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ARPA-H: The Nosy Love Child of DARPA and the NIH

On March 15, 2022, President Biden signed a law allowing for the creation and funding of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agency received $1 billion for fiscal year 2022.

ARPA-H’s stated mission is  to“accelerate better health outcomes for everyone by supporting the development of high-impact solutions to society’s most challenging health problems.”  So, the federal government is tossing another billion into the black hole that is the American health care system.  Okay.

We’re already spending a fortune on healthcare.

Let’s think about this for a minute.  The U.S. already spends far more per capita than any other nation in the world.  We spend an average of $11,495 per person, per year.  Most other First World countries hover between $5000 and $6000.  (source)

Health care in the U.S. represented 17.7% of the economy as of 2018, and has been projected to increase to 19.7% in 2028.  That means that more than 1 in 6 dollars spent in the U.S. is being spent on healthcare.

So, is this paying off?  Are Americans the healthiest people in the world?

No.  We’re sick and have been getting sicker.  Our life expectancy dropped again last year, to 76.4 years, which is the lowest since the 1990s.  Meanwhile people in dozens of other countries can expect to live into their 80s on average, American life expectancy just continues to drop. I don’t think we’re getting what we pay for.

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Adam Schiff continuously demanded Twitter ban, censor, suppress criticism of self, staff, Biden: Twitter Files

A brief batch of Twitter Files dropped on Friday by Matt Taibbi shows that staff of House Democrat Adam Schiff were in frequent communication with Twitter to demand the removal of content from the platform. Documents show that the DNC and Schiff made requests to remove a “Peter Douche” parody photo of Joe Biden after President Donald Trump retweeted the photo. 

Twitter refused to remove the photo, with Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth saying that it had obvious “humorous intent” and that “any reasonable observer” could tell that the photo was edited. 

Schiff’s staff did not lay off, however, claiming that there was a “slippery slope concern” to be had.

Taibbi wrote that even when Twitter did not suspend accounts, they would often act against accounts. “Schiff’s office repeatedly complained about “QAnon related activity” that were often tweeting about other matters, like the identity of the Ukraine “whistleblower” or the Steele dossier.

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New ATF rule on pistol stabilizing braces will effectively ban millions of rifles

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives released a new rule on pistol-stabilizing braces that will effectively ban millions of rifles and has Second Amendment supporters up in arms.

The ATF had previously ruled that pistol braces were legal, but a new rule was sought by President Joe Biden as part of his promise to reform gun laws.

The 296-page document outlines several options that gun owners with stabilizing braces have to avoid prosecution.

“Any weapons with ‘stabilizing braces’ or similar attachments that constitute rifles under the NFA must be registered no later than 120 days after date of publication in the Federal Register,” read the rule, “or the short barrel removed and a 16-inch or longer rifle barrel attached to the firearm; or permanently remove and dispose of, or alter, the ‘stabilizing brace’ such that it cannot be reattached; or the firearm is turned in to your local ATF office. Or the firearm is destroyed.”

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‘ISIS Beatle’ vanishes from US prison records

Convicted terrorist Alexanda Kotey, a member of the infamous Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL) terror group cell dubbed ‘The Beatles’ for its members’ British origins, has disappeared from the US Federal Bureau of Prisons database, Fox News reported on Thursday.

Kotey was serving a life sentence at the Canaan high-security prison in Pennsylvania, having been sentenced in April after pleading guilty to eight counts of hostage-taking and terrorism-related crimes resulting in death. 

The native Londoner nicknamed ‘Jihadi George’ was accused of participating with his fellow ‘ISIS Beatles’ in the “seizure, detention and hostage negotiations” of four Americans and 23 others between 2012 and 2015.

However, Kotey was no longer listed as an inmate at Canaan, with records showing he was “not in BOP custody” as of Friday. Perhaps more troublingly, given his crimes, the terrorist’s release date was listed as “unknown.” 

Confirming that Kotey was “not currently in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons,” spokesperson Randilee Giamusso offered “several” potential reasons for the discrepancy in a statement to Fox News. 

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Michigan’s Muslim-majority city council approves animal sacrifice for religious purposes

A Detroit-area city on Tuesday voted to approve allowing residents to sacrifice animals at home for religious purposes. 

The Hamtramck City Council, whose members are all Muslims, approved the practice, 3-2, Tuesday. 

The matter was put up for a vote in December, but city council members kept a ban in place. The issue was revisited this month after legal advice and objections from resident Muslims, the Detroit Free Press reported.

“If somebody wants to do it, they have a right to do their practice,” Council Member Mohammed Hassan said.

Muslims often slaughter animals, especially goats or sheep, during the holiday of Eid al-Adha or pay someone to do it for them. Meat is shared with family, friends and the poor.

