House of Representatives Moves to Reverse President's Executive Order

    On December 28, I broke the story about President Obama's executive order lifting the federal pay freeze that had been in effect for two years. The Washington Examiner is reporting that the House Republicans introduced a bill today to reverse the effects of that order:

House Republicans proposed a bill today that would cut the pay of Vice President Joe Biden and other federal officials, noting that the executive order that President Obama signed to raise their pay costs $11 billion in new spending. 

“The President has once again demonstrated his penchant for unrestrained spending by giving federal employees an across the board pay hike and sticking the rest of us with the $11 billion bill,” Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., the lead sponsor on the bill, said in a statement today. “At a time when the average federal worker compensation is nearly double the median U.S. household income, and attrition from the federal workforce is already at an all-time low, we simply cannot afford this unnecessary and unilateral action by the President.” 

Obama’s executive order raises Biden’s salary $225,521 to $231,900. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, would see an $1,100 raise while the Senate majority and minority leaders would get paid an extra $1,000, according to Fox. “The House and Senate, however, voted down the congressional pay increase earlier this year,” the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee notes.

     Results!

Guns and Executive Action

    Politico is reporting that Joe Biden's task force on gun violence has 19 "executive actions" queued up for consideration by President Obama.  Since an executive action is a unilateral action by the president, the administration will have to walk a fine line in the presentation and implementation of these ideas.  By leaking the number, the issuance of less than 19 will result in speculation about which actions were deemed too extreme to implement or too weak to bother with.  Also, since any of these actions could have been taken at any point in the previous four years, the administration will open itself up to questions about why nothing was done sooner.

    While "executive action" is a rather broad term, the history of "executive orders" and gun control is quite narrow.  The only executive order specifically addressing gun control that my research turn up was issued by Dwight Eisenhower on February 16, 1960:

Executive Order 10863--Authorizing the Attorney General to seize arms and munitions of war, and other articles, pursuant to section 1 of title VI of the act of June 15, 1917, as amended...
Section 1. The Attorney General is hereby designated under section 1 of Title VI of the act of June 15, 1917, as amended by section 1 of the act of August 13, 1953, as a person duly authorized to seize and detain arms or munitions of war or other articles, and to seize and detain any vessel, vehicle, or aircraft containing such items or which has been, or is being, used in exporting or attempting to export such arms or munitions of war or other articles, whenever an attempt is made to export or ship from or take out of the United States such arms or munitions of war or other articles in violation of law, or whenever it is known, or there is probable cause to believe, that such arms or munitions of war or other articles are intended to be, or are being or have been, exported or removed from the United States in violation of law.

     Even this order did not establish a new executive power, but simply designated the attorney general as an authorized person under a previously existing law to seize arms or munitions being illegally imported or exported from the country.  It seems likely that any executive action or order by President Obama would be in the same vein.  On the other hand, for an administration whose previous "executive actions" included allowing illegal guns to end up in the hands of Mexican drug gangs (Fast and Furious,) the president may welcome this opportunity to show he can be tough on guns, even if it means that legal gun owners in the United States bear the brunt of the new sanctions.

Fiscal Cliff Looms! Federal Government Gives Raises! [Updated]

    As the country hurtles toward the fiscal cliff, President Obama signed an executive order cryptically titled "Adjustments of Certain Rates of Pay."  The text of the order on the White House website contains no details, but a copy with the attachments is available at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  A cursory examination of the document seems to indicate that those "adjustments" are generally in an upward direction.  For example, "Rates of Basic Pay for the Executive Schedule." Here are the rates that were effective in 2012, frozen at the 2010 levels:

RATES OF BASIC PAY FOR THE EXECUTIVE SCHEDULE (EX)
RATES FROZEN AT 2010 LEVELS
EFFECTIVE JANUARY 2012
Level I  $  199,700
Level II    179,700
Level III    165,300
Level IV    155,500
Level V    145,700 

    Here are the rates in the just-signed Executive Order:

SCHEDULE 5--EXECUTIVE SCHEDULE
(Effective on the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning after March 27, 2013)
Level I  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $200,700
Level II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  180,600
Level III. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  166,100
Level IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  156,300
Level V  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  146,400

    Not much of an increase, but an increase all the same.  Other raises are included for, among others, foreign service employees, senators, representatives, and even Vice President Biden.

    Combine federal employee raises with tax increases hitting January 1st, increases that reach down to the lowest level of wage earners with the expiration of the payroll tax holiday, and the government might be initiating a winter storm that will make this week's Euclid look like a few flurries.

UPDATE: The website FedSmith.com posted on this yesterday.  Since that blog is targeted at federal employees, the end of the freeze is of course presented as good news:

As most readers know, President Obama proposed a pay freeze on civilian employee pay that was applicable all federal civilian employees. This was way back in 2010. It did not impact pay raises as a result of promotions or within-grade increases but it was good political theater and the move was supposed to save the government money which it has probably done. 

The White House said at the time that the pay freeze would save $2 billion for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, $28 billion over the next five years, and more than $60 billion over the next 10 years. We do not know if that much has or will be saved or if it was political rhetoric in lieu of actual facts. The president noted that  action had to be taken because of “the massive deficits we inherited and the unsustainable fiscal course that we are on. Doing so will take some very tough choices.” 

But, as readers know, the pay freeze is still in effect today and the deficits in the past four years have swamped previous yearly deficits by adding as much as $1.4 trillion in new debt in one year alone. The other three years of Mr. Obama’s presidency have also exceeded more than $1 trillion each year (despite the federal employee pay freeze) due primarily to increased government spending in the past several years. 

