Did Obama’s medical record czar, Judy Faulkner, hoodwink five members of Congress into pushing her own medical records company as the solution for the problem of electronic medical records for all government contracts? That’s what some wonder as Obama’s search for an electronic medical records solution evolves.

In a likely earnest effort to bring jobs to Wisconsin and help improve the fortunes of a home state company, five members of Congress signed onto a letter urging the Department of Defense to seriously consider EPIC Systems medical records computer architecture. (Download PDF of letter)

The letter, signed by Wisconsin Senators Herb Kohl (D) and Ron Johnson (R), as well as Representatives Paul Ryan (R), Tammy Baldwin (D), and Ron Kind (D), was written some two years after EPIC Systems CEO, Judith Faulkner was appointed (April 3, 2009) to Obama’s Health Information Technology Policy Committee. This is a committee established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that will, “make recommendations on creating a policy framework for the development and adoption of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure,” for electronic medical records.

So, EPIC Systems bigwig Faulkner was somehow able to convince these members of Congress to sign onto a letter that seems to push her own company’s medical records system. Seems just a bit self serving, doesn’t it? To have one of Obama’s medical records czars pushing her own system on the government so that government can adopt her system and she can make billions of dollars?

Also, how is it that a woman that stands to make billions if the government adopts her company’s product can get on the very committee that is making recommendations for the country’s electronic medical records system, anyway?

Is it that she is a huge Obama donor?

There are quite a few questions, here. But the big question is, what was the intention of these members of Congress? What was the real point of the letter urging EPIC Systems into serious consideration?

I contacted each of these member’s offices, got a return call from three of them, but only one actually gave me a quote. That one was conservative favorite Paul Ryan.

Ryan’s spokesman told me that the congressman had no intention to push only the EPIC system as the sole solution to the medical records problem, but only that the government should be sure and consider it as one of the systems to be evaluated. He pointed out that the letter does not say “we should adopt EPIC.”

True enough. But the mystery still remains: how did an organization that allegedly has no lobbyists get 5 members of Congress to sign a letter that implicitly supports its product?

Of course, an even bigger consideration here is a matter of Obama once again imagining he should have the power to pick winners and losers instead of allowing the market to choose. If the market were to choose EPIC as a standardized electronic medical records solution for the nation, then so be it. But here we go again having another one of Obama’s all powerful committees deciding what all of us will be forced to live with.

Naturally, Obama stuffed his committee with bog donors.

A SEAL team deploying soon to Afghanistan will be net zero for energy and water, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced today at the service’s annual energy conference.

Not needing to operate noisy generators and not being reliant on water and fuel resupplies are battlefield benefits for the SEALS, who are known for under-the-radar, high-value missions like raiding Osama bin Laden’s compound this spring.

“We care a lot about our special operators,” Mabus said. “Allowing them to not have to be resupplied with fuel and water will make them even better at what they do.”

SEAL teams, which are often based in difficult-to-reach areas, need power for electronics, air conditioning and heating. For the green unit, those needs will be met with solar arrays, solar battery chargers and flexible generators, Mabus said. The unit will also deploy with portable water purification equipment.

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

In addition to bigger government and more debt, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) sees a threat to our nation’s security as a result of the debt-ceiling compromise now known as the Budget Control Act of 2011:

“If fully implemented, the consequences to our nation’s defense infrastructure would be severe. And, these deep cuts would come at a time when threats to our nation are increasing, not declining. What has happened to the party of Reagan that viewed the primary purpose of the federal government was to provide a strong national defense?”

As moderate Republicans lose ground to the Progressive left with every negotiated “crisis,” it is important to review what else is bubbling to the surface. Early on, the debt ceiling debacle revealed the good ol’ boy RINO network again bowing to the liberal left’s agenda. Obama and the DEMS repeated the same hyped-up artificial deadline strategy to “pass something” that they used with TARP, the Stimulus and Obamacare. The crisis mentality, for which Obama is now famous, has now resulted in a phony remedy to America’s debt and spending crisis. Americans expect economy-busting, job-killing policies and smoke-and-mirror solutions from the Democrats. It has become apparent that many ranking Republicans have become indistinguishable from Progressive Democrats in the rush to pass a 75 page document that was not thoroughly vetted in detail. Americans no longer view RINOS as just having their heads in the sand, but as active participants in this nation’s demise.

