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“The State Department, which is supposed to be apolitical and non-interested in the next presidential election, has been covering for Hillary Clinton since she left office,” Gowdy said on Fox News last week, adding that the department had “aided and abetted” a cover-up of Clinton’s emails.
His clashes with FBI director James Comey, who has been summoned to testify three times since the agency’s decision not to press charges against Clinton, have been widely celebrated by conservative media.
“What would she have had to do to warrant your recommendation for prosecution?” Gowdy asked Comey during a House Oversight Committee hearing last week.
Comey rejected the idea that the bureau would reopen the probe into Clinton’s email server. The usually impassive FBI director seemed to run out of patience at Gowdy and his Republican colleagues’ repeated suggestions that the agency was betraying its mission.
Gowdy maintains that the purpose of the repeated hearings is to give the FBI and the Justice Department a chance to explain how they came to their conclusions.
“While the investigation is closed, the Department of Justice and the FBI must explain the granting of immunity despite no prosecutions . . . and most importantly what evidence specifically was missing that would have been needed for a prosecutable case and what deterrent exists if future Cabinet-level officials opt fo...
The House Oversight Committee also focused on the Justice Department’s decision to give a form of immunity to two of Clinton’s lawyers, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, to get computers that contain emails related to the case.
Last month, Gowdy homed in on the fact the Justice Department had granted immunity to the IT specialist who deleted Clinton’s emails from her private server.
Such exchanges, which often go viral online, made Gowdy a conservative hero as the chair of the Benghazi Committee and gave him a massive online following for a congressman. This includes more than 1 million Facebook followers, who widely share videos of his hearings and television appearances.
Gowdy was also prominently featured in a Trump campaign video over the summer that contrasted his interrogation of Comey with Clinton’s statements. Despite branding him “Benghazi loser” after he supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio for president ahead of South Carolina’s Republican primary in February, Trump suggested on...
Congress adjourned last week and will not be back until after the election. There will be no more hearings related to Clinton’s use of her email server and the decisions not to prosecute her or her staff.
Gowdy, as he did at the conclusion of the Benghazi Committee, said he had done his job as a prosecutor and that it was about the integrity of the justice system.
“What can we do? I can do the same thing I did in my previous job: I can lay out the facts and the evidence for the jury and let them decide whether or not they think this person is qualified to be the leader of the free world with all of the false statements, with all of the concealment,” he said.
“If you are tired of a politicized Department of Justice, you need to replace that Department of Justice, and that’s what the jury gets to do on Nov. 8,” he said.
Related Story: How much more than you does a CEO earn?
As Commonwealth Bank shareholders gathered in Brisbane for their beleaguered company's annual general meeting, a look through the annual report would have told them why directors appear to be still way out of touch with the rest of the world on executive pay.
If they'd flipped through to page 108 of the report there would be some instructive information.
If CBA's performance is the median of a peer group of 20 companies then executives will get half their long-term bonuses.
In other words, if CBA is 10th out of 20, big bonuses will be paid.
In a celebration of mediocracy, if CBA rises to between 5th and 10th out of 20, up to 100 per cent of the bonus can be received.
The maximum long-term bonus at CBA is 180 per cent of fixed salary.
To use CEO Matt Comyn as an example: his fixed salary is $1.3 million.
Theoretically, a 10th-placed performance by CBA will entitle Mr Comyn to a bonus of $1,170,000.
In other environments, no-one who finished 10th out of 20 would think they had done exceptionally well.
Two years ago, Cate Campbell finished sixth in the 100-metres freestyle final at the Rio Olympics.
She'd gone into the race as the overwhelming favourite.
Sixth was regarded as an overwhelming failure, and it took Campbell a long time to recover from that loss.
It goes without saying, she did not receive a bonus.
At Telstra's annual general meeting, chairman John Mullen noted that chief executive Andy Penn had seen his remuneration drop by nearly 50 per cent over the past two years.
And compared to the last two Telstra chief executives, Mr Penn is a pauper.
In 2008, American Sol Trujillo received $13.4 million.
David Thodey took home $14.5 million in 2015.
The Telstra board has only itself to blame for the massive protest vote delivered by its owners, argues Stephen Letts.
Mr Penn, this year, has to get by on $4.5 million. Less than a third of his immediate two predecessors.
However, those numbers mask what's really going on.
Mr Penn's base salary is $2.4 million.
In a year when Telstra's profits and share price have tanked and the dividend has been slashed, Mr Penn received "bonuses" which virtually doubled his salary.
