Gov. Maura Healey, like leaders of other states buckling under the strain of a never-ending migrant influx, is on board with Biden’s short-term solution bonanza.

As the Herald reported, the Healey Administration and the White House announced a plan to help some new arrivals secure employment.

During the week of Nov. 13, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the Bay State will host a “work authorization clinic” for migrant families currently living in state-provided housing.

“We are glad that the Biden-Harris Administration is hosting this clinic with us, which will help process work authorizations as efficiently as possible. Many shelter residents want to work but face significant barriers to getting their work authorizations,” Healey said.

“This clinic will be critical for building on the work that our administration has already been leading to connect more migrants with work opportunities, which will help them support their families and move out of emergency shelter into more stable housing options,” she said.

And what stable housing options might those be? There’s a shortage of affordable housing in Massachusetts as it is, as the non-migrants in the state’s shelter system can no doubt attest.

Rising rents have made it increasingly difficult for working families to afford to keep a roof over their heads. Having a job doesn’t guarantee you’ll have enough to rent a home or apartment.

In fact, Healey addressed this very issue last week, with the release of a $4 billion bond bill aimed at spurring housing production and boosting affordable home ownership. The Affordable Homes Act, a package of spending, policy and programmatic actions, represents the largest proposed investment in housing in the state’s history while simultaneously striking at the root causes of housing unaffordability, according to an administration release.

So, when migrants in our overwhelmed state shelters get work authorization help and secure jobs, where will they move to? What happens next? Whatever affordable housing options are produced by Healey’s bill are down the road at best, so migrants will find themselves in the same boat as others looking for a place to live that won’t take up their entire paycheck, and then some.

Leaders are working on that solution, and have been as the number of unhoused grows in Massachusetts. The migrant influx isn’t helping, and gainful employment for new arrivals will provide a leg up, but not necessarily the sort of boost that leads to a stable address.

There are two simultaneous crises in the Bay State: a migrant influx and housing. One needs to be solved, or at least greatly ameliorated, before the other can be competently dealt with.

Also omitted by Biden and Healey: there are more migrants coming. As the Associated Press reported, some 5,000 migrants set out on foot from Mexico’s southern border Monday, walking north toward the U.S.

Here they can get a drivers license and a job – and join the scrum to find

a place to live.

Business is the backbone of our democracy, and neglecting the engine that drives our freedom is irresponsible. Every warning light is blinking, governor, so erase your calendar, roll up your sleeves, and get out your toolbox.

The Tax Foundation ranks Massachusetts as the 5th worst state in its Business Tax Climate Index. New Jersey, New York, California, and Connecticut rank lower — but New Hampshire is in the Top 10. That alone should worry Gov. Healey. Last time when drove north it was a quick trip.

The sad part is Healey doesn’t seem to care. Neither does Speaker Ron Mariano and state Senate President Karen Spilka. Our Democratic-run government is more adept at knocking down entrepreneurs than helping them out.

This Tax Foundation report — showing the Bay State dropping 12 spots in just the past year — should be a wake-up call. Businesses and citizens vote with their feet, and we risk losing both if the status quo remains.

A driver behind the state’s nosedive in tax competitiveness, the Tax Foundation found, is the state’s new Fair Share Amendment – or Millionaire’s Tax – which taxes incomes over $1 million an extra 4%.

“While the $1 million threshold at which the surtax kicks in is indexed to inflation, the surtax imposes a sizable marriage penalty that the Commonwealth lacked previously,” authors wrote in the report which came out last week. “This policy change represents a stark contrast from the recent reforms to reduce rates while consolidating brackets in many other states.”

Paul Craney, a spokesman for Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance and a staunch opponent of the Millionaire’s Tax, called out proponents who pledged that the surtax would strictly apply to individuals with an income of over $1 million.

“With a flip of a switch, the Legislature lowered that threshold to $500,000 for married people and the Tax Foundation is predicting a clear negative outcome from this,” Craney added.

Why should you care?

Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, told the Herald this weekend that people and businesses alike are continuing to leave Massachusetts due to taxation.

His organization represents 4,000 businesses in the state so it’s not wise to ignore his comment.

The Tax Foundation also called out a payroll tax that went into effect this year in Massachusetts’ poor ranking. The organization also found that the state dropped 33 spots from the 11th-best state for individual taxes to the sixth-worst.

Hurst said high unemployment and health insurance costs, both of which are the worst in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation, need to be fixed.

The Healey administration and Beacon Hill lawmakers can not be allowed to go unchallenged. It’s embarrassing to be near last on any list. It’s unacceptable and reflects how out of touch our lawmakers have become.

Such plans are a one-stop-shop. They typically offer perks excluded from traditional Medicare, such as vision and dental coverage, with low or zero premiums and caps on out-of-pocket spending. Despite more limited networks of doctors and hospitals, most seniors who’ve signed up say they’re happy with the choice.

Yet Medicare Advantage has drawbacks — notably, its exorbitant cost. Government reports show the program routinely overcharges taxpayers relative to original Medicare — to the tune of $27 billion this year alone — at a time when the system’s solvency is at risk.

With more than half of enrollees now covered by Medicare Advantage — a share expected to grow briskly — the program could well displace traditional Medicare in the coming years. A better balance between the interests of beneficiaries and taxpayers will be critical for it to thrive as it should.

Congress established what’s now called Medicare Advantage three decades ago to offer seniors more choice and (in theory) to keep Medicare’s ballooning budget in check. The government would pay commercial insurers to deliver more efficient care, the thinking went.

But Medicare Advantage has never saved the government money. Congress’ internal advisory committee estimates overpayment to Medicare Advantage plans will reach hundreds of billions of dollars in the decade through 2033. Independent researchers have found that insurers make more than double per patient in the program compared with individual or employer-sponsored plans.

How did Medicare Advantage become, as one study put it, a “money machine”? Insurers submit bids to Medicare that cover the estimated cost of providing standard services to an average beneficiary. Medicare calculates a payment “benchmark” for a given county. If a plan bids below the benchmark, it can receive a “rebate” from the government — funds that are required to pay for extra perks and lower premiums. What’s left goes toward profits and administrative costs. Plans receive bigger payments for riskier enrollees with higher expected health spending.

Without careful oversight, such a system can be easily abused.

The best way forward would be to phase out the benchmark system, which — counterintuitively — is designed to overpay. In some areas, benchmarks are set higher than average Medicare costs. This inducement was originally intended to expand coverage. With the program now ubiquitous, it no longer makes sense.

Medicare should instead enable plans to compete directly with each other on premiums as they would in the commercial market. Such a change would allow both taxpayers and beneficiaries to share in savings, which could amount to as much as $230 billion over a decade.
Medicare Advantage is popular for good reason and should remain an alternative to traditional Medicare. With the right payment reforms, the program should work in the best interests of everyone involved.

Bloomberg Opinion/Tribune News Service

Unfortunately, the president continues to play games.

The Associated Press reported that President Joe Biden was hoping to persuade Republicans to support more aid for Ukraine by tying the issue to the U.S.-Mexico border. After nearly three years of tolerating a porous southern border, Biden now proposes spending $14 billion to beef up security there as part of a $106 billion package that includes more money for Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression.
Logrolling — the practice of exchanging political favors — has a long history in Congress, of course. But this is no time to be cavalier about border policy. Biden needs to set aside these border funds regardless of what happens to Ukraine funding.

More than 3.8 million people have illegally crossed our southern border since the president took office in January 2021, according to the New York Post, and nearly half of them “slipped into the country illegally and were never caught.” Some reports put the number as high as 5 million. Yet the White House has treated this issue as if it’s a fiction created by right-wing xenophobes. In fact, concern about the administration’s indifference to the influx of migrants on our border with Mexico is widespread.

In a recent Fox News poll, 71% of those surveyed disapproved of the president’s handling of border security, with even a majority of Democrats and Biden voters decrying the status quo. “The issue has become a political headache for the Biden administration,” Politico reports, “which has faced criticism from Democratic state and local officials over the federal government’s seeming inaction in the face of the crisis.”

Addressing this problem becomes even more imperative given the brazen terror attacks on Israel.

