Trust, but verify

Ronald Reagan liked the one liner "trust, but verify". Recently I had occasion to hear/see political ads where I didn't know any of the issues or candidates. The very few pro ads had nice clear pictures but really didn't say much. The negative attack ads (many) were generally out of focus and tended to take things out of context. All the ads had a listing of several fine print lines of who sponsored the ad. After seeing the same ad several times I could figure out who ran the ad. These organizations tended to have fancy names but other than the context you still didn't know anything about the organization or their backers.

When I got home I decided to see what I could find out about the ads and their sponsors. The question is how to verify truth? I feel that the following 5 sites gave the best impartial information.
www.lwv.org
www.FactCheck..org
www.Snopes.com
www.FEC.gov
www.opensecrets.org

Because of the recent court judgement and the tax code 501(c)(4) there is an area that no verification is required for funding. So far as I have been able to follow these groups are extremely negative.

I feel that as long as we accept as normal and vote based on the extremely negative attack ads there will never be any respect for elected officials. And ultimately these ads influence the perception of democracy around the world.

I decided that I would use the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor" as one of my decision points in deciding the pros and cons of the candidates ads.