A multi-partisan group of citizen-activists has formed the South Florida Impeachment Coalition, Inc., a nonprofit organization. We totally disagree with Congressional leadership that impeachment should be "off the table."

Initially, we are lobbying South Florida members of Congress to convince them to co-sponsor H. Res. 333, Articles of Impeachment Against Richard B. Cheney. Some of the excuses the Democrats are giving are:

1. Nancy Pelosi does not want to pursue impeachment;
2. There are not enough votes in the Senate to impeach;
3. Congress won't be able to pass important pieces of legislation; and
4. Impeachment proceedings will backfire on Democrats in the '08 election.

To them we say:

1. Nancy Pelosi is not fulfilling her oath of office to defend the Constitution and puts fear of the right-wing pundits' wrath in front of the good of the country;
2. When the facts come out about the impeachable offenses committed by Cheney and Bush, many Republican Senators who have to face election in '08 may jump ship and turn on Cheney and Bush and insist that they resign as was done to Nixon;
3. No progressive legislation (such as defunding the Iraq occupation) will pass the Senate and be signed into law by Bush as passed by the House without executive "signing statements" which water down what the House passed; and
4. The low approval rating of Congress will improve greatly when members of Congress show some spine.

In addition to convincing members of Congress to support impeachment, the Coalition's goal is to educate South Florida voters about the crimes that have been committed by Cheney and Bush, to get local media attention and to bring the issue of Impeachment out of the closet -- to make the "I" word a household word in Florida.

We invite individual citizens and groups concerned with the alarming directin our country is taking to join with us in helping to make such an uproar, that Congress will begin to figure out that it is in their best interest to support impeachment.

Members of the South Florida Impeachment Coalition feel certain that Impeachment is perhaps the most critical question of our time. It is hardly "a distraction" as some interests would have us believe.

The call for Impeachment directly answers the questions so often posed to us recently about the nature of our national security. While this administration posits all its rhetoric on doing everything for the sake of national security, we are of the firm belief that their misguided actions severely worsen our security and do the U.S. grave harm right now and well into the future. That is why we in the Coalition feel so compelled to stop this. In fact, it seems clear that the best way to have what we consider REAL long-term national security, is a rather complete change in direction to one of securing our liberties at home, strengthening democracy at home, and seeking dialog with others.

The Administration's unwillingness to respect or follow international laws or opinions (remember the "Freedom Fries"), compounded by the use of torture and rendition, the killing of tens of thousands of civilians and the breakdown of life-sustaining infrastructure, the contracting of private mercenary forces with our tax dollars to avoid the domestic divisiveness of a draft has shredded our image abroad -- and nothing Karen Hughes can spin can change that. Combine all that with a weakening of our own bedrock the U.S. Constitution and we have the perfect recipe for destroying our credibility across the globe as any bastion of freedom or hope — some two hundred years of tradition and practice washed away in record time by a small group of ideologues — who neither offer nor seek any real role for our Congress. Ruining our image and our credibility cannot make us safer. It can only foster hatred and enmity. Is that any way to live? Those who propose these wars believe in sustaining their positions purely by power, what populations think (in the mid-East or in the MidWest here) does not matter to them.

Citizens truly concerned with not only the present but the future of our nation have a brief window of opportunity to bring back sound thinking and the rule of law to our land. The road to that lies in impeaching those who abuse the Constitution and authority, and who listen to no one but their own.

As remote as the chances for successful impeachment may seem (given the current political climate), it does not change the crucial nature of the need to show Americans take justice and the rule of law seriously. Our coming together is an historic act of patriotic vision and will not unlike that of the Founding Fathers, to save this nation from further damage and disaster.

In what is often seen as a traditionally apathetic community, the fact that so many citizens are motivated to gather together and ponder such weighty questions concerning the future of our nation, could well be considered a newsworthy event by itself. Our Rally is but a biginning of standing up in our community. We will do whatever it takes to get the notion of Impeachment OUT of the closet and put it squarely ONTO the Table in our Congress.

Whether Impeachment passes in Congress or not, it is still supremely important that others throughout the world who share this planet know that in South Florida, and in communities across the United States, We, the People, did not stand silently by and allow the Dream of America and of a just world to crumble.

FloridaImpeach.org