In late January, the Oversight Project released Fedflix, an interim report about Netflix’s suspicious relationship with law enforcement and the intelligence community. Our report highlighted how Netflix has a board of directors largely made up of highly partisan Democrat operatives and donors; pushes programming with LGBT content to children; and produces content that has been slavishly pro-FBI and intelligence community, anti-populist, and pro-left wing. We released our report against the backdrop of a potential Netflix acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Given Netflix’s clear ideological bent in its programming, we opposed the proposed merger. That deal, thankfully, fell apart. After the deal with Netflix collapsed, Warner Bros. Discovery has found a new dance partner in Paramount. The sides announced the approval of Paramount’s nearly $111 billion acquisition in Warner Bros. in late February. Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders overwhelmingly approved the merger in an April 23 vote. Government regulators around the world are currently evaluating the deal. As the new merger barrels ahead towards approval, a firestorm of mainly left-wing opposition to the deal has emerged. Hollywood A-listers including Robert De Nero, Pedro Pascal, and Ben Stiller signed an open letter opposing the deal under the banner “Block the Merger.” The letter has gained more than 5,300 signatures. Frequent lawfare practitioner Norm Eisen and his group Democracy Defenders Fun co-led the initiative with Jane Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment. On its face, the letter opposing the new merger appears to raise reasonable points in opposition: media consolidation reduces competition among broadcasters, costs jobs for actors and behind the scenes employees, and reduces choice for consumers. The same concerns about media consolidation and job losses were just as present with a Netflix-Warner Bros merger. Our concern with the potential Netflix merger was specifically about Netflix getting bigger and more powerful since it effectively produces propaganda for Democrats, globalists, and deep state interests. Our other major concern was that if Netflix grew even larger, our children would be exposed to even more LGBT propaganda. But for those same reasons, the Hollywood elite are now teaming up with Eisen to try and save the old deal by attacking this new one. We take the inclusion of Eisen and his ilk as further confirmation of the key findings that underpinned our Fedflix report: primarily that Netflix has operated as a main media arm of the Democratic party and its allies embedded in the bowels of government. There is, after all, a reason why the Obamas went to Netflix post-presidency. The failed Netflix-Warner Bros. Discovery merger would have made the cabal of powerful leftists even more powerful. That’s why they’re upset, organizing, and trying to get the initial plan of an even more turbocharged Netflix back on track. The astroturfing campaign underway should be seen through this lens. It should also be viewed for its hypocrisy. As our colleague DataRepublican has pointed out, some of the loudest voices opposing the new merger were curiously quiet when Netflix looked like it would reap the benefits from merging with Warner Bros. Discovery. Don’t take this hypocrisy at face value. When these actors are involved, there’s always something behind the curtain. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

As America approaches the 250th anniversary of its divorce from England, Nick Freitas joins the Signal Sitdown podcast to discuss the state of the United Kingdom. This transcript has been slightly edited for clarity. Bradley Devlin: You were just in the United Kingdom. Nick Freitas: Yes, I was. Bradley Devlin: On our 250th birthday, you were in the United Kingdom. What were you doing there? Are you some sort of traitor? Nick Freitas: I was spying out what we do next. I’m not content with our current territorial boundaries. I’m gonna… We need… Well, we might have to go back to take the U.K. so that we remind them that, hey, you guys are actually pretty cool, except when you’re burning down our Capitol. We actually kinda like you guys. But no, it, it was a great experience. I mean, the history, the heritage is, is absolutely incredible, but they’re obviously dealing with some pretty tumultuous times over there right now, and it’s amazing to watch people with well over a 1,000‑year history having to fight to preserve their heritage and culture. Bradley Devlin: So what did you see there? Because I am shocked every time I go abroad now. It just feels like things are moving so quickly. Nick Freitas: It was interesting because I first visited the UK in 1998, which was one year after Tony Blair kind of started this whole mass immigration into the U.K. And most people don’t understand that for, like, 1,000 years of British history, they had very small, manageable amounts of immigration. And then they’ve had more immigration in the last, oh gosh, couple of years than they had in the previous thousand years. That is mass immigration on a scale that we can’t even appreciate in the United States. So I visited in ’98, and England and London looked exactly the way you would think it did in all of kind of like the iconic ways. And, and we went to all the places, Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey. And I went back there this time, and, and a lot of those areas are very similar to what you’d expect. But then you walk a few blocks away, and I have the unique experience of having not only been to the U.K., but having been to Bangladesh. you walk a few blocks away from the Tower of London, and I felt like I was in Bangladesh. And what’s fascinating to me is that a country that you would think with 1,000 years of cultural shaping, you’d think they’d be in a position to uniquely defend their country, and it’s their own government facilitating this.  