The McDowell Memo

What a Year it has Been This year has been a year of great accomplishments and great disasters      We have had the greatest economic year in the past 50 years . Lowest unemployment , over a trillion dollars back into the US in profit earned over seas that companies would not bring back because of our high tax on these profits. That made for the highest investment in the US by our companies since the 60s. With this jobs became available and people went back to work , the welfare rolls dropped .  But we also had a year long session of investigations, hearings and finally an impeachment that wasn't yet ready to send to the Senate all of which caused the average American to lose confidence in our government as a whole in following the rule of law and be fair and consistent in it's actions. We saw violent acts committed by insane parties and also by violent fringes of both the left and right. But , we again saw the media portray many items with out telling the whole picture. W

Emergency Services dropping out of our ability to sustain  As many of you know for the last 10 years I have railed against government imposing training standards and equipment standards on small and rural Fire Depts and Emergency / Ambulance Services. We now know see the impact of those increasingly restrictive regulations on local communities in Upstate New York. Many small areas have stopped providing EMS and the slack has had to be taken up by adjoining communities. In some cases the communities have gone to charging which if the medical insurance industry would lower the co pays to a reasonable amount might be somewhat sustainable. But, they haven't and I assume won't unless the state forces them to. On average the co pay is about $350 for basic and $500+ for Advanced care needs. If you are the poor senior citizen living on Social Security in a rural area this could mean the difference between paying the bill and eating for the month.  Fire companys are not excluded fr

The Speed of a life may not be the Quality of Life we want I set tonight thinking about how when I was young I had so much free time to hunt, date, read, and yes sleep. Today we are awakened early each day to be able to get our "Face" on as they say. Today we have special body wash soap with fragrances , when I was young Gramma insisted on Borax soup better described as smell with sandpaper. It would take off all the dead skin and four or five layers of live skin. Ladies there was no need to defoliate. But you know my skin was a lot better then and I felt cleaner. For your hair you had what ever was on sale. No blow dryers or fancy hair machines there was a comb and Brylcream gel to slick it all down. Then for Breakfast you had a sit down with the folks and eggs and bacon and toast , no breakfast sandwiches made in a microwave they didn't exist, no bagels we didn't know what they were. You walked to school and stood in line at the door. Once in school , teachers

McDowell Memo: Let's talk about investigations and hearings For the last 30 years we have as a government had a series of investigations and Congressional hearings that have had no real reason for occurring other than Political points scored. This has been committed on the American People by both parties and for the most part not produced any valid charges. The Media on the other hand have stirred this activity to increase ad sales and this should have been the crime investigated.  As we progressed through the 70' s and forward we watched an erosion in the name of aggressive investigation and reporting of civil rights with no out cry from the left and certainly no legitimate effort by government to limit this activity. From Watergate forward elements with in the county and media outlets have constantly began investigating rumors and pipedreams about every one. Not that there were not scandals that were not investigated such as Chappaquiddick , gun trafficking by the Ob

https://www.kin.com/blog/what-is-femas-role-in-disaster-relief What Is FEMA's Role in Disaster Relief? Dec 13, 2017 FEMA  (Federal Emergency Management Agency) became a household name after Hurricane Katrina when the agency came under media scrutiny for its failure to respond to victims in a timely fashion. Hurricane Katrina is notorious for being one of the deadliest and costliest hurricanes in modern US history, with 1,833 lives lost and more than $108 billion in damage. FEMA was unprepared for Katrina. FEMA was formed under an executive order signed by President Jimmy Carter on April 1 st , 1979, with the mission to “lead America to prepare for, prevent, respon

Some Great Attorneys on both sides  Having been a life long follower of legal cases I have selected a few of my favorite attorneys from the pas to look at their lives and how the developed such skill and daring . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellis_Rubin  Ellis Rubin was a great defender of lost causes and of gay rights , although mostly known as a Florida lawyer , he made  headlines across the country with many of his cases including suing the NFL  over the Black Out process.  Interesting fact is that he went ot Binghamton HS with Rod Serling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerry_Spence      Gerry Spence - probably the greatest trial attorney of all time has not lost any case since 1969 and has not lost a trial by jury EVER , another defender of those cases that no one thinks has  a Chance such as Karen Silkwood, Rudy Ridge , etc.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Scheck  Barry Scheck  the person that changed the criminal justice syst

William Jefferson Clinton , better known as Bill Clinton (born August 19, 1946) was the 42nd president of the United States, serving from 1993 to 2001. In 1978 Clinton became the youngest governor in the country when he was elected governor of Arkansas. What Were the Charges Behind Bill Clinton's Impeachment ... https://www.reference.com/history/ were - charges - behind-bill-clinton-s-impeachment -700df... What Were the Charges Behind Bill Clinton's Impeachment? The Starr Report, presented on Sept. 9,1998, presented 11 impeachable offenses. Bill Clinton was eventually charged because he "... willfully provided perjuries, false and misleading testimony to the grand jury," and made "... corrupt efforts to influence the testimony of witnesses and to impede the discovery of evidence ." The first of the possible offenses presented in the Starr Report was that President Clinton had lied under oath during the civil case when he denied an