Penna Dexter
The United States Supreme Court recently set out a “Code of Conduct” to “gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the members of the court.” All nine justices signed it.
They have done this in response to pressure from groups on the Left who want Congress to put into place “ethics” requirements for Supreme Court Justices.
Enacting such legislation would intensify political accusations against justices and bring endless recusal fights in hot-button cases. And that’s the point. The Left seeks to weaken — really neuter — the Court because it’s not getting the rulings it wants.
Should Congress impose an ethics code on justices, it would violate the US Constitution’s separation of powers. The Founders created the judiciary, under Article III of the Constitution, as a separate and co-equal branch of government.
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus criticized the justices’ document as inadequate, writing that it tells lawmakers, “You’re not the boss of me.”
That’s exactly what the Court should say.
Supreme Court justices police their own financial disclosures and make their own recusal decisions.
A Wall Street Journal editorial published last summer argues, “The nine justices are appointees with lifetime tenure under the Constitution in order to insulate them from political pressure.” The Journal emphasizes, “While Congress established the lower federal courts, the Constitution created the Supreme Court which sets its own rules.” Congress has no power to set rules for the Court or dictate how it is run.
The rules and principles laid out in the justice’s code are not new. The document is likely meant to deter any action by Congress. Justice Samuel Alito told The Journal, “No provision in the U.S. Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”
Last summer Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse’s draconian ethics bill passed the Judiciary Committee along party lines. If this legislation was ever enacted, it would destroy the independence of the Supreme Court. 

Kerby Anderson
The cancel culture has been around for many years. John Stossel gives a new perspective to it in his interview with 23-year-old Rikki Schlott. She is the co-author of the new book, The Cancelling of the American Mind. If the title sounds familiar, it should. Her co-author was the co-author of the earlier book, The Coddling of the American Mind.
As a college student, she felt she had to hide her conservative views. She says she was even “afraid to have Thomas Sowell and Jordan Peterson books on my bookshelf.” She rightly feared that if her classmates saw the books she might be “verbally attacked on social media.”
John Stossel reminds us of the long list of people who have been canceled. “A teacher in Virginia lost his job for calling a transgender student she. An art history lecturer lost her job simply for showing a painting of Muhammad. A University of Virginia med student was banished from campus for merely questioning the importance of microaggressions.”
Generally, the younger you are the more likely you are to have a positive view towards cancel culture. But there is an interesting exception. Generation Z reverses that trend. Rikki Schlott has an explanation. “That’s because if you’re a young person who grows up in a graceless society, you’re always looking behind your back. You see friends torn down on social media.”
Also, many universities encourage students to report other students. She says that when she went to college to pick up her ID card, she found emergency numbers on the back. One number was for the bias response hotline in case you were offended. The university sanctioned the idea of reporting other students.
It’s time to speak up and end the assault on free speech achieved through the cancel culture.

Kerby Anderson
Each year, we take time from our busy lives to celebrate a day of Thanksgiving. Though many holidays have become secular celebrations, this holiday still retains much of its historic religious overtones.
A day of Thanksgiving was set aside by the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony. Life was hard in the New World.  Half of the Pilgrims died in the first terrible winter. After the first harvest was completed, Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving and prayer. By 1623, a day of fasting and prayer during a period of drought was changed to one of Thanksgiving because the rain came during their prayers. The custom prevailed in New England and eventually became a national holiday.
Religious freedom is one of the lessons of Thanksgiving. In 1606, William Brewster led a group of Separatists to Leiden (in the Netherlands) to escape religious persecution in England. After living in Leiden for more than ten years, some members of the group voted to emigrate to America. Having been blown off course from their intended landing in Virginia by a terrible storm, the Pilgrims landed at Cape Cod in November 1620. While still on the ship, the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact.
The Mayflower Compact provides the second lesson of Thanksgiving: the importance of political freedom.  On November 11, 1620, Governor William Bradford and the leaders on the Mayflower signed the Mayflower Compact before setting foot on land. They wanted to acknowledge God’s sovereignty in their lives and their need to obey Him.
During this Thanksgiving season, let’s return to the wisdom of the Pilgrims. They valued their freedom and were willing to endure hardship in order to come to this country and freely worship. Let us thank God for these freedoms and be willing to defend them against all who would seek to take them away.