William Ostendorff, NRC Commissioner, Invested In Honeywell During Plant Lockout

WASHINGTON -- Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner William Ostendorff has invested tens of thousands in Honeywell International Inc., an NRC licensee, since as early as 2009, according to financial disclosure records reviewed by The Huffington Post. Honeywell operates a controversial uranium conversion facility in Illinois and has come before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission several times for a variety of issues at the site since Ostendorff became a commissioner.

Julian Bond, Former NAACP Chair: Tea Party Is 'Taliban Wing Of American Politics'

Former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said Tuesday that it was "entirely legitimate" for the Internal Revenue Service to target conservative groups for increased scrutiny, calling the tea party the "Taliban wing of American politics."

"I think it's entirely legitimate to look at the tea party," Bond said during an interview with MSNBC's Thomas Roberts. "Here are a group of people who are admittedly racist, who are overtly political, who've tried as best as they can to harm President Obama in every way."

Student Loan Debt Tenacious As U.S. Households Shed Other Debt: Study

Four years after the Great Recession, U.S. households are slowly repairing their balance sheets and shedding their debt -- except when it comes to student loans.

A new survey of consumer debt by the New York Federal Reserve finds that households shed $110 billion in debt in the first quarter of this year, a decline of 1 percent, due mainly to a $101 billion decline in mortgage debt, along with $19 billion in credit card debt. But they added $11 billion in auto loans and kept piling onto a mountain of student loan debt that has nearly reached $1 trillion, $20 billion of it new this quarter.

IRS Fallout: The Real Scandal Is Secret Money Influencing US Elections

The IRS is under siege for investigating conservative political groups applying for tax-exempt status. But the real problem wasn’t that the IRS was too aggressive. It was that the agency focused on the wrong people—“none of those groups were big spenders on political advertising; most were local Tea Party organizations with shoestring budgets,” writes The New York Times—and wasn’t aggressive enough. The outrage that Washington should be talking about—what my colleague Chris Hayes calls “the scandal behind the scandal”—is how the Citizens United decision has unleashed a flood of secret spending in US elections that the IRS and other regulatory agencies in Washington, like the Federal Election Commission, have been unwilling or unable to stem.

Canada Housing Bubble: Jim Flaherty Calls Slowdown Healthy

OTTAWA - Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is dismissing fears about Canada's housing market, saying the current slowdown is welcome news and that there is no need for further government intervention.

While some observers are expressing fears that a steep correction is underway that will bring down housing values and possibly affect bank credit ratings, Flaherty said Tuesday that he believes government mortgage tightening last July actually helped avert what could have turned into a housing bubble.

British Columbians Have a Right to Know

The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act was designed to give citizens direct access to government records -- to unvarnished, un-spun information that can be used to hold government to account.

However, the Act isn't working as intended. We're coming up to the 20th anniversary of the Act's passage, and it is showing its age. High fees, long delays and unjustified government claims for exemptions from the duty to release are common problems. Some problems have become so extreme that only legislative changes will fix them.

Labrador byelection voter turnout highest of any federal byelection held in Canada since 1995

OTTAWA—The Labrador byelection had the highest voter turnout, 59.6 per cent, than any of the 47 federal byelections held since 1995, possibly the highest for any past federal byelection, and the scope of the Liberal victory against one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former Cabinet ministers could be symbolic of a wider upheaval taking place in Canada’s political landscape now, say one Liberal MP and two leading pundits.

U.S. Taxpayers Footing Bill That Promotes Monsanto Abroad: Report

May 14 (Reuters) - U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill for overseas lobbying that promotes controversial biotech crops developed by U.S.-based Monsanto Co and other seed makers, a report issued on Tuesday said.

A review of 926 diplomatic cables of correspondence to and from the U.S. State Department and embassies in more than 100 countries found that State Department officials actively promoted the commercialization of specific biotech seeds, according to the report issued by Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit consumer protection group.

Amazon Workers In Germany Strike For Higher Wages

BERLIN (AP) — A union representing workers at Amazon in Germany says members are striking in a push for higher wages from the online retailer.

The ver.di union said Tuesday it is urging Amazon to adopt wage agreements similar to those governing retail and mail-order workers. The union says those agreements include Christmas bonuses and extra pay for working nights, Sundays and holidays and could mean as much as 9,000 euros ($11,700) more annually for Amazon workers.

Amazon says its distribution warehouses in Germany are logistical centers, and employees are already paid on the upper end of what workers in the logistical industry earn.

Ver.di represents some 3,300 employees at Amazon's Bad Hersfeld center and another 2,000 in Leipzig. It says both sites will take part in the one-day warning strike.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: AP

This Is What Happens When The Gun Industry Sees Kids As Customers

The percentage of American households that reported owning guns dropped more than 40 percent between 1977 and 2010, according to surveys by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. Among its efforts to reverse that trend, the firearms industry is working hard to convince children to embrace gun culture. Here's how.