Trump 'could pardon himself over Russia

Amused · June 3, 2018, 7:06pm

[SIZE=7]Trump ‘could pardon himself over Russia but won’t’, says Giuliani[/SIZE]
2h ago
BBC News
Reuters

Donald Trump probably has the power to pardon himself in the Russia collusion affair but does not intend to do so, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani says.

A special counsel is investigating Russia’s role in the 2016 election, and whether Mr Trump obstructed justice.

The question of self-pardon arose after the New York Times published a letter to the counsel from Mr Trump’s lawyers.

In it they say he has absolute power as US legal chief to end investigations, or “even exercise his power to pardon”.

Such absolute powers, they argue, mean that he could not have obstructed justice in any case.

[SIZE=6]What has Mr Giuliani said?[/SIZE]

He appeared on ABC’s This Week programme and was asked whether Mr Trump had the power to pardon himself.
Mr Giuliani, the head of Mr Trump’s legal team, said he “probably does”, but added: “He has no intention of pardoning himself.”
He went on: “I think the political ramifications of that would be tough. Pardoning other people is one thing. Pardoning yourself is another.”

Speaking on CNN on Sunday, House Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that no president should pardon himself.

[SIZE=6]Why would Mr Trump need to pardon himself?[/SIZE]

It all stems from the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into alleged collusion between the Trump team and Russian officials in the election campaign that brought the president to power.

Donald Trump has constantly railed against the investigation in Twitter outbursts
Mr Trump has always maintained there was no collusion and that the investigation is a “witch hunt”.

Part of Mr Mueller’s investigation is looking at whether Mr Trump sought to criminally obstruct it, in particular with the sacking of ex-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former FBI director James Comey, and with his reaction to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from the investigation.

[SIZE=6]So could he do it?[/SIZE]

No-one really knows. There is no precedent for a president trying.
In the case of former President Richard Nixon, the Justice Department said he could not pardon himself, but others argue it is not precluded in the US Constitution.
This latter theory was something touched on in the newly leaked letter.

[SIZE=6]So what is this letter all about?[/SIZE]

It is dated 29 January and was sent to Mr Mueller by John Dowd, one of Mr Trump’s lawyers who has since left the team.
It appears to be an attempt to show the president as untouchable. Its main points are that, because the president is the nation’s chief legal officer, he:
[ul]
[li]Cannot be subpoenaed[/li][li]Cannot be indicted[/li][li]Cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice because, given his absolute powers, that would effectively mean obstructing himself[/li][/ul]
Citing the powers given to him by the Constitution, it says the president can “terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon”.
Mr Giuliani said himself last week that the special counsel’s investigation may be “entirely illegitimate”.
The leaking of the letter certainly displeased Mr Trump:
Report
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Image Copyright @realDonaldTrump @realDonaldTrump

MISCHIEF · June 3, 2018, 7:33pm

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[SIZE=7]Proust is no match for these two fanfics[/SIZE]
Aja Romano—
July 24, 2013 at 12:10PM | Last updated Dec 11, 2015 at 6:46PM
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Leave it to Teen Titans and Super Smash Bros. fandoms to generate literally millions of words of action adventure.

[INDENT]
It had been a long battle for survival, but he managed to stop the imbeciles from defeating him for real.[/INDENT]
Thus begins the longest work of fiction ever written.
Nope, it’s not Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time).
It’s [I]The Subspace Emissary’s Worlds Conquest[/I], and it’s a Super Smash Bros. WIP (work-in-progress) on fanfiction.net. As of July, the fic is 3,548,615 words long. That’s three times longer than Proust, and six times longer than War and Peace.