A memo obtained by the Daily Caller reveals that the Customs and Border Protection Intelligence Division is warning “that individuals inspired by, or reacting to, the current Israel-Hamas conflict may try to travel to or from the areas of hostility in the Middle East via circuitous transit across the Southwest border.” This is an open acknowledgment that, absent more aggressive efforts to control illegal entries, the country faces potential risk. Have any terrorists already slipped through thanks to Biden’s indifferent approach?

It’s past time the Biden administration acknowledged its failures at the border and got serious about imposing policies that discourage illegal crossings. Unfortunately, the president’s effort to link additional border security funding to Ukraine aid — in the wake of the gruesome terror attacks in Israel — indicates he continues to fail the American people on this important issue.

Las Vegas Review-Journal./Tribune News Service

Will the Biden administration make the same mistake?

It was August 2012 when Obama, running for a second term in the Oval Office, held a news conference and fielded a question about the ongoing civil war in Syria. The president said that he had so far avoided U.S. military intervention but that his calculations would change if Syria crossed a “red line” and used chemical weapons.

A year later, a chemical weapons attack believed to have been carried out by the regime of Bashar al-Assad killed 1,400 people near Damascus. Obama did little about his “red line” but eventually cut a deal with Vladimir Putin and Russia to have Syria turn over its chemical stockpiles to international inspectors. The agreement was a failure, the victim — as The Atlantic later put it — “of Syrian deception, Russian duplicity and American dithering.”

Fast forward to this month in the wake of the horrific Hamas terror attack on Israel. As the Jewish state increases its ground operation in Gaza, militant groups threaten to escalate the conflict and have even targeted American forces. There’s little doubt that Iran is helping to fund and organize such aggression.

In recent days, Iranian-backed groups in the region, The Wall Street Journal reported this week, “launched 10 drone and rocket attacks against bases that U.S. troops use in Iraq and three on a U.S. base in southeast Syria.”

In response, the United States has ramped up the rhetoric. “My warning to the Ayatollah,” President Joe Biden said, “was that if they continue to move against” U.S. troops in the Middle East, “we will respond. And he should be prepared.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken sent a similar message.

“The United States does not seek conflict with Iran; we do not want this war to widen,” he said Tuesday. “But if Iran or its proxies attack U.S. personnel anywhere, make no mistake, we will defend our people, we will defend our security, swiftly and decisively.”

These warnings are entirely appropriate as an exercise in deterrence.

But this administration’s fiasco in Afghanistan and the Obama administration’s “red line” still haunt American diplomacy. It’s highly likely that the resolve of the Biden White House will be tested in coming weeks and months by Iranian-backed terrorists hoping to harm Americans in the region. Is Biden prepared to follow through? Or will he speak loudly and carry a small stick?

The administration faces serious challenges on the foreign policy front. Americans of all political persuasions should hope the president is up to it.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

Wednesday night’s mass shooting at a bowling alley in Lewiston, Me.; the gunfire at a Dorchester parade in August that left eight injured, the shootings that shatter the peace of Boston’s streets night and day. These are, sadly, just to name a few.

Law enforcement is vital to the central nervous system of this city, and a crucial voice at the table.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t have one.

The Boston City Council votes on the Boston Police Department budget, makes declarations and proclamations and protestations about neighborhood policing and safety, but none of the councilors knows what it’s like to work those streets as a police officer.

Enter Jose Ruiz.

The City Council candidate for District 5 has been in the BPD for 29 years. He can speak from experience of what’s needed to make communities safe, because he’s seen what happens when they’re not. And not from the vantage point of a press conference, or day-after statement at City Hall, but as a first responder at the scene of a crisis.

We need this wisdom and lived experience now more than ever. Even sections of the city not known for gun violence have been disrupted by demonstrations and riots in recent years, from outside agitators to home-grown protests. The rancor over the terrorist attacks in Israel has spurred a heightened sense of vigilance, particularly in public spaces.

While the council had a heated discussion last week regarding the Israel-Hamas war, police set up a barricade at the entrance to City Hall.

And no plan for Mass and Cass is possible without a BPD component, requiring officers to work in a dangerous, often violent area most people try to avoid.

None of this is abstract. Policing is boots on the ground, real-life, real-world efforts to keep Boston safe and communities strong.

We need a police veteran like Ruiz to add depth and breadth to the council.

The progressive agenda holds that crime can be solved not so much by going after criminals, but by strengthening the foundations of neighborhoods. Ruiz has that covered.

Uplifting communities has been a key part of Ruiz’ contributions to Boston. He organized the largest city-wide youth baseball and softball league, including life skills presentations for players. He doesn’t talk about giving back – he does it.

The elections on Nov. 7 will come and go. After the dust has settled, there will still be criminals trafficking in drugs and illegal firearms, there will still be murders committed with ghost guns, predators stalking the vulnerable, and any number of sudden, unexpected events that necessitate all hands on deck for local law enforcement.

These could be talking points for the city council, issues of debate swayed by agendas. Or, a new voice on the council could bring insight and expertise and ideas that have real-world resonance.

This is critical if Boston is to grow and thrive.

The city needs Jose Ruiz as councilor for District 5.

Its latest incarnation, the Hamas terrorist group, was particularly cunning as it spent some two years planning and training for its Oct. 7 slaughter of over 1,400 Israelis, leaving many more wounded and kidnapping hostages which it still holds. Men, women, children – all indiscriminate victims of the carnage, and all of it calculated.

But the immoral machinations didn’t stop there. Hamas was undoubtedly aware of rising the rising tide of antisemitism around the globe in recent years. As the Associated Press reported in April, antisemitism rose in the U.S. last year as political radicals gain mainstream popularity, according to a report released by Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry and the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL found that the number of antisemitic incidents in the U.S. increased by more than 35% in the past year, from 2,721 in 2021 to 3,697 in 2022.

Hamas may not have had the statistics, but it knew that an attack against Israel would unleash the hounds of anti-Jewish hatred. It was right. From cheering mobs celebrating the slaughter to abhorrent cries of “gas the Jews” at a Sydney pro-Palestinian protest, Hamas tapped into the repugnant vein of antisemitism that has plagued the Jewish people for centuries.

Hamas also knew that the minute Israel defended itself, it would be slammed as the villain of the piece. Joe Biden, in an Oct. 15 interview with “60 Minutes,” noted that Hamas are “hiding behind the civilians,” including by placing their “headquarters where civilians are.” That isn’t by happenstance. Palestinians also suffer at the hands of Hamas.

That’s lost on the anti-Israel crowd.

Even images of the bloody aftermath of Hamas’ barbaric invasion did not sway the dark hearts of those who thought Hamas’ slaughter somehow justified.

And now, as posters of the innocent men, women and children held hostage by Hamas in Gaza have been put up in public places around the world, there are those who are tearing them down.

The signs are simple: “Kidnapped,” followed by the names and ages of those in captivity. There’s four-year-old Ariel, taken along with his infant brother Kfir and their mother Shiri Silberman-Bibas – this poster was torn down in London this week, the act caught on camera and reported by the Daily Mail.

It happened here as well, a dentist was caught ripping down such posters in Boston, she was also caught on camera.

That’s one of the bright spots in this hellscape – for all those who tear down posters of kidnapped children, there are those who film their acts and call them out. For all the trolls taking to social media to yet again spread bizarre conspiracy theories and slander, there are armies of people speaking out in support of the Jewish people.

For every mob chanting “gas the Jews” and similar curses, there are landmarks around the world lighting up with the colors of the Israeli flag in solidarity.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

These are dark times for the Jewish people. Unfortunately, they’ve been here before. But this time they have allies unafraid to lend their support and voice. We doubt Hamas saw that coming.

As T history demonstrates, leadership has focused on post-accident bromides, apologies for unsolved problems, and endless promises to do better.

Eng is actually getting things done.

The latest example of his “see something, say something, fix something” approach came last week, when Eng revealed that T officials knew as far back as April 2021 that large swaths of Green Line Extension tracks were defective and too narrow – but the agency opened the lines anyway.

According to the GM, half of the Union Square branch and 80% of the Medford-Tufts branch require repairs only a week after the MBTA said it had cleared slow zones that forced trains to run at walking speeds in some areas.

That’s not surprising, given the T’s track record.

“We’re going to have the GLX Constructors re-gauge the track to bring it back to what the project called for. And once we have a plan in place, we’ll share that with the public. And the goal is to make sure that we do that in the least impactful way, the most efficient way and put this behind us,” Eng said.