But, the good news is that the pay freeze will end in late March.

The reason: A new executive order has been issued providing for a new pay schedule beginning “on the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning after March 27, 2013.” The pay raise will generally be about 1/2 of 1%... 

The legal authority for the new executive order is in the continuing resolution that is currently in effect... 

For those who may also be wondering if Congress could change the pay rates or completely eliminate the pay raise, the answer is that it could be done. However, the change would have to pass both the House and the Senate and, as a practical matter, the Senate has not displayed any independence from the desires of the White House. So any change is unlikely (although not impossible) prior to the effective date. 

After most readers had an extra holiday on Christmas Eve, and with the announcement of a pay raise—even a small one—many of our readers may be looking at the new year with a more positive outlook. 

UPDATE (1/1/13): The House has voted to reject the raises in the president's executive order.

CIA Detention: Executive Order or Executive Suggestion?

    James Taranto, in Today's Best of the Web, explored "The Somali Connection" in the Benghazi affair of September 11, 2012.  He noted that in 2011, The Nation and The New York Times had both run stories about a rumored CIA black site in Mogadishu, Somalia.  As has often been the case over the last four years, the left has treated the Obama administration's foreign policy, especially its anti-terror policies, like a hair in its soup - it's distasteful, even disgusting, but maybe not worth embarrassing the host by bringing it up in front of all the guests.  In keeping with this protocol, the Mogadishu stories received little notice.

    However, given the reports now brought to light by Paula Broadwell's involvement in the festering Benghazi scandal smorgasboard, those 2011 reports of a secret CIA prison may take on new significance.  A sentence that, at the time, received relatively little attention from a Fox News report on October 26th was highlighted by Broadwell in remarks she made that same day at the University of Denver:

According to a source on the ground at the time of the attack, the team inside the CIA annex had captured three Libyan attackers and was forced to hand them over to the Libyans.

    A new Fox News story on Monday of this week clarified and expanded upon this report:

A well-placed Washington source confirms to Fox News that there were Libyan militiamen being held at the CIA annex in Benghazi and that their presence was being looked at as a possible motive for the staged attack on the consulate and annex that night.
According to multiple intelligence sources who have served in Benghazi, there were more than just Libyan militia members who were held and interrogated by CIA contractors at the CIA annex in the days prior to the attack. Other prisoners from additional countries in Africa and the Middle East were brought to this location.
The Libya annex was the largest CIA station in North Africa, and two weeks prior to the attack, the CIA was preparing to shut it down. Most prisoners, according to British and American intelligence sources, had been moved two weeks earlier.

    Taranto notes that a CIA spokesperson swatted down this notion:

The agency issued a categorical denial: "The CIA has not had detention authority since January 2009, when Executive Order 13491 was issued. Any suggestion that the agency is still in the detention business is uninformed and baseless."
Executive Order 13491, issued on President Obama's second full day in office, provides: "The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future."

    Assuming that the CIA's statement is the full denial (as delivered to Eli Lake of the Daily Beast,) perhaps it is not as categorical as it seems.  The denial appears to have been delivered directly to Lake via email or verbally as the text of the denial is not found on any government website.  Skepticism runs high at a denial from any government entity, and one could be forgiven for smelling conspiracy in a denial from the CIA (the "spooks", as those at the CIA are routinely called.)  Note that the statement does not say the "CIA has not had any detention facilities," but rather "has not had detention authority."
The second sentence seems equally cagey, referring to the CIA not being "in the detention business," not that the CIA does not detain.

    Further, the executive order itself seems to leave wiggle room.  As noted above, it says [emphasis added] "CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities."  An email correspondent of mine notes that it is unlikely that this CIA facility in Libya existed in 2009 when the executive order was issued, which is a fair point.  But this Benghazi CIA station could have been established for entirely different purposes originally and was pressed into service later as a detention facility.  Indeed, the executive order acknowledges that CIA detention is not entirely avoidable.  This clause in the executive order further clarifies the detention prohibition:

    (g) The terms "detention facilities" and "detention facility" in section 4(a) of this order do not refer to facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis.”

    So if persons were truly being detained at the Libya facility, it may come down to how far one can stretch "short-term, transitory basis."  As the Fox News story noted, "Most prisoners, according to British and American intelligence sources, had been moved two weeks earlier."  Could this had been an attempt to stay within the "short-term, transitory basis" boundary?

    Even further wiggle room might be found in another executive order issued the same day as the one noted above:

   Sec. 3. Closure of Detention Facilities at Guantánamo. The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order.

    This one even had a (famously unkept) deadline of one year, while the terms of Executive Order #13491 were “as expeditiously as possible.”  An Executive Order does not have the force of law, so if the President has allowed Guantánamo to remain open nearly three years after the date called for in his order, he may have granted a waiver, either explicitly or implicitly, in the matter of CIA detention as well.

    Although I alluded above to a whiff of conspiracy about this whole issue, I generally try to take events at face value.  However, if the CIA felt it needed to publicly deny the detention story for national security purposes, at least the justifications I outlined above might give it cover in a later investigation.  But if the stories turn out to be true, and even worse, as Taranto puts it, the four killed in Benghazi "paid with their lives for Barack Obama's moral and political posturing," the ramifications will surely test the strength of the president's supporters' stomachs.  Finding a hair in the soup is one thing.  Finding a dead rat at the bottom of the bowl is quite another.