Clean air and/or dirty politics? (See 1 below.)
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Obama to Snowden - 'How dare you make life difficult for the supreme monarch!'
Meanwhile, Obama tries to 'snow' the nation! (See 2 below.)
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It's all about attitude and lying and the long knives are out for Deen as well. It is get back at whitey time.
Blacks have a right to have a chip on their shoulder but carrying logs around can be a weighty matter.
My people decided humor was a better way of lifting the slings and arrows of prejudice. (See 3 and 3a below.)
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Pipes believes Obama will bomb Iran to save his presidency. He suggested as much once before but Obama did not heed his advice. Now Pipes believes he will.
Time will tell whether Pipes has something in his pipe! (See 4 below.)
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Gold's decline and what it means to The Fed. (See 5 below.)
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Unlike Obama, Lerner to learn she cannot have it both ways. (See 6 below.)
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The Senate passed the Gang of Eight's immigration bill, but is comprehensive reform a done deal? How should Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans handle the bill? How will this legislation change America, especially with its ObamaCare exemption for illegal immigrants?
From PJTV.Com - left click on next generation beat then click on blue link.
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Dick
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1)
'Carbon Pollution' and Wealth Redistribution
No crisis should go to waste, an eternal truth highlighted in bold by a purported climate change apocalypse that is now the target of actions newly proposed by President Obama. This so-called “crisis” will flood not various coastlines, but instead the front pages, replacing other, less flattering political headlines for the administration.
And if the proposed actions offer the potential of sizeable wealth transfers to political allies? That is far more than mere icing on the cake. Whatever the weakness of the evidence on greenhouse gases (GHG) and climate effects, the real goal of carbon policy is a regional redistribution of wealth, a reality that explains the inability of Congress to enact such policies since the Clinton administration, when a “Sense of the Senate” resolution rejecting the Kyoto Protocol was approved by a margin of 95-0. President Obama too was unable to convince even a fully Democratic Congress to adopt such policies, and so he now proposes that his Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy implement regulations reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHG).
The President’s Plan
Let us begin with a summary discussion of the president’s three broad proposals: the imposition of a GHG emissions standards on both new and existing electric generating plants; expansion and tightening of energy-efficiency standards for buildings, appliances, and some vehicles; and an increase in (subsidized) renewable power generation from federal lands. The first proposal, the imposition of a GHG emissions standard on power plants, means in a nutshell that no new coal-fired plants will be built, and that some existing coal-fired capacity will be shut down. The cost data from the EIA suggests that future competition between new coal and natural gas power plants will be driven heavily by the relative costs of coal and natural gas, both of which are uncertain. For the government to impose such a solution in place of market forces requires a rationale — the purported effects on climate change — that is very far from obviously correct, as discussed below. With respect to the substitution of gas-fired generation in place of existing coal-fired plants, much hinges on how the regulations are written and implemented; but the EIA data suggest increases in operating costs alone of up to 60 percent.
The president’s speech seems to imply that 'energy efficiency' somehow is free.
The president’s speech seems to imply that “energy efficiency” is somehow free. That is, that it's easy to achieve reductions in energy use without causing a reduction in the benefits from energy use. Were that the case, one wonders why market forces do not lead to such outcomes themselves. In reality, energy efficiency requires the substitution of capital, or the acceptance of less safety and comfort, or other adjustments, the net virtues of which government officials and experts simply are not in the best positions to evaluate. There is also the “rebound” effect: if vehicles and appliances use less energy per unit of output, a natural market response is to use more of them and to use them more intensively. The net result: far less energy savings than usually are asserted, and thus a lower economic return to the investments made in efficiency.
With respect to the proposed expansion of renewable energy production: wind and solar power receive subsidies per kilowatt-hour vastly larger than those purportedly received by conventional generation, and it remains the case that renewables simply are uncompetitive, in substantial part because the energy content of wind and sunlight is too diffused to be useful without massive capital investment. For a discussion of the economics of renewable power and the weakness of the arguments in support of policies subsidizing it, see this AEI report.