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Nixon Threatened to Reveal the CIA’s Involvement in the Kennedy Assassination

A stunning, long-overlooked Nixon Watergate-era tape shows Richard Nixon warning CIA Director Richard Helms that he knows of CIA involvement in the murder of John F. Kennedy- “I know who shot John.”

This shocking new tape depicts Nixon increasingly besieged by Watergate but unaware that at least four of the Watergate burglars were still on the CIA payroll at the time of the break-in, and that the CIA had thus infiltrated the burglary team. Recently declassified documents reveal that Watergate Special Prosecutor Nick Akerman was aware of both the CIA’s advance knowledge and involvement in the break-in — but said and did nothing.

Hear the tape

Senator Howard Baker, the Republican Leader on the Senate Watergate Committee and his counsel Fred Thompson himself, a future U.S. Senator from Tennessee, like Baker, stumbled on the CIA’s deep advanced knowledge and direct involvement in the Watergate break-in. Baker and Thompson both knew that at least four of the Watergate burglars were on the CIA payroll at the time of the break-in and that through CREEP Security Director James McCord, had infiltrated the burglary team. Senate Watergate Committee Chairman Sam Ervin stoutly refused to allow Baker and the Committee Republicans including Edward J. Gurney of Florida the right to publish a Minority Report which noted this stunning information regarding the CIA.

Nixon deeply distrusted the CIA because he knew that President Eisenhower had ordered the agency to give top secret briefings to both Nixon and Kennedy after both were the certain nominees of their parties. Nixon was sore that Kennedy utilized the information in their debates, attacking Nixon for being “soft” on communist Cuba, knowing full well that Nixon had chaired a working group as Vice President overseeing preparations for the “Bay of Pigs” invasion. Nixon, of course, could not reveal this upcoming attempt to topple Castro in the details.

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Yes, Virginia, There IS a Deep State—and It Is Worse than You Think

Mention the term “deep state” in polite company and most likely no one will want to speak to you the rest of the evening. The deep state is what Wikipedia calls “discredited,” something reeking of conspiracies, false accusations, and the substitution of fantasy for the truth.

After the FBI raided Donald Trump’s home in Florida, Trump alluded to “deep state” actions, which brought predictable ridicule from the mainstream media. Trump was speaking conspiratorially, and if one follows the mainstream media these days, the only conspiracies are on the right. (You know, like the one in which the unarmed, ragtag January 6 rioters nearly overthrew the US government.)

After the recent revelations about how Twitter worked to hide the story of the infamous Hunter Biden laptop, Trump attributed the secrecy to a plot by the “deep state.” However, while the facts of the story really are outrageous, I don’t believe it was as much a secret conspiracy as a case of people being able to engage in certain actions with no political consequences.

Furthermore, journalist Matt Taibbi’s stunning revelations regarding FBI and CIA agents’ outright interference in the 2020 election via Twitter on the pretense that Russian operatives were spreading disinformation has further exposed both the involvement of federal law enforcement agents in partisan activities and the sad fact that those agents need not worry about being held accountable—especially if they are engaged in a “progressive” cause.

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The White House’s most brazen, entitled, social media censorship demands

The latest batch of revelations into the social media censorship directed by the Biden White House reveal a range of broad, often petty, censorship demands, some of which are purely requests to boost President Biden’s image and show him and his family in a better light.

The revelations came as part of the discovery in the ongoing lawsuit against the government for its alleged First Amendment violations, making clear requests to silence American citizens through online platforms.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, shared some of the documents obtained during discovery.

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The Truth on JFK’s Death Lies in the Weeds

As someone who has investigated and written for many years about the activities — some not very commendable — of the intelligence community, I feel it is important to acknowledge that not everything in this shadowy world is as nefarious as one might conclude. 

It’s easier — and, truth be told, more satisfying and fun — to tar such institutions with a broad brush, but the reality is more complicated and more nuanced. In fact, that’s one of the guiding principles behind the journalism we practice at WhoWhatWhy. 

And so it is with the JFK assassination records that have been released in fits and starts over the last quarter-century, with the latest, and purportedly final, batch out last December 15.

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Swiss Police And Military Are Setting Up Roadblocks and Checking Finger Prints Near WEF Summit

The WEF’s annual summit in Davos, Switzerland begins January 16th but there have already been reports of police and military personnel blocking roads and checking fingerprints near Davos.

Disclose.tv was the first to break the story on Twitter and released a video of Swiss police scanning a person’s finger outside of Davos.

The independent news aggregator captioned their video by writing “Police and military have blocked the access roads to Davos, where Klaus Schwab is holding his World Economic Forum summit.People, vehicles, and fingerprints are now being checked.”

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