Free Republic

That Carly Fiorina was a one-woman wrecking crew during her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard was never in doubt. But what follows is a tale that is now being picked up and distributed as the Republican Party seeks a nominee who combines business savvy and executive know-how. Sadly, the former executive who most closely fits this particular bill also has exhibited the kind of corporate arrogance and blind certitude that came close to sinking what had been considered among the world’s best technology companies: Hewlett-Packard. At HP beginning in the mid-1990s, Fiorina was responsible for the ill-fated merger with Compaq,...

When Fiorina lost her Senate bid in 2010, she had lots of bills left to pay. So she did what any multimillionaire who loaned her campaign cash would do: She paid herself first. After Carly Fiorina’s unsuccessful 2010 run for Senate in California, it took her more than four years to fully pay staff and vendors for their work on her campaign to unseat Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. But a review of Federal Election Commission records by The Daily Beast shows that Fiorina first paid herself back for more than $1.25 million in personal loans she made to the campaign,...

Editor’s Note: Every candidate running for president likes to highlight certain aspects of his or her biography. This is an occasional series taking a deeper look at 2016 candidates’ claims about their personal, professional or political record. We welcome suggestions for future fact checks, which we ultimately will compile as a collection. See our complete Scott Walker biography collection here. *** “I started as a secretary, typing and filing for a nine-person real estate firm. It’s only in this country that you can go from being a secretary to chief executive of the largest tech company in the world, and...

House Speaker Rep. John Boehner still won’t be able to win reelection without Democratic votes, Breitbart News has learned, and he has abandoned yet another plan to try to embarrass conservatives seeking his ouster, which he was going to move forward with on Friday. The day after Pope Francis addressed the Congress for the first time—in front of a teary-eyed Boehner—the Speaker had planned to move forward by bringing forth a resolution to vacate the chair, then holding a vote for his reelection intended to prove he had widespread support in the GOP conference. But just as when Rep. Mark...

Fiorina, pictured in 1999, says on the campaign trail that she had to burn down Hewlett Packard in order to save it. Carly Fiorina’s business background is an essential part of the story she tells on the campaign trail, offering an “only in America” biographical tale of her journey from secretary to CEO. Yet the crowning achievement of her corporate career -- her tenure as a Fortune 500 CEO at Hewlett-Packard -- isn't central to her stump speech. Repeating the same lines from stop to stop, Fiorina rails against an "inept, corrupt bureaucracy." She offers herself up as a leader...

Carly Fiorina, who has joined other leading Republican presidential candidates in denouncing Obamacare, once backed an individual mandate to buy health insurance that could put her at odds with others in the GOP. During a panel discussion on CNN's "Crossfire" in 2013 about the law with former CNN host Stephanie Cutter, Fiorina said she supports keeping the requirement that every American purchase health insurance.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wants you to think he opposes the effort to defund Planned Parenthood in the continuing resolution (CR) because it could cause a government shutdown. He also wants you to think it's because he doesn't have 60 votes in the Senate when in fact it only takes 41 votes to filibuster funding for the organization. But the real reason he won't fight is that he doesn't really care about stopping funding for Planned Parenthood, and he never has. Here are the facts that he doesn't want you to know: (1) In 1992, McConnell voted to...

Carly Fiorina Says She Feels 'Empathy' for Hillary Clinton – and Vows She'll 'Never Make a Personal Comment' About Her. Carly Fiorina has said that women "are not a special interest group," but that doesn't mean she doesn't feel a certain kinship with her fellow females – even her Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. "I feel empathy with every woman who is working really hard and giving it all they've got – and Hillary is," the GOP presidential hopeful tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. "She's smart, she's hardworking, she's giving it all she's got." Clinton, 67, and Fiorina, 61, first...

Fiorina on Clinton in 2008: “She was a great candidate. She has helped millions of women all over this country. Women of any political party owe a debt of gratitude to Hillary Clinton and I will bet that every woman up here agrees with me.” Throughout much of her presidential campaign, Carly Fiorina has attacked Hillary Clinton, calling on the former secretary of state to “name an accomplishment”. “Throughout this campaign, I have repeatedly asked Hillary Clinton to name an accomplishment,” Fiorina wrote in an op-ed for CNN. “She has yet to name one. Note: Flying is an activity, not...

The release — titled "Donald J. Trump Sends Club for Growth Scathing Cease and Desist Letter Regarding Recent 'Attack Ads'" — repeatedly bashed the Club for Growth, with whom Trump has constantly feuded during his campaign. "I am not surprised the dishonest, irrelevant and totally failing Club for Growth has resorted to attacking the definitive front-runner, especially after I refused to contribute to their pathetic group," Trump said in a statement. In the cease-and-desist letter to Club for Growth President David McIntosh, Trump lawyer Alan Garten similarly tore into the "pitiful little group" while promising a devastating lawsuit should the...

