BOSTON (CBS) – Job creation is going slowly in Massachusetts. Only 2,500 new jobs were added during April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The local economy was the main topic when political analyst Jon Keller sat down with Governor Deval Patrick for an exclusive interview.

Patrick responded to a recent survey by hundreds of CEOs that ranked Massachusetts as the fourth worst state to do business in.

“We need to stop paying attention to that survey,” he said. “The fact of the matter is that today permitting is smoother and simpler and more predictable, which is something I undertook because the business community asked us to.”

Patrick also discussed the Secure Communities program and the “hatred” that he says he sees towards illegal immigrants.

“I think there is an awful lot of hate for people who are vulnerable, frightened,” says Patrick. “People sometimes ask me whether I don’t understand that illegal means illegal. You bet your life I understand illegal means illegal, but I also understand the difference between the death penalty for a speeding ticket.”

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

But the history CNN made wasn’t good news, if you’ll pardon the expression.

The lynchpin of the network’s prime-time lineup, “Piers Morgan Tonight,” didn’t do very well in the ratings. In fact, in the crucial demographic of viewers aged 25 to 54, good old Piers drew only 39,000 viewers, the lowest rating in that demographic and time slot CNN has had in 15 years.

There were mitigating circumstances.

The broadcast networks had blockbuster shows up against them. And Morgan’s guests, Jane Lynch from the TV show “Glee” and Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice whose comeback from poverty was big news a couple of years ago, weren’t exactly big draws.

But CNN has been lagging in the ratings for some time now, not just with the unfortunate Mr. Morgan. Fox News and MSNBC regularly beat CNN like a drum.

And I want to know if that means people no longer care to have their news delivered straight down the middle?

I’m sure CNN has its lapses into bias, but for the most part they do try to play it straight, even emphasizing one of my least favorite formats, the he-said she-said battle of the dueling partisans.

By contrast, MSNBC and Fox take political bias to a whole new level, unabashedly so.

And more and more I see in my travels and my e-mail the signs of people who have completely tuned out diverse points of view, and just want their pre-conceived notions reinforced by whatever they’re watching.

It’s gotten so bad, I question whether the two sides are even listening to each other at all anymore, while we lapse into a political culture of near-permanent standoff.

I suspect most of you are here because that is precisely what you don’t want, and if true, that’s encouraging.

Because the less we listen, and challenge ourselves, the more intellectually lazy and politically calcified we are doomed to become.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

That’s what the political class does, and make no mistake about it, there’s money in spinning. I see no one who does it for a living showing signs of undernourishment.

But that doesn’t mean any of it has more than a distant relationship with the truth.

Let’s start with the overall “shock” value of the poll, which found that Governor Romney has a three-point lead over President Obama. A clear sign of Rom-mentum, says the right, or at least of anti-Obama backlash.

But wait a second.

The survey’s margin of error is four percent.

So, Romney might have as much as a seven-point lead, or Obama might be ahead.

And out of six times this poll has been taken since January, the two men have only been separated by more than four percent once, Obama by six back in February.

“Shock” value?

There is none.

But still, the Obama campaign wants to knock down the poll entirely, claiming it’s using a scientifically corrupted sample. False, and beside the point.

The poll finding seems entirely plausible. It’s a 50/50 country, has been for years, and a virtual tie at this point makes perfect sense.

The Democrats also don’t like the lack of a gender gap in this poll, but it makes sense that their ginned-up “war on women” rhetoric wouldn’t work. Do they really think women care more about contraception than they do about their family’s economic future?

And the Republicans are crowing about the finding that 25% say they’re less likely to vote for Obama because of his position on gay marriage, but they shouldn’t. Seventeen percent said the same of Romney’s position, and by November, few voters will care either way.

Sorry, spin doctors; I’m suing for malpractice on this one.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – It’s been 18 years since Massachusetts elected a Republican to the U.S. House, but that may change in November.

It looks like six-term incumbent John Tierney has a fight on his hands.

Former State Senator Richard Tisei is actually leading Tierney in a poll commissioned by his campaign.

The Tierney camp says their polling shows the incumbent well ahead, but dueling polls aside, an exchange over same-sex marriage illustrates how difficult it may be for Tierney to shake off his challenger this time around.

Tisei, a politically moderate former State Senator who also happens to be openly gay, could be Tierney’s worst nightmare.

His support of same-sex marriage has helped win him the endorsement of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and the Pro-Gay-Marriage Log Cabin Republicans.

But, when the president issued his gay-marriage endorsement last week, Tierney (who wasn’t available for an interview Tuesday) claimed Tisei would enable House Speaker John Boehner in a right-wing battle against marriage equality.

“Richard Tisei embraces the Republican agenda on Capitol Hill, and John Tierney has been a consistent fighter on behalf of the middle class, and that’s what matters to the people of this district,” said Tierney spokesperson Grant Herring. “Richard Tisei will be a fighter for the Tea Party, and the Republican agenda.”

“I want to work with the leadership to help solve the problems the country has right now, but I’m not gonna be a rubber stamp. Our current Congressman (Tierney) votes 99% of the time with the party leadership,” said Tisei.

Normally, the presence of an acceptably-moderate Republican wouldn’t matter that much in a Massachusetts
Congressional race.

But, Tierney’s image took a hit during his wife’s recent legal problems, and redistricting made the terrain in the sixth district more friendly for Tisei.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

A reporter asked Stern to comment on the $15,000 fine they laid on the coach of the Indiana Pacers for claiming, quite accurately, that his opponents, the Miami Heat, were “the biggest flopping team in the NBA.”

For those who don’t know, flopping refers to what players often do when they make incidental contact with an opposing player, which they try to turn into a foul against the opponent by flinging themselves to the floor as if the other guy had driven a truck into them.

Stern says the league punished that coach because he was trying to manipulate the refs, which is frowned on.

But he went on to say he thought it was time for the league to crack down on phony flopping. “It’s only designed to fool the referee,” noted Stern. “It’s not a legitimate play.”

I couldn’t agree more.

But countless players throughout the league do it, including a few Celtics (yes, Paul Pierce, this means you), because they can get away with it and it gives their team an edge.

Stern says a few years ago he brought up the idea of fining and suspending repeat offenders, but was vetoed by the team owners.

Still, there’s no reason why we the people can’t set up our own penalty system for candidates who practice the political equivalent of phony flopping.

I’m talking about partisans who file ethics complaints against their enemies on spurious grounds; candidates who claim their opponent is “ducking” questions, when it’s really just that the answers are not to their liking; electoral hopefuls who claim they’re gaining momentum and insist they’ll carry the fight all the way to the convention, seconds before they pull the plug on their hopeless campaigns; and so on.

For each phony political flop like this, what if we docked these folks a week’s worth of campaign donations?  Proceeds to charity.

But who would take on the task of sorting through all this political flopping?

I’d volunteer, but there are only so many waking hours in a given day.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – The Chief Investment Officer of JP Morgan Chase stepped down Monday after risky investments recently cost the nation’s largest bank $2 billion.

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon admitted his bank failed to monitor itself properly. This debacle is now an issue in the Massachusetts Senate race.

Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren wants to paint incumbent Senator Scott Brown as part of an establishment that’s failed to put teeth in new banking regulation laws. The tactic plays to the strength of Warren’s resume, but puts her somewhat at odds with her own party leadership.

For Warren, campaigning Monday at Casey’s Diner in Natick was a welcome chance to showcase her record as a financial-industry critic and contrast it with Scott Brown.

“He was described as someone who really delivers for Wall Street,” says Warren. “I’ve been out there fighting the big financial institutions long before I ever got into a political race.”

But Warren’s pitch has a problem: Dimon is a Democrat who’s been publicly praised by President Obama. He was talked about as a possible Treasury Secretary in the administration.

“All I can say is for me, this has never been about party politics, it’s really been about who stands on the side of the people,” says Warren.  “Jamie Dimon has led the charge to delay, to slow down, to put more loopholes into the implementation of Dodd-Frank.”

In a statement late Monday, Senator Brown called for a full investigation of the Chase fiasco, and if it reveals wrongdoing or risk to taxpayers, “Dimon should resign, because the buck stops with him.”

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

We’ve always been a country that applauded financial success and gorged on the details of the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

But being rich hasn’t been so popular since greed-crazed speculators on Wall Street blew a big hole in the economy, with the little guy, as always, taking the worst of it.

All of a sudden, resourceful entrepreneurs who went from rags to riches went from being cultural icons to being, at best, slightly suspect, at worst, the reckless heavies of many an Occupy movement sidewalk skit.

And from Washington to Europe, jacking up taxes on the one-percent is the political slogan of the day, a guaranteed applause line everywhere in America – except the Republican Congressional caucus room.

That slogan was the essence of the campaign of Francoise Hollande, the newly-elected president of France.

Back in February he called for a 75-percent tax on millionaires, and in case anyone misses the point, has called the financial industry his “greatest enemy” and says flatly: “I do not like the rich.”

Can he get an amen?

But guess what has happened as a result of the new president’s class warfare?

According to the New York Times, there has been a growing exodus of both the already-wealthy and educated young people “attracted by better job prospects everywhere.”

