Which Government on this planet is willing to negotiate with accused criminals in order to bring them to trial? It doesn't happen, not in Democracies or Dictatorships. The most you might get is "I'll surrender at the station tomorrow morning so you don't have to haul me out of my house in handcuffs." but even that isn't a sure thing.

So now, you've tried to back up your claim, and you've failed. You did not show any evidence, at all, of me expressing support for impeachment. You're a liar, you know you're a liar, you have no regard for truth of any kind, and therefore nothing you have to say henceforth matters.

So, here's how this goes: nothing in your next comments matters until you back up or retract your claim that I have ever said impeachment of President Obama needs to happen, or in any way supported impeachment of President Obama. Anything else you say will be ignored until that happens. You need to learn to tell the truth, at least sometimes.

The Constitution says we don't. Stop being stupid.

You're a liar.

You're a liar. I implied no such thing. You appear to be under the impression that a. the House is not currently Republican, or b. that if the incoming House wants to impeach, the outgoing House would not, or c. the Senate has anything to do with impeachment before the House actually votes for impeachment. a. and c. are obviously false, and b. is nonsense. Stop being stupid.

You're a liar. I said no such thing. I simply proved you were wrong. And you still won't admit you were wrong. In fact, you repeated your lie, even after I proved it was a lie, that removal is a separate process and takes a long time.

You're a liar. It's never happened.

So, here's how this goes: nothing in your next comments matters until you back up or retract your claim that I have ever said impeachment of President Obama needs to happen, or in any way supported impeachment of President Obama. Anything else you say will be ignored until that happens. You need to learn to tell the truth, at least sometimes.

Simply put: the Constitution doesn't require an investigation, therefore it isn't necessary. This is easy, even for you, to understand.

You're a liar, or you can't read. (I could go either way on that one.)

I never implied they would. What are you blabbering about? (Note: this is a rhetorical question. I don't really care what you are blabbering about, because I am quite sure it won't make any sense, won't reflect reality, won't be honest, etc. As usual.)

You're a liar. I presented evidence: evidence that Clinton was impeached and tried in 5 months, evidence that removal can happen as part of the trial process and take no additional time, evidence that the Constitution requires no lengthy time period, evidence that no investigation is required, and so on. And make no mistake: all of this evidence is incontrovertible.

You have provided zero evidence. You simply asserted it would take two years or more, literally without any evidence at all.

You claimed it but you did not prove it.

You're a liar. I gave you the example of the former judge, Alcee Hastings (D-FL), whose removal was not a separate process and took no additional time. That is proof. I didn't prove it wouldn't be a separate process and wouldn't take much more time, only that you were obviously wrong to say it necessarily would. And it makes sense that you were wrong, because you are completely ignorant.

You're a liar. I have never once supported impeachment of President Obama. You're simply making shit up, as usual.

I ... are [sic] really enjoying how you just discarded the demonstration of your list of claims as being pure fantasy by trying to pick apart just one of them to try to make yourself feel better.

You're a liar. That never happened.

Let's see. You don't admit you were wrong about removal being a separate process and taking a long time, despite incontrovertible proof being presented. You don't admit you were wrong about Obama refusing to enforce the employer mandate, despite it being truly uncontested. You don't admit you were wrong about me supporting impeachment of President Obama, despite the fact that you have no, and have never seen any, evidence I ever did.

And let's not forget that bizarrely stupid claim you made about a grand jury being required! That was a bona fide howler.

You just can't stop making shit up. It's pretty funny.

And I also already proved no investigation here is necessary. There's nothing in the Constitution requiring it, obviously; and if the House feels that we know what we need to, then no investigation needs to be done. It's that simple.

You're a liar. Even if an investigation were done, it could start immediately in January. Actually, it could start this November, after the results of the Senate election are known. But it would likely begin in January.

That is not a problem with anything I said, no.

You're a liar. No such thing is reasonable to expect. In fact, the only evidence we have is that removals are not complicated and do not take a long time. Granted, a President is not a Judge, but you've offered zero evidence backing up your assertion that it would take a long time. None at all.

