Saviors of the 20th Century - Hitler and Stalin - The War of Annihilation Between the Nazis and Communists, a historical narrative by Jim Putnam about the history of Nazism and Communism and the rise to power of Hitler and Stalin. This book unveils many secrets of the Nazis and Communists long hidden in classified records and secret KGB archives in the frontier outside Moscow.
The author worked with recently declassified materials as well as contacts in various American, British, French and Soviet intelligence agencies in writing this book. His pursuit of information included being the first American to visit a secret Stalin archive located on a missile base in the Russia frontier where the Hitler SS film archives, missing since the fall of Berlin in 1945, were discovered.
Historical accounts of events of the 20th century through World War II are ambiguous on some issues and often guilty of errors of omission. Sometimes truth is rather elusive. Unfortunately this book uncovered so many areas of missing or erroneous history that it is easy to be overwhelmed by information.
In the end history did not change although many of the stories of history we were taught certainly did change. Millions of people died, far more than we were ever led to believe, although they might not have been the people you expected.
Hitler was a man with a mission, a mission inspired by supernatural visions when he was young. Nothing was going to stand in the way of rebuilding the German Reich, restoring the German Empire, and fulfilling his rightful place in history.
Was Hitler the founder, philosopher, architect or soul of the dreaded Nazi worldview? Or was he a mouthpiece for a much more sinister force? Did he practice the black arts or was he a victim of the practitioners? Why did Hitler and the Nazis hate the Jews?
What about the equally enigmatic Stalin remembered as the Man of Steel behind the Iron Curtain and the ruthless ruler of Communism? An ally of the USA in World War II, yet the leader of our most powerful enemy of the 20th century?
This former ally, bankrolled by the USA, was responsible for building an “empire of evil” according to President Ronald Reagan. Stalin’s Communism murdered sixty-two million citizens of the Soviet bloc. Because of him many think the Cold War brought the world to the brink of extinction.
What was his role in the founding and development of the Soviet Union? How does his place in Communist history fit with Marx, Lenin and Trotsky? How did the seemingly humanistic Communist philosophy of Karl Marx evolve to become the foundation of atheist revolution throughout the world and throughout the century?
What were the Jews doing in Europe and Russia that caused so much hatred at the turn of the 20th century? What was the true relationship between Jews and Communism? What roles did the Jews play in the formation of Communism and Nazism, or the nations of the Soviet Union and Germany?
In 1939 the world was stunned to learn a secret Non-Aggression pact had been signed between Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, the leaders of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. The world has no idea how close it came to being consumed by the greatest killing machine ever created. If they had honored the treaty, no force on Earth could have stopped them.
Hitler and Stalin stayed one step ahead of the best minds and most powerful nations of the world for nearly half of the century. It was almost as if some supernatural force guided them to fulfill a mysterious destiny. As you will read in the chapters of this book, there seems to be no logical explanation for how these two men came to power and were able to achieve what they accomplished.
After five years of World War II and the most senseless slaughter of people in world history, Hitler was dead, Nazi Germany was destroyed, and the Soviet Union was mortally wounded. The Soviets suffered twenty-six million deaths at the hands of Hitler, ten million more were missing, and nearly 80% of the Soviet war machine was destroyed by the Nazis. Yet it still took fifty more years for the rest of the world to finally close the chapter on Stalin’s Communist machine.
The Fallacy of History
History is someone’s opinion or bias of something that happened. Whether that position is based on fact is quite another thing. But even historical fact falls far short of telling the truth. Many “facts” provided are nothing more than misinformation given to support the historian’s position. Mere facts do not allow us to get inside the minds of the madmen like Hitler or Stalin.
When Roosevelt was first elected President and took office in March 1933 one of his first steps was to re-establish relations with the Communist Soviet Union. He summoned the Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov, one of the many Jewish members of Stalin’s leadership, and negotiations began to establish diplomatic relations, which were completed in November 1933. Yet millions of Soviet citizens had already been murdered at the hands of the new Soviet government. Why did the President ignore such dreadful truth and embrace the fledgling Communist government?
