Pressuring GOP, Obama takes his fiscal plan to Pa.

REUTERS

President Obama gestures next to Michael Araten, right, President of Rodon, and Joel Glickman, Vice Chairman, at the Rodon Group, a manufacturer of toys in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, Friday.

HATFIELD, Pa. — President Obama argued Friday that allowing taxes to rise for the middle class would amount to a "lump of coal" for Christmas," while Republican House Speaker John Boehner declared that negotiations to surmount a looming fiscal cliff are going "almost nowhere."

Obama took his case to an audience in a Philadelphia suburb, saying that this move would present a "Scrooge Christmas" for millions of wage-earners. Speaking at a toy factory, the president said Republicans should extend existing Bush-era tax rates for households earning $250,000 or less, while allowing increases to kick in for the wealthy.

On Capitol Hill, Boehner argued that Obama's latest offer — to raise revenue by $1.6 trillion over the next decade — would be a "crippling blow" to an economy that is still struggling to find its footing. The Ohio Republican told reporters he would continue working with Obama to avoid hundreds of billions in tax increases and spending cuts that will take effect beginning in January if Washington doesn't act to stop it, but gave a gloomy assessment of the talks so far.

"There's a stalemate. Let's not kid ourselves," Boehner said. "Right now, we're almost nowhere."

Obama's speech came a day after his administration proposed $1.6 trillion in new taxes over 10 years, new spending for the unemployed and struggling homeowners and savings of about $400 billion in entitlement programs like Medicare. The proposal amounts to requests that were already d in Obama's Fiscal 2013 budget plan. Republicans rejected the offer as unreasonable.

Obama said he believed both parties "can and will work together" to reach an agreement to get its long-term deficit under control "in a way that's balanced and is fair."

"In Washington, nothing's easy so there is going to be some prolonged negotiations and all of us are going to have to get out of our comfort zones to make that happen," he said. "I'm willing to do that. I' hopeful that enough members of Congress in both parties are willing to do that as well."

White House officials hoped Friday's trip would build momentum for the president's case, even as Republicans describe the outing as an irritant and an obstacle to fruitful talks. The road trip was part of a dual White House strategy of having the president's team meet with members of Congress while Obama travels the country to pressure Congress to act.

Republicans have said they are open to new tax revenue but not higher rates.

Obama spoke at the Rodon Group manufacturing facility, showcasing the company as an example of a business that depends on middle-class consumers during the holiday season. The company manufactures parts for K'NEX Brands, a construction toy company whose products include Tinkertoy, K'NEX Building Sets and Angry Birds Building Sets.

The president joked that he's keeping his own "naughty and nice list" for members of Congress — and only some would get a K'NEX set for Christmas.

Administration officials said the offer, presented to Hill Republicans by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, constituted much of what Obama has previously suggested in budget proposals.

One new feature in the Geithner plan is a call for increasing the nation's debt limit without the need for congressional approval. Under last year's debt ceiling deal, Obama simply had to notify Congress that he was raising the debt ceiling, a move that could be blocked only if both houses of Congress approved resolutions of disapproval that Obama could veto. The administration wants a permanent extension of the debt ceiling with a similar legislative arrangement and with no offsetting spending cuts, as demanded by Republicans.

"Unfortunately, many Democrats continue to rule out sensible spending cuts that must be part of any significant agreement that will reduce our deficit," Boehner said after meeting with Geithner Thursday.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday that the proposal for $1.6 trillion in tax revenue was presented in context of a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction throughout the campaign.

"This is the way that we can ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little bit more to deal with our deficit challenges," Earnest said aboard Air Force One as Obama flew to Pennsylvania.

"This was what the president has campaigned on for a long time and that was what president pushed for in context of the discussions with House Republicans," Earnest said.

Earnest said the proposal laid out by Geithner should not come as a surprise to anyone. Referring to comments by House Republican staffers who expressed surprise at Geithner's proposal, Earnest said, "This morning I was surprised they were surprised."

Read More..

Banking regulators release Helm Bank’s and Great Eastern Bank’s enforcement actions agreed to in October

Helm Bank USA, based in Miami, signed a consent order with federal and state banking regulators Oct. 17, according to information on October enforcement actions released by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Friday.

