A foul odor has plagued the state-of-the-art facility (“Our school smells like poop,” said Steven Benjamin, a middle school reading specialist and special education teacher, according to the Herald) all year long.

Teachers at the $73 million Roxbury facility have to work around the smell: A classroom door needs to be fully open at all times, an air purifier running with the ionizer on, and windows open. Class is held in the hallway, or relocated from a classroom that’s particularly offensive. Students spray perfume and Febreeze when they can stand to enter a particularly odiferous room.

The logical step is to call a plumber. Staffers say that custodial teams have tried onsite fixes, but when multiple rooms smell like a sewer pipe, you’re not looking at a simple clog. Benjamin noted that leaders have “communicated to facilities through the proper channels.”

And yet the olfactory ordeal continues and students and teachers suffer. Last week, Benjamin and two colleagues took the issue to a School Committee meeting, asking for help from district leaders.

Teachers shouldn’t have to be the ones to raise a stink about the stench. An entire school smelling to high heaven can’t be a secret, and if leadership knew, and facilities contacted, why didn’t the ball get rolling sooner?

School Committee Vice Chairman Michael O’Neill is calling for action to be taken as soon as possible, and the timeline in solving the issue to be expedited.

“I hope we’re going to get some very professional plumbers out to a (new) building – a matter of fact, let’s get the contractors who built the building out there – and find out what the heck is going on there,” he told Superintendent Mary Skipper.

While you’re at it, make sure there aren’t any overdue bills hanging around.

This isn’t the first plumbing problem that Boston Public Schools has encountered. Last May, BPS was found to be stiffing a plumbing contractor on a $164,000 bill, racked up since 2018, as the Herald reported.  According to the Boston Finance Commission, district employees sought to resolve the issue by directing another vendor to pick up the tab. That fiscal finagling left the school district with a substantially larger bill of $189,162.

It also raised questions about how BPS does business with vendors. How do you rack up a plumbing bill for five years without payment?  And what effect does this have on future work?

The Boston Finance Commission addressed that in its report: “This transaction unnecessarily cost the taxpayers money that could have gone toward services for Boston Public School students, undermines the faith citizens have in their public officials, and will potentially cause vendors to question whether they should enter a working relationship with the City of Boston.”

What kind of rep does BPS having with plumbing contractors in light of the mega-bucks bill that went unpaid for years? Is that why work on the Dearborn STEM Academy’s problem is proceeding at a glacial pace?

Teachers, students and their parents deserve better. The BPS needs to get on this problem, stat. And maybe pay upfront.

Congress just passed a $1.2 trillion measure to avert another government “shutdown.” Not surprisingly, it includes billions in pork backed by both Republican and Democratic members. The budget watchdog openthebooks.com counts about 1,400 spending initiatives that reek of bacon. Not a peep out of the president.

“It’s the Mary Poppins method of governing, where a little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down, Adam Andrezejewski, CEO and founder of openthebooks.com, told The National Desk. “Congress needs a little bit of corruption to pass these massive spending bills.”

A previous budget deal — which dealt with six of the 12 appropriations bills that make up discretionary spending — contained nearly 6,000 earmarks at a cost of $12.7 billion, according to Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican.

Reason magazine’s Eric Boehm highlighted a handful of the most egregious examples of unnecessary federal spending, including $2.5 million for a kayaking facility in New Hampshire, $2.7 million for a bike path in a small West Virginia town and $3.5 million for the outfit that runs Detroit’s annual Thanksgiving parade.

A group backed by former Vice President Mike Pence also compiled a list of what it views as wasteful “woke” pork initiatives, including $1.1 million for “climate resilience and equity” in Massachusetts, $200 million for “gender equity and equality action” and $400,000 to a New Jersey company that provides “gender-affirming clothing.”

House Republicans in 2011 banned earmarks, but Democrats reversed that move a decade later. To be sure, members of both parties eagerly engage in filling the federal trough as a means of currying favor with voters during their perpetual re-election campaigns. Defenders of the process argue that a few billion here and a few billion there have little impact on a multitrillion-dollar spending plan. But that’s the mindset that drives the nation’s descent into oceans of red ink.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan vetoed an $88 billion — the number seems almost quaint today — highway and transportation spending bill, which he described as “budget-busting” and “unsound,” adding that “it represents a failure to exercise the discipline that is required to constrain federal spending, especially pork-barrel spending.” Congress, after two tries, mustered the votes to override the veto.

No president since then — Republican or Democrat — has exhibited similar resolve, and Biden will go along to get along. In the meantime, this president proposes $7 trillion annual budgets that depend on borrowing trillions more. Budget hawk, indeed.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

The agency informed the Herald this past week that the heavily redacted 15 installments of Whitey’s dirty dealings already dropped in their public records “Vault” will be the last we see. Forever!

That can’t be tolerated. The Herald has 90 days to file an “administrative appeal,” and we fully intend to do so.

As we reported, the files posted in dribs and drabs are mostly run-of-the-mill mobster fare, with talk of loan sharking, horse race fixing, and ruthless gang rule. What about the rest? The agency’s contract with this devil must be made public. If the past is truly prologue, members of law enforcement must learn from the agency’s mistakes in dealing with depraved career killers.

Today’s Department of Justice has a spotty record regarding transparency. On one hand, it exceeded expectations when it exposed Rachael Rollins’s politicization of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.

Former U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling bravely launched a campaign against the ruthless MS-13 gang in New England, saving lives. But he didn’t prosecute former Gov. Charlie Baker’s son for allegedly groping a woman on a Boston-bound flight.

Now U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland has a rare opportunity to overturn the FBI’s penchant for incestuous secrecy, overrule the G-men, and order the release of every memo on Bulger’s sordid life.

This is not a journalistic paper chase using the Freedom of Information Act for an academic exercise in the First Amendment. This won’t be made into a Hollywood flick with A-list actors pretending to be from Boston. This is all about the victims.

When the news broke this week that the FBI was dumping Bulger’s file in the trash, one of those loved ones left to grow old alone without her husband called the Herald to lament the end of this painful road.

“This makes me feel that anything new that might still come out won’t be shared with the victims,” said Mary Callahan, now in her 80s. “Maybe this means they don’t want to share that. It could be money we are owed. There’s 33 of us, when I last counted. I’m seeing this as the FBI telling all of us to ‘Go Away!'”

Mary’s accountant husband, John Callahan, was executed in South Florida on Bulger’s orders in 1982 — and the FBI played a central part.

John Callahan, the former president of World Jai Alai, was shot dead by John Martorano, one of Bulger’s hitmen. Martorano testified he was working for Bulger when he killed Callahan, who was also a friend of his. Bulger wanted Callahan dead because the Boston businessman could implicate them in a 1981 slaying of another World Jai Alai executive.

Disgraced ex-FBI agent John “Zip” Connolly was convicted of second-degree murder in 2008 for wearing his FBI-issued sidearm when he met with Bulger in Boston to warn him of what John Callahan knew. Zip is now home in Massachusetts on a “compassionate release” from his Florida prison cell as he battles cancer.

The corrupt rabbit hole goes deeper.

We filed a public records request for Bulger’s FBI file soon after he was murdered in a West Virginia prison in 2018. The first installment was posted on July 8, 2021. The last one dropped on Oct. 3, 2022.

If that’s all we see, shame on the FBI.

Major retailers such as Target and Walmart have replaced many checkout lanes with self-checkout kiosks. With customers doing most of the work, the company saves money. One employee can watch over four to six self-checkouts.

As The Street recently reported, this has created its own set of problems. It’s easier for people to leave the store without paying for items. In the hustle-and-bustle, shoppers can “overlook” paying for an expensive item. As a result, Dollar General has gotten rid of this option in some locations. Target is limiting how many items you can scan in self-checkout lanes. Walmart is limiting some checkout lanes to members of its Walmart+ program.

Problems with self-checkout aren’t the only issue Target and Walmart have in common. In recent years, both released high-profile announcements touting increases to starting worker pay.

“Target raising its starting wage to $15 an hour,” The Washington Post reported in June 2020. In 2022, Target raised “its minimum wage to as much as $24 an hour” based on location, NPR noted. In 2021, Walmart boosted pay for the average worker to $15 an hour in 2021, according to the New York Post.