ALSO READ: The pilot for ‘Teen Titans’ will be filmed in 2015

You might say that AuraChannelerChris, the author of Subspace Emissary, has a tendency to wax verbose. Their FF.net author profile alone is ten thousand words long. There’s even a 60,000 word prequel, itself longer than some novels, that brings the current word-count above 3.6 million. It also has 2,200 reviews (an average of one review every 1,700 words), and its own TV Tropes page.
The fic, which first began updating in 2008, is something of a meandering mess. Here’s what we get when our hero is introduced:
[INDENT]Hello, I’m Chris. I’m a 16 year-old teen. You’re getting this so far, right? Okay, I’m just making sure. I’m a 16 year-old. I have short black hair, and you could say that I look Hispanic due to the color of my skin. Truth is, I AM Hispanic, but yet I live in the U.S., specifically Los Angeles, California, in a house where I rule by my lonesome due to some…rather unfortunate decisions I’ve done in the past…
…Well, not exactly alone…[/INDENT]
As for the plot, it’s equally convoluted, involving a real-life Pokémon species called a Lucario whom Chris has adopted. Together, they play Super Smash Bros. Brawl and realize that they’ve opened a portal to the Subspace Army, an advancing horde of would-be world-conquerors who must be defeated using the help of the Smash Bros. catalogue of good guys.
After The Subspace Emissary, the next contender for the prize of longest fictional work may be a mid-2000’s Teen Titans fanfic by a writer who’s now a My Little Pony superfan. The fic is “These Black Eyes,” by Post—reposted in 2009 after being deleted, “These Black Eyes” (TBE) had a small but devoted fandom following. The last part of TBE is sadly unfinished, but if it were extant, it would put this behemoth at more than 3 million words long, perhaps surpassing “Subspace Emissary” as the word-count champ.
By comparison, Proust’s famously dense novel about the French aristocracy is only 1.2 million words long. And where Proust opens In Search of Lost Time (or Remembrance of Things Past) with a long and philosophical missive on sleep, both AuraChannelChris and Post open their fics with thrilling action sequences.
They also both feature original male characters as the protagonists who carry us into the fictional world as outside observers along with them. This is a classic Gary Stu trope, so familiar that Post, the author of These Black Eyes, mocked their own writing for utilizing it when he reuploaded the fanfic in a fit of nostalgia.
Why was it Super Smash Bros. and Teen Titans, of all things, that inspired such epicness? For starters, everyone loves a superhero, and Teen Titans has five at once, while the unconventional heroes of the Nintendo Mariofranchise and Pokémon are no less beloved, if a little quirkier. Both fandoms are animated, and both are part of popular franchises. The anime-influenced Teen Titans had lots of quips and witticisms from its crime-fighting quintet, and plenty of action sequences to boot, while Smash Bros. is an action game from start to finish—more than enough excitement to keep a teenage boy busy as he indulged in his daydreams of having superpowers and hanging out with cool heroic teammates.
Besides, who doesn’t want a 6-foot-tall Pokémon to accompany them on their action adventures?
While the third and final arc of These Black Eyes will never be reposted because its own author thinks it’s terrible, Subspace Emissary is still going strong. The 208th chapter, posted earlier this month, sees characters monologuing their way through fights in an effort to win the game.
But to judge from the reviews of the fic—many of which are variants on, “holy crap, this is the longest work of fiction ever written”—AuraChannelerChris has won already.
Illustration by [I]yellowhima/deviantART[/I]
https://a.optmstr.com/users/aff553e11deb/images/e4062851a0541525893459-THE-BAZAAR-ECOMM-BUG-FULL-3-2017.png

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Ready to cut the cord? Check out this guide from the Daily Dot and see if Hulu with Live TV is right for you.
READ MORE

https://www.dailydot.com/wp-content/uploads/44c/24/photo-thumb-100x100.jpg[B]Aja Romano[/B]
Aja Romano is a geek culture reporter and fandom expert. Their reporting at the Daily Dot covered everything from Harry Potter and anime to Tumblr and Gamergate. Romano joined Vox as a staff reporter in 2016.
Fan Fiction Fanfiction Mario Pokemon Super Smash Bros Teen Titans The Subspace Emissary’s Worlds Conquest
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[ATTACH=full]173949[/ATTACH]20 Home Hacks That’ll Make You Say, "OMG I’m Trying

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Christian is a 21-year-old college junior-to-be. He lives in Arizona. He studies computer science and computer maintenance. And in his spare time, he writes the longest work of fan fiction ever composed. The Subspace Emissary’s Worlds Conquest is currently over 3,500,000 words, making it almost three times as long as Marcel Proust’s seven-volume À la recherche du temps perdu, six times as long as Infinite Jest, and thirteen times as long as Ulysses. TSEW is “based” on the Nintendo fighting game Super Smash Bros. in the same way that Proust’s novel is “based” on a bite of tea cake, and it is a monumental thing. At present, the work has 28 chapters, which are grouped into a rough structure based on 32-bit role-playing games (Disc One, Disc Two, and so on.) Christian writes under the name AuraChannelerChris, and his prolificacy is not limited to fan fiction: A mere two hours after we emailed Christian a set of 17 questions, he responded with more than 2,000 words.