Reviewing the Climate Change Evidence
Let us turn now to the recent evidence on whether an anthropogenic climate crisis indeed looms large. There has been notemperature trend over the last 15 or so years despite increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other GHG. This record has belied the predictions of the climate change models, yielding some uneasiness among the proponents of the conventional view. More generally, the earth has been emerging from the Little Ice Age since roughly 1850. Accordingly, there has been an upward long-term temperature trend: temperatures increased from about 1910 through about 1940, were roughly constant through about 1980, increased until 1998 (a year with a strong El Niño), and have exhibited no trend since then. How much of this long-term upward trend is anthropogenic? No one knows, and those who claim to know… don’t.
The past 12 months have set a record for the fewest tornadoes ever in a similar period, and there has been no trend since 1950 in the frequency of strong (F3 to F5) tornadoes in the United States. The number of wildfires is in a long-term decline; it is our misguided refusal to thin underbrush in government forests that has exacerbated the large-scale fire problem. As of June 1 (the outset of the Atlantic hurricane season), it has been over seven and a half years since a Category 3 or higher hurricanelanded on the U.S. coast; such a long period devoid of an intense hurricane landfall has not been observed since 1900. With respect to the worldwide data on hurricane basins, there has been no trend in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones over the last 70 years. A widely accepted and documented measure of tropical cyclone energy is near its lowest level since reliable measurements began by satellite in the 1970s. An increase in such hurricane activity in coming decades is far more likely to reflect a reversion toward the mean rather than the effects of GHG concentrations. There is no long-term trend in sea level increases despite rising atmospheric concentrations of GHG. The record of changes in the size of the Arctic ice cover is far more ambiguous than generally asserted. The Palmer Drought Severity Index shows no trend over the record period beginning in 1895 in terms of drought; more areas in the United States have experienced an increase in soil moisture than a decline. Flooding in the United States over the last 85-127 years is not related statistically to increases in carbon dioxide concentrations.
Like the environment, our institutions also can be 'polluted.'
There is the further matter that U.S. emissions of GHG are about 17 percent of global GHG emissions, a proportion that is declining steadily. And so it is unsurprising that nowhere in the president’s speech did he offer an estimate or even an assertion about the climate benefits to be expected from his policy proposals. If we apply the widely accepted MAGICC climate model developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and if we assume the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) midrange emissions path, an immediate cut in U.S. emissions by half would yield a reduction in global temperatures of 0.1 degrees Celsius 100 years from now. Because annual temperature variability is greater than that figure, the predicted effect cannot be measured reliably. Note that a 50 percent reduction in U.S. emissions could be achieved only in the face of massive economic dislocation.
More crudely, the IPCC’s “best estimate” is about 3 degrees Celsius for the temperature effect by the year 2100 of a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations. (A growing body of peer-reviewed literature suggests that that estimate might be too high). The U.S. contribution of 17 percent suggests, roughly, that the United States would contribute about 0.5 degrees. Suppose that the president’s new policies were to reduce our emissions by half. The reduction in the U.S. temperature contribution would be about 0.2-0.3 degrees, any effects of which would not be measurable. Surely even President Obama would not suggest that his proposals will be costless; if there are no measurable benefits, then there is no justification for implementing them unless one believes that an international agreement remains a plausible goal. The record of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change should be sufficient proof that such an agreement remains a mirage, in substantial part because increased energy use — and emissions of GHG — is the sine qua non of economic growth and the third world’s escape from grinding poverty.