Was it because of a much deeper fear of the rise of Hitler and Nazism? Yet if Roosevelt was so concerned with the activities of Hitler and the Nazis that he sought out Stalin as an ally, why did Franklin Roosevelt avoid war with Hitler for so long? The Nazi war machine was murdering millions of people yet the USA just stood by. Was it Roosevelt’s fear of Hitler or fear of Stalin that kept us on the sidelines? Why did Roosevelt finally join forces with Stalin?
These questions and many more are answered in this quest for truth that reached into the walls of secret KGB archives built by Stalin on a military base in the frontier far from Moscow, to newly declassified materials around the world, to numerous international intelligence sources, and from former members of the inner circle of Stalin and Hitler.
According to The New American Encyclopedic Dictionary, "An Exhaustive Dictionary of The English Language Practical and Comprehensive published by J. A. Hill & Company of New York in 1906, "bias" of things not material is defined as: "The state of mentally or morally inclining to one side; inclination of the mind, heart or will; that which causes such an inclination, leaning or tendency."
In Crabb: English Synonyms, Crabb thus distinguishes between bias, prepossession, and prejudice: "Bias marks the state of the mind; prepossession applies either to the general or particular state of the feelings, prejudice is employed only for opinions. Children may receive an early bias that influences their future character and destiny. Prepossessions spring from casualties; they do not exist in young minds. Prejudices are the fruits of a contracted education. A bias may be overpowered, a prepossession overcome, and a prejudice corrected or removed. We may be biased for or against; we are always prepossessed in favor, and mostly prejudiced against.
Is there is a bias in America based on suspicion of the intent of the Muslim people's of the world and is it based on the history and modern actions of the Muslim world, in particular the actions of the mainstream Muslim factions. The majority of Muslims belong to one of two denominations, the Sunni and the Shi'a.
According to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, in Muslim tradition, Muhammad is viewed as the last and the greatest in a series of prophets—as the man closest to perfection, the possessor of all virtues. For the last 22 years of his life, in 610 AD, beginning at age 40, Muhammad started receiving revelations from God. The content of these revelations, known as the Qur'an, was memorized and recorded by his companions. It has been 1400 years since Muhammad started receiving revelations from God.
Sunni Muslims are the largest denomination of Islam, comprising up to 90% or nine-tenths of the total Muslim population in the world. They are often referred to as Ahl as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘h or Ahl as-Sunnah.
The word Sunni comes from the word sunnah, which means the teachings and actions or examples of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. Therefore, the term "Sunni" refers to those who follow or maintain the sunnah of the prophet Muhammad.
The Sunni believe that Muhammad did not specifically appoint a successor to lead the Muslim ummah (community) before his death, and after an initial period of confusion, a group of his most prominent companions gathered and elected Abu Bakr Siddique—Muhammad's close friend and a father-in-law—as the first caliph of Islam. Sunni Muslims regard the first four caliphs—Abu Bakr, `Umar ibn al-Khattāb, Uthman Ibn Affan and Ali ibn Abu Talib—as "al-Khulafā’ur-Rāshidūn" or "The Rightly Guided Caliphs." Sunnis also believe that the position of caliph may be democratically chosen, but after the Rashidun, the position turned into a hereditary dynastic rule. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, there has never been another caliph as widely recognized in the Muslim world.
Shia Islam (sometimes Shi'a or Shi'ite), is the second-largest denomination of Islam, comprising anywhere between 10% or one-tenth to 13% of the total Muslim population in the world. Shia Muslims—though a minority in the Muslim world—constitute the majority of the populations in Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Iran, and Iraq, as well as a plurality in Lebanon and Yemen.
In addition to believing in the authority of the Qur'an and teachings of the Muhammad, Shia believe that his family—the Ahl al-Bayt (the People of the House), including his descendants known as Imams—have special spiritual and political rule over the community and believe that Ali ibn Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, was the first of these Imams and was the rightful successor to Muhammad, and thus reject the legitimacy of the first three Rashidun caliphs.
