A lot of folks who hate the American Health Care Act have written or spread the word that under it, rape would be considered a pre-existing condition. There are many shameful, harmful things about the bill and that would certainly be another if it were true. But it's been debunked in a number of places including Politifact and the Washington Post.
I have found those two fact-checking sites to be pretty good — and come to think of it, I should mention Factcheck.Org and I sometimes come across others that don't do it full-time but do it responsibly when they do it. Once in a while, I think they confuse an honest mistake with a deliberate lie, or call someone a fibber for what seems to be like just bad phrasing…but for the most part, I think they do the job. If you don't like them, I hope you have some dispassionate source that you'll trust when it tells you something you maybe don't want to hear. Seems like there are more and more people out there these days who don't.
You can divide Americans into two groups a great many different ways but one that occurs to me more and more has to do with how they react when some news story or statistic that supports their worldview turns out to be erroneous. Some people say, "Okay, I guess I was wrong about that." But some just seem to want every possible "fact" that confirms their beliefs and they don't want to turn loose of any of them. At WonderCon, a woman told me that nothing will ever convince her that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, end of discussion.
Years ago, I might have tried challenging her set-in-concrete belief. In this case, it truly was the end of the discussion. She didn't want to hear it so I didn't see any point in saying it.
Please don't tell me that every single bad thing out there about Donald Trump is true. Or every single bad thing about Obama. Or about Bill or Hillary or George W. or Bernie or whoever and it isn't just people. It can be every single alleged "fact" about Climate Change or Gun Control or Health Care or cole slaw or —
Wait. Every single bad thing you've ever heard about cole slaw is true, including those reports that I made up about how many people each year die from just the sight of the stuff. But that's the only topic where that's the case. I slip once in a while but for the most part, I've given up trying to even talk with certain people who are relentless this way. The other day, I declined an invite to a party where two of them will be present.
One will just go on and on about how we need to build a cell like the one they put Hannibal Lecter in and throw Hillary Clinton inside and toss the key. Okay, fine, I like Hillary and he doesn't and I think that the fact that even her worst enemies in power won't charge her with a crime is significant. He thinks — he knows — it's because she has blackmail evidence on all her enemies. She somehow didn't use it to stop them from attacking her during the presidential campaign but it's all that's keeping her out of the slammer.
Anyway, you'd figure being around that guy would irritate me and make it hard to have a rational discussion and it does. But the other guy is the same way about the Bush family who I happen to think did harmful, dishonest things…and I don't want to be around him, either.
I think I've just had enough of people who make bad arguments along with the possibly good ones; who work backwards from "I hate this person" to believing every possible rumor or bit of Internet gossip; who even believe stories on parody websites that admit they're spreading "fake news." I'm not even going to waste my time talking to a Trump supporter who insists Donald won the popular vote or that he deserves credit for job growth that took place before the inauguration.
To me, they're all like I am about cole slaw. The only difference is that I'm kidding and they actually believe that crap.