Free Republic

A Dallas hospital’s bizarre bungle of the first U.S. case of Ebola leaves me wondering: Is someone covering up for a crony billionaire Obama donor and her controversy-plagued, taxpayer-subsidized electronic medical records company? Last week, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital revealed in a statement that a procedural flaw in its online health records system led to potentially deadly miscommunication between nurses and doctors. The facility sent Ebola victim Thomas Duncan home despite showing signs of the disease—only to admit him with worse symptoms three days later. Hospital officials, who came forward “in the interest of transparency,” initially cited workflow and information-sharing...

--snip-- Texas Health contracts with Epic Systems for its electronic-medical-records (EMR) system. Epic was founded by billionaire Judy Faulkner, a top Obama donor---the dominant EMR player in the US health-care market. The firm’s Top 10 PAC recipients are all Dem/lefty outfits: DCCC got nearly $230,000; DNC Services Corp. nearly $175,000.......Obama campaign-finance bundler, Faulkner, served as an adviser to WH health-information-tech guru David Blumenthal--in charge of dispensing EMR subsidies. Faulkner also served on the same committee Blumenthal chaired. Epic and other large firms lobbied aggressively for nearly $30 billion in 2009 stimulus subsidies. Epic has been the subject of rising industry...

Ebola has reached our shores from Africa. Dozens of children are reportedly suffering paralysis from a deadly virus with unknown origins. Medical providers across the country have warned of a looming public-health crisis as communicable diseases spread unmonitored and uncontrolled. Other countries are cracking down. But America is stuck on open-borders stupid. The Diversity Visa (DV) program, to take just one glaring example of government insanity, is still going. On October 1, the State Department opened the annual DV random lottery to applicants from around the world. Yes, it’s completely random, like a Powerball drawing. Up to 55,000 lucky winners...

Ebola has reached our shores from Africa. Dozens of children are reportedly suffering paralysis from a deadly virus with unknown origins. Medical providers across the country have warned of a looming public health crisis as communicable diseases spread unmonitored and uncontrolled. Other countries are cracking down. But America is stuck on open-borders stupid.The Diversity Visa (DV) program, to take just one glaring example of government insanity, is still going.On October 1, the State Department opened the annual DV random lottery to applicants from around the world. Yes, it's completely random like a Powerball drawing. Up to 55,000 lucky winners will...

Fresh terror busts in Australia expose a common Achilles’ heel of the West: Indiscriminate refugee policies turn free countries into breeding grounds for jihad. It’s the same game in America. Soldiers of Islam have weaponized our blind generosity against us. In Sydney this week, authorities detained a half-dozen Muslim plotters and arrested a top collaborator in an alleged conspiracy to kidnap and behead a random Australian citizen. The accused mastermind? Mohammad Ali Baryalei, an Afghan refugee turned Aussie Islamic State recruiter. He and his aristocratic family were welcomed Down Under decades ago. Baryalei returned the favor by taking to the...

Here's the first and last rule of Islamic jihad: If at first you don't succeed, plot, plot again. 9/11 wasn't the first. 9/11 won't be the last. It's not "fear-mongering" to face reality. These head-chopping, throat-slitting, bloodthirsty hijackers -- of planes, freedom and civilization -- have conspired for decades to inflict modern mass murder on the West. Their homicidal mission is spectacular destruction in the name of the Koran. Never forget: Eternal Muslim hatred of infidels didn't start with George W. Bush. Or George Herbert Walker Bush. Or Ronald Reagan. Or the creation of Gitmo. Or the birth of Israel....

The Sisters Tsarnaev have been nothing but trouble. Double, bubbling trouble. While their Boston Marathon bomber brother Dzhokhar awaits trial this month for the bloody 2012 attacks that killed three and injured hundreds, his elder Chechen immigrant siblings Ailina and Bella remain on the loose in the U.S. after their own frequent run-ins with the law. Last week, Ailina was arrested in Harlem after allegedly threatening "to blow up her live-in lover's baby mama," as the New York Post reported. Police charged Ailina, 23, with aggravated harassment and released her. Will the legal system learn? Ailina's time in America sends...

Wonder of wonders: The Washington press corps woke up. Finally, mainstream journalists are onto Barack Obama's game. Their breaking-news shocker? Turns out all that "hope and change" stuff was just hot air. A new report from the D.C.-based press shows that -- gasp -- the White House is infested with Beltway lobbyists. Good morning, sleepyheads! According to Politico's analysis published on Monday, the "Obama administration has hired about 70 previously registered corporate, trade association and for-hire lobbyists. And many of these former lobbyists work at the highest levels of government." Wait, there's more. The "most transparent administration ever" is playing...

Political commentator and author Michelle Malkin sharply criticized Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) for his attempts to paint himself as an opponent of amnesty and Common Core. “Of course, [Alexander] is one of the biggest double-talking weasels and beltway barnacles out there, particularly on ... immigration and Common Core,” Malkin said on Monday’s “Laura Ingraham Show.” SNIP "And this is somebody, particularly on immigration, who has been an enabler for so long." She also accused Alexander of not being serious on immigration and just using political “talking points” to gain re-election. Malkin concluded that Alexander was “as radical as they come,”...

