  For 2026, California has been ranked the third-worst state to move to according to Consumer Affairs’ annual state rankings, placing behind only Louisiana and New Mexico. California is one of the worst states someone can move to in 2026, according to the latest report from ConsumerAffairs. https://t.co/pD9GEHivF5 pic.twitter.com/ZHvMnB980f— KTLA (@KTLA) July 9, 2026 The report evaluates states based on affordability, safety, economic strength, healthcare, education, and quality of life. California’s ranking was driven largely by poor scores in affordability, safety, and economic strength.  While the state ranked 23rd in healthcare and education, and 14th in quality of life, it finished dead last in affordability and 49th in safety—making it the second-most dangerous state in the nation, according to the report. It ranked 41st in economic strength.  The report comes as California recorded the nation’s highest net out-migration for the third consecutive year, meaning more people expressed interest in leaving the state than moving to it, according to Consumer Affairs. It wasn’t always that way. For much of the 20th century, California was a magnet for migration, drawing people from across the country in search of economic opportunity and a better future. For many, the California Dream was a reality worth pursuing.  U.S. Rep. Vince Fong, a Republican representing Bakersfield, said the ranking reflects years of policy failures in Sacramento. “California has everything it needs to succeed: abundant natural resources, hardworking people, and limitless opportunity. Yet years of failed leadership from Gavin Newsom and Sacramento have squandered those advantages,” he said. Fong pointed to what he described as a growing affordability crisis. “The results are impossible to ignore: one of the least affordable states in the nation, the highest gas prices in America, families and businesses leaving, billions in government overspending with little to show for it, and the California Dream slipping further out of reach.” California Assemblymember David Tangipa, R-Fresno, echoed concerns about the state’s performance but focused on what he believes should change moving forward. “Too often, Sacramento measures success by how much money government spends instead of the results it delivers. There is no excuse to be ranked 23rd in healthcare, 14th in quality of life, and the third-worst state to move to. The policies in this state have failed, and the proof is in the number of people leaving,” he said. Both lawmakers argued California should reduce regulations, expand housing construction, increase energy production, and lower costs for businesses and residents. “We need to get back to the basics: put people ahead of politics, unleash domestic energy production, cut the excessive regulations that make housing unaffordable and drive jobs away, restore accountability to a government plagued by fraud and waste, and put California taxpayers first once again,” Fong said. Tangipa said California leaders should focus on lowering costs and reducing regulatory barriers. “We need to make sure taxpayers see a return on their investment. We need to lower the cost of living by embracing abundance again: build more housing, produce more energy, update infrastructure, and bring back businesses by incentivizing them to be here,” he said. “If we focus on opportunity instead of bureaucracy, California can once again become the place where families come to build the American Dream, not the place they’re forced to leave.”

On Wednesday evening, Graham Platner suspended his campaign as the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Maine. He had faced a growing number of scandals and loss of support, with the final straw coming Tuesday when an ex-girlfriend claimedPlatner broke into her home and raped her. “I think as many of you know, over the past couple days, I have faced some very serious allegations and I just want to make it clear this is all false,” Platner said in his video announcement. My name might be on the ballot right now, but that ballot line belongs to the people of Maine. pic.twitter.com/RKVyLU76tm— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 9, 2026 In response to Platner’s statement, host Tony Kinnett on “The Tony Kinnett Cast” questioned why the candidate bothered dropping out. Platner’s claims about being “regular” people conflicted with allegations against him. “Amy and I are regular people. We were not looking for this experience,” he said. “That’s not normal. That’s not ‘Amy and I are normal,’” Kinnett offered as he listed the scandals plaguing Platner. He also pointed out that these scandals were haunting Platner even before rape allegations came out or the June 9 primary. “It’s not the false allegations, though, that have brought us to where we are,” Platner said. “It’s the fact that they are being used by the political establishment to put structural pressure on us.” Kinnett counter Platner’s complaints about the establishment by noting the recent successes of Democratic Socialists of America candidates. Platner also complained about the party not spending money on the race if he remained, claiming “they would rather see [Republican Sen.] Susan Collins win than have me be the next senator from Maine.” Platner claimed he’s “not asking for how this process is going to work” and is “not trying to dictate to anyone who it should be or how we get there.” However, he reportedly insisted on being involved in picking a replacement, which Maine Democrats shot down. “Party apparatchiks are not the ones to make these decisions. These decisions need to be made in the open by the people of this state, the people who got us here,” Platner said about the process he wants to see. “This is exactly the kind of political system that everyone voted against,” Platner insisted, though Kinnett countered with a post from Maine Democrats that same night. MDP Statement on Democratic U.S. Senate Nomination Process pic.twitter.com/QuLie9cjQE— Maine Democrats (@MaineDems) July 8, 2026 Platner again brought up his wife as he got around to laying out his campaign’s next steps, claiming, “Amy and I struggled about getting into this,” which Kinnett took