“Once people really look at the whole system and how it works, looking at one thing as a trigger is not the way to go,” Napolitano says. But conservatives may demand inclusion in bill.

Image by Win McNamee / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Tuesday questioned the notion of creating a border security "trigger" as part of comprehensive immigration reform, arguing it would not be appropriate to link addressing the status of the 11 million undocumented workers in the country to any one metric.

"Once people really look at the whole system and how it works, looking at one thing as a trigger is not the way to go," Napolitano told reporters during a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor

"The key thing is to have border sec in the bill, to open up legal migration more than it is, deal with employers and then to have certainty for the 11 million that are here … to come out of the shadows," the former Arizona governor said.

The idea of a border security trigger has become increasingly popular among conservatives who back a comprehensive approach to immigration reform, particularly Sen. Rand Paul, who has called for a system under which Congress would have to verify that the border is secure before undocumented workers could begin the process of legalization and, eventually, citizenship.

But Napolitano said that finding a single metric for determining whether the border is secure is not possible and that a more complex view of the situation is needed.

"We're confident that the border is as secure as it's ever been," Napolitano said, arguing that "there's not just one number. Border security encompasses a lot of things."

$60,000 of taxpayer money was spent on this Star Trek parody IRS employee training video — here's what America got in exchange.

Watch the IRS Star Trek training video.

"Space: the final frontier
These are the voyagers of the Starship Enterprise Y
Its never-ending mission is to seek out new tax forms
To explore strange new regulations
To boldly go where no government employee has gone before."

Image by CBS / YouTube

A six-minute Star Trek parody filmed by the Internal Revenue Service has landed the agency in hot water with Congress and sparked outrage from American taxpayers, who footed the bill for the $60,0000 "training video."

The Star Trek skit, along with another video parodying Gilligan's Island, were filmed at the IRS's television studio in Maryland for a 2010 training and leadership conference. CBS News filed a Freedom of Information request asking for the videos after the IRS refused to turn them over to the House Committee on Ways and Means. The agency released the video to the network on March 22nd.

"Taxpayers are furious about this," House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) told Fox News on Monday. "I'm furious about it. You know, the IRS has come to us repeatedly wanting more resources to hire more people, claiming they cannot do their job, they -- you know, they need more resources, and yet they do something really outrageous like this, which is a complete waste."

"The IRS recognizes and takes seriously our obligation to be good stewards of government resources and taxpayer dollars," the agency said in a statement to the Associated Press. "There is no mistaking that this video did not reflect the best stewardship of resources."

American taxpayers may find it hard to watch the whole video. These GIFs present the highlights of the $60,000 parody.

An animated IRS spaceship resembling a flying brick.

Image by Ellie Hall/Buzzfeed

Characters and a set from Star Trek: The Original Series and uniforms from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Image by Ellie Hall/Buzzfeed

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Despite criticism from Republicans, DHS has “gotten what I believe to be very, very goods results from a security and a law enforcement perspective,” Napolitano says.

Image by The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano Tuesday brushed off criticism of the Obama administration's decision to try high-profile terrorism suspects in the United States, arguing the courts have the expertise to handle the trials and that the suspects have been properly interrogated before their day in court.

The decision to try Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith — the son-in-law of Osama Bin Laden — and other terror suspects has reignited a decade-old fight over whether terrorists should stand trial in civilian courts or be taken to Guantanamo Bay where they can be interrogated at length before facing a military tribunal.

For instance, in a statement following the indictment of Harun, Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte harshly criticized the administration, arguing in a joint statement they had "undermined our nation's intelligence collection efforts and made our country less safe."

"When we place individuals like Harun and Sulaiman abu Ghayth in our civilian legal system, read them their Miranda Rights, and focus on prosecution rather than intelligence collection, we miss valuable information that will prevent future attacks," the senators added.

But during a breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, Napolitano rejected those concerns.

"We have a variety of techniques, excellent ways to get whatever intel individuals have and have to share. Quite frankly we've tried a number of terror suspects in [civilian] courts, particularly the southern district of New York. There's an expertise, a real expertise that's been developed there. They've actually done more trials there than at Gitmo and they have gotten what I believe to be very, very goods results from a security and a law enforcement perspective," Napolitano said.

