The Aim of The Proposed E-mail Campaign

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REPORT ON THE SUCCESS OF TWO E-MAIL CAMPAIGNS

Many of the e-mail campaigns listed in Sec. 1 of this website have been successful.

Although progress on these TWO campaigns does NOT relate to this month’s topic, they occurred LAST WEEK at the 12/19/2019 Presidential Debate.

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Re Climate Change, Andrew Yang Championing Our Thorium-Fission Position --

Our Thorium-Fission Working Group has labored long and hard in order to, inter alia, request Presidential Candidates to support the development of thorium-fission as the only way of “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action.” [Details of that effort are available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1781.]

At the Dec 19 debate, Andrew Yang could not have been more specific and more supportive.

[A transcript of the debate is available at https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ic-debate/. The easiest way to find Andrew Yang’s remarks on thorium fission is to “cut and paste” the transcript into a Microsoft-Word document and then execute “Edit-Find” for “thorium.”]

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“REPRISE: Saving The Gov $86 Billion/YEAR – Medicare-For-All” and the Candidates’ Initial Reaction --

Our 7/12/2017 E-mail Campaign was entitled “SAVING THE GOV $300 BILLION/YEAR – MEDICARE FOR ALL” – details available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1631.

It was aimed at Sen. John McCain a mere 16 days before his iconic “thumb down” vote against “Repealing and Replacing” Obamacare, which caused it to fail by one vote.

The attendees of our 11/13/2019 meeting voted for our 12/11/2019 meeting to focus on updating this E-mail Campaign because of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s DEFAMATION of Medicare For All by claiming that it would cost the Federal Government $52 TRILLION over 10 years – which is 41% over current Gov and non-Gov healthcare spending of only $3,683 billion/year -- which itself is DOUBLE the amount of only $1,944 billion/year if it were brought into line with the other 35 economically-developed countries in the OECD.

Our revised e-mail (“REPRSE: Saving The Gov $86 Billion/YEAR – Medicare-For-All”) is available at http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... =23&t=1869.

[Virtually all of the difference between $300 Billion/YEAR of SAVINGS and $86 Billion/YEAR of SAVINGS is due to the fact that, beginning in 2018, the Corporate Income Tax Rate was reduced from 35% to 21%. Which means that the COST to the government of the 55.1% of the U.S. population that obtains employer-provided health coverage (since it is deductible for the employer BUT non-taxable to the employee) was reduced to only 11.6% of the U.S. population having employer-provided health coverage provided courtesy of lost government tax revenues.]

At last Thursday’s debate, there was no mention of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s exorbitant estimate.

The main fireworks occurred between Sen. Bernie Sanders on the one hand, and Former V.P. Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Klobuchar, on the other. Which focused primarily on Sanders accusing Biden & Klobuchar of NOT being willing to fight bloated healthcare costs.

Indeed, Sanders actually paraphrased, a bit inaccurately, a point we have been making since 2017 that (quoting Sanders) “we’re spending twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation.”

Presumably by next month’s debate, there will be statements by other candidates about bringing U.S. healthcare costs into line with the other 35 economically-developed countries that are members of the OECD.
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Pat
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The Aim of The Proposed E-mail Campaign

Post by Pat »

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---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: The Aim of The Proposed E-mail Campaign
From: Solutions
Date: Wed, December 25, 2019 10:13 am MST
To: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Attachment:
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Dear John,

I have just finished reading your Suggested Answers to the Second Short Quiz and re-reading your Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz.

I have been thinking about them in relation to the topic for our Jan 15 meeting (“A Marshall-Type Plan For The Palestinians”) for which the Dec 14 announcement to our 169 members had explained that the focus would be whether to renew our 10/14/2009 e-mail campaign to President Obama (this time to President Trump) which, as the Short Quizzes have emphasized, concluded with:

“What is necessary is a good education for the Palestinian children and training for the adults so that they can handle jobs that would go with economic development (construction, irrigation, manufacturing, etc.), following a careful assessment of the comparative strengths that Palestine would possess. The U.S. began providing Egypt and Israel with $6 billion/year of economic aid when they signed their 1979 Peace Agreement. It would seem a comparable amount would be a small price to pay to provide a real solution to a conflict that has festered for 60 years and, with nuclear arms soon to permeate the area, could soon produce a nuclear holocaust that might lead to ‘the twilight of the humans’!”

