Steve Chapman

People from more than 100 countries, including, Amal Ahmed Abedl Rahman of Palestine, right, and her husband, Izzddin Al Zaghloul, raise their right hands as they take the oath to become U.S citizens on Dec. 7, 2022, as the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Illinois hosts the largest ever naturalization ceremony for people becoming U.S. citizens at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.

Steve Chapman: Repealing birthright citizenship would be a disaster

October 5, 2023 at 3:04 p.m.

Some bad ideas just won't die, and in today's political environment, the worse the idea, the longer its life expectancy. One of the more harebrained is ending birthright citizenship, which...

A U.S. soldier on guard near the U.S.-Mexico border in Donna, Texas, in 2018.

Steve Chapman: Will a Republican president start a war with Mexico?

September 7, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.

In 1916, with Europe embroiled in armed hostilities, President Woodrow Wilson won reelection on the slogan "He kept us out of war." In 2024, President Joe Biden could offer a...

People walk down a busy Michigan Avenue, the shopping and business district in downtown Chicago, on July 13, 2022.

Steve Chapman: Who deserves the credit for our surprisingly strong economy?

August 3, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.

America's economic past is littered with depressions and recessions, which destroyed jobs, bankrupted businesses and spread misery. But one downturn is not likely to make the history books: the recession...

Former President Donald Trump at the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women's Lilac Luncheon in Concord on June 27, 2023.

Steve Chapman: A plea bargain is Donald Trump’s best option

July 6, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.

Donald Trump is campaigning to return to the White House, which Bill Clinton once called "the crown jewel of the federal penal system." But Trump would be wise to focus...

Then-Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., on Capitol Hill in 2016. "None of us liked the Freedom Caucus, either, but it was so generic and so universally awful that we had no reason to be against it," he once told The New Yorker about the name.

Steve Chapman: Republicans used to be champions of individual freedom. Not anymore.

June 1, 2023 at 10:11 p.m.

In 2015, a group of conservative Republicans in the U.S. House came together in hopes of gaining leverage over GOP Speaker John Boehner and foiling President Barack Obama. But they...

The body of a young man in his 20s is taken out of a San Diego apartment after a fatal overdose of fentanyl as Ed Byrne, a Homeland Security Investigations agent, watches on June 5, 2022. According to Byrne, the man used drugs containing fentanyl, which were given to him by his friends.

Steve Chapman: The fentanyl crisis confirms the folly of the never-ending war on drugs

May 4, 2023 at 10:00 a.m.

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly subsided, but another deadly plague continues to rage across America: drug overdoses. They caused more than 106,000 deaths in 2021 — greater than the toll...

The skyline of Milwaukee, along Lake Michigan, on Feb. 8, 2019. Republicans will hold their 2024 national convention, where the party's presidential nominee will be named, in Milwaukee.

Steve Chapman: Political convention sites simply don’t matter on Election Day

April 5, 2023 at 6:32 p.m.

Editor's note: With this column, longtime columnist and reader favorite Steve Chapman returns to the paper with an original piece for the Tribune that will run on the first Thursday...

President Joe Biden outside Independence Hall, Sept. 1, 2022, in Philadelphia.

Steve Chapman: Will Americans heed Biden’s plea to defend democracy?

September 3, 2022 at 2:52 p.m.

Decades from now, President Joe Biden's errors may not be forgotten, whether they relate to Afghanistan, the border or inflation. But whatever Biden has gotten wrong, posterity will remember that...

An empty classroom at a high school in Eden, North Carolina, in 2020. Corporal punishment had been in a slow decline before the pandemic, but remains legal in 19 states, mostly in the South.

Steve Chapman: Is corporal punishment in schools making a comeback?

August 31, 2022 at 8:02 p.m.

Some parents don't trust public school teachers to handle such topics as racism, sexuality and climate change. But in one Missouri town, they trust teachers to use violence against children....

Migrants wait along a border wall on Aug. 23, 2022, after crossing from Mexico near Yuma, Arizona.

Steve Chapman: The border crisis confirms that America is still a beacon

August 26, 2022 at 9:23 p.m.

Five million Ukrainians have fled their homeland since Russia invaded, seeking refuge not only in neighboring countries such as Poland and Germany but also in Britain, Canada and the United...

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