As labor costs rise, self-checkout becomes a more attractive option. If a store loses $30 an hour from theft, but saves $60 an hour in labor costs, that’s a net financial win. In addition, companies likely believe they’ll be able to take other steps to prevent shrinkage. But once those checkout jobs are gone, they’re unlikely to return. If that is a result of a labor shortage driving up wages, it’s less of a concern. There are unintended consequences if it results from a government mandate.

This should be a warning sign to activists in the “Fight for $15” campaign. They have indeed seen many successes. But higher minimum wages haven’t cured poverty, so they now push for even higher stricter mandates. On its website, the campaign celebrates California passing a $20 an hour minimum wage for fast-food workers. Author Rick Wartzman, part of the 2003 Pulitzer-prize-winning Los Angeles Times team that investigated Walmart, wants a $20 an hour federal minimum wage. Democrat Rep. Barbara Lee from California called for a $50 an hour minimum wage while running for U.S. Senate.

Be careful what you wish for. California fast-food restaurants are already cutting hours and raising prices. And the experience of Target and Walmart show that higher labor costs make automation ever more affordable and desirable. Robots still work for $0 an hour.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

But as Boston’s swath of unoccupied commercial buildings pose an ominous tax revenue shortfall of $1 billion, Mayor Michelle Wu is grabbing a shovel.

As the Herald reported, Wu rolled out an “emergency law” to allow Boston to begin increasing property taxes on businesses beyond the state limit next year.

The mayor’s home rule petition, if approved by the City Council and state lawmakers, would provide a statewide option allowing municipalities to shift more of the tax burden from residents to businesses, exceeding the state cap of 175% up to 200% in the next fiscal year that begins July 1.

Wu cited the city budget’s heavy reliance on property taxes, which contribute three-quarters of annual revenue, most of which comes from commercial property.

There is a large downside, however. When tax rates are raised on commercial properties, “that further depresses the value of those properties which are already in distress,” Evan Horowitz, executive director of The Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University, said Tuesday.

“So over the long term, with approximate values going down, we actually collect less in future property taxes as well,” Horowitz said.

The domino effect would continue. As the state’s website notes in an explanation of Property Assessments, Valuation, & Taxation in Commercial Real Estate, “A tax shift has been moving from residential to commercial/industrial properties. These taxes are passed through to the tenants and can make one town more expensive to operate a business vs. another town. Can place a commercial building at a disadvantage in certain towns.”

Why would a company lease office space in Boston with the specter of higher rents on the horizon because of tax increases? With an added speed bump to attracting lessees, building owners face continued loss of income, while still having to maintain and repair their property.

Consider too the retail stores and other operations that are part of mixed-use office and retail space. A location with a lot of foot traffic is great, but if the rent’s too damn high, it’s a wash.

Wu’s move does nothing to bring office buildings in Boston back to full strength, nor does it create an environment in which businesses flock to the city to set up shop.

The mayor is trying to protect residents from higher taxes, which is laudable. But the revenue stream should not be limited to commercial and residential properties.

There is also the potential cash cow of tax-exempt properties, so designated because they’re characterized as nonprofit charitable organizations. On the heels of reports that costs at Wellesley College, Boston University, Tufts and Yale will hit $90,000 per year this fall, it’s hard to get on board with letting them skip property taxes.

The Payment in Lieu of Taxes program, in which such entities volunteer payments to the city, is being revisited by the City Council, as it should. Boston can’t afford to give some property owners a free pass.

Nor can it afford the economic consequences of upping the tax burden on commercial properties still struggling to come back from the pandemic.

The city needs to unearth a better solution.

Shapiro was speaking of the time-honored practice of double-dipping, in which former public employees collect pensions while also receiving paychecks from current jobs, as State House News reported.

State law limits how much public retirees can work and earn from another public sector job, but those caps are “primarily enforced through a self-monitored honor system,” Shapiro’s office found.

Hefty paycheck double dipping is a bit of a tradition in Massachusetts, like the opening of the Swan Boats, or the delivery of Boston’s Christmas tree from Nova Scotia. The “self-monitored honor system” works well for those who indulge in the practice until they wind up on the pages of the Boston Herald.

In 2021, the Herald wrote of a state employee who pulled down $134,299 working two jobs — one for the MBTA and the other for MassDOT.

Payroll data from the Comptroller’s Office listed Carl Breneus of Boston as a “full-time” “repairer” at the MBTA  at $81,952 annual base pay. He also earned a paycheck at the Department of Transportation that year as a “full-time” janitor with a base pay listed at $52,347.

The Herald also reported that year on one John Hersey, who worked at both the MBTA and Denver’s transit agency during the height of the pandemic. He earned a combined salary of $220,000-plus, Rocky Mountain State officials confirmed.

“He was not authorized to engage in outside employment,” Pauletta Tonilas, assistant general manager at RTD Denver, said. “It’s discouraging. … We have a code of ethics and ask our employees to follow it.”

We have an honor system. And this is what we get.

These two cases are far from isolated, there have been many more such double dippers covered in the Herald for years. Many, many more.

“No single agency tracks post-retirement earnings of public retirees. Earnings cap calculations are complicated and individual to each retiree,” Shapiro wrote in a letter to Beacon Hill leaders alongside his office’s report. “Oversight is inconsistent, and in some cases, non-existent. Enforcement is reactive, mostly directed at the most egregious cases. Penalties for exceeding the earnings cap are minimal. This should not be the case for the Commonwealth’s retirement system, which is a billion-dollar enterprise.”

Should not, but is. And we applaud Shapiro’s calling out the laxness of earning limit oversight.

Shapiro’s report made recommendations to fix the problem, including having lawmakers create a financial penalty for retirees. It also called on the Legislature to bulk up enforcement of the existing limits, either by creating a new standalone agency or empowering the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission.

Good luck with that. This is the same Legislature that’s fighting tooth and nail to keep Auditor Diana DiZoglio from having a peek at the books. House Speaker Ron Mariano has been so successful at shutting DiZoglio out, he could work as a consultant to the Border Patrol.

A job here and employment elsewhere simultaneously – that’s how Bay State public employees make it (twice) in Massachusetts.

Gov. Maura Healey aimed to reassure Massachusetts residents Tuesday by declaring that bridges here are regularly inspected and “up to date.”

“I want to make sure that we are having a conversation to make sure that all of our protocols are where they need to be and that we are doing everything we can to assure the safety of our ports and our bridges,” the governor said on Boston Public Radio on WGBH.

Baltimore’s Key Bridge passed inspection in May 2022, but there was concern with one of its columns, CBS News reported.

Ben Schafer, professor of civil and systems engineering at Johns Hopkins University, told CBS News that most bridges in the U.S. fall in the “fair” range, as did the Key. But, he said, the massive ship – not the condition of the Key Bridge – is likely to blame for its collapse.

None of that is comforting.

Especially when our own Sagamore and Bourne bridges have been deemed structurally deficient and in need of replacement by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The cost of replacing the 91-year-old spans? North of $4.5 billion, as the Herald reported.

It’s not like state leaders haven’t been trying raise the cash.

The state’s congressional delegation managed to crowbar $722 million out of the feds over the past four months, $350 million of which was signed into law this month by President Biden. The state has committed at least $700 million toward rebuilding the bridges.

The delegation reminded Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg in  a recent letter that there is still an outstanding Bridge Investment Program grant application for $1.072 billion waiting on approval.

They could also remind the Biden administration that it is better to get ahead of a problem than it is to tell his people “to move heaven and earth” to respond to a disaster, as the president vowed Tuesday “to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as humanly possible.”

Ships have hit the Sagamore and Bourne bridges. A cruise ship clipped the Buzzards Bay Railroad Bridge in 2016. Damage was limited to scraped paint, but as cruise ships get bigger and bigger, the likelihood of accidental contact is bound to increase.

The last thing anyone needs is for a cruise ship to “Storrow” in the Cape Cod Canal.

The Massachusetts delegation stressed the support it has given Biden in the past as a way to grease the skids for the $1B grant’s release. “We worked hard to pass President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to provide historic opportunities to fund critical infrastructure projects across the United States” they wrote.

