Multimillionaire Carly Fiorina Took 4 Years to Pay Staffers From Her Last Campaign

Carly Fiorina, the Republican presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard CEO, is marketing herself as a pragmatic, fiscally responsible businesswoman—the only GOP candidate who knows, as she says, "how the economy actually works." Yet during her unsuccessful US Senate bid in 2010, her opponents slammed her record at HP. When she led the firm, it laid off 18,000 workers, and its stock declined by 41 percent. Eventually, she was forced out of the company but departed with a $21 million golden parachute. Now she may need to answer for another managerial blunder. For more than four years, she was a deadbeat and didn't pay the bills she owed for her Senate campaign. She only settled these outstanding debts just before she jumped into the 2016 race.

Until late last year, Fiorina was close to $500,000 in debt from her 2010 run, nearly all of it in unpaid compensation to campaign staffers and outside consultants, according to Federal Election Commission filings. In 2013, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Fiorina owed serious cash to former campaign operatives, several of whom were unsure about when they would be paid for their work. And they complained they were not getting clear information from Fiorina about when she would get them their money. At that time, she owed $60,000 to her 2010 campaign manager, Marty Wilson; $20,500 to Beth Miller, a consultant and former aide to California Gov. Pete Wilson; and $30,000 to the firm of veteran GOP political consultant Joe Shumate.

Shumate, who also worked for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, died suddenly during Fiorina's Senate race. John Allan Peschong, another adviser whom the campaign owed money, told the Chronicle, "I would hope that Carly Fiorina would pay his widow the money that was owed him at the time of his death." Wilson, Fiorina's campaign manager, said in 2013 that he didn't recall if he "got that granular" with Fiorina regarding the campaign's mounting debt near the finish line. Earlier this year, the Washington Post reported that the compensation delay had left her former staffers bitter.....

But the matter wasn't settled until Fiorina, who lost her Senate race by 10 points to incumbent Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, was on the cusp of a new political endeavor. In January, Fiorina—whose own wealth is estimated up to $120 million—personally donated $487,000 to her Senate campaign, and then she made good on the back pay, including the money owed to Shumate's family, according to a February 2015 Federal Election Commission filing. Two months later, she officially entered the presidential race.


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/carly-fiorina-campaign-debt-senate-2016

Politico: Why I Still Think Fiorina Was a Terrible CEO

Here are the facts: In the five years that Fiorina was at Hewlett Packard, the company lost over half its value. It’s true that many tech companies had trouble during this period of the Internet bubble collapse, some falling in value as much as 27 percent; but HP under Fiorina fell 55 percent. During those years, stocks in companies like Apple and Dell rose. Google went public, and Facebook was launched. The S&P 500 yardstick on major U.S. firms showed only a 7 percent drop. Plenty good was happening in U.S. industry and in technology.

It was Fiorina’s failed leadership that brought her company down. After an unsuccessful attempt to catch up to IBM’s growth in IT services by buying PricewaterhouseCooper’s consulting business (PwC, ironically, ended up going to IBM instead), she abruptly abandoned the strategic goal of expanding IT services and consulting and moved into heavy metal. At a time that devices had become a low margin commodity business, Fiorina bought for $25 billion the dying Compaq computer company, which was composed of other failed businesses. Unsurprisingly, the Compaq deal never generated the profits Fiorina hoped for, and HP’s stock price fell by half. The only stock pop under Fiorina’s reign was the 7 percent jump the moment she was fired following a unanimous board vote. After the firing, HP shuttered or sold virtually all Fiorina had bought.

During the debate, Fiorina countered that she wasn’t a failure because she doubled revenues. That’s an empty measurement. What good is doubling revenue by acquiring a huge company if you’re not making any profit from it? The goals of business are to raise profits, increase employment and add value. During Fiorina’s tenure, thanks to the Compaq deal, profits fell, employees were laid off and value plummeted. Fiorina was paid over $100 million for this accomplishment.

At the time, most industry analysts, HP shareholders, HP employees and even some HP board members resisted the Compaq deal. (Fiorina prevailed in the proxy battle, with 51.4 percent, partly thanks to ethically questionable tactics, but that’s another story.) But rather than listen to the concerns of her opponents, she ridiculed them, equating dissent with disloyalty. As we saw during the debate when she attacked me, rather than listen to or learn from critics, Fiorina disparages them. She did so regularly to platoons of her own top lieutenants and even her board of directors—until they fired her.



http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/carly-fiorina-ceo-jeffrey-sonnenfeld-2016-213163#ixzz3mKpsCeMH

Palin: Ahmed was asking for it.

ormer Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) said on Saturday that arresting and suspending Ahmed Mohamed, the ninth grader who brought a homemade clock to school , was totally reasonable.

Palin called initial media reports of Mohamed's arrest "fishy" and said that school officials were totally justified in thinking that his clock, made out of a pencil box, was a bomb.

"Yep, believing that's a clock in a school pencil box is like believing Barack Obama is ruling over the most transparent administration in history," she wrote in a Facebook post in which she shared pictures of her kids' pencil boxes. "Right. That's a clock, and I'm the Queen of England."

Palin also compared the incident to others in which students were suspended and said that Mohamed was obviously an "obstinate-answering student."

"Friends, consider the kids disciplined and/or kicked out of school for bringing squirt guns to school or taking bites out of a pop tart until it resembled (to some politically correct yahoo) a gun. Or the student out deer hunting with his dad early one morning who forgot he had a box of ammo in his truck when he parked in the school's lot later that day," she wrote. "Whereas Ahmed Muhammad, an evidently obstinate-answering student bringing in a homemade 'clock' that obviously could be seen by conscientious teachers as a dangerous wired-up bomb-looking contraption (teachers who are told 'if you see something, say something!') gets invited to the White House."




http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/palin-ahmed-was-asking-for-it-when-he-brought-clock-to-school/ar-AAevFsE?ocid=mailsignout

Biden flirts, but black lawmakers still love Clinton

Joe Biden will be spending Saturday at the premiere event for black lawmakers in Washington, an appearance seen widely as a chance to test the waters for a 2016 bid among a crucial constituency.

