This blog is a-political.  I don’t go ranting off about this, that or this other.  And it is staying that way.  I just want to show you a website that Dana and I discovered a little over a year ago and during this election season, it is quite helpful.

I’m big on the importance of voting.  It gets me irritated when folks don’t vote.  But it causes me great concern when folks vote based on what their neighbor said, what they saw in a t.v. commercial, or based on what they received in a multi-forwarded email.  I wish that folks would do their own research and make their decisions based on the things that they’ve learned.  The problem is that folks just don’t have time to go and dig through all of the “spin” and locate voting records, etc.  And I think candidates are counting on this… that Americans will vote based on sound bites, not based on facts.

So how do you separate fact from fiction?  Well, one tool is a bipartisan website called FactCheck.org.  This site takes a political commercial and all its little sound bites and then tells you the facts.  It then backs up their information by citations, including the candidates senate voting records.  While the focus is on national elections they do cover some local issues as well.  The site  is also useful for looking at the facts in things like the state of the union address, a presidential press conference, etc.  Each post is brief but provides links to all the info you need if you want to do more digging.

So, next time you hear something on the news, see a commerical about a candidate, check the facts and go to FactCheck.org.