Matt Hittle and The Volante

It appears there is some concern that Matt Hittle is a columnist and blogger for The Volante, while at the same time he is the president of College Republicans.

The Volante’s policy is not to restrict any student from writing columns at The Volante. The obvious and only conflict in this respect is the prohibition of “reporters” engaging in opinion. Our “reporters” or “news editors” are not involved in the opinion/editorial process; hence, keeping a separation between opinion and news.

Matt Hittle is not a reporter. Certainly though, all opinion columnists have a journalistic responsibility in terms of what they opine on, but mostly they are relying on personal opinion of a particular issue. It is this sometimes gray area which ruffles many feathers. However, Matt is a student just like anyone else and began writing as a columnist for The Volante one year ago. Since then he has actively participated in other student organizations, namely, College Republicans, where he is now their president.

Simply because he is the president of another student organization, in this case a political organization, he should not be barred from publishing as a columnist with The Volante. This same ability would be extended equally to the president of the College Democrats as well, or any other student organization, political or otherwise.

What The Volante failed to do was provide a disclaimer stating that Matt is both a columnist for The Volante AND president of College Republicans. You will notice on all of his blog posts and comments (and future print columns) there is this disclaimer.

If you are interesting in becoming a “regular” columnist for The Volante, contact our editor, Lauren Hollister at Lauren.Hollister@usd.edu. With our expansion online, if you would like to write as a columnist for The Volante, we have plenty of space on the Internet. Again, talk to Lauren if you are interested in becoming a regular Online Opinion writer. Also, guest columns are accepted from time to time.

David Whitesock
Online Director
The Volante

More ruminations on Blake’s reply

Also posted on the USD College Republicans blog

1) Mr. Blake made it sound as if Nesselhuf actually had an active role in the USD money. He had absolutely nothing to do with the bill, other than voting for it like every other senator

2) Mr. Blake said that Nesselhuf is the first Senator from Clay County in 100 years to hold a Senatorial leadership. That is about as much of a stretch as possible. There is absolutely no statute or Senate rule mentioning a “Caucus Chairman.” It is a title made up by the Democrats to make him sound important. If he were something like majority or minority leader, whip, or president pro tempore, he would be a Senate leader. But he isn’t any of those.

Matt Hittle is President of USD College Republicans and Secretary of USD Political Science League

A hit-by-hit response

To Matt Blake’s response to my Nesselhuf column last week:

On the minimum wage and pre-K education

-Of course Mr. Blake is happy Nesselhuf supports these. Increased government meddling in citizens’ lives is a valuable tool for the Democratic Party. 

-Blake makes a knee-jerk assumption that the minimum wage is beneficial (it isn’t) and that pre-K education is a good investment for taxpayer dollars.

On Hyperion

Nesselhuf’s failed bill  would have allowed the state government to write incredibly strict environmental regulations, leaving the door open for opposition to essentially write Hyperion out of existence, by, say, regulating so strictly that Hyperion could not operate.

“I took the laws straight off the books in California…” said Nesselhuf at one of the hearings on Hyperion.

-Also, Nesselhuf was so anti-Hyperion that the Hyperion people don’t want to work with him. Hyperion IS coming. Nesselhuf is not ready. 

My “hard core partisan” stance

-Apparently Mr. Blake knows me…despite the fact that we’ve never met. 

-His claim that I am a hardcore partisan is untrue. Though I am president of a partisan organization, I remove that hat when I write. The Volante hired me to write Matt Hittle’s opinions, not the College Republicans’. There are several issues in the Republican Platform with which I don’t agree.

-It’s smart for Mr. Blake to paint me as a radical, though. It erodes my credibility in the eyes of readers. Both he and Bill Muller, the Nesselhuf campaign manager, have done this now. Muller did it in a press release in which he falsely claimed that my Nesselhuf column was a product of the College Republicans. When asked to correct this mistake, Muller became angry and refused to change the blatant error (or lie, depending on your view).

Nesselhuf voted _____ times for _____

-And? What’s your point? So he voted a bunch of times for bills that don’t pass. Shouldn’t his effectiveness be measured not by the ideas he supports, but by his ability to get those ideas codified into law?

-What do you mean by “helped secure” dollars for USD? You mean he “voted for” the bill that gave dollars to USD. Blake makes it sound like Nesselhuf took the lead, valiantly “securing” money for USD. In reality, Nesselhuf merely voted for a Regents-supported bill. That’s a no-brainer.

Nesselhuf is popular

-No argument there, he’s a nice guy and his father is a nice guy. But you can’t ride the amiability of yourself and your family forever. Eventually, you’ll have to face your record, whether it’s in 2008 or in the next cycle.