The most dangerous result of the debt ceiling debate is the formation of an uber-committee, made up of six members of each party, which will recommend what government programs will get cut and which programs will get paid. By what Constitutional authority? Having some ‘ol dog Republicans on the committee brings no comfort. They are the ones that the newly elected conservative breed fought tooth and nail to keep from again capitulating to Obama and the left. Even if Congressman Paul Ryan were appointed to the panel, he would likely be demonized Obama-style and out voted. The new bi-party super committee will have unsettling authority to submit budget cuts, such as the pentagon’s, or create a basis to raise taxes with little to no accountability to the American people. Both houses reportedly get a vote up or down on whatever legislation the super committee “decides” to submit. With inevitable stalemates, followed by the Republican propensity to fold, opponent’s fear that the potential outcome is that twelve members of Congress could essentially sway policy, that requires only 51 votes under the Senate’s reconciliation rules to pass, thereby potentially giving an increasingly radical, socialist Democrat-controlled Senate unprecedented power over the debt and deficit of this nation. As the dust now settles — the games have been played, the people have again been had and Obama sleeps well at night.

The Obama spiral towards socialism is further abetted. Republicans who are befuddled or refuse to acknowledge that Barack Obama’s policies are doggedly socialistic either deceive themselves or the American people. All of them know that Barack Obama was schooled in the ways of radical socialist Saul Alinsky. All of them know that the once great American middle class is falling to its knees under Barack Obama. All of them know that the outstanding inroads made by Blacks and Hispanics into the American middle class are evaporating under Barack Obama. All of them know that the left’s socialist agenda damages every American regardless of age or color. Obama’s educational mentor, Saul Alinsky, not only knew it but preached it. Alinsky is cited as writing that the surest way to solidify power is to destroy the middle class. He taught that as an impoverished people become increasingly dependent on the government for their welfare, they forego their rights and protections from that government. Alinsky taught and Obama learned that crushing debt, wasteful spending and over taxation could bring this great nation to its knees. For Alinsky, a weakened, underfunded military is a coup de gras.

Message to congressional sell-outs on both sides of the aisle: “A change is gonna come” when the American voters see you at the polls in 2012.

[Givler] The Constitution recognizes the necessity of war, and sets forth the process for declaring it. What it does not recognize is the state of violent un-war that we have come to accept as normal.

Here is a snippet.

Givler describes the Japanese surrender and the Emperor’s message to his people, and compares it to the end of Saddam Hussein. About the people, he says:

We’re of no help to them in making that leap if, while we’re trying to destroy insurgents, we’re building schools and digging wells. We should be doing nothing of the kind. Suffering is what is needed to make the population shift its perspective, and alleviating the suffering at the same time we’re administering it does not help. The Japanese people went from preferring suicide to laying down their arms and accepting occupation because they had suffered grievously first, which made the surrender acceptable and meaningful. If we had been passing out lead suits and airdropping food at the same time we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, our message would have been seriously muddled. It’s no different in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else.

For the next year, we will all be caught up the 2012 elections, but our troops, in reduced numbers, are still searching for IEDs, rebuilding infrastructure, making short peace with villagers, and doing an incredible job of ferreting out the most dangerous of the dangerous in some of the most difficult terrain in the world – still fighting with the right to win forbidden them. I hope you will read the entire article and pass it on to your readers if you are a blogger, or to friends and family.

Posted by Maggie @ Maggie’s Notebook

President Obama on Friday will announce the launch of the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP), an initiative that would provide more than $500 million to encourage investments in promising technologies.

It is the administration’s second initiative in less than a month intended to boost U.S. manufacturing.

In a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the president will outline a plan whereby the federal government, industry and universities can work together to better determine needed areas of investment.

“Today, I’m calling for all of us to come together — private-sector industry, universities and the government — to spark a renaissance in American manufacturing and help our manufacturers develop the cutting-edge tools they need to compete with anyone in the world,” Obama will say, according to prepared remarks.

This is simply a continuation of Obama’s core idea: throw money around, and Something Will Happen (remember, Liberals tend to think in capital letters).

