Gianfortes propose donating historic home as 'mansion tax' goes into effect.

By DARRELL EHRLICK | Editor-in-Chief

"We saw this coming under the previous administration, and they refused to respond. When you let millions of people migrate through Central America this way, we saw the screwworm just come with them — whether it was on their pets or maybe they were bringing livestock.” – U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas who agreed with the Secretary of Agriculture that the Biden administration is to blame for the screwworm.

The Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks euthanized a black bear near Missoula after it had repeatedly raided the campsites of visitors, having become too accustomed or “habituated” to human activity.

The Montana Supreme Court approved new ballot language for a constitutional initiative that proposes to keep corporations (and other non-living entities) from donating to political candidates. The court approved the new language, mostly written by Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen, who said the ballot language proposed by Transparent Election Initiative was unclear.

As expected, President Donald J. Trump signed into law the proposal from Congress that would fund immigration activities for the remainder of his time in office, which totals $70 billion. The measure squeaked by both chambers of Congress, with virtually no Democrats and a few Republicans peeling off.

Speaking of Congress, some members are considering rolling back rules and regulations that deal with animal welfare of farm animals and livestock. The measure is seen as a response to California’s initiative that calls for cage-free conditions and other regulations on agricultural producers.

The United States House of Representatives passes legislation that would crack down on “ghost students.” That is a growing problem where identities of students are used to obtain funding and loans for education but instead are stolen by identity thieves.

The United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins testified before Congress, telling Senators that the new agricultural threat of screwworm is likely the result of the Biden administration not paying enough attention to the southern border.

The head of the Social Security Administration, Frank Bisignano, testifies before Congress that customer service and wait times, which have been concerns, especially after cuts to the department, have all improved. However, not all Senators were buying the message: They wanted statistical evidence to show that Social Security offices were responding better to the demand.

A federal judge has ruled that a legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s “slush fund,” which would have given rioters who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection compensation, will not move forward in the court because acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche has vowed that the slush fund idea is dead. However, critics of the administration say they’re skeptical that the concept will come back.

You don’t find too many rock artists whose primary instrument was organ — although there are a few, including Booker T. Jones of Booker T and the MGs, as well as Sam in Sam The Sham and the Pharaohs.

Lee Michaels did a lot of session work in the late 1960s, including some work with Jimi Hendrix. He was a keyboardist and organist, and would become better known in the early 1970s with a string of hits, including “Do You Know What I Mean,” which has a fantastic organ.

I stumbled across one of his earlier albums from 1968. Deep in the album there is a track called “The War,” and it is one of many anti-war songs, produced during what many historians consider to be the bloodiest, most traumatic year of the war (‘68). I was struck by the hit for two reasons: First, because there’s a pretty tight canon of anti-war music, I had not heard this included in any of them. It’s an interesting find from a historical perspective, even though the song was deep in an album from an artist who was then relatively unknown.

But it was this line: “How would you like to have to wear/ A flag of a country promoting war,” that made me feel as if the song was contemporary.

That makes me think to our current-day troubles across the globe, but in particular, in Iran. A majority of Americans have concerns about that. And it makes think of another anti-war song from that same era, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” which asks a different question: “Oh when will they ever learn?”

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