During the late 1980s, I was working as an officer in the Iraqi army when my commanding general received a letter that demanded I report...
Get the full story >>America's big banks, among others, that helped send us spiraling into the Great Recession are at it again. They're warning of even more dire...
Get the full story >>First of all, let's explain why the serial comma is important to some people. A blog on economist.com cites an apocryphal example: "I'd like...
Get the full story >>Washington -- A debt crisis is a terrible thing to waste in a presidential election season, and Democrats and Republicans alike are...
Get the full story >>Look, now even the air show's being scaled back due to budget cuts.
Get the full story >>"Enough is enough. … This shouldn't be about positioning in politics, and I'll see you all tomorrow."
Get the full story >>A lot of conservatives are having fun at President Barack Obama's expense after his latest gaffe. In the midst of testy debt-limit...
Get the full story >>To watch Diane Sawyer's interview Sunday night with Jaycee Dugard was to wonder at times if that was Dugard herself on screen or an...
Get the full story >>With the fiscal fate of the nation hanging in the balance, it's hard to fathom why congressional legislators are acting like kindergartners....
Get the full story >>The unseemly love affair some American politicians have with the death penalty is bad for justice and bad for our country's standing in...
Get the full story >>It's amazing what you can get over the Internet — even a DNR. I live 1,500 miles away from my 95-year-old mother, yet I can access the...
Get the full story >>When it comes to sexual relationships and cohabitation among consenting adults, Utah takes a permissive approach. If a guy wants to shack up...
Get the full story >>"President (Bashar) Assad is not indispensible, and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power."
Get the full story >>President Barack Obama needs to get Eric Cantor out on a golf course — and bury him up to his chin in a sand trap.
Get the full story >>It is with a mixture of outrage and envy that an old-school newspaper veteran like me views Great Britain's newspaper hacking scandal.
Get the full story >>You can relax now, America. The Obama administration would like you to know that unemployment won't be a factor in your 2012 presidential...
Get the full story >>Tribune editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis will create an original sketch each Wednesday...
Get the full story >>If Americans had regarded frontier exploration in the early 1800s with the same indifference that they view the manned space program,...
Get the full story >>Every few months, commentators find a new grand strategy that animates Barack Obama. First he was the antiwar candidate, because his rise in...
Get the full story >>Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, like many convicted felons awaiting sentencing, is in a box: When addressing the court he will need to...
Get the full story >>Whatever you do, don't use my name, said the 83-year-old widow, and the fear in her voice was palpable.
Get the full story >>Politicians often rail against government spending, except when it goes to the military. Conservatives believe there is no such thing as too...
Get the full story >>As much as I tried to avoid being taken in by the drama of the Casey Anthony trial, I was jerked alert by its conclusion, the most...
Get the full story >>"If he popped up in the pinch he should of made a base hit and the reason he didn't was so-and-so. And if he cracked one for three...
Get the full story >>So how much did you enter on Line 22 of your IL-1040 state income tax return?
Get the full story >>"I did not say she was innocent. I just said there was not enough evidence."
Get the full story >>One more thing, about the Navy Pier makeover. There are good ideas in the $155 million plan, but I've got some better ones that are a lot...
Get the full story >>It is the sort of thing those darn kids today say to make fun of their aging Gen X and baby boomer parents.
Get the full story >>After discussing feudalism with my class one day, an inquisitive fifth-grader asked me: "What kind of government do we have?" I told him...
Get the full story >>Barack Obama is the cool president. He listens to Jay-Z, you guys! He fist-bumped Michelle!
Get the full story >>Why is so little being done for the 6.2 million long-term unemployed? Why have 99ers been abandoned by Congress and White House?
Get the full story >>Any candidate for president can fall victim to occasional stumbles, lapses, gaffes and clunkers. But Mitt Romney has a shot at raising...
Get the full story >>It's hard for a social commentator to keep up with all of the legal, moral and political lessons offered up by the still-unfolding Dominique...
Get the full story >>Now that Gov. Pat Quinn and his accomplices have enacted legislation to require passengers in the back seat of vehicles to buckle up, as...
Get the full story >>"I'm so sick and tired of being in the system. I'm not going to play the game anymore."
Get the full story >>In some dusty book of legal lore there must be mention of a principle in danger of being overlooked in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case....
Get the full story >>The recent legalization of same-sex marriage in New York proves that it's no longer an issue in the United States, right? Gay marriage...
Get the full story >>One thinks of that scene from "The Wizard of Oz" where Toto pulls back the curtain and the "great and powerful Oz" is revealed to be only an...
Get the full story >>The U.S. Supreme Court now sees its central task as comforting the already comfortable and afflicting those already afflicted.
Get the full story >>One afternoon in the late winter of 1961, while Hadley Richardson was vacationing at a ranch in Arizona with her second husband, she got a...
Get the full story >>If I had a dollar for every time a Sarah Palin supporter accused me of not taking her seriously because I'm jealous of attractive women who'...
Get the full story >>"You need to be here. I've been here. I've been doing Afghanistan and (Osama) bin Laden and the Greek crisis. You stay here. Let's...
Get the full story >>Mired in excruciating negotiations over the budget and the debt ceiling, President Barack Obama might reflect that things didn't have to...
Get the full story >>How did a marginal, misgoverned little nation push all of Europe to the brink?