But this is an election year, and Biden has a 20 point lead over Trump already in the Bay State. The lawmakers will deliver for Biden again, and he knows it. We don’t have the cudgel of an “uncommitted” bloc of voters to sway the president.

If the glacial pace of federal funding to assist Massachusetts with our migrant influx is any indication, help from D.C. will be coming on a very slow boat.

He hung up the phone Monday on the Herald rather than face questions about why Tsarnaev deserves to be spared the death penalty after murdering and maiming innocent marathon spectators on Boylston Street in 2013.

He hung up on the community that tried to help the Tsarnaev family make a new start in Massachusetts.

He hung up on decency!

Attorney Daniel Habib, a Harvard grad from the Federal Defenders of New York, Inc., would not say if this appeal is more about the death penalty than Tsarnaev’s terrorism. It’s clear he could care less about needing to explain his motivations.

The federal appeals court based in Boston ruled late last week the district court was “obliged” to probe “plausible claims of juror bias” in Tsarnaev’s “penalty-phase hearing.”

This latest appeal, the court document reveals, is all about the death penalty. The campaign to forever stop executions has now set up shop in Boston.

The federal judges state that “if and only if the district court’s investigation reveals that (jurors 138 or 286) should have been stricken for cause on account of bias, Tsarnaev will be entitled to a new penalty-phase proceeding.”

Tsarnaev will never get out of jail but could escape death once again.

This is a terrorist who ran over his own brother while racing away from a gunfight with police in Watertown after executing MIT campus police officer Sean Collier just days after carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings.

This all comes down to two jurors chattering on social media. It is cruel to those living without loved ones and those surviving without limbs to face another decade with no end due to a few tweets and Facebook messages.

The appeals court writes that “virtually all prospective jurors admitted exposure to some amount of publicity regarding the case” and many in the jury pool held different opinions about the death penalty.

Yet, we must now wait as the district court in the Seaport studies jurors 138 and 286 again. The fact Juror 138 denied receiving Facebook posts where friends said Tsarnaev had “no shot in hell” and “send him to jail where he belongs” is unbelievably thin gruel — especially since he didn’t write back.

Juror 286, a female from Dorchester, tweeted on the day of the April 15, 2013, bombings that “be polite to officers” and surgeons were “forgotten heroes” and days later adding she was uplifted by “Boston Strong” photos, is also seen as a potential bias. Really?

We agree with appeals Judge Jeffrey Howard who wrote in his dissenting opinion that there’s no “ancient and artificial formula” for determining bias. In forcing an investigation, he adds, the appeals court “robs” the lower court of its authority.

It doesn’t pass the smell test, our words. It is a case of politics interfering with justice, and that stinks.

When can Martin Richard, Krystle Campbell, Lingzi Lu, Sean Collier and BPD Officer Dennis Simmonds rest in peace?

Most schools went test-optional, meaning students could submit scores if they wanted but not doing so wouldn’t count against them.  Only a handful of schools have resurrected the testing requirement, but among them are heavyweights in the world of higher education: MIT, Dartmouth and Georgetown. Most recently, the University of Texas at Austin and Brown University joined the list and the University of North Carolina is considering it. Yale also will require standardized test scores, but tests such as Advanced Placement can be used in place of college entrance exams.

Additional competitive schools are likely to join the group, along with schools that aren’t as selective.

The tests were criticized long before the pandemic as giving an unfair boost to more affluent students who could afford tutoring. And it’s true that scores are closely correlated with family income. But the pause in testing gave colleges a chance to study the issue more closely. They found that SAT scores were extremely effective at predicting whether students would succeed in college.

No one should be surprised.

Making the tests optional was actually counterproductive, Dartmouth, Yale and Brown found. Their applicant pools became less diverse, because low-income students and students of color were less likely to apply even if they had good test scores, thinking they hadn’t tested well enough.

The whole debate has sadly ignored the bigger factors perpetuating the uneven playing field of college admissions. Yes, rich students can receive SAT tutoring, and it helps, though only a little. The most rigorous study of the topic found that tutoring could raise scores by about 20 points.

Meanwhile, some aspects of college admission tilt the field in favor of wealthier students more than test scores do. For example, teachers at more affluent schools have more time for writing letters of recommendation for college applications than teachers at low-income schools.

Athletes continue to get the upper hand on acceptance, and not just in commonly played games like football and soccer that most students have access to in high school. Golf, equestrian, fencing, gymnastics and crew are among the sports that require families to pay for their children to participate, and those athletes also get preferential treatment in college admissions.

There is nothing inherently evil about the SAT or ACT. It all depends on how they’re used. They can act as a reality check — a student who didn’t get great grades might show a lot of potential in the test scores, and vice versa. And colleges should consider the scores in context, such as, is this the best score in a generally low-scoring high school? A score might reflect the education at that school, not the student’s aptitude for college work.

Of course, schools have a right to seek out the students who will fit best at their institution. But the lack of transparency and consistency has given rise to a nearly $3-billion-a-year industry of pricey college-admissions consultants.

Talk about tilting the playing field.

Los Angeles Times./Tribune News Service

Last month, the Canadian government introduced the Online Harms Act, which creates a “new legislative and regulatory framework to reduce harmful content on social media platforms,” Tech Policy.press reports. The proposal, backed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, would establish the Digital Safety Commission to monitor sites for so-called “hate speech” and content that might be harmful to children.

The fine print is a tribute to bureaucratic overreach and one of the most glaring affronts to free expression ever concocted by a Western government.

The legislation would give Canadian judges the power to issue sentences of life in prison for certain online speech violations. It permits the authorities to impose house arrest and fines if there are “reasonable grounds” to believe an individual “will commit” an offense, allowing for speculative punishment of speech crimes. The measure amends the Canadian Human Rights Act “to classify hate speech as discrimination,” the BBC reports, while empowering the Human Rights Tribunal to oversee hate speech offenses.

The act also gives “anyone the ability to file a complaint … alleging online hate speech,” Michael Taube, a Canadian columnist, wrote this week in a Wall Street Journal commentary. That will no doubt lead to a “massive influx of complaints,” one observer noted, as partisans exploit the law to harass their political enemies.

As one might expect, what constitutes “hate speech” is vaguely defined and open-ended. That alone should be cause for concern.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association piled on. The legislation, the group said, “includes overbroad violations of expressive freedom, privacy, protest rights and liberty.” It bestows “vast authority” in a new bureaucracy “to interpret the law, make up new rules, enforce them and then serve as judge, jury and executioner.” It grants the government “sweeping new search powers of electronic data with no warrant requirement.” In addition, “The broad criminal prohibitions on speech in the bill risk stifling public discourse and criminalizing political activism.”

All of this is brought to you by the progressive Trudeau and Canada’s Liberal Party. But the totalitarian sentiment underlying this Orwellian proposal also runs through the minds of many virtue-signaling U.S. activists, who consider the First Amendment a tool of oppression and long for similar criminal restrictions in this country on any utterance or posting that might offend anybody anywhere.

Trump carries plenty of baggage. But as Trudeau’s foray into aggressive state censorship reveals, many of those mewling about the former president being a “threat to democracy” have their own soft spots for tyranny.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

Reason.com has released a documentary on “The political sabotage of nuclear energy.” It’s a fascinating overview of how misguided environmentalists derailed the clean energy of the future through opportunistic fearmongering.

“The United States knows that peaceful power from atomic energy is no dream of the future,” President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in his 1953 “Atoms of Peace” speech. “The capability, already proved, is here today. Who can doubt that, if the entire body of the world’s scientists and engineers had adequate amounts of fissionable material with which to test and develop their ideas, this capability would rapidly be transformed into universal, efficient and economic usage?”

Between 1967 and 1972, the country saw the construction of 48 nuclear plants. The future of cheap and reliable energy looked bright.

But the green movement pushed a false narrative linking nuclear power to the dangers and destructive capabilities of the atomic bomb. Then, in 1979, a meltdown occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. “The China Syndrome,” a fictional movie about a nuclear plant on the verge of an accident and the attempted cover-up, had just come out.

This was an opening leftists coveted. Their anti-nuclear crusade was widely successful at turning public opinion against nuclear power. New regulations stifled the industry, let alone innovation. Energy providers didn’t build a single nuclear power plant for two decades.

