Pun Salad

Ridley Scott is back, baby, and (as near as I can tell) uses his time machine to send a film crew back to Imperial Rome, a few years after that gladiator who looked a lot like Russell Crowe managed to work his way into a fatal encounter with that nasty Roman emperor who looked a lot like Joaquin Phoenix.

I went in not knowing too much about the movie, and I recommend that. I was taken unawares by some of the big plot twists.

It starts out with Hanno (Paul Mescal) about to defend his city against the invading Roman Navy. His wife Arishat (Yuval Gonen) is a deadly archer, and before you can say "Gee, I bet she's not gonna do well here" … she does not, thanks to a specific order given by Roman General Acacius. Hanno is taken prisoner, he's recognized for his fighting talent by gladiator-manager Macrinus (Denzel Washington!), and pretty soon he's in the Coliseum fighting big lugs on rhinos, sharks, … while all the time plotting revenge.

Things are complicated by a holdover from Gladiator: Lucilla (Connie Nielson) is now (gasp!) married to Acacius, and is an occasional attendee at the Coliseum, where she … well, you should watch the movie.

And I don't make that claim lightly. Dave Barry brings us The News from Florida. Of course he recounts the recent invasion of "popular recreation area" Crab Island by the United States Army. But he also reviews hurricane preparedness, because 'tis the season. For example…

The only clunker is the suggestion to "Drive to Nebraska and remain there until Halloween." Dave, they have tornadoes.

Also of note:

• One day the bottom will drop out. Dan Greenberg confesses at Cato: I Shot the Tariff (But I Swear It Was in Self-Defense)

  The Constitution assigns Congress the sole and exclusive power to lay and collect tariffs and to regulate commerce with foreign nations. That literal reading of the Constitution demonstrates that Congress has the power to impose tariffs, but the president has no such power. However, the IEEPA hands the president some power to regulate some extranational transactions. But the statute explains that such powers “may only be exercised to deal with an unusual and extraordinary threat with respect to which a national emergency has been declared.” More particularly, the IEEPA gives the president the power to “regulate … importation” in order to “deal with any unusual or extraordinary threat … to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the president declares a national emergency with respect to such threat.”

  That apparently is the theory of Trump’s Liberation Day: The “unusual and extraordinary threat” identified by the president is trade deficits en masse, and the president can “deal with” this threat by declaring that our nation’s trade with every single country on earth is a national emergency; more precisely, he can “deal with” this threat by using his power to regulate imports so as to place tariffs on them. But the theory of Liberation Day seems inherently implausible: how can it be that every country’s trade policy is simultaneously extraordinary—or even simultaneously unusual? If there is something that is identified as unusual and extraordinary, this implies that some other things must necessarily be usual and ordinary.

  This logical inference raises a relevant question: Surely there are some usual and ordinary states of affairs that would not justify a presidential declaration of emergency? If the president is never disallowed from making such declarations, it would imply that things are never usual or ordinary, because by definition things can’t be unusual or extraordinary 100 percent of the time.

  Dan, I'm pretty sure politicians use that "unusual and extraordinary" excuse all the time, about anything. But (you're right) that's why we need the men and women in robes to (fingers crossed) point that out and say no.

• And then the tariffs shot back. Eric Boehm describes How Tariffs Are Breaking the Manufacturing Industries Trump Says He Wants To Protect.

  When President Donald Trump announced a sweeping set of tariffs on nearly all imports, he promised that April 2—what the White House dubbed "Liberation Day"—would "forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn."

  That's not the way Michele Derrigo-Barnes sees it. Trump's tariffs are "killing" small American manufacturers like hers, she tells Reason.

  As CEO of Plattco Corporation, a small business that makes industrial valves, Derrigo-Barnes runs the sort of blue-collar industrial production shop that Trump and his allies say they want to help. Instead of being helped, she found herself dealing with fallout from the tariff announcement: canceled orders, higher prices, and enough uncertainty to put on hold a planned expansion of the company's Plattsburgh, New York, manufacturing center on the banks of Lake Champlain.

  What would she tell Trump if she got the chance? "Stop the nonsense. We've worked hard to get us to a place where we can perform well and we can take care of our customers, and this is putting that in jeopardy."

  Unfortunately, stopping the nonsense seems to be the last thing on Trump's mind. To a jaundiced eye, it appears he likes nonsense, the kind he creates, most of all.

• And that's why he had to go. Veronique de Rugy takes sides: Musk Is Right to Want End of Green & Black Subsidies.

  In the fight between President Trump and Elon Musk, I would say that Elon Musk is right. The One Big, Beautiful Bill is fiscally irresponsible because, for the benefit of special interests, it fails to make the most pro-growth provisions permanent. It is also because of its lack of spending cuts or the closing of tax loopholes. (Jack Salmon and I have a list of all the tax expenditures that should be eliminated from the tax code here.)

  Mr. Trump claims that “Elon’s upset because we took the EV mandate . . . which was a lot of money for electric vehicles and, you know, they’re having a hard time, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidies.” The president also noted that these subsidies are silly and shouldn’t exist. He is correct. He added that “Elon knew this from the beginning; he knew it from a long time ago.” But his accusation doesn’t align with Musk’s public statements.

  Geez, Vero, are you saing that Trump has an iffy relationship with the truth? Hard to believe.