The federal judiciary has a big credibility crisis

Actually, what many of us have long known is now being openly affirmed. And it's not just Bush/Trump-appointed "judges," either.

But it’s not just our highest court that is mired in a well-earned legitimacy crisis; it’s all of them. The corruption of the federal judiciary system, both ideological and financial, has become so total that Alito’s comments were barely the most scandalous or incendiary that the country’s justice system sustained (two weeks ago).

In an incredible report from The Wall Street Journal, the paper found “more than 130 federal judges have violated U.S. law and judicial ethics by overseeing court cases involving companies in which they or their family owned stock … judges have improperly failed to disqualify themselves from 685 court cases around the nation since 2010.” Two-thirds of all federal district judges disclosed stock holdings, the report found, and 1 in 5 of those “heard at least one case involving those stocks.” These were judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents alike, a bipartisan affair spanning appointees from LBJ to Trump. - The American Prospect