Conservatives don’t reflexively oppose corporate mergers. We believe in free markets, in the power of competition and in the freedom of businesses to grow when they win on merit. But we also believe in limits, especially when a single company seeks to consolidate cultural and economic power in ways that threaten the marketplace itself. This is exactly what the proposed Netflix–Warner Bros. merger does. Let’s first dispense with K Street’s talking points. This deal isn’t about “unlocking synergies,” “driving innovation,” or “competing globally.” It’s about one company—Netflix—attempting to cement itself as the dominant, unchallengeable gatekeeper of American entertainment and becoming more of a monopoly If conservatives learned anything from the last 20 years of tech consolidation, it’s that letting one firm control the channels of communication, culture and distribution is a recipe for ideological capture, higher prices and less consumer choice. Netflix’s growth strategy has always been simple: To get big fast, build a global moatand use scale to squeeze out smaller rivals. It was a winning formula when streaming was young and alternatives were limited, but the market has matured. Consumers have more choices than ever: Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video and local broadcasters offering digital services. That’s competition doing what it’s supposed to do. A merger with Warner Bros.—one of the last remaining studios with a true global footprint—would shatter such progress. Instead of competing on quality and innovation, Netflix could simply absorb the studio owning some of America’s most valuable franchises and content libraries. This is not “efficiency.” It’s cornering the market. With over 300 million subscribers and a dominant position as the global leader in streaming, Netflix already maintained outsized control of the entertainment market even before attempting to buy Warner Bros. The truth is Netflix has long been a monopoly. Allowing them to take control of Warner Bros. would hand them overwhelming dominance of the video streaming space.  Conservatives don’t defend companies that game the market instead of competing in it. Warner Bros. isn’t just another studio. It owns the DC Universe, Harry Potter, Looney Tunes, Turner Classic Movies, HBO’s prestige catalog and generations of American cultural heritage. Whoever controls that library controls a significant part of the cultural narrative. Conservatives have long sounded the alarm on Silicon Valley’s influence over speech, censorship and the shaping of public discourse, and rightfully so. Yet, somehow, we’re told not to worry when the largest global streaming platform wants to absorb a century-old American studio. Let’s not forget Netflix is run out of California, governed by opaque algorithms and accountable to no cultural norms beyond what sells internationally. If conservatives are concerned about Hollywood’s ideological tilt today, imagine what happens when one company becomes the distributor, creator and curator of the majority of Americans’ entertainment. By merging with Warner’s portfolio, Netflix would inherit leverage across sectors to which it has never been accountable. This isn’t creative destruction. It’s regulatory arbitrage. And conservatives should call it what it is. It’s possible the merger was never intended to go through. Even if Netflix succeeds only in paralyzing Warner Bros. and preventing competitors from acquiring it for the next year or two while the regulatory process plays out, doing so alone is worth billions to Netflix as it extends its monopolistic lead in streaming. Lawmakers should not allow that behavior to go unpunished. Too often, corporate lobbyists try to convince conservatives that opposing a merger is tantamount to opposing capitalism. That’s nonsense. Capitalism depends on competition—not consolidation. As Adam Smith—the father of modern economics—recognized, free markets fail when the “wretched spirit” of a monopolists becomes so large that others cannot meaningfully compete. Hence why this merger is so problematic. Netflix, armed with an acquisition of Warner Bros., would be able to raise prices with impunity, reduce consumer choice and dictate the terms of distribution not only in Hollywood but across global markets. Once Netflix becomes the dominant platform worldwide, there’s no reason to think it will behave differently from other tech monopolies we’ve spent years trying to rein in. Allowing one company to consolidate this much influence over American storytelling is not just bad economics—it’s bad for the republic. The Netflix–Warner Bros. merger is unnecessary for business, harmful to consumers and dangerous for cultural pluralism. Conservatives should oppose it not because we distrust markets, but because we understand what makes them work. The post A Conservative Case Against the Netflix–Warner Bros. Merger appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services has proposed a new rule removing the Biden-era requirement that government-funded pre-school programs have a policy to mitigate COVID-19. The direct final rule proposed by the Administration for Children and Families on Friday removes the requirement that Head Start programs have a COVID-19 mitigation policy. Head Start is a program helping children from low-income families to enter kindergarten. “One of my goals as Assistant Secretary of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is to have a regulatory bonfire that torches all the unnecessary regulatory burden and outdated sub-regulatory guidance currently imposed on states and families,” Alex J. Adams, assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, said in a statement to The Daily Signal. “While our broader effort is underway to remove significant portions of what is stuck on our books, this Head Start COVID mitigation rule is emblematic of the rocks-in-shoes regulations the Biden administration foisted on children and families across our nation,” he continued. The rule is in compliance with Trump’s executive orders “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation” and “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” according to ACF. The Biden administration published the final rule titled “Mitigating the Spread of COVID-19 in Head Start Programs” on Jan. 6, 2023. The Trump administration’s rescission removes the requirement from the Head Start Program Performance Standards that Head Start programs