Matt Hittle is the President of the USD College Republicans and Secretary of the USD Political Science League

Comments

I think the comments on Volante political columns are hilarious- case in point, my most recent column.

Instead of addressing the issues at hand, the vast majority of the commenters (who are too cowardly to use their real names) use ad hominem attacks.

As you can see from the Wikipedia article on ad hominem, it is almost always invalid. It doesn’t further your argument, nor does it make you look good.

Stopping Muller’s and Nesselhuf’s spin

I’ve been detached from the uproar over my last column, as I’ve been out of town. But I’m pleased as punch!

Bill Muller, the Nesselhuf campaign manager sent out a press release after my column went to print.

Here it is:

———
Friends of Nesselhuf,
With a mere 48 days until election day, the Republicans have begun their attacks on State Senator Ben Nesselhuf. Recently on campus, posters have surfaced against Ben and then in the current issue of The Volante there was an opinion piece personally attacking Ben. Both of these pieces originated with the College Republicans.
The attacks do not change the facts. The fact is that Ben has been a powerful voice for USD in Pierre.
- Since 2001 Ben has co-sponsored, sponsored, or voted upon legislation that would create, expand or fund a scholarship program over 21 times.
- Ben has voted 9 times to reduce tuition for specific categories of students, such as members of the National Guard.
- Ben helped bring $4.3 million in construction money to USD, including $1.8 million for the new medical school.
- Ben obtained special clearance for the Board of Regents to bond for almost $16 million for lab upgrades at USD.
His voting record shows that Ben understands what is important to USD and has provided a powerful voice for students and employees in Pierre.
It is clear that the Republican Party will go to any lengths to take down Ben, so please donate $25 to help defend Ben against these baseless attacks.
You can donate by clicking here.
———

I’ve got a few things to say about this:

1) My column did not originate with the USD College Republicans. In an on-the-record phone call, Mr. Muller refused to fix this error and became quite angry when I said it was wrong.

2) The Republican Party will go to “any lengths” to take down Ben? I’m discussing his legislative history. It seems that the Nesselhuf campaign needs to learn the difference between issue-based and ad hominem attacks. I will VIGOROUSLY attack Mr. Nesselhuf on his legislative history, but I will ALWAYS refrain from attacking his personal life. The Nesselhuf campaign is again trying to squelch discussion of his legislative history.

3) Almost everyone who has been in the legislature for nearly a decade would have sponsored, co-sponsored- or voted upon USD-related legislation. Just the Opportunity Scholarship legislation was proposed several times, was funded by a separate bill, and there have also have been votes to change it. That amounts to several votes on one USD-related issue. Image all of the scholarships that USD provides, then imagine voting on changes to those scholarships. That amounts to tons of tiny votes- that the Nesselhuf campaign spins to appear important.

4) Mr. Nesselhuf may have voted to reduce tuition for specific categories of students, because these bills often arise in the legislature. However, they are typically opposed by the Regents because they rarely include funding to pay for the loss in tuition revenue – the burden is simply thrown back onto the other universities. Leave it to a Democrat to mandate that something occur, but not fund it!

5) As for the USD construction and lab upgrades, these were part of Regents-pushed bills that were supported by the governor. When Mr. Muller says that Mr. Nesselhuf “helped,” that merely means he voted for it, not that he played an active role!

And I think we all would like to know what “special clearance” means.

——-

As you can see, the Nesselhuf campaign states facts in such a way that pumps up the Senator’s resume. They may be true, but when you dig a bit deeper, you’ll find that Mr. Nesselhuf isn’t a leader, but merely follows.

face-to-face with the patriot act

I knew it would happen one day; I would come face-to-face with the residual (or direct) effect of the Patriot Act. On Wednesday that conspiratorial dream came true.

For a history class I have to prepare an annotated bibliography, not a difficult task, especially for a senior history major, but I was looking for a shortcut. I thought that since I had read a number of books over the summer which were relevant to my topic, I could simply have the circulation desk print a history of books I’ve checked out.

Sorry, no doing. When making said request, one of the librarians over heard and said the library does not keep records of books checked out by patrons (students). It did not take long for her to say, “The reason is because of the Patriot Act.” And then I remembered.

Under the Patriot Act, the federal government (CIA, NSA, FBI, etc.) has the authority to access certain records, such as reading lists of library patrons. Until 2001, many libraries did keep such lists, but did so for the convenience of their patrons. Libraries were very concerned with authorities seeking those records as the power of the FBI grew through the 20th century and the lists ceased to exist.

