The Pulitzer board cited Tim Nickens, Joni James, John Hill and Robyn Blumner of the Tampa Bay Times as an award finalist "for editorials that examined the policies of a new, inexperienced governor and their impact on the state, using techniques that stretched the typical editorial format and caused the governor to mend some of his ways." Here is a compilation of the editorials: Bogged down from the top Train wreck of a governor Fighting Obama, not helping Floridians Floridians deserve open government, not secrecy Assault on democracy The job-killing governor Decoding Scott's messages: Undoing Florida's water management system ... Making the right call on care for inmates ... And ignoring all but his most rabid supporters Growth Management, 1985-2011 Memo to Washington: We need ... Continue reading →
For distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction, using any available journalistic tool, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000). No award Finalists Nominated as finalists in this category were: Paula Dwyer and Mark Whitehouse of Bloomberg News for their analysis of and prescription for the European debt crisis, dealing with important technical questions in ways that the average readers could grasp; Tim Nickens, Joni James, John Hill and Robyn Blumner of the Tampa Bay (Fla.) Times for editorials that examined the policies of a new, inexperienced governor and their impact on the state, using techniques that stretched the typical editorial format and caused ... Continue reading →
Welcome to the Budget Games. The strategy: Offer a proposal with broad outlines and as little detail as possible. When opponents attack, declare, "That’s not what our budget does!" Meanwhile, fill in missing details in the other guy’s budget with the least flattering interpretation you can calculate. Repeat. President Barack Obama filled in some details of the GOP budget resolution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in a speech to a meeting of news executiveson April 3, 2012 — using his own assumptions."This new House Republican budget ... proposes massive new cuts in annual domestic spending — exactly the area where we’ve already cut the most. And I want to actually go through what it would mean for our country if these cuts were ... Continue reading →
Senate Republicans focused on what they called the president’s "broken promises" near the two-year anniversary of the health care law. A Web video posted March 22, 2012, by the Senate Republican Conference details eight promises it says President Barack Obama has broken, countering with claims of its own. We’re checking a few of them -- for example, the claim that Obama didn't keep his promise about reducing health care premiums. (We found Republicans’ response Mostly False.) In this check, we’re focusing the Republicans' response to Obama's statement on Aug. 15, 2009: "No matter what you've heard, if you like your doctor or health care plan, you can keep it." Back then, we found a similar claim by the president just Half True. In this case, ... Continue reading →
With the collapse of Solyndra generating bad headlines for the Obama administration, White House officials are defending the program that helped fund the solar power company's now-shuttered Silicon Valley factory. White House senior adviser David Plouffe said on Meet the Press that the loan program had bipartisan support — including from former President George W. Bush. We wondered: Did the Energy Department's loan guarantee program have Bush's support? Solyndra, which manufactured unique solar panels based on cylindrical cells that didn't require silicon, was once a burgeoning clean energy superstar, attracting more than $1 billion from private investors. In 2009, the Obama administration approved a $535 million loan guarantee that helped the company build a new factory in Fremont, Calif. It became a poster child for ... Continue reading →
A new Barack Obama campaign video narrated by Tom Hanks portrays the president’s bailout of General Motors and Chrysler as courageous and successful — with loans repaid by car companies. "Because of the tough choices the president made, the stage was set for a resurgent U.S. auto industry," Hanks says in the 17-minute highlights reel of Obama’s presidency, titled The Road We’ve Traveled. "With business booming, (GM and Chrysler) repaid their loans," he later concludes. It’s a claim we’ve heard before from the CEOs of GM and Chrysler in 2010 and 2011. At the time, we rated their claims Half True. But it’s been months since we’ve looked at this question, so we thought we’d ask again. We’re not checking the overall merit of the ... Continue reading →
When Thomas Jefferson wrote, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," into the Declaration of Independence — just what did he mean by happiness? Probably not what you think he meant, according to Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum. "If you actually go back and look up the dictionary definition of happiness at the time of our founders ... happiness was not going out and doing whatever you want to do to make yourself feel good," Santorum explained in a campaign speech near Knoxville, Tenn., on Feb. 29, 2012. "Happiness was not doing what you wanted to do but doing what you ought to do, because that's what leads to true happiness." Doing what you ought to do, huh? We had to know: What did dictionaries ... Continue reading →