have a COVID-19 mitigation policy developed in consultation with their Health and Mental Health Services Advisory Committee, formerly the Health Services Advisory Committee. “It is long overdue to get rid of pandemic-era regulations that do not serve the American people,” Adams said. The post EXCLUSIVE: Trump Nixes COVID-Era ‘Regulatory Burden’ on Early Education Program appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The House of Representatives passed a bill to make it a felony to facilitate transgender procedures on minors Wednesday, but does it have any shot of becoming law? The bill, titled the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, passed by a 216-to-211 margin. Three Democrats, Reps. Don Davis of North Carolina, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, and Henry Cuellar of Texas, joined 213 Republicans in support of the legislation introduced by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. But 4 Republicans joined 207 Democrats in opposition: Reps. Mike Lawler of New York, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Mike Kennedy of Utah, and Gabe Evans of Colorado. What could the opposition of a small number of House GOP moderates bode for the bill that now heads to the Senate? A First for This Congress Greene’s bill would make performing transgender surgeries or procedures on minors a felony. The House vote on Wednesday was the first time this Congress Republicans had brought a ban on transgender procedures and surgeries for minors to the floor despite the fact that President Donald Trump had issued an executive order on the matter in January. Offenders would face a penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison, with fines on the table, as well. The bill expands the definition of chemical castration and genital or bodily mutilation in the federal code to a variety of transgender chemical and surgical procedures. It also provides exemptions for treatment of rare conditions and medical emergencies. There are no exemptions for mental health-related issues. What Could Happen in the Senate? The bill would need to reach the 60-vote threshold for ending debate in order to come to a final vote in the Senate. Unfortunately for Republicans, there’s no guarantee Democrats will get on board. In January, zero Democrats voted to end debate on a bill introduced by Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., to deny federal funding to schools that allow transgender-identifying male athletes to compete against females. Greene’s bill likely falls under the jurisdiction of the Senate judiciary committee, chaired by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Grassley’s office did not respond to a request for comment on whether they were interested in advancing the bill. But while Democrats are likely to prevent the law from passing, a vote on Greene’s legislation on the Senate could be worthwhile for Republicans heading into a midterm election. Vulnerable Senate Democrats are looking to appear as moderates heading into the 2026 midterm elections, but recorded votes on refusing to ban transgender surgeries for minors are one of the ways Republicans could look to dispel that narrative. Other Ways to Ban Trans for Minors? It comes to the Senate amid a continued debate over health care premium affordability, which has intersected with the transgender issue.  Last week, 51 Republicans voted to advance a bill from Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Mike Crapo of Idaho to provide an alternative to the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits, which included provisions to prevent taxpayer funds from going to transgender procedures. It was nine votes shy of the threshold needed to come to a vote. Cassidy is the chair of the Senate health, education, labor, and pensions (HELP) committee, which handles most matters related to health care, and told The Daily Signal he wishes to prevent transgender treatments for minors. “President Trump and I are committed to protecting children from chemical and surgical castration,” the Senator, who is also a practicing physician, told The Daily Signal. “I look forward to reviewing the bill, and will continue working with President Trump and Republican colleagues to protect children from irreversible harm.” Trump Administration Moves to Ban Federal Funds for Trans-ing Kids Cassidy was in attendance at a Thursday Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) event, in which secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a new policy preventing federal taxpayer funds from going to the procedures. Just left HHS, where it was announced federal tax dollars will NOT pay for sex-change surgeries for children. I've pushed for this in the Senate. It’s wrong, and it’s stopping now. Thank you, @POTUS & @SecKennedy!! pic.twitter.com/vxPLeMUG81— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) December 18, 2025 “It’s wrong. It’s stopping now,” Cassidy said in a video posted to X. “I’ve been pushing this as the chairman of the [HELP committee]. I’m glad to see the administration agrees with me.” The post What’s Next for MTG’s Bill Ending Trans Surgeries for Minors? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The late Rush Limbaugh posited in 2012 that it would be very difficult to win an election over Santa Claus. Meaning that someone who is just seen as bringing gifts will always be popular, and—with apologies to New York newspaper editor Francis Church—yes, Virginia. You just elected Santa Claus.  Both Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger and Lt. Gov.-elect Ghazala Hashmi have spoken since the election of their plans to lower the costs of things like electricity and housing on Virginians. However, as is often the case, details are sketchy.  For example, she told WUSA in Washington, D.C., “I think people will see a common theme on getting things done and improving on people’s lives,” which is hard to find in the Virginia Constitution.   “Lowering the cost” is most frequently code for subsidizing. This is a bipartisan truism. Republicans will often acquiesce to subsidy rather than try to make the case for free-market solutions. If you are explaining, you are losing, they say.   Subsidies increase the cost of goods or services because the provider no longer is under pressure to consider the ability of the end-user to pay what it would reasonably cost. This frequently causes the provider to choose more expensive ways of creating the product often to prove to the subsidizer that they are worthy of continued receipt.   