What became more important to libraries was your First Amendment right to free speech, which includes the freedom to read what you choose, from where you choose; that includes public libraries. When the Patriot Act was passed in 2001, any library which still had historical reader data was subject to secret, warrantless searches.

Section 215 of the Patriot Act says:

[The FBI may] make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things for an investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information … providing that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.

Section 215 goes on to say:

No person shall disclose to any other person (other than those persons necessary to produce the tangible things under this section) that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has sought or obtained tangible things under this section.

The First Amendment Center writes, “This gag order would prevent a library, for example, from ever notifying its patrons that the government has requested information from it under Section 215.”

This gag order was addressed in 2005 and 2006, when in Doe v. Gonzales, the court ruled that (1) the gag rule was unconstitutional and (2) between the two Doe cases, the government passed the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act (Patriot Act II), which only perceptually accepted some constitutional violations. The federal government said that libraries could inform a patron of an FBI request for records, so the case became moot.

Nonetheless, the government wanted (wants) to know what you’re were reading without you knowing. In the last four or five months, I have checked out some rather radical books discussing our Constitution. To the layman it could look as though I was writing a research paper on the relevancy of a 221 year old political document, but to a G-man, I could be forming a manifesto which could incite aggression against the government. I know it is not the later, but you never know, right?

So there it is, irony right in my face today, of all days — Constitution Day. In the annals of legislation harmful to the Constitution, the Patriot Act is right up there with the Alien and Sedition Acts; and it probably would take the actual Thomas Jefferson to repeal Patriot Act I and II. Funny, I write a column about the Constitution on Constitution Day, and I’m confronted with a very significant constitutional issue.

My answer to the letter to the editor

In response to my column last week, USD Democrats President, Brittany Neiles wrote a letter to the Volante editor. An Obama supporter, she was off-the-mark.

Her primary argument is that government-forced civil service, like USD’s IDEA program and other programs, are already established in citizens’ lives. Therefore, expanding them is acceptable.

But this assumes that those initial plans are acceptable. They are not. No kind of government-forced community service is acceptable. In a truly free country, citizens have the right to decide whether or not they want to serve.

Obama’s plan would not only force us to serve, but it would tell us how to serve. We would no longer be able to work in ID Weeks or as a Tech Fellow for student work. Instead, we would be forced to work in a soup kitchen, pick up trash, or any number of community service positions.

A secondary assumption Neiles makes is that the actual work the government forces us to do is good work. By forcing us to do its bidding, the government is telling us what is important. For instance, if I value saving the environment, but am forced to work in a soup kitchen, my passion and knowledge about the environment is wasted. It wouldn’t have been if I had the right to serve if/how I wanted.

The Democrats often say that the US cannot force democracy on nations like Iraq, because they didn’t fight for, and earn, it. If fighting for, and earning, something is required to appreciate it, then it must be true that government-forced service does not instill any values into citizens.

Obama’s plan is still a gross infringement on our freedoms.

Notice the accent?

Remember the movie Fargo? The Cohen brothers depicted those of us from the norther regions as a people who talk funny. Sorry, but Palin’s Alaskan accent is thicker and more pronounced. Actually, listening to her made me feel like I was back home. If anything, she was right at home dere in Minnesota! You betcha right?

Bringing sexy opinion back

I know my partisan pal Matt Hittle is geared-up for this election, so let’s get the debate going.

It will be my intention to write further about this issue in our upcoming Sept. 10 online edition, but I cannot go a moment longer keeping all this political frustration inside.

I have said to a number of friends that the thing to watch between the two conventions is the tone and overall themes. The Democratic convention offered a tone that was inclusive and bright. Their theme was simple, as it has been for the last year — the country is going in the wrong direction, and it is time for change. The Dems kept to their message but brought it to a bigger stage. Most importantly though, they showed a Democratic Party that is rooted in a sincere caring for the human condition, and to make certain that everyone is guaranteed the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, government must lead the way.

On the other hand, the Republicans have come out this week with a starkly darker message. Case in point: Last night, did you notice the background behind VP candidate Sarah Palin? IT WAS BLACK!!! She did talk about smaller government (yeah!!), but the overall theme was consistent with where the Republican Party has been going for the last 24 years — America is the world’s military power, and it is our duty to prove that might at every corner of the globe, at every moment of the day. We will spread Democracy to your land and you will like it. Everything was about war and the honor that goes with war. She painted the party with a massive patriotic brush. Saying, in essence, that you’re only an honorable American if you have served.

That, frankly, is B.S.

She stated that had John McCain not come home from Vietnam there would be war memorials all over the country with his name on it. What an insidious thought!

I could go on, but we’ll save the rest for my column next week. Hittle, your turn.