SCOTUS with an agenda

This from BillMoyers.com on the recent decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court:

"The latest session of the US Supreme Court was especially contentious, with important decisions on the separation of church and state, organized labor, campaign finance reform, birth control and women's health, among others, splitting the court along its 5-4 conservative-liberal divide. . . .

"This week I speak with Linda Greenhouse, a New York Times columnist, and Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at Slate, about the latest rulings from the Supreme Court, a beat they've both covered for years.

"'You can't look at the Roberts court and say that they've done anything other than systematically unravel voting rights, women's rights, workers' rights [and] environmental progress,'  Lithwick tells me.

"Greenhouse adds: 'I think it's hard for anybody looking at this court objectively to come away not thinking that it's a court in pursuit of an agenda.'"

And I would add that it's not just the decisions that are undermining the respect for the court.   The conservatives' majority opinions often seem to be ignorant of, or at least to ignore, the important context and the obvious, expectible consequences -- as seen already in (1) the campaign finance glut;  (2) the gutting of the Voting Rights Act leading to all these voter suppression laws; and (3) removing the buffer zones at entrances to women's health centers that perform abortions.    These make the conservative majority members seem either clueless or willfully disingenuous.

Now I would agree that there are certain decisions about basic human and civil rights where consequences should not be the prime consideration, especially when there is a way for congress to address negative consequences.    But when common sense tells the ordinary citizen what consequences will ensue, while the majority opinion declares otherwise, it erodes respect and trust.

In my opinion, when it's Sam Alito, it makes him look inept, superficial, and sometimes just silly.   When it's Scalia or Thomas, it looks craven and malicious.   And Thomas?   He is very definitely calculating . . . with an agenda that is something beyond principle.

Ralph