It’s worth remembering that there were no deaths or injuries in the Three Mile Island incident. Also, there were “no adverse effects to the surrounding environment,” the Department of Energy concluded.
In place of nuclear, environmental activists pushed renewable energy, such as solar and wind power. Those energy sources enjoy untold political advantages, including heavy government subsidies and mandates. Wind and solar are widely popular, but they are unreliable, even as government handouts have artificially lowered their costs.

There are challenges to nuclear power, not the least of which is waste disposal. But nuclear reactors have a long track record in this country of reliability and safety. The second reactor at Three Mile Island produced power until 2019. In 2022, nuclear energy provided 18.2% of the country’s electricity. Solar and wind provided 3.4% and 10.2% respectively.

Progressives like to talk about following “the science.” For decades, they have been ignoring their own advice when it comes to clean nuclear energy.

Las Vegas Review-Journal. /Tribune News Service

On Thursday, Joshua McCullough was arrested for robbing a woman in North Providence, R.I.

They are the same person.

All it took was a name change —  a relatively quick procedure for McCullough, who, as the Herald reported, petitioned to change his name on May 8, 2018. It was done on June 21, 2018, according to Suffolk County Probate Court records.

How can it be so easy for a convicted felon —  a cop killer no less —  to legally change his name? What’s worse, that wasn’t his first offense. He was previously convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of Dorchester store clerk Angela Skeete in 1986.

Yet it took just 43 days for Terrell Muhammad to step into a new life as Joshua McCullough.

This is nothing short of terrifying, as are the short sentences McCullough received for both crimes.

According to the state web site, an adult 18-years-old or older can have a name change granted unless it is “inconsistent with public interests.” For example, your name change might not be granted if you are trying to pretend to be someone else, or if you are trying to hide your criminal record.

Convicted of manslaughter and killing a police officer —  how did McCullough’s petition not send off a chorus of alarms?

Discovering a person’s criminal past camouflaged by a name change isn’t exclusive to Massachusetts or R.I.

A bill that would make it harder for those convicted of violent crimes to change their names is being considered by a New Hampshire Senate committee.

As WMUR reported, the bill came about after two women went to check on the status of the man convicted of killing their mother and couldn’t find him because he had changed his name.

James Covington pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges for killing his girlfriend in 1999 in Somersworth. The body of Deborah Duncan was found in a Massachusetts cemetery.

Covington filed a petition in 2022 to legally change his first name, saying he wanted a fresh start. That petition was granted by the court.

Last week, a Senate committee heard testimony on a bill that would make it more difficult for those convicted of violent felonies or crimes against children to change their names.

It would require a compelling reason for the name change and require that prosecutors and victims be notified about the petition. Supporters of the bill said name changes could allow criminals to escape their past, and the current system leaves victims out of the loop.

In Covington’s case, the state took him back to court and had his name change reversed. Supporters of the measure said the safeguards in the bill should prevent that from happening.

We hope N.H. gives this bill the green light. Massachusetts should follow suit.

Those convicted of violent crimes especially shouldn’t have the chance to effectively give themselves a legal alias. For career criminals like McCullough, it’s a fresh start to re-offend.

It’s a slap in the face to victims and their loved ones, and undermines the very concept of public safety

He’s willing to leave an ally and sole Middle East democracy hanging to win over “uncommitted” voters and assorted anti-Israel blocs. Biden will spend trillions to support a Green New Deal agenda, economy be damned.

And now, he’s gone all in on his push to get Americans to drive electric vehicles even if they don’t want to.

The Biden administration on Wednesday issued one of its most ambitious climate rules, a move that could make electric cars the majority of U.S. auto sales eight years from now, according to Politico.

The final version of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Cars rule is the strictest federal climate regulation ever issued for passenger cars and trucks — even though it offers manufacturers a slightly slower phase-in of pollution limits than the EPA had first proposed last spring.

Biden said the rule fulfills his promise to cut the nation’s carbon pollution in half by the end of the decade while promoting American workers. “Together, we’ve made historic progress. Hundreds of new expanded factories across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying union jobs,” Biden said in a statement.

“And we’ll meet my goal for 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”

That’s music to the ears of climate activists. But for the rest of the country?

The American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers came out against the rule, saying it would eliminate most new gasoline-fueled cars in less than a decade “at a time when Americans are struggling with high costs and inflation.”

“This regulation will make new gas-powered vehicles unavailable or prohibitively expensive for most Americans. For them, this wildly unpopular policy is going to feel and function like a ban,” the groups said in a joint statement.

That’s one way to deal with a public reluctant to purchase electric vehicles.

Last month, Mercedes-Benz became the latest carmaker to push back its plans for electric vehicles to make up most of its sales.

As Fox Business reported, the German luxury brand now says it won’t meet its 2025 deadline to have EVs, including hybrids, make up 50% of all sales. Lackluster demand for electric-powered cars has delayed that goal until at least 2030, the company said.

CEO Ola Kaellenius had warned late last year that even in Europe, sales would likely not be all-electric by 2030, with battery-powered cars currently making up just 11% of total sales, and 19% including hybrids.

Benz is not alone, weak demand for EVs has prompted several automakers to slow down their EV push and refocus on higher-margin hybrid and gas-powered models.

Will Biden’s new move win over the hearts and minds of Americans saying “no thanks” to electric vehicles? Not if EVs remain more expensive than gas-powered cars. According to Fox News, even factoring in generous federal and state subsidies, the average cost of an EV is about $52,500, while the average subcompact car costs $24,000.

But cost, affordability and factors such as the strength of electric grids to handle demand are mere details to those inside the Beltway. They may be seeing green, but many voters will see red over this move.

A simple, common-sense solution.

Not to the left, which is why the move ended up before the Supreme Court.

As The Hill reported, the Biden administration had urged the justices to block the law, passed by Texas’s Republican-controlled legislature last year, asserting it is an “unprecedented intrusion into federal immigration enforcement.”

Federal immigration enforcement?

As House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN) said in a December statement: “I fear the extent of the threat posed by the record-number of gotaways on Secretary Mayorkas’ watch won’t be clear until it is too late. The number of individuals apprehended illegally crossing the Southwest border and found to be on the terrorist watchlist has increased 2,500 percent from Fiscal Years 2017-2020 to Fiscal Year 2023. And those are only who we’ve caught.

“How many others have slipped by as Border Patrol agents have increasingly been pulled off the line to process illegal aliens crossing the border? How many violent criminals and gang members are now at large in our communities? Border security is national security, and right now, the border is not secure. When upwards of two million people have entered our country, whom we know nothing about, we are at deadly risk.”

It sounds like the feds could use a hand in arresting those caught entering the country illegally. The Supreme Court thinks so. It greenlighted the Texas law Tuesday, though three liberal justices publicly dissented. The order is not a final decision, and the case could return to the high court.

As a border state, Texas has been the canary in the coal mine of the migrant crisis. For years officials there sounded the alarm on illegal immigrants and how state and city shelters were past the breaking point as more and more people crossed the border.

They were derided by the left as xenophobic NIMBYs without compassion. It wasn’t until Texas exported the issue to northern states that the extent of the problem became obvious, even to blue states.

Now, Americans can’t go a day without hearing of cities struggling to find room to house a continued influx of migrants, with some having to bunk down at airports for the night. Crime linked to migrants, often with gang ties, make the headlines every week. Police are attacked, stores and people robbed and assaulted.

In Massachusetts, it’s a question of “who’s next” when it comes to communities and sites “selected” to shelter migrants.

The Texas statute enabling its law enforcement officers to enforce the law could be a valuable assist for our beleaguered Border Patrol officers, and help curb the steady stream northward.

Those on the left find the Texas answer to illegal immigration appalling, and there will likely be more legal push back.

But what’s needed in D.C. — and around the country — is more of that “don’t mess with Texas” attitude.

Mayor Michelle Wu noted that our migrant crisis is expected to impact Boston’s budget next fiscal year as new arrivals continue to strain the adult shelter system and services are needed for children entering schools.

Wu, who may propose her budget to the City Council next month, did not get into specifics about how the crisis would impact spending in fiscal year 2025, which begins July 1. But one can guess: more money will be needed to deal with the migrant situation, and that money has to come from somewhere.