Helm Bank must deveop a Bank Secrecy Act compliance plan, implement internal controls and a training program, revise its strategic plan and develop a plan for managing interest rate risk, among other requirements, according to the 19-page consent order.

Banking regulators also modified Miami-based Great Eastern Bank of Florida’s consent order on Oct. 25. The consent order was originally issued in July. The modification includes a requirement that the bank submit a written capital plan to boost its capital and a plan to reduce its classified assets. It must also revise its strategic plan and its plan to improve earnings, and submit a Bank Secrecy Act compliance plan, among other requirements outlined in the 19-page modification.

INA PAIVA CORDLE

Read More..

Email effort fails to end state secrecy

TALLAHASSEE --
Bad news and controversy are routine in the vast state government under Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s control. But don’t look for clues in Project Sunburst, Scott’s program of email transparency.

That’s because Scott doesn’t use email as a primary form of communication, and neither does his top aide, chief of staff Adam Hollingsworth.

Workers at state agencies also are wary of using email to alert Scott’s inner circle (and consequently the media) to impending trouble.

Anyone can access the email of Scott and his top aides at www.flgov.com/sunburst . But if Sunburst was designed to end secrecy in state government, it hasn’t.

“It’s been a disappointment to say the least,” said Barbara Petersen of the First Amendment Foundation, who had high hopes because the search for email from Scott’s office had been costly and time-consuming.

“The manipulation of content and lack of substantive communications — there’s simply not much there of any real value to the public,” Petersen said.

Hollingsworth, who puts a premium on accessibility, said his days are filled with meetings and he has no time to access email. He said Sunburst is a catalyst for better communication in Scott’s office.

“We actually enjoy getting together,” he said. “That sort of interpersonal communication is probably more productive and purposeful than an email system.”

The result is that Sunburst, promoted by Scott as an “open and transparent window into how state government works,” is in reality a vessel for the mundane work of government: meeting notices, routine reports, personnel moves and news releases.

Sunburst is so bland that partisan Democrats, ever eager to find negative material about Scott, pay little attention to it.

“I haven’t had the time, the inclination or the interest,” said Mark Hollis, spokesman for Democrats in the state House.

Hollingsworth and Scott’s communications director, Melissa Sellers, say they do not use private email accounts for official business.

Another of Sunburst’s unfulfilled promises: Scott has not expanded the system to include other agencies under his control as he promised to do “in the coming months” when he launched the system May 3.

Scott himself often poses a question that’s ripe for Sunburst: “Is each program achieving what it is intended to?”

What Sunburst does best is serve as a tip sheet for reporters burrowing deep into the bureaucracy and as an online town square where people air their grievances with Scott on everything from property insurance premiums to President Barack Obama’s policies.

“Overall, I’d rather have it than not have it,” said David Royse, editor of the News Service of Florida.

The brainchild of former Scott chief of staff Steve MacNamara, Sunburst was launched with the promise of unprecedented access to email of Scott and his top aides.

Integrity Florida, a nonpartisan watchdog group, tracks Sunburst daily and finds irregular compliance with Scott’s stated goal of making most messages available within 24 hours.

“That’s not happening,” said Dan Krassner of Integrity Florida.

Integrity Florida also found that some staffers did not comply with Scott’s policy to post emails within seven days of receipt.

Governor’s staff members are responsible for moving their mail to the Sunburst folder. Some email is necessarily delayed to allow time to redact information that is confidential under state law.

As of 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, emails sent to Scott and Hollingsworth were posted within 24 hours, the group said.

But the group found that it had been nine days since any email to Deputy Chief of Staff Chris Finkbeiner was online; 10 days for Sellers; and 14 days for Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll’s chief of staff, John Konkus.

“Sunburst has been just a small burst of sunlight through the big clouds of government secrecy,” Krassner said. “We’d like to see the governor’s office deliver on the original promise of Sunburst and meet the governor’s expectations of 24-hour disclosure.”

Hollingsworth said every employee must obey the Sunburst policy and that every Friday all Sunburst accounts are reviewed to be sure people are complying.