The losers in this are the consumers that did not qualify for the subsidy, often only by a small margin leaving them well short of being able to afford the “full freight” cost.  The incoming administration will have two primary choices in how to accomplish this subsidization, supply-side or consumer-side. The latter is simpler but less common because the subsidy comes from the government, and if the consumer fails to keep their qualification, it will be on the government to tell them they are out of luck.   Think of SNAP benefits as a recent example. You can imagine that a new governor wouldn’t want to take that hit.   Supply side is more convoluted but because it insulates the elected official from being directly blamed for the loss of benefits it is more frequently how it works. Think of most Section 8 housing or how most of the current electric cost subsidies work. The provider trades the position of having to play the “bad guy” for a predictable stream of semi-paid bills. The phrase “some money is better than no money” applies here.  In either event, this will require tax-paying Virginians to carry more of this burden through higher taxes, fees and, of course, in the prices of the things that the governor will try and “lower the cost of.”   The secondary effect of this campaign often manifests in job losses and that will further strain Virginia’s economy, which has been on the recovery trail for the past four years.  Spanberger will likely try to stave this off with workforce subsidy, and now you are starting to sense how this becomes a self-fulfilling process. Support people in need with tax dollars, create economic damage with those taxes, then create more people that need assistance.  The incoming governor has said that she favors streamlining the regulations in the home-building process to create more inventory, but localities have balked at that in past administrations.  Here comes Santa Claus. At least we don’t need to leave her milk and cookies. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Yes, Virginia. You Elected Santa Claus. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

One of the most persistent mistakes in modern politics is the insistence on flattening all ideologies—pretending that all human beings think the same way, want the same things, and are motivated by the same forces. Every time policymakers fall into this trap, the result is not compassion or clarity but some of the worst public policy imaginable. The assumption usually begins with a comforting but false premise: that all people harbor the same yearning for freedom in precisely the same way. That belief animated much of the George W. Bush administration’s foreign policy, when the president famously declared that America’s mission was to end tyranny on planet Earth. Noble as the sentiment sounded, it was never sustainable. It presumed that every society shares America’s priorities, values, and political instincts. History has shown otherwise. The same flattening impulse appears whenever violence is discussed. Instead of examining the specific causes behind specific acts—who committed them, why they were committed, and which ideas justified them—many commentators abstract everything into a vague moral generality. Violence is bad, they say. All people should know that violence is bad. And with that, the inquiry ends. But ending the inquiry there ensures that real solutions never begin. If policymakers and cultural leaders refuse to acknowledge that some ideas are worse than others, that some ideological frameworks are more prone to producing violence, they miss the central motivating factor in human behavior. The result is a blunderbuss approach to policy—one that treats unlike things as if they were identical, striking indiscriminately and often unjustly. A recent example came from “The View.” Commenting on a mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, that targeted Jews and was carried out by Islamists, co-host Sunny Hostin lamented what she described as a global spread of “sickness and hatred.” She grouped that attack together with an unrelated shooting at Brown University, asking why such violence seems to be happening everywhere. At the level of moral outrage, that reaction is understandable. At the level of analysis, it is childlike. Different ideological groups commit different types of crimes. Some promote peace. Some commit virtually no crimes at all. Others explicitly endorse terror and mass violence. Radical Islamism falls squarely into that last category. To reduce an ideologically driven antisemitic attack to just another instance of generic “violence,” or to focus exclusively on the instrument used, is to erase the very facts that might help prevent the next attack. The motive matters. The ideology matters. In Sydney, the ideological motive was clear. That clarity points directly toward possible policy responses: limiting the importation of radicalized individuals, monitoring extremist mosques, strengthening security, and refusing to grant legitimacy to radical Islamist arguments. These measures target a specific problem rooted in a specific belief system. None of that is possible if every incident is flattened into the same category and labeled simply “gun violence.” Abstraction becomes an excuse for inaction. This divide—between those who see ideas as central drivers of human behavior and those who do not—often marks the core disagreement between the traditional Right and the Left. Classical conservative thought holds that human beings are shaped by the ideas they embrace and that human nature itself is deeply flawed. People are capable of greatness but also of cruelty and sin. That understanding is woven into the American founding. In Federalist No. 51, James Madison famously observed that if men were angels, no government would be necessary. The entire constitutional system rests on the opposite assumption: that human beings are imperfect and must be governed accordingly. Once that reality is accepted, policy can be shaped around it. Specific ideologies can be confronted. Dangerous ideas can be named and opposed. Refusing to do so does not make society more humane—it only guarantees bad, and often very stupid, public policy. COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Dumbest Assumption in All of Politics appeared first on The Daily Signal.