The former Arizona governor argued that DHS' multi-agency "high value intelligence group" has adequate capabilities to secure the sort of intelligence from suspects that can help prevent future attacks and locate suspects.

"Let's say you arrest or find someone who's been active in the bomb making field, part where aviation is concerned, we'd want to know what he learned, where he learned it, how he did it how he would do it so we can identify how we'd find it and translate that into something that a TSA screener or someone screening at the last point of departure in the united states would recognize … something that could be translated into actual actionable" intelligence, Napolitano said.

After the oral arguments end, Ted Olson refuses to read the tea leaves.

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If a congressman's official website is hosted on blogspot, he may not be a real congressman.

At 8:13 a.m. — hours before the oral arguments in the Supreme Court's Proposition 8 case began — this tweet attributed to a Rep. Jack Kimble, a Republican from California's 54th district, was sent.

Source: @RepJackKimble

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In the landmark case, justices appear unsure whether it should even have reached the Supreme Court.

Image by Chris Geidner/Buzzfeed

WASHINGTON — Several justices of the Supreme Court appeared unlikely Tuesday to be prepared to rule now on the broad issue of whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, although their reasoning was varied in the nearly 90 minutes of arguments that took place.

The court is considering whether the voters of California had the right, under the U.S. Constitution, to vote in 2008 to amend their state's constitution to ban same-sex couples from marrying. The case was brought by two same-sex couples who wish to marry in California.

The lawyer for the proponents of Proposition 8, Charles Cooper, argued that the question before the justices is "whether the court should stop this democratic debate" taking place throughout the country about same-sex couples' marriage rights. He also argued repeatedly that allowing same-sex couples to marry would "sever" marriage from its purpose of encouraging what he terms "responsible procreation."

Theodore Olson, representing the two same-sex couples, argued in response that the court has repeatedly held that marriage is an "individual right" that is constitutionally protected and, accordingly, Proposition 8's effect to "wall[ ] off gays and lesbians from marriage" is unconstitutional.

Justice Elena Kagan directly posed that question to Cooper, saying of Cooper's procreation rationale for marriage, "You have sort of a reason for not including same-sex couples. Is there any reason that you have for excluding them?"

Cooper responded that it is "impossible to see the future to know what the consequences" would be, but that allowing same-sex couples to marry could diminish the purpose for marriage, as the proponents see it.

Several justices were skeptical of Cooper's arguments. Justice Elena Kagan asked whether it would be constitutional to ban marriage for couples over the age of 55, and Ginsburg noted that the court had ruled in Turner v. Safely that someone in prison still maintains the right to marry.

Justice Antonin Scalia, however, appeared at times to support Cooper's argument, noting at one point that there was "considerable disagreement among sociologists" about the "possible deleterious effect" on children of same-sex couples being allowed to marry. Justice Samuel Alito chimed in at one point noting that same-sex couples being allowed to marry is "newer than cell phones or the internet."

Justice Anthony Kennedy, however, shot back by asking Cooper whether the "voice of the[ ] children" of same-sex couples "is important in this case," to which Cooper responded that there is "no data" on whether children of same-sex domestic partners face disadvantages from those of married same-sex couples.

Roberts also questioned Olson's characterization of the situation as being one in which gay couples were excluded from marriage, noting that the advent of same-sex couples seeking marriage rights came second and that the institution wasn't "developed" to exclude gay couples.

More than the question of Proposition 8's constitutionality, however, several justices — including Kennedy, often considered a key swing vote on the court — questioned the lawyers at length about whether the initiative's proponents even had the legal right to bring the appeal, called standing.

Because the state's governor and attorney general declined to defend the law when the lawsuit was brought in 2009, the initiative's proponents sought and were given permission to defend it at the trial-court level. When they lost, they appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. At that level, they lost again — although on more narrow grounds — and sought review by the Supreme Court, which was granted in Dec. 2012.