But interviews with nearly a dozen Congressional Black Caucus members this week make it clear: Biden will be walking into Clinton territory. The conversations point to a deep base of support for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that’s unlikely to change,even if Biden enters the race.

“I don’t see a serious primary at all,” Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.). “The Clintons have inroads with the black community,and I really don’t see a contest at all. Biden is my buddy,but he’s not going anywhere.”

The African-American lawmakers say they have deep respect for both politicians but overwhelmingly back Clinton, who has been reaching out to black caucus members since she launched her presidential bid earlier this year.



http://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/biden-may-run-but-black-lawmakers-still-love-clinton-213837#ixzz3mCfa8SLT

Smith-Schock ties attract scrutiny

Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) joined his close friend Aaron Schock on campaign and government trips and exotic vacations in 2014 that are being scrutinized by federal investigators looking into alleged spending abuses by the former congressman, who resigned in March.

One of the trips was a private charter flight that started in the Illinois Republican's hometown of Peoria and made multiple campaign stops in Michigan and Indiana in late October 2014. It had not previously been reported that Smith, elected to Congress two years ago, was on that trip.

Revelations that Smith, 35, accompanied Schock on the campaign trip come the same week The Hill reported that Smith has hired Schock’s former chief of staff, Mark Roman, who managed the congressman’s office at the time of his spending scandal.

There's no indication that federal prosecutors have questioned or sought records from Smith, but his participation on trips now under criminal investigation could drag one of Schock's closest friends in Congress into his legal mess and undermine Smith’s political image as a humble, salt-of-the-earth fiscal conservative. The news has also led to chatter on Capitol Hill, where Roman’s hiring by Smith surprised many.


http://thehill.com/homenews/house/254183-smith-schock-ties-garner-scrutiny

Bristol Palin Rages: Obama 'Needs To STAY Out Of' Ahmed Mohamed's Case

ristol Palin wrote on her blog Thursday that President Obama "needs to STAY out of" the case of a 14-year-old Muslim student in Texas who was wrongly arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school.

Obama invited the teen, Ahmed Mohamed, to the White House on Wednesday after news of his arrest went viral. The invitation, Palin wrote, only invited "more racial strife."

Mohamed was arrested earlier this week after police were called to investigate the clock he brought to his suburban Dallas high school. After his release, he was invited to tour Facebook, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas at Austin.

But Palin, the daughter of former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, said the invitation was a mistake:

Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game (VIDEO)

Physician-Assisted Suicide Bill Reaches Jerry Brown’s Desk

A controversial bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide in California is headed to the governor for consideration, after almost nine months of intense—often personal—debate in the legislature.

If Gov. Jerry Brown signs the bill, California would become the fifth state to allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients who request it, after Oregon, Washington, Vermont and Montana.

“Our hope, our fervent hope, is that Gov. Jerry Brown will sign this bill and bring relief to hundreds of dying Californians,” said Toni Broaddus, state campaign director for Compassion & Choices, an advocacy group.

Brown has not indicated where he stands on the issue, nor whether he will sign or veto the bill. If he does nothing, after 30 days the bill will become law.


http://www.newsweek.com/physician-assisted-suicide-bill-reaches-jerry-browns-desk-372061

Candida Royalle, feminist pornographic filmmaker, dies at 64

Candida Royalle, a feminist pornographic filmmaker and pioneer of the sex-positive movement, reportedly died from ovarian cancer at her home in Mattituck on Sept. 7.....

Born in Brooklyn as Candice Marion Vadala, Ms. Royalle starred in pornography until 1984, when she launched Femme Productions with the intention of producing “adult films from a woman’s perspective,” her friend Annie Sprinkle wrote in a public Facebook post.

In doing so, Ms. Royalle helped launch the couples’ erotica market.........

In 2004, Ms. Royalle wrote “How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do.” She was also an animal rights activist and prolific public speaker, lecturing everywhere from the Smithsonian Institute to the World Congress on Sexology.

A founding member of Feminists for Free Expression, a nonprofit group dedicated to defending women’s rights and freedom of expression, Ms. Royalle received a doctorate in human sexuality from the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in 2014.


http://suffolktimes.timesreview.com/2015/09/62132/candida-royalle-feminist-pornographic-filmmaker-dies-in-mattituck-at-64/

US Senate contest in California shaping up as one-sided

LOS ANGELES - The first open U.S. Senate seat in a generation in California was expected to attract a large cast of marquee candidates, leading to a spirited scrum next year to replace departing Democrat Barbara Boxer.

So far, that hasn't happened.

The announcement Wednesday that a third, little-known Republican entered the 2016 race speaks mostly to what's been absent from the campaign. Attorney General Kamala Harris got in quickly, established herself as an early Democratic favorite and hasn't been significantly pressured as the contest gradually takes shape.

"Right now, Harris is the front-runner and every other candidate, of any party, is an afterthought," said Rose Kapolczynski, Boxer's longtime political adviser, who is not affiliated with any of the 2016 contenders.

Duf Sundheim, who headed the state Republican Party when former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected in 2003, released a video Wednesday declaring his candidacy and promising to work for improved schools, more jobs and better roads.



http://www.mercedsunstar.com/news/state/article34531527.html#storylink=cpy