An alert for Friday's hearing before the House Judiciary Committee

This Friday, July 25, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on "Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations," in compliance with Rep. Dennis Kucinich's demands for action on his call for impeachment. Kucinich and other administration critics are expected to testify. While not a formal impeachment hearing, Friday's deliberations gives us a timely opportunity to pressure our congress members to support investigation and impeachment, and encourage our local media to take this issue seriously as well.

There are several ways to show support between now and Friday:

If you're in the DC area, the National Impeachment Network is organizing a rally and asking everyone who can to meet at 9 a.m. on Friday in front of the Rayburn House Office Building on the Independence Avenue side. Bring impeachment shirts and posters! For more information contact ningroup@gmail.com.

If you have not yet asked your member of Congress to support impeachment, now's the time. Reach the Capitol switchboard toll-free at 800-828-0498.

Contact your local media and ask that they cover the hearing. If you watch national nightly news broadcasts, contact them as well. Do you have a sympathetic writer on your paper's op-ed page? Send him or her an e-mail suggesting a column. There are contact lists for cable news and national media at After Downing Street.org's site here and here. Don't forget the power of a well-written letter to the editor, as well.

Please also sign the petition at Rep. Kucinich's impeachment website, and encourage others to do so as well. It is possible to impeach a president even after he leaves office, so this issue doesn't go away on Inauguration Day, but it's up to us to pressure our representatives to act.