And to compound your dishonesty, you did not admit you were wrong about removal taking much more time and being a separate process, when I proved it doesn't and isn't. You stopped asserting it, which is fine, but maybe you should at least admit you were lying when you said it?

assuming of course that your fantasy of a conviction

You're a liar. I never said I hoped for that, and, in fact, I do not.

I have evidence that it does not need to take that long, which is more than your nonexistent evidence for your claim that it does need to take that long.

You're a liar. I am not. I've said from the beginning of this thread that I oppose impeachment ("Impeachment is a stupid idea ...").

Not that I don't expect you to not lie, but still, that one was beneath even you. Which is saying something.

I am not going to cast pearls here and go over all the cases, but one of these in particular is very funny, because it just shows how completely ignorant you are. Not that we didn't already know, with your idiotic claims of impeachment taking years, of removal being a separate more lengthy process, and so on.

But you just said it is merely my opinion that Obama has refused to enforce the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act.

This fact is seriously not in dispute by anyone. It's a simple statement of fact. The law says it begins in 2014, and he signed an executive order pushing it to 2015. No one denies this.

Now, on this point I am actually on Obama's side, in that I think the President has the legitimate authority to not enforce punishments, as long as he does it without violating equal protection. So he cannot say, "I won't enforce the mandate against liberal companies," but he can say he won't enforce it against all companies. He can further take it on a case-by-case basis, if he chooses. It's basically prosecutorial discretion. The President can, and does, choose all the time which laws he will and will not enforce prosecution or punishment of. Suing the President for exercising his authority here, as Boehner is threatening, is legal nonsense.

Of course, you can impeach the President for anything you want to.

But, none of this takes away from the fact that Obama has refused to enforce the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Everyone knows it.

Similarly, it's in my view a proven fact that Obama has given subsidies to people in violation of the law, and Obama's own advisor said this is the case. The law does not allow subsidies for the federal exchange. The wording of the law is absolutely clear, the intent of the law is very well-established, and Obama knew all this and did it anyway. But Obama denies this; he does not, however, deny that he has refused to enforce the employer mandates, though he wouldn't use those exact words to characterize it.

You're just full of shit, as usual, at every turn.

You're a liar. Clinton: five months. Johnson: 3.5 months. Yes, he was not removed, but that would not take an additional year or more.

You're a liar. Even if we said it took a year to impeach Clinton (including investigations etc.), that would still leave about a year to remove him.

You're a liar. The length of time pretty much has nothing to do with why they won't impeach him, because a. it wouldn't take that long, and b. it's a bad idea regardless of the length of time.

You're a liar, on both counts. For example, when Judge Alcee Hastings (currently in the House of Representatives, D-FL) was tried by the Senate, he was removed as soon as the voting on the impeachment articles was concluded. They voted on 17 articles, each of which read, "Wherefore, Judge Alcee L. Hastings is guilty of an impeachable offense warranting removal from office." And upon being found guilty on several of those articles, the judgment read "It is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said Alcee L. Hastings be, and is hereby, removed from office." The end. They summarized the vote on the last article, summarized all the votes on all the articles, and then removed him from office, all within a few minutes. The end.

It can be as quick as the Senate wants it to be, and does not need to be a separate process.

You're a liar. I clearly wrote: "Clinton's impeachment -- which took longer than necessary -- took a mere five months from beginning of Starr's submission of data ... We don't need to go through lots of information for Obama; most of his "crimes and misdemeanors" are well-known."

"Impeachable" means whatever the House wants, and the very fact that Obama said the IRS was not corrupt, but it was ... that is impeachable. And we know he has broken the law (federal exchange subsidies), we know he's refused to enforce the law (employer mandate), we know he lied about Benghazi, we know he lied about the IRS not being corrupt. We know all of this.

But they could also impeach him for being black, or for being a lousy basketball player. They can impeach him for anything they want; they get to define what a "high crime" or "misdemeanor" is in this context. They won't, of course, but that's a separate point, since they never would anyway, not for any of these things. But they could, and that's the point, that you dishonestly deny.

