By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  January 10th at 01:12 PM  | 

Ignoring some of the big government votes of once-Senator Sam Brownback, Tim Carpenter atThe Capital-Journal writes what is almost a campaign piece for Governor Sam Brownback. Brownback opposes lowering the largest tax increase in Kansas history, a temporary (but still in effect) sales tax increase passed a year ago.  Brownback has placed very few limited-government conservatives in cabinet positions. In terms of the state budget, | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  January 7th at 10:40 PM  | 

At 50,000 thousands students every year (many non-degree-seeking), Johnson County Community College is the largest in Kansas and among the largest in the Midwest. They don’t care much for any law, state or federal.  Just since 2005, the college has been guilty of violating the state open meetings law, the state open records law, the federal First Amendment, there has been at least one likely | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  January 5th at 07:40 PM  | 

Johnson County Community College is nationally known as a corrupt institution run by dishonest leaders like President Terry Calaway, ex-bankers Lynn Mitchelson and Jon Stewart, and Gardner funeral home director Shirley Brown-VanArsdale.  They’ve broken laws left and right — the First Amendment, the Kansas Open Meetings Act, the Kansas Open Records Act, sexual molestation by former President Charles Carlsen, the likely illegal firing of at least | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  January 4th at 10:47 PM  | 

Click here to read the following message with photos, in a format that looks like our original Email: In case you missed it: Watch the video from the local government event on December 17, 2010 Speakers: Fmr. Sheriff Currie Myers, KC Mayor Mark Funkhouser, fmr. Shawnee City Councilman Kevin Straub, Commissioners Jason Osterhaus and Michael Ashcraft Watch the full speeches at BenjaminHodge.com, or by clicking below later | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 31st at 02:30 PM  | 

I concede that I was not aware of KCI’s use of private security.  I assumed that TSA agents were in place.  The Washington Post: Some of the nation’s biggest airports are responding to recent public outrage over security screening by weighing whether they should hire private firms such as Covenant to replace the Transportation Security Administration. Sixteen airports, including San Francisco and Kansas City International | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 28th at 11:42 AM  | 

Maryn McKenna at Wired Magazine: Two weeks ago, I broke the news of a new FDA report that estimated for the first time the amount of antibiotics sold in the United States every year for use in agriculture: 28.8 million pounds. … Here’s the CLF table summing up the math, but please go over to CLF’s blog for its discussion. Most important to note: Most | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 27th at 06:06 AM  | 

I think this is a fantastic idea.  It’s very often stated that “there’s too much money in politics.”   While there’s nothing inherently wrong with voters speaking their point of view through their dollars (it costs money to share views through mail, TV, radio, and the Internet), the high “buy in” for a US House race is unfortunate.  Incumbent congressmen have never been more tough | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 21st at 06:28 PM  | 

Some articles: “Hands off tomorrow’s Internet” – Meredith Attwell Baker, a Republican FCC Comissioner “FCC Internet Grab a Christmas Nightmare” – Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn “F.C.C. Approves Net Rules and Braces for Fight” – NY Times “Obama’s mystery proposal to regulate the Internet” – Washington Examiner editorial “Nothing neutral about this unholy scheme” – Wesley Pruden “The FCC’s Threat to Internet Freedom” – “‘Net neutrality’ | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 20th at 08:36 PM  | 

Video link: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=hd6U8z8zSU. “I want to say one thing about the budget that didn’t get passed, the omnibus bill. You know, we talk a lot about – we just passed this huge tax cut in part because business said, you know, we have to plan, we have to know what kind of tax cuts we have. Well, these agencies, including the Defense Department, don’t know how | Read More »

By: Benjamin Hodge (Diary)  |  December 18th at 03:52 PM  | 

Good for Senator Jerry Moran.  President Obama was quick to support this legislation, and establishment Republicans were quick to compromise.  It extends President Bush’s 2001 tax cuts for merely two years.  It also extends unemployment benefits for a year, but it provides no way of paying for those benefits, so it adds to the national debt. Conservative leader Mike Pence voted against the bill, along with | Read More »