issue with, given what Platner put her through. “Last summer, right around this time of year, we sat down and we looked at each other and we said, ‘If we believe in the kind of politics we think that we do, we have to do this,’” Platner continued. “Over the past couple days, really yesterday and today, we have had to have that exact same conversation.” “We believe that for the movement to continue, it can’t be me, and for that reason we are suspending campaign operations,” he said. “This is incredibly difficult because I know that some will think it’s an admission of guilt and it most certainly is not. We’re not doing it because of the allegations. We’re doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power,” Platner added. “And now they are not going to let us have it. Not if it’s me. And so we’re suspending campaign operations. I want to make clear though, I intend to file my paperwork to withdraw,” Platner indicated. “We’ll see where he’s going with this,” Kinnett responded. He offered that Platner may be trying “use leverage to get the system that he wants.” The Maine Secretary of State indicated on Thursday morning that Platner had not formally withdrawn in writing. Axios reported that Platner privately told staff he’ll formally exit the race on Monday.Platner must formally withdrawal by Monday if Maine Democrats want to legally replace him on the ballot.

The Biden Justice Department retaliated against the Drug Enforcement Administration agent who exposed an operation allowing hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills to enter the United States, the whistleblower’s lawyer said. DEA Special Agent David Howell, working in New Mexico, objected to the process of allowing the highly lethal drug to enter the country, arguing that the Justice Department’s goal was to trace the drugs to large drug trafficking organizations for high-profile arrests. “The U.S. attorney’s office became more and more upset with his making these disclosures, and ultimately they told the DEA in New Mexico they would no longer work with Special Agent Howell,” Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group, told the Daily Signal. “They refused to take any of his cases, and for a federal agent that’s really kind of a death knell to your career.” The Office of Special Counsel, a watchdog agency within the Justice Department, has found in past cases that refusing to work with someone qualifies as retaliation, Leavitt explained. The fentanyl operation has drawn comparisons to “Operation Fast and Furious,” a Justice Department gunwalking scandal that occurred during the Obama administration. Leavitt said that early on, Howell began piecing together that the U.S. attorney’s office was focused on something other than seizures of illegal drugs. “Special Agent Howell and his partner seized that fentanyl and really got chastised by the U.S. attorney’s office,” Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group, told the Daily Signal. “After that initial conversation, Special Agent Howell started looking closer at what was behind this from the U.S. attorney’s office and started to realize that other cases also were instances where the U.S. attorney’s office was directing that fentanyl not be seized,” Leavitt added. “He started to see a pattern, and that’s what led him to both speak up to the U.S. attorney’s office but also to prepare to file whistleblower complaints.” He took his complaint to the Office of Special Counsel in November 2023. Former U.S. Attorney Alex Uballez of New Mexico, whom President Joe Biden nominated in 2022, oversaw and defended the program. He told the Associated Press, “The bigger fish are worth catching,” referring to the goal of monitoring fentanyl trafficking to eventually apprehend higher-ranking figures at the cartels. Uballez also said, “That will save more lives.” Powell and other critics of the operation contend that fentanyl is too lethal of a drug to be allowed into the U.S. After Howell raised his objections with the Justice Department, Leavitt said he wasn’t able “to do normal DEA work,” was detailed to other agencies, and went through “a series of makeshift work assignments to get around the fact that he couldn’t do his normal work as an officer.” He was not allowed to testify in a case at trial or even to have a case of his brought by the U.S. attorney’s office, Leavitt said. In September 2024, the Office of Special Counsel and Office of Professional Responsibility returned their report; Leavitt said it did not address the core of his complaint. Nevertheless, Howell still thought the matter might gain public interest. He recalled the gunwalking program that occurred during the Obama administration known as “Operation Fast and Furious,” when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed firearms to flow into Mexico with the intent of tracing them to a Mexican drug trafficking organization. The ATF lost track of the guns, two of which were found at the scene of the 2010 fatal shooting of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. The whistleblower saw parallels between the two cases. “Special Agent Howell reached out to John Dodson, the original ATF whistleblower in Fast and Furious, and through him got in touch with us,” Leavitt said. “And that’s how we first learned David’s story and decided to start representing him.” The Justice Department in Washington, the U.S. attorney’s office in New Mexico, and the DEA did not respond to specific questions for this story before publication. Last month, DEA Administrator Terry Cole asked the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General to investigate the matter. “The alleged conduct occurred under the Biden administration’s disastrous open border policies,” a Justice Department spokesperson told the Daily Signal last month. “The Trump administration has closed the border and is aggressively pursuing drug traffickers. DEA Administrator Cole has requested an independent DOJ-OIG review of DEA’s actions in light of this reporting to reaffirm the public’s confidence in our law enforcement agencies. Should that review identify areas of improvement, the DEA will of course implement changes to better their practices.”