The Public and Intergovernmental Affairs Office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is very concerned. No, the communications specialists in the agency are not concerned with veterans in need. They're not concerned with citizens and public officials requesting public information. They're not concerned with journalists seeking the truth. What these entrenched government employees care most about, above all else, is the business of spin and stonewalling. The VA mouthpieces are preoccupied with covering their ample bureaucratic backsides, withholding data, monitoring critics, fending off watchdogs and running constant interference for their corrupt, negligent agency. In a string of internal...

How do you spell "sidesplitting chutzpah"? In New York's 22nd congressional district, it's spelled: R-I-C-H-A-R-D H-A-N-N-A. He's the liberal GOP incumbent trying to cling to public office by smearing the Marine mom, small-business owner, lawyer and conservative state assemblywoman poised to take his seat next week. Claudia Tenney is as rock-solid of a Republican as they come: pro-life, pro-limited government, pro-Second Amendment, pro-entrepreneur, pro-American worker. As one of New York's top conservative legislators, Tenney has been unafraid to challenge the powers that be in both political parties. As an attorney, she has fought valiantly against cronyism and corruption. She has...

They don't care." As Obama administration officials pivot like haywire jewelry-box ballerinas to divert attention away from the nationwide Veterans Affairs disgrace, a reader who has been fighting the system urged me to urge Capitol Hill and the American public to stay focused. This former Special Forces soldier and medic served his country for 25 years. He worked in the health care field managing military field medical clinics. "I know how health care is supposed to run, even in austere or low-budget environments," he says. And in his nightmarish, ongoing experience, the VA is an epic, deadly, monstrous failure. He...

I don't know if anyone has noticed, but Michelle Malkin no longer appears on Foxnews. I've also noticed that the emails I get from her no longer have links to any videos of her appearing anywhere on TV. Has something happened to drive her off the air, sort to speak? I've noticed that this all began last year around the October time frame. I'm concerned because I loved watching her and now, poof, she's gone. I'll sit back and see what you all have to say. Thanks.

June 17, 2014 Stay focused: One VA victim’s plea Michelle Malkin ‘They don’t care.” As Obama administration officials pivot like haywire jewelry-box ballerinas to divert attention away from the nationwide Veterans Affairs disgrace, a reader who has been fighting the system urged me to urge Capitol Hill and the American public to stay focused. This former Special Forces soldier and medic served his country for 25 years. He worked in the health-care field managing military field medical clinics. “I know how health care is supposed run, even in austere or low-budget environments,” he says. And in his nightmarish, ongoing experience,...

Five years ago, I publicly raised questions about Bowe Bergdahl’s desertion from Blackfoot Company, 1-501 Infantry (Airborne), 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division.A few weeks after his so-called “capture” in late June 2009, three conflicting accounts had surfaced: U.S. officials told the Associated Press Bergdahl had “walked off” the base with three Afghans; the Taliban claimed on its website that “a drunken American soldier had come out of his garrison” and into their arms; and Bergdahl claimed in his Taliban “hostage video” that he had “lagged behind a patrol” before being captured.I asked on my blog: Were the...

My prayers are with the family of Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. soldier seen on the Taliban abduction video released this weekend. The Jawa Report has the full clip. All Americans should hope and pray for his release from jihadi custody. There’s one question I have, though, about strange details initially reported on the case — details which have been deleted from later wire dispatches.

Like millions of other American parents, my husband and I received a warning letter from the BMI police last week. Our active, healthy 8th-grade daughter is "very lean," according to her school-administered "Fitnessgram." The national student body monitors think this is a public health problem. The obesity report card lectured that because our daughter's body-mass index is "very low," we "should make certain" that she "is eating a healthy diet that includes the appropriate number of calories." Thanks, geniuses. We had no idea such measurements were taking place, and we wondered whether we were alone in objecting to this unsolicited...

A bunch of aggrieved women led by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg launched a high-profile "public service campaign" this week to "ban" the word "bossy." Sandberg, Beyonce, Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham and first lady Michelle Obama have joined femme forces to combat this phantom menace. In their rarefied world, it's a "very negative experience" and a crippling act of gender discrimination to be called bossy. "This isn't a word we should use," Sandberg complained on National Public Radio. To which I say: Oh, buck up. The key to female empowerment doesn't lie with wheedling word police. It lies with girls and...

A government that fails to secure its borders is guilty of dereliction of duty. A government that fails to care for our men and women on the front lines is guilty of malpractice. A government that puts the needs of illegal aliens above U.S. veterans for political gain should be prosecuted for criminal neglect bordering on treason. Compare, contrast, and weep: In Sacramento, Calif., lawmakers are moving forward with a budget-busting plan to extend government-funded health insurance to at least 1.5 million illegal aliens. In Los Angeles, federal bureaucrats callously canceled an estimated 40,000 diagnostic tests and treatments for American...

All politics is local. So Republican politicians with national ambitions better pay attention to what grassroots parents are saying and doing about the federal education racket known as Common Core. In bellwether Indiana this week, anti-Common Core activists won a pair of pivotal electoral victories against GOP Gov. Mike Pence. Pence’s attempt to mollify critics by rebranding and repackaging shoddy Common Core standards is fooling no one. Tuesday’s Republican primary elections in the Hoosier state resulted in the landslide defeat of two establishment incumbents running for statewide re-election. Pence had endorsed GOP State Rep. Kathy Heuer over challenger Christopher Judy....