Beyond the standing question, which drew skeptical questions from almost all of the justices, Kennedy at a later point went further and asked Olson whether the court was even correct to have accepted the case for review in the first place. When Justice Sonia Sotomayor raised the question to Cooper, Scalia shot back that the court had already accepted the case: "We crossed that river."

Scalia took strong aim at the merits of Olson's arguments, asking when it became unconstitutional to exclude same-sex couples from marriage. When Olson responded that there's "no specific date," Scalia shot back, "That's the problem." The two continued an exchange that went back and forth several times, with Olson maintaining that the court had never made such a requirement in prior cases.

When Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., the Obama administration's top lawyer before the Supreme Court, took to the podium, he faced a skeptical bench of justices. The administration's argument, that a state like California that extends almost all the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples has no constitutional reasoning for excluding them from marriage, prompted probing questions from Ginsburg, who characterized the argument as "a state that has made considerable progress must go all the way," while a state that has done nothing might receive more constitutional protection.

Justice Stephen Breyer joined in, noting that "a state that does nothing hurts gay people more."

Verrilli responded that the administration is "not prepared to close the door" on the arguments to be made in those states, but — noting their argument that laws like Proposition 8 that classify people based on sexual orientation should be subjected to additional scrutiny by the courts — added, "I don't want to kid about this: That would be a very high burden to meet."

Earlier in the arguments, in response to a question from Sotomayor, Cooper had conceded that, outside of marriage, he could not think of any rational basis for treating homosexuals differently under the law.

The justices will be hearing a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex couples' marriages, on Wednesday and are expected to issue a decision in both cases by late June.

Correction: A question from Justice Elena Kagan — "You have sort of a reason for not including same-sex couples. Is there any reason that you have for excluding them?" — initially was attributed to Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments and discussed the Proposition 8 case, Hollingsworth v. Perry , on Tuesday.

Image by Stringer / Reuters

The transcript:

Attorney Charles Cooper argues for supporting California's Proposition 8 in the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, March 26, 2013.

Image by Stringer / Reuters

The full audio:

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Steve Gunderson, a Republican Congressman was famously outed by another Republican member of Congress in a personal attack. “Why must we attack one element of our society for some cheap political gain? Why must we pursue the politics of division, of fear, and of hate,” Gunderson said in an impassioned speech against DOMA in 1996.

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He recently gave a statement to United for Marriage on why he opposed the law:

Via: facebook.com

It wasn't that long ago.

Image by The Messenger-Inquirer, Gary Emord-Netzley / AP

Last week, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out in support of same-sex marriage tying her support to her service as secretary of state in a video for the Human Rights Campaign. Clinton followed in the footsteps of her husband, who four years earlier announced his own support same-sex marriage, and regret for signing the Defense of Marriage Act into law.

But as late as the 2004 presidential election, Clinton was advocating that John Kerry support local gay marriage bans to pick off Bush votes in red states according to reports from Newsweek and political consultant Bob Shrum.

"Clinton, Kerry reported at the time, did suggest blunting Bush's appeal to cultural conservatives with a reprise of Clinton's Sister Souljah moment in 1992 when he'd denounced her call for violence against whites — and done it as conspicuously as possible in front of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition," Shrum wrote in his 2008 book No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner.

"Kerry, Clinton ventured, should consider defying Democratic interest groups by endorsing the Bush proposal for a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage."

Shrum added that it was "this was a flip-flop too far for Kerry."

A Clinton spokesman denied the reports to the New York Times saying it was "completely false."

But Shrum stood by the account in an email to BuzzFeed saying "I entirely stand by what I wrote."

And as the Supreme Court hears two potentially historic cases for same-sex marriage rights this week, Clinton's own legacy in hangs in the balance.

“I think we've seen in recent history that there's ample reason to be cautious,” says Carney.

White House press secretary Jay Carney speaks during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March, 12, 2013.

Image by Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

WASHINGTON — Jay Carney had a message for the Supreme Court observers engaged in rampant speculation after oral arguments on gay marriage Tuesday: remember the health care case.