You're a liar. I didn't say you were lying because I dislike what you say; I say you were lying because you lied. You either know it can take less than two years, or you said it with reckless disregard for truth or falsity (which is also lying).

And that can happen in mere days.

It might be; it might not be. You're lying. Again.

You're lying. I explicitly addressed what makes this different in the Obama case: we don't need further investigation for Obama.

It's similar to the Clinton situation, in that when Janet Reno and the federal court started the investigation process by asking Ken Starr to investigate what happened with Lewinsky, the point was not to impeach Clinton. They were just investigating what happened. Only after the facts came out did they decide to impeach. Similarly, we've been investigating -- formally through Congress some, but mostly just by watching what he actually does -- Obama for years now. As I already said, there's no need for an investigation of Obama.

You're lying. In fact, every allegation the House has offered of Obama has been proven true. He has offered subsidies, in direct contravention of the law. He has refused to enforce mandates, in direct contravention of the law. His IRS has been targetting conservatives in particular, in direct contravention of the law. He lied about "the video" causing the Benghazi murders. All of this is proven true. None of it is seriously controversial at this point.

You're lying. Even if these things were not proven, no investigation would have to be done: the House could put it to a vote any time they wanted to.

I hope you're lying, because if you really believe that, it's pretty sad. It's simply untrue.

Because I assume you're not a fucking moron. Should I? Boehner is threatening a lawsuit over Obama's nonenforcement of the employer mandate, and there's an existing lawsuit likely to be heard by SCOTUS over Obama's blatantly illegal subsidies to people in the federal exchange. There's more, but I assume you know at least some of the obvious ones.

Of course, I listed some above, and there's more.

You're a liar. I already proved it.

You're a liar. Nothing in the law -- in any law we have -- says impeachment should take a certain amount of time, or that it shouldn't be done quickly.

Absolutely, yes. I would want it to take about one month, maybe two, tops. There's no reason for it to take longer. With Bush -- and there was no serious case against Bush, not like there could be against Clinton or Obama -- we already knew everything we needed to know. We knew there was no serious evidence of deception about the WMD. We knew the Congress backed Bush in invading Iraq. The House impeaching and the Senate convicting Bush for what they said he could do, or for things they spent years trying to prove but never could, would have been idiotic.

I've seen other possible articles against Bush, and all of them are stupid. For example, "suspension of the constitutional right of habeas corpus," which a. never happened and b. what did happen -- restrictions on statutory habeas corpus rights, not constitutional ones -- was passed by Congress.

But even if they had a case to make, fine. Make it quickly and Move On. It drags on the whole country, and whether you remove him or not, I want it to happen quickly, not slowly.

You're a liar: I didn't say i was personally hurt, and I didn't say "his blowjob" hurt the country. I said Clinton hurt the country, and he obviously did. He even admitted he did. And the way he did it -- obviously -- is through his lying under oath.

Of course, this is just an academic exercise. The funny thing is that no federal legislators are publicly talking about actually impeaching Obama. None. The only people talking this up are a tiny number of non-legislators on the right ... and pretty much all of the Democrats.

It's sheer dishonesty (though not unusual, especially on the left).

Right, that's what I meant.

It could, obviously.

You're lying. No federal legislator is my hero.

False. You're lying. The question is: why are you lying, when the evidence is so clear?

Clinton's impeachment -- which took longer than necessary -- took a mere five months from beginning of Starr's submission of data to the House (1998-09-08), to the Senate's acquittal (1999-02-12). We don't need to go through lots of information for Obama; most of his "crimes and misdemeanors" are well-known. It could very well be a pretty quick process, though it could also take up to a year (which would be more than twice as long as the ordeal Clinton put on this nation).

It's true that Harry Reid is the most obstructionist Senate Majority Leader in my lifetime, but any potential impeachment assumes that the GOP takes over the Senate and keeps the House, so that's quite obviously a nonissue.

Debatable, the takeaway I had from the show was that the Psi-Corps was largely responsible for it.

