Bob Herbert:
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities tells us that close to 90 percent of people 65 and older get at least some of their family income from Social Security. For more than half of the elderly, it provides the majority of their income. For many, it is the only income they have.
When you see surveillance videos of some creep mugging an elderly person in an elevator or apartment lobby, the universal reaction is outrage. But when the fat cats and the ideologues want to hack away at the lifeline of Social Security, they are treated somehow as respectable, even enlightened members of the society.
We need a reality check. Attacking Social Security is both cruel and unnecessary. It needs to stop.
Eugene Robinson:
The conservatives want to end funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Legal Services Corporation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Energy Star program, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . . . you get the picture. Put together, these expenditures would not begin to pay for, say, the $13 billion Marine Corps landing craft that Gates plans to kill because we are no longer fighting World War II.
You'd think that Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, would have applauded Gates's frugality. Instead, he described himself as "not happy" and vowed he will "not stand idly by and watch the White House gut defense when Americans are deployed in harm's way."
Roger Simon:
While often not remembered, each word of a SOTU is subjected to fact-checking and numerical analysis. The guardian.co.uk analyzed the SOTUs of Obama, Bush, Reagan, Kennedy, Roosevelt, Lincoln and Washington to see which word those presidents used most often.
It was — big surprise — "I."
Kari Lydersen discusses another case of government over-reach:
On Tuesday January 25, union members will be among those standing in solidarity outside Chicago’s federal court building with other protesters. The're resisting grand jury subpoenas that they describe as part of a fishing expedition aimed at the anti-war movement, which has also ensnared labor activists.
At least 18 unions or labor councils have passed resolutions supporting those resisting the subpoenas and others targeted since September as part of the grand jury investigation, which is directed by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office.
Luis J. Rodriguez laments other hatreds in Arizona:
In 2005, a member of the Minuteman Project, armed and standing guard on the Arizona/Mexico border, stated, “It should be legal to kill illegals. Just shoot ‘em on sight. That’s my immigration policy recommendation. You break into my country, you die.”
Robert Danin argues that the Palestine Papers release by Wikileaks are a victory for the enemies of peace in the Middle East because they don't tell the whole story.
Paul Lehrer:
Nothing is more important than reviving our economy. And we can put millions of Americans back to work by investing in renewable fuels, fostering sustainable communities and demanding even more energy-efficiency in our cars, our workplaces, our homes and the products we use.
That also will make our companies more competitive and keep our workers at the forefront in the global race for clean-energy solutions—and make us more secure and less dependent on foreign oil.
We can debate the details and disagree over specifics. But inaction is no longer an option.
Above all, we mustn't be stymied or mislead by those who paint these needed change as some devious job-destroying tax. What kills jobs is insisting on looking backward when opportunity lies ahead.
David Roberts weighs in on the departure of Carol Browner from the White House:
What lies ahead is a massive, coordinated conservative assault on Obama's climate/energy agenda -- green stimulus, the EPA, efficient lightbulbs, just about everything in Browner's wheelhouse. She would spend the next two years parrying absurd Republican attacks (the same attacks she's been parrying for almost 20 years now), getting dragged in to testify at hearings, and generally playing defense in a hostile climate. After the emotional ringer of the last two years, it's no surprise she didn't want to take that on.
Jacob Heilbrun says 100 years after Ronald Reagan's birth, Republicans venerate his memory, but they have moved so far to the right that his actual record wouldn't live up to their ideals.