Many top legal analysts predicted Obama's health care law was all but kaput after Supreme Court oral arguments on its constitutionality. Despite the confident predictions of a loss for Obama, the Court ruled in the White House's favor last summer. Without directly mentioning that ruling Tuesday, Carney clearly hinted at large-scale prognostication fail when asked what he thought of the oral arguments about California's Proposition 8.

"I would wait. I think we've seen in recent history that there's ample reason to be cautious about predicting outcomes in Supreme Court cases based on any particular piece of the puzzle, in this case, oral arguments," he said. "So I'll keep my own caution and not engage in that."

Carney said Obama had been briefed on Tuesday's arguments case, and said top adviser Valerie Jarrett and and White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler were on hand for the oral arguments. Carney also reaffirmed Obama's belief that marriage rights should be extended to same-sex couples.

Or just closing his eyes? Important questions out of Doha.

Via: english.alarabiya.net

WASHINGTON — A picture has been circulating online of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi appearing to sleep during the Arab League summit in Doha, Qatar, setting off a flurry of mocking tweets — though it's just as possible Morsi was simply caught blinking.

Al-Arabiya and the Saudi Gazette have reported on the photo, which shows Morsi and other members of the Egyptian delegation with their eyes closed during the opening session of the summit, where the conflict in Syria, represented at the conference by the opposition, is expected to be a premier issue.

The photo has set off some debate on Twitter over whether Morsi was sleeping, and what it means if he was.

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An outside group's stance gets printed verbatim on congressional letterhead. This would have never worked in high school English class.

Image by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The cozy dynamic between Capitol Hill lawmakers and lobbyists is well-known and unsurprising — but lawmakers typically exert the energy to at least make a lobbying firm's pitch look like their own.

Not so with Rep. Phil Gingrey who, in a letter to the federal Department of Health and Human Services, used the exact same phrasing that showed up in another letter signed by Rep. John Barrow and other House Republicans.

The letters both originated with America's Health Insurance Plans, a group that, among other priorities, wants to prevent cuts to spending on Medicare Advantage.

Other lawmakers were more creative with their letters backing that cause: Sen. Orrin Hatch and Reps. Dave Camp and Fred Upton reworded their message, and they even added bullet points to diverge from the form letter.

All received press-release nods for their written support — however unoriginal.

Gingrey's office did not respond to a request for further comment.

BuzzFeed asked Republican Sen. Susan Collins's spokesman if her views have changed on DOMA and marriage equality. The two-paragraph response left the questions unanswered.

Image by T.J. Kirkpatrick / Getty Images

As the Supreme Court hears arguments in two landmark marriage equality cases, BuzzFeed reached out to Maine Sen. Susan Collins — a moderate Republican whose views on the issue may be ripe to change — to see where she stands.

BuzzFeed asked Collins's office to clarify if she opposed DOMA or supported marriage equality. Spokesman Kevin Kelley responded with a lengthy statement without a direct answer to either question.

Here's Kelley's statement:

DOMA was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, before Senator Collins was elected to Congress. Since that time, in 2004 and 2006, Senator Collins twice voted against amendments to the United States Constitution that would have banned same-sex marriages by pre-empting state laws. Senator Collins believes this matter is best left up to the states, which have traditionally handled family law, and increasingly, the voters of states are choosing to legalize same-sex marriages as Maine did last fall.

Recognizing that LGBT Americans should be protected from discrimination, Senator Collins has led efforts in Congress to extend federal benefits to gay men and women and their families. She has authored legislation that would extend benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees, bringing the employment practices of the federal government in line with those of most large employers. She has cosponsored legislation that would prohibit discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Most recently, Senator Collins became the first Republican in the Senate to cosponsor legislation to update U.S. immigration law to permit American citizens to sponsor same-sex permanent partners applying for legal residency in the United States, and she joined Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in introducing a bipartisan bill that would prevent discrimination against lesbian and gay citizens during the federal jury selection process.

Controversy over who really shot bin Laden.

The demolished compound of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Image by Aqeel Ahmed / AP

WASHINGTON — The author of the Esquire article that told the story of the Navy SEAL who purportedly shot Osama bin Laden said he stands by his story despite allegations in CNN and elsewhere that it is not the true version of events.