It doesn’t help that the city is facing a $1B budget shortfall thanks to all the empty office buildings around Boston.

The knee-jerk reaction would be to raise taxes on Boston residents. However, the city is sitting on a veritable goldmine of undertapped funding: the city’s tax-exempt colleges and universities.

The City Council raised the issue back in 2020, with then-Councilor Michael Flaherty calling for a hearing into the PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) program.

“Our tax-exempt institutions must pay their fair share,” said Flaherty.

It’s a great system — for colleges, universities, hospitals and other non-profits. Under the PILOT program, these nonprofits make voluntary payments, which amount to roughly 25% of what they would have paid in real estate taxes and are meant to “help to offset the burden placed on Boston taxpayers to fund city services for all property owners,” according to the city website, the Herald reported.

Property taxes represent 74% of the city’s revenue, but more than 50% of real estate in Boston is tax-exempt, according to City Councilor Liz Breadon, who last year lead a contingent of councilors pushing for an update to the program — which has operated under the same guidelines since 2012.

City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, then a councilor, said “In a wealthy and prosperous city like Boston, we have to ensure that expanding economic success is felt by all of our residents, and the prosperity that we have as a city is one that everyone can share. Our wealthy and renowned nonprofits can afford to pay their fair share.”

Amen to that.

We’re past the point of free – or almost free – passes. Even if the migrant crisis wasn’t straining the city’s resources, there are too many financial variables to allow for sacred cows to decide how much they deign to pay in taxes.

We know what tuition costs at some of these institutions, and we’ve learned what some of our universities pay their teachers and administrators. No one is scraping by.  No one, except, for Boston residents who need vital services and see city money stretch to provide for a continued inflow of migrants.

Assessing Department Commissioner Nicholas Ariniello noted last year that 47 nonprofits participating in the PILOT program weren’t meeting the full payment requested by the city.

In fiscal year 2022, collective payments from these private institutions were 75%, or roughly $92.4 million of the requested $123.5 million, Ariniello said.

Enough.

It’s unconscionable that non-profits in Boston continue to underpay the city, especially during these financially trying times. Pay up.

Biden remains terrified of getting sideways with progressive activists in the United States who have cozied up to those calling for Israel’s destruction. Many of them are in his own administration. In what will likely be a close November election, he can’t afford to lose the support.

Concerns for his political survival have led the president to dissemble and posture over Israel’s effort to protect itself in the wake of the Oct. 7 massacre. Biden recently proclaimed that he would “never leave Israel,” yet then went on to upbraid the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for tolerating too many civilian casualties. He added that Netanyahu was “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”

This is an outrageous characterization that misreads diplomatic reality while sending precisely the wrong message to Hamas.

The terror group uses the deaths of its own civilians to pursue its murderous agenda. It routinely and intentionally puts innocent women and children in harm’s way and relishes the humanitarian issues its attacks on Israel unleash. It is counting on increased international pressure to help it keep the Israeli defense forces at bay and to force a cease-fire that will allow it to kill another day and carry out more deadly, indiscriminate attacks on Jewish targets.

Biden’s public rebukes of Netanyahu imply a softness in American support for the Jewish state and play directly into the hands of fanatics dedicated to wiping Israel off the map. They also embolden Iran, who is using surrogates such as Hamas to light a fuse in the tense Middle East.

For his part, Netanyahu has held his ground.

The Biden administration “pressure tactics have allowed Netanyahu to rally even his rivals around his positions on Rafah and against unilateral U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state, an idea that Israelis find criminally insane right now,” Elliot Kaufman of the Wall Street Journal noted this week. “The prime minister’s chief opponent, Benny Gantz, has publicly agreed with him on both.”

Biden should make it clear to Hamas officials that American support for Israel is unwavering — and if they seek an end to the war they started, they must lay down their arms, free the civilian hostages they hold, disavow terror and recognize Israel’s right to exist. Instead, the president publicly hectors Israel every week in order to appease the far left. The word pathetic comes to mind.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

How’s this? Many of the streets around the neighborhood could be closed on weekends to allow outdoor dining. The city could help promote this and watch tourists flock to Little Italy.

Or, make Hanover Street one-way to allow for tables on weekends.

All it takes is a little urban savvy, and the sour taste leaves everybody’s mouth.

There are so many streets you can begin with, so all you need are the neighbors at the table with the agenda item “Seeking Compromise” as the focus.

But there’s a federal lawsuit hovering over all this, so everyone is picking sides and clamming up.

Mayor Wu needs to fix this. We’re not sure why she’s taking such a hard stance in the North End. Just walking around the other day, the warm weather had everyone out. Just think how beautiful it will be this spring and summer.

Paris, Madrid, and Rome (we could keep going) have turned al fresco dining into an art form. It’s time to think big in Boston, too. Have the restaurant owners pay for the police details and watch as the North End becomes the destination it has always been for generations.

Drop the $7,500 fee for outdoor dining permission while you’re at it. It’s punitive.

A new survey tells of Americans down on the economy. It’s primarily the insane cost of housing, but it’s more than that. Politicians make decisions for, well, political reasons. Many are laser-focused on their reputations at the expense of what’s good for others.

When was the last time you sacrificed a household necessity to make a political point? How about never? You need to pay bills, fix broken pipes, and prioritize a loved one’s health.

The Associated Press reports if it wasn’t for shelter costs, inflation — President Biden’s most pronounced economic problem — would be running at a healthy and stable 1.8%. Instead, it’s hovering around 3.2%.

It’s similar to what’s happening here in the North End. The many wonderful restaurants give people jobs and the foot traffic to the neighborhood helps other surrounding businesses. The pastry shops and specialty food outlets all benefit.

Attacking this outdoor dining conundrum as a team instead of staying on opposing sides would go a long way to building goodwill. Mayor Wu says she’s standing up for the neighbors concerned about late nights and other stresses associated with outdoor events. So make that a top agenda item.

Someone needs to care about what makes Boston the Hub of the universe. Stand up and demand that the North End be treated as a jewel, not a problem, that will keep foodies flocking to the neighborhood to enjoy dining outside, dining inside, walking around, and staying overnight in one of the many fine hotels downtown.

Call a community meeting. Have Mayor Wu stand in front of the crowd and start soliciting solutions instead of trying to score political points.

This city deserves nothing less! All the other neighborhoods will be watching and learning, too.

In the end, everyone could sit down for a great meal with a little wine and toast this fantastic town.

The Biden administration this week unveiled its budget blueprint for fiscal 2025. It raises taxes, hikes spending to pandemic-era levels and embraces a federal public sector that devours more than a quarter of gross domestic product. And yet Biden wants taxpayers to believe this represents a prudent financial path forward.

Indeed, the president claims his spending plan will trim deficits by $3 trillion over the next decade. And if you believe that, we’ve got some tony beachfront property in Gabbs, Nevada to show you.

In fact, “the level of borrowing under the president’s budget,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget pointed out, “would be unprecedented outside a war or national emergency.”

Biden seeks to spend $7.3 trillion, an 18% increase over two years. For perspective, Washington burned through $3.65 trillion in fiscal 2015, about half the amount this administration proposes to spend next year.
Yet the president desperately tries to couch this spending blowout as an example of restraint, bragging about deficit reduction. His own projections, however, call for $16.3 trillion of red ink over the next 10 years and a $1.8 trillion hole in fiscal 2025. Only in the Neverland world of Washington could a president pat himself on the back for borrowing “only” $16 trillion in the coming decade.

“The White House should have the intellectual honesty,” Reason’s Eric Boehm wrote, “to tell the American people that it expects them to continue financing an unstable pile of debt that will burden their children and sap long-term economic growth.”

It’s worth noting that the administration’s numbers are based on optimistic growth projections and low inflation. In other words, if future Biden tax hikes pass Congress and put a crimp in investment — as they are likely to do — the rosy scenarios evaporate and the raging river of red ink turns into an ocean.

“The price tag of President Biden’s proposed budget,” a House Republican statement argued, “is yet another glaring reminder of this administration’s insatiable appetite for reckless spending,” adding that the president’s proposal is a “road map to accelerate America’s decline.”

