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An AP report today summarizing economic news kind of makes President Barack Obama seem like a populist after all. The stimulus package his administration cobbled together quickly earlier this year has had some good effects on regular Joes and Jills.

• Incomes are up as a direct consequence of the stimulus plan. People have more money on hand and are saving at the highest rate since December 1993 -- 6.9 percent.
• Consumer spending in May was up slightly, an encouraging sign because it accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity.
• The overall economy's contraction, measured by gross domestic product, slowed in the most recent quarter compared to the prior one (5.5 percent versus 6.3 percent, which was the worst in over fifty years).
  Technorati Tags: Alerts Economy Retail GDP Income Savings Stimulus Hope
  
  
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A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Alyssa Morin

Just a week before U.S. troops are to begin pulling out of Iraq and transition control back to the Iraq Security Force, violence has rocked Iraqi cities, leaving upwards of 200 dead in a series of bombings that started last Saturday.

On Saturday, June 20, a suicide bomber attacked a Shi'ite mosque in Taza, killing 73 and wounding 250, in what was, until yesterday, the deadliest bombing of the year.  Yesterday a motorcycle strapped with explosives was detonated in a busy Baghdad market.  The death toll is currently 76 and climbing.

Technorati Tags: Alerts Iraq bombings withdrawal al-Maliki

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Christine Bowman

Reformers and progressives tend to be skeptical -- with good reason -- of big business advocates like the US Chamber of Commerce. Corporate America, their lobbyists, their profit motive just get our hackles up. That's why it's refreshing to discover a more enlightened business group in terms of their stance on reforming the healthcare system.

Technorati Tags: Alerts Healthcare Women Business Chamber of Commerce Margot Dorfman

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Christine Bowman

As Molly Ivins used to like to say, dripping with irony, "Isn't that nice?" Dick Cheney has found a publisher for his memoirs. Now all he needs is some #2 pencils and a good title.

A recent contest at BuzzFlash should certainly help with the latter. Our readers were brimming with creative ideas for titling Cheney's memoir, and the winning entries are in this article's headline, above.

As a progresssive political watchdog site on the Internet, BuzzFlash has kept an eager watch on former Vice President Dick Cheney's retirement activities. And, honestly? There's been much less hunting and fishing than we had hoped. Instead, the Veep has settled into his residence in Virginia, evidently in close proximity to a Fox News studio. He could have headed for the Wyoming hills or helped out daughter Liz by babysitting the grandkids, but Cheney instead has focused on trashing the Democratic president publicly and 'splainin' anew his take on American foreign policy.

But once again, he has a real project to sink his teeth into. His pal and former employee Mary Matalin has agreed to pay Cheney millions (that's the speculation) to spill his guts.

Or, will Editor Matalin, who also signed Glenn Beck and Mark Levin to the CBS-owned Simon & Schuster Threshold imprint, make sure that he doesn't? After all, she, too, was one of the insiders in the 2002 lead-up to the Iraq War -- one of the White House Iraq Study Group (WHIG) gang who brainstormed the marketing of the war, eventually settling on the WMDs and mushroom cloud story.

Technorati Tags: Alerts Cheney Memoir Title Lord of the Lies Mary Matalin WHIG Threshold Wilkerson

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Christine Bowman

A so-called public plan option won't touch the foundations of this dysfunctional, wasteful, multi-payer system of insurers. It will not provide cost control. -- Quentin Young, M.D., Physicians for a National Health Program

Advocates for healthcare reform are streaming to Capitol Hill this week to give lawmakers on key healthcare reform committees their insights into the failed U.S. healthcare system and some possible fixes. Dr. Quentin Young, longtime physician friend of President Barack Obama and recent retiree from private practice in Obama's Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, spoke with BuzzFlash today about his planned testimony Wednesday in support of single-payer healthcare before the House Ways and Means Committee. Young is National Coordinator and CEO for Physicians for a National Health Program and well known around Chicago as a progressive leader on healthcare issues.

Along with committee hearings, another aspect of the advocacy push will be a D.C. rally, "The Great American Sickout." Billed as a "national rally for healthcare for all now," it is scheduled for Thursday, June 25. More activist actions in support of single-payer are suggested here.

