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THE LIBERTY BELL REPORT Nov 26,,

TheLiberty

BelReport

GREEN NIGHT OUT:HOW ONE GROUP PLANS TO END FRACKING IN THIS ISSUE

At Green Night Out on November 10, Sam

Bernhardt, led a discussion about How to

End Fracking. Bernhardt is an organizer for

Food and WaterWatch,www.foodandwaterwatch.org , in

Pennsylvania. Fracking (hydraulic fracturing

to release gas from shale rock) is inherently

unsafe, according to Bernhardt, and citizens

cannot rely on state officials to protect the

water, air and public health. Fracking cant

be made safer through government

oversight or regulations, said Bernhardt.

An all out ban on fracking is the only way to

protect our communities.

Right now, Bernhardt is working to expose

the way PA Governor Tom Corbett has

overreached to make gas drilling easier for

the gas companies. He does not believe thatmost Pennsylvania residents will agree with

the extremism of Corbett opening state

college campuses and state forests for gas

drilling. Bernhardt also thinks that most

people in our Commonwealth will object to

Corbett deleting information from lab

reports to people who have had their well

water tested for toxic contaminants.

The reason for not protecting the public

health, according to Bernhardt is that

Corbett received $1.8 million from friends

like gas magnate Terry Pegula. In return, he

stripped state regulations, opened up state

lands and gave the fracking industry billions

in tax breaks, including a nearly $2 billion tax

break for Pegulas Royal Dutch Shell.

While consuming mountains of delicious

food, the diners at Green Night Out

discussed ways to ban fracking in

Pennsylvania. As a start, Bernhardt

circulated a petition against fracking, which

was gladly signed by the diners.

Green Night Out takes place monthly at

Singapore Kosher Vegetarian Chinese

Restaurant, www.singaporevegetarian.com .

Green Night Out is sponsored by the Green

Party of Philadelphia, www.gpop.org . For

more information about future Green Nights

Out, please contact 2152437103

[[email protected]].

The reason these placeholders remain is that

they are linked to other placeholders that use

the same text. So, when you replace the title

or subtitle placeholder text with your own, it

automatically populates the corresponding

placeholders in the headers and on the back

page mailer.

Congresss Shameful Support foI Israeli Bombing

Page

Obama Team Begins Campaign tAvoid Fiscal Cliff

The Obama administration appears to be

launching something of a public relations

campaign to promote its approach to avoiding th

socalled fiscal cliff. Page

How to End Frackingby Green Night Out OpEd


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THE LIBERTY BELL REPORT | Issue 1

A U.S. Senatorial nominee for the

Republican party arguing that a woman

who is raped can simply will herself not to

become pregnant.Elderly wouldbe voters

prohibited from votin g because they don't

have a governmentissued photo ID.Republican candidates for federal office

backing tax cuts for the very rich while

cutting public help for the poor.Studentsand people of color discovering on

election day that their neighborhoods

had a limited number of voting machines,

forcing them to wait hours to vote.

All are subplots in the absurd theater of

the 2012 campaign, one of the most

dysfunctional and misogynist elections in U.S.

history. How can this happen in a time when polls

continually indicate that a majority of Americans

support all citizens being full partners in selecting

the nation's leaders?

Much of the answer lies in the disintegration of our

democratic political system. It is seriously broken

and this dysfunction has provided an opportunity

for a few people, many of them extremely wealthy,

to buy their way into running the country. Those

who oppose feminist goals have changed the

electoral and governance laws to make it easier for

small numbers to override majority opinion.

The feminist political movement has inadvertently

been too narrowly focused. It has spent too much

time on women's leadership training and not

enough on changing the electoral system so it

could win more meaningful, rather than token,

elections.

Our democratic experiment has always progressed

in fits and starts, slowly including more citizens in

the decisions of how the nation is to be governed.

Yet in 2012 some leaders supporting Republican

candidates sought to limit the franchise.

BACKGROUND

TANYA MELICH IS A FOUNDING MEMBER OF

THE FEMINIST POLITICAL MOVEMENT

As another international conference on climate

change is about to get under way in Qatar on

Monday, two recent reports issue dire

warnings about where we areand where we

are likely to be.

First, the World Bank came out with Turn

Down the Heat.

It notes that we are plausibly on the path to a 4

degrees Celsius increase in the worlds

temperatures this century, which would lead tounprecedented heat waves, severe drought,

and major floods in many regions, with serious

impacts on ecosystems.

Industrial nations are not doing nearly enough

to address this crisis. The sum total of current

policiesin place and pledgedwill very likely

lead to warming far in excess of the required

limits, the report says.

It also notes the double injustice that lies at the

center of the global warming crisis:

Industrialized nations are the ones most

responsible for creating the crisis, but the

distribution of impacts is likely to be inherently

unequal and tilted against many of the worlds

poorest regions.

It adds: The projected increase in intensity

extreme events in the future would likely ha

adverse implications for efforts to reduce pover

particularly in developing countries.

On the heels of this report comes another from t

U.N. Environment Program, The Emissions G

Report, 2012.

The gap is the distance between what countr

have pledged to do about global warming a

what is necessary to keep the planet from heatup more than 2 degrees Celsius. This gap h

grown, in part, because of higher than expect

economic growth after the Great Recession. A

it will continue to be a severe problem even if t

commitments that countries have already ma

are fully implemented.

The UN report notes that there is basically o

year less to achieve the necessary reductions

emissions, so steeper and more costly actions w

be required.

The problem is, the United States is not in any w

prepared to take those actions, as Barack Oba

himself noted in his press conference after be

reelected.

Broken Politics: Republicans

Assail Suffrage Itself

by Tanya Melich

Warnings Pile Up Before Qatar Climate TalksbyMatthew Rothschild

Its your planet; What will you do to

save it?


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LOCAL

South Philadelphia Woman First

n Area to Get Reprieve underObama Immigration Order

South Philadelphia college student is one of the first

n our area to get a twoyear reprieve under President

Obamas Deferred Action for ChildhoodrrivalsOrder.

Green Party Philly Meet and Greetreens to meet Wednesday November 27, 2012 from 5

pm at the Calvary Center for the Community in

hiladelphia.Please join us to discuss the outcome f our Green Party Presidential Campaign and

what it means for 2016.

What will Romneys Republicans do now?

Who will the other Corporate Party run?

What will Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala do next?

What issues should the Green Party of Philadelphia

GPOP,www.gpop.org)

ocus upon following the General Election?

there a specific issue that has been ignored by the two

orporate Parties?

ets talk!

We look forward to your participation.his meeting is open to the public with no admission

harge.

AST FACTS

By Tony Romeo

HARRISBURG, Pa. Superstorm Sandy

has delivered a bump in approval for both

Gov. Tom Corbett and President Obama,

according to a new Quinnipiac University Poll

of Pennsylvania voters.

Tim Malloy, assistant director of the

Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, says

that after Hurricane Sandy, Gov. Corbett has

a 40percent job approval rating, his best

number since March.

The governor got a pretty good bump out of

it, as did the president of the United States,

Malloy tells KYW Newsradio. People lose

power, the governor steps in (and) opens the

PEMA command post, and looked

gubernatorial as the president looked

presidential and he got a bump.President Obamas approval rating jumped

even higher among Pennsylvania residents,

to 52 percent.

Meanwhile, 63 percent of Pennsylvania

voters say they are somewhat or very

concerned about global warming, although

51 percent say they do not believe Sandy is

linked to climate change.

In Aftermath of Sandy, HigherApproval Rating for Obama and

Corbett

Images courtesy of Getty Images


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