Not having Little Italy on a map of ethnic enclaves in New York is like leaving the Golden Gate Bridge off a list of bridges in San Francisco. And yet that is precisely what the Ugandan-born socialist mayor of New York has done. Zohran Mamdani’s Office of Immigrant Affairs released a map on Wednesday titled “New York City’s Immigrant Enclaves.” It features 30 enclaves spread across the five boroughs, from Little Africa to Little Yemen, even Little Odessa. And, of course—Mamdani being Mamdani—it includes Little Palestine. However, somehow Mamdani has erased the most famous immigrant enclave of all, the capo di capi of New York’s ethnic neighborhoods, the iconic Little Italy. Credit: New York City Tourism and Conventions Needless to say, the Italian American community has its spaghetti sauce in a boil. The Italian American Civil Rights League blasted Mamdani on X. “Italian Americans BUILT NEW YORK CITY. Not third world Ugandans,” the group said. “We stand AGAINST COMMUNISTS!” Zohran Mamdani wants to ERASE Italian Americans.First, he denied our permit for Unity Day 2026.Now, he is excluding Little Italy as a recognized location all together on the map.Italian Americans BUILT NEW YORK CITY. Not third world Ugandans,We stand AGAINST COMMUNISTS! pic.twitter.com/BYgVuie6jX— The Italian American Civil Rights League (@TheIACRL) July 9, 2026 The Italian American Civil Rights League insists the snub was not government incompetence but deliberate, citing the city’s refusal to grant it a permit for Unity Day 2026. “This is not a clerical error,” said Mike Crispi, the group’s president, in a statement. “This is cultural erasure.” “Our culture is good enough for their photo ops, our food is good enough for their fundraisers, and our neighborhoods are good enough for tourism dollars — but when it comes time to recognize Italian Americans, they erase us,” he added. Republican Councilwoman Joann Ariola of Queens was incredulous. “They were able to get a Little Bhod-Tibet in there, but what about the original ‘Little neighborhood,’ Little Italy?” Joseph Scelsa, founder of the Italian-American Museum on Mulberry Street, called the exclusion a “terrible mistake.” “Italian Americans are still a major population in New York City,” he told the New York Post, “To not recognize where Italian Americans came from and settled is a terrible mistake. I don’t understand why Little Italy isn’t included. I hope it’s an oversight.” Given Mamdani’s all-out war to rid the city of Italian hero Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day, including posting in 2020 a photo of him giving a Columbus statue the finger, one tends to be very suspicious of any “mea culpa” from the city. Take it down. pic.twitter.com/7Bmis8hnnh— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) June 18, 2020 Scenes From an Italian Restaurant Roughly 1.3 million Italian Americans settled in New York City between 1880 and 1924, according to the Library of Congress. Established in the late 19th century, Little Italy became a nationally recognized cultural hub, not just for the works of the vibrant and active Italian American community, but for its restaurants and cultural impact through music and movies such as “The Godfather.” As of 2024, Italian Americans still remain about 11.8% of New York’s population, according to World Population Review. NYC Mayor Mamdani drops his big “Immigrant Enclaves” map and somehow forgets Little Italy.The neighborhood that helped build this city. Italians who showed up, worked their asses off, opened businesses, made the pizza, the culture, the backbone of New York… and this guy just… pic.twitter.com/Pl3E9bYo5h— Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarino) July 9, 2026 Writing in Townhall, Amy Curtis offers a reason why Mamdani would ignoring of Little Italy. Democratic Socialists like Mamdani insist that our cities were built not by the European immigrants who came and populated them, but by various Third Worlders, many of whom hail from places that don’t have basic infrastructure. Strengthening her case, the fact the Italian Americans weren’t the only ones snubbed. From the River to the Sea … and into the Hudson River As the Post reported, the map also ignores neighborhoods such as Brooklyn’s Borough Park, “home to one of the largest Orthodox Jewish communities outside of Israel.” That should come as no surprise from a mayor who won’t condemn “From the River to the Sea.” Said State Assemblyman Kalman Yeger, who represents southern Brooklyn, “Mr. Mamdani erasing Jews is an essential part of his brand.” “The Mayor’s Office made a map of NYC’s immigrant enclaves: Little Africa, Little Poland, Little Palestine. But they just couldn’t figure out how to represent 11% of the city. Couldn’t decipher where the Jews are from,” writer Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt remarked on X. A City Hall spokesman told the Post the map wasn’t designed to highlight religious enclaves, adding it instead “highlights neighborhoods in New York City that have substantial foreign-born populations from regions and countries around the world.” And if you believe that’s why the Jews were snubbed, I can get you a good price on the Brooklyn Bridge. After all, the map also ignores the Irish. