Articles by Eleanor Stratton

The 12 Most Insane Constitutional Crises of 2025

Twelve months. Twelve constitutional explosions. Some made headlines for a week. Others are still burning through the courts. This isn’t your civics teacher’s review of separation of powers. This is the year the Constitution stopped being a dusty document and became the most fought-over...

Does Christmas As a Federal Holiday Violate The Constitutional Separation Of Church And State?

Every year on December 25th, the federal government closes. Post offices shut down. Federal employees get paid time off. Courts don’t convene. All to observe Christmas – a holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. How does that not violate the First Amendment’s prohibition on...

Trump Declares War on How Markets Actually Work

President Trump posted what he’s calling “THE TRUMP RULE” on Truth Social Tuesday morning: a 400-word manifesto declaring that the Federal Reserve should lower interest rates when the economy is doing well, not raise them. The post claims GDP growth hit 4.2% against predictions of 2.5%. It...

Trump Administration Praises ‘Strong’ Jobs Report as Data Shows Slowest Growth Since 2009

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Tuesday’s jobs report “strong” and credited President Trump with “creating a strong, America First economy in record time.” The actual data shows the economy lost jobs in three of the past six months. Job growth since Trump’s...

White House Christmas Through The Decades: From FDR’s Tinsel to Melania’s Red Trees, See How the Holidays Define the Presidency

The White House Christmas is more than a holiday celebration; it is a curated projection of the presidency. For nearly a century, First Families have used ornaments, trees, and themes to signal everything from wartime austerity to booming prosperity. Below is a chronicled journey through over 40...

Sen. Kennedy Pushes for Second Reconciliation Bill to Address Cost of Living as GOP Leadership Resists

Senator John Kennedy has a message for his own party: You’re wasting the majority you fought for. The Louisiana Republican wants Congress to use budget reconciliation again – the brutal legislative process that consumed months of 2025 and nearly fractured the GOP coalition. Republicans used it...

Epstein Files Explode Open As DOJ Starts Releasing Court Records

The Justice Department released hundreds of thousands of pages of Jeffrey Epstein files Friday afternoon, meeting a 30-day deadline imposed by a law President Trump signed in November after fellow Republicans pressured him to stop blocking their release. The files include new photos of Epstein with...

Did the Supreme Court Invent a New Gun Right?

For 217 years, the Second Amendment didn’t protect your right to own a gun for self-defense in your home. Then in 2008, it suddenly did. The Supreme Court’s decision in District of Columbia v. Heller declared for the first time in American history that the Constitution guarantees an individual...

What the Reiner Case Reveals About Due Process Under Pressure

Nick Reiner, son of acclaimed director Rob Reiner, was arrested Sunday night on suspicion of murdering his parents. The 32-year-old is being held without bail after Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead with stab wounds in their Brentwood home. The arrest came five hours after firefighters...

Trump’s Cabinet Said Troops Must Disobey Illegal Orders

Six Democratic veterans in Congress recorded a video last month reminding service members of their legal duty to disobey unlawful orders. Donald Trump called it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” The White House launched investigations. Trump-appointed FBI leaders pressured domestic...

13 Republicans Just Broke Ranks To Defend Federal Worker Unions

Thirteen House Republicans defied their party leadership Wednesday night to advance a bill reversing President Trump’s executive order that stripped collective bargaining rights from federal worker unions. The vote wasn’t supposed to happen. House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t schedule it....

Five Rights You Think Are in the Constitution

You have a constitutional right to privacy. Everyone knows that. Except the Constitution never mentions privacy. Not once. Not in any amendment, clause, or footnote scribbled in the margins by a Founder having second thoughts. The right exists because nine Supreme Court justices in 1965 decided it...

When the President Controls His Own Investigators: The Comey Indictment and the Independence Problem

James Comey, the former FBI director Donald Trump fired in 2017, now faces criminal charges for testimony he gave to Congress nearly five years ago. The indictment came days after Trump publicly demanded prosecutors speed up their investigation. It came hours after the lead federal prosecutor –...

The Australian Retirement Model Trump’s Considering: Mandatory Savings vs. American Choice

President Trump said Tuesday his administration is “looking very seriously” at adopting an Australian-style retirement system for America. “It’s a good plan. It’s worked out very well,” he told reporters at the White House. The Australian model – called “superannuation” –...

Can Donald Trump Undo Biden’s Autopen Measures?

Trump just announced that every document Biden signed with an autopen machine – pardons, executive orders, contracts, the whole stack – is “null, void, and of no further force or effect.” Not through a legal filing. Not through executive action. Through a Truth Social post that reads like a...

The Dual Citizenship Ban That Would Force Millions To Pick A Country

Senator Bernie Moreno wants every American with foreign citizenship to choose: Keep U.S. citizenship and renounce the other country, or keep the foreign citizenship and automatically lose American status. His “Exclusive Citizenship Act of 2025” gives dual citizens one year to decide. Those who...

Trump’s Lawyer-Turned-Prosecutor Just Lost In Court

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that Alina Habba – Trump’s former personal lawyer turned New Jersey U.S. Attorney – is unlawfully serving in that role. The unanimous decision from three judges said the administration’s appointment strategy would “effectively permit anyone to fill the...

Washington’s First Thanksgiving Wasn’t About Pilgrims

The pilgrims and Wampanoag shared a harvest meal in 1621. Nobody called it “Thanksgiving” for 220 years. The actual event was barely documented and quickly forgotten. The peace treaty they signed seven months earlier mattered far more historically – it lasted 50 years. America’s...

Ranked By Salary: The 10 Most Powerful Government Officials

The federal salary tables don’t usually make headlines, but they quietly reveal how the United States values its highest-level public servants. These numbers tell a story about power, responsibility, and how the government compensates the people who sit atop its three branches. From the...

The 5 Economic Differences Between Biden and Trump That Actually Changed Your Life

A family earning $75,000 could afford roughly the same lifestyle in 2020 as they could in 2017. That same family in 2025 needs about $91,000 to maintain what they had in 2021. The dollar amounts on their paychecks went up – but everything else went up faster. That gap explains American economic...