Quick Hits: Nov. 25

Amazon Web Services filed a sealed protest of the Defense Department's Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud award late Friday.  The filing did hint at some of the arguments AWS is making, however -- including videos cited as evidence of President Donald Trump's inappropriate political influence on the contract.   In Washington Technology, Ross Wilkers digs into what's known about the protests, and includes the video clips in question.

Congress made progress on fiscal year 2020 funding over the weekend, with House Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey and Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby reportedly reaching an  agreement on funding levels for the 12 appropriations bills.  The lack of such an agreement has hindered budget talks for weeks, and forced Congress to pass another short-term continuing resolution to avoid a partial shutdown last week and extend funding through Dec. 20. Multiple media reports said the long-sought 302(b) allocations do not include an agreement on border wall spending, which has been a key sticking point throughout the negotiations and was the primary cause of last winter's 35-day partial government shutdown.

FCW's editor-in-chief thinks another shutdown is unlikely, but remains pessimistic about getting all 12 appropriations bills passed.  Hear more of Troy's take from Sunday's edition of Government Matters. 

Health IT includes some of government's biggest modernization projects, and the technologies and tactics being used in those efforts can be applied to any number of agency missions.  FCW's Dec. 4 Health IT Workshop features Department of Health and Human Services CIO Jose Arrieta, Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization Chief Medical Officer Dr. Laura Kroupa, U.S. Digital Services expert Amy Gleason and Department of Defense Healthcare Management System Modernization Program Manager Craig Schafer.  Click here to learn more and register to attend.