Science is the application of data to the predictions made by scientists using analytic tools or models. Because the evidence in support of the conventional view is so weak, proponents of climate policies have been reduced to the invocation of anecdotes, and the predictions made by various computer models. The models, however, are far less useful than commonly assumed. None can explain, for example, the warming that occurred around a millennium ago, or the Little Ice Age, or the subsequent patterns after 1850. All climate models predict that anthropogenic warming should create an enhanced heating effect in the tropical mid-troposphere; but neither the satellites nor the weather balloons can find it, a reality that raises serious questions about our understanding of the underlying atmospheric physics. In short, the climate models can explain neither the past nor the present. It is far from obvious that policymakers should have faith in their predictions about the future.
The Central Motivation: Wealth Transfer
What is clear, on the other hand, is that government is an engine of wealth redistribution. Policies making some energy sources more expensive inexorably will create such redistribution because states and regions differ in the proportions of their energy use derived from alternative technologies. In particular, the president’s proposals will penalize areas and industries disproportionately dependent on coal-fired power. A recent MIT study concludes that under a policy to reduce GHG emissions "California, the Pacific Coast, New England, and New York generally experience the lowest cost…while the South Central [Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma], Texas, and Mountain States face the highest cost."
That conclusion is consistent with the data on average retail electricity prices reported by the EIA, as summarized in the following table:
.
The winners are states with high power costs or with significant inexpensive hydroelectric resources that would be unaffected by GHG policies. The losers are states with low power costs driven by disproportionate use of cheap, coal-fired power. By driving power costs up in the latter group of states, the GHG policies would reduce the competitive disadvantages of the former group.
The policies examined in the MIT study surely differ from those that will emerge from the regulatory processes given force by the president. But if the effect of the latter is some substantial reduction in GHG emissions, in particular from electric power generation, then it is difficult to see how the distributional impacts might differ substantially from those reported by MIT, and it also is difficult to believe that the basic red-to-blue transfer is accidental. Instead, given that the actual climate effects of reductions in U.S. emissions would be trivial, it is straightforward to hypothesize that the direction of the wealth transfer is the central motivating objective of this policy proposal.
The climate models can explain neither the past nor the present. It is far from obvious that policymakers should have faith in their predictions about the future.
Congressman Henry Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, argued recently that “It's important for the president to act because the Congress is still denying the science and is not about to pass any legislation. The president has broad authority to accomplish many reductions through regulation on his own, without Congress.” Whether the president in reality has that authority is an issue that is certain to occupy the courts. But the implementation of policies and other measures not approved by Congress is deeply problematic in the context of the separation of powers and technicalities such as the consent of the governed. Like the environment, our institutions also can be “polluted,” an outcome to be resisted regardless of the assumed merits of the policies themselves.
In Hollywood, there’s no business like show business. Inside the Beltway, there’s no show like the business of sound-bite showboating. In the president’s speech there appears the phrase “carbon pollution” no fewer than 30 times. In the Orwellian language of the environmental left, “carbon pollution” is carbon dioxide — a natural substance that is not toxic to humans at many times greater than current ambient concentrations and that protects plants from various environmental stresses. It is unlike any other effluent regulated by the EPA for which less is better. Too little carbon dioxide would make life difficult, and in the extreme case, the Earth uninhabitable. That obviously will not be the result of the president’s proposals if implemented. But the large expansion of government power and centralized planning authority inherent in the proposals is not an end to be pursued.
Benjamin Zycher is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
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2)Heritage Foundation's Brookes: Obama Trying to Downplay NSA Leaks
President Barack Obama's dismissal of Edward Snowden as a "29-year-old hacker" not worth scrambling jets to capture is his way of downplaying the damage the young secrets-leaker has caused the nation's intelligence program, a former Defense Department official says.
"It’s three words: 'no drama Obama.' He doesn’t want to make this a big story and he wants to try to push it to the side," Peter Brookes told "The Steve Malzberg Show on Newsmax TV."[Snowden is] not a 29-year old hacker, he’s a 29-year-old spy. The government has charged him with espionage."
The U.S. has been attempting to convince Russia to hand over Snowden, who is reportedly holed up in Moscow, after leaving Hong Kong, where he fled following his leaking of classified information about the National Security Agency's collection of phone and email records.
