California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) wants you to believe his lawsuit to kill the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger is a principled stand for consumers. Look closer, and a different story emerges: political favors that benefit leftists and one company that will profit the most — Netflix — not the taxpayers footing the bill.

On Monday, a Biden-appointed federal judge in the Northern District of California handed Bonta and 10 other Democratic state attorneys general a preliminary win in their bid to block the deal. As the Wall Street Journal editorial board laid out, that ruling flies in the face of the global antitrust consensus. So why is a state attorney general burning taxpayer dollars to fight a merger that regulators everywhere else have been willing to live with?