This, we’re not used to.

Back in 2019, a safety review panel comprised of former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, former acting administrator of the Federal Transit Administration Carolyn Flowers and former New York City Transit President Carmen Bianco raked the MBTA over the coals following that year’s Red Line derailment disaster. They slammed the T for “deficiencies” in nearly every area of safety maintenance and practice.

“In almost every area we examined, deficiencies in policies, application of safety standards or industry best practices, and accountability were apparent,” the safety review panel wrote. “The foundation for safety is also not obvious as the agency has not identified or adopted a comprehensive vision, mission, values or set of strategies and goals to guide the agency’s actions to achieve a safe work environment and to deliver quality service.”

According to a summary of the panel’s report, investigators found  “the T’s approach to safety is questionable, which results in safety culture concerns.”

Passengers didn’t need a review panel to tell them this – they’d known for years as derailments and accidents mounted, along with signal issues and endless delays and out-of-service trains.

Riders wanted more, deserved more, expected more – but knew they were unlikely to get it from the entrenched culture at the MBTA.

Then Eng became the new sheriff in town. A month into his tenure, a woman was struck by a falling utility box at a Red Line station. Eng order all stations to be inspected, and within days, similar boxes were removed. He announced a major personnel shakeup last month,  restructuring the agency under four divisions  — operations, safety, capital, and administration — in the first major reorganization in roughly a decade.

We’ve written about the T’s troubles for years, and never been short of material. But Eng is shaping up to be truly stellar hire.

For this, kudos to Gov. Maura Healey.

The council is split between those who use their position to serve the people of Boston, and those who leverage the public podium to advance an agenda.

As the Nov. 7 election for At-Large seats looms, the Herald will be endorsing candidates who align with public service and policies that keep the city safe and growing.

First up, Councilor Erin Murphy.

Murphy, 53, has been a steady voice of support for the Boston Police Department and the vital work they do, Murphy was one of five on the council who voted in favor of grant funding for the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, first in September and again at the beginning of this month.

As Boston has been besieged by gun violence, especially this summer, it would seem that boosting the BPD’s intelligence arm with improved tech aimed at fighting crime, gangs and terrorism would be a shoo-in. It wasn’t, at least for five of the councilors. The seven who carried the motion, including Murphy, however, saw the opportunity to make our communities safer and took it.

Murphy was also against cutting the BPD budget by some $31M back in June. A common-sense move, but these days, espousing such views is swimming against the progressive tide.

We need such voices of reason at the table.

Murphy was also among a quartet of councilors who urged last month that a state of emergency be declared for the morass that is Mass and Cass. The Methadone Mile has devolved from a crisis into a humanitarian catastrophe, and substantive action remains elusive.

As the chaos continues, people suffer – from those caught in the throes of addiction to neighboring businesses and residents.

In August, Murphy proposed a property tax abatement to Newmarket-area businesses adversely affected by the open-air drug dealing and violence occurring around Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue, as the Herald reported.

“We know they’re struggling through none of their own doing, and we’ve failed them in not providing a safe environment,” Murphy said. “Many have been adversely impacted by the deteriorating conditions of the neighborhood that aren’t accurately reflected in their property tax valuation.”

It’s great to see a leader who views businesses abutting Mass and Cass as more than just collateral damage in the war on opioids.

In seeking that state of the emergency declaration, Murphy said that “The committee is hopeful that this hearing will illuminate for the people of Boston how their tax dollars are being spent to clean up this crisis in a humane, safe manner.”

There’s the rub – Mass and Cass, the BPD budget, city programs – it’s all paid for by taxpayers.

Murphy gets it.

The campaign season is awash in promises from candidates – they’ll be accountable, transparent, they’ll fight for constituents. The incumbents running for re-election have had ample time to show the city what they bring to the table. Or not.

Erin Murphy brings a solid record of working to make Boston better.

The Herald endorses Erin Murphy for City Councilor At-Large.

Hundreds were killed last Tuesday in Gaza City at a hospital crowded with people seeking safe haven. U.S. intelligence officials say the explosion came from a rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group that went off prematurely.

“Among the evidence that’s been gathered is a blast analysis that suggests it was a ground explosion rather than an airstrike that hit the hospital,” a source told CNN. “There was no singular crater suggesting there was a bomb, but there was extensive fire damage and scattered debris that is consistent with an explosion starting from the ground level, according to the source.”

Israel also released an audio recording that it said caught Hamas operatives discussing the blast.

The loss of innocent lives is a horrific tragedy no matter its inevitability during war. Yet while Israel takes steps to curtail the civilian death toll, its enemies do the opposite. The initial attack on Israel was indiscriminate and brutal, calculated to kill innocent men, women and children. Hamas has also taken innocent Israelis — and Americans — hostage and threatened to broadcast executions. This is barbarism.

It’s also part of a strategy that promotes civilian deaths — and it has been going on for two decades.

“When used as human shields, civilians provide cover for Hamas military activities, and the resultant casualties serve the group’s propaganda interests,” Jeffrey White wrote for The Washington Institute in 2014. “In short, Hamas is acting more like a guerrilla group fighting an insurgency than a government responsible for the safety of its citizenry.”

As White notes, there are steps Hamas terrorists could take — wearing uniforms, moving weapons from populated areas, staying out of civilian buildings — if they chose to lower the civilian death count. Instead, they emphasize such tactics.

A decade ago, Hamas provoked Israel by firing rockets into the country without regard for innocents. Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic came to the obvious conclusion. “Hamas is trying to get Israel to kill as many Palestinians as possible,” he wrote. “Dead Palestinians represent a crucial propaganda victory for the nihilists of Hamas. It is perverse, but true. It is also the best possible explanation for Hamas’ behavior, because Hamas has no other plausible strategic goal here.”

The words ring true today. Israel has a right to defend itself and its people. Hamas wants to kill innocents and push Israel into the sea. The latter is the problem.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

But one thing we do know: Washington showered so much money on states and local governments that most haven’t come close to spending it all. Recently, the Government Accountability Office released a quarterly report that tracks coronavirus spending through March 31, about three years from the onset of the pandemic.

“States reported obligating 60% ($118.3 billion) and spending 45% ($88.2 billion)” of State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds, the office reported. “Localities reported obligating 54% ($67/5 billion) and spending 38% ($47.9 billion) of their awards during the same period.”

How was the money distributed?

“The states and localities reported spending the largest amount of their awards to replace revenue lost due to the pandemic,” the GAO found. “Specifically … 45% ($39.5 billion) of states’ reported spending and 68% ($32.4 billion) of localities’ reported spending was used for this purpose.”

In other words, state and local governments are still sitting on billions in unspent virus cash — and the money they have spent went primarily to pad their coffers rather than to aid businesses or individuals who were harmed by shutdowns and business closures.

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute told Reason that the analysis highlights Washington’s lack of fiscal discretion. “By the fall of 2020, it was clear that the states were in good fiscal shape and not facing Armageddon as many policymakers were claiming,” he said. “They did not need federal handouts.”

Yet congressional Democrats insisted on using virus relief as a slush fund that blue states could tap to disguise fiscal mismanagement.
The GAO also revealed that “14% of localities did not report to Treasury their uses” of these federal funds, as required by law, so it’s impossible to know where those billions went.

No doubt, pandemic relief was warranted during those unprecedented times, particularly in early and mid-2020. But the GAO report reveals an exercise in excess that federal taxpayers are still paying for today. Not only should Congress take action against local governments that fail to report how they used pandemic funds, it should also consider clawing back billions in unspent funds from states and localities.

As the national debt roars past $33 trillion, it’s time to shut down the party.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

Iran has become increasingly belligerent in recent days, warning of a “huge earthquake” if Israel doesn’t cease its military response to the vicious Hamas terror attacks. But if a de-escalation is the goal, perhaps Iran could start by cutting off its financial support to radical militants while calling off Hezbollah and recognizing Israeli’s right to exist and defend itself.

Instead, continued Iranian provocations have led to concerns that the nation could use Israel’s Gaza response as a precursor to open another front in the war against the Jewish state.

“We can’t rule out that Iran would choose to get directly engaged some way,” Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last Sunday. “We have to prepare for every possible contingency.”