Hollingsworth, who arrived two months after Sunburst, quickly fixed the system’s most embarrassing failure: the posting of pro-Scott emails and the absence of those critical of him. All are now accessible.

Asked if Scott’s people are reluctant to use email to avoid Sunburst’s public glare, Hollingsworth said: “I’m going to leave that for you and others to characterize.”

Conta ct Steve Bousquet at bousquet@tampabay.com or (850) 224-7263.

Read More..

Dear President Obama: My White House petition requires your magical powers

By Chris Wilson

Since President Barack Obama won reelection, the White House website for citizen petitions has received secession requests from all 50 states. In the case of Texas, more than 100,000 people have endured the inconvenience of entering their name and email address in order to support the state’s bid for autonomy. Apparently, in a sign of Americans’ growing distaste for physical activity, 2012 is the year when people stopped threatening to move to a foreign country if their candidate lost the presidency. Instead, they want foreign countries to move to them.

The forum-happy Internet activism crowd has never had a realistic sense of what happens when you to plug government directly into the Ethernet port. This is what happens: In addition to petitions for secession, you get ones calling for Bigfoot to be recognized as an endangered species, naturopathic medicine to be covered by Obamacare, and funding for a Death Star beginning in 2016.

The petition website, called We the People, is not very useful as a guide to what Americans really care about. But it is useful as a guide to how people think of what the government can do, down to the specific words the authors use in the petitions.

Of the 300 most recent petitions, only three request that the government “protect” something—states rights, email privacy, the planet—while seven request that it “recognize” something—same-sex marriage, hate groups, and so forth. Dozens ask that Obama “grant” or “allow” a certain privilege, while only a few suggest he “ban” an action or “prevent” an outcome.

The interactive below arranges the petitions into a tree structure by the principal verb in the title. When you click a blue dot, the tree expands to show all the petitions that begin with that verb. You can mouse over those branches to see the original wording of the petition and search for any word you like by typing a phrase into the box at the top.

 

Bigfoot aside, most of the petitions on the site are earnest. This does not mean they are all sane. About 37,000 people have signed a petition suggesting that it be illegal to offend the prophets of major religions. Another petition demands recognition that Israel is responsible for 9/11—that one with only some 600 signatories.

But many present very good ideas. There’s one for reforming the Electoral College and another that suggests all scientific papers based on taxpayer-funded research should be freely accessible online.

If there is one binding force behind the petitions, it is that most of them request that Obama intercede in matters that he has no authority over or rightful business meddling with, regardless of where one comes down on the subject of big government. While the site is technically designed to lobby the government, most petitions appear personally directed at Obama.

Even the petitions to secede are written in a tone of distinct obeisance: “Peacefully grant the state of Connecticut to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own new government.” Oregon’s petition is particularly careful to specify that there are no hard feelings: “Allow Oregon to vote on and leave the union peacefully and remain an ally to the nation.”

Secession always seemed to me to be something that, by definition, you did without asking permission. (Mutual breakups are as rare in history as they are in love.) But for all the rampant anti-government sentiment in America, many people still believe the president is an omnipotent force who can pass laws on a dime, ban unsavory behavior, manipulate foreign countries with precision, expel citizens at will and otherwise bend the world to his fancy.

This does not mean people love the government. We know they do not. But they still want it to fix their problems with as little trouble as possible.

---

There are some great open-source tools, like Python’s Natural Language Toolkit, that can automatically identify verbs and objects in sentences with fairly high accuracy. But a lot of human intervention is still required to clean up the results. I posted the code for retrieving the petitions from the White House website on my Github page, and the White House offers the full code for the petitions website on its Github page. Questions or comments? Email me at [email protected]
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Margo Martindale Interview Steel Magnolias

Most people learned to love Margo Martindale thanks to her powerful and Emmy-winning turn as Mags Bennett on the second season of FX's Justified.

But the beloved actress first began winning over audiences with the first staging of Steel Magnolias in 1987 when she originated the role of Truvy. Now, she's returning to The Lucille Lortel Theater for a 25th Anniversary reading of Robert Harling classic play (benefiting The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) on December 3 -- although this time, she's tackling the role of Ouiser!