It is a big part of why Telstra's remuneration report received the biggest 'first strike' on record, with 62 per cent of shareholders voting against it.
Another vote of more than 25 per cent against the remuneration report next year and the Telstra board could be facing a motion to throw it out.
According to the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, the median pay for a top 100 chief executive rose 12.4 per cent last year to $4.4 million, at a time when workers struggle to get pay rises of around 2 per cent.
The increase in pay was almost entirely due to bonuses.
ACSI says only six of the 84 top 100 bosses it surveyed missed out on a bonus for performance reasons.
That is, the performance of 93 per cent of top 100 CEO's was considered so good by their boards that they needed to be rewarded with a bonus.
Everyone knows that 93 per cent of companies did not have stellar years.
"At a time when public trust in business is at a low ebb and wages growth is weak, board decisions to pay large bonuses just for hitting budget targets rather than exceptional performance, are especially tone-deaf," said ACSI CEO Louise Davidson when the survey was released.
The dilemma for boards though is that shareholders are demanding austerity, with the days of wild excess well and truly over.
So, we see CBA, which is Australia's biggest company, paying its CEO a base salary of $1.3 million.
CBA CEO Ian Narev has unwittingly highlighted the farce that is the executive bonus, writes Ian Verrender.
Many would argue that's very low for the size of the company, and some, like fund manager Roger Montgomery, from Montgomery Investment Management, worry that the best people will stop taking the top jobs if that trend continues.
"If that happens, shareholders will be worse off," Mr Montgomery told the ABC.
Bonuses are being used as a top-up for fixed pay to make salaries attractive, but by calling it a bonus the implication is that it's been earned by outstanding performance.
In many cases it clearly hasn't.
Telstra's John Mullen has suggested scrapping the bonus system in favour of a fixed salary that reflects the difficulty of the job.
It makes sense and could stop the endless grief around executive pay.
The big question is, will anyone be brave enough to be first to do it?
Kennett Square merchants turn on the charm this weekend for the annual sidewalk sale along State Street. From boutiques to bookstores, galleries to gift shops, vintage gems to contemporary finds, the sale features discounts up to 50 perfect off. Hours are Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sampl...
This entry was posted in Deals, Fashion and tagged deals, discounts, kennett square, sale, sidewalk sale. Bookmark the permalink.
Deep snow didn’t dampen the buoyant bipartisan mood on Monday as Nevada swore in the nation’s first female-majority Legislature.
The 23 women elected or appointed to serve in the Assembly went first, completing the oath to warm applause from hundreds of lawmakers, lobbyists and family members gathered to help kick off Nevada’s 80th Legislature. Nine female members were later seated in the state Senate.
Assemblywoman Teresa Benitez-Thompson, D-Reno, memorialized the achievement in a brief speech from the Assembly floor.
"Women have a show of strength this session," Benitez-Thompson said. "People ask, will there be change? Yes, that’s the point.
"We will define our own destiny. … Our journey will be embedded in strength and hard work and we will make the state, and our nation, proud."
Assembly Minority Leader Jim Wheeler, R-Minden, also lauded the historic feat.
"In my opinion, this is a very good thing," Wheeler said. "We've heard our governor speak of ‘one Nevada.’ This is most definitely a goal we all hope to achieve and (one) we can all solidly get behind."
Assembly Speaker Jason Frierson, D-Las Vegas, said he was keenly aware of the need to ensure the milestone was not simply symbolic.
He later reiterated his commitment to bills meant to combat the opioid crisis, beef up gun background checks and ban bump stocks.
The Senate adopted 2019's first legislative resolution — a procedural measure to establish the upper chamber's rules for the rest of the session — after brief remarks from Democratic Majority Leader Kelvin Atkinson.
Atkinson, the first openly gay African American to serve in the Legislature, took the opportunity to praise the "most diverse Legislature in the country."
"I choose to see it as a great opportunity to legislate," Atkinson said. "Despite our many differences, we can unite on Nevada's many needs."
The first Senate resolution of the session eliminated a rules committee that oversaw amendments before they were introduced on the Senate floor.
It will also require senators who abstain from voting to completely disclose conflicts of interest by explaining why they're not voting.
Back in the Assembly, after lengthy introductions of friends and family members, members returned to work with a procedural move to revisit several bills vetoed during the 2017 session. They’re expected to take a closer look at those vetoes on Wednesday.
Frierson said the measure was simply meant to wrap up the first day's business quickly, given continued heavy snowfall in Carson City.
