You want something to back your absurd position in an argument?
No problem, you can find it on the Internet.
Maybe that’s why the country is divided down the middle on just about every issue, including the outcome of the Nov. 3 election.
The winners, those who voted for Joe Biden, are content with the outcome and are eagerly anticipating the Jan. 20 inauguration date when Donald J. Trump will become a footnote in history.
The losers, rather than being content to say shut up and deal, are clamoring for recounts where Trump lost and a halt to vote-counting where he won and in general, making a lot of white noise about a rigged election without a shred of evidence.
To illustrate my point that the Internet is a ready source for just about any argument, there is the claim by an outfit called JUDICIAL WATCH that the U.S. spends more on medical care for prison inmates than it does on seniors, veterans and military personnel.
Not even close.
It wasn’t true when the claim was made back in 2016 and it’s not true now.
But then, that’s not surprising. Judicial Watch is a right-wing nutcase organization that has aligned itself with, among others, Steve Bannon and Breitbart News. Among its myriad of claims is one that asserts that climate science if “fraud science.” It also advanced the crackpot theories that the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered and that ISIS had established a camp in Mexico. The organization also urged that mail-in ballots be prohibited for the 2020 presidential election.
In short, Judicial Watch plays fast and loose with the facts but the claim that more money is spent for prisoner health care than for the other named recipients is pure garbage.
In fiscal year, MEDICARE SPENDING accounted for $644 billion, roughly 14 percent of total government spending and, after Social Security, the second-largest program in the federal budget.
The Defense Department spent $33.5 billion on healthcare for MILITARY PERSONNEL in 2017, a figure that has remained fairly constant through the fiscal year 2020 budget request.
For VETERANS, the healthcare expenditure was $69 billion in 2017
By comparison, federal and state prisons combined to spend less than $10 billion on healthcare for prisoners. The 50 STATES combined to spend $8.1 billion on prison health care services. FEDERAL PRISONS, meanwhile spent about $1.2 billion per year for fiscal years 2016-2018, but saw that number decrease to $1.2 billion in FY 2019.
Figures don’t lie but liars do figure.
And just in case you’re wondering, the gret stet of Loozianner, which ranks either first or second among states (depending on the month – it’s an ongoing contest with Oklahoma) in the number of people incarcerated in a nation that ranks first in the world, has a firm hold on the anchor position in the per capital expenditure for health care for prisoners.
The NATIONAL average expenditure for healthcare was $5,720 per year per prisoner in FY 2015. California was number one with a per capita expenditure of $19,796 with Louisiana dragging up the rear at $2,173.
So, where did Judicial Watch get its numbers? Who knows? The organization has a long and storied history of conjuring up lies and distortions to fit its right-wing agenda. Anything it publishes must be taken with a grain of salt – a huge grain.
No rumor is too far out there for Judicial Watch to give credence. It advances some of the same crackpot conspiracy theories as the 3 Percenters, QAnon, Info Wars and Breitbart.
Why? Because there are about 70 million Americans out there who are so gullible, so incapable of independent thought and so unwilling to rationalize these assertions for themselves that they will believe any half-baked, sensational story that’s thrown out there like so much red meat, so long as it coincides with their own dark suspicions.
To check these stories for accuracy and veracity before sending them on down the line to their like-minded friends never even occurs to them. It’s on the Internet, so it must be true.
And that kind of thinking, like the refusal to wear masks in public, allows people like Lance Harris, Jeff Landry and Clay Higgins to take center stage to question the actions of a governor who is earnestly trying to protect the state’s citizens and economy from the effects of the worst pandemic in a century.
It is also evidence of a weak-willed society just ripe for a demagogue to step up and stoke the flames of discontent and suspicion much like a man named Hitler 90 years ago.
Oh wait, it’s already happened.
Never mind.
Louisiana Voice 
“Why? Because there are about 70 million Americans out there who are so gullible, so incapable of independent thought and so unwilling to rationalize these assertions for themselves that they will believe any half-baked, sensational story that’s thrown out there like so much red meat, so long as it coincides with their own dark suspicions.
To check these stories for accuracy and veracity before sending them on down the line to their like-minded friends never even occurs to them. It’s on the Internet, so it must be true.”
Tom, don’t know that it’s ever been said any better.
I agree. It is truly sad that freedom of speech has become freedom to lie. Judicial watch, Hannity, Limbaugh, OAN, Fox, televangelists, et al, know exactly what they are doing and that they can get by with it and make a lot of money in the process.
As the comedian Ron White said: You can’t fix stupid,
But if people don’t turn to the Internet for their information, where will they turn? Universities like LSU, where the administrators are engaged in coverup after coverup of sexual assault, seemingly can’t be trusted? At least that’s the perception. With what some call The Death of Expertise (book title), and the Internet providing endless information, why should we expect anything different?