Belgium, Britain, and Switzerland have drawn thousands of so-called “tax exiles” with New Hampshire-style sales pitches.

They’re leaving, as one young entrepreneur told Bloomberg News, “I don’t share the values that emerged during the election, the rejection of ambition and success…. I need to believe for me and my descendents that the sky is the limit.’’

Of course, they’re also leaving because they can.

We’ll see if the French find a reasonable balance between taxation and spending that salvages their economy.

In the meantime, what’s happening there is a caution to us that while reviling the rich may feel good and at times be deserved, it’s not a substitute for smart fiscal policymaking.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

The same holds true for politicians.

Jon Keller recently sat down with body language expert Don Khoury to discuss all the candidates.

Watch Part 1:

Watch Part 2:

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

I know, it’s a ridiculous question.

A mother’s love is priceless.

But each year the folks at the website Salary.com try to put a monetary value on what moms do for us, and the results are worth noting as you warm up for Mother’s Day.

They do it by compiling data from thousands of mothers about what they spend their time doing.

This year, they found that a typical stay-at-home mom puts in a nearly 95-hour work week, including the obvious: 15 hours as a housekeeper, 14 each as cook and day-care teacher, nine hours as a computer operator and more than six per week doing laundry.

Van driver, eight hours per week; psychologist, another eight hours, and the list goes on.

Then Salary.com applies the median national salary for those occupations, and comes up with the, in my view, meager totals for all of mom’s work: less than ten grand per year for all that cooking, cleaning and tending the kids, nearly 15 grand for the psychological services, nearly 18 grand for my favorite job description: facilities manager.

Total annual salary: about $119,000.

We could go on all day about the mother’s work that this survey didn’t pick up on – things like nurse, lawyer, batting practice pitcher and crime scene investigator.

But if you’re lucky enough to have a mother who’s always been there for you with unconditional love and support, then you know that mom’s real value transcends all of the above.

Who can you hire at any salary to wipe your tears away when you fall, and kiss the scrape to make it feel better?

Who can you hire for any amount who will go to bat for you, show you the ropes and cheer your successes the way your mother will?

Good dads are priceless too, and we’ll get to you guys in June.

But for all the moms, we don’t need to wait until Sunday to tell you the truth – to us, you’re worth a lot more than 119k.

Just keep adding zeroes, and we’ll tell you on Sunday where to stop.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – Gov. Deval Patrick said Thursday he’s proud of President Barack Obama’s leadership on the same-sex marriage issue, but he does not agree with everything the president said Wednesday.

It’s really a key question about the political future of same-sex marriage. Who will decide whether or not it becomes a nationally-recognized civil right?

The answers highlight a lingering schism on this issue between the president and even some of his most ardent supporters.

While President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage has made headlines, there has been less attention paid to something else he said: that the future of gay marriage should be decided “at the local level,” where “different states are coming to different conclusions.”

These include states like North Carolina, which this week became the 30th state to vote for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

Since states’ rights became a rallying cry for segregationists like George Wallace during the Civil Rights movement, they’ve been a controversial topic, to say the least.

And for Obama ally Deval Patrick, who pushed hard to stop a public vote on same-sex marriage here in Massachusetts, the president’s contrary stance is problematic.

“I’m proud that the president has taken the position he has,” said Gov. Patrick. “I don’t think that a matter of civic right should be subject to the whims of the majority.”

But while gay-rights activist Arline Isaacson backs the governor on the states’ rights issue, she expects the president’s evolution is not finished.

“I think we’re gonna see (President Obama) be more out, if you will, about his support for same-sex marriage,” said Isaacson.

Isaacson suggests the real impact of the president’s decision may be felt if he wins re-election this fall, a victory that might embolden other politicians who support gay marriage but fear the political backlash to take to on the difficult task of pushing for legalization in their home states.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

I guarantee you, it’s naïve to swallow his claim that he came to this epiphany strictly through conversations with friends and family.

Jimmy Carter got in political trouble many years ago for claiming that his focus on the nuclear arms race was prompted by comments from his 13-year-old daughter Amy, and I doubt Mr. Obama would care to repeat that fiasco.

It’s seems likely to me that the president’s change of heart reflects the intersection of his own inner beliefs and political reality, given the flak he’s been taking from liberals and gay donors.

But the question about his conversion isn’t “what happened,” it’s “what took so long?”

It’s been eight years almost to the date since same-sex marriage was legalized here in Massachusetts.

I recall a long interview I did during the battle over it with then-Governor Mitt Romney, who struggled painfully to justify his claim that allowing it would damage heterosexual marriages.

We now know, of course, that the claim was ludicrous.

And I have never understood why conservatives, who insist – correctly in my view – that the legal responsibilities and social commitment of stable marriage forms a key underpinning of civil society, would prefer to see same-sex couples live in “sin” rather than commit to those responsibilities and that stability.

I also have no problem with religions that don’t accept gay marriage continuing to pursue their beliefs, and if their rights have been abridged in any way by what we did here, I’ve never heard about it.

But the bottom line is, there never was a really good argument against gay marriage.

The president has come in from the cold on this one.

And if it’s more a matter of political calculation than true moral tolerance, that’s fine.  Elected leaders are supposed to respond to what reality is telling them.

And the reality of gay marriage where it’s been legalized has proven to be the best possible argument for allowing it everywhere.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

Because Ward, the Canadian-born son of immigrants from Barbados, is one of a handful of black players in the NHL, a few dozen bigoted fools spewed racist venom towards him on Twitter, a popular online outlet for stupidity and hate speech.

The day after that happened, I commented in this space that we could at least be glad that very few people had taken advantage of this nasty incident to trash the city of Boston and dredge up all the old racist imagery of the busing era, which so many Bostonians have been working so hard for decades to erase.

As it turned out, I spoke too soon.

The very next day, the Globe ran the story on page one with a reference to Boston’s national reputation being “still tainted” by the unrest of the 1970s.

Other mainstream publications made the same reference.

Today, they all owe Boston an apology.

Ward made a crucial blunder in Monday night’s pivotal game five of the Capitals/New York Rangers series, drawing a bad penalty that cleared the way for the Rangers’ tying and winning goals.

And once again, Twitter erupted with derogatory racism.

You can’t blame that on Bruins fans or Bostonians, and it underscores how foolish that whole blame game was.

We can – and should – remain aware of and outraged by the casual racism that still lingers in our culture. And no one argues that Boston – or anywhere in the world, for that matter – is free of that garbage.

But instead of clinging to old stereotypes about people or places, why don’t we all do what many did after these tweets surfaced – demonize the perpetrators to the point where some of them publicly begged for forgiveness?

We can do the same thing to racists that we did to cigarette smokers who inflicted their unhealthy habit on others – ostracize them into full-scale retreat.

All it takes is the proper focus – and no more counter-productive finger-pointing at innocent bystanders.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

Gov. Patrick cited that war as partial motivation for his proposed tax hikes on candy and tonic.

And now the administration is cracking down on a range of fattening foods that kids are exposed to with regulations due to take effect for the next school year that restrict what kids can snack on during the school day.

They’re also trying to stop the flow of high-sugar, high-fat foods to kids at bake sales, fundraising drives, and other common social events.

And some folks are furious about it.

“Bake Sale Ban” makes a snappy headline, and taps right into our deep-seated suspicion and resentment of the nanny state, dictating details of our lives we’d just as soon handle ourselves, all for our own good, of course.

I understand this reaction. I feel about chocolate chip cookies the way Charlton Heston felt about his guns – if you want to take them away from me, you’ll have to pry them from my cold, dead hands.

But maybe the bake sale ban deserves more than to be just another petty grievance we nurse against the nanny state.

There is no dispute that there’s a fast-growing obesity problem requiring an aggressive solution before it kills too many of us and bankrupts the rest.

If you complain about soaring health-care costs, you’re also complaining about the obesity crisis.

And even though we’ve known this was a problem for some time now, the continuing crisis suggests we the people aren’t doing enough about it on our own.

The state didn’t create a nutritional vacuum and a culture of binge eating – we the people did.

Experience tells us the state will be an at-best awkward, at worst overly-intrusive shepherd of our recovery.

But before we start trashing them for stepping in, maybe we should acknowledge that they’re doing it because we failed to.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – The end of “Fast Lane” is coming soon to a toll plaza near you, but is the change worth the price?

The state is switching to E-ZPass, in part because out-of-state drivers were getting confused.
ore than a million dollars just to change the name of the fast lane?

The change will cost $1,385,000, with most of that coming from a federal grant, or your tax dollars.

Even though many states with E-ZPass have been accepting “Fast Lane” users for years, and vice versa, the state’s transportation czar says the change needs to be made (and all that money needs to be spent) to avoid mass confusion at the toll plazas.

“The signs are about 15 years old so we have to change them out, and in addition, they haven’t been in compliance with federal traffic standards,” said Richard Davey, the state’s transportation secretary.

Davey acknowledges the cost may seem steep, though he added “you can’t put a price tag on safety.”

“Fast Lane” users who spoke to WBZ-TV Monday at the Natick rest stop were unimpressed by Davey’s arguments.