Biden’s budget has no chance of passing this Congress. But for Biden to claim his proposed spending spree is the work of a deficit hawk is an affront to common sense and the American taxpayer.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

That’s something that should be top of mind for the Boston City Council in light of City Councilor Ed Flynn’s call for a hearing on the delays in testing the kits at the Boston Police Crime Laboratory.

The problem isn’t confined to Boston – there’s a backlog of kit testing around the country. But the council has the power to do something about the problem here.

As the Herald reported, Flynn cited an annual report from the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security that found half, or 93 of 186 kits, were not tested within that 30-day window in fiscal year 2023 — from June 2022 to June 2023.

Each untested kit is a person waiting for their alleged assailant to be identified through DNA, perhaps the strongest evidence in prosecuting rapists. Each week or month that goes by without an answer means knowing the alleged criminal is still on the streets and could strike again.

“It’s critical we address this situation and provide justice for anyone who’s a victim of sexual assault,” Flynn said.

The reason for the backlog is no mystery: The Boston Police Crime Laboratory has a staffing shortage. And boosting staff requires money, and the will to spend it where it’s needed.

Last year, the MBTA came to grips with its own staggering workforce shortage. Gov. Maura Healey stepped up to the plate with $20 million for the MBTA Workforce Safety Reserve, designed to boost employee recruitment and retention. The move helped increase the T’s staff by more than 10% in 2023.

That’s how you do it.

Flynn suggests that a future Council hearing could examine ways to provide more resources to the crime lab.

One solution: stop looking at the Boston Police Department budget and thinking “where do I cut?”

Funding the police has been a sticking point with progressive members of the council

Last year, the council sent an operating budget to the mayor that cut roughly $31 million from the police department. Thankfully, Mayor Michelle Wu slammed the brakes on the move, vetoing the cut.

In a letter to the City Council, Wu called their attempt to slash the BPD budget “illusory.”

That’s one word for it.

The council was divided on taking a machete to the BPD budget, but we hope it can unite around an issue as important as clearing up the backlog of sexual assault test kits.

It will require more funding for the department to hire more workers, perhaps new equipment, whatever it takes to bring the lab up to speed.  That could run into the millions, at a time when tax revenue is down and likely to stay on the decline thanks to empty office buildings.

There are many areas that need funding in the city, and it would be too easy to kick the can down the road for future councils. This is an opportunity for the city council to show that they serve all Bostonians, especially the most vulnerable, and have the will to back up promises with much-needed funding.

Victims of sexual assault have been waiting for justice long enough.

Despite a public records request made three years ago, Kerry still refuses to tell the Herald the full details of his staff until this October. We learned in January that running his office cost some $4.3 million in pay per year, but Kerry didn’t reveal the names of any staffers.

So we wish a heartfelt good luck to the House Republicans who are demanding the ex-climate czar disclose details about his “shadow diplomacy” with Iran during the Trump administration — warning that his actions may have violated the federal Logan Act.

As the New York Post reported, five GOP lawmakers, led by Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida, sent a letter to the State Department Wednesday saying Kerry, 80, must hand over all records of his “private correspondence” with former Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif.

“It is of the utmost importance to ascertain the nature of these communications,” they wrote, according to a copy of the letter exclusively obtained by The Post. “Any discussion of sanctions imposed by President Donald Trump against Iran would present a likely violation of the Logan Act.”

The Logan Act, which dates back to 1799, prohibits citizens from unauthorized correspondence with foreign governments in a bid to influence that government’s relations or resolve disputes with the US.

You can’t go rogue as a self-appointed diplomat.

In a 2018 radio interview, Kerry admitted to having met “three or four times” with Zarif since leaving his post as President Obama’s secretary of state the year before.

“What I have done is tried to elicit from him what Iran might be willing to do in order to change the dynamic in the Middle East for the better,” Kerry said.

That would be something for Trump’s State Department to tackle.

But the “do not enter” sign doesn’t apply to Kerry, or so he assumes.

“Depending on what it involves, shadow diplomacy has also saved us from a war,” Kerry said. “If you look at 1963 (actually 1962) with the Cuban Missile Crisis, it was behind the scenes, back-channel conversation.”

Those GOP lawmakers noted in their letter that then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy’s negotiation efforts with the Soviet Union was another ballgame entirely.

You, Mr. Kerry, are no Robert Kennedy.

It’s not just the behind-the-scenes move by Kerry, it’s who was on the other side of the table.

According to reports, Iran’s regime helped plan and signed off on the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel by Hamas.

“In its most recent Country Report on Terrorism for Iran, the US State Department noted that Iran continued providing weapons systems and other support to Hamas and other US-designated Palestinian terrorist groups,” the lawmakers noted.

The lawmakers are rightly concerned that should Trump return to the White House, Kerry would be back to his old tricks.

They requested that Kerry commit to standing down from his self-described “shadow diplomacy” if Trump wins in November.

“Will you commit to ceasing any backchannel communications with Iran and any other foreign government in the event of a change in administrations in November and never again advise the Iranian government on how to evade US pressure?” they asked.

The right answer for Kerry to divulge is “yes.”

On one side, One Fair Wage and its supporters, which calls for gradually increasing the $6.75 minimum hourly wage for tipped workers to meet the state’s overall $15 minimum wage. Tips would still be allowed under the measure.

On the other, the Massachusetts Restaurant Association and the Committee to Protect Tips.

The initiative would be a boon to restaurant workers who don’t make much in tips, those at lower-priced eateries for example. Tips bring their pay up to $15 an hour, but not much more.

However, a look at Glassdoor and Indeed offer a different take on wait staff wages in Boston.

Glassdoor puts the estimated total pay for a waiter at $74,696 per year in the area, with an average annual salary of $49,642 per year. The estimated additional pay is $25,054 per year, which would include tips. .

Indeed pegged the average base salary at $25.14 per hour, with daily tips at around $150 per day.

That’s not every restaurant, of course, but a splurge at one of the city’s high-end establishments, with wine, sets the diner back several hundred dollars, with a generous tip likely.

The initiative doesn’t prohibit tips on top of the $15 minimum wage, which begs the question: will people tip if the gratuity is included in the bill? They don’t have to, and since prices will likely rise if restaurant owners have to pay higher salaries, the impetus to add a tip when it’s not required is small. Any chance to save a few bucks will be taken.

And you can bet on higher prices should worker wages increase. As CNBC reported last year, unlike other small businesses, it can be hard for restaurants to absorb or pass on price increases. A restaurant’s typical pretax profit is about 5% of sales. “It’s a very thin margin to begin with,” said Hudson Riehle, the National Restaurant Association’s senior vice president of research.

Some restaurants around the country have already added credit-card swipe fees and raised prices in light of inflation.

A survey by CorCom Inc. found that after Washington, D.C. began phasing out the tip credit, hundreds of restaurant owners imposed a mandatory service charge on customer checks to account for rising costs.

If Massachusetts restaurateurs followed suit, that would make it even less likely for a diner to add a tip on top of the higher bill, with a service charge to boot.

As the Herald reported, Doug Bacon, the head of Red Paint Hospitality Group, argued in a State House hearing yesterday that the minimum wage in Massachusetts will eventually hit $20 an hour in five years.

“I can tell you with 100% certainty that no operator can absorb a 200% increase in the cost of having a server or a bartender. So we’re going to raise our prices or change our staffing and our business model,” he said.

If restaurants reduce staff or cut back on hours to adjust for higher wages, that will erase gains for staff made under a tip-included ballot measure.

As for restaurant patrons, rising prices will lead to a readjustment in how often they dine out.

It’s a harsh lesson learned by those who push back on Mayor Michelle Wu’s policies.

For someone who touted equity as a cornerstone of her mayoral campaign, Wu has no problem with excluding children attending public charter schools and METCO students from her “BPS Sundays” pilot program. It allows some BPS students free access to cultural institutions on the first and second Sunday of each month up to August.

Tough luck for charter school kids and METCO students who want equal treatment.

“We’re not going to reopen those negotiations just in the middle of the agreed-upon pilot,” Wu said.