And by the way, it was both left‑wing and right‑wing governments that helped facilitate this for a variety of different reasons. But I think what was encouraging to see is that the British people at this point are saying like, Look, the whole, you know, just calling us, flippantly calling us racists or Islamophobes is not gonna work anymore. The country is changing significantly. I think the U.K. boasts the most Sharia courts outside of the Islamic world in a country. And so they’re recognizing that this isn’t your standard immigration because immigration is one thing; balkanization is another.  Their left‑wing government, and again, under Boris Johnson it happened as well, is actually facilitating the balkanization of the U.K. And they’re treating U.K. citizens in many cases like second‑tier citizens, and .they are absolutely fed up and tired of it.  And again, it was also frustrating to watch them all just blatantly referred to as, Oh, they’re racist. They’re far right‑wing, which by, over there what they mean is Nazis.  That’s their polite way of saying Nazis. And then you’re talking to someone who’s just a grandmother who came in that said, I just wanted to be here because I care about my country, and I feel like we’re losing it.  Or you talk to a family that came to London that, again, just wanted to defend their culture and be proud of their culture. And they feel like theirs is the only culture they’re not allowed to be proud of.  And so I’m both worried for them, but I’m also encouraged that they really are… They’re trying to find good, peaceful ways to, to push back and take a stand.  Bradley Devlin: So you’re referencing this movement that has hit British politics like a freight train. This anti‑immigration movement. It stands for so much more than just the immigration numbers.  …  Bradley Devlin: It’s really reached a breaking point. Is it the raw numbers that are pulling people out into the streets? What is it particularly that’s making this happen now? Because as you said, it’s decades of broken promises.  Nick Freitas: It’s not just the raw numbers. It’s the type of immigration that is taking place.  And again, the easy leftist narrative is, Well, you’re just racist. You just don’t like people that don’t look like you.  No, that’s not it.  You imported people from cultures that are not only significantly different from British culture. You imported people with cultures that are diametrically opposed to British culture.  You imported people in large groups that do not desire to assimilate and become British. They want to bring whatever country they came from, whatever religion they came from, to Britain, and they want to supplant British culture. They want to subjugate British culture.  And then they get away with things that you would never allow English citizens to get away with.  For instance, you would never let English citizens get away with a decades‑long rape‑gang problem. And yet that did happen, is currently happening in the UK.  …  Nick Freitas: This is the part where the British people are like— It’s true.  This isn’t just about, you know, your typical cultural differences.  And this is something, too, which… And again, that is the distinction that everyone was making that I was talking to, is it’s like, look, we, we can see individuals as individuals.  And when individuals come from a place, even if it’s a place that’s very different, even if it’s a place that had diametrically opposed social, political, economic, and theological traditions, individuals can sometimes not only effectively integrate, but become some of your proudest and most patriotic citizens.  But if you’re bringing people over en masse, especially when you look at these small boats that are crossing over from Calais over to Dover, where now we’re talking about en masse and it’s all young men.  It’s not the women and children huddled away because they’re terrified of war. We’ve got a bunch of young men that are coming into the country and then being dispersed out into rural areas of the [country]. They’re not there to assimilate, and there’s no reason for them to, because the government will tell them that they should definitely be proud of their culture and their way of life and here’s more ways that we can assist you at taxpayer expense.  And again, the British people are very honestly asking the question, why?  And not only that, legal immigrants to the UK are asking, why?  This isn’t just this idea that this is all just, you know, white English people that have a problem with this. No.  There’s all kinds of people that immigrated to the U.K. over the years from India, Sikhs, from different places within the former Commonwealth countries, who are saying, Wait, we did this right, and we actually appreciate what British culture has to offer, and we want to defend it, too.  