The Shi'a Islamic faith is vast and inclusive of many different groups. There are various Shi'a theological beliefs, schools of jurisprudence, philosophical beliefs, and spiritual movements. The Shia identity emerged soon after the death of 'Umar Ibnil-Khattab—the second caliph—and Shi'a theology was formulated in the second century and the first Shi'a governments and societies were established by the end of the ninth century.
Kharijite (lit. "those who seceded") is a general term embracing a variety of Muslim sects which, while originally supporting the Caliphate of Ali, eventually seceded after his son Imam Hasan negotiated with Mu'awiya during the 7th Century Islamic civil war (First Fitna). Their complaint was that the Imam must be spiritually pure, and that Hasan's compromise with Mu'awiya was a compromise of his spiritual purity, and therefore of his legitimacy as Imam or Caliph. While there are few remaining Kharijite or Kharijite-related groups, the term is sometimes used to denote Muslims who refuse to compromise with those with whom they disagree.
Sufism is a mystical-ascetic form of Islam. By focusing on the more spiritual aspects of religion, Sufis strive to obtain direct experience of God by making use of "intuitive and emotional faculties" that one must be trained to use. Sufis usually considered Sufism to be complementary to orthodox Islam.
Once Muhammad lived and provided the Qur'an by 632 AD the various factions fought a 7th century civil war before undertaking 500 years of war against the Christians for control of the Western World. The initial Muslim conquest of Syria in the 7th century under the Rashidun Caliphs began the battle between the Christians and Muslims. After the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Christians and Muslims the wars ended with Muslims in control of most Middle East nations and Christianity split between the Latin and Greek sects.
By the time Christianity reached about 1400 years of age the factions within Christianity forced the Protestant Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries and the break up of Christianity into many independent denominations.
Ironically, the Muslim factions have now existed for 1400 years and in country after country they have turned on each other in brutal wars, suppression of competing sects, and acts of genocide that have left a sense of fear, distrust and anxiety in the Christian and Jewish worlds. Is it not surprising? If the Muslim sects can justify Holy Wars against each other in this modern age what is to stop wars with us? Just look at the tens of thousands of civilian Muslim deaths at the hands of radical Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is in the news every day.
History is a brutal lesson in fact over fiction. The origins of terrorism within the Muslim factions is no surprise as radical extremists with a religious foundation have been around for centuries. There is no single voice for the Muslim world and no central control of order to that world. Until those elements of the Muslim world can overcome their own hatred for each other and then their hatred for the Christian and Jewish so called infidels, bias will exist and caution is warranted.
Just as the Christians had to overcome the violence and bloodshed of the ill advised Crusades and the Protestant Reformation in order for Christianity to evolve, so to must the Muslim world overcome the bitter wars and rivalry of secular and non-secular violence and the offshoots of terrorism that attempt to destroy any perceived effort to threaten the single domination of one religious sect over any government in a multi-cultural and religiously diverse world.
Any bias of unease or misunderstanding on the part of Americans toward the Muslim world can be changed, if the Muslim world evolves as other religions have evolved. When radicalism and terrorism are set aside, and they exist in all cultures and religions, there are far more similarities between Christians and Muslims than differences and both share the same God or Allah. Finally, within every culture or religion are good people.
Was I dreaming or was that Barack Obama yesterday, or two years earlier, blasting the Republicans just after John McCain and Sarah Palin had been nominated and the polls showed the 2008 election closing rapidly? There was Obama before another by invitation only Democratic rally in Ohio slamming the GOP for the Bush years, condemning them for destroying the economy, and demanding a chance to give us hope with change.
Of course he forgot to mention back then that the Democrats had been in control of the budget since Nancy Pelosi became Majority Leader in 2006 and was thus responsible for the budget deficit and the wars. Or that the Clinton White House had made the regulatory changes that resulted in the sub-prime mortgage fiasco that caused the economy to collapse. But that was campaign bravado and facts never got in the way of a good speech. President Obama, your enemy now may very well be Nancy Pelosi, she's a Democrat Mr. President from your very own party, who has been in control of the federal budget for the last FOUR years.