ETonline caught up with Martindale to talk about the 25th Anniversary, what it means to be re-staging this play and what happened when Steel the play met Steel the film and she met Julia Roberts!

ETonline: Is it crazy to you that it's the 25th Anniversary of Steel Magnolias?

Margo Martindale: Well, I must say, I didn't think much of it when they first asked me to do it since I'm not playing my own part. But I read over the script yesterday and sobbed the whole way through. My husband asked, "Why are you crying so much?" And I said "Because this was so much a part of our lives." My daughter was conceived during my last time on stage in New York and she is almost 25.

VIDEO FLASHBACK - Julia Roberts Wins A Golden Globe For Magnolias

ETonline: You are playing Ouiser for the first time. How does that compare to playing Truvy?

Martindale: Honestly, it's not radically different. It's just the flip side. Truvy is so big-hearted and just so funny but sweet. And Ouiser is not. And I think I'm more like Ouiser now than I was like Truvy. So it's kind of perfect.

ETonline: What do you think it is about these women that has kept audiences under their spell for 25 years?

Martindale: I think that originally with the play we didn't know what we had. We played that first show so seriously. It was a serious play and it was all about business. We had no idea it was so funny. When we put it in front of an audience, they just loved it. I think people love it because we were real people, with real feelings and real hearts. That's what people saw in the play and, in turn, I think that's how the movie was made.

ETonline: What did you think of the movie?

Martindale: I was actually doing the national tour of the play when the movie came out. You kind of want to criticize. It was vastly different from the play in that it's so open. The thing that I missed in the movie, which you can't do in a movie,is that in the play, everything takes place in one room. All the emotions were so huge in that room and you couldn't escape it, so you had to confront the pain of the loss of Shelby. I believe that all happened in the cemetery scene, which actually worked beautifully but it was very very different. For anybody who wasn't part of the play or hadn't seen the play first, I think the movie was perfectly beautiful.

PHOTO - Roberts & Field Celebrate Magnolias' Anniversary

ETonline: You've now tackled two roles, is there anyone in Steel you wouldn't want to play?

Martindale: I don't think I'd want to play Shelby or Annelle. I'm soooo not right for it. But all the others I can play I think.

ETonline: You're currently expericning the other side of the coin, working on the cinematic adaptation of August: Osage County. How much of that play has been "movie'd up?"

Martindale: It's beautiful. So beautiful. I think it really retains the spirit of the film. Tracy Letts (who wrote the play) wrote the screenplay so he kept it really close to the play. He's opened up some of it, but most everything takes place in the house. I absolutely loved working with Chris Cooper, Meryl [Streep], Benedict [Cumberbatch], Julia [Roberts]; everybody was wonderful.

ETonline: Did you and Julia ever talk about your shared Steel connection?

Martindale: We talked about it. She was just so sweet about that. She said "Steel Magnolias gave me everything. I owed it to the people
that kept the play going for the movie to be made."

ETonline: I've been a fan of yours for so long, but I'm curious, do you have a role like that? One you feel like "gave you everything?"

Martindale: It was only two years ago, but I do think Justified really changed my career. It made everybody a little more aware of me and what I could do. It also brought me to the public eye and made people more aware of how long I been doing this.

ETonline: You've worked on a lot of shows and played a lot of supporting characters in big films. Is there any character you'd love to revisit in a bigger capacity?

Martindale: Well, I loved Paris, Je T'aime. It's like my top two favorite things I've ever done and I think it was a beautiful. I think it was a perfect seven minute movie, or whatever it was. I don't know how that would work in a bigger movie, but she was an interesting character I would have loved to have been with longer.

For more on The 25th Anniversary reading of Steel Magnolias to benefit The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, click here!

Read More..

US prisons could handle Guantanamo detainees: study

WASHINGTON — The controversial detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be closed and the 166 detainees being held there could be absorbed safely by US prisons, a government report says.

Many of the detainees are accused of plotting terrorist acts against the United States.

"This report demonstrates that if the political will exists, we could finally close Guantanamo without imperiling our national security," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman who released the Government Accountability Office study Wednesday.

The GAO study shows that US prisons already hold 373 prisoners convicted of terrorism in 98 facilities across the country.

