Dr. Gonzo

One positive is Biden's policy platform has moved way more to the left since winning the nomination than when he was running in the primaries, where his positions were more in the centre. It seems as though he's listened to the base of the party that was skeptical of him. So he's promising a more left-wing vision for America than Hillary Clinton, and even Obama, and unlike Mrs. Clinton he doesn't have decades of right wing propaganda that has pretty successfully worked to demonise her in the eyes of the right wing base of the GOP and the left wing base of the Democrats. I agree with you re: Obama's drone policy - but I think hoping an American president will stop having a hyper imperialistic stance on the Middle East is an absolute pipedream. For as long as the US is a superpower and as long as oil is black gold, they will be trying to have significant influence over as many countries in the Middle East as possible. It's part of the reason why China, the other superpower, has been slowly but surely spreading it's influence into the Middle East (and they've now got significant influence over resource rich Africa) - and Russia's not a superpower but a definite power-player on the world stage and by being located on the Caspian sea... probably have the most legitimate "cause" for constantly meddling in the region. I also agree with you that one of the worst things Trump did was rehabilitate the image of status quo politicians - because Biden's equivalent in the UK would probably be as a "moderate" Tory... and that's not a ringing endorsement of Biden (despite the positive I listed earlier, which does make him better than most Tories nowadays). George W Bush is a war criminal, and one super distasteful after-effect of Trump is... his image has really been really rehabilitated to much of the US public after being pretty widely hated in the US (but he lost republican support more for the recession happening under the watch of a president of their party after having served 2 terms, rather than being a war criminal). I don't know if I agree with @RandoEFC that the "revolutionaries" need to work outside politics, because at the end of the day without the positions to affect change in the US... then you've got a bunch of legislators that won their seats due to huge amounts of corporate money then tasked with creating a US government that treats actual people at least equal to the way big business is treated in the US. But expecting one man, like Bernie Sanders or, in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn to bring about change by themselves is unrealistic. These people need to still be voices for big and meaningful change, but they need to be able to get enough other politicians and enough voters onboard with the idea of bringing about change. Otherwise, you need at least enough of them to be able to influence a party that can take a leadership position - like Bernie Sanders seems to have done with Biden - to bring about more graduated change in the party's manifesto. I think it can also be pretty tough to remember this, especially after a decade under the Tories, and before that we had Blair for a very long time and he's about as right-leaning as possible for Labour... but America is MUCH MORE RIGHT WING than I ever imagined. And they built their political system with as many roadblocks as possible for anyone with power - which maybe(?) can be a benefit, but it slows down the US political machine's ability to make change. And it does a lot to ensure that all politicians can spread the accountability to as many people as possible - so politicians that fuck things up can pass blame elsewhere. To me the political culture in the US is very fucking weird. And yeah, US celebrity worship is hilarious/weird as fuck as well.

I see the negative in everything, not just LFC. The club is honestly one of the biggest sources of joy in my life, so it's served me well so far.

He’s a Harvard Law Grad, he’s not this stupid. His voters are though so he’s got to appeal to them. The GOP base reacts well to fear of others and outrage. So here he can say this is a president reflecting European values and putting non-Americans first. That checks both boxes to a lot of these people. He knows what he’s doing. The Republican base has been carefully cultivated to react to this kind of rhetoric - he’s just pandering to that base now because he’s getting a lot of heat for his part in inciting the riots and probably lost a lot of moderate support. He’s got presidential ambitions. He can’t win that nomination without trying to shepherd Trump’s flock. Until the voters feel some sort of sting for snubbing reality, they’ll continue to reward slime like Ted Cruz. Similar to the Tory stranglehold on UK government, despite a decade of failure. They keep doing a shit job, they keep getting elected to run the country.

It sounds like Lampard has totally lost his way and Chelsea fans are talking about Chelsea the way I talked about us under Hodgson, while pretty much everyone on here insisted we needed to see out the season with Roy. Roy was also a media favourite so there would be loads in the press defending him. I think because of the media, Roy kept his job longer than he should have. I think it’s only fair that Chelsea hang onto Fat Frank for a bit too long before sacking him.

I haven’t said we’re favourites for a very long time I’ve always been a pessimist and it serves me well. Optimists set themselves up for disappointment. I set myself up for either being disappointedly right or pleasantly surprised.

Nixon got away with committing crimes in office. Then George W Bush commit war crimes, set the foundation for ISIS... and nothing happened. Then America had Trump committing what feels like crimes on a daily basis... I really, really hope America ends its tradition of not prosecuting presidents. Also I’m not really surprised... because it’s Trump. But turns out the Trump administration had no plan whatsoever in rolling out the COVID vaccine: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/report-biden-admin-discovers-trump-had-zero-plans-for-covid-vaccine-distribution - which probably isn’t illegal, but it is a huge disgrace. The fucker wanted 4 more years without doing anything for the country, just grifting to put taxpayer money into his pocket.

That’s been the case since Virgil got injured tbh

I’m happy to see Trump relegated from President of the United States to just another “Florida Man”

Breaking: Alexei Navalny has the biggest testicles in the world Man in captivity, likely facing death, coming out and publicly tormenting his captor in Putin.

Glad you’re feeling better mate!

I tested negative

I don’t think we’ve really been in the mix for a while, tbh. I’m not sure if it’s impressive from our players we’re still in contention or if it just means the league is more shit than we think.

They’ll win the league imo

To make a wide and sweeping generalisation, which I don’t like to do, I just think a lot of Americans are trained at school to think: COMMUNISM/SOCIALISM = BAD, CAPITALISM = GOOD, USA HAS THE STRONGEST MILITARY. And then when they grow up they don’t question why they spend so little on improving life for Americans, but spend so much on blowing up people in the Middle East.