Technorati Tags: Alerts Single-Payer Healthcare Quentin Young Baucus Obama PNHP Sickout

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Christine Bowman

War of the Words -- A Healthcare Win Requires Pressure from the People To Move Cautious Democrats Forward

Now that healthcare reform proposals from the Senate and the House and the White House are on the table, the war of the words is on. Unfortunately, the Party of No and the right wing usually dominate the talking point turf, and this debate is no exception. The GOP meme of "government-run" is everywhere -- except in the Democrats' draft proposals, which emphasize "choice." It begins to feel like the conservatives are winning, despite polling from multiple research firms that shows very strong support for serious healthcare reform. 85 percent of respondents to the latest NYT/CBS polling said the healthcare system needs to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt.

Liberal commentators Monday have noted that certain Democrats already are buckling under the P.R. offensive from conservatives and special interest lobbies. Under the heading, "With friends like these ..." writers at MSNBC's "First Read" quote Senator Dianne Feinstein's remark that Obama might not have the votes to pass healthcare, and ask, "Does anyone think that if a Republican president wanted health-care reform and had a GOP-controlled Congress and 60 Republicans in the Senate, that the reform wouldn’t pass?"

Over at The NY Times, columnist Paul Krugman also speculates that the clearest threat to achieving healthcare reform is coming from within the Democratic party. Krugman writes today that healthcare reform as proposed would cost no more than Bush's tax cut did -- yet it could lose:

Technorati Tags: Alerts Healthcare Blue Dogs Activism Public Option Monopoly Landrieu Choice Schumer Reform Krugman Poll Feinstein

A BUZZFLASH DISCUSSION
by Chad Rubel

They wear the same theoretical uniform as Russ Feingold and Barbara Boxer. Yet the way the Blue Dog Democrats go about the game of legislation is a startling contrast.

There have been massive disagreements between traditional Democrats and the Blue Dogs, some of which you get when your party is more open and less disciplined than the other major party on the landscape.

But on health care reform, the Blue Dog Democrats are ready to derail vital desperately needed changes in our failing health care system.

Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) isn't the Blue Dog that normally comes up in these battles. Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson are the usual suspects. But Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, has the spotlight on him in this health care battle.

Technorati Tags: Alerts Chad Rubel blue dog health care health care reform Democrats Max Baucus

A BUZZFLASH DISCUSSION

Although Iranian voters have been silenced by a brutal crackdown, Iran has spoken. The country's leaders say the status quo shall stand. So what, then, should the free world say in response?

As official numbers and whispered anecdotes slip surreptitiously from a locked-down Iran, it's becoming quite clear that the presidential election last Friday was stolen. Juan Cole, the president of the Global Americana Institute, has a long list of factors that point to proof of fraud in the Iranian election. Even those tasked with counting the votes at the Interior Ministry have been telling journalists that they were locked out of the process and that no count ever took place.

Crafting an answer to what is generally assumed to be an Iranian coup is not an easy task, especially for the United States. Ahmadinejad was quick to enter into the frame game, saying that the contesting of the election results originates with the West's desire to see him lose power in Iran. Meanwhile, uniting under the color of opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, the "Green Revolution" is taking hold across Iran and the Internet.

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A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Christine Bowman

America's prisons, recently deemed by frightened citizens and vocal politicians to be not up to the job of housing Gitmo detainees, truly do warrant a fresh look. That's exactly what prisons and the process that feeds people into the "corrections" world will get, too, if Senator Jim Webb (D/VA) succeeds in building support for comprehensive reform of the US criminal justice system.

Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs heard testimony on a bill introduced by Webb in March to form a blue-panel commission to evaluate and recommend changes to correct systemic flaws in America's criminal justice system. The presidential level bipartisan team would be empowered to conduct "an 18-month, top-to-bottom review."

Technorati Tags: Alerts

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

The progressive community is trying to determine whether to mourn the passing of single-payer healthcare or fight for its inclusion in reform plans, and BuzzFlash readers are no exception.

The top story at our user-driven news site BuzzFlash.net as of this morning was "America Can Achieve Single Payer," which is subtitled in part by the words "SINGLE PAYER IS THE ONLY HEALTHY SOLUTION." Below this story, five more stories appear with varying degrees of optimism and pessimism over the state of healthcare reform in this country.

This is par for the course for the BuzzFlash community of late. Meanwhile, it's almost a foregone conclusion that the best thing we're going to get from Washington is a "public option" plan.

Technorati Tags: Alerts healthcare single payer public option insurance medical industry obama co-op baucus congress reform industry