Turn the calendar forward two years and Obama is wrapping up his second year as president with a huge Democratic majority in the House and the Senate and what does the commander in chief have to say about the outlook in America? He is still blasting the Republicans for causing the economic mess, still lamenting about the cost of the two wars, one of which he has expanded, blames the GOP for blocking his legislation though his own party controls both houses of congress now, and seems to have forgotten that Bush has been long gone from the scene.
His polarizing political speeches continue to divide the nation. His condemnation of the "rich" continues to promote class warfare. His build up in Afghanistan has been dropped from the speeches. His promise to help heal the nation is lost by his vicious attacks on the GOP. And then there are the straw dogs he creates to win a point, like attacking House Republican leader John Boehner at least seven times by name. John WHO? Most of Main Street America has no clue who John Boehner is and could care less about a congressman from Ohio. What kind of presidential strategy is that?
Even the president's facts and sound bites are bush league. He said he would not hurt the middle class or small business by raising their taxes, yet his tax of everyone over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples means, according to independent small business groups and even ABC News, that over 894,000 small businesses in America will pay higher taxes thanks to his policies.
The only thing more predictable than Obama being bush league is MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, the resident Republican in the liberal conclave of the Morning Joe Show being shameless in his quite obvious efforts to make it look like the GOP is hopelessly ineffective and impotent. Joe, if he really is a Republican, needs to change his party registration to the Democrat party he seems to espouse so fervently.
On this date 54 years ago Elvis Presley made his national television debut on the Ed Sullivan Show before a record 72 million people. Here is the Man and the real story.
The Real Story - Elvis on Ed Sullivan Show September 9, 1956
by Christine Gibson, former editor at American Heritage magazine.
Given that many fans think Elvis is still alive despite his death certificate, highly publicized funeral, and gravestone, it’s no surprise that misunderstandings abound about his career. Among those events surrounded by fallacies—perhaps because it strongly affected popular culture as well as Elvis’s work—is his legendary first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, 49 years ago today, on September 9, 1956.
Books and periodicals mentioning the show, which broke ratings records for the young medium and was one of the first to bring rock ’n’ roll to a mass audience, have erroneously reported that Elvis was shown only from the waist up, a triumph of censorship and evidence of the continued prudery of the 1950s. Others, aware of the hoopla surrounding the program, remember it as Elvis’s first performance on TV. The truth, as usual, is a little more complicated—and more interesting.
Presley, who had released his first three number-one hits by the time of the show, was already a TV veteran. He had appeared six times on the Dorsey brothers’ Stage Show between January and March 1956 and then on The Milton Berle Show on April 3, to increasing, if not yet fevered, press attention. But after his second Berle show, on June 5, members of the press expressed sudden revulsion at what the New York Journal-American called his “primitive physical movement difficult to describe in terms suitable to a family newspaper.” The New York Daily News reported that Elvis “gave an exhibition that was suggestive and vulgar, tinged with the kind of animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos,” while the San Francisco Chronicle deemed it “in appalling taste.”
The reaction was enough to make Steve Allen, who had booked Elvis for his show before the backlash, briefly consider reneging, but in the end, Elvis did appear on his show on July 1, although in strangely tame form. Allen, going comically overboard to avoid scandal, dressed him in top hat, tails, and white gloves. Elvis soldiered on gamely, singing “Hound Dog” to a top-hatand bow-tie-clad basset hound.
Sullivan, never a fan of controversy, had already refused an offer to hire Elvis for $5,000. The famously prickly host had been burned before by rock ’n’ roll stars: He vowed to drum Bo Diddley out of television after his 1955 act on the show, when he sang his own hit “Bo Diddley” instead of Sullivan’s request, Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons.” But Elvis’s ratings—his stint on the Allen show had trounced Sullivan—changed his mind. Even as he professed to the press that Elvis was “not my cup of tea,” Ed Sullivan had already begun negotiations with Elvis’s agent, Colonel Tom Parker. His hesitation cost him heavily, however. He would end up agreeing to shell out $50,000 for three appearances, an unprecedented sum.
Elvis made his Sullivan debut on the show’s season premiere, but on the big night neither Sullivan nor Elvis was in the New York studio. Elvis was in Hollywood, filming his first movie, and he sang from the CBS studio there. Sullivan was recovering from an August head-on car collision, and Charles Laughton, the star of Mutiny on the Bounty, filled in for the host, hailing his guest by saying, “Away to Hollywood to meet Elvis Presley.”