Despite that…

“We’ve seen from some customer complaints that it’s confusing, ‘am I an E-ZPass, am I a Fast Lane, what am I? Well, you’re both,’” said Davey.

So, in order to accommodate a handful of people who don’t know what’s going on and can’t be bothered to read clearly-labelled signs explaining what’s going on, the taxpayers will soon be out more than $1.3 million.

The changeover will be rolling out during the summer — yet another reason to crank up the A/C in your car to help keep your cool.

“The real question is will this country be better off four years from now?”

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

Four years later, if that’s the question on voters’ minds as they enter the polling place, we’re likely to have a new president.

So the Obama re-election campaign has a new, somewhat different message, formally unveiled in a reportedly lackluster rally in Ohio over the weekend.

Let’s quote CBS News political analyst John Dickerson writing on the website Slate:

“While his message still contains the old… optimism of a brighter tomorrow, the force of the president’s new argument is not so much that Americans could achieve greatness but that they must lock arms to keep Mitt Romney from dragging the country back to a dark past. Hope and change are still alive, said the president, referring to his 2008 election themes. But this time fear is also his running mate.”

Perhaps that will work.

My guess is, it won’t work very well.

For starters, even if they could turn the race into a referendum on the challenger instead of the incumbent, it’s going to be hard to spin Romney into a fearsome figure.

It seems the worst anyone can say about Romney is that his political positions are flexible, subject to revision – you know, like an Etch-A-Sketch.

That may turn off some, but it makes it hard to also then paint him as a dangerous ideologue bent on imposing a hard-right agenda.

The two images are mutually exclusive.

And I’m not sure too many swing voters will be moved by a campaign that tries to mix the rhetoric of hope and change with blame, negativity, class warfare, and fearmongering.

If that sort of thing sold, McCain and Palin would be in the White House.

It’s going to be a long, nasty campaign.

And the president’s lame launch party didn’t exactly get things off to an encouraging start.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

Frankly, I would prefer 75 degrees and sunny, however bizarrely unseasonable.

But hey, we’re New Englanders. We know what to do when it’s cold and wet outside.

Go to a movie!

So let’s break out the listings and see what’s playing that can take our minds off our troubles.

I’ve been hearing a lot about “The Hunger Games,” but I don’t know. I think I’ve seen enough Red Sox baseball for one week. And look, there’s another movie out about a major league baseball team that isn’t very good, “The Pirates! Band of Misfits.” Why did they bother with Pittsburgh when they could have come here and made the same movie?

OK, here’s a couple of films with promising titles, “The Avengers” and “Damsels in Distress.”

How on earth did they get a movie made about that disastrous Danversport wedding so fast? Perhaps that whole fiasco wouldn’t have happened if the parties involved had gone to see a movie together first, and I have just the ticket: “The Five-Year Engagement.”

I’m still not seeing anything I want to shell out $20 to see, so let’s look harder. Hey, here’s one about the ugly campaign for the presidency of France and all the power and influence that comes with it: “Footnote.”

Forget that, here’s another campaign movie, a double bill about the U.S. Senate race right here in Massachusetts: “Think Like A Man” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.’ You figure out which movie goes with which candidate.

You know what? Maybe I’ll just skip the movies and stay in this weekend.

Maybe I could find a good book about how to make it through a New England spring.

Oh, here’s one on the New York Times bestseller list: “The Zombie Survival Guide.”

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Our source is the daily digest in the archives of the State House News Service (http://www.statehousenews.com/) (subscription required), the highly respected wire service of Massachusetts state government. (All quotes are from News Service summaries or gubernatorial press releases linked to by the News Service. Additional comments from me are in parentheses.)

We’ll confine this exploration to significant actions taken by Romney during his first 100 days in office, an arbitrary number, but one sure to be used for evaluations of his presidency, should it come to pass.  And the comparison has at least some obvious merit – a President Romney will find Washington’s  fiscal disarray familiar after taking over as governor amid a slumping economy and budgetary meltdown.

January 2, 2003: (Romney delivers his inaugural address in the House chamber. It includes this telling summary of his governing philosophy):

“Traditionally, many members of my party saw the corporation as the source of our economic strength. They, therefore, believed that strengthening corporations would strengthen America. Traditionally, many Democrats saw government as the source of our strength. For them, strengthening government strengthened America. I believe that neither had it completely right. I believe that the source of our greatness is our people. Their education, skills, inventiveness, determination and faith make us a very distinct people on the face of this planet. In this new century, perhaps as much as any other time in our history, the qualities of our free people emerge as our greatest strength. And because I believe this is so, I believe that we best strengthen our state and our nation by investing in our people, and in protecting their freedoms. We invest in people by providing an excellent education. Our education system must both propel our highest achievers and equip those who would otherwise be tempted to fall behind. All must be included. We invest in people when we build an economy that provides ample opportunities for good jobs, when we make it easier for entrepreneurs of all races and both genders to start and grow businesses. We invest in people when we make it easier for them to afford housing and healthcare. We invest in people and their freedoms when we defend civil rights, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or race and when we protect their rights to make their own choices. We disinvest in people when we tax away their ability to invest in themselves and to make their own life choices.”

(Prophetically, House Speaker Tom Finneran remarks after the speech that “it’s very, very different than running a corporation, where the CEO can just make a decision, and the entire corporation does a pivot-point and moves in another direction.”)

January 3: (Fulfilling a campaign promise, Romney bars family members of his cabinet and senior staff from lobbying state government. ) “Lobbyists are paid to influence government decision making,” he said. “It would be inappropriate for the family of my most senior advisors to be lobbying the administration.”

January 14: (Romney unveils a push to repair or rebuild hundreds of “structurally deficient” state bridges, with a twist): “There will no longer be the names of public officials, including the governor, posted on highway signs along the state’s borders, Romney said.  Thousands of dollars are spent whenever there is an administration change, and Romney believes the money could be better used in other areas.”

January 17: “Gov. Mitt Romney is set to slash local aid and higher education without lawmakers’ approval,  after the Legislature granted him the unprecedented authority Friday…. The bill, the first new law of the legislative session, marks a near complete victory for the Republican governor and a defeat for cities and towns, whose leaders had fought to stop the bill. Romney yesterday said he expects to make up to $200 million in local aid reductions within the next several weeks.  With a projected $600 million deficit developing, he has made no indication of what else he intends to cut.  Mayors say the local aid reductions could cost police and firefighters’ jobs and force schools to close early.”

January 22: (Romney announces a plan to change the way the state’s Renewable Energy Trust Fund – a four-year-old kitty funded by a monthly surcharge on electric utility bill – is used, “to support economic development as well as the creation of alternative sources of energy that will have a positive environmental benefit.” Also unveiled) – “a new $15 million Green Energy Fund to provide equity capital, loans and management assistance to Massachusetts-based renewable energy businesses….  The Governor also touted $9 million in new financings to companies in the forefront of renewable energy development. The package includes a $1.5 million loan for a pilot production line at Konarka, a Lowell company that… has been developing cutting-edge solar technology developed at the University of Massachusetts;  Nuvera, a Cambridge fuel cell company, which received a $1.5 million grant and loan; Ameresco, the operator of a landfill gas facility in Chicopee, which signed a $2 million clean energy agreement;  and Acumentrics, a Westwood fuel cell company, which received a $1.5 million loan. ‘Clean energy is a technology driven industry well suited to the state’s strengths,’ said Doug Foy, Romney’s Chief of Commonwealth Development. ‘We have all the ingredients to be a leader in the sector – world-class universities, high-tech companies and a highly educated workforce.’”

January 27: (Another new initiative from Romney de-centralizes authority over the design of local bridge and road projects.  Says Romney in a press release): “My Administration is committed to providing local communities with the tools they need to manage their own budgets by removing bureaucratic red tape and costly state mandates whenever possible. Local residents are most familiar with the unique qualities that make their communities special. We will make every effort to empower them in the decisions that directly impact their everyday lives.”

January 28: (Romney – if you’ll pardon the expression – shakes the Etch-A-Sketch of  the executive branch communication bureaucracy, firing 21 press secretaries and giving greater control of the rest to communications director Eric Fehrnstrom . The old system, says Romney,  is “extremely wasteful”  and “makes no sense.”)

January 30: “The Romney administration today filed a municipal relief package that takes aim at burdensome state regulations and mandates that make it difficult for mayors and selectmen to manage their local budgets. The package, dubbed H.E.L.P. (Help Ease Local Pressure)… will save cities and towns an estimated $50-$75 million annually…. Many cities and towns were facing severe financial challenges even before the current fiscal crisis, citing increasing health care insurance costs for employees and retirees, lack of flexibility to move funds within their own accounts and restrictive public construction requirements. Among the proposed reforms: eliminate Civil Service for municipalities, excluding police officers and firefighters…reduce municipalities maximum health care coverage contribution to 75 percent, in line with the Governor’s proposal to require state employees to pay 25 percent of their health coverage premium…exempt construction projects costing less than $100,000 and communities of less than 5,000 people from the prevailing wage law.”