"Esquire I think has put out a statement that the story was based on information from numerous sources including members of SEAL Team 6 and the shooter himself, and we stand by our story," said Phil Bronstein, the executive chairman of the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Bronstein said he didn't want to be "embroiled in other discussions about it. CNN offered to have me on and I declined." He declined to comment further.

Accusations that the protagonist of Bronstein's story is not credible were pushed into the spotlight Tuesday by a CNN story by Peter Bergen that quotes another member of SEAL Team 6 who calls the Esquire story's version of events "complete B.S." It isn't explicitly clear in Bergen's story what role this SEAL played in the raid.

A post on the blog SOFREP disputed the story last week. The blog is run by former Navy SEAL Brandon Webb, who quoted anonymous sources saying that the Shooter of Bronstein's story is not the real story, and that he has been profiting financially from positioning himself as bin Laden's killer.

Gawker's Adrian Chen wrote on Tuesday that "for now the Esquire story appears to have been too good to be true."

A claim in Bronstein's story that the Shooter had lost access to health care after leaving the SEALs was found not to be true shortly after its publication in February and a correction was added.

The Supreme Court's swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, had a lot to say today. Spoiler alert: Outcome unclear.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, second from left, often is the pivotal swing vote on the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan attend President Barack Obama's State of the Union address.

Image by Pool photo by Charles Dharapak/AP via Abaca Press/MCT

WASHINGTON — After Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing on California's Proposition 8 marriage amendment, the justices appear to be split and, as expected, the key vote will likely come down to Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito suggested that they don't agree with the arguments that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional — in which they are likely joined by the silent-as-usual Justice Clarence Thomas. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, meanwhile, all signaled discomfort with the defense of Proposition 8. So, all eyes have turned to Kennedy, often the pivotal swing vote on the Supreme Court.

True to form, the swing vote has sent mixed messages.

The first issue the justices faced was standing, a constitutional requirement that the person bringing an appeal can show a particular interest in the outcome of the case. On that front, Kennedy initially suggested that he could see the proponents of Proposition 8 having standing to bring the appeal. But, then later he said there was a "substantial question" about standing.

On the main question of whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, Kennedy suggested he thought that such a ruling would be a bit ambitious, telling Ted Olson, the lawyer for the same-sex couples who brought the lawsuit, "[Y]ou're really asking ... for us to go into uncharted waters, and you can play with that metaphor, there's a wonderful destination [or] it is a cliff."

At the same time, Kennedy made clear that he saw potentially harmful effects from not allowing same-sex couples to marry, telling Charles Cooper, the lawyer for the proponents, at one point:

"[T]here is an immediate legal injury or legal — what could be a legal injury, and that's the voice of these children. There are some 40,000 children in California, according to the ... [b]rief [of the same-sex couples challenging Proposition 8], that live with same-sex parents, and they want their parents to have full recognition and full status. The voice of those children is important in this case, don't you think?"

When the justices meet later this week to discuss the case, Kennedy's eight colleagues will find out what he is thinking.

For the rest of the country, the wait could last until the end of June, when the court's final opinions of the term are handed down.

Until then, here is everything Kennedy said at Tuesday's arguments.

When questioning Cooper, Kennedy suggested the proponents are uniquely situated, which could be part of a holding that they have standing.

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“We are Americans, we just want to be treated like everybody else. That’s a compelling argument.”

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He apologizes, again , for the Paula Broadwell affair. “This has obviously been a very difficult episode for us … [to] fall as far as I did.”

Former Army Gen. David Petraeus spoke at an annual dinner for veterans and ROTC students at USC on Tuesday — his first speech since resigning as CIA director in November over an extramarital affair with his biographer.

Image by Reed Saxon / AP

At the beginning and end of his remarks, Petraeus expressed remorse for the scandal. His wife, Holly, was not in attendance.

Image by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Image by AFP/FREDERIC J. BROWN / Getty Images

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Guess which network was the least interested. Three very different approaches to a historic day.