“With these key investments, we can ensure that the United States remains a nation that ‘invents it here and manufactures it here’ and creates high-quality, good-paying jobs for American workers,” the president will say.

What he means are good union jobs, that end up killing the industry. But, of course, he thinks that throwing $500 million around will magically create a product that will …… be manufactured in China, because US government regulation tends to stifle manufacturing domestically.

“If we can lead in these kinds of technologies, we can revitalize manufacturing and make America the destination of choice for people who want to make things,” the official said.

Except for that pesky high corporate tax rate. All the regulations. Unionization. Regulations. Laws. Remember when light bulbs used to be manufactured in the USA? Televisions? Companies are often given huge tax breaks by states to attract them, such as auto manufacturers.

“The government isn’t doing this by its lonesome,” one official said. “We’ll leave it to the private sector to determine the winners and give them tools to work with.”

See? Nothing can be solved without Government. And, of course, their ideas are

Initial investments would include small high-powered batteries, advanced composites, metal fabrication, bio-manufacturing and alternative energy, the officials said.

The same old same old. If these ideas were so wonderful magical moneymakers, the private sector would be all over them, without throwing $500 million around like Monopoly money.

Starting this summer, the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce and other agencies will coordinate, with the aim of gathering $300 million to invest with industry.

Perhaps they should spend that money on…..defense, homeland security, and the missions those agencies are tasked with.

Meanwhile, Reuters got their hands on some gruesome photos from the scene…of course none are OBL. What happened to the President that promised transparency? Let’s get the story straight already. Maybe the ACLU will demand the photos released through the FOIA???

Jeff Goldstein:

So, to recap. Rather than bomb the compound, Obama (after 16 hours of deliberation and a half-round of golf) made the “gutsy” call to send SEAL troops into harm’s way so that he could make sure the US had proof of death. This was a “Kill Only” mission, we’re told — and the SEAL “assaulters” dutifully shot the unarmed bin Laden and his young bride. Obama then ordered a 45-minute burial ceremony, performed Arabic, in which bin Laden’s “Kill Only” corpse was cleaned and dressed and placed in a burial shroud. Then dumped into the sea.

And now Obama is saying he won’t release the proof of death he claimed was so vital — and Andrea Mitchell, among others, is satisfied with this: the government has all the proof it needs, so why show anyone else? Per Mitchell, we’re inherently to trust the government. Because it isn’t a Republican in the White House. So it must be good and righteous.

And besides, we don’t want to offend Muslim sensibilities. After all, there’s no telling how these inherently peaceful people might react to photos of a dead bin Laden, who doesn’t represent Islam in any way. Right?

In their budget-cutting zeal, Republicans are demanding harsh sacrifices from the country’s most vulnerable citizens. At the same, they are determined to leave one of the biggest areas of wasteful government spending untouched: the Pentagon budget.

Grandma just has to learn to eat cat food…..actually, cat food is kinda expensive, isn’t it? Grandma must make do with Oodles of Noodles

The budget plan they pushed through the House this month would spend $7.5 trillion on the military over the next dozen years. And that does not include the cost of actual war-fighting. The country cannot afford to spend that much, and it doesn’t need to.

The $7.5 trillion was President Obama’s projection, which he has since lowered to $7.1 trillion. Saving $400 billion is better but still not enough, especially since it can be achieved merely by holding annual nonwar-related spending at its current swollen level, adjusted for inflation.

Can’t do that with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, or any other program not required by the Constitution, though.

National security is a fundamental responsibility of government…

Actually, it is Constitutionally required, chumps. Hey, I know, maybe you should ask your president why he launched a war of choice in Libya that had no national security implications (then abdicated control of US forces).

So, what does the editorial board recommend?

• Cutting the civilian workforce by 10%, which would put 65,000 out of work.
• Freezing non-combat military pay (suddenly, they have a problem with government pay?).
• “Reasonable” increases to the premiums of retired military families….yet, this same paper freaks over asking government union members to contribute a bit more to their own health and retirement plans?
• Reducing the number of carrier groups and air wings by one each…hey, a smaller military! Liberals love that!
• Doing away with many weapons systems, like the V-22 Osprey, F-35, and no more Virginia class subs, because we don’t need them for today’s wars.