That must include making it abundantly clear to the mullahs that the United States will extract a price for Iranian efforts to intensify the conflict. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did precisely that on Monday, warning “Don’t test us” during a speech at an Israeli parliamentary session that was interrupted by rocket fire in Jerusalem.
Given the region’s history, Iran and others in the Middle East know Netanyahu should be taken seriously. But what about the United States and the Biden White House?

Sullivan said Sunday that the administration has used diplomatic back channels to communicate a stern message to Iran. The president has also sent two aircraft carriers to the region as a sign of solidarity with Israel.

“Moving the two carriers into the region sends a very strong signal,” Gen. Frank McKenzie, the retired commander of the U.S. Central Command, said. “There is ample historical evidence that Iran respects the flow of combat forces into the theater. It does affect their decision calculus. And as Iran’s decision calculus is affected, so is Lebanese Hezbollah’s calculus affected.”

Whether that’s true in this case remains to be seen. Either way, as The Wall Street Journal noted Monday, “The Ayatollahs in Tehran need to understand that more than their terrorist proxies are at risk. They need to know that their nuclear sites and oil fields are also on the target list.”

American policy toward Iran over the past decade has been a hallmark of mixed signals and even appeasement. But there must be no doubt that the United States will do what it takes to subdue any Iranian efforts to provoke a wider conflict.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

It started with hiring her sister and son to City Hall positions, a conflict of interest violation, and worsened with her pushing for a $31M cut to the BPD this summer.

On Wednesday, she used a Boston City Council meeting to describe the Hamas terrorist organization as a “militant group” and characterized the attack that killed over 1,400 Israelis, among them women, children and babies, as a “military operation.”

This white-washing of Hamas’ atrocities in the guise of a “military operation” is shamefully popular among far-left progressives. The brutal killings, including the murders of children, women and the elderly are at best “unacceptable,” but Israel’s defense against such slaughter is deemed reprehensible.

As the Herald reported, the resolution filed by Fernandes Anderson calling for de-escalation and a cease-fire in Israel and “occupied Palestine” was in response to one filed earlier in the week by Councilor Michael Flaherty, who wanted to condemn “Hamas and their brutal terrorist acts against Israel.”

It’s inconceivable that a resolution to condemn terrorist acts would get pushback, but the progressive agenda is never at a loss for audacity.

In slamming Israel’s policies, Fernandes Anderson noted: “If you’re killing innocent children, in my eyes, you’re a terrorist. I don’t know what ethnicity you are, what religion you are. No matter what, you’re a terrorist. You’re a horrible person.”

We’ve seen the photos of children’s bedroom walls splattered with blood, seen the cribs soaked in it, and heard from those on the ground in Israel describe the scenes of horror after Hamas terrorists unleashed hell on Oct. 7. As the Israeli Defense Force told CNN, women, children, toddlers and elderly were “brutally butchered in an ISIS way of action.”

Did Fernandes Anderson miss the video of Shani Louk, the young German Israeli tattoo artist taken hostage by Hamas at the music festival? Footage showed the terrorists parading her near-naked body through the streets in the back of a pickup truck.

Hamas has executed other hostages. These acts more than tick off the boxes of what Fernandes Anderson considers terrorist behavior.

And when calling for a “cease-fire,” does that include the rockets launched by Hamas from Gaza? As NPR reported, more than 5,000 have been launched into Israel since the Hamas attacks began, according to the Israeli military. Or is the cease-fire just for Israel?

Though her comments were met with derision, Fernandes Anderson did get media juice out of the moment, and earned more cred with the chanting set.

At the end of the day, both resolutions were sent to the Committee of the Whole for a public hearing, after objections to a vote being taken Wednesday.

All par for the course for our city council. Resolutions and ideas, no matter how worthy, are too often hamstrung by far-left agendas.

As the Herald reported, the bill expands a list of banned firearms, adding most popular AR-15 styles to a list of “assault style weapons.” It would also require licensed concealed carry holders to secure permission before entering another’s home with a firearm and require additional training for license holders, among other points.

For law-abiding gun owners, it adds layers of compliance on top of the state’s already-strict firearms regulations.

For criminals, it means nothing.

After a pair of fatal shootings in Boston last week, Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden pointed out that the arrests of two repeat offenders on firearm charges are a “prime example” of how a core group of people drive the “illegal gun possession menace” in Boston.

Those repeat offenders were arrested after traffic stops just days before two more men lost their lives to gun violence in Dorchester and Mattapan on Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning.

“These cases also highlight the need for us as a society to recognize the concentration of guns among a core group of individuals — in this case, two repeat offenders — and to find ways to break the cycle, which so often leads to violence and tragedy,” Hayden said.

He noted the gun-related arrests were “cases where prior convictions and prior incarcerations have apparently done little to dissuade these individuals from repeating the offenses.”

That’s the problem – those who follow pre-existing gun laws will follow new ones. Those who don’t follow the law at all won’t start.

Criminals who carry unlicensed guns are highly unlikely to secure permission before entering another’s home with a firearm. Training happens on the street, when members of that “core group” discharge weapons during commission of a crime.

Those who obtain illegal guns, hide guns and fashion ghost guns to commit crimes don’t care about gun laws in the slightest. Yet they are the ones racking up the deadly numbers of shooting deaths.

It’s those deaths that have gun bill proponents concerned.

“The Massachusetts League of Women Voters supports HD.4607,” Art Desloges, speaking on behalf of the group, told the House Ways and Means Committee last week. “Statistically we have the lowest gun death rates nationwide, but gun violence archive reports 83 people killed by firearms in the Commonwealth through July of this year. We must get to zero. Even one person lost to gun violence is too many.”

True. That’s the sentiment echoed by those who’ve lost loved ones to gunfire in Boston, whose children fear walking to school, and who know that an act as simple as sitting on the front porch can be deadly if they are in the crossfire of a drive-by.

The gun bill won’t stop this, a key reason why the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association won’t support it. As the organization’s executive director Mark Leahy noted, the bill simply won’t reduce crime.

We need to get illegal guns off the streets to make our communities safe. Having law-abiding gun owners jump through more hoops doesn’t help the cause. Perhaps the Senate can clear the fog.

Hamas is a terrorist organization, and the acts of its agents on Oct. 7, when they crossed the border into Israel with the express intent of killing and kidnapping civilians, were terrorism.

That makes them terrorists.

While some have suggested Hamas’ political role in Gaza means it is not a terrorist organization, it is clearly targeting civilians for political ends, which is the very definition of terrorism..

The danger in using euphemisms such as “militants” to describe terrorists is that it normalizes heinous acts of terrorism and implies that the deliberate targeting of civilians is a military act and that Hamas at large has some other, less despicable objective.

But let’s be clear: Hamas’ stated goal in its founding charter calls for the obliteration of the state of Israel. The United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada have all formally designated Hamas a terrorist organization. It should not be confused with Palestine or the innocent Palestinians now suffering in Gaza.

Hamas’ terror attack on Israel is clear and indisputable proof that Hamas continues to be committed to its original goal, despite its 2017 charter revisions.

The grisly details that have emerged in the days since the attack leave no doubt.

Terrorists stormed Israeli towns, killing and kidnapping anyone they encountered. They recorded the atrocities on body cameras and posted the video to social media sites.

Footage compiled by the Israeli government shows civilians shot in bedrooms, bathrooms and yards.

At a music festival celebrating “friends, love and infinite freedom,” terrorists gunned down 260 revelers and took an unknown number of hostages.

Authorities also released photographs of slain babies, their bodies shot and burnt.

In Be’eri, over 100 are known to have been killed and others were taken hostage. News reports describe homes riddled with bullet holes and cars reduced to burnt husks. In kibbutz Nir Oz, at least 20 people were murdered and upwards of 80 were kidnapped.

In response to all of this, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin described the atrocities committed by Hamas as “worse than what I saw with ISIS.”

Hamas currently holds more than 200 hostages from their Oct. 7 attack on Israel and has promised to begin executing them if Israel retaliates.

There is a word to describe the intentional targeting of civilians to political ends, and that word is “terrorism.” Those who commit acts of terrorism are terrorists.

