“Movies aren’t made, they are forced into existence,” said legendary producer Laura Ziskin. Mark Joseph’s 19-year journey to bring “Reagan” to the screen proves that point. The film finally debuted last year, defying expectations with a 98% audience approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and $30.1 million at the box office, reaching No. 1 both at the box office and later on the DVD charts.  Joseph recounts this journey in “Making Reagan,” a behind-the-scenes chronicle of immense value to filmmakers and artists. More than a companion to the movie, the book explores the struggle to create art with lasting significance. Joseph writes from a perspective often ignored in modern storytelling: faith—not in a simplistic “faith-based” sense but as the invisible force shaping people and events.  In many ways, Ronald Reagan was an obvious biopic subject. Alongside Pope John Paul II, he helped bring down the Soviet Union. Yet in 2005, when Joseph began, no major film on Reagan existed. Hollywood’s leftward tilt and the cultural incompetence of the right shared the blame. The deeper obstacle was Reagan himself. His official biographer, Edmund Morris, called him “inscrutable.” Reagan’s loyalty to advisers like Edwin Meese and his friendship with House Speaker Tip O’Neill were well-known, but his core motivations often escaped even those closest to him. Critics dismissed him as a cheerful B-movie actor spouting conservative clichés. That view began to shift with the release of his personal letters, revealing a man of intellect and conviction shaped by faith. To Joseph, Reagan’s mystery merged with the mystery of providence—the “Unseen Hand” in history. Joseph’s interest in Reagan began as a boy, inexplicably hanging a Reagan poster in his room. Years later, a vacation detour through Dixon, Illinois—Reagan’s hometown—led him to visit Reagan’s boyhood home, church, and the river where the teenage Reagan worked as a lifeguard.  Joseph’s curiosity became a calling when he read “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism” by Paul Kengor. Kengor’s book spotlighted Reagan’s formative years, especially the influence of his mother, Nelle. Her faith and her constant reminder, “Remember whose you are and whom you serve,” became Reagan’s moral compass. At age 11, he read “That Printer of Udell’s,” a Horatio Alger-style novel about an alcoholic’s son who finds faith and rises in public service. Reagan was baptized shortly after and treated the book as a life model. Kengor even found the sermons Reagan heard growing up, which warned against communism—foreshadowing the convictions of his presidency. This moral clarity defined Reagan’s public life. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, he resisted a communist push in Hollywood. As president of the United States, he called the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and stood at the Brandenburg Gate to say, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”  Inspired, Joseph acquired the film rights and announced “Reagan: The Movie” in The Hollywood Reporter in 2006.  The story went viral—but the hard work was just beginning. For 15 years, Joseph endured false starts, rewrites, and betrayals. At one point, Nicolas Cage agreed to play Reagan after meeting Joseph, but later backed out. Funding was just as difficult. Joseph turned down financiers who demanded creative control, fearing Hollywood would compromise Reagan’s story. He recounts encounters with grifters—from a woman pretending to be a billionaire’s daughter to a Monaco model blaming missing funds on banking errors. Still, he pressed on, believing in the film’s purpose. In 2020, Joseph made a leap of faith. With partial funding, he packed his family—including his 92-year-old mother—into an RV and headed to Guthrie, Oklahoma, where a neo-Renaissance Masonic temple became the main set. Amid COVID-19 disruptions, production began. Joseph’s appreciation for his collaborators shines throughout “Making Reagan.” Justin Chatwin, portraying Reagan’s alcoholic father, drew from personal experience, darkening the character’s depiction. Dan Lauria, as O’Neill, added subtle Catholic symbolism with a rosary in a hospital scene. Jon Voight brought depth as a cold KGB agent, drawing on memories of Soviet Russia, where the apparatchiks he met all had dead eyes. Penelope Ann Miller portrayed Nancy Reagan with nuance—capturing her fierce protection of Reagan and her ability to rebuild him during low points. Joseph’s partnership with Dennis Quaid, who played Reagan, was central. Together, they refined the Brandenburg Gate speech—the film’s emotional peak. Quaid noticed Reagan’s line about sunlight reflecting off a cross on an East German tower. “The wall cannot withstand faith. It cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom,” Reagan declared. Juxtaposed with his young speechwriters watching on TV and leaping into the air cheering, the moment lands as the film’s emotional high point. Joseph is honest about the toll of the 19-year effort. He recalls pacing Guthrie’s streets, trying to manage anxiety. Yet he also writes with gratitude—for the friendships, the creative collaboration, and the chance to bring Reagan’s story to life. He ends with awe at the providence behind the project and frustration at the cultural apathy that delayed it. If we are ever to rebuild a healthy culture, it cannot take 19 years to make a movie about Ronald Reagan. Conservatives’ unwillingness to support the arts is not caution but cowardice. Without investment in culture, their ideals may vanish. Yet Joseph’s “Reagan,” born of faith and perseverance, offers hope—and a model for artists unafraid to follow the Unseen Hand. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post ‘Making Reagan’ by Film Producer Mark Joseph appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As Americans fire up their grills and head out on road trips, there’s something to celebrate this Independence Day: Energy sanity is making a comeback. This year, there’s a little more freedom on the menu. After years of being shackled by a radical green agenda, 2025 is shaping up to be the year we finally hit the brakes and throw it in reverse. Here are four reasons why this 4th of July is better than the last: 1. Gas Prices Are More Than 31 Cents/Gallon Cheaper According to AAA, the national average for gasoline is more than 31 cents cheaper per gallon than it was last year at this time. That may not sound like much—until you fill up your tank and realize that’s nearly $5 per fill-up in a 15-gallon tank. Better yet, gas is now a whopping $1.83 cheaper per gallon than the record highs we saw under then-President Joe Biden just three years ago.  That’s not an accident. It’s the result of prioritizing American energy, not punishing it. 2. You Don’t Live in California or Washington State While much of America is seeing relief at the pump, California and Washington are doubling down on failure. In California, gas prices—already the highest in the nation—are about to skyrocket by 65 cents a gallon, thanks to regulations and a state gas-tax hike.  Meanwhile, in Washington, gas prices have actually gone up 10 cents from last year, bucking the national trend. And on July 1st, the state is tacking on a new 6-cent-per-gallon gas tax, because nothing says “happy Independence Day” like making driving unaffordable.  If you’re not in those states, breathe a sigh of relief—and maybe send a thank-you card to your local leaders who haven’t lost their minds. 3. The War on Our Appliances Is Over This Independence Day, go ahead and crank the air conditioner and fire up that gas grill—because the federal assault on your home appliances is over. The Biden administration’s war on dishwashers, water heaters, stoves, and ceiling fans has been halted. The savings are real, as the cost of replacing everything Biden wanted you to replace in your house was near $10,000 per home. And that’s even before you buy that electric vehicle! This year, the senseless effort to force every American into higher costs and worse performance has officially been scrapped.  Be sure to celebrate by using your appliances freely—without guilt, government overreach, or green lecturing. 4. ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Beats Back Green New Scam Remember the so-called Inflation Reduction Act? It turned out to be a massive slush fund for green special interests and Chinese supply chains. But now, the “Big, Beautiful Bill” is finally pulling the plug. Washington is proposing to phase out wasteful green energy tax credits, and even better—impose a new tax on wind and solar projects that rely on Chinese components.  If your so-called clean-energy plan depends on slave labor and subsidies, maybe it’s not that clean after all. Last year, Americans were told to accept high prices, appliance mandates, and dependence on China—all in the name of a green fantasy. This year, we’re turning the page. Gas is cheaper. Appliance tyranny is dead. Green grift is getting taxed. And a little common sense is finally clawing its way back into Washington. So, this 4th of July, as you hit the road, flip the burgers, and crank the A/C, remember this: We’re proudly celebrating America’s independence—but we’re also reclaiming our own. From gas tanks to grill flames, freedom is back—and it runs on American energy. Originally published at RealClearEnergy.org The post 4 Reasons Why This 4th of July Is Better appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I’d like to talk about the dream house of Zohran Mamdani. He was a successful Democratic Socialist candidate in the first round of the recent New York mayoral elections. He was a beneficiary of two phenomena that might suggest he has a 50/50 chance—more or less—to win the general election. Number one: In the primaries, it’s ranked voting and people can vote for various candidates. And traditionally, that means, in that cumbersome process, that outliers are minority candidates. Minority, in the sense that they’re not a member of either of the major parties, they have an advantage. And number two: While he was a very preeminent, as the hard-left favorite, the conservative side split the vote between former Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo, Mr. [Curtis] Sliwa, who’s a perennial candidate, and of course, the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams. So we’re looking at the general election. But what’s funny about Mamdani is almost everything he says is a contradiction or not true. Now that he is the frontrunner, everybody is going back over his record and asking him questions. Did you say you want to defund the police? Once the police were refunded, under Adams, the crime rate has gone down. And he said, “No, I didn’t say that.” And then it’s become an internet phenomenon, listing all the times he did say that. He said that he wished that billionaires didn’t exist. Does that mean that he wouldn’t want George Soros to fund the get out the vote groups and the activists who are actively supporting him? Will he come out and say, “George Soros, I wish you didn’t exist”? He says he is not a communist. OK. He’s a Democratic Socialist. But he says that the key to any “socialist revolution” is to seize or get the means of production. That’s right out of Karl Marx’s “Das Kapital.” So, he’s quoting communist dogma as a mechanism to gain political power. He says he has a new agenda. A new initiative. A new policy. Turn the page in New York. But when you actually look at what he’s advocating, his ideas very old. He says he wants to have government-owned food markets, grocery stores. I think any of us who went to college in the 1970s knew that in every major university town—whether it was Berkeley or Palo Alto, in California or Santa Cruz—there