Elvis, wearing a loud plaid jacket, greeted the audience from a set decorated with stylized guitar shapes. He announced that the show was “probably the greatest honor I have ever had in my life,” and then launched into “Don’t Be Cruel.” The camera stayed above his waist for now, sometimes closing in on his face, sometimes turning to show his backup singers, but something Elvis was doing out of lens range was causing unexplained screams from the audience. After the number was over, he acknowledged the vocal segment of the crowd, saying, “Thank you, ladies.” To finish the first segment, he played the title song to his new movie, “Love Me Tender,” introducing it as ”completely different from anything we’ve ever done.” Nationwide, disk jockeys taped the performance and played the song, which had yet to be released, on their radio shows, increasing pre-release orders to almost a million and pushing forward the single’s release date.
Viewers got to see the full Elvis—legs, hips, and all—during the second segment, when he performed the up-tempo Little Richard song “Ready Teddy” and two verses of “Hound Dog.” Young rock fans today would doubtless have a hard time understanding what all the scandal was about, as his frenetic swivels and shuffles look chaste compared to the gyrations common on MTV. But Elvis on that night (and his rock star peers in general around the same time) arguably set in motion a trend that continues today.
The press was quick to note that the cameras switched to close-up shots whenever he started dancing, in effect censoring him, but the TV audience got to see plenty, and besides, the girls screamed when he grunted, moved his tongue, crossed his eyes, or even stood perfectly still. With Elvis, censorship began to seem irrelevant. As Laughton noted at the end of the hour, ”Well, what did someone say? Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast?”
The viewing audience certainly wasn’t so offended that it changed the channel. The September 9 Sullivan show reached 82.6 percent of the TV audience, and Steve Allen hadn’t even seen fit to offer an alternative; NBC had showed a movie instead. Censorship did enjoy one last gasp during Elvis’s third appearance, on January 6, 1957, when Sullivan—or, as some historians believe, a publicity-hungry Parker—did indeed instruct the camera operator to show him only from the waist up, even when he sang the gospel tune “Peace in the Valley.” It was the last song he would ever perform on the show. Parker was now demanding $300,000 for future TV engagements, stipulating that a network must also commit to two guest spots and an hour-long special.
Even as he priced his client out of its range, Parker credited the program with the success of “Love Me Tender” and earning Elvis the esteem of American adults for the first time. Historians assert that Elvis’s three nights on the Sullivan show helped bridge the gap between the first rock ’n’ roll generation and their parents. Whether at the same time his behavior on those shows ultimately caused today’s generation gap—that is, whether MTV’s rump-shakers should look to Elvis as their earliest role model and parents can blame him for Britney Spears—is still up for debate.
There have been two fascinating political phenomenon resulting from the last presidential election. First was the rise of Barack Obama from obscurity in Illinois to shatter racial barriers and become our first Black president demonstrating to the world that America does indeed live by the Constitution and have equal opportunity for all.
The second was the rise of Sarah Palin from being governor of the Alaska woodlands to become a national political spokesperson for those who had no voice in politics. The speed with which she transformed from a nobody to vice presidential candidate, the polarizing and bitter opposition to her from the left, and her ability to sustain her prominent position, even enhance it, after losing the presidential election and resigning as Alaska governor, defied all odds.
Because of the insatiable interest in everything Sarah and in order to show how she evolved in the eyes of the Coltons Point Times we are providing links to every article that appeared about Sarah Palin in the CPT since she first rocketed onto the American political landscape. Consistent with our overall policy to provide the news all archived articles are available online and there is no charge for you to read them and see how her national career unfolded through the highs and los, the ups and downs of becoming the most popular and controversial personality in American politics. Enjoy if you dare by clicking on the links and then returning to this index of articles for more.
The Sarah Palin Chronicles of the Coltons Point Times
Special interest success is a strange but fair question when one looks at the hundreds of millions of dollars involved in the preservation of special interests and the propagation of their cause. In plain English, are they more interested in self-preservation than success?