There has been talk about the possibility the U.S. military could intercept any jet Snowden attempts to use to further elude capture.
But during a news conference in Senegal on Thursday, Obama told reporters, "I’m not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker . . . In terms of U.S. interests, the damage was done with respect to the initial leaks."
That doesn't wash with Brookes, a deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs under President George W. Bush and now a senior fellow in national security affairs for The Heritage Foundation.
"[Obama] doesn’t want people to get excited about it because the U.S. has had its nose tweaked by both the Chinese and the Russians. So he’s just trying to work beyond it," Brooke said.
"The fact of the matter is we've had this tremendous exposure of American intelligence capabilities. We don’t even know the extent of it at this point."
Brookes believes that with Russia and China refusing to cooperate in bringing Snowden to justice, and Ecuador, where Snowden is seeking asylum also balking, the world is thumbing its nose at the U.S.
"This dissing by the international community is the latest example of the waning of our power and influence," he said.
"I mean you think about it, nobody seems to fear the United States anymore . . . The fact of the matter is people aren’t paying attention to our warnings and it’s bad news for us."
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A witness in the George Zimmerman murder trial was forced to admit yesterday that she couldn’t read a letter she supposedly wrote to Trayvon Martin’s mom about his death.
Rachel Jeantel, Martin’s girlfriend, spent more than six hours on the stand, much of it in testy exchanges with defense lawyer Don West.
West asked her to read aloud a March 2012 letter — handwritten in script — that she supposedly wrote and signed with the printed nickname Diamond Eugene.
The letter, in which Jeantel described how she spoke on the phone with Martin, 17, moments before he was shot dead by Zimmerman, was sent to Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton.
“Are you able to read that at all?” West asked.
“Some, but not all. I don’t read cursive,” Jeantel said in a whisper, her head bowed.
The disclosure stunned the courtroom in Sanford, Fla.
In a sharper exchange, West suggested that Martin had attacked Zimmerman, a neighborhood-watch member.
“That’s real retarded, sir!” she said. “You don’t know the person.”
In crucial and often combative testimony Wednesday, Jeantel had said that Martin’s last words over the phone were, “Get off! Get off!” and that he had said he was being followed by a “creepy-ass cracker.”
Yesterday, she said she left that detail out of her earlier accounts because she wanted to spare Fulton’s feelings and because she hadn’t been directly questioned about them.
“Nobody asked me,” she said about why she hadn’t mentioned the racially charged “cracker” remark before.
West also asked if the reason Jeantel didn’t call police after Martin’s phone cut off was because she feared he had provoked the fatal confrontation with Zimmerman in a gated community.
“That’s why you didn’t do anything — because Trayvon Martin started the fight and you knew that,” West said.
“No, sir!” Jeantel shot back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”With
Jeantel was not asked about reports that dozens of embarrassing postings were deleted from her Twitter account Tuesday night, the eve of her testimony.
The Smoking Gun Web site said the tweets included several references to getting high and drunk, a complaint about “jackass lawyers on my ass” and a photo of what was called her “court nails.”
Fulton left the courtroom late yesterday as the prosecution played a recorded 911 call from neighbor Jenna Lauer and questioned Lauer.
She testified she heard “yelling for help” and someone shout “What the hell are you doing?” But she couldn’t tell who was yelling.
3a)Going to Synagogue, With a Punch Line
Maybe Jewish humor is rooted in the incongruity of being chosen—by God and by oppressors.
The fact that comedian Jackie Mason has begun talking about retiring only after nearly a half century in the business is a reminder of how conspicuously Jews have figured in modern comedy. A question also arises: What was a former rabbi doing in that showbiz job to begin with? Did Jackie think the comic was replacing the preacher? And why should Jewish-Americans, from Jack Benny to Jerry Seinfeld, have poured their soul into comedy the way African-Americans did into jazz?