MSNBC devoted 376 minutes to the first day of the Supreme Court hearing arguments about gay rights in America.

CNN had 159 minutes of coverage.

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A new survey finds most Americans think corporate leaders should keep their opinions to themselves. MTV and News Corp. are rated most partisan.

Corporations have more to lose than to gain by getting involved in politics — but many of them have clear political identities in the public eye anyway, according to a new survey by a Democratic consulting firm.

And a company's political identity can be shaped less by executives' statements and campaigns than by its place in the broader culture, according to the Global Strategy Group survey of 806 American adults. Whole Foods Markets, whose CEO campaigned against ObamaCare, remains perceived as one of the most Democratic companies in the country.

The survey found that more than half of Americans think it is wrong for corporations to meddle in politics that do not have much to do with their core business, and large majorities say they do not want companies taking positions on social issues like abortion and marriage, or encouraging workers to vote for a specific candidate.

The survey, conducted through an online panel of the sort increasingly used in market research, did find a few exceptions to the general rule about avoiding politics, in particular when a corporation can please one group while flying under its enemies' radar.

"If a statement is targeted in the right way and in tune with the right constituency, this can have a positive impact on a corporation's reputation," the report suggests. "Of all the corporate stances tested, Nordstrom reaped the greatest benefit with 42% of the public perceiving the corporation more favorably as a result of its stance on benefits for same-sex partners (compared to just 24% who viewed it less favorably)."

People surveyed also have little problem with corporations pushing directly for their own interests. A full 83% of the poll's respondent's, for instance, said that Coca-Cola's opposition to the ban on the sale of large sodas in New York City (couched in the language of "choice") was "appropriate."

The survey also suggests — though it's a bit hard to disentangle correlation and causation here — that the companies viewed as most political are also the least favorably viewed, as they've made themselves a group of enemies, as well as passionate admirers. News Corp., which owns Fox News, seems to find itself in that category; however, other companies the survey finds are unpopular are probably suffering for other reasons — Wells Fargo for its role in the mortgage crisis, for instance.

The survey's broader findings offer a road map to companies on which political activities can favor them — and, of course, include a tacit sales pitch for firms like the Global Strategy Group, which conducts polls and other research:

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If Karen Handel runs, Tom Price won't, Georgia politics insiders say. And vice versa.

Image by J. Scott Applewhite / AP

WASHINGTON — As Republican Rep. Tom Price continues to weigh whether he will run for Senate in Georgia, another Georgia Republican's decision might prove the tipping point.

Among Price's considerations is whether Karen Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state whom Price endorsed for governor in 2010, will seek the Senate seat.

"Karen would like to run and is making calls to lay the ground work for it," said Joel McElhannon, a prominent Georgia Republican strategist. "But they won't run against each other. She has lots of good options as well."

There has been some speculation that Handel could seek Price's seat in Congress should he run for Senate.

But so far, Handel is not acting like someone running for Congress.

On Monday night, Handel made the rounds with her husband at the annual Presidents Day Dinner held by Georgia Republicans, according to one Republican in attendance. And last week, a local news station interviewed Handel at a barbecue in Ellijay, Ga. — nearly 60 miles from Price's district.

Meanwhile, Price is keeping tight-lipped about his own plans.

"From what I have heard from these candidates and some close to them, Tom is still seriously considering it," said Joel McElhannon, a prominent Georgia Republican strategist. "He feels no pressure to make a quick announcement and is carefully considering it. He has lots of options."

As Handel and Price weigh bids, the Republican primary field is already beginning to take shape: Rep. Paul Broun announced early on that he would seek the Senate seat, and Rep. Phil Gingrey will officially declare his bid Wednesday.

A restless political class has stirred chatter that Price could forego running for the Senate in favor of staying in the House, where he holds a prominent position on the House Budget Committee.

But allies insist that his status is still fluid.

"He's indicated numerous times...that he intends to make a decision in May after the fiscal negotiations have wrapped up in the House," said one Price aide. "Any rumors to the contrary are just that."

Price met with the officials at the National Republican Senatorial Campaign committee last week, the aide confirmed, a reliable indicator that he remains serious.