Of course the more hotly debated and contested special interests are the social issues which have taken a back seat this election in order to keep the focus on the economy and the Obama record. A wise tactic indeed if you are a Republican.
For example, take the most volatile and controversial of all special social interests during any normal election cycle, the interests for and against abortion. They are invisible this election having been lost in debate over the Obama economic performance.
As the advocates remain silent we have now passed over 52 million legal abortions in America, and over 1 billion worldwide. That means there have been 15 million more abortions than the entire population of California, our largest state. That is equal to over 16% of the entire population of the United States. More than the population of most European nations.
Yet there is silence in the campaign and silence in the Halls of Congress. Perhaps that is a good thing as it is a dark cloud hanging over a nation dedicated to LIFE, LIBERTY and the pursuit of HAPPINESS of it's citizens. In truth it should not be debated as a matter of justice as neither side advocates the taking of human life.
However, the national debate has been positioned as a matter of being for or against abortion. But I have not found any pro-abortionists who advocate the death of human beings. Not even Roe versus Wade says a word about allowing for the legal deaths of infants though many people are confused about the issue.
No, Roe versus Wade only addresses WHEN LIFE BEGINS.
If we could agree on when life begins there would be no national debate, no polarization between liberals and conservatives, and no conflict between religions or political parties. Most important, there would be no systematic abortions of Black Americans at a rate almost three times higher than the percentage of population that is Black. You see, 75% of the US population is White while 12.4% is Black, yet 58% of abortions are White compared to 34% Black. Total legal Black abortions, 18 million, equals almost 50% of the total US Black population of about 37.6 million, while White abortions equal just 13% of the total White population.
When statistics become so skewed something is dreadfully wrong. Just as is this fact. For the record in America since passage of Roe versus Wade as of 2010 there have now been over 52 million legal abortions. For comparison purposes, the total people killed in all wars fought by the United States from the War of Independence through Iraq is about 1,316,000. In other words in the US there have been more than 39 TIMES AS MANY ABORTIONS IN 35 YEARS AS DEATHS FROM WARS IN 234 YEARS.
Roe versus Wade was a ruling by the Supreme Court that centrally held that a mother may abort her pregnancy for any reason, up until the "point at which the fetus becomes ‘viable'". The Court defined viable as being potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. In 1973 viability usually occurred at about seven months (28 weeks) but might occur earlier, even at 24 weeks. Medical breakthroughs since the ruling and prenatal advances have demonstrated that the ability of the fetus to live outside the mother's womb can come at a much earlier time.
In fact just recently the youngest baby in history was delivered at 21 weeks and 6 days, survived and has now gone home to live a normal life. Amillia Sonja Taylor was born October 24, 2009 in Florida. She is living proof that Roe versus Wade is scientifically wrong, a baby can survive at 21 weeks, not 28 weeks.
Clearly the language of the law is flawed, so what should it be? Here is the test for all pro abortion groups who claim they really aren't advocating taking lives. There is one medical test widely accepted and upheld by the courts to establish that a human is legally alive or dead.
The Uniform Determination of Death Act, promulgated in 1980 and supported by the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research, has served as a model statute for the adoption of state legislation that defines death. The act asserts: “An individual, who has sustained either irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions, or irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brainstem, is dead. A determination of death must be made in accordance with accepted medical standards.”
Since brain activity is the legal measure for the cessation of life, then it must also be the legally accepted measure of the beginning of life. A fetus becomes a living baby when brain activity can be first measured. According to established science with the use of an electroencephalogram, or EEG, activity in the brain can be detected as early as six weeks gestational age (6). Whether brain activity begins at this time or started earlier but becomes detectable at this time is uncertain; it is known that neural connections begin forming as soon as neurons begin forming, as early as 14 days gestation.
A Constitutional lawyer like President Obama should embrace scientific advances that have proven when brain activity is detected, at six weeks, and since the courts accept brain activity as a reliable measure of death over life, then life can be scientifically proven at six weeks.