was a co-op. And the co-op’s advertisement was, “We don’t make a profit.” But my remembrance of those co-ops is they didn’t last very long. They eventually went broke. The produce was no better than Safeway or Raley’s or Food 4 Less or Save Mart or any of the competitors. So, that is not new. Giving free ticketing on buses and mass transit—the problem we have right now is that people have free access to the subway. They jump the turnstiles. But imagine how with his plan everybody, de facto, or de jure, would jump the turnstiles. So how is that going to be funded? He wants to have rent control. We know what rent control does. Once a landlord knows that he cannot raise his rent, in accordance with what he thinks maintenance, insurance, tax expenses rise commiserately, then he cuts back. He doesn’t improve the property. Or he forces people to get out, et cetera, et cetera. And you don’t build new units. I could go on with that list of things that he thinks are quite new—but he said something very, I think, shocking. He said he was going to go after affluent and whiter areas of New York. As if they were synonymous. But if you look at per capita income in the United States, based on ethnic affiliation, so-called whites are 17. The top 10 are Asian. But number one are Indian Americans—Mamdani’s people. What he should say, if he was intellectually honest, is that “we’re gonna go after affluent people and, especially, the most affluent people. My people, Indian Americans.” And he didn’t say that. And he didn’t say that because he is trying to win minority votes that he thinks he’s going to lose to Eric Adams. A final note: He talks about arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The pariah state of Israel is a colonial settler state. His family were colonists. Or they were settlers. Or they were immigrants into black Africa, Uganda. And the Indian community represented in Uganda the top 1%. And they were the shopkeepers, the bankers, the merchants, that ran Uganda, until many of them were expelled by Idi Amin. They went to South Africa, where the Indian African community was very prominent. And then they faced harassment for their success. And then he came to the United States. What am I getting at? He should not call Israel a colonial settler presence because that’s exactly what his own family was. And he should be very sensitive to the powers of envy and popular discontent against the very wealthy, because, after all, his father is a professor, a very well-compensated Columbia University professor. His mother is a multimillion-dollar successful filmmaker. And they represented the elite. And the powers of jealousy and envy pushed them out of their presence in Africa. And he came to the United States. So, in this fantasy world of Mamdani, he’s criticizing the very thing, the very issues, the very policy that made him. Whether it’s his parents coming here or what they did in Africa. Or his private school. Or his prestigious prep school. He has been a child of privilege. And so, to finish, most of his message is incoherent. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Zohran Mamdani Is Dusting Off the Old Socialist Playbook. He Hopes No One Will Notice appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Florida Republican Rep. Randy Fine is a bit tired after the multi-day battle to pass the “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill through the House of Representatives, but he thinks it was worth the all-nighters. “Snoozing on my couch isn’t my idea of a good time. But you know what, whatever we’ve got to do to get the president’s agenda done,” the freshman representative told The Daily Signal shortly before the bill’s passage. The House of Representative took up the 10-year fiscal bill immediately after its tiebreaking passage through the Senate, with the House Committee on Rules drafting a rule Tuesday shortly afterward to bring it to the floor.  Leadership was working into the wee hours of Thursday morning to get holdouts to approve the rule to bring the bill to the floor. Fine told The Daily Signal he is not sure what the purpose of these delays was. “I don’t know what they got out of it. And maybe that’s been reported, and I haven’t seen it, but I always believe you have to put the team first,” he said. “I’m on the Republican team. I’m on the Trump team. And I’m also cognizant about how my actions affect my colleagues. I don’t know what they got out of behaving the way they did.” Fine says he is happy with the final product, even though he is not under any illusions that it is perfect. “I think like anything that is big, there are going to be things in it you like, and there are going to be things in it that you don’t,” he said. “And frankly, I wish we had a lot more spending cuts. I believe the greatest existential threat to the United States is our debt and our deficit, and this bill doesn’t solve that problem.” Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Still, he advises avoiding the idea that the bill—which funds border security while extending tax cuts and restructuring benefits programs—ought to solve all of America’s problems. “The bill doesn’t have to solve every problem. I look at the country as being on the one-yard line with 99 yards to go to save America. And I believe this bill takes us from the one-yard line to the 11-yard line, and then we continue to fight forward. I think we’re moving in the right direction and that’s why I’m excited to support the bill,” he said. Fine spoke to The Daily Signal as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., was approaching the 7-hour mark in his record-breaking filibuster speech before the House of Representatives. “I think the self-promotion is kind of gross,” said Fine. “He’s keeping people from getting home for the Fourth of July, all for nothing. It’s not as though if he talks two more hours, he’s going to