A pilot program is where you work out the details of a plan — how long it should last, for example. Inclusion should be a given. Wu previously told the Herald there is not funding to expand the program to more students during the pilot period. How about funding for all and a shorter time frame? Or enrolling students based on zip code and not which school they attend?

Wu said the exclusion is not politically motivated.

Of course not.

The kids and families left out of “BPS Sundays” can commiserate with North End restaurateurs. They, too are on the mayor’s D-list.

During the pandemic, outdoor dining was a lifesaver for restaurants as dining rooms had to limit patrons. For the past two years, however, the city served up bad news for North End eateries.

In 2022, officials forced restaurateurs to pay a $7,500 fee for outdoor dining operations. Last year, Boston banned on-street dining, limiting the al fresco option to “compliant sidewalk patios.” The North End was the only neighborhood that faced the restrictions, as the Herald reported. 

While other restaurants around the city can offer outdoor dining to locals and tourists who want to have dinner while enjoying the breeze on a warm day, the North End, except for a few spots, cannot. An increase in customers, tips for staff, and a chance for a thriving season are off the table.

Restaurants took a fiscal hit in 2022 and 2023, and a group of 21 neighborhood restaurateurs have added the losses they anticipate for  2024, the fees they paid in 2022 and the lost revenue from 2023 to lawsuit filed earlier this year in federal court.

One would think the city would want all of its restaurants to do well, especially as revenue is down thanks to all those empty office buildings. Curtailing outdoor dining in the neighborhood isn’t good for anyone’s bottom line.

Those opposed cite the neighborhood’s narrow sidewalks and streets, and increase in trash and rodents due to outdoor dining. They also call out traffic and congestion.

Fair enough. But that should prompt a dialogue on how to address those issues, not trigger a “no” from the city.

Boston gets crowded from June to early September. There will be sightseeing trolleys, Duck Tours, and throngs of pedestrians. There will be traffic and congestion, and restaurants who serve patrons outdoors will have to deal with trash and rodents.

Negotiations, whether it’s with restaurateurs over outdoor dining or schools left out of the BPS Sundays program, should be part and parcel of city leadership.

Less publicized is a Biden administration program that also transports migrants throughout the country under the guise of easing pressure at the southern border.

The program allows would-be border crashers to use a Customs and Border Patrol app to make appointments with U.S. officials at land ports rather than enter the country illegally. Those who secure one of the limited appointments are allowed “to walk over to the American side at the land ports,” notes a report by the Center for Immigration Studies, “where U.S. Customs officials quickly ‘parole’ them in, allowing them to travel to a city of their choice in the nation’s interior.”

In addition, CIS reports, the program also allows potential immigrants to fly directly from foreign airports into the United States.

CIS has sued the administration in order to retrieve more details of the program. CBS News reported in February that more than 450,000 people had used this approach to enter the country. The center says the White House refuses to name the 43 U.S. cities that have hosted such flights or the cities of origin.

According to CBS News, “migrants who secure a CBP One appointment can apply for a work permit after being released from U.S. custody and do not have to satisfy the stricter asylum conditions of a Biden administration regulation.”

The White House couches the scheme as an effort to create a more orderly environment at the border. If, so why the secrecy? The program’s efficacy is also in question, as illegal migrant crossings reached a record high in December. Why wait for an appointment when you can cross the border, claim asylum and still be released into the country with a notice to appear in court years down the road?

Mark Morgan, former head of Customs and Border Protection, told The National Desk last week that it’s all about the administration’s “shell game” and covering up “bad political optics.” According to Todd Bensman, who authored the CIS report, “migrants flying directly into America go uncounted in the monthly Border Patrol tallies, unnoticed and without media inquiry, virtually all information about it almost hermetically sealed.”

President Joe Biden acknowledged a crisis at the border only when it became a political liability. The fact that he shirks responsibility for the mess reveals the chaos is hardly accidental.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

President Joe Biden likes to brag about Bidenomics. He’ll cite statistics about job growth, a growing GDP and falling inflation. The American people aren’t buying it.

The fundamental problem is inflation, which is both toxic and unavoidable. It’s an acid that eats through savings accounts, personal budgets and dreams of homeownership. The American people aren’t fooled by spin about falling inflation rates. Dropping inflation from 7% to 3% may be progress but it doesn’t address persistently higher prices. The Federal Reserve’s inflation target is 2%.

Still, it is worth digging in a little deeper to the economic numbers. ABC News recently performed an analysis of state-level data. It found a major difference between blue and red states. “Most of the best-performing states” had “voted in favor of former President Donald Trump,” reporter Max Zahn wrote.

Five states had above average results on “job growth, personal income growth, gross domestic product growth and gas prices.” Four of them, Idaho, Texas, South Carolina and Utah, voted for Donald Trump in 2020. The fifth was the swing state of Wisconsin, which has strong Republican majorities in its Legislature. Another 13 states did well on three of those metrics. Nine of them supported Trump.

Rather than acknowledge the benefits of more laissez-faire leadership, Zahn desperately looked for ways to explain away the results.
The story quoted Mark Partridge, a professor of economics at Ohio State University, who said, “The climates are better in red states, and Americans like good climates.” Ah, yes. If only New York and Illinois were in the Sun Belt, companies and taxpayers would be flocking to these high-tax, regulatory hothouses. Talk about a cloistered academic.

Another explanation is that “Democrat-leaning cities” draw a young and educated workforce. There’s an obvious problem here. Blue states also have Democrat-leaning cities. They aren’t as attractive because the Democrats running state government don’t rein in the worst impulses of those local officials.

There is scant reference to the real reason. Free-market policies, which are more common in red states, best create the conditions for economic growth. Profit is the reward that companies receive for best meeting their customers’ needs and fuels expansion and hiring. Red states largely celebrate profitable companies. Blue state officials often attack them or strangle them with regulations.

There’s an important lesson for state elections in November.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

McConnell, from Kentucky, has served for nearly 40 years and has four more years left on his current term. He is 82 years old and has been in the Republican Senate leadership for two decades. If only Joe Biden had the grace to recognize when to step aside.

McConnell was also a favorite whipping boy of Donald Trump. He refused to play the sycophant, as Trump demands, and had harsh words for the former president in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots. Last month, Trump said that, if he were re-elected, he wasn’t sure he could work with McConnell.

In fact, many of Trump’s signature achievements would not have been possible had McConnell not shepherded them through the upper chamber. He was integral in helping the White House in 2017 pass the first major tax reform bill in a generation. And without McConnell, Trump could not have confirmed scores of constitutionalist judges to the federal bench while cementing his mark on the Supreme Court.

McConnell’s main sin among Trump Republicans is that he knows how to add and was sometimes willing to compromise with moderate Democrats to advance legislation. That’s inevitable in divided government, particularly in the Senate, where it often takes 60 votes to get anything done.

McConnell’s decision might also be a warning to Republicans about their chances of making congressional gains in November. The Senate map is heavily favorable to the GOP — Democrats must defend 23 of the 34 seats on the ballot. Yet McConnell has previously been critical about the quality of candidate his party has fielded under Trump — and voters have vindicated his assessment. Republicans have failed in the past three elections to turn Trump’s grip on the party into electoral traction. Would McConnell have given up a chance to lead the Senate again if he felt the GOP was poised to pick up several Senate seats?

Perhaps McConnell simply decided to go out on his own terms rather than risk a challenge if Trump again won the Oval Office.

Either way, he exits as the longest- serving party head in Senate history. No politician can survive that long without making enemies or earning justifiable criticism. Yet even Republicans who carp at the man from Kentucky must applaud his greatest achievement: the legacy he left on the federal courts.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

The House passed legislation Thursday that would require the detention of undocumented migrants charged with theft or burglary, according to Politico.

The Laken Riley Act, named after a Georgia nursing student allegedly murdered by an undocumented immigrant, passed 251-170 with 37 Democrats in support.

The measure would also empower state attorneys general to sue the federal government if they can show their states are being harmed through failure to enforce national immigration policies.

None of this is rocket science. But it’s thanks to “sanctuary” policies that view Immigration and Customs Enforcement as villains and undocumented immigrants charged with crimes as victims that such legislative action is necessary. The Laken Rileys and other victims of crime allegedly committed by illegal immigrants are downplayed and dismissed.