To call these acts or their perpetrators anything other than terrorism and terrorists is not only intellectually disingenuous, it also risks normalizing such acts by obfuscating the essential truth of their nature.

This editorial is being published in all MediaNews Group/Tribune Publishing newspapers.

She, like many governors trying to manage the unceasing influx of migrants across their state borders, ran into a harsh reality: there is a bottom to the well.

Healey announced Monday that the state’s shelter system will fill by the end of the month. After that the Bay State will not be able to provide housing for families in need as required by law.

As she and other governors have learned, there are limits to the number of unhoused people and families that shelters can hold, a limit to the hotels and motels that can put up the overflow, and an eventual limit to the money available to cover the mounting costs of these efforts.

As the Herald reported, the Massachusetts shelter system won’t be able to help any further without intervention by the Biden Administration.

Good luck with that. New York City Mayor Eric Adams called for Biden to give it a leg up as migrants overwhelmed that city’s shelters, and criticized the lack of substantive action.

The result is a cold shoulder from the White House, although Adams did have a recent sit down with former President Bill Clinton, who shared his insights.

Healey pled her case: “For months now, we have been expanding shelter capacity at an unsustainable rate to meet rising demand. Despite the heroic work of public officials, shelter providers and the National Guard, we have reached a point where we can no longer safely or responsibly expand.”

Adams took similar action, limiting adult migrants to just 30 days in city-run facilities, according to the Associated Press.

Healey stressed that Massachusetts isn’t ending its right to shelter law, but said that after the end of the month families in need of shelter may have to wait for space to free. When asked if this was a warning to migrants that Massachusetts is full, the governor said that, at the very least, shelter will not be provided to anyone who arrives.

However, just because we roll up the welcome mat, doesn’t mean migrants will stay away.

For one, Texas, which  passed capacity long ago, announced late last month that it would continue busing migrants, The Hill reported.

“Texas border towns should not have to shoulder the burden of Biden’s open border policies,” Gov. Greg Abbott posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Texas will continue to send buses to sanctuary cities to provide relief to overrun border towns.”

Coupled with the ability to get a Massachusetts drivers license regardless of immigration status and Healey’s efforts to enable job training for migrants, and our state will continue to be a magnet.

We’re all border states now, and the realities of overcrowding and lack of shelter space are here to stay. Healey may rearrange the deck chairs and declare a waiting period for new arrivals, or issue statements that there simply isn’t room to spare, but as Texas learned, that won’t do much good.

Democratic governors can’t back Joe Biden and his porous border policies, especially now that they are facing the consequences. The challenge, and the task, is getting Biden to listen.

Late last month, the Department of Energy issued new regulations on residential furnaces. By 2028, non-weatherized gas furnaces and those used in mobile homes must have an “annual fuel utilization efficiency of 95%.” The move would effectively ban new non-condensing gas furnaces. The American Gas Association estimates that this rule would eliminate 60% of the residential furnaces currently on the market.
To justify this regulatory intrusion, the department claims this will “cumulatively save consumers $24.8 billion on their energy bills over 30 years.”

That sounds like a big number. It’s not. That’s an annual savings of around $825 million. In a country of 335 million people, that’s a per-capita savings of less than $2.50 a year. Keep in mind that government estimates such as this represent the best-case scenario. In reality, bureaucratic projections rarely come true. Remember when officials promised Obamacare would save families money and lower the deficit?

The DOE makes a second claim that sheds more light on the new rule. It says the changes will “cut harmful carbon and methane emissions that fuel the climate crisis.” There it is. You must sacrifice your gas furnace in the name of climate purity. The supposed payoff for this is never quite explained, especially because countries such as China and India continue to build coal power plants.

But the costs will be much more apparent. Non-condensing gas furnaces are cheaper, though they may have higher energy costs in the long-run. Individual consumers should be allowed to weigh these options. It gets worse. Millions of homes already have a non-condensing gas furnace. When they go to replace it in the future, they can’t just swap out it out for a condensing gas furnace.

“They’re going to have to, in many cases, install new equipment to exhaust gas out of their home,” Richard Meyer, the vice president of energy markets, analysis and standards at the American Gas Association said in an interview with Fox News Digital. He continued, “This rule would require additional retrofits for a lot of consumers. And those retrofits can be extremely cost prohibitive.”

It’s safe to assume it will cost a homeowner much more than the $2.50 the government expects in annual per capita savings.

This is just one of many gas appliances that leftist climate extremists seek to ban. The Biden administration is also targeting gas stoves and gas-powered generators.

The American public isn’t supportive of these regulations. So the left tries to gaslight you into pretending they aren’t happening. They are.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

Nobody knows better than we who cover the news that it’s difficult to be confronted with the worst of humanity day in and day out. There are awful people doing awful things on a daily basis, and it can take a tremendous toll to absorb that ugliness and violence and harm.

That’s why we’d urge everyone to take a break, even if only for 15 minutes. Turn off your phone. Sit in the sunshine. Be quiet and calm. Recharge. Try to find a moment of peace.

The events in Israel are the latest reminder that the forces of evil are determined and unrelenting, but also that the scenes of horror are never far from reach in our interconnected world.

Reports of indiscriminate rocket attacks and the deliberate targeting of civilians by Hamas forces, followed by the swift and violent Israeli response, were available instantaneously via social media platforms — terror beamed directly into the palm of your hand.

There’s a term for endlessly reading bad news on social media — doom scrolling — and medical experts believe it’s having a deleterious effect on the nation’s mental health. The American Psychiatric Society reported in December that “nearly two out of five (37%) Americans rated their mental health as only fair or poor. The United States has recorded a 16% increase in suicides from 2011 to 2022 and a drop in average life expectancy from 79 in 2019 to 76 in 2021.

The United States recorded about 50,000 suicides in 2022, a 2.6% increase over the previous year.

At a conference last month at Dartmouth College, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy and six of his predecessors gathered to discuss the nation’s mental health crisis. They highlighted barriers to access and the disconnected network of mental health services that can make it challenging to get help to people who need it.

But they also zeroed in on social media creating feelings of sadness, hopelessness and depression, especially among young people. In addition to improving health care access and services, they stressed the need to build stronger, more supportive communities.

Murthy worries that people see the worst of others in the events around them, and come to believe that’s an accurate reflection of society.

“I think we’re actually more grounded in the core values of kindness and generosity, of service and friendship. I think that’s what we want,” Murthy said.

To be there for others — to provide the sort of support and compassion that helps those in turmoil and models positive behavior for kids — we have to first care for ourselves. And at a time of international conflict, domestic unrest and unspeakable horrors done by one group against another, that can begin simply — by turning off your phone, setting aside the news for a few minutes and taking time to be at peace.

The challenges before us are immense and they require our attention and concern. We should be engaged, informed and working to build more just and supportive communities.

But everyone also has to make an investment in their well-being, time that can make a lasting difference in your life and the lives of others.

The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service

This murderous Palestinian assault deserves only one response from the world: outrage, and unwavering support for Israel’s right to defend itself. U.S. President Joe Biden has rightly pledged to stand with Israel “full stop,” as has the European Union. Even as Israel takes the necessary military actions to protect its citizens, all parties in the region need to work to restore some semblance of stability and avoid a broader conflict.

An Israeli invasion of Gaza to rescue Israeli captives and reassert control over the territory could last months, if not years. For that reason alone, Israel’s old, new and prospective partners in the Arab world do themselves no favors by not condemning the Hamas attack more forcefully. They understandably fear public opinion, which has never embraced the normalization of ties with Israel. Still, there can be no excusing the slaughter of civilians.

Pretending otherwise will only bolster the extremists and their backers in Iran. Countries with influence over Hamas, including Turkey, Qatar and Egypt, must pressure the terrorists to pull back and release their hostages before the violence escalates dangerously.

Palestinian Authority leaders are being equally shortsighted by blaming Israel for inviting the attack. While dramatic, the cross-border incursion will not lead to the defeat of Israel nor change its policies in the occupied territories. Ordinary Palestinians will pay a heavy price for Hamas’ wanton and unprovoked massacres of innocent Israelis.

Meanwhile, the chances of substantive territorial concessions in the West Bank as part of a prospective peace deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel have shrunk further.