convince anyone to change their vote.” Fine additionally pushed back on Jeffries and other Democrats’ arguments that the bill is a tax break for the rich. “I actually am one of those [wealthy] people because I had a fairly successful life before Congress,” he said. “My taxes aren’t going to go down if this bill passes. What will happen is they won’t go up. And I think raising taxes that dramatically would have a disastrous effect on the economy.” He added, “There are new tax cuts in the bill, but they’re not for rich people. Rich people don’t work for tips. Rich people don’t work for overtime.” The post Inside the Last-Minute Fight to Pass the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Imagine a world where Brussels bureaucrats determine Americans’ free speech on social media platforms. It sounds absurd—but that’s the current reality under the European Union’s Digital Services Act. Little discussed on American shores, the Digital Services Act—a sweeping internet regulation in Europe—is one of the most concerning global free speech threats you’ve likely never heard of.  Though sold as a measure to “protect democracy” and create a “safe online environment,” the Digital Services Act has increasingly become a powerful tool for censorship. And while it is EU law, its impact reaches far beyond Europe—with binding effect on the content moderation practices of global platforms, including those based in the United States. Eerily, this law can censor American speech online that would otherwise be protected under the First Amendment.  Here’s how it works. The Digital Services Act compels very large online platforms—think Facebook, YouTube, and X—to remove so-called illegal content without delay. The problem? “Illegal” is defined not by clear, fixed principles, but by a moving target: whatever violates the law of any EU member state, now or in the future. That means a speech restriction passed in one small European country could trigger content takedowns across the entire internet—a lowest-common-denominator approach to censorship.  Under the Digital Services Act, if platforms fail to block “illegal content,” they face fines of up to 6% of their global revenue. As a result, they are incentivized to censor speech preemptively—not just in Europe, but across their entire services. On the other hand, there are no incentives for platforms to uphold free speech.  We’ve seen this dynamic before. During COVID-19, tech giants removed posts deemed controversial, not because the speech violated any law, but because they conflicted with the established narrative. Now, the EU regulation codifies that model, empowering “trusted flaggers” to demand removal based on shifting definitions of “misinformation” and “systemic risk.”  The Digital Services Act allows vague or politically charged laws—such as those targeting “hate speech” or “disinformation”—to become global standards. Consider the case of Päivi Räsänen, a long-standing Finnish parliamentarian criminally prosecuted three times over the last six years for sharing a Bible verse online. Though twice acquitted by her country’s courts, Päivi’s case reveals how far some authorities are willing to go to silence certain views. Under the Digital Services Act, such prosecutions may cease to be outliers.  This is far from a purely European problem. The risk to American speech is real. Because platforms operate globally, they often shape their moderation policies to comply with the most speech-limiting laws in the most powerful markets. Vice President JD Vance has already sounded the alarm, warning that Brussels is targeting U.S. tech giants with “onerous international rules” that threaten free expression.   The risk is not hypothetical: Thierry Breton, former EU commissioner, publicly warned Elon Musk that Donald Trump could be censored under the law during a high-profile exchange on X in anticipation of Musk’s interview with the then-presidential candidate.  The House Judiciary Committee has cautioned that the Digital Services Act could chill constitutionally protected speech on American-owned platforms. If companies face steep penalties for hosting content deemed problematic in Europe, they may simply delete or suppress it worldwide—including posts by American users.  What the Digital Services Act does is establish a massive censorship infrastructure, made up of national enforcers, outsourced content police, and the European Commission itself. This should concern every defender of free speech.  Americans have a vested interest in protecting the human right to free speech not only at home, but also abroad. This is not the exportation of an American value, but the defense of a universal one. Thus, the Trump administration should exert strong and sustained pressure on the EU to repeal or substantially amend the Digital Services Act—especially since the disinformation Code of Practice became legally enforceable July 1 across all major platforms. Washington should work in close coordination with democratic allies across Europe to oppose the EU action, championing free speech as a universal human right.  If left unchallenged, the Digital Services Act could become a blueprint for other regimes. Authoritarian governments are watching closely. If Europe continues to lock in centralized online censorship, why shouldn’t they? Further, they could point to the EU to justify their own crackdowns.  Free speech doesn’t stop at national borders—and neither do the threats against it. The Digital Services Act may have been written in Brussels, but its effects are felt in every corner of the internet. This is a global test case for free expression. We must vigilantly defend our freedom of expression in the digital age before it slips away.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The EU’s Internet Law, a Blueprint for Global Censorship—Including on American Platforms? appeared first on The Daily Signal.