Roe versus Wade, adopted nearly four decades ago, is medically and scientifically obsolete in the determination that life begins at 28 weeks. Responsible members of Congress and the White House should advocate, in the interest of scientific accuracy, a change in the law to reflect the latest scientific advances. With 52 million abortions already performed, do we really want to keep terminating the lives of babies we know are living beings?
Yet there is a better way to implement this known scientific fact for the basis of when life begins and that is through the governors and their attorney generals. They have implemented and defended The Uniform Determination of Death Act and defended it in the courts. It would seem they could take action to extend the act to include when life begins since it is recognized by the courts as when life ends and it could be implemented by executive order, regulation or even legislation if necessary at the state level.
Now last March 26 in the CPT I wrote a story titled, Obama and Abortion - What Does He Really Think? Fifty Million USA Abortions and Counting, and I discussed this proposed resolution of the bitter abortion debate. The same day I sent the article to a number of major Prolife news outlets as a possible strategy to achieve their lobbying goal. As far as I know, none ever reprinted the article or mentioned the strategy in other stories. One would think they might have at least put it out for debate.
Today I am asking you, the readers, to share this article with your governors as a way to achieve a great degree of scientific resolution to this tragic debate in a way neither side of the issue can object to in the end. If no one wants to end human life then this is the solution whether you are pro-life or pro-abortion. You can make a difference and end the debate.
Abortion is not a matter of pro-choice when the baby being aborted is a living, human being in the eyes of science. Pro-Life and Pro-Choice advocates should join in seeking this correction of a flawed law through the work of informed governors, and the Obama Administration and Congress should make it the law of the land.
The following three article headlines tell us all we need to know about the Obama health care reform and the impact it has had on the cost of health care since it's passage. If ever there was a clearer signal of what is to come under Obamacare this is it.
The full text and source of the articles follow the headlines. Is there any doubt why the American voters are fed up?
Workers pay more for health costs, study finds
Malpractice liability costs U.S. $55.6 billion: study
Price of Brand-Name Drugs Soars
Full articles...
Workers pay more for health costs, study finds
Employees paying out additional $482 on average for family plans
Tony Pugh • MCT News Service • September 7, 2010 • From Lansing State Journal
WASHINGTON - A recently released annual survey says workers are paying about $482 more, on average, for job-based family health insurance this year.
That comes as companies force employees to shoulder more of the burden of health care costs.
The increase in premiums, up 14 percent from last year, means that workers are paying nearly all of a $495 increase in the average cost of family coverage this year.
Employers' contributions to family coverage showed no increase at all in 2010, according to the Employer Health Benefits Survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.
Drew Altman, the president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said it was the first time he could remember employers - who provide coverage for about 157 million Americans - moving so boldly to shift health costs to workers.
"Added health costs for workers means added economic insecurity for working people in tough times," Altman said.
Over the past five years, workers' share of premiums has increased by $1,300, or 47 percent, Altman said, while overall coverage costs are up 27 percent. Over the same period, wages climbed 18 percent and general inflation rose 12 percent.
"If premiums and costs continue to be shifted to consumers, households will face difficult choices, like forgoing needed care or re-examining how they can best care for their families," said Maulik Joshi, president of Health Research and Educational Trust.
Family coverage now costs an average of $13,770 a year, up 3 percent from 2009, the survey found. Employers still absorb the bulk of the costs, paying an average of $9,773 toward the full premium amount. Workers typically pay about 27 percent of the cost for family coverage, but this year they're paying about 30 percent, or an average of $3,997. That's up from an average of $3,515 last year.
Workers with individual coverage are in the same boat. Their average annual premiums spiked more than 15 percent - from $779 to $899 - even though the average overall cost for single coverage rose only 5 percent, from $4,824 in 2009 to $5,049 this year.
Malpractice liability costs U.S. $55.6 billion: study
Tue Sep 7, 12:22 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Medical malpractice liability costs the U.S. healthcare system more than $55 billion a year, most of it in "defensive" medical practices such as extra tests and scans, according to a report released on Tuesday.
These costs, which also include administrative costs, payments to plaintiffs and lawyer fees, account for 2.4 percent of annual U.S. healthcare spending, Michelle Mello of the Harvard School of Public Health and colleagues reported.
