Thursday, July 23, 2015

Common Dreams:
"With several key promises of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act still unfulfilled, 'Americans cannot be comforted that Wall Street will not wreak havoc again,' according to a new report from the watchdog group Public Citizen.

'Five years after President Barack Obama signed this legislation, Dodd-Frank remains largely incomplete,' said Bartlett Naylor, Public Citizen’s financial policy advocate and author of the report, Dodd-Frank is Five: And Still Not Allowed Out of the House (pdf), published Tuesday.

'Major portions of the law have yet to be codified into specific rules,' Naylor explained. 'Many enforcement dates are set well into the future, and certain rules are not yet being implemented and enforced to the fullest extent of the law.' "

-->The failure of this administration to enforce Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms threatens all of us with another catastrophic meltdown of our economy. But the robber barons in the banking industry like it that way, and so does The NYT, which didn't print this story.

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Guardian UK:
"EU foreign ministers have called on Israel to halt plans for the 'forced transfer of population and demolition of Palestinian housing' in the West Bank village of Khirbet Susiya amid growing concerns that it may be knocked down in the coming days.

In a statement, the European foreign ministers echoed a warning delivered by the US government over the fate of the community of 350 in the south Hebron Hills. Last week, John Kirby, a US State Department spokesman, warned that any demolition or evictions would be 'harmful and provocative'. He said: 'We’re closely following developments and we strongly urge the Israeli authorities to refrain from carrying out any demolitions in the village.' ...

The case of Khirbet Susiya, which has been fighting a 20-year-long battle for survival, has become an international cause celebre, not least because of the financial support from European countries – including the UK – to the villagers."

-->The last time The NYT covered the story of Khirbet Susiya was in 2008. Most news critical of Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is simply left out of our newspaper of record.

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Common Dreams:
"Affirming what environmentalists have long charged, a new study finds that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, may be polluting the air, water, and wildlife in California—and scientists say state leaders are not doing enough to protect residents from the toxic side effects of the controversial drilling practice.

The California Council on Science and Technology on Thursday released its long-awaited final assessment on well stimulation in the state, which found that a lack of adequate testing and data have made it nearly impossible for regulatory agencies to understand what effects fracking has on the environment. The council is an independent body that advises the state government.

'The toxicity and biodegradability of more than half the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing remains uninvestigated, unmeasured, and unknown. Basic information about how these chemicals would move through the environment does not exist,' the report states. 'We lack information to determine if these chemicals would present a threat to human health or the environment if released to groundwater or other environmental media.' "

-->The NYT omitted this story about fracking and threats to the environment. Like stories about Israel's apartheid, The NYT often avoids bad news about the fracking industry.