February 4: “The public will no longer be able to pick up printed copies of the governor’s budget plan, Gov. Mitt Romney announced Tuesday. To save $50,000 in printing costs, the budget this year will only be posted on the Internet. ‘This is the the new face of government,’ Romney said  in a prepared statement. “We believe the Internet holds tremendous opportunity for making government smarter and more efficient.”  Critics say the governor is limiting access to the most important proposal debated by the Legislature each year. Rep. Elizabeth Malia (D-Boston) said the move follows a pattern of tighter control over public communications adopted by the Romney administration, and could make it more difficult for residents without computers to review the budget. ‘It’s censorship, I think,’ she said. ‘A lot of us still use paper.’”

February 5: “Governor Mitt Romney today previewed his Fiscal Year 2004 budget by describing his plan to concentrate the lawyers in state government into a single law office, a sweeping reform that would change the way legal work is conducted in the Executive Branch. Currently, there are 800 lawyers in the Executive Branch of government, excluding the attorney general, district attorneys and other branches not under the Governor’s control. ‘Eight hundred lawyers are far too many to be operating in one branch of state government,’ said Romney.”

February 5: “Gov. Mitt Romney on Wednesday sent lawmakers a bill to hike a variety of fees charged by the state’s registries of deeds and to add a $5 surcharge for every transaction at those offices.  The surcharge will supply funds to upgrade information and other technology needed to modernize the county offices that keep track of property and mortgages.”

February 10:  “Hoping to remove the taint of political favoritism from the selection of judges, Gov. Mitt Romney plans to sign an executive order Tuesday imposing tough new standards on the state’s judicial nominees. The governor’s policy takes aim at the political connections, campaign donations and backdoor lobbying that critics say have long fueled the nomination of judges. “

February 11: (Mushrooming costs at the multi-billion dollar Big Dig highway project in downtown Boston and the state’s failure to contain them or obtain appropriate reimbursements have been a big issue for years before Romney’s arrival.) “Gov. Mitt Romney on Tuesday said the administration is hiring a professional engineering firm to review all Big Dig billings to determine whether costs can be recovered from private project managers and contractors…. The governor said he considers it ‘extraordinary’ that more aggressive cost recovery efforts were not implemented.  The governor does not have the power to control decision-making at the independent authority, but made it clear he will push for it this spring.  Romney said he will file legislation to merge the authority with the Massachusetts Highway Department, bringing it under the state government umbrella.”

February 13: “Setting his sights on economic revival, Governor Mitt Romney today announced an innovative plan to spur job growth in every region of the Commonwealth by tapping the expertise of area business, community and education leaders through Regional Competitiveness Councils. ‘In the past, state government has had a poorly coordinated approach to identifying our strengths and weaknesses, and as a result, our public policy has been clumsy in terms of maximizing our overall growth potential,’ said Romney. ‘These Regional Competitiveness Councils will provide us with the information we need to boost regional growth and bring more jobs to the state.” Romney, in naming the members of the regional councils, charged them with conducting an in-depth analysis of their region’s economic climate; assessing local abilities to attract new companies; identifying which companies and jobs are currently at risk; and devising a strategy to turn a region’s resources – human capital, infrastructure and financial investments – into the greatest economic opportunity. Romney noted that he would use the blueprints the councils develop to market the unique regions of Massachusetts, growing economic development. “

February 14: “Gov. Mitt Romney on Friday stood by his proposal to close what he calls tax loopholes but what banking industry officials say feel like tax hikes. Romney has proposed, and the Legislature has agreed to, legal changes intended to prevent banks continuing to shelter real estate investment trust dividends from taxes.  Banking industry officials are particularly upset about the proposal’s retroactivity – it would and tax all such dividends recorded since 1999.   Lawmakers intend to put the resulting tax revenues, estimated at as much at $150 million, into the state’s rainy day or stabilization fund.  Asked Friday what he thought of lawsuits the banking industry is threatening to bring over the retroactive tax claims, Romney said: ‘I believe we do have loopholes that have been exploited inappropriately, and we have every right to close those loopholes.’”

February 20: “While court officials for years have argued the system is underfunded, Gov. Mitt Romney on Thursday said waste in the courts is ‘eye-popping’ and ‘practically leaps off the page.’  Romney said court costs since 1996 have grown by an average of 7 percent a year despite a decrease in case volume of 1 percent.… To save $12 million while curbing patronage, Romney is targeting courts where there are more assistant clerks and registers than there are judges.  To help court administrators, Romney wants to give them more flexibility in managing their budgets.”

February 24: “Governor Mitt Romney today unveiled a long overdue restructuring of the Commonwealth’s 16 Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, replacing the current confusing maze of bureaucracy with a user-friendly system that is more responsive to the people it serves.

In the plan, Romney calls for the outright elimination of two agencies: the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy and the Division of Medical Assistance, whose functions will be transferred to other departments. He also proposes closing 30 local offices across the state in the next six months and possibly even more in the future, depending on need. Currently, there are over 150 regional and area offices. At the Department of Transitional Assistance alone, there are 800 vacant workspaces in their local offices. Back-office functions like human resources, accounting, legal and technical support – now spread across the entire bureaucracy – will be consolidated to function for the entire secretariat as opposed to individual agencies. This move will rid the agencies of duplicative overhead. The reorganization plan will save nearly $60 million.

Savings will increase each year as more efficiencies are realized. Reducing through sale the large inventory of HHS-owned facilities and land will achieve at least another $30 million in one-time revenue for Fiscal Year 2004. ‘Throughout this process, we have been guided by a desire to simplify our health and human services agencies to better serve recipients. Rather than requiring families to navigate the current red tape jungle, we are consolidating functions to better help those who cannot help themselves,’ Romney said. Families requiring HHS services now face a confusing alphabet soup of state agencies to access the help they need. Under Romney’s proposal, individuals will enter the HHS system through one portal – the local office of the primary agency providing services to them. From there, a lead caseworker will determine if the family has needs for services provided by other agencies and will help the family navigate those services.

For example, if a mother visits the Department of Transitional Assistance to apply for food stamps, her lead caseworker may determine that she also needs childcare and services provided by the Department of Mental Health. From that moment on, the DTA caseworker will coordinate the delivery of all the family’s services, serving as the single point of contact. The mother will not need to travel to multiple offices and deal with layers upon layers of bureaucracy to get the help she needs. The saved time will allow families to focus on their lives and caseworkers to better help their clients. “

February 26: “Gov. Mitt Romney proposed a state budget Wednesday that boosts spending on health care by nearly 9 percent, insulates education from major cuts and makes large cuts in most other areas of state government to compensate for the expectation of flat revenues in the fiscal year that begins July 1.”

February 28: “Gov. Mitt Romney’s first budget proposal contains overdue and comprehensive reforms of the way state government operates but is undercut by overstated claims regarding its short-term fiscal benefits, according to the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. ‘While the budget has been billed as eliminating $2 billion in ‘waste, inefficiency and mismanagement,’ more than $1 billion of that total reflects new taxes, fees and other revenue, and another $400 million derives from one-time fiscal gimmicks.’”

March 10: “As he slashes services and asks other agencies to cut back in the midst of a fiscal crisis, Gov. Mitt Romney is pushing to increase the budgets for his own office and his finance wing. In a move that has peeved lawmakers, Romney’s fiscal 2004 budget plan boosts his own office’s budget by 3 percent and the budget for his Executive Office for Administrative and Finance, a secretariat that is an extension of the governor’s office, by 22 percent, or $718,000.”

March 20: “With the state still losing jobs at a rapid clip during this ongoing recession, Gov. Mitt Romney on Thursday welcomed a business that is moving its headquarters to Boston.  Canada-based Manulife Financial is consolidating its two Boston offices and 700 employees into a single new US headquarters facility at 601 Congress Street, in the city’s emerging Seaport District.  At a press conference, Romney pledged to attract more economic development by continuing to ‘hold the line on taxes and spending.’”

March 25: “The House is holding up nearly a half a billion dollars in Medicaid-related savings proposals offered by Gov. Mitt Romney and a top administration official says the plans need to be approved immediately to realize the savings beginning in July.”

March 31: “The Romney administration on Monday… threw its support behind a new proposal to build three slot machine parlors in Massachusetts. Romney aides said auctioning off five-year licenses for three slot machine houses could bring the short-term benefit of $300 million a year to help protect education and health programs from budget cuts, while not committing Massachusetts to the long-term problems associated with casino gambling, such as crime, corruption and gambling addiction.”

April 1: “Taxpayers anticipating a refund check from the state this April should remember that the $1 billion tax hike approved by the Legislature last summer will reduce the size of their check and in many cases will wipe out the refund altogether, Governor Mitt Romney said today. ‘As citizens around the state get hit with the reality of last year’s tax increase, it is imperative in this year’s budget debate that we hold the line on raising taxes again,’ said Romney. ‘Taxes hurt working people, kill jobs and will make it harder to attract businesses to our state.” …Romney noted the long-term ramifications of raising taxes to deal with a fiscal crisis. After the 1990s, the 10 states with the highest per capita taxes in the country experienced economic growth at half the rate of the 10 states with the lowest per capita taxes, according to the Cato Institute. ‘Unfortunately, Massachusetts was among those states with the highest taxes,’  said Romney. ‘We should not make that mistake again.’ In the Governor’s Fiscal Year 2004 budget, Romney closes a nearly $3 billion budget gap without raising taxes. He has proposed a massive restructuring of state government along with eliminating inefficiency and waste, closing tax loopholes and raising fees. ‘Our state is at a crossroads,’ Romney said. ‘We should use this opportunity to fundamentally restructure the way state government does business. Otherwise, the people of Massachusetts will have to accept yearly tax increases to pay for the inefficient, wasteful structure now in place.’”