Basically, this whole thing is a call to reduce the military, and a way to blame the military for the absurd spending on programs not required by the Constitution…don’t roll your eyes at me, Liberals. The Constitution is real, and, if you don’t like it, try and change it through the provided process.

I’m sure the Fish Wrap will provide a rational budget for Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare, and Obamacare in the coming weeks.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

As the White House works to assuage congressional anger over U.S. entry into armed conflict in Libya, four top national security officials will give a classified briefing to lawmakers on the war next Wednesday afternoon.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are all expected to speak on the topic of “U.S. Policies and Military Operations in Libya,” according to an invitation circulated to House members.

Oh, sorry, my bad, I though Hillary Clinton was president, what with all her face time on TV explaining what’s going on in Libya. Apparently, the real elected POTUS is avoiding any major Libyan address, like a boy avoiding mother after he broke the cookie jar

President Barack Obama is resisting pressure to deliver an Oval Office speech explaining his policy on Libya — in part, because he doesn’t want to equate what he regards as a smaller, time-limited mission with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Administration officials haven’t ruled out a big speech, but Obama is reluctant to make a major address on Libya until the United States hands over most command and combat duties to its allies.

That’s not to say the president won’t talk about Libya over the next few days, aides say, but he’s not likely to succumb to pressure to deliver a long, explanatory address to outline his elusive endgame to the nation until the path ahead becomes clearer

He doesn’t have to give a long, rambling lecture on the actions in Libya, but, a week later, it’d be nice if Champ would say something. We’ve witnessed him having fun in Latin America, kicking soccer balls and stuff, now it’s time to BE president, and discuss the situation with the American people.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

But apparently, if you don’t call it WAR, you don’t have to get approval from Congress, thus we have “kinetic military action.”

Where does this leave Obama? And Soros?

Save Energy, Save Our Troops

Well, who could disagree with that? Which is why I personally like the usual climate alarmists, barking out their insanity. It’s those that are quietly rational who are the most dangerous.

A NATO oil tanker truck was blown up by insurgents at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border last week, and while no one was injured, the incident temporarily closed the Khyber Pass, the main supply artery for Western troops in the Afghan theater. This has become an all-too-routine occurrence; in the last nine years some 1,000 Americans have been killed on fuel-related missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Until the Defense Department develops battlefield policies recognizing that energy efficiency contributes to military effectiveness, more blood will be shed, billions of dollars will be wasted, our enemies will have thousands of vulnerable fuel trucks for targets and our commanders will continue to be distracted by the task of overseeing fuel convoys.

There is nothing wrong with energy efficiency, and the more we can do, the better, especially since so many military vehicles do not measure miles per gallon, but gallon per mile, as their standard. But, I’m sorry to say, I’m going to have to take General Anderson to task for this line of climate alarmist though.

First, the only energy efficiency he mentions is spraying foam insulation on buildings near the battlefield. That’s his sole recommendation. Which still means……trucks will have to transport the foam to those buildings, making themselves easy targets.

Second, “As the military’s senior logistician in Iraq for 15 months in 2006 and 2007″, he should know better that convoys are not solely about fuel. They include food, parts, ammunition, men, and other materials, and all have big bulls-eyes on them.

Of course, he wants us to get off “foreign oil.” That would be great, if the alarmists would allow us to use our own oil. And, I have a feeling that he wouldn’t allow us to use our own oil, either.

Why has the Defense Department dragged its feet on energy efficiency? Chalk it up to the impediments to change found in any large organization: passive leadership, lack of accountability, competing priorities. In this case, add skepticism over the data, calls for additional studies and unfounded environmental concerns.

Skepticism could be read more than one way, yet, I suspect that it is exactly what you thought the first time you read it, namely, not believing in globull warming, or climate change, or whatever-the-heck they are calling it today to fit their deranged cult’s beliefs.

You know, if the Usual Wimps on the Left would just let us beat the ever-loving-crap out of the enemy in an efficient way, we wouldn’t have to even have discussions about the use of fuel and the dangers of transporting it. The enemy would just be dead. And there would be less people on Planet Earth, using resources, exhaling CO2, which you’d think would make the unhinged alarmists happy, since they want population reduction.

BTW, you liberals/climate alarmists can save your “you must hate the military, Teach” idiocy.