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Lucario

How long have you been writing fan fiction?
Since the day Super Smash Bros. Brawl was released in North America. [BuzzFeed: March 9, 2008]
What do you think originally inspired you to write fan fiction, as opposed to writing fiction with entirely new characters?
This may sound really odd, but I started writing fan fiction because it seemed like a good way to learn English. Yes, that’s right. I started writing fan fiction because my English was bad. In fact, I mainly learned how to write and speak English from video games when I used to live in Mexico. Speaking the language was easier compared to writing, and after moving to the U.S. [in 2008], many English teachers saw how I was very developed in the English for a person who came from Spanish-speaking Mexico. I was on par with a native U.S. citizen in a single year of classes. I’m so grateful for all the help from teachers and my reviewers for helping me reach this level to write compelling stories.
What is your writing process? Take me through a typical day of writing for you.
Oh, I’m embarrassed to say. My writing process is pretty random at times. Whenever I have my laptop (an Acer) or a computer with an internet connection, I usually get to writing to pass the time. If I don’t have anything else to do, writing is a sure bet.

Writing many paragraphs can become dull eventually, so I like to listen to video game music to lighten the mood, preferably music that comes from the current story arc I’m writing. It really helps to listen to music, even while readers are reading because it helps to envision a lot of action during battle scenes. The story also recommends tracks to listen to during key events to give a more realistic feeling. I just hope the current track doesn’t affect the reviews I get.
Who are some of your favorite non-fan-fiction writers and why?

To tell the truth, I hardly read any works of fiction from notable writers. I mostly read fan fiction as a whole.

I was limited to reading the typical school books needed to complete assignments. I did find a lot of them worth the read to pass the time like The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, Hatchet, Flipped, and Of Mice and Men. There was a lot of diversity in all those stories. Even if I needed to do book reports on them, I found their plots to be engrossing and interesting.
How does it make you feel that your work is three times as long as À la recherche du temps perdu"?
Honestly, I can only blush in embarrassment for finding out about this, and at the same time, I feel like I’m not human or something. These fingers of mine are in love with keyboards.
What is it about SSMB that made you want to write about it?
I saw a lot of potential in each character to extend upon their personal storylines that their creators never seemed to go an extra mile. For example: I’ve seen how Fox acts pretty jerkish towards Krystal at the start of Star Fox: Command so I decided to continue on his story with unsuccessful attempts to apologize to her and get hooked up again; how a pretty docile little thing Kirby is until he sprints into battle; how Link has this weird characteristic of barging into people’s homes and taking whatever item he finds; how Mario is actually the nicest guy around compared to the impatient Sonic, etc. There are just a lot of reasons in each character that makes them special to keep on writing.
What are your favorite games?
Hoooo boy. I mainly play a lot of RPGs. I have played nearly all of the Super Smash Bros’ characters’ games. Other favorites include Shin Megami Tensei games, Final Fantasy, and some oddballs like Arc Rise Fantasia.

Really, I can’t just pick a favorite.
How long do you think The Subspace Emissary’s Worlds Conquest will be by the time you finish it? When do you think you’ll finish it?
I have livid nightmares that this story will end at ten million words. Who knows, really? Perhaps at 400 chapters, this huge tale will come at an end.

Then again, the story is inspired by so many video games that is hard to tell when it’ll be finished.
Would you ever submit your work to an editor? More broadly, do you hope to ever turn this into, or write, a published book?
That would be pretty rad if that ever happened. I could either become a big influence in making many teens and children get into literature, or get my butt sued to high heavens by Nintendo.

