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Local bass tournament schedules and results

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PSU report card: Big plays help Nittany Lions smash Iowa

<p>If you&#8217;re planning to vote in Tuesday&#8217;s presidential election &#8211; and we hope that you are &#8211; don&#8217;t base your decision on any of the ridiculous claims, counter-claims and outright kooky stories that pass for &#8220;political discourse&#8221; on social media.</p><p>Use an online, fact-checking resource to help you cut through the clutter. Below are three trusted options.</p><p>&#8226; <a href="http://www.politifact.com/" target="_blank">PolitiFact.com</a>, a Pulitzer Prize-winning project run by the Tampa Bay Times, helps readers to separate fact from fiddlesticks.</p><p>Among the items recently posted on its site were these gems: &#8220;Hillary Clinton&#8217;s top 10 most misleading claims,&#8221; &#8220;Donald Trump&#8217;s top 10 most misleading claims,&#8221; and &#8220;The biggest flip-flops by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.&#8221; The site also contains an analysis of the &#8220;top 10 most aired political advertisements.&#8221;</p><p>Using its trademark &#8220;Truth-O-Meter,&#8221; the site rates candidates&#8217; statements on a scale ranging from &#8220;True&#8221; to &#8220;Pants on Fire!&#8221;</p><p>You also can access the project&#8217;s <a href="http://www.politifact.com/pennsylvania/" target="_blank">Pennsylvania edition</a>, where you can find, for instance, the skinny on those Philadelphia voting divisions that recorded no Republican votes in the 2012 presidential election.</p><p>&#8226; <a href="http://factcheck.org/" target="_blank">FactCheck.org</a>, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, bills itself as a &#8220;consumer advocate for voters.&#8221; Its stated aim: &#8220;to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.&#8221;</p><p>One section of the site has been devoted to the &#8220;2016 Elections,&#8221; with categories covering candidates including Gary Johnson and Jill Stein.</p><p>The site&#8217;s featured articles in recent days included &#8220;Spinning the FBI Letter&#8221; and &#8220;Democratic Deceptions.&#8221; The latter article takes Dems in several states to task for &#8220;engaging in a widespread pattern of deception, trying to tie Donald Trump around the necks of Republican House candidates who actually have repudiated him.</p><p>&#8220;In Pennsylvania,&#8221; the article states, &#8220;the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee claimed GOP House candidate Brian Fitzpatrick &#8216;supports Donald Trump,&#8217; even though he never clearly endorsed Trump and said (in October) he won&#8217;t be voting for Trump because of his &#8216;disgusting&#8217; comments about women.&#8221;</p><p>&#8226; <a href="http://www.snopes.com/" target="_blank">Snopes.com</a>, a rumor research website, tries to dispel urban legends and many of the World Wide Web&#8217;s most audacious tall tales. Operators of the site bill it as &#8220;a completely independent, self-sufficient entity.&#8221;</p><p>Did Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton refuse to exit her vehicle at a Florida event because certain people started to chant &#8220;lock her up.&#8221; Has actor Matthew McConaughey endorsed Republican contender Donald Trump, as it might appear from an online video circulating last month? (In both cases, says Snopes, the answer is no.)</p><p>Thanks to today&#8217;s technology, you and others have access to a tremendous amount of information. But when using that information as the basis for important decisions, be sure that it&#8217;s <em>good</em> information.</p><style>
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Our Opinion: Consult fact-checking sites to cut through nonsense in presidential contest