Quick take: The problem with Ginni Thomas (is not that she's crazy, even though she is)

 Yes, Ginni Thomas is a few notes short of a scale.  A few beats short of a measure.  She'd sound better performing John Cage's 4'33".  She's crazier than Thelonious Monk and Sun Ra tripping balls on hallucinogenic toad together, except that Monk and Sun Ra were geniuses, and Ginni is riding the short bus instead of flying on George Clinton's Mothership.  What I mean to say is that, um, Clarence?  Well matched.  Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN) doesn't like your interracial marriage, but me?  I say that you two are perfect together.  Now go off to an island together.  One with nobody else around, and leave us alone.  Please.  Go make each other very happy.

Anyway, here's the thing about Ginni.  Should Clarence have recused himself on that series of cases?  Obviously.  What check is there?  What balance?  None.  What check or balance could there be, for the highest court in the land?  The court of final appeal?  Well, suppose you have a case decided by the Supremes, and you claim that a Justice should have recused himself, but failed to do so.  The Supremes have no formal process for recusal.  We simply "trust" them to use their judgment and good intentions and stop laughing I'm not done yet.  If a judge at a lower level issues a ruling and fucks you, and you later find out that he had a personal stake, perhaps through his wife, that would be grounds for appeal.  And... some kind of sanction.  But I'm more interested in the appeal at the moment.

There is no court higher than the Supreme Court, and hence nobody to whom to appeal their ruling.  That is why there is no formal recusal process.  Any system has a highest level, an end point.  There is a limit to checks and balances.  This is it.

Is Ginni on her meds?  Clearly not.  Should she be?  They don't make meds strong enough for whatever ails her.  If they did, we'd stick it in the water supply because so many people suffer from the condition while refusing treatment, and General Ripper would start a nuclear war with Russia over it.  Or perhaps we'd just find ourselves in Stanislaw Lem's The Futurological Congress.

Jump in that sewer!

Anyway, the basic problem is the the conceptual/design problem of checks-and-balances as they relate to a court of final appeal.

What about impeachment?  Has Thomas committed impeachable offenses?  Hardly relevant, given the impossibility of impeachment.

So instead, consider the observation that there is a reason we do not have a formal recusal process at the Supreme Court level.  How would one design and enforce it?