With respect, you couldn't be more wrong. First, it was obama not Alito who acted improperly. The Supreme Court Justices are invited guests to the SOTU address, not pols. It was rude and apparently unprecedented for the President to attack them directly over a decision in that setting. The optics of it were unsettling as well, with democrat senators, led by the oafish Schumer, leaning over their heads and bellowing. Very inappropriate but apparently what we can expect when we put an ACORN thug as president. The First Amendment doesn't mention corporations. Does that mean the NY Times and Washington Post, both fierce critics of this decision, don't have any First Amendment rights either? They don't have a problem with denying other corporations the right to voice opinions. Why should they? To the extent others are censored, their opinions face less competition. There is nothing radical or groundbreaking about the Court granting corporations some rights of individuals. They can sue for defamation and be held liable for negligence. In the law, there are deemed juridical "persons." They also have been granted free speech rights. Do you imagine that the First Amendment has specific provisions for book publishers, TV and radio braodcasters, internet bloggers, etc? The problem here is that our courts have gotten way too comfortable with the idea of restricting core First Amendment values, and political speech is at the very core of the First Amendment. I am not impressed by the apparent justifications that congressmen are easily corrupted, so We the People's rights should be restricted, or that voters are just so damn stupid they will be easily misled by corporate ads. Finally, Obama was blatantly wrong in suggesting that the decision opens the way for corporations, or "foreign" corporations in his xenophobic demagoguery, to contribute to candidates or fund their cmapaigns. The decision concerned independent expenditures, in this case an independent film criticizing Hillary Clinton. Direct corporate contributions to candidates are still banned. It is ironic that Obama, the Great Reformer, shunned the public financing system for his race after promising to use it and seemingly has no problems with a foreign hedge fund billionaire, George Soros, funding much of the left's political agenda. His hatred of Fox News is well-documented. Like most of the hard left, Obama simply does no tlike the idea of free speech. He prefers a world of speech codes, government approved ads and a media that takes its marching orders from him.
Only partly true.... world economic power was heading West, regardless of the USA. However, we exacerbated our decline by embracing it so freely. Remember what Ross Perot said about NAFTA... "... that giant sucking sound you hear will be jobs leaving America for Mexico..." Ditto that and more, about Asia.
You can't fight globalization. However, regarding the matter of exacerbation, outsourcing should have been fiscally discouraged rather than abetted. Was it really all that hard to see that one coming?
You must have sold your soul to the corporate devil many years ago, you appear to have told yourself so many lies that you actually think you believe them...