Fast Takes: Leave the theatrics to Hollywood, Dems outgrew common sense and more

The US entertainment industry’s “gloriously cutthroat” spirit “makes America the cultural center of the world and a domestic economic growth engine,” but the suit by a dozen blue-state attorneys general to “block the acquisition of Warner Bros.Discovery by Paramount Skydance puts it all at risk” with bogus antitrust claims, warns Ari Emanuel at The Wall Street Journal.

In their “trash” antitrust case, the AGs “pretend Amazon MGM, A24 and Lionsgate don’t exist” though their films have grossed billions already this year.The merged firm’s “27% share of feature-film box office” won’t “substantially lessen competition”; indeed, the deal leaves the new company “committed to at least 30 theatrical releases a year.” “The harm doesn’t begin when the attorneys general win their suit,” it began when money started to pour “into legal fees rather than productions.” “Let Hollywood creatives get back to trying to rip each other’s heads off . . .

it’s what we’re best at.”Elon Musk in a recent interview offered “a powerful diagnosis of the growing gulf between America and Europe, Republicans and Democrats, ‘normal people’ and the mainstream media,” remarks USA Today’s Nicole Russell.The interviewer claimed Musk “supports not just the populist right but the far right — in fact, very fringe parties”; he replied, “No, I support the normal people.

What you call the far right, falsely.” Russell continues: He dared his questioner “to consider that 10 to 15 years ago, Obama and Clinton held the same views on immigration and other issues that Trump holds today, views the ‘lunatic left’ now brands far right.” At every level of government, “commonsense ideas Democrats once agreed on are now dismissed as fringe” and: “The chasm between right and left” is “dug deeper by the media.”Some 150 House races this year “had no meaningful competition,” gripes Reason’s Eric Boehm, with incumbe...