November 2023

On November 13, the US Supreme Court -- presumably motivated by bad publicity after the exposure of bribery schemes involving justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch, use of judicial aides to promote justice Sonia Sotomayor’s books, and other unsavory activities -- announced what it calls a “Code of Conduct,” and what most media outlets describe as an “ethics code.”The new code goes off the conduct/ethics rails before finishing its short opening statement, asserting that its purpose is to “dispel” the “misunderstanding” that the justices “regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules,” rather than to actually restrict the justices with any ethics rules.Because the document -- 15 pages, including the opening statement, the “code” itself, and commentary/notes -- doesn’t provide for any penalty or punishment whatsoever should a justice violate it, the justices remain as unrestricted after its publication as they clearly regarded themselves before.Even ignoring the absence of consequences, the code itself is full of lofty and often ambiguous “shoulds” and “should nots” rather than specific and well-defined “shalls” and “shall nots.As codes go, this one’s far more Emily Post than Exodus 20.

The Great Chicago Fire was, as we all know, started when Kate O’Leary’s milk cow kicked over a bucket while Mrs.