April 2: “Governor Mitt Romney today announced that Massachusetts will post photos and information of high-level sex offenders on the Internet beginning on May 15, 2003. ‘The public has a right to know where dangerous sex offenders live and work so they can protect their children and themselves,’ Romney said. ‘During last year’s campaign, one of the key planks in our criminal justice platform was more widely publicizing the whereabouts of convicted sex offenders. This action fulfills that promise.’”

April 8: “Gov. Mitt Romney on Tuesday proposed taking control of the agency that oversees the Big Dig, combining it with another transportation agency, removing much of its independence, and expanding its board to include four gubernatorial appointees. Romney said the agency, the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, was inefficient, unaccountable, and performing the same duties as the Massachusetts Highway Department. Merging the two together could save $30 million in wasteful spending, and save $190 million in one-time money by rolling its debt over to the state. Lawmakers greeted the plan with skepticism.” (Although they eventually adopted the idea years later – when it was proposed by a Democratic governor, Deval Patrick.)

April 8: “Hundreds of doctors, joined by hundreds of patients and other caregivers, overflowed State House corridors Tuesday lobbying for reform in the medical malpractice system they say is forcing physicians in high risk specialties to abandon their practices.  Gov. Mitt Romney vowed to stand with the doctors and fight for change.”

April 10: “While businesses and insurers may soon face new health care-related charges emanating from Beacon Hill, the Romney administration has withdrawn its controversial proposal to hit health insurers with a new $90 million fee to help pay for the state’s $5.5 billion Medicaid program.  ‘We’ve taken it off the table,’ state Health and Human Services Secretary Ronald Preston told the News Service Thursday afternoon.  ‘It was not a good idea.  It was a mistake.’  The administration plans to use surplus fiscal 2003 revenues, federal Medicaid funds and transfers, and reserve monies to make up for the money.”

April 11: “Gov. Mitt Romney filed legislation Friday that will require businesses to contribute $200 million more to the state’s jobless benefits fund, increase the wage base used to assess unemployment insurance funds, and limit the duration of benefits.”

And that was a wrap on the first 100 days.  Just after that artificial milestone, Romney won House approval of his budget, including the repeal of a longstanding continuing-education perk treasured by police unions (and abused by some).  And before April was out, according to the State House News Service, he also launched a campaign to roll back a range of union rules, including removal of state government managerial personnel from unions, elimination of seniority rights, and the repeal of a decade-old law that squashed efforts to privatize some public services.

“Union leaders,” reported  the News Service, “called the proposals a ‘power grab.’” And they fought fire with fire. In the 2004 elections, Romney aggressively recruited and funded Republican candidates to bolster the puny GOP minorities in the House and Senate. With Sen. John Kerry topping the Democratic ticket that year and labor putting on an all-out grassroots push, the effort flopped.  After that, Romney’s diminished clout was further diluted by his own focus on national politics, and toward the end his governorship became something of a ghost mall.

BOSTON (CBS) – “I am very proud of my heritage,” said U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren Wednesday, amid another barrage of questions about her claim of Native-American ancestry.

But in an exclusive interview with WBZ-TV, Warren was quick to turn the heat up on incumbent Sen. Scott Brown, scorching him for the millions in campaign donations he’s raised from the financial industry.

“Scott Brown has been named by Forbes magazine as one of Wall Street’s favorite senators,” notes Warren. “That’s not an award I’m likely to get.”

Instead, Warren is touting her ties with President Obama in a new TV ad featuring a Rose Garden testimonial from the president, who says of Warren: “She’s a janitor’s daughter who has become one of the country’s fiercest advocates for the middle class.”

Says Warren: “I want them to see that I’ve been out there working with the president on behalf of America’s families.”

It’s a compliment Warren wants to turn into a weapon against Brown, citing in the WBZ interview his vote against the so-called Buffett Rule, a tax hike on high-income earners.

“Every time Scott Brown votes to protect the millionaires and the billionaires, that’s more that has to get picked up by America’s working families,” she says.

On a day when Brown was touting his “bipartisanship,” Warren dismissed a recent analysis by a Washington newspaper that found Brown votes with the Democrats nearly half of the time.

“The real question is whose side do you stand on? Scott Brown supports big Wall Street banks that are headed by both Democrats and Republicans. That’s his form of bipartisanship.”

And in another sign of heightened campaign aggressiveness, Warren played the gender card when pressed about whether her partial Native-American ancestry had been a factor in her rise as an academic

“Scott Brown’s campaign has been sending e-mails to reporters asking them to ask me if I’m qualified for my job. And all I can say is I busted my tail as a teacher, I am qualified for my job,” she said, adding that Brown had questioned the qualifications of then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan before voting against her confirmation as a Supreme Court justice.

“If we’re gonna ask questions about qualifications,” said Warren, “maybe the appropriate person to ask those questions of is Scott Brown. What does he think it takes for a woman to be qualified?”

Follow Jon on Twitter @kelleratlarge.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

The latest proof – a true story, according to the police report, out of Danvers, where a local function hall played host last weekend to a wedding that apparently wound up looking more like an Ultimate Fighting Challenge match gone off the rails.

According to the Salem News, just after midnight last Sunday Danvers police responded to a report of a “groom out of control,” and it wasn’t some Suffolk Downs worker feeling his oats.

Quoting from the newspaper:

“It all started when the groom’s brothers tried to buy drinks at the bar and were refused. The groom was ‘irate’ and began yelling at an employee, according to” the police report.

“When a member of the bride’s family asked him to calm down, he grew more enraged, punching a wall and tearing the coat room apart…. The bride’s brother tried to intervene and wound up being punched. As the groom and his new brother-in-law wrestled on the floor, the groom’s mother…went after the bride’s mom.”

What was in that punch bowl?

All kidding aside, this story may serve as a reminder of what happens when two depressingly common character traits – inability to control your temper and your drinking – merge and erupt.

If you’ve ever spent some time surfing YouTube, perhaps you’ve sampled a few of the many videos of kids and adults making complete fools of themselves with drinking and fighting; you’re lucky if you can attend a major sports event without seeing the same thing.

I hope that family can overcome the fallout from their ruined wedding.

Then again, for too many of us it seems, involvement in that sort of debacle is just one pop too many away.

As Mark Twain once wrote, paraphrasing Lord Byron: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

After his sniping at Mitt Romney for supposedly not being up to taking out bin Laden, I was glad he didn’t turn last night’s remarks into a campaign speech.

He didn’t complain about having inherited this war.

Instead, he rose above the fray and directly addressed the public’s war fatigue, not pandering to it, but instead vowing to “finish the job we started and end this war responsibly.”

And he made it clear he has no use for al Qaeda.

Our main goal over there, he said, is to “destroy” them.

George W. Bush definitely couldn’t have said it better, as unreassuring as that may be to some.

But while the president projected competence and moderation last night, he also left a few of my questions unanswered.

For starters, he claimed the “tide has turned” in the battle with al Qaeda’s buddies, the Taliban, and I hope that’s true.

But the last three years have been the three most deadly for our troops, and as the president noted, we will continue to have Americans in harm’s way for years.

And while it looks like our people are doing their best to win hearts and minds over there, there’s regular evidence that plenty of Afghans hate us and want us gone.

Every real or imagined offense seems to make the situation worse.

Their government regularly denounces us, even as they welcome our aid.

Are we really all set to enjoy the benefits of an “enduring partnership,” as the president claimed?

I’m not even that sure what good such a partnership would do.

This president has basically reaffirmed the doctrine of his predecessor – that if we perceive a threat inside your borders that you can’t or won’t clean up, we reserve the right to come in and clean it up ourselves.

Wouldn’t a real partner be trusted to take care of that for us?

The president ended his talk with some all-purpose rhetoric about how it’s “time to renew America,” and that sounds good.

Could it be that a much larger re-direction of resources from there to here would really help get that renewal off the ground?

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

But it’s a town with a problem you may find familiar – the regular presence of young adults and teenagers who think it’s acceptable to engage in loud exchanges on the street in which, as one woman put it, “every third word is a swear.”

You see it everywhere now, at the mall, at the local coffee shop.

Crude, vulgar language that was once confined to locker rooms or places where people accidentally hit their thumb with a hammer, is now part of the atmosphere at all too many public places.

Women and children are around?

Zero deterrence to the mindless narcissists who were apparently raised to believe that it’s OK to scratch whatever itch you might have, wherever you might happen to be, with no regard for the impact on others.

But after months of suffering with verbal air pollution in their main shopping area, folks in Middleborough have had enough.