Some Jews may use comedy as a means of reconciling their contradictory roles in history. According to the Hebrew Bible, the children of Israel agreed to be chosen by God of the universe as bearers of his civilizing law. Yet somehow the Jews' exalting and exalted mission resulted in their being targeted by some of the world's most determined aggressors—not once, but persistently, and with escalating intensity to the present day.
Since humor thrives on incongruity, it is perhaps no surprise that Jews should specialize in laughing at the fundamentally incongruous consequence of the divine promise. When a Jew encounters this phrase in the prayer book, "Thou hast chosen us from among the nations," he's likely to wonder: "What do you have against us Jews?" The sardonic query undercuts the pride without altogether erasing it.
Having just written a book on the subject of modern Jewish humor, I was asked by a rabbi whether I located its origins in Jewish theology. I said, "Funny you should ask"—and told him that I was actually beginning to wonder why rabbis seem to be turning to comedy. Following in Jackie Mason's path, Joseph Telushkin, Moshe Waldoks and Bob Alper are all rabbis who work in humor without surrendering their day jobs.
Some rabbis combine the two: My own longtime rabbi, the late Joshua Shmidman, brought down the house with his impersonation of Moses coming down from Sinai with good news and bad news about God's commandments: "The good news: I kept him down to ten. The bad news: adultery stays."
Theological joking is not limited to rabbis. The folk proverb, "God will provide—I just wish he would provide until he provides," juxtaposes encouraging liturgical assurance with discouraging earthly circumstance. The Talmud teaches: "The world rests on three things—learning, prayer, and acts of loving kindness." In my mother's rendition, "the world rests on three things—money, money, and money." This quip she may have picked up from the Yiddish master Sholem Aleichem or from the Yiddish folk repertoire where he originally found it. Nor are such maxims as cynical as you might think, because every deflation echoes the elevated original that remains firmly lodged in the mind of its adapter.
Of course, Jewish humor serves mundane functions as well, including plain old resentment and hostility.
Husband to wife: "When one of us dies, I'm going to move to the Land of Israel."
Borrower to creditor: "May you grow so rich that your widow's second husband won't have to work for a living."
Like any minority, ethnic or religious, Jews also worry about their staying power. The degree of anxiety in Jewish joking fluctuates with the nature and level of the threat against them.
Jewish joking in modern Europe went something like this: A Jew meets a friend who has been badly beaten up. "Who did it?" "A German." "What for?" "I forgot to ask him."
By way of contrast, in an American anecdote a wealthy Jewish widow decides she wants to move up into gentile society and takes coaching lessons in every aspect of decorum until she feels ready to register at a restricted hotel (in the days when such places were more common). On her first foray into the dining room, a waiter serving the martini she has ordered accidentally spills it into her lap. "Oy vey!" she cries—"whatever that means." Here the joke is on the Jew trying to pass in a society where, unlike in Europe, such ambitions have become relatively easy to realize.
In truth, if Jews stand out for their humor, this may be less for its quality, which coarsens wherever Jews grow less knowledgeable of their tradition and religiously less observant, than for its sheer quantity, which continues to reflect, in however attenuated a form, the disparity between confidence in their lofty ancient calling and the anxiety consequent upon the need of others to organize against them.
From the moment that Sarah laughed when told that she and Abraham will conceive a child in their old age, Jews have found humor in the faith and the realism that together define them as a people.
Ms. Wisse, a professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard, is the author of "No Joke: Making Jewish Humor" (Princeton, 2013).
