The news Democratic state House speaker Michael Madigan attended two fundraisers for Republican House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner has politicians in both parties saying, "WTF?" more ›

And we're back to Square One in the debt ceiling negotiations as the Senate, as expected, rejected the Boehner debt reduction plan last night. more ›

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner took to the nation's airwaves for the second time in four days to plead their respective proposals for raising the debt ceiling. more ›

President Obama and Congress find themselves in a staredown over debt ceiling negotiations, but the President did find time to announce an end to the ban on gays in the military. more ›

With the House set to vote today on the budget deal that was hammered out last week, the focus and rhetoric in Washington shifted yesterday to the subject of long-term deficit reduction. President Obama unveiled his plan for cutting $4 trillion from the deficit over the next 12 years through a combination of budget cuts, tax hikes on the wealthy, cuts to the Pentagon's budget and reforms to other entitlement programs, with a final goal of reducing spending by three dollars for every dollar of new tax revenue generated. more ›

By coming to terms on a deal to keep the federal government running for the next six months and avoiding a shutdown, both President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner declared victory over the weekend. Obama because he avoided an potentially embarrassing government shutdown with minutes to spare; Boehner because he showed a knack for the Art of the Deal in getting Democrats to agree to more cuts than they wanted. But the deal was merely a temporary respite and sets the stage for a larger budget battle looming in the fall, the implications of which will certainly affect the 2012 elections. more ›

Republican Congressman Peter Roskam, of Wheaton, ascended to the position of chief deputy majority whip this week, the bottom rung of House leadership, making him the number four Republican in congress. While the position is largely concerned with lining up votes on the floor, it also gives Illinois something of a voice in the GOP leadership in Washington. The position has also been a stepping-stone to higher leadership positions in congress. Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois held the position, as did now-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia. Roskam will be working with Dayton congressman and now Speaker of the House John Boehner. more ›

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared on CNN's State of the Union this weekend and made some strong statements in regards to shutting down Guantanamo Bay and moving federal prisoners to a refurbished Thomson Correctional Center in Northwest Illinois. How strong? "I wouldn't vote for this [Thomson] if you put a gun to my head." Yeah, that strong. Boehner also echoed worries expressed previously by U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk that moving prisoners here would increase the terrorist threat level to the U.S. and making Thomson sound like a keg party, saying, "There's no reason to bring these terrorists into the United States, no reason to increase the threat level here because they're here and their friends may want to come." Check out an excerpt below. more ›

Yesterday, Washington and Wall St. descended into chaos as the bailout plan was voted down by the House of Representatives. But why? What happened? Some House Republicans blamed a speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), “I do believe that we could have gotten there today, had it not been for the partisan speech that the Speaker gave on the floor of the House. We put everything we had into getting the vote to get there today.” Here's the speech. Does Pelosi speak the truth? Or is it an unnecessary poke in the eye? And is it really a valid excuse by Republicans? Somehow, we don't see this speech also causing 40 percent of Democrats to vote against the bailout. more ›