I'm going to ignore the hyperbolic statement about 9/11 (really dude?) and just point out the fact that the Shadows never really seemed to give two shits about the domestic politics of any of their puppet races, least of all humanity. And in such a situation as the B5 universe, humanity would have to be incredibly stupid not to take advantage of any scraps of technology the Shadows were willing to dole out, particularly given the aforementioned issues on Minbar and the fact that the survival of the human race depends on being able to effectively defend it against aliens with many times our technology.

Except it wasn't credible. That entire storyline was stupid and it was resolved by a deus ex machina ending. There wasn't even anything to get invested in as a viewer of the show. The Shadows are fucking with some minor races that we rarely see and don't care about as viewers. Yawn. The only time I genuinely cared about that entire story was when the Vorlons were about to waste Centauri Prime, otherwise it was all off screen minor races that nobody gave two shits about.

There's a difference between a war and a holy quest for genocide. One would expect a race that's smart enough to go to the stars not to start the latter over a botched first contact. Failing that, one would expect them to actually wage a competent war of annihilation, but they couldn't even manage to do that.

Stalingrad, one lousy campaign in a war of annihilation, six months of fighting: 2,000,000 casualties on both sides
Earth-Minbari War, two years, conducted across light-years, including a last stand to save the human race: 250,000 casualties on one side, unstated (probably hundreds?) but low numbers on the other

It doesn't pass the smell test, and even if we excuse JMS' obvious lack of knowledge regarding geopolitics/military matters, the back story was laughable.

Who commanded them in a war against his own people? Who had previously sworn an oath to Earth? Who killed (rightly or wrongly) thousands of humans and left Earth nearly defenseless? Sheridan treated the White Stars as his own personal toys, with full support from Delenn, it's not a huge reach to imagine Earthforce getting their hands on one, particularly if Sheridan had actually upheld his oath once Clark was gone.

You want to know what would have been a good story in the B5 universe? The Minbari Warrior Caste nutjobs actually seizing power (hopefully killing that religious zealot Delenn in the process) and going on a vendetta against a weakened Earth. Let Sherdian reap what he sowed in leaving Earth nearly defenseless, then have him build an alliance to combat that threat, to save something we actually give a shit about. That would have been infinitely more compelling than trying to figure out why all these humans are fighting and dying to stop the Shadows, whom never really expressed any interest in harming humanity. All they did was stir up chaos amongst races that the audience rarely saw and was never overly invested in caring about. Yawn.

As it happened, the most compelling story JMS had (President Clark and the Civil War) was the one that got short shrift because of the looming threat of cancellation. More's the pity.

That was kind of the point of Star Trek, or at least the point of TNG and to a lesser extent TOS. I'm sorry that you didn't get that, it wasn't for everyone, but it was and is the reason why the reboot completely sucks ass and has nothing in common with Star Trek other than the title and character names.

Is the near-utopia presented in The Next Generation attainable? Probably not, human nature being what it is, though if anything made it possible it would be an abundance economy with virtually limitless supplies of energy that can literally make food and consumer goods out of thin air. The notion of people working towards the common good rather than personal enrichment is a lofty one, hence the fiction part of Science-Fiction.

It was a lot more enjoyable than the dark depressing crap that passes for entertainment these days, like Law and Order Rape (err, I'm sorry, Special Victims Unit) or even some of the darker Sci-Fi stuff, like the really misanthropic episodes of Babylon 5 or Battlestar Galactica. Yeah, I get it, character conflict is fun to write. Does anybody know how to write uplifting stories anymore? It'd be nice to have something more grown up than Frozen to turn to when I need to escape for two hours.

Star Trek at its best was never about the "science". It was about the story and the characters. As long as they remained consistent about the fake science who cares? Go watch the third, fourth, and fifth seasons of TNG or any of DS9 or TOS. The technobabble was there, but it played by a known and consistent set of rules. The particle of the week deus ex machina technobabble crap was primarily a 7th season TNG problem (the writers clearly ran out of ideas) and long running Voyager phenomenon.

The only parts of B5 that DS9 ripped off were the Messiah Complex/Emissary crap of the Commanding Officer. Coincidentally, that was also the least watchable part of DS9. I wanted to shove Sisko out an airlock when he stopped talking about "wormhole aliens" and started talking about "Prophets".