At their town meeting in June, they will vote on a proposal from the chief of police to change a local ordinance to allow the cops to give out $20 tickets, just like parking tickets, to people who can’t keep their vile language in check out in public.

They’re not going to assign cops to the vulgarity beat or issue a ton of tickets, says the chief.

But it will give them a way of assigning some consequences to a behavior that’s definitely having a negative impact on the town’s quality of life.

If they approve it, will it solve their problem?

Of course not.

Inappropriate public cursing will continue as long as the popular culture continues to promote and glamorize it, and parents don’t counter those lessons, early and consistently.

Maybe one way to approach it is to make it an issue of laziness.

There are so few things we really control in life – what comes out of our mouths in public is one of them.

So to the public cursers among us, a question: why not clean up your own act, before the cops have to step in and fine you for your garbage dumping?

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

MIDDLEBOROUGH (CBS) – Public swearing is so bad in Middleborough that they’re considering a plan to start enforcing a longstanding but rarely-used law.

Folks in town have had enough of kids and some adults who think it’s OK to drop high-volume obscenities in their otherwise bucolic downtown.

“It’s intimidating to my customers,” says business owner Paulette Lilla, “to the people who are out here downtown, and I think it’s a good thing that they’re doing something to try to curb it.”

Former Middleborough Selectwoman Mimi Duphily says, “I don’t think it will solve the problem but it will make them understand what is acceptable behavior and what is not.”

The town’s police chief has proposed to give $20 tickets to vulgar loudmouths as a deterrent to downtown air pollution.

“We have a lot more important things to do,” says Chief Bruce Gates, “but these are things that are quality of life issues, community policing issues that a lot of people don’t want to see downtown.”

The chief will make his case for a more easily enforceable system of fines for public cursing before Town Meeting in June.

If you think a $20 ticket for swearing seems stiff, consider the fine some townspeople told me they’d prefer to see levied: $100 per curse.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

This is the annual event where a cross-section of the DC power structure stuff themselves into formal wear and sit around checking each other out and hoping they’re a big enough deal to be name-checked by the comedian of the evening.

It is rarely all that funny, and this year was no exception, although Kimmel did make me laugh when he said he never watches Al Gore’s cable channel, Current TV, because he doesn’t get channel one million.

But one line of Kimmel’s did get me thinking:

“Here in one room we have members of the media, politicians, corporate executives, advertisers, lobbyists and celebrities. Everything that is wrong with America is here in this room tonight.”

Obviously, that’s a gross exaggeration to get laughs, but I suspect more than a few people watching on TV nodded in agreement with that one.

When we complain about what’s wrong with American politics and culture, we often wind up pointing the finger at one or more of those groups, and they usually deserve it.

Their laughter at the dinner as Kimmel mocked their shortcomings deemed nervous and defensive.

If the president’s smile were any tighter, it would have shattered.

But I felt sorry for Kimmel if he really felt he was spending his Saturday evening with everything that’s wrong with America.

I was luckier.

I attended a birthday dinner for a friend, where the guests took turns celebrating his devotion to his family, his work, and his community in glowing terms.

There are hundreds of thousands of other men and women just like him out there right now.

To me, they’re everything that’s right with America, and our corner of it.

Someone should throw them a dinner one of these days.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

In part 1, Oren sets the record straight on relations with Iran and their nuclear program.

Watch Part 1:

In part 2, Oren discusses Israel’s relationship with Senators Kerry and Brown.

Watch Part 2:

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – U.S. Sen. Scott Brown and likely Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren said they would release several years of tax return information Friday and they did.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Carl Stevens reports

Brown did so first this morning, making public the amounts from his federal and state returns from 2006 through 2011.

He has not put the actual documents online.  Brown allowed reporters to view the paper returns, but only at his campaign office.  Copies were not allowed to be made.

Brown and his wife, TV reporter Gail Huff, reported income of $510,856 in 2011 and paid $123,642 in taxes.

They also gave more than $16,000 to charity.  Brown and his wife own six properties, according to the returns.

Brown’s income was $357,251 back in 2006.

It took a big jump in 2010 to $839,520 when he was elected to the Senate and released a best-selling book about his life.

Warren released her tax information about 90 minutes later Friday in a summary online, showing basic information from 2008 to 2011.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Bernice Corpuz reports

She and her husband, Harvard Law professor Bruce Mann, made $616,181 in 2011.  They paid $191,052 in taxes and donated more than $17,000 to charity.

They earned more than $980,000 in 2009 and $954,000 in 2010.

When combined over the same time frame of 2008 to 2011, here’s how Brown and Warren’s tax information compares:

The releases come after more than a week of negotiations in which both campaigns argued over when to unveil the returns and how many years to release.

Brown said Warren should have released six years of returns as he did.

“It’s not like buying a car.  Well, you give six, I’ll give four.  Listen, six is six.  The (Boston) Globe asked for six.  You want six, I gave six and the fact that she wanted to give two and now she’s up to four, I’m curious and others should be curious as to what’s on those others,” he told WBZ NewsRadio 1030.

Warren said the four years of tax returns reflect the time she’s had connections in public service.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

The Bruins called them “classless” and “ignorant.” The Capitals called them “outrageous,” “unacceptable,” and “ignorant.” Ward’s agent added “appalling,” “disturbing,” and “really disgraceful.”

Have we mentioned ignorant yet?

I understand the temptation to recoil in disgust from this spasm of online vulgarity, and move on as quickly as possible. There’s only so long any decent person wants to stare at a train wreck, and these bigots certainly qualify.

But before we hose down the sidewalk, let’s consider some of the good news that came out of the episode.

This story became big news because several web sites took it upon themselves to compile these tweets; a number of the twits behind them have been identified, and at least one has issued a public apology.

My guess would be that this is a first taste of public accountability for vile language they’ve used before. It may also be the first inkling some anonymous online haters have that their anonymity is not guaranteed, and *they* may be held accountable in some way for their little hobby.

This is an overdue bit of education for one and all, and maybe a handful have the brains to learn from it.

I’m also modestly encouraged that fewer media outlets than I expected indulged in the knee-jerk reaction to make this a story about Boston’s bad reputation for race-relations. Many Bostonians of all races have worked hard in recent decades to dispel that rap, and because of their work, that spin didn’t quite take hold here.

But the best news about the racist tweets is how thoroughly condemned they’ve been.

No decent person wants any part of this vestige of the bad old days.

And while it’s troubling to catch a whiff of these idiots among us, there’s no doubt that decent people these days are in the overwhelming majority.

CONCORD (CBS) — Residents have voted to ban the sale of single-serve plastic water bottles in Concord.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Karen Twomey reports

If the law sticks, the town will become the first place in the country with such a ban, starting on Jan. 1. It’s not official yet, as the state attorney general still needs to give the green light.

Concord survived the Revolutionary War and residents there told WBZ-TV on Thursday that they’ll get over the bottled water war as well, even if the issue did divide the town meeting right down the middle.

The ban passed by only 39 votes out of nearly 800 cast (403-364), and on Thursday, some were skeptical of the ban’s true motive and potential impact.

At Wednesday night’s Concord town meeting, the battle over plastic water bottles took on grand political and philosophical dimensions. But, despite Wednesday night’s debate and months worth preceding it, many in- and out-of-towners are still wondering – why have the ban?

“I think it’s kind of crazy. It should be up to people’s choice…if you’re gonna ban that, why not ban Gatorade or everything else that comes in a plastic bottle?” said one resident.

“That was a question that was raised by some physicians in town. Do we really wanna encourage some kids to drink soda and sugary drinks rather than water?” said Christopher Whelan, the Concord town manager.

After all, Gatorade and soda also come in plastic bottles, produced by many of the same corporations that peddle bottled water.

One supporter, however, argued at the town meeting Wednesday that consumers can still get water other ways, by just going “to a water fountain.”

Businesses in Concord could be affected, though.

“We did hear from business folks that they’re concerned they may lose some business,” added Whelan.

It’s not hard to see why store owners are worried. If anyone wanted to buy a bottled water, all they have to do head to a neighboring town.

“Maybe it’s just something in the water in Concord,” said a resident.

Supporters of the ban have been pretty clear that this is a symbolic gesture designed to promote environmentalism.

Most of the critics said they supported that goal, but would prefer to make their own political decisions at the store.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

If driver number two had been less alert, or driving any faster, no way could he have slammed on the brakes before being broadsided and, most likely, killed by the nitwit in the SUV.

Why did she do it?

I’m positive the cellphone glued to her face played a major role in her failure to stop, slow down, or even, by all appearances, even notice that she almost took another life.

How can I be so sure?

Because hardly a day goes by that I don’t see reckless, dangerous driving by people with cellphone in hand, oblivious to the carnage they’re on the brink of causing.

There are ten states that ban driving while on a hand-held phone, and we’re not one of them.

Only recently did we manage to ban their use by drivers under age 18 and school or passenger bus drivers.

So you can’t count on the state to step in and restore some order to the wild west scenario that’s playing out on our roads.

We’re going to have to take action ourselves, and instead of just complaining about it, I have a proposal.