So-called defensive medicine costs alone totaled an estimated $45.6 billion, Mello's team reported in the journal Health Affairs.
The issue of malpractice has repeatedly come up in discussions and debates over healthcare reform. Doctors often must carry hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in malpractice insurance.
The administration of President Barack Obama has made saving money a centerpiece of healthcare reform, Obama's signature domestic policy.
"We cannot debate the potential for medical liability reform to bring down health care costs in any meaningful way without realistic cost estimates," Mello said in a statement.
"Physician and insurer groups like to collapse all conversations about cost growth in health care to malpractice reform, while their opponents trivialize the role of defensive medicine," added Amitabh Chandra, a professor of public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government who worked on the study.
"Our study demonstrates that both these simplifications are wrong -- the amount of defensive medicine is not trivial, but it's unlikely to be a source of significant savings."
Many groups have suggested tort reform as a solution, including caps on damages to be paid in successful malpractice suits, but Mello's team said such reforms would be unlikely to cut overall healthcare spending much.
Total malpractice indemnity payments were $5.72 billion a year in 2008 dollars, Mello's team found -- about $5 billion in actual damages and less than $2 million in punitive damages.
But they noted there is no comprehensive system for tracking such damages, either. "The source that comes closest is the National Practitioner Data Bank of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)," they wrote.
They used that databank, with estimates from other sources, for their report. They used published studies for other numbers in the report.
"Notably missing from this list are malpractice insurance premiums," Mello's team noted.
"Premiums represent insurers' best estimates of their indemnity costs and defense costs, plus additional amounts to cover other operating expenses, reinsurance costs, and profits or surplus building. It would be double counting to include both malpractice premium costs and indemnity and administrative costs."
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Eric Beech)
Price of Brand-Name Drugs Soars
Over the Past Five Years, Prices Rose 41.5 Percent, Hurting Americans on Medicare
By RON CLAIBORNE and JESSICA HOPPER
Aug. 25, 2010
The cost of the most popular brand-name drugs used by older Americans soared 8.3 percent in 2009, according to a new report by the AARP.
Researchers examined 217 brand-name drugs, including popular drugs like Nexium, which is used to treat acid reflux.
They found that even though consumer prices overall declined by 0.4 percent last year, the cost of brand-name drugs went up. The price of those same medications rose 7 percent in 2008.
The AARP report said the retail price of brand-name drugs rose 41.5 percent from 2004 to 2009, far outpacing the increase in the consumer price index which increased by 13.3 percent during that same period.
That means someone who takes three brand-name drugs pays an average of $1,900 dollars more each year for medicine.
"Something is out of whack here about no increases in the rest of the economy and very substantial [increases] with pharmaceuticals," AARP's John Rother said.
The pharmaceutical industry group, Pharma, declined ABC News' request for an on-camera interview and did not answer questions we submitted in writing. However, in a written statement, Pharma called the AARP report "distorted and misleading" for not including cheaper generic equivalents which account for 75 percent of prescriptions filled.
Reserchers from the AARP said that for most of the 217 medications they looked at, there was no generic version because the brand-name drug is still under patent.
Soaring Drug Prices Hurt Elderly
Higher prescription drug prices are especially hard on elderly Americans living on fixed incomes, many of whom are on the Medicare prescription drug plan, which leaves them uncovered after they spend $2,830 on medications in one year. The coverage kicks back in only after they have spent $4,550.
"They bear the full cost out of pocket when they reach that coverage limit, and that's why this is particularly sensitive to older persons," Rother said.
Generic Drugs Are Cheaper Alternative
The report did contain some good news. More and more Americans are turning to generic equivalents.
Yet, many Americans still choose the more expensive brand name medicines even when the exact same drug is available as a generic.
Dr. Keshav Chander, a cardiologist in St. George, Utah said many of his patients mistakenly assume the generic drug cannot be as good as the brand name because it is so much less expensive.
"When we buy drugs, we cannot believe that something that is 10 times more expensive than the other product is not going to be better," said Dr. Keshav Chander, a cardiologist.
