They fail to report large gifts, luxury vacations and payments to their family members by wealthy donors, at least one of whom had business before the court, and they express nakedly partisan opinions or fail to adequately distance themselves when their spouses express such views.

They are saying, in effect, that they don't care if any of this bothers you. To go by recent polls showing that this court's public approval has approached record lows, it bothers many millions of Americans. And yet no one in Washington seems willing to act.

It can't go on. The court's refusal to police itself, willingly allowing a few justices to trample on its reputation, demands that Congress step up and take far stronger action to enforce judicial ethics, and to require justices to recuse themselves when they have or appear to have clear conflicts of interest.

As all justices are aware, federal recusal law is clear: "Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

In the Jan. 6 cases, recusal should not be a close call. At the least, reasonable people are justified in questioning Justice Alito's impartiality based on his failure to take down the inverted flag, especially during a period of intense national conflict over an issue that was at that very moment before the justices.

Justice Thomas's extreme closeness with his wife (he has described them as being melded "into one being") raises similar doubts about his ability to be impartial. He is further implicated by a separate provision of the law, which requires a judge to recuse when his or her spouse is "to the judge's knowledge likely to be a material witness in the proceeding." That sure sounds like Ginni Thomas, who testified, under threat of a subpoena, before the House Jan. 6 committee.

In short, Justices Alito and Thomas appear to be breaking federal law, tanking what remains of the court's legitimacy in the process. The challenge is whether anyone is willing to do anything about it.