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4)Obama to Save Presidency by Bombing Iran? Round Two
By Daniel Pipes
4)Obama to Save Presidency by Bombing Iran? Round Two
By Daniel Pipes
I wrote an article 3½ years ago, at a low moment in Obama's first term, when his ratings tanked and his party just lost Edward Kennedy's senate seat to a Republican, that usefully suggested that Obama could “salvage his tottering administration” by taking “dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.” He could do well and do good, I offered, by taking out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
Well, as the world knows, he did not follow my advice. But the time has come to crank it out again at a moment when Obama seems close to imploding. As the distinguished historian Andrew Roberts puts it in the July/August issue of the British magazine Standpoint, he is
credibly accused by the internal opposition of serious civil liberties violations, the secret seizure of journalists' phone and email records, the illegal use of the state tax authorities to harass citizens, a full-scale government cover-up over the circumstances of four murders and the “systematic targeting” of news organisations.
… this summer Barack Obama has no fewer than four separate scandals pending, which are collectively referred to as “Obamagate”. Astonishingly, less than a year after his re-election, we may be witnessing the unravelling of the Obama presidency.
Given this background, I propose that (updating my 2010 article) a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama's feckless fifth year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline immigration reform, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon. (June 27, 2013)
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5)
Michelle Smith
Gold bugs should not be worried about the metal's falling price, but Federal Reserve officials should be very concerned, says Jim Rickards, author of "Currency Wars" and senior managing director of Tangent Capital.
While gold prices have dropped over 20 percent since the beginning of the year and gold is down 30 percent from its peak in August 2011, "the fundamental bull case for gold has not changed at all," Rickards told Yahoo.
Rickards proclaimed that the decline in gold prices is more of problem for the Fed than it is for gold bugs.
If you hold the dollar constant, you see the price of gold is dropping, he explained, and when you reverse that, so gold is the constant factor, you see the dollar is getting a lot stronger.
"In other words, a lower dollar price for gold if gold is the constant means the dollar is getting really strong. That's deflationary. That's the Fed's worst nightmare," he told Yahoo.
Last year, the Fed made a historic move when it set an inflation target of 2 percent, but inflation is currently running below that level.
The Fed has shaken up markets with talk of possibly tapering its stimulus programs, but Reuters said some experts wonder if sub-target inflation will actually force the Fed to take a more aggressive approach.
Rickards believes it will, saying that the strong signs of deflation is one reason the Fed will likely have to back away from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's ruminations and either maintain or increase the level of asset purchases.
"If the Fed officials are reading market signals, if they even remember what those are, they should be very concerned about" declining gold prices, Rickards said.
He warned that gold prices are confirmation that the Fed's nightmare is materializing.
"The Fed would like real growth, but if they can't get it they will take nominal growth because debt is nominal," he noted.
"We have nominal debts and we need nominal growth and we're not getting it, or at least we're not getting enough of it," he added.
Not everyone agrees that investors shouldn't be worried about the drop in gold prices.
"You need to re-examine your expectations for the gold market if you're long — you need to stop thinking in terms of crisis and start thinking about where gold was pre-crisis," Tom Kendall, director and head of precious metals research at Credit Suisse, told CNBC.
He points back to the days before unlimited easing, and before rabid fears drove people to believe they needed to seek safety in metals. Back then, gold was trading at $1,100 or $1,150, he noted.
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5)
Rickards: Falling Gold Signals Fed's 'Worst Nightmare'
Gold bugs should not be worried about the metal's falling price, but Federal Reserve officials should be very concerned, says Jim Rickards, author of "Currency Wars" and senior managing director of Tangent Capital.
While gold prices have dropped over 20 percent since the beginning of the year and gold is down 30 percent from its peak in August 2011, "the fundamental bull case for gold has not changed at all," Rickards told Yahoo.
Rickards proclaimed that the decline in gold prices is more of problem for the Fed than it is for gold bugs.
If you hold the dollar constant, you see the price of gold is dropping, he explained, and when you reverse that, so gold is the constant factor, you see the dollar is getting a lot stronger.
"In other words, a lower dollar price for gold if gold is the constant means the dollar is getting really strong. That's deflationary. That's the Fed's worst nightmare," he told Yahoo.
Last year, the Fed made a historic move when it set an inflation target of 2 percent, but inflation is currently running below that level.