Failed (would-be) politician Carly Fiorina has long bought-into the worldwide left's power-and-tax grab known as 'climate change'. Regardless of what she says now, 'Carly' directly supported the US cap-and-trade program promoted by John McCain. And it wasn't that long ago at all she was still yammering-on about it. She has actually worked closely with despicable RINO McCain, appearing at public events/rallies in support, then becoming economic advisor to his (also failed) presidential campaign. Fiorina's own stump speeches -when she was running for Congress in 2010- betray an affection for federal Common Core educational standards (which she now claims to oppose): 'Internationally...

Republican presidential candidate and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told American Muslims on Fox Monday that, despite what GOP rival Ben Carson said, it was their country too. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, was asked on Sunday by NBC host Chuck Todd if a President's faith mattered — and whether he thought Islam was consistent with the Constitution. "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation," Carson told Todd. On Fox, Graham noted that he had served with American Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. "So, I want to let every American Muslim serving in uniform know...

GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said that neither she nor any other person in leadership was aware that a contractor was violating the U.S. sanctions against Iran when she was CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Fiorina was asked about the issue by host Chris Wallace. "In fact, the SEC investigation proved that neither I nor anyone else in management knew about it," Fiorina said. "When the company discovered this three years after I left, they cut off all ties. The SEC investigated very thoroughly and concluded that no one in management was aware." Wallace noted that the...

Jeb Bush Responds To Trump: Obama Is An ‘American, He’s A Christian’ By Sean Sullivan. September 18. MACKINAC ISLAND, Mich. -- Jeb Bush responded Friday night to Donald Trump's decision this week not to correct a questioner who said President Obama is a Muslim who is "not even an American." "Barack Obama is a talented man -- and by the way he's an American, he's a Christian -- his problem isn't the fact that he was born here or what his faith is," said Bush in a speech here. "His problem is that he's a progressive liberal who tears down...

Carly Fiorina graduates to the main stage for Wednesday’s GOP presidential debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, but even as she seeks to expand her appeal to voters, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO’s history may come back to haunt her. That history is laid out in a book prepared by her opposition during Fiorina’s failed 2010 U.S. Senate run against Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer. It provides a virtual road map that her GOP competitors — and perhaps the Democratic nominee — could use to exploit her weaknesses should she end up on the Republican ticket. The 218-page opposition...

Carly Fiorina left the Republican debate Wednesday night with her head held high. Rapid reaction resulted in high praise for the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, but not all the news was positive. During one portion of the debate, Fiorina and Republican front runner Donald Trump spared over their business records. Trump hit Fiorina hard, citing a recent editorial by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, of the Yale School of Management , who referred to her as one of the worst CEOs in recent memory. While how bad Fiorina was as CEO of HP is up for debate, a recent report by Bloomberg points...

had planned to comment today about Wednesday’s GOP debate. But after watching it I thought, “What’s the use in devoting a whole column to it when it can be summed up in a couple of paragraphs?” The military-industrial complex should feel secure. Regardless of which faux-conservative takes the nomination, more money to the MIC and more wars are in our future. For a while there, I wasn’t sure whether I was watching a campaign for U.S. president or Israel prime minister; and for some of the candidates I’m still not sure (Huckabee, Cruz, Rubio, Christie, particularly). But overall, there was...

When asked whether he would vote for a continuing resolution that permits federal funding of Planned Parenthood, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) responded that he would “not vote to shut down the government.” The continuing resolution currently in force authorizes funding of most of the federal government through Sept. 30, the last day of fiscal 2015. To fund the government after that date, Congress needs to pass another continuing resolution, which may or may not include language that prohibits federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood. …

Via Red State, I find disturbing audio of California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina, speaking in glowing terms about Jesse Jackson... "And I thought about something that the Reverend Jesse Jackson said to me several years ago. He very graciously came to the offices of Hewlett Packard to visit me, because we were doing some work together for his Rainbow Coalition. And he said to me, 'You know, Carly, every game is better when everybody gets to play.' And I thought it was such a great way of describing why everything is better when all people, regardless of color or...

Presidential hopeful and former Hewlett-Packard HPQ -3.70% CEO Carly Fiorina has built her entire campaign around the fact that she comes from the business world, not politics. “A fish swims in water, it doesn’t know it’s water. It’s not that politicians are bad people, it’s that they’ve been in that system forever,” she said at Wednesday night’s second debate among Republican candidates for the 2016 Presidential Election. The line was consistent with Fiorina’s pitch to voters as a no-nonsense executive who knows how to revitalize the U.S. economy, but to hear one of her chief Republican rivals tell it, the...