"We become what we understand."

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it." -Samuel Johnson, renowned English author, journalist, essayist

                    As frustrating as it may seem numbing ourselves to national newscasts, pouring over political pundits or dissecting horrendous hash tags our country has been diagnosed with dangerous levels of misinformation exposure. With an overload of altered photo social media posts, spastic random Tweets, vlogs, blogs, countdowns, metrics, expert panels, power boards and of course the most distressing of all- the "unofficial"  poll, we are bombarded with seemingly meaningless words we haven't had time to process or reflect upon. How do we know what we're reading or hearing is factual? Information isn't knowledge.
      Obviously, everything we hear or read isn't true. It's terribly important that we understand where to find the facts and who we can trust. It's even more important that we teach young adults to discriminate information for themselves. Even some of the most respected resources for political facts may be inaccurate or exaggerated. It's important for all of us to research and question especially during a historic election cycle.  Political candidates should be held responsible for any erroneous remarks or inflammatory rhetoric spewed when denying scientific evidence or verifiable medical facts. The next leader of the free world  shouldn't be ignorant of immigration laws, climate change, human reproduction, economics or international policy. In order for American voters to make informed choices requires educated citizens who know the truth about the same subjects.

 Below are website links to recommended nonpartisan, nonprofit fact checking organizations and important research centers.

Politifact.com
http://www.politifact.com/

FactCheck.org
http://www.factcheck.org/

Pew Research Center
http://www.pewresearch.org/

Guttmacher Institute 
https://www.guttmacher.org/