Eventually, Israeli leaders will need to confront their own mistakes: The fact that Hamas could have planned such an assault — involving dozens of fighters, boats, paragliders and drones — over months without Israel’s vaunted intelligence services catching wind represents a massive failure. There is plenty of blame to go around.

But all that’s for another time. For now, Israel’s priority must be to destroy the ability of Hamas and its ilk to further threaten the country’s security. Pursuing peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors will be much harder in the near term, which no doubt was one of the terrorists’ aims.

Yet all parties should recognize that, once the fighting is over, such efforts will also be more important than ever — and something all sides in this conflict should still aspire to and pursue. The alternative is only more bloodshed, death and terror.

Bloomberg Opinion/Tribune News Service

Many who followed last weekend’s attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists with cheers for the massacre and tacit blame for the victims are finding that out the hard way.

Take the elitist students of the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups who wrote a letter blaming Israel for the attacks and found themselves ridiculed as being “intellectually weak and morally repugnant.”

Their critics were being nice. The backlash mounted.

Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman called for the signatories to be named so that companies could make a point not to hire them. Other execs followed suit.

After their lesson in consequences, many students couldn’t remove their signatures from the letter fast enough. In this day and age, however, digital trails follow us all, as a truck which made its way around Harvard Square Thursday displaying the alleged names of those who signed the Harvard letter demonstrates.

The students who signed on to that letter, as well as Tufts students who issued a similar statement, have to own their actions.

So does a Black Lives Matter chapter in Chicago, now under fire for its social media post earlier this week.

The post on X, formerly Twitter, includes an image of a person paragliding with a Palestinian flag attached to its parachute with “I stand with Palestine” written beneath.

“That is all that is it!” it added.

As the New York Post reported, BLM Chicago also posted a number of cartoons depicting somebody expressing outrage over the attacks on Israel, while another lists talking points blaming Israel for the situation.

“This isn’t about Hamas — this is about Palestinians right to resist 75 years of Israeli settlers colonizing their native land,” one of the cartoons read.

It is about Hamas, as fellow X users reminded them.

“Unapologetically standing with butcherers and rapists,” author and former speechwriter Aviva Klompas tweeted.

“BLM Chicago, like many leftists, comes out in support of slaughtering innocent people they don’t like,” GOP commentator Robby Starbuck tweeted.

The Democratic Socialists of America are also feeling the fallout after the New York City chapter’s pro-Palestinian rally over the weekend. The group apologized, but refused to directly condemn the Hamas terrorists behind the slaughter. Some members are resigning.

The terrorist sympathizers and victim blamers are missing an important point: Americans don’t stand with them. According to The Hill, a recent The Economist/YouGov poll revealed more Americans sympathizing with Israelis than with Palestinians amid the conflict.

The amount of Americans who say that their sympathies lie more with Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has grown from 31% to 42%, since March. The amount of Americans who said their sympathies lie with the Palestinians has dropped, from 13 to 9 percent.

Americans see pictures of a child’s bloodied bed in Israel after a Hamas raid, learn of children being beheaded and families slaughtered and know that this is an abomination.

You don’t have to go to Harvard to understand that.

The president believed that unfreezing $6 billion in assets to Iran, a nation that funds terrorists, wouldn’t have any negative repercussions.

The mounting death toll and tales of horror in Israel speak volumes to the contrary.

Biden, the $6 Billion Man, approved the August deal to unfreeze the assets in exchange for the release of five American prisoners. Under the terms of the deal, the money can only be used for humanitarian-related purposes, including purchasing food or other goods outside Iran for import, U.S. officials said.

As this administration has shown repeatedly, it doesn’t have a firm grasp of how money works.

Nikki Haley, former South Carolina governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, pointed out that allowing Iran access to those funds under any circumstances improves its budget situation, freeing up money that would be used to use elsewhere, Reuters reported,

“Let’s be honest with the American people and understand that Hamas knows, and Iran knows they’re moving money around as we speak, because they know $6 billion is going to be released. That’s the reality,” she said.

Republicans have called for the deal to be reversed, and Democrats are now scrambling to do disaster control.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), called on the Biden administration “at a minimum” to freeze the $6 billion in Iranian assets, according to the Hill.

“As American intelligence officials continue to investigate the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas, we should review our options to hold Iran accountable for any support they may have provided,” he said. “At a minimum, we should immediately freeze the $6 billion in Iranian assets and explore other financial tools we have at our disposal.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) also called for the transfer of Iranian funds to be halted.

“I wasn’t supportive of the initial $6 billion transfer. We should absolutely freeze Iranian assets while we also consider additional statements,” he said Tuesday.

After mowing down Israelis at a concert, raping women and slaughtering families – including children – Hamas isn’t packing up their gear and going home.

Wiping Israel out of existence is their mission.

It’s all well and good to denounce the terrorist attacks as “sheer evil” and send military supplies to Israel, but supporting the only functional democracy in the Middle East relies on foresight and strategic thinking.

The U.S. is sifting through intel to figure out what happened, but a U.S. official told CNN, “Iran likely knew Hamas was planning operations against Israel, but without the precise timing or scope of what occurred. Although Iran has long supported Hamas with material and financial support, we have not currently seen anything to suggest Iran supported or was behind the attack.”

We know Iran supports Hamas, and yet Biden unfroze $6 billion in assets. The deal was to release five Americans, yet at least 22 U.S. citizens are confirmed to have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war, according to the State Department.

There is no spin for this, no blame to be shifted.

Biden has added yet another deadly debacle to the list.

You can order ahead to “create your own nutrition report,” for those pacing themselves. If you skip over to Annenberg Hall — the “Berg” to those in the know — you’ll land “Corn Niblets” and “Apple Cider Glazed Turnips,” so “Delish,” food services says.

It’s easier to critique others when your belly is full.

How else can you explain the grossly insensitive statement by the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups that read, in part: “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all the unfolding violence.” Thirty-one groups signed on, including the Ivy League’s affiliate of Amnesty International.

The timing alone is unforgivable. Hamas terrorists have taken hostages and are threatening to execute them one at a time. Children, women and the elderly are part of this Medieval equation.

The atrocities that have already taken place could be even worse in the days to come. The Harvard elitists blaming Israel are just emboldening Hamas terrorists. What’s unfolding in the Gaza Strip and in Israel is war, not fodder for a term paper or a photo op.

U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Salem, was right to blast the Harvard students who now look heartless and crass.

“Terrorism is never justified nor someone else’s fault. As hundreds of Israelis and others, including several Americans, remain kidnapped, injured, or dead, the 31 Harvard organizations that signed a letter holding Israel ‘entirely responsible’ for Hamas’ barbarous terrorism should be condemned, as should Harvard leadership for whom silence is complicity,” he wrote in a release Monday evening.

Harvard President Claudine Gay waited until Tuesday to respond with a three-paragraph statement: “As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas. Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region,” she said.

“Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership.

“We will all be well served in such a difficult moment by rhetoric that aims to illuminate and not inflame. And I appeal to all of us in this community of learning to keep this in mind as our conversations continue,” she concluded.

It’s embarrassing to be in the same state as Harvard today. Another group at the Cambridge college is standing tall.

Harvard Hillel, in its statement, wrote members are “deeply pained that instead of finding solace and support among our Harvard community in the days following the bloodiest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, we encountered further hatred and anti-Semitism here in Cambridge.”

Skip the Apple Cider Glazed Turnips, kids. History will remember this moment and how Harvard did or did not rise to the occasion. So far, many of you are flunking due to a gross lack of humanity.

The targets, be it Israel or the United States or the Russians, are caught off guard by their enemies, stunned, suffering major psychological damage and loss of human life. But then comes the response and the counteroffensive.

Those earlier sneak attacks failed. Hopefully, this one will also. We pray it does.

Hamas claims that its fighters are soldiers, but soldiers don’t kidnap civilians from their homes to seize them as hostages, as Hamas did in launching raids into Israel in addition to their barrage of thousands of rockets fired at civilian population centers, including Tel Aviv.

Both of those are acts of terrorism, which makes perfect sense, as Hamas is a terror group, fittingly on terror lists of the U.S. and European Union.

Also on the terror lists is Hezbollah controlling southern Lebanon to Israel’s north, which is keeping that border quiet — for now. The common factor between the Shiite Hezbollah and the Sunni Hamas is the lead sponsor of terror in the region, Iran, which funnels them weapons and joins them in celebrating the atrocities and calling for Israel’s destruction and the “liberation” of Jerusalem from the Jews.