Get the full story >>"President Chavez is recovering well from his surgery. His enemies should stop dreaming and his friends should stop worrying. "
Get the full story >>In the autumn of 1994, a novel idea was afoot in my profession. At the annual conference of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent...
Get the full story >>A federal jury appeared to end former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's long-running drama when it found him guilty Monday on 17 of 20...
Get the full story >>Tribune editorial cartoonist Scott Stantis will create an original sketch each Wednesday...
Get the full story >>Sorry, but CTA buses and trains won't be running tomorrow.
Get the full story >>WASHINGTON — Is the Libya war legal? Under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, it is not. President Barack Obama has exceeded the 90-day...
Get the full story >>Americans seem to find a lot of entertainment value in watching celebrities destroy themselves. Witness, for example, the initially brisk...
Get the full story >>It's not unusual for the federal government to provoke widespread retching among its citizens, but it rarely does so intentionally. The...
Get the full story >>OK, I'm going out on a limb here.
Get the full story >>It just felt so cliche. You would think it would be more dramatic, like catching him in bed or discovering a hidden letter in an overstuffed...
Get the full story >>Now, as you have explained to your grandparents, my name is Stephen Colbert, but I also play a character on TV who is named Stephen Colbert....
Get the full story >>Like other women before her, Huma Abedin is quiet about her husband's scandals — but says much with her wardrobe.
Get the full story >>On a recent episode of the NPR show "Fresh Air," documentarian Liz Garbus discussed her new work, "Bobby Fischer Against the World." At...
Get the full story >>The Republican presidential field looks less like an assemblage of candidates than a collection of fatal mistakes and irreparable flaws,...
Get the full story >>Nothing succeeds like success, but don't sell failure short.
Get the full story >>I wish I could tell Walt Teichen not to worry, that common sense will surely prevail in the sad, scary story of his son.
Get the full story >>Last November, voters went to the ballot box with a message to Washington: Stop the spending binge that's driven our national debt to record...
Get the full story >>Last month, as the Illinois General Assembly's spring session rushed to a close, ComEd, Ameren and their army of lobbyists were able to...
Get the full story >>One might think my last name would have been ripe for a change at Ellis Island. The clerks there could have easily changed it to Gardner...
Get the full story >>From "King Lear" to "Leave it to Beaver," works of fiction have featured memorable dads. Here's a Father's Day sampler:
Get the full story >>I was dumbfounded and grieved to see news photos of the Liberty Belle, the B-17 bomber that force-landed and burned near Chicago last week.
Get the full story >>I grew up in a family of teachers. My parents both taught in the Chicago Public Schools system, and they taught me early on that there's...
Get the full story >>Hope is still alive for former Rep. Anthony "the Twitter" Weiner. In today's America, failure is only the first step to your next success,...
Get the full story >>Defense Secretary Robert Gates went to Europe recently to announce that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization may have a "dismal future"...
Get the full story >>Kicking off her recent bus tour, Sarah Palin attended a motorcycle rally and took a deep breath. "I love that smell of the emissions," she...
Get the full story >>To judge from my inbox, London is a perilous place. In the last several years, I've received dozens of anguished emails from friends...
Get the full story >>When David Simon, creator of HBO's late dramatic crime series "The Wire," heard that Attorney General Eric Holder wanted to see the...
Get the full story >>The idea of testing Chicago Housing Authority tenants for illegal drug use is drawing the usual, tiresome objections from the usual,...
Get the full story >>The new top cop is — guess what? — striking the right tone.
Get the full story >>Last year, critics complained that the case against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was too complicated. Jurors got lost in the legalistic...
Get the full story >>There's some sentiment out there, even among some of my friends in the media, that it looked like former Gov. Rod Blagojevich held up OK...
Get the full story >>An Australian demographer has found a malady that makes some middle-aged men think they are more attractive to women than they actually are.
Get the full story >>It's time to revive the idea of a constitutional amendment that will defang House Speaker Michael (The Real Governor) Madigan and his...
Get the full story >>Illinois is on the verge of a major gambling expansion, and citizens are being pelted with competing claims. The advocates envision a gusher...
Get the full story >>Hard cases make bad law, an old legal saying goes. So, I suppose, do sad cases. The sad case of John Edwards could lead to sadder law.
Get the full story >>Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York is a very busy man. He sits on several important committees. He's newly married to a high-powered wife. He's...
Get the full story >>Remember back in your high school civics class when you were taught about the constitutional division of authority in matters of war? When...
Get the full story >>It's too soon to engage in the media fetish of covering the 2012 Republican presidential campaign, but it's never too early to tell the...
Get the full story >>NEW YORK — In a slender essay titled "Here Is New York," E.B. White wrote about the implausibility of the great city, mentioning among...
Get the full story >>WASHINGTON — Every Arab-Israeli negotiation contains a fundamental asymmetry: Israel gives up land, which is tangible; the Arabs...
Get the full story >>Apparently, a lot of people consider President Barack Obama to be bumblingly inarticulate. "The guy can't talk his way out of a paper bag!"...
Get the full story >>America now has a gay-rights majority. Gallup reports that for the first time ever, most people — 53 percent — favor...
Get the full story >>Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels' announcement that he can't play in the presidential primaries because his wife and daughters say he's not...
Get the full story >>Harold Camping, the religious broadcaster who said Judgment Day would come last weekend, now says he doesn't want to talk about that...
Get the full story >>"I would find myself trussed up and left for hours in ropes, my biceps bound tightly with several loops to cut off my circulation and the...
Get the full story >>