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

A federal judge on Tuesday halted the Justice Department’s attempt to obtain names, addresses, and contact information for hundreds of 2020 election workers and volunteers in Fulton County, Georgia. President Donald Trump had called for the DOJ to look into that year’s election results across the state after claiming the outcome was tainted by fraud. The final vote count showed Joe Biden ahead by around 12,000 votes. Regarding the DOJ’s inquiry into the election results, U.S. District Judge William M. Ray said that the typical five-year statute of limitations for violations expired in 2025. According to findings collected by volunteers from the nonpartisan election watchdog group VoterGA, various inconsistencies were found within the 2020 election in Georgia. “The morning after the election, [Secretary of State] Brad Raffensperger acknowledged that Donald Trump had an insurmountable 103,750 vote lead over Joe Biden with only 2% of 4.7 million votes (about 94,000) left to count,” VoterGA’s summary states. It adds that Raffensperger could confirm the accuracy of Trump’s lead due to county reports that had to be surrendered by 10 p.m. on election night. The group said it also found that, although the secretary of state had agreed to complete vote counting that day, Raffensperger allowed the process to continue for a few more days, certifying an additional 4,998 million votes. Additionally, nearly 300,000 “phantom votes” were added to the election results, altering the result of the presidential election, VoterGA claims. In response to Tuesday’s action by the district court judge, VoterGA co-founder Garland Favorito told the Daily Signal what his group advocates to improve election integrity in Georgia. “We advocate for hand-marked paper ballots so there’s no machine intervention,” Favorito said. “We also advocate for publicly recorded hand-counts to ensure the results are correct.” The Daily Signal also reached out to the FBI’s office in Atlanta, but the bureau declined to comment. Following his return to the Oval Office last year, Trump instructed various federal agencies to investigate the 2020 election. In addition, he has urged Republicans in Congress to approve various reforms to ensure election integrity. Earlier this year, the FBI took hold of over 600 boxes of voting records from Fulton County for investigative purposes. In April, Dan Bishop, a former Republican congressman who voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election, submitted the subpoena to obtain the election workers’ names and contact information. This came after he was chosen by former U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to supervise election integrity investigations nationwide. While arguing for the subpoena, prosecutors stated that the purpose of the subpoena was to contact election workers who might be able to provide useful information in their ongoing investigation. Although the five-year statute of limitations has expired, the DOJ found possible charges regarding the election that could be pursued: ones related to if county officials kept voting records as the law mandates. According to Ray’s decision to block the DOJ, Bishop’s subpoena was unlikely to provide information to aid in the investigation, as many of the election workers and volunteers did not oversee record retention in the following years. Record retention is supervised by county workers. The judge ruled that an investigation into the misconduct of anyone that could have affected the certification of Georgia’s election would not be an acceptable use of the grand jury and its subpoena power. The DOJ has expanded its investigations into other states, including investigation into Arizona’s election results from 2020, interrogation of election employees in Wisconsin, and a search of the offices of an Ohio voter registration group.