"As far as I know, there hasn't been a single security problem reported in any of these cases," Feinstein said. "This fact outweighs not only the high cost of maintaining Guantanamo — which costs more than $114 million a year — but also provides the same degree of security without the criticism of operating a military prison in an isolated location."

The study said there are six Defense Department prisons and 98 Justice Department prisons that could take the detainees, but it does say that existing facilities likely would need to be modified and current inmates may need to be relocated to make room for the new arrivals.

President Barack Obama ordered the closing of the Guantanamo's detention facility when he took office in 2009, but that was blocked by a Republican-led bill that cut off funding to move the detainees to the US The lawmakers cited security concerns, saying the presence of the detainees would encourage terror attacks in the states or cities where they were being held.

Feinstein commissioned the study in 2008 to find out where the detainees could be held, if the White House was able to move ahead with Guantanamo's closure.

Read More..

Miami-Dade pending home sales spiked in October

Despite a dearth of homes and condos on the market in Miami-Dade County, pending sales rose 67 percent in October with 4,172 residential properties going under contract compared with 2,488 a year earlier, according to the Miami Association of Realtors.

The number of pending sales rose 18 percent in October from September.

In a statement, Martha Pomares, chairman of the board of the Miami Association of Realtors, said “The Miami real estate market is poised for another record year that would suprass the all-time sales record set in 2011. Strong demand persists despite the shortage of housing inventory, and listings are increasingly selling at a more rapid pace, driving in significant price appreciation.’’

With strong demand and little on the market, properties are selling for closer to their asking price and sellers aren’t inclined to offer discounts. For October, single-family homes in Miami-Dade sold at 95 percent of the original listing price, while condos went for 97.1 percent of original listing price on average, the Miami Realtors said. In October 2011, single family homes fetched 91 percent of listing price on average and condos got 93.6 percent of listing price.

Pending sales are a forward indicator based on the number of contracts signed over a given period.

Read More..

Convicted al-Qaida recruit Jose Padilla faces resentencing in Miami

Jose Padilla, the convicted terrorist who once called the Fort Lauderdale-area home before joining the ranks of al-Qaida, faces up to life in prison at his resentencing Monday in Miami federal court.

But his defense attorney hopes a judge Wednesday will postpone the sentencing until January, so Padilla can improve his mental health by visiting with family members in the meantime at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami.

Padilla, 42, is serving a 17-year prison at the maximum security prison in Florence, Colo.

“Since his arrest in May of 2002, the government has systematically attempted to destroy Jose by psychologically torturing him and imprisoning him under the severest of conditions,” Federal Public Defender Michael Caruso, who represented Padilla at his 2007 trial, wrote in court papers.

“Not surprisingly, this psychological torture has taken a toll on Jose.”

Federal prosecutors voiced strong opposition to the delay, unless Padilla’s defense lawyer were to request a competency examination of his client.

Last year, a federal appeals court ruled that the one-time “enemy combatant” — perhaps better known as the “dirty bomber” — should receive harsher punishment reflecting his extensive criminal record.

The appellate court found that U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke was too lenient when she “unreasonably discounted” his criminal history before lowering a potential 30-year-to-life sentence.

Padilla, born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, was a former Chicago gang member with 17 arrests and a murder conviction before becoming a recruit for al-Qaida, according to federal prosecutors.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sent the controversial case back to Cooke to resentence Padilla, who trained with al-Qaida the year before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to trial evidence.

Caruso appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying Cooke “imposed a fair and reasonable sentence.” But the high court declined to hear his petition.

The appeals court in Atlanta, in a 2-1 ruling, upheld the terrorism convictions of Padilla and two others: Adham Amin Hassoun, a Palestinian who had met him at a Broward mosque in the 1990s; and Hassoun’s colleague, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, a U.S. citizen of Jordanian descent. They were sentenced to 15 years and eight months, and 12 years and eight months, respectively.

All three defendants, convicted of conspiring to support Islamic extremists overseas, sought a new federal trial based on claims of improper testimony by the lead FBI agent and a terrorism expert, along with insufficient evidence and other allegations. Padilla also challenged Cooke’s decision to reject a motion to dismiss his indictment based on “outrageous government conduct” while the former enemy combatant was held in a Naval brig before his transfer to Miami to face terrorism charges in 2006.