And how are we supposed to do this when you’re mass‑immigrating people that don’t want to defend it, and in fact want to subjugate it?  And that’s, that’s the main source.  And I think, again, people are past the whole idea of just being blanketly called racism and that being enough to shut them up.  Because when you see not only the typical social and economic problems from mass immigration, but when you see the crime‑related problems, and then when you see certain gangs that are deliberately targeting white English girls for just atrocious crimes and not being fully prosecuted to the full extent of the law, that’s the part where it’s like, I’m done.  I’m done with the name‑calling that the Left likes to throw out there. This is a very real problem.  We’re not gonna turn a blind eye to it. You can either fix it, or we can replace you with people who will.  And that’s what you see happening, because for the first time in over 100 years, I don’t think the political future of the U.K. is gonna be decided by the Tories or Labour.  It’s gonna be Reform on the right, and then you’ve even got the Restore Party that’s starting to emerge, and it’s the Greens on the left.  And the way I tell Americans to think about the Greens is imagine if AOC, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar started their own political party. That’s the Greens in the UK.  So we’ll see what happens. But the reason why I think it’s relevant to Americans is because if you look at the type of immigration that has started to cause these problems in the U.K., that’s the new type of immigration that we’ve started to see in the United States.  And again, if we don’t do something about it now, gonna run into some of the same problems that they’re seeing in the UK. 

California Assembly Bill 2624, dubbed by critics the “Stop Nick Shirley Act,” passed the California Assembly on Tuesday, raising concerns among opponents that undercover journalism and fraud investigations could be restricted—including investigations conducted by independent journalist Nick Shirley. Shirley, who uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars of daycare fraud in Minnesota and hospice fraud in California, took to X to share his thoughts on the vote. California just voted to pass AB 2624 aka “The Stop Nick Shirley Act”:This bill puts journalists at civil risk for investigating fraud and makes it harder to expose fraud in “immigration support services,” including NGOs, nonprofits and health care facilities that receive… pic.twitter.com/8XLOkTGpku— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) May 26, 2026 According to the bill’s text, AB 2624 would “prohibit a person from posting on the internet the personal information or image of a designated immigration support services provider, employee, or volunteer, or other individuals residing at the same home address.” This would be done through California’s existing Safe at Home program, which provides substitute mailing addresses for individuals concerned about their safety. The program currently includes protections for “victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, human trafficking, child abduction, and elder or dependent adult abuse, as well as reproductive health care workers and public entity employees who are in fear for their safety.” Supporters of the bill argue it is intended to protect immigration service providers by adding them to the list of protected individuals.  However, Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, a vocal opponent of the bill, argues the legislation has consequences for journalists trying to uncover fraud in California.  “If you show up and take video of those providers under this bill, all they would have to do is hand a business card over to the investigative journalist, and if they posted that evidence that they caught on video on the internet, they would be violating this law,” he said. DeMaio continued, “The lawyers in this room know that, absolutely under this language, it would be prohibited from being posted to the internet. This is outrageous. … When you vote for this, that is what you are voting to do.” Assemblymember Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, the wife of California Attorney General Rob Bonta, authored the bill, drawing outrage among conservatives that blocking the information is a conflict of interests.  California literally needs the fraud to continue in their corruption. The attorney generals WIFE @AsmMiaBonta created this bill. Meanwhile her husband is supposed to prosecute fraud while she is making bills to cover it up. Support my independent journalism here:…— Nick shirley (@nickshirleyy) May 26, 2026 Bonta has responded on social media, calling such concerns “MAGA misinformation.” “If MAGA can’t tell the difference between journalism and doxxing, that’s on them, because under my bill, there are no provisions related to journalism or fraud. This bill does not infringe on the First Amendment,” she wrote. The bill, which passed the Assembly by a 57-19 vote, now heads to the California Senate, where lawmakers will decide whether to advance it to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

