This week’s show features a roundtable discussion on Immigration reform, battered Obama and the slow road to legislative shutdown. This episode features The Gazette’s political reporter James Lynch, Quad City Times political writer Ed Tibbetts, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier political writer Jon Ericson and Iowa Lee Bureau Chief Mike Wiser. The show was produced by The [...]

Individual taxpayers are not the only ones bracing for April 15. That’s also the deadline for Iowa school board members to certify their districts’ final fiscal 2014 budgets. This year, administrators are contending with a plethora of unknowns: the impact of federal sequestration, the level of funding from the state and the price of complying [...]

  By Angela Onwuachi-Willig —- President Barack Obama will be inaugurated for his second term on the same day we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, a sign, perhaps, for the country to have a long-needed conversation on race. Unfortunately, I will not have the honor of attending Monday’s historic event, but in January 2009, I [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says “the hour for immediate action is here” on a deal to avert the fiscal cliff. The president says he remains “optimistic” that an agreement can be reached in Congress before a looming year-end deadline to avoid tax increases and spending cuts. If Congress can’t reach a deal, the [...]

  IOWA CITY – Kamil Hodges shook President Barack Obama’s hand this fall. Now the 17-year-old from Iowa City plans to be in Washington, D.C., next month to watch his second inauguration in person. Hodges is one of about 20 teenage members of the Iowa City program known as FasTrac who are going to the [...]

CHICAGO — Zach Bohannon considers himself a staunch Republican. His beliefs are rock-solid and one day he hopes to become President. Bohannon, a Linn-Mar graduate and a junior on the Wisconsin men’s basketball team, argues politics with his teammates, friends, instructors and classmates. But he has an internal debate about his vote in this year’s [...]

Most of President Barack Obama’s speech Wednesday at Cornell College in Mount Vernon was an appeal to supporters and undecided voters, but here’s a check of some factual claims he made: TAX CUTS Obama referred to 18 small-business tax cuts adopted since he took office, a repeat of a claim from Tuesday night’s debate. CNN [...]

IOWA CITY — Two large American flags displayed during President Barack Obama’s Iowa City campaign rally Friday may have been handled in an inappropriate manner. Photographs show two flags appearing to be on the ground — but on a tarp in other photos provided by the Obama campaign — in preparation of the campaign stop, [...]

President Barack Obama touted his plans on a wide-range of issues, including renewable energy and education, in making his case for a second term at an Iowa City rally Friday evening. The president also focused his remarks on the middle class, saying his policies would boost that segment of the population and small businesses. Republicans [...]

CORALVILLE  — On the eve of President Barack Obama’s stop in the liberal stronghold of Iowa City, Republicans weren’t laying out the welcome mat. Instead, they held an event of their own Thursday night, attended by Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee. Priebus criticized Obama and touted the importance of Iowa for Republican [...]