Do you envision a simple update of the 10/14/2009 e-mail, many of whose facts are 10 years old? Or do you envision more?

Your friend,

Solutions


---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Re: The Aim of The Proposed E-mail Campaign
From: ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com
Date: Wed, December 25, 2019 11:43 pm MST
To: Solutions
Attachment:
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Dear Solutions,

Thank you for your e-mail.

The answer to your Q is both yes and no.

Yes, many of the facts cited in the 2009 e-mail need up-dating.

To show that they have become much worse!!!

HOWEVER, as I’m sure you are aware, President Trump has been working on his Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan for nearly three years and on 6/22/2019 he released the economic portion of his “Peace to Prosperity” plan which was the focus of a US-led conference with the same title a couple of weeks later in Bahrain.

It contains a lot of wonderful-sounding ideas.

NEVERTHELESS, President Trump has NOT released the other portion of his Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan which will address the “Peace” portion of “Peace to Prosperity.”

Obviously, the politics of negotiating peace are a lot more complicated than merely providing “A Marshall-Type Plan For The Palestinians.”

And it now looks like “The Doomsday Scenario” of nuclear weapons permeating the Middle East in 6 years comprises a very-short time fuse, especially in view of how this tragedy has persisted for 7 decades!!!

The Palestinians, BTW, have already rejected President Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” economic proposals.

And the Palestinians have rejected the propriety of the Arab countries that attended the Bahrain conference as representatives of the Palestinians.

So no wonder that President Trump has not yet released the “Peace” portion of his “Peace to Prosperity” plan.

So why is my answer to your Q both yes and no???

As a preliminary matter, I am reminded of a frequent comment of Clayton E. Turney, Chevron’s outside tax counsel who attended our frequent Aramco and Caltex meetings back in the 1970’s.

Not his comment that the IRS official (for whom C.E. Turney worked straight out of law school) who invented IRS rulings frequently bragged that he had done so in order to compel (as a practical matter) taxpayers “to do what the law does NOT require”!!!

But C.E. Turney’s other favorite comment that “a tax return is nothing more than an OPENING OFFER”!!!

Yes, the “Prosperity” portion of President Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan is his OPENING OFFER!!!

And the REJECTION by the Palestinians of BOTH the “Prosperity” portion of President Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan AND the Arab countries attending the Bahrain conference as their representatives is their OPENING OFFER. In other words, more carrot is required and direct talks are necessary.

The problem???

And here, as a preliminary matter, I would cite the Foreign Policy Magazine article posted by Pat in the Reference Materials section of our bulletin board (http://discussingliberally-saltlake.org ... 570&t=1868). Its final paragraph is –

“In other words, Israel is America’s new pillar in the Middle East. Truth be told, it’s the only pillar. To jeopardize such a strategic asset on the altar of a Palestinian conflict that has dragged on chronically for decades, with no resolution in sight AND THE ISSUE’S RELATIVE GEOPOLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE IN STEEP DECLINE, would be a huge unforced error. Many of Washington’s most important Arab partners are now moving systematically to deepen their security cooperation with Israel, refusing to allow their national interests to be subjugated to one of the world’s most intractable disputes any longer. It would be an odd time for the United States to start moving in the opposite direction, as several of the Democratic candidates suggest, and throw into question its own tremendously beneficial defense relationship with Israel. That’s precisely the kind of strategic indulgence that a superpower bent on retrenchment can ill afford.” [Emphasis added.]

No, “the issue’s relative geopolitical significance” is NOT “in steep decline” from the viewpoint of Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s seemingly-favorite pronouncement that “Israel is a one-bomb state” and the fact that The Iran Nuclear Agreement GUARANTEES Iran the right to nuclear weapons in 6 more years.

So is the “Peace to Prosperity” plan being afforded time to “percolate” behind the scenes to achieve the best-achievable outcome for everyone involved???

Or is it being consigned to more years of “benign neglect”???

Perhaps you can appreciate why I don’t want our focus to become bogged down in the particulars of the economic portion of President Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan or with the reaction of the Palestinians this far.

And why I would hope that we can focus instead on asking for a timely resolution to this tragedy – rather than witness another decade of failure/neglect which will take us well past the point 6 years from now when it appears all of the parties involved will be “armed to the teeth” with nukes!!!

Thank you again for your e-mail. I’d be interested in any reaction you might have before our meeting.

Your friend,

John K.

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