A bill introduced in the Ohio General Assembly earlier this year is seeing changes as lawmakers craft how to deal with concerns about childcare centers. In January, Republican state Reps. Josh Williams and DJ Swearingen introduced House Bill 649, with the House Children and Human Services Committee continuing to review the bill. The bill requires the Ohio Department of Children and Youth to immediately conduct a preliminary investigation following an allegation of waste, fraud, or abuse at childcare centers receiving public funding in the state. When introducing the bill, Williams promoted standardized enforcement so “no one can complain about the oversight because it’s a uniform rule by the Legislature across the state of Ohio.” The Childcare Fraud Prevention Act, Williams said, came in response “to an overwhelming request for better oversight of our publicly funded childcare system in Ohio.” I am proud to be partnering with Representative @DJSwearingenOH and Attorney General @DaveYostOH on this incredibly important piece of legislation.We owe it to Ohio's citizens to be good stewards of their tax dollars and make sure they aren't being stolen by fraudsters.The…— Rep. Josh Williams (@JoshWilliamsOH) January 15, 2026 The legislation “has a very simple purpose,” Williams said of his bill in January. “If the government is taking money from Ohio taxpayers and using it to fund childcare, the government has a moral and legal obligation to protect that money and protect the children tied to those state funds.” On Tuesday, the bill’s sponsors offered a change allowing the inspector general to request additional evidence from the Ohio Department of Children and Youth at any point in the investigation and to pause the investigation until that evidence is made available. In addition, the Ohio House speaker and Senate president must be alerted at the start of an investigation. A committee meeting in March amended the bill so that the storage of photos or videos taken at childcare facilities would be prohibited, citing surveillance concerns. Only footage from devices owned by the Ohio Department of Children and Youth may be allowed. Another bill, Ohio House Bill 647, moved funding back to the Ohio Department of Children and Youth budget, with Director Kara Wente in support. Concerns about fraud, including those involving the home health system and Medicaid fraud, have thrust Ohio into the national spotlight, including Gov. Mike DeWine’s handling of the situation.

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.   The Democrats have an autopsy report that was just released that supposedly would explain why they lost the 2024 election. They were shocked. Remember the NPR poll, for example, on the eve of the election said that Kamala Harris was beyond the margin of error.  In other words, she was ahead by more than three points just before the balloting began. Remember the Iowa poll that said that Kamala Harris was going to win by three points, and she lost by eight or nine, I think. So the point is they were shocked, and they wanted to know what happened. And they should want to know what happened because they had more money.  She raised a billion dollars. If you look at the aggregate Biden-Harris total campaign chest, they outraised Donald Trump by a billion dollars. Donald Trump was also, for much of 2022, 2023, and 2024, sidelined off the campaign trail dealing with five criminal and civil lawfare suits. So they thought they should have won.  And that’s in addition to the media. You remember the debate with J.D. Vance and Tim Walz and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris debates with Donald Trump. The moderators were more or less on the side of the Democrats.   So they had all these advantages, support, and they lost. So they wanted to know why. Well, you and I know why they did.  Because they had an agenda, and what was that agenda? The trans issue, the open-borders issue, the 10 to 12 million illegal aliens issue, the 500,000 criminals who came across issue, the highest urban crime rates in a generation issue, the war on fossil fuels issue, the 9.2% inflation in 2022 under Biden and, in the aggregate, on key staples, maybe a 20% or 30% rise in prices, the catastrophe in Afghanistan, the sense of appeasement that allowed [Vladimir] Putin to think he could go into Ukraine.  I could go on. Two theater wars, one in Ukraine, one in the Middle East, etc., etc., etc.   They didn’t mention any of that. They didn’t mention any of that because that is the agenda, the platform, the policies of the new Democratic Party. They feel that the Green New Deal is great and we should war on fossil fuels, cut back on gas and oil production.  They believe that there are three sexes and that biological men have a perfect right to dress in girls’ dressing rooms or compete in women’s sports.   They believe the border should be open. They believe that 10 or 12 million illegal aliens wasn’t enough. They believe that it was good to get out of Afghanistan the way we did.  They didn’t criticize that. They believe in DEI and racial preferences. So they weren’t going to say that that agenda, none of it which is supported by the American people, was the undoing.   They also didn’t say that the party that talks about democracy and that Trump is a dictator didn’t talk about the manner in which Joe Biden, who won 14 million votes in the primaries, was forced out by a bunch of backroom insider politicos.  