Yeah the states are all very different. Texas is more of a purple state than a full red state, but I could see people in Kentucky (or some other place like that) not knowing anyone that voted for Biden.

You’d think so, but it’s a country where the biggest reason for financial trouble is medical bills, pretty much everyone I know here is in support of some sort of USA equivalent of NHS, yet in national politics... getting Americans on-board with a state provided healthcare system seems nearly impossible. I can tell you how some coastal Californians think. But if I drive an hour or 2 out East, it’s basically a very different California. Same with Northern California vs Southern California - some pretty big differences, although I’d say that’s less different than the whole city v rural thing. And thats just one of the 50 states. If you asked me to explain how people from the Deep South think... I wouldn’t be able to tell you at all. And even then, the terrorist bitch who got shot during the insurrection that out to be a San Diego resident at Ocean Beach (weirdly, because that’s a hippy-hub... and she was a US Air Force veteran that was a virulent racist). So even then, she was pretty different from her neighbors I’d say. It’s a ridiculously diverse country. There’s so many differences between people in this one state alone, I have to assume other states (at least the populated ones) are similar. The empty ones too though probably. I’d say it’s hard to get a pulse on Americans because of that diversity

I live here but I’m probably a bad person to ask “why do Americans think ____________” - your guess is as good as mine

Where is @Fairy In Boots? Come on, I want to see someone that isn’t a part of this Tory government defend this government. Where are you at FIB?

Yeah that was a very nice turn and finish. Maybe that’ll help him adjust to England a bit quicker

Brentford officially Gonzo’s third favourite club side (behind LFC & Tranmere). Hope his lack of an immediate impact is just growing pains in a new country and new league

Yeah he's been impeached a second time... but Mitch McConnell has said that the senate won't be having an emergency session to vote on conviction/removal until after the inauguration. So it seems to mostly be a symbolic impeachment vote - there's never been a president that has ever been removed by the senate. But there's no real indication of what it would mean for the Senate to convict and remove a President that is no longer in office - the idea is to prevent him from having office again, collecting a pension, and having a lifetime security detail... but it's something that would probably be challenged in court and make it's way up into their Supreme Court. If anything, I think the GOP will use this as a time-waster for Biden getting important things done quickly, like getting his cabinet appointed, appointing ambassadors, and appointing new agency heads. With the State department, in particular, the GOP and Trump have been really destructive in the way they have "reinvented" the inner workings of that agency... so a lot has to be done to rebuild America's framework for diplomacy. And they'll do this all the while probably playing out a trial that doesn't actually need to play out because we all have the news and saw that Trump incited a riot into the American house of government... just so they can wash themselves of the stench of Trump and pretend they are heroes for standing up to him when he is out of office and banned from twitter. Meanwhile a year ago, they all had the chance to hear a real trial regarding impeachable conduct from the President... and they chose to have a witness-less summary trial to vote along party lines. America would do well to remember all of Trump's enablers, because it does seem to me like enough time made America forget how shit Bush was (and Reagan and... the other Bush before them)... and someone shittier than the last shit republican comes along and sort of whitewashes how utterly terrible the last GOP president was. The current US President makes George W. Bush look like a well spoken philosopher that really thought out his actions when you compare them. That isn't good, because that is not an accurate reflection of Bush - no matter how you want to slice it. Josh Hawley & Tom Cotton are going to try to go for the GOP nomination in 2024... and they're both terrifying because they're fascists like Trump but they can string words together in a coherent sentence.

I think it'll a Mando game in the vein of Assassins Creed/Far Cry (I think those games have multiplayer components... but I never play those parts - I just play the singleplayer on those ones). I haven't played an Assassins Creed since the one where it was in Paris (the Pirate one is the best one IMO, by a long distance) - but I think the Far Cry games are pretty fucking ace. I imagine they'd make a Mando game 3rd person though so they have you looking at as much Disney Star Wars IP as possible at all times Yeah, game exclusivity rights are that great... and I don't think EA really did all that great with the Star Wars world tbh. The Star Wars Battlefront reboot was shit and basically just a demo for Battlefront 2, which was less shit (campaign was actually decent, even if the gameplay is pants)... and Battlefront 2 is a good casual multiplayer game if you're into that sort of thing - it's just not really my type of multiplayer game anymore though. The best they did was Jedi Fallen Order, which was brilliant - and I hope that Respawn get to continue making Star Wars games as a result. Because I think Respawn are one of the better developers out there, even though they're owned by EA, and they should get to keep making games while they're still good.

I'm going to try making my own Bao for the first time and making some pork dumplings. It's supposed to be pretty easy so I looked online on how to do it and I think the hardest thing is folding the dumplings - but it should be good because bao dumplings are fucking delicious.

Apparently this Void Bastards game is a genre called "roguelike" and I don't even know what the fuck that means - but I absolutely love this game... so maybe I need to learn more about this genre and find other games like it. But holy shit, I love Void Bastards I think everyone should try it

Ubisoft open worlds are usually pretty fucking ace - although they are pretty formulaic so if you play too many of them... they all seem very samey. But this could be really really nice if it goes well. I am very excited about Bethesda's Machine Games studio making an Indiana Jones game! Of the 3 games I've played from Machine Games... 2 of them were very, very, very good (the first of the 2 Wolfenstein reboots) - one was shiiiiiiiiiiiite (the other Wolfenstein game they made). Decent track record - hopefully they make it 3/4 good games!