He’s not bright, and he’s been extremely insulated from consequences.

To be fair, not keeping his side of the deal is basically Trump’s signature move.

So apparently these guys do medical billing and patient support services, which explains why they had so much customer data to steal. That could be very bad for a lot of people.

This further reinforces something I’ve been arguing for a while now; Trump doesn’t like the idea of war.

He’s a big fan of military power. He loves flexing, loves brandishing his YUGE military. And he loves quick, decisive military action. The bombing raids in Nigeria and Iran, the kidnapping of Maduro. But he doesn’t like war, and he’s very, very hesitant to push for any kind of protracted military action. He wants quick, easy results. He wants instant gratification. War is long and complicated and messy, and when people die everyone gets upset at you. Trump doesn’t have the patience or the willpower for long term projects and war is very much a long term project.

None of this is to suggest that he’s some kind of pacifist or rationalist. He’s happy to destabilize global peace, he’s happy to kill people in droves. He might as well be a warmonger when judged by the effect he’s had on the world stage. He’s just really, really bad at it.

“Student” is a funny way to spell “Absolute Gigachad Legend” but OK.

No, not if it’s been expired for a while. There’s a grace period where it counts as a renewal, after that it’s treated as a “first time” application.

Also, if you’re born in the UK as a dual national, you don’t have to ever get a British passport. I flew to Canada on my Canadian passport. There’s nothing stopping you from doing that.

Give me fifty dollars, I’ll get you an ashtray and a blowtorch.

Yeah, fun fact, because you weren’t born in the UK the rules on what documentation is required are different for you.

The EU’s position here seems entirely reasonable; they made certain concessions to the US in return for certain concessions in kind.

While the tariff rate they’re facing now is the same as what they agreed to, it’s also now the tariff rate that the US is applying globally. That means the EU is no longer receiving any special consideration, so why should they give any?

Look at it this way; unless you honestly, truly, would take to a witness stand and say under threat of perjury that you believe the GOP could live stream themselves writing fake ballots and stuffing them in the boxes, you still think getting caught matters. We’re only disagreeing over how much evidence there needs to be for it to make a difference. Which comes right back to my point; the more you need to cheat, the harder it gets and the more evidence you leave.

I don’t doubt it. However;

1. If you’re acknowledging that he needs to cheat then we’re in agreement that he’s paying a political price for the tariffs and other unpopular policies. If what he was doing was working - politically - the cheating wouldn’t be necessary.
2. Cheating elections isn’t an on/off switch. The thing about putting your thumb on the scale is that it’s a lot easier, and a lot less obvious, when the balance is mostly equal. A thumb on the scale might pass without notice. A knee on the scale tends to get attention. The more votes there are against him, the harder he has to work to cheat and the more likely he gets caught.

As you just pointed out, a lot of people aren’t renewing. I specifically said “apply”.

Looking at that list, the requirements do seem to have been updated. But as you again pointed out, they’re also very unclear. It’s not exactly well defined what half of that stuff even is.

I went through this process nine months ago - because these rules technically went into effect over a year back, but then the government hemmed and hawed on whether or not to actually enforce them because they were so confused about what they had actually done - and I went as far as to speak with the consulate in Toronto and with a friend of a friend who works in the actual passport office in the UK just to get clarification on this stuff and it was still a mess of contradictions. I ended up having to track down someone I knew from my childhood who is a notary now and get them to write a document saying that I am who I say I am.

I would assume their legal theory is “Just fucking try to stop us”

So, you remember how, years back, right wing chuds kept claiming that if America got marriage equality, people would start marrying their cars? Chuck Tingle basically went “Bet” and started writing queer erotic fiction about everything fucking everything. People having sex with sentient dinosaurs, people having sex with sentient motorbikes, people having sex with their own self-doubt, people having sex with their butts, people having sex with Chuck Tingle’s book about them having sex with their own butts, people having sex with Chuck Tingle’s book about people having sex with Chuck Tingle’s book about people having sex with their own butts…

It’s all gloriously meta, written with intense passion, joy, and love, actually quite fun and sexy if that’s what you’re looking for, and defiantly queer. Chuck even writes sexless “Tinglers” for ace readers. Everyone just cuddles and gets headpats.

It’s looking very much like it’s going to cost him in the midterms.

Fun fact, in Canada our total exports have actually been going up, including our total exports to the US. But as a preventage of our exports, exports to the US have shrunk because our exports to the rest of the world have grown faster.

We should send Trump a gift basket.

No one knows. This entire thing is a temper tantrum.

He’s apparently applying these tariffs under a different law than the one they used previously, which does explicitly allow the president to apply temporary (150 days) tariffs of up to 15%. So you would assume this is meant to replace the tariffs the SC struck down.

But he’s also stated that the previous tariffs are going to stay in effect, just under a different legal theory. So in his mind, it’s possible that he thinks this 15% is on top of the existing amounts, and he’s literally just tariffing the whole world harder because he’s mad about a decision by his judiciary.

Then again, maybe he’s just a dementia-ridden old idiot who can’t keep his own bullshit straight for more than 30 seconds.

The really fun part is that in order to apply for a British passport you have to submit documentation that only someone living in Britain would have. Like, gas bills, bank statements, that sort of thing. It is almost impossible to get a passport if you haven’t lived in that country for a few years.

So you can basically wind up in a situation where the only way to return to the country of your birth is to revoke your citizenship there. Absolutely deranged.

That’s not exactly what’s happening here. He hasn’t refused to follow the supreme court ruling. Instead he’s claiming that other laws grant him the authority to impose tariffs.

In some respects he’s right. There is a law that very explicitly grants the president the authority to impose tariffs, but only up to 15%, and only for 150 days. It’s this law that he’ll be using to impose this new 10% global tariff.

He’ll likely also be trying to find any kind of legal wiggle room to maintain the existing tariffs, but I doubt he’ll get very far with that. At best he might be able to impose a bunch of sector specific tariffs.

Edit to add: I’ll note for the sake of completeness that Trump has claimed that the existing tariffs will remain in place. But again, his claim is not that the court has no authority over him, just that there are other legal mechanisms that still give him that power. I suspect that this is just Trump mouthing off. But either way, he’s being very careful not to actually defy the court’s authority here, and that’s a distinction that matters.

He absolutely does not have the numbers to get this through congress. Across the aisle repubs and dems are mostly pro-business, pro-trade, and these tariffs don’t make an ounce of sense to any of them. Some GOP goons would vote for it just to make Trump happy, but way too many would rather protect their wealthy donors than protect the President. There’s not a lot of political future in making the Waltons unhappy.