Hamas has started this new war, or new chapter in an old war, to disrupt the growing movement for a grand U.S.-brokered peace deal between Israel and the richest and most powerful Arab state, Saudi Arabia, following other U.S.-brokered peace deals between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Morocco. Hamas cannot succeed and the Arab-Israeli strides for the larger peace must continue.

Hamas shows that it can make war, but it refuses to make peace. The same for Hezbollah. On the West Bank, the head of the Palestinian National Authority, Abu Mazen, also refuses to make peace. It has been years since he has sat down for talks with the Israelis. Peace will come for the Palestinians, in Gaza and the West Bank, when they decide to join the negotiating table.

Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, leading a jittery right-wing coalition that is wrongly trying to undermine the independence of the Israeli courts, will get a reprieve for his many domestic troubles due to this Hamas war. Even President Biden, who has been very cool to Netanyahu, has rallied to his side, as he emphasized from the White House, pledging full support.

Hamas and Iran want Israel to strike back hard, thinking that a massive response will entrap Israel in the Gaza quicksand, sapping her political and military strength. Israel has the might to level Gaza, but Hamas hides among civilians, using them as human shields, which is a war crime. And Hamas now holds captured Israeli soldiers and civilians, complicating everything.

Netanyahu and his commanders have a tremendous challenge before them to destroy Hamas’ military assets while sparing Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Hamas struck first, but their wave of terror will not and cannot prevail. Israel has been hurt hard, but Israel will prevail.

— New York Daily News

The Department of Education announced that it would publish a new regulation on Oct. 10 intended to punish colleges whose graduates have either large debt loads in relation to their salaries or earn less than the average high school graduate in their state of residence. The Barack Obama White House pushed a similar effort in 2014, which the Trump administration later reversed.

The new rule is supposed to hold schools accountable for their performance.

There’s nothing wrong with providing taxpayers, students and potential enrollees with pertinent data on graduation rates, costs, job placements, etc. This can help students make decisions and schools better meet the demands of the marketplace.

Yet the bulk of the regulations apply only to for-profit schools, not traditional four-year public institutions that offer bachelor’s degrees and graduate programs. Why ignore such a vast part of the higher education landscape, particularly when state-funded institutions have come under increasing fire for soaring tuition and devalued diplomas?

The answer is that Obama and now Biden want to use the power of the state to put many for-profit colleges out of business.

“Once again,” Jason Altmire, president and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities, told The Associated Press, “the department has rushed the process, overlooking critical issues, to hastily implement and weaponize a final Gainful Employment rule against for-profit institutions.”

The regulations impose a two-part test on schools. The first part determines whether graduates make enough money to attack their student debt burden. The second test reviews whether at least half of a program’s graduates earn more than workers in their state with only a high school diploma.

“Programs that fail either test will need to warn students that they’re at risk of losing federal money,” the AP reported. “Those that fail the same test twice in any three-year period will be cut off from federal aid. That amounts to a death sentence for many programs.”

The wire service noted that cosmetology schools could be the hardest hit.

If progressives were truly serious about holding educational institutions accountable for results, they would start with the nation’s struggling K-12 public schools before moving on to the system of higher education. But they have no interest in either. The fact that they seem inordinately focused on “for-profit” colleges instead exposes this for the ideological puffery that it is.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

“Well, that’s nice and very secretive. What are you hiding?” the reader added, alluding to the fact that no Republicans were invited to that huddle.

The governor needs to study the Massachusetts Constitution. The “body politic” (i.e., Governor, Legislature, etc.) must adhere to a solemn “social compact” working toward “the common good.” That’s just in the preamble, so Gov. Healey shouldn’t need to read much further.

It doesn’t say in times of trouble, consult with your party.

Article V (worth reading, governor) states in full: “All power residing originally in the people, and being derived from them, the several magistrates and officers of government, vested with authority, whether legislative, executive, or judicial, are their substitutes and agents, and are at all times accountable to them.”

This means, as we read it and I’m sure thousands of others do too, that Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians, Green Party, Constitution Party all the way to the Pizza Party (go check it out, it’s a political designation) represent the people of this great state.

It is elitist for Gov. Healey to think only her party has the right to brainstorm about coping with the right-to-shelter law here in Massachusetts and the migrants and homeless leaning on that flawed passage.

Gov. Maura Healey, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, House Speaker Ronald Mariano, Senate President Karen Spilka, and members of the state’s congressional delegation — all Democrats — were in on that virtual huddle, as the Herald reported. Aides to U.S. Reps. Seth Moulton and Jake Auchincloss as well as U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey confirmed their attendance.

Both top legislative Republicans — Minority Leaders Sen. Bruce Tarr and Rep. Brad Jones — in Massachusetts confirmed they did not receive an invite.

A source tells the Herald the migrant crisis has hit districts with hotels housing these newcomers very hard. Reps and senators are all trying to adjust while begging for leadership from the Corner Office.

So what does the governor do? She rallies her base. She seeks opinions from her party.

That brand of leadership, where you turn to like-minded supporters, has proven fatal for generations. You need dissenting voices, skeptics, and people who will challenge the status quo.

Not inviting Bruce Tarr and Brad Jones smacks of partisan politics and is precisely why Congress has an approval rating of 19%. Politicians forget they work for the taxpayers.

This is exactly what we feared would happen from electing a Democratic governor here in Massachusetts — one-party rule.

Gov. Healey has asked the state Legislature to approve $250 million in additional funding for the emergency shelter system on top of the $325 million that was included in the fiscal year 2024 budget. Taxpayers are footing this bill.

Gov. Healey needs to realize, as Article VI of the state Constitution says, that she cannot “obtain advantages, or particular and exclusive privileges, distinct from those of the community.”

Or, she will be a one-term governor.

But there is a remedy for this injustice.

Since the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan more than two years ago, the United States has welcomed more than 80,000 refugees from the country.

But the humanitarian program that allowed them to come here provides only temporary protection and no road to permanent residency. In addition, thousands of Afghans who aided the American war effort remain at risk in their home country, unable to cut through the red tape and flee to the United States. They and their families are targets for retribution from the brutal Taliban.

“Helping these Afghans would signify to other allies that the U.S. doesn’t abandon its friends,” Sierra Dawn McClain wrote in the Wall Street Journal recently. “More important, it would help settle the moral debt America incurred with its botched withdrawal.”

In July, a bipartisan group of senators reintroduced the Afghan Adjustment Act, which had previously stalled in Congress. It would, The New York Times reports, “allow Afghans who have short-term humanitarian parole status — which typically lasts for two years — to apply for permanent legal status if they submit to additional vetting, including an interview.”

The original bill ran into roadblocks, primarily from Republicans, over security concerns involving immigrants who hadn’t been adequately screened and the Department of Homeland Security’s lack of transparency about the process.

The updated version of the bill addresses those concerns and has earned significant GOP support. Yet Congress remains distracted by various issues, most recently the government shutdown. Meanwhile, the lack of certainty for many refugees currently in the United States makes it impossible for them to set down roots and discourages employers from hiring them.

It’s true that, in the aftermath of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, there were problems with the vetting process and some undesirables took advantage of this. But as Times columnist Farah Stockman noted, the legislation in question is “one of the most promising ways to ensure that evacuees are rigorously vetted. The legislation requires additional screening for those who apply for permanent residency.”

The Afghan Adjustment Act offers members of Congress the opportunity to show voters they can come together for an important cause. They should pass the bill this year. We must not turn our backs on those who selflessly and courageously helped this country.

Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service

After nearly six million illegal border crossings since he assumed office, cities and states around the country overwhelmed with migrants seeking shelter, and an influx of new arrivals daily, Biden has had an epiphany: his border policy is a disaster.

He won’t admit as much, of course, in Biden’s worldview he’s a problem-solving, economy-rescuing, unifying leader who’s going to save us all from climate change.

Until he was tripped by the sandbag of reality.

Now the Biden Administration is using executive power to waive 26 federal laws in South Texas to allow border wall construction, according to reports.

This is the one thing Biden can truthfully say was “like that when he got here.” Former President Donald Trump was constructing such a wall, and Biden vowed on the 2020 campaign trail that “There will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration.”