Starting next Tuesday, May first, let’s all vow to no longer talk on the phone in a moving car that we are driving, other than in exceptional circumstances.

These would include an emergency call from a child or loved one, or any truly important call in a situation where you cannot pull over and stop.

No more idle chatter, casual gossip, or other stuff that really could wait a few minutes until you’re done steering a ton of metal at potentially-deadly speeds.

If everyone took up this challenge, we could cut the incidence of cellphone-distracted driving by, I would guess, about 90%, with a corresponding drop in accidents and near-misses.

Selfish, dangerous foolishness, or grassroots common-sense activism – it’s your choice.

Please choose wisely.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – After several days of feisty exchanges, it looks like U.S. Senate candidates Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren will release some of their recent tax returns on Friday.

The back-and-forth over tax disclosure is just the latest example of a developing campaign theme: Class warfare.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Mark Katic reports

Brown wants to cast Warren as a Cambridge liberal who wants to tax businesses and regular working stiffs like, allegedly himself back to the stone age.

And on the campaign trail in East Boston Wednesday, Warren is responding in kind.

Brown is quick to remind voters of Warren’s Ivy League job and Hollywood supporters, casting himself as the Burger King to her ‘Brie Queen.’

“He’s called me an elitist about 100 kazillion times now, that’s a technical count here,” says Warren. “And all I’ve really tried to do is get out there and talk about what’s happening to America’s families.”

But moments later, Warren proves eager to label Brown a warrior for upper-class interests.

“I got mine, the rest of you are on your own, that’s real class warfare,” she says. “The ones who say look, I’m gonna vote so that millionaires, and people making a million dollars a billion dollars year don’t have to pay as much in taxes as their secretaries? That’s really about protecting a tiny slice of the wealthiest and most powerful.”

That may energize Warren’s base. But some, like independent East Boston businessman Bob Vitale, are unimpressed.

“She likes to raise taxes but when she had the opportunity to pay an extra tax, she didn’t do it,” says Vitale. “It’s a contradiction in my opinion.”

That’s a reference to Warren’s disclosure that she did not opt to pay the higher income tax rate on her state tax return. Brown didn’t pay it either, but he did vote against the so-called ‘Buffett Tax’ on millionaires that Warren referenced.

Both candidates hope those facts will help them paint their rival as a class of politician you really don’t care to vote for.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

In essence, Edwards is accused of extracting close to a million bucks in campaign donations from a political crony and a very elderly millionaire supporter that were never really campaign donations at all, but slush funds to be used to cover up the sleazy affair he was having at the expense of his terminally-ill wife.

Apparently, there will be evidence introduced in court that Edwards conspired with several others, including his late wife, to hide the affair, which produced a child, so that he could continue to seek the presidency in 2008.

I distinctly recall Edwards going on at length about the damage another Republican presidency might do to the people and causes he purported to champion; imagine what would have happened if he had somehow won the Democratic nomination, then had his vulgar scheme exposed.

Check: Other Keller @ Large Pieces

A national poll the other day found three percent of Americans still holding a favorable view of Edwards, and you have to assume they are completely ignorant of the details of his behavior. If not, it’s kind of scary.

But, the gruesome Edwards saga does put into perspective the caliber of most of his political contemporaries.

Whatever your views of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, we can surely agree that they would never indulge in the kind of narcissistic vulgarity that Edwards wallowed in.

John Kerry may have made a frightening error of judgment in choosing Edwards to be his 2004 running mate, a call that makes John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin seem thoughtful by comparison, but Kerry is a prince of a fellow compared with Edwards. Deval Patrick, Tom Menino – we’re pretty lucky around here with the character of most of our top elected officials.

If convicted, Edwards could go to prison for up to 30 years. That seems a harsh sentence – for the other prisoners.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – Student loans are now front and center in the Massachusetts race for U.S. Senate.

Congress is getting ready to vote on a bill that could curb costs for 160,000 borrowers in Massachusetts alone.

Check: Other Keller @ Large Pieces

They’re called Stafford loans, where low- and middle-income students can put off paying interest until after they graduate.

The Elizabeth Warren campaign is taking to the airwaves in an effort to make an upcoming vote on lowering the cost of those loans into a Senate race issue.

Watch Warren’s ad:

“I’m Elizabeth Warren. I approved this message because Washington has to get its priorities straight,” Warren says in the ad.

In both the new TV ad and at a campaign stop in Quincy on Monday, Warren’s message was both direct and implied: she has her priorities straight, while her opponent apparently does not.

Sen. Scott Brown was on friendly turf on Monday at Harvard Square’s famous Bartley’s Burger Cottage, where they claim his burger, complete with bacon, cheese and chilies is far more popular than the Swiss-cheese and pepper burger named after Warren.

But, with Warren’s pitch being amplified by the Obama campaign this week, what is the meat of Brown’s position was on those Stafford loans?

“Yeah, I’m for (the new bill). It’s something we’ve been working on for awhile,” said Sen. Brown. “It’s nice, obviously, to tackle the interest rate on student loans, but you’ve gotta get costs under control, there’s a much larger picture that we need to address… Everyone knows that the federal government spends too much of our hard-earned money, just look at the GSA scandal.”

The Warren campaign has seemed a bit frustrated in their effort to gain partisan traction on Brown, and this is a classic example of why.

Some of his party leaders claim extending those lower Stafford loan interest rates will add billions to the deficit, but Brown is crossing party lines to say yes to the loans.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Yes, and as a Red Sox fan who has witnessed many horrible implosions over the years, this was one of the all-time worst.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

By now you know the details.

The Sox ran out to a 9-0 lead over the Yankees, 9-1 after six innings, and everything was beautiful.

But the Red Sox bullpen is, apparently, no match for the Yankee lineup.

Meatball after meatball thrown right down the middle of the plate were pulverized by Yankee hitters for seven runs in the seventh and seven more in the eighth.

Game over.

But what interested me was the reaction of the fans.

From where I was sitting, disbelief and a fair amount of booing was quickly followed by an air of resignation.

There was audible sarcasm during the traditional singing of “Sweet Caroline,” with the word “choke” liberally inserted into the lyrics.

Maybe it was happening elsewhere in the park, but I did not observe the signs of anger and despair that a similar fold would have prompted in past years.

The body language of the Red Sox themselves is, for the most part, horrible.

As the game started to slip away, you could see the fear and tentativeness in the Sox hitters and fielders.

The less said about Bobby Valentine’s demeanor, the better.

But for many fans, it looks to me like something has changed.

The bad old days are gone, dispelled by the success of ’04 and ’07.

A down year for the Sox – and this certainly has all the makings of one – no longer evokes bitterness and loathing, let alone the fear that gripped many of us for a long time that we might never see them win it all in our lifetimes.

It was a beautiful day at the ballpark on Saturday, and for two-thirds of the game, we had the Yankees on the run.

It seems that was enough to make even the revolting collapse that followed relatively palatable for some Sox fans.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s a real thing.

And given how bad the team looks, maybe it’s a lucky thing.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Check: Other Keller @ Large Pieces

WBZ’s Jon Keller recently sat down with Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo to discuss the state budget and other pressing issues.

In Part 1, DeLeo argued that there should not be any new taxes written in the new budget.

Watch Part 1:

In Part 2, DeLeo touched on the debate over EBT cards.

Watch Part 2:

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

I’m glad she’s still around, and recall with horror the days when it looked like she might be put out to pasture in favor of some wind-swept money machine down by the waterfront.

But before I join everyone else strolling down memory lane about Fenway, I do acknowledge there is some downside to the park’s longevity.

Having the second lowest capacity of any major league ballpark and being such a huge tourist draw has helped push the cost of going to a game into the stratosphere, and it’s been years since I’ve been able to justify the expense.

If you see me there, it’s because a benevolent friend took mercy on me.

Luckily, my kids are grown and don’t hate me for failing to get them in there.

But I do fondly recall the good old days of the $2.50 bleacher ticket and slipping in to catch the end of game for free when they opened the gates in the 7th inning.

My first game was in 1965, and like every other kid I was dazzled by the scene, which back then included many empty seats which remained empty throughout the game.

A non-baseball highlight was seeing Stevie Wonder perform there in 1973; when he hit the climax of “Superstition,” they threw the switch on the outfield lights, and the place went nuts.

And I was there on Opening Day in 1975 when Hank Aaron played his first game in the American League and Tony Congiliaro completed his comeback to the majors.

Tony C. was my childhood idol dating back to the Impossible Dream season; his beaning, and the subsequent health problems that cost him a brilliant career and his life at a young age, still stand as one of the saddest sports stories ever.

The sight of Fenway Park evokes a lot of memories for me, as I’m sure it does for most of you.

And living in a city that values history so highly, the park is an enduring symbol of what makes us special.

So Happy Birthday, Fenway – here’s to the next hundred.

BOSTON (CBS) – They’re called “food deserts,” or areas where it’s hard to find healthy, affordable groceries.

Government officials, including Mayor Tom Menino and First Lady Michelle Obama, say wiping those areas out is the key to easing the childhood obesity epidemic.

That problem now turns out to be not quite as big as some have claimed.