"I don't intend on us overriding vetoes," Frierson added. "We don't have a need to do that when we can have a deliberative process."
As many as 1,200 bills are expected to be considered by the time the legislative session wraps up on June 3. That’s about 10 pieces of legislation for each day of the hectic lawmaking period, or roughly 19 for each member of the statehouse.
About 900 bills are likely to get a hearing. Only around 600 are expected to pass. Lawmakers unanimously moved a motion to pay for the 120-day session on Monday.
Microsoft Corp., reacting swiftly to a recent appeals court ruling on its antitrust case, is considering sweeping changes to its pricing models for hardware vendors and its largest corporate customers.
Sources who requested anonymity said it appears the company is set to make OEM partners pay more for the Windows operating systems they ship with their new hardware, while lowering the cost for large "named accounts" who buy licenses directly from Microsoft.
The moves come on the heels of licensing concessions Microsoft made this week, giving computer makers greater flexibility regarding end-user access to its Internet Explorer browser and the placement of icons on the desktop.
Those concessions followed the recent findings of a federal appeals court that a number of its past licensing policies were "restrictive, anti-competitive and violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act."
A source at one PC maker told eWEEK that Microsoft was currently working on adjusting additional areas of its pricing and licensing model.
"The latest figures we have show that named accounts will see prices fall from $76.50 to $70 a license," the source said. "But operating system prices for the major PC makers will be raised to varying levels depending on their MDA [market development agreement]"
MDAs are the licensing contracts Microsoft requires of OEM Windows licensees. According to OEMs, MDAs have in the past rewarded vendors that most heavily market and promote Windows, Internet Explorer, and other Microsoft products and technologies. The more MDA provisions to which an OEM agrees, the better per-copy pric...
Another source, who likewise declined to be named, said Microsoft was "looking to reduce the wide gap between what OEMs pay and what named accounts pay."
Microsoft could not be reached immediately for comment.
Hardware vendors have complained privately in the past about the rising cost of every new version of Windows, and its increasing proportion of the total PC cost.
One large corporate user said he has also heard that Microsoft is preparing to further adjust its licensing and pricing conditions. "Ive been trying to reach my Microsoft representative for two weeks without any luck," the user said. "The reps in Redmond are probably just as confused as the rest of us about what change...
And the changes dont stop there. Microsofts competitors and legal opponents are baying for blood now that it has amended its licensing conditions.
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, one of the more vocal critics of Microsofts behavior, made it quite clear that the concessions announced this week are not enough, saying "this proposal falls far short of the remedies or relief we think are necessary."
Miller added that Microsofts latest concessions "do make clear one thing we have argued for some time now -- that XP issues are a significant element to be considered in our case."
AOL Time Warner, which competes aggressively with Microsoft on the instant messaging front, was equally dismissive of the licensing concessions. A spokeswoman said Microsoft still had a long way to go to address its anti-competitive actions, particularly with regard to "all the things like Windows Messenger that it is ...
Dana Hayter, a lawyer with Fenwick & West LLP in San Francisco, and a former attorney in the Justice Departments Antitrust Division, said it was unlikely that the concessions announced so far would satisfy the DOJ or the state attorneys general. "The battle is far from over," he said.
If a settlement is not reached, the matter could be appealed to the Supreme Court or heard by a new District Court judge. The District Court was mandated to undo not just past harm but to prevent future conduct of the same sort. As such, Microsoft would still have to face and agree to the far more stringent settlement ...
"This is just the tip of the iceberg and the start of possible concessions in the matter," Hayter said.
Windows XP Group Product Manager Shawn Sanford said the licensing concessions were just a response to a "first reading of the appeal court opinion."
While computer makers were pleased with Microsofts announcement this week, they are wary about whether they will gain much freedom and appear not to expect these concessions to eliminate past issues they had in this area.
For example, AOL is a major investor in Gateway Inc., yet even now Gateway is hesitant to say whether the latest Microsoft moves will enable it to boost AOLs presence on its PCs.
Gateway spokesman Brad Williams said the company had previously been in discussion with AOL and Microsoft about AOLs placement.
"That has been an ongoing discussion for us," he said. "But at this point, we havent finalized any decisions. As far as the new freedoms with Internet Explorer, we are still examining our options."
Hewlett-Packard Co. spokeswoman Diane Roncal said HP was pleased that Microsoft "is taking these steps with regards to Internet Explorer, and we look forward to the implementation of the courts ruling across additional areas to allow OEMs more flexibility to provide solutions for our customers."