One day he was there, one day he was forced off the ticket, and almost within 24 hours, Kamala Harris was coronated as the nominee. Everybody came in lockstep, endorsed her. The vote at the convention a few weeks later was pro forma. And guess what? She had run in 2020 against Biden and had not gotten one delegate.  So that was an entire coup, so to speak, that was contrary to the perception of the Democrats that they were the party of democracy. They weren’t going to talk about it being far left.   So what did they say in this 192-page, poorly written report? It was written by Mr. [Paul] Rivera, who’s a politico analyst, an activist, an analyst, a friend of Ken Martin’s who did it.  The report has misspelled words. It’s kind of incoherent. There are no footnotes. He didn’t want to release it, but he was forced to because he had earlier made a promise that he would. Those were the admissions. Well, what was the commission? Well, it was that you didn’t attack Donald Trump hard enough. They attacked him all the time.  They called him a fascist. They called him a liar. They called him a dictator. But they had to say that.   And then, second of all, they said that they didn’t properly prepare Kamala Harris. They did prepare Kamala Harris. They kept her out of reach from media and the public for 30 or 40 days. They did all they could to coach her.  They had private planes for her staff. They had wardrobe consultants. They had speech consultants. They had Hollywood producers advise [her]—they had everybody. But they couldn’t do it, not because they didn’t try, because Kamala Harris was one of the most inept candidates that we have seen in modern political history.  Any time that she got on the stage and she started talking about metaphysics, time, being, thought, her eyes would sort of go into a corkscrew and Twilight Zone music would come on, and she was just, you know, coconut palms and being and what could be and all.   And it was just embarrassing. It was so embarrassing that people thought she was intoxicated because her sentences, her paragraphs, her grammar, her syntax made no sense.  So it wasn’t that they didn’t prepare her; it’s that they handed a nomination to someone who was selected after the aftermath of George Floyd on the basis of her gender and race, and she had nothing, nothing in her past that would show that she was qualified.   She did have one thing. She was the most left-wing senator based on her voting record, to the left of Bernie Sanders, in the entire U.S. Senate.  So what would an accurate autopsy say? The accurate autopsy would say our message is too far left and nobody wants it, so we have to disguise it.  And then it could say, look what Joe Biden did. He got elected, and he turned out to be the most far-left president since FDR.  Now, how did we do that? We did that—forget about the balloting and elections and changing the voting laws and all the things that Molly Ball bragged about in her Time essays of cabals and conspiracies.  They did it because Joe Biden served as a waxen effigy. Old Joe Biden from Scranton, the good guy, the union guy, the lunch-bucket guy. It was all a myth. And then the Obama team came in and used him as sort of a puppet, pulled the strings, and then rushed through this agenda. And it took four years for people to catch on to what was happening.  This guy was non compos mentis, and they couldn’t believe it that he was president, but it served a purpose. And a lot of candidates saw that. [Abigail] Spanberger in Virginia saw that. And it looks like some of the Democrats running for the mayorship and the governorship in California see that.  In other words, they feign like they’re moderates. They suggest they are moderates during the campaign, and then when they’re elected, they have the socialist redistributionist agenda.   So, in conclusion, if the autopsy wanted to be accurate, it would have done this. We lost the 2024 campaign because we had a radical agenda that reflects the Jacobin neo-socialism of the new party.  For us to get elected on a national basis, we have to hide that agenda. We have to hide that agenda, lie to the people, act like we’re moderates, say we’re for fracking, close the border, say we are not objecting to deportation, tough on crime, don’t defund the police—all of that Kamala Harris was not able to do.  She may have tried here and there, but she did not modify or hide or mask or disguise that agenda with a veneer of moderation.  Second of all, she should have never been nominated. She was completely unqualified to be a presidential candidate. She had run in 2020. She was the weakest of eight or 10 candidates.  She dropped out before the Iowa and New Hampshire caucuses, and she didn’t get a single delegate. That should have told them something.   And number three, Joe Biden had a terrible record. Terrible record. And the Democrats did everything they could to demonize Donald Trump, to make the campaign about Donald Trump, to keep Kamala Harris out of reach, to hide her so people wouldn’t find out how crazy and inept she was.  That was not enough.   And so, all they had to do was say we can’t change our message; it’s toxic; let’s hide it. We can’t get good candidates, and we anoint them, and that was another problem. So we need a better candidate that can better mask and disguise this radical socialist agenda that we have until he or she is elected president.  That would have been honest.   We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.