That pledge, it seems, was “transitory.”

“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary, stated in Wednesday’s notice.

Border states could have told him that – and they did. Inundated states like Texas having been sending out an SOS only to have it fall on deaf ears. It took the dispersal of illegal migrants around the country, most notably to blue states, to have Democratic leaders acknowledge the debacle.

One of the most vocal critics has been New York City Mayor Eric Adams, whose “right to shelter” city is being crushed under the fiscal and physical strain of housing so many migrants.

As the New York Times reported, Adams told a town hall-style gathering in Manhattan last month “Let me tell you something New Yorkers, never in my life have I had a problem that I did not see an ending to — I don’t see an ending to this. This issue will destroy New York City.”

On Tuesday night, Adams went before a judge in a bid to suspend the city’s right to shelter status.

“With more than 122,700 asylum seekers having come through our intake system since the spring of 2022, and projected costs of over $12 billion for three years, it is abundantly clear that the status quo cannot continue,” Adams said in a statement.

Gov. Maura Healey knows where he’s coming from. Massachusetts is buckling under our own influx of migrants, spending some $45 million a month and scrambling to find shelters for all. The status quo can’t continue here, either.

Biden had a weak excuse for the border woes, accentuated with some stunning mental gymnastics.

“The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them (Congress) to reappropriate, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t,” Biden said, according to The Hill. “In the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated for. I can’t stop that.”

Biden was asked whether he thought the border wall was effective. His response: “No.”

Biden logic at its finest.

Given that domestic visitor spending hit $22 billion in Massachusetts last year, you’d think the state would try to avoid alienating travelers.

But no, thanks to the unholy brew of Joe Biden’s border fiasco, our right to shelter status, and the state handing out drivers licenses to folks regardless of immigration status, migrants are drawn to the Bay State.

And there’s no end in sight.

As the Herald reported, a travel agent who handles hotel rooms for military families said at least 70 of his rooms at three hotels were “taken back” by the hotel management company because the state recently contracted to put newly arrived migrants there.

If you were an out-of-stater planning a getaway to Massachusetts, would you feel secure that the hotel rooms you’re reserving will be available when you get here, or will they too be “taken back” to make room for migrant families?

Rooms are not exactly cheap here, and the ability to nail down  reasonably priced accommodations is a key part of trip planning. Massachusetts just told tourists that a reservation doesn’t necessarily mean anything here.

Companies and organizations who might pick Massachusetts as a convention site have something new to consider: what if the block of rooms they reserve for attendees disappears close to their event date. What will they do then?

A recent post by the Armed Forces Press said the Army-Navy game has turned into a “cluster” because Massachusetts canceled hotel rooms “to give to migrants as a ‘right to shelter’ state.”

That is not the motto we want: Welcome to Massachusetts. Come for the history, stay for the “cluster.”

Gov. Maura Healey has declared a state of emergency because of the influx of migrants flooding into the Bay State looking for shelter. She has been aggressively pursuing contracts with hotel chains to put up the migrants, and blames the Biden administration and Congress for failing to act on a new immigration policy.

She’s right, but our right to shelter policy and the recent law easing access to drivers licenses are not helping.

Last month the Healey administration projected about 1,000 families, including locals who are experiencing homelessness and newly-arrived migrants, to enter Massachusetts’ emergency shelter system each month.

A spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities said there were 6,794 families in the shelter system as of Tuesday.

It’s only October – imagine where we’ll be in the spring, when visitors start flocking to Massachusetts to take in our landmarks, natural beauty and of course, stroll through historic sites. Consider the scene next summer, when the beaches and shore towns of Cape Cod beckon once more.

Will there be room at the inn for free-spending tourists?

The picture isn’t promising.

It should be a no-brainer, but this being Boston, the choice is clouded by a progressive agenda.

As it stands, the council is split on releasing $3.4 million in grant funding to the investigative arm of the city’s police department. The same council that decries violence on our streets and rails against guns getting into the wrong hands can’t get on the same page when it comes to tackling the gangs that roam the city.

As the Herald reported, six of 13 councilors indicated they would vote in favor of funding the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), but the same number cited concerns with its gang database, which the state’s attorney general is investigating for possible racial bias.

If only they took the same hard stand against the gangs for targeting communities of color.

“Public safety is paramount for our city,” said Councilor Michael Flaherty. “I know the important role BRIC plays in each and every homicide in the city of Boston.”

After testimony from community members who said they have been unfairly targeted by the BRIC’s gang database, Flaherty urged police to purge the names of people who “shouldn’t be on there.”

That was also the sticking point for Mayor Michelle Wu, who was previously against funding the database. She even campaigned on this point, and supported abolishing the BRIC and dismantling its gang database.

Wu came around, saying new leadership at the city’s police department and efforts to clear names that were no longer relevant from its gang database caused her to change her earlier view, and support funding the grants.

The mayor has seen a lot between her campaign and now – too many murders, too many shootings, too many crime scenes and shattered lives. Wu would be derelict in her duty to Boston if she didn’t support giving the BPD the tools it needs to tackle crime in the city.

Police Commissioner Michael Cox said he is “dumbfounded” that the BRIC is not “so well-received” for the work that it does, which “is so central to do what we do as a police department.”

“The work that they do is not about vilifying people of color,” Cox said. “It’s really about identifying the people who are driving the violent crime in our city, and you’re keeping track of that information.”

The view some pols have of BRIC is not only dumbfounding, it’s dangerous. You can’t call out gun violence in Boston if you refuse to be part of the solution.

However, acknowledging the work of the BPD and funding it to continue is anathema to progressive pols. In this worldview, cops are bad and their actions always suspect.

It’s a pernicious mindset that has spread to our city’s youth, who’ve opening defied and assaulted police in recent crime sprees. Leaders telegraph their lack of respect for police and the work they do, and it’s bearing fruit on our streets and shopping centers.

This has to stop.

The city council must stand with the people of Boston and pass grant funding for the BPD gang database.

Put the people first.

Like rents and many mortgages, student loan payments were paused during the pandemic. But even after the COVID health emergency was declared over, Biden and his fellow Democrats insisted that college borrowers still required a time out.

The reasoning was that loans were exorbitant, inflation is high, paying back their debt means they would have to postpone home ownership and other milestones of adult life.

But life is no picnic for those who lost their businesses during the COVID shutdowns and struggled for financial footing, people who’ve seen their paychecks flattened by soaring inflation, folks who’ve worked hard but had their savings wiped out by medical bills, and parents who dipped into their retirement nest eggs to foot the bill for their kid’s college educations.

They’ve had to make payments on the debts they owe without a pause in sight.

College loan borrowers are a coveted class for Democrats. They’re young, liberal and eager to hear the siren song of loan forgiveness plans.

Seniors on fixed incomes who have to choose between heating or eating as winter looms – not so much. Democrats could never count on the votes of older, conservative voters.

Now student loan payments are set to resume, and the Biden Administration can’t do enough to ease the burden.

As Politico reported, White House and Education Department officials have a plan to soften the blow of payments restarting. They’ve internally modeled various potential outcomes, set up a yearlong safety net program, and are trying to drive borrowers to enroll in a new repayment program that offers lower payments and new interest subsidies.

You know who could use interest subsidies? Middle and working class people who carry debt, especially as they’ve seen their interest rates climb with every Federal Reserve rate spike.

“We are working very hard to communicate with borrowers about the options that are available to them and to put in place safeguards for borrowers,” Undersecretary of Education James Kvaal told Politico.

If Democrats worked as hard for Americans not in their coveted voting blocs, we wouldn’t be facing a crushing deficit and working families wouldn’t have to worry about putting food on their tables and gas in the tank.

College borrowers have lots of people on Capitol Hill standing up for them. Pols lament the enormity of college loans without taking aim at college costs, and act as if taking out a higher education loan was something that happened to students, rather than by them.

Those who didn’t go to college or who’s already taken care of their loans are left out in the cold. They work hard, pay their bills and chip away at the debts they owe – in other words, they’re not the elite.

it’s not the best look for Biden that student loan repayments are resuming during his campaign for re-election. However, his administration is doing its best to ease the pain for collegiate voters.

Too bad they don’t do that for the rest of us.