But, I feel like a work like this would be better suited for animation. After coming so far into writing this, it gave me a somewhat hopeless dream of seeing a true Nintendo anime. What I seet would probably give the Pokémon anime a run for its money, but that’s just my opinion. Because of how there are many characters, I’d have to cross a hell lot of hurdles from their creators to get permission to do an official adaptation.
For people who might not have the time or the literacy in Super Smash Bros. to read your work, can you summarize the plot?

For starters, it’s a sequel to The Bond of Aura that tells about my OC [original character] named Chris who has a fateful encounter with a special Lucario [a species of Pokemon], who is scared and curious of what has happened to him after ending up in the real world where there are no Pokémon or battles. Through that story, Chris tries to make Lucario’s stay in the real world an enjoyable experience by teaching him common practices such as reading, cooking, and other household chores, all the while bonding, hence the Bond part in the title. Chris can do all that without his parents getting suspicious because his parents are conveniently away from the house nearly all the time. Literally. But said “parental neglect” stems from Chris’s own actions, and he himself is struggling to live in solitude. Getting a non-human person dropped into his room wasn’t the answer he was expecting, but he manages to live with it. After a lot of anxiety, Lucario eventually deems Chris as his true trainer.

From there, the large sequel came about. One Super Smash Bros. Brawl copy leads to the discovery that there are many worlds (or rather, video games) out there separated from the real world, and that said worlds are being targeted by Tabuu [a boss from Brawl] and his Subspace Army to expand the Subspace realm. The plot of this one is a “what-if” version of the real final battle against Tabuu gone wrong… Master Hand is himself the leader of the faction and he’s the one who makes a hasty decision to go into the real world to get outsider help to stop the army from moving out. Luckily for him, he gets the help, with mixed results.

The theme of bonding with others becomes ever larger. Because there are over 40 main characters running around, character development comes in several different doses. Not only that, but Chris’s knowledge of everyone is either a boon or a curse depending on the situation. It’s not just about him and X knowing each other. The rest of the cast do have other people to talk to, which leads to varying degrees of development. I knew beforehand that just representing the main characters’ worlds in arcs would take me to the point that, for example, if Solid Snake were recruited at the last arc before the final battle, he wouldn’t get enough development. So I came up with the idea of making a massive multi-crossover story that not only includes the worlds of every Smasher, but also extends to many of their different storylines, and, most important of all, includes games outside the Nintendo realm (the many Final Fantasygames, Chrono Trigger, Mega Man Legends, and Star Ocean III).

Now, people will probably scoff at the mere thought of including non-Nintendo worlds in this, as the characters in this story are most likely never going to be seen outside their worlds, like for example Yoshi in a Resident Evil place (relax, he was never seen there), so I laid out some rules. One rule is that I only make eight or so characters go into a crossover world if they can fit into the theme. Because of this, you can see characters like Link fitting into Chrono Trigger, and said arc had characters that came from other eras allowing characters with similar backgrounds to take a leading role in the arc, allowing a humorous relationship between Ayla and Donkey kong to be born or Marley showing un-Princess-like behavior around the calm and composed Zelda.

So, in a few words, each Smasher character has their own personal dilemma and views that clash with another character. The Subspace Emissary’s Worlds Conquest is not only about stopping Tabuu from eventually reaching the real world, but it’s also about everyone’s struggles to overcome their challenges as people.
Most people can’t read 3,500,000 words; what part of your piece are you most proud of?
I think I should give an example of the many I have. The Chrono Trigger arc in particular had so many moments I can’t begin to describe. That arc was amazing in my eyes, as there was a lot of time travel hijinks, a pretty emotional development between Link and Lucca, and the seriousness of the mission at hand.
Joe Bernstein is a senior technology reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York. Bernstein reports on and writes about the gaming industry and web culture.
Contact Joseph Bernstein at [email protected].
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patco · June 4, 2018, 4:29am

@Amused kuna mjamaa alikuambia kwa thread yangu ati all you do is post threads about America…

In short he called you an American lover… na si hio ni madharau ya hali ya juu? After all the work you’ve done to bash Trump and his America. hehe.

Amused · June 4, 2018, 12:51pm

This is ke. Chokoras throw mavi at you right before you get to your rendezvous. Are you going to go looking for their mothers or “get on your horse?”

Adambole · June 4, 2018, 5:16pm

Rudy Giuliani must be thinking that Trump is a fool or he is a fool himself.