Mrs. Obama has been leading the charge for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal spending to bring nutritious food options to mostly-poor neighborhoods.

“Tackling the issue of accessibility and affordability is key to achieving the overall goal of solving childhood obesity in this generation,” said Mrs. Obama.

The New York Times reports that’s been debunked by recent studies, concluding that most low-income areas have greater access to both fast food outlets and to stores selling more nutritious products, and questioning whether food access is really a factor in childhood obesity.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who was in Boston to talk urban food policy with Mayor Menino, flatly rejected the findings.

“We know that when you have access to fresh and healthy food, you have a healthier population, so the inverse, common sense, is true,” says Rawlings-Blake.

But, Menino isn’t so sure. He has also pushed for more markets in poor areas. He says the bottom line is people have to start making smarter choices.

“EBT cards weren’t to buy potato chips and popcorn. It’s to get people nutritious meals on the table,” said Menino.

Menino said he’d like to see more restrictions on what you can and can’t buy with what they used to call food stamps (EBT cards).

Meanwhile, Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move” program also calls for empowering parents to shop right through nutrition-education programs in schools and clinics.

Have you started to run short of things to talk about with the kids?

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

Never fear, here’s a great topic – how do you and friends hear about new music?

And do you share any of those sources?

I was thinking about this after hearing of the death of Dick Clark, host of the iconic “American Bandstand” pop-music variety show of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s.

Coming just a couple of months after the passing of Don Cornelius, the man behind the equally iconic “Soul Train,” it’s a reminder of how big a deal these shows were to millions of kids growing up at that time.

Usually, in that ancient pre-Internet era, you would hear a group first on the radio.

But if their song caught on, it wasn’t long before you’d see them perform on “Bandstand” or “Soul Train” or the “Ed Sullivan Show.”

And even if you tuned in to see someone within your musical comfort zone, next thing you know, you’re blown away by someone you never heard of.

The next day at school, chances are you bonded with a new friend over the discovery that you now have that music in common.

Does it still work that way?

It’s a lot easier to share music now, and I wonder if it’s as big a deal for kids now as it was back in the dark ages.

Because music is one of the few ways in which our huge, fragmented culture finds common ground.

People from all over the country will be gathering in New Orleans next weekend for the annual Jazz Fest, and if you’ve never been, take it from me, it’s unbelievable.

People of all possible ages, ethnic and class backgrounds, enjoying all different kinds of music in a near-perfect state of bliss.

It’s America at its best.

I don’t know what other experience matches that these days, maybe the ballpark, if you can afford it.

But I hope kids still get a taste of that communal feeling when they share music these days, just like we did — back in the day.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – Could the words “I’m sorry” reduce malpractice suits at Massachusetts hospitals?

Right now, six hospitals in the state are participating in an experimental plan.

Doctors and nurses would tell patients about mistakes and their plans to investigate, and if the hospital is at fault there would be an apology and an offer of financial compensation.

Among the hospitals involved are Mass. General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Baystate Medical Center.

Right now, doctors and nurses live in fear of malpractice suits, and have every incentive to hide mistakes and refuse to discuss what went wrong, let alone apologize to victims.

The toll includes costly insurance premiums, expensive legal proceedings, and frustration all around.

But, for this new approach to break the logjam, it’ll have to clear some political obstacles first.

Dr. Alan Woodward and his colleagues at the Mass. Medical Society say the disclosure, apology and offer process has worked in Michigan and can work here in Massachusetts too, transforming a medical culture for the benefit of doctors, patients and even lawyers, too.

“There’s no attempt to deprive anybody of their ability to litigate down the line, but let’s provide an alternative that’s better and more expeditious,” said Dr. Woodward.

Part of the problem is doctors don’t want to do or say anything that could be used against them in a lawsuit. There have been efforts to change the law to make medical apologies inadmissible, like a bill filed last year by Gov. Patrick, but this and other efforts all wound up dying on Beacon Hill.

“I would be very surprised if Beacon Hill ever passed a law that would allow for this to happen,” said David Frank an attorney from the newspaper Mass. Lawyers Weekly.

Frank predicts that attorneys for injured patients will be very reluctant to give up a crucial piece of legal leverage.

“If you have statements where a doctor admits wrongdoing, if you talk to lawyer’s on either side of a case, plaintiff’s or defense side, that’s the most damaging, smoking-gun-type evidence you can have in a case,” said Frank.

One key lawmaker wants to see the reform happen, but isn’t so sure it’s possible.

“We’d like them to say they’re sorry and fix the problem,” said State Sen. Richard Moore.

“I think this is just a pipe dream,” said Frank.

As I mentioned before, the program is working in Michigan, where an 11-year-old experiment has cut premiums and case resolution times, and reduced the number of court cases by more than 90 percent.

We’ll soon find out if living in Massachusetts means never having to say it’s time for change.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

If so, then you know how devastating such a senseless death can be, destroying not just the lives lost on the road but those of their loved ones.

We don’t know for sure yet what caused the horrible crash on Morrissey Boulevard Tuesday morning that killed two 19-year-olds and a 20-year-old.

But the preliminary state police investigation suggests the victims were at a late-night party, alcohol and speed may have been a factor, and the crash happened at 4:30 in the morning.

You can do the awful math yourself.

Here we go again with the grim underside of springtime, warm weather and prom season, kids and adults drinking and driving.

Year after year, the statistics may vary slightly, but it’s a completely predictable nightmare.

And despite year after year of warnings, education, and the unending horror of story after tragic story, it’s going to keep on happening because there’s nothing we can do about it.

Or is there?

Young legal drinkers have more alcohol-related fatal crashes than any other age group.

So if you’re 21 to 34 years old and like to party with friends, I have a few questions for you:

Do you want to die young?

Do you want to put your family and friends through hell?

Are those extra beers and the inconvenience of arranging a sober ride home really worth all that agony?

If you answered no to those questions, then you have the power to prevent those outcomes. And you need to take steps to do so, starting now.

Because nobody wants to see any more horror stories like the one in Dorchester Tuesday. And what happened there could easily happen to you if you let it.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – Tuesday is the deadline for paying your taxes, but these days, it’s hard to feel good about how the government spends our money.

Gov. Deval Patrick was in the WBZ NewsRadio 1030 studios on Tuesday talking about President Obama’s failed push for tax increases on some of the wealthiest Americans.

Check: Other Keller @ Large Pieces

Those increases are widely popular, but most tax hikes are not, and a steady flow of stories about tax dollars being wasted makes it unlikely that attitude will be changing anytime soon.

“The notion that we all have a stake in stabilizing our public fisc is not a radical idea, it’s a very basic American idea,” said Gov. Patrick on WBZ NewsWatch with Joe Mathieu on Tuesday.

The so-called Buffett rule, which would have called for tax hikes for the very wealthy, died in the Senate on Monday but had broad support in a CNN poll (.pdf).

But that CNN survey also showed only half of Americans think their federal tax burden is just right, and hardly any believe they should pay more. Why?

Look no further than Tuesday’s annual release of the “Pig Book” by a Washington group that documents government waste of tax dollars, a chronic source of public resistance to new taxes.

“We can point to the things we have done and continue to do, the numbers of reforms in the public pension system, in the transportation system,” said Gov. Patrick, when asked how he can prove tax dollars are being well spent.

Despite that, resistance in Massachusetts to tax hikes has been persistent and formidable, fueled by stories like the misuse of state electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards by some food stamp recipients.

“It doesn’t mean in the private sector when you see something like that, that people say, ‘We’re gonna shut down the company and do no more.’ The company has to continue to move forward, and the government has to continue to move forward as well, and that means serving everybody’s interests,” said Gov. Patrick.

But, it’s tougher for folks like Gov. Patrick or President Obama to win their argument for tax hikes when we see stories like the EBT scandal or the current uproar over the general services administration in D.C. squandering funds on junkets.

The only thing arguably less popular than government waste is unchecked tax breaks for millionaires.

No, I am not making this up.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

Here are some of their surprised reactions off of Twitter, where they rushed to express their surprise:

“Is it bad that I didn’t know the Titanic was real? Always thought it was just a film…Nobody told me Titanic was real. How am I just finding this out?….The Titanic was real? I’m never going on a cruise…”

And so on.

I wish I could say that these amazingly under-informed folks were just a bunch of grade-school kids, but as best I can tell at least some of them are in their 20s, certainly old enough to have seen the 1997 movie and have their curiosity sparked by it.

Or not.

One young woman who got burned by her Twitter confession went back online later to protest:

“I am not ignorant… It’s not essential to know history like that.”

And a blogger who identified himself as a college-level teacher called criticism of the clueless “unseemly” Where would they learn about the Titanic, he asked? “…In school? I doubt it’s taught there and if it is, it shouldn’t be, given everything else that missing from the curriculum.”

Hello?

It’s not that the Titanic story is the most significant historical fact of all time.

But it was an important moment, and the failure to even know it was real speaks to a lack of curiousity, even when prompted by a cultural phenomenon.

The term “dumbed down” may be over-used. But in this case, it applies.

And the victims of it ought to take the heat they’re getting as a wakeup call to start using the brains they were born with.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.