The Fed has shaken up markets with talk of possibly tapering its stimulus programs, but Reuters said some experts wonder if sub-target inflation will actually force the Fed to take a more aggressive approach.
Rickards believes it will, saying that the strong signs of deflation is one reason the Fed will likely have to back away from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's ruminations and either maintain or increase the level of asset purchases.
"If the Fed officials are reading market signals, if they even remember what those are, they should be very concerned about" declining gold prices, Rickards said.
He warned that gold prices are confirmation that the Fed's nightmare is materializing.
"The Fed would like real growth, but if they can't get it they will take nominal growth because debt is nominal," he noted.
"We have nominal debts and we need nominal growth and we're not getting it, or at least we're not getting enough of it," he added.
Not everyone agrees that investors shouldn't be worried about the drop in gold prices.
"You need to re-examine your expectations for the gold market if you're long — you need to stop thinking in terms of crisis and start thinking about where gold was pre-crisis," Tom Kendall, director and head of precious metals research at Credit Suisse, told CNBC.
He points back to the days before unlimited easing, and before rabid fears drove people to believe they needed to seek safety in metals. Back then, gold was trading at $1,100 or $1,150, he noted.
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6)House Panel Says IRS' Lerner Waived Rights
The House Oversight Committee voted 22-17 on a resolution Friday stating that Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights when she made an opening statement while appearing before the committee in May.
Lerner is the Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the agency's targeting of conservative and tea party groups applying for non-profit status. She began her testimony before the committee in May by making a statement and then invoking her Fifth Amendment rights.
The committee voted along party lines with Democrats saying the statement had not waived her rights.
Committee chairman Darrell Issa said at the opening of the committee's meeting Friday that Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights when she testified before the committee in May.
"She did so when she delivered an opening statement," Issa said, Fox News reports.
"I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws," she said in her opening statement. "I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee."
Daniel Werfel, the IRS head, asked for Lerner's resignation after following her appearance before the committee. After refusing to resign, she was placed on administrative leave.
Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina concurred with the California Republican's conclusion.
"That's not how the Fifth Amendment works," Gowdy said. "You're not allowed to just say your side of the story . . . She could have sat there and said nothing."
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said that he does want to hear what Lerner knows about the IRS scandal, but he also wants to be careful to "respect the constitutional rights of every witness who comes before this committee," The Washington Times reports.
A Republican staff member who works for the Oversight committee told Politico that they are willing to negotiate with Lerner's attorneys other options such as granting her partial immunity so that her testimony won't be held against her in court.
Politico notes that if Lerner refuses to testify, she could be held in contempt.
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Lerner is the Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the agency's targeting of conservative and tea party groups applying for non-profit status. She began her testimony before the committee in May by making a statement and then invoking her Fifth Amendment rights.
The committee voted along party lines with Democrats saying the statement had not waived her rights.
Committee chairman Darrell Issa said at the opening of the committee's meeting Friday that Lois Lerner waived her Fifth Amendment rights when she testified before the committee in May.
"She did so when she delivered an opening statement," Issa said, Fox News reports.
"I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws," she said in her opening statement. "I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee."
Daniel Werfel, the IRS head, asked for Lerner's resignation after following her appearance before the committee. After refusing to resign, she was placed on administrative leave.
Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina concurred with the California Republican's conclusion.
"That's not how the Fifth Amendment works," Gowdy said. "You're not allowed to just say your side of the story . . . She could have sat there and said nothing."
Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said that he does want to hear what Lerner knows about the IRS scandal, but he also wants to be careful to "respect the constitutional rights of every witness who comes before this committee," The Washington Times reports.
A Republican staff member who works for the Oversight committee told Politico that they are willing to negotiate with Lerner's attorneys other options such as granting her partial immunity so that her testimony won't be held against her in court.
Politico notes that if Lerner refuses to testify, she could be held in contempt.
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