Padilla was held without being charged in the South Carolina brig for 3 1/2 years — time that the Miami judge cut from his sentence.

The appellate court, in an opinion written by Chief Judge Joel F. Dubina and joined by Judge William H. Pryor, sided with the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami. Prosecutors, who were seeking life imprisonment for Padilla, appealed Cooke’s 17-year sentence. They argued the judge’s prison term was 13 years below the low end of sentencing guidelines — 30 years.

The appellate court wrote that Cooke’s punishment “reflects a clear error of judgment about the sentencing of this career offender.” The court noted that his codefendant, Hassoun, had no prior criminal history but received a sentence that was “only” 20 months less than Padilla’s.

Cooke “attached little weight to Padilla’s extensive criminal history, gave no weight to his future dangerousness, compared him to criminals who were not similarly situated, and gave unreasonable weight to the condition of his pre-trial detention,” Dubina wrote.

In a dissent, Appellate Judge Rosemary Barkett countered that Padilla’s sentence “should not be disturbed.” Barkett said “doing so simply substitutes sentencing judgment for that of the trial judge” with the inherent authority.

Read More..

Lucy Hale Pretty Little Liars Interview Duracell Event

We're less than six weeks away from the Pretty Little Liars season premiere, and to help make the wait pass faster, I caught up with star Lucy Hale to talk all about season 3B!

RELATED - 10 Best Dressed TV Stars

We met up at P.S. 64 in NYC where Hale had partnered with the Duracell Power Holiday Smiles program, benefiting Toys for Tots, to gift the students with some early Christmas presents ... batteries included!

VIDEO - First Look at PLL's Season Premiere

In addition to watching the kids freak out upon seeing the adorable actress, Hale revealed the best Christmas present she's ever gotten and told me that fans can expect a drastically different tone in the 2013 episodes of Pretty Little Liars! Watch!

Pretty Little Liars premieres January 8 at 8 p.m. on ABC Family, and for more information on the Duracell Power Holiday Smiles program, click here!

Read More..

Sen. Susan Collins says she needs more information before she could consider backing Susan Rice for Secretary of State

WASHINGTON — A moderate Republican senator crucial to any White House hopes of getting UN Ambassador Susan Rice confirmed as secretary of state said Wednesday that there are still lingering unanswered questions about the deadly Sept. 11 attack in Libya.

Emerging from a 95-minute, closed-door meeting with Rice, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she would need more information before she could consider backing the ambassador if President Barack Obama tapped her to succeed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

At issue is Rice's much-maligned explanation for the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. In a series of talk show appearances, Rice blamed the attack on a spontaneous demonstration to an anti-Muslim video rather than terrorism.

AP

Sen. Susan Collins today

"I still have many questions that remain unanswered," Collins told reporters after the meeting. "I continue to be troubled by the fact that the UN ambassador decided to play what was essentially a political role at the height of the contentious presidential election campaign by agreeing to go on the Sunday shows to present the administration's position."

Collins stopped short of saying she would try to block a nomination as Sens. Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte have said they would do.

But in a clear message to the White House, Collins said that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., would have a smooth path to confirmation if Obama chose him over Rice for the State Department job.

In back-to-back meetings, Rice met with Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who is in line to become the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Corker declined to say whether he would support Rice or not, but was highly critical of the intelligence apparatus and the administration.

"The whole issue of Benghazi has been a tawdry affair," Corker told reporters after his 90-minute session with Rice and acting CIA Director Michael Morell.

Pressed on a possible nomination, Corker said he will decide when Obama announces his choice, but he made it clear that the president should carefully weigh the decision.

"I would just ask that the president step back away from all of the buzz around this particular situation, take a deep breath and decide who is the best secretary of state for our country," Corker said.

The meetings with Collins and Corker marked the second straight day of private sessions for Rice as she tries to quell the uproar over her initial assessment of the Benghazi raid. Rice answered questions Tuesday from Sens. John McCain, Graham and Ayotte about her explanations about the cause of the September attack.

Read More..