To acknowledge that some illegal immigrants commit crimes and should be detained for doing so goes against the progressive narrative.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said the measure had improved since its inception, but that it faced a certain death in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

“(It’s) still not great,” Roy said, arguing the bill remains too weak. “But, you know, we can try to move something — it’ll die in the Senate.”

Roy wasn’t just being jaded – there are Democrats slamming the legislation.

“This is just a totally cynical and disgusting attempt to exploit this tragedy to score cheap political points in an election year,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), ranking member of the Rules Committee.

So an undocumented migrant accused of a crime shouldn’t be detained? In what scenario does that keep communities safe?

“House Republicans have turned this tragedy into a partisan attack on immigrant communities. This is a time to bring the community together, not tear them apart. These partisan policies fuel anti-immigrant hate, increase fear in immigrant communities, and make it more difficult for law enforcement to form the relationships necessary to prevent crime in our communities,” Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chair Nanette Barragán (D-Calif.) said in a statement to Politico.

The legislation doesn’t paint all immigrants as criminals, but it does take action against those that are charged with crimes. Keeping their families safe is also a concern among immigrant communities. As many have fled crime in their home countries, it’s not an improvement to come to a country that lets those charged with crimes face few consequences.

Rep. Roy is right, the legislation will probably die in the Senate. The Senators who vote it down will do so amid polling that shows Americans see immigration as the most important issue facing the U.S.

Voters, particularly those in states taking in a steady influx of migrants, are taking notice. Democrats who assume their lax immigration and law enforcement views are shared among the electorate do so at their own risk.

For starters, it seems as if Democratic allies in mainstream media learned nothing from the last presidential election, in which Donald Trump’s supporters were lambasted as “deplorable” dolts ignorant of the real problems that faced the country.

MSNBC anchors Jen Psaki, Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow mocked GOP primary voters in Virginia live on air for considering immigration as their top concern.

The presenters at the liberal-leaning news network took jabs at voters while discussing the results of early exit polls on Super Tuesday, according to the New York Post.

“I live in Virginia. Immigration was the No. 1 issue,” Psaki said, drawing laughter from Reid.

“Well, Virginia does have a border with West Virginia, a — very contested area,” Maddow sarcastically chimed in, setting off more chortles from her co-hosts.

Later Reid broadly painted Republicans as racists who vote against their own economic interests out of bigotry.

“They don’t vote based on economics, or based on the benefits they’re getting economically from the president,” she argued. “They are voting on race; they are voting on this idea of an invasion of brown people over the border, the idea that they can’t get the job they want.”

One can assume that Reid doesn’t live in a neighborhood “selected” to house migrants. The “economic benefits” coming from President Biden are abundant for the young voters whose support he craves — he’s done much to erase college debt for swathes of that demographic.

For those who paid off the loans they took, or didn’t go to college, not so much. Ditto for people whose paychecks have yet to keep pace with inflation.

And in what world do higher grocery prices count as an economic benefit?

Psaki, Reid and Maddow can snicker all they want in efforts to diminish the concerns of Republican voters, Trump supporters are used to it. But their smug posturing hits a wall when the numbers are crunched. A New York Times/Siena College poll over the weekend showed Trump leading Biden 48% to 43% among registered voters nationwide.

The survey showed a majority of voters think the economy is in poor shape, and 47% strongly disapprove of Biden’s job performance, the highest such disapproval rating of any point in his presidency measured by Times/Siena polling.

When you’re earning big bucks at MSNBC, the economy is an abstract, not a daily battle to stretch a buck for food and bills.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) is trying to shore up support for the president. On the economy, Welch said the economic indicators are “solid” but people are “feeling some anxiety” about making ends meet when they pay the grocery bills, The Hill reported.

“Feeling some anxiety.” How out of touch can one be?

But being out of touch with ordinary Americans and their day-to-day concerns is a hallmark of Democratic elites. It was true in 2020 and it’s true now.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton may urge voters to overlook Biden’s age, but that’s not the only number a large section of the country cares about.

They care about the price of a loaf of bread, a simple chicken for dinner and lunches for their children. They care about the number of migrants crossing the border and crushing state resources and budgets.

Unless they lose the superior smirk, Democrats will have a very rude awakening in November.

The result is a skillful rearrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic.

As the Herald reported, the House plans to vote on legislation Wednesday that limits families’ time in state-run shelters to nine months unless they are employed or in job training.

The nine-month limit on shelter stays, which can be extended by three months if a person has a job or is enrolled in a work training program, will help exit both migrants and locals in a “timely manner after receiving ample support aimed at helping them to successfully enter the workforce,” said House Speaker Mariano said.

One problem: The right to shelter law remains intact.

While the meter’s ticking on a migrant family in a state shelter, ready to run out at nine (or 12) months, there are other migrants arriving right behind them who’ll need shelter ASAP. It does little good to establish last call if the bar stays open and free all night. Expect a crowded house.

Top Democrats proposed keeping the nine-month shelter stay limit in place until April 1, 2025 or when the Healey administration’s 7,500 family cap on the system is lifted, according to the text of the bill. It’s optimistic to believe that the cap will lift if there are no changes to the right to shelter law. People are still making the journey to the United States, whether seeking a better life, fleeing war, poverty, or, in the case of criminals, looking for a fresh place to do business. And Massachusetts is great for migrants — one can get a drivers license, get food and shelter and have the state help secure job training and possibly employment. Who wouldn’t want to come here?

Of course, the House plan shovels more money at the problem. Mariano wants his chamber to approve an additional $245 million to respond to an influx of migrant and local families seeking shelter,. On the bright side for Greater Boston, House Dems also want Healey to set up state-funded overflow shelter sites in “geographically diverse areas.” It’s only fair that other communities be “selected” for the task.

But is nine months enough? Jeff Thielman, the CEO of International Institute of New England, a resettlement agency, said “For many families it’s going to be too aggressive of a timeline unless they have enough job training, English training, and support finding housing.”

What if it isn’t? Will Healey give them the heave-ho anyway?

The Senate plans to weigh in. Senate budget writer Michael Rodrigues said the Senate will “take a good look” at the House proposal “and react with our own proposal.”

“Providing this assistance to migrant families is very expensive,” he told the Herald. “But I think there’s a lot of interest in trying to be creative in how we deal with that situation.”

Bottom line: something’s got to give – and it can’t continue to be whatever dwindling pandemic funds are left, or money that has to come from state programs to fill in the revenue gaps.

Any form of innuendo he uses to smear MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale with vulgar rhetoric shouldn’t be tolerated.

Carnevale has said the same in her complaint filed with the Federal Communications Commission. Yet, Kuhner doubled-down Monday using the word “whore” in his WRKO broadcast when discussing the MassGOP.

“Amy Carnevale is gunning for me,” Kuhner started one segment, alluding to the FCC complaint. He then recited a message from “a female listener” citing “the dictionary definition of a whore” that she says has since “broadened” to include anyone who is “money hungry.” He then goes on to say MassGOP must elect a new chair.

Kuhner is feeding off the pre-Super Tuesday battle for control of the state GOP committee by degrading women. That’s unacceptable.

We get that it’s political theater mostly to improve his ratings. But that doesn’t mean it’s OK. Amy Carnevale deserves praise for calling out Kuhner’s burlesque show.

The justices moved with urgency and unanimity allowing former President Donald Trump to remain on the ballot, knowing that Super Tuesday is pivotal. If only Congress had the same focus, but we digress.

Keeping Trump on the ballot is beyond the right decision. States should not have any power over national issues — and the Supreme Court agreed telling Colorado to back off.

“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 (of the Fourteenth Amendment) with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the court ruled in a 13-page decision.

The justices quote case law stating federal officers “owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not of a portion, of the people.” That’s a powerful message.

Leadership must be earned and no single state or group should be allowed to take it away prematurely.

The court reminded us that the Fourteenth Amendment was “designed to help ensure an enduring Union by preventing former Confederates from returning to power in the aftermath of the Civil War” — not to interfere in a presidential race. Congress, the court adds, is the only avenue.

Or, get out and vote!

The justices are reaching back, you could say, to Teddy Roosevelt who proclaimed “the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”

Colorado, your judgment “cannot stand.”