Lawmakers begin process of subpoenaing Secretary of State.

By DARRELL EHRLICK | Editor-in-Chief

“I always took great pride in the fact that students at the end of the semester would say they didn’t know what my bias was. We all have biases, but I’m not in love with political parties, kind of in the way Washington wasn’t either. We should be more American than anything else.” – Ray Curtis, former high school and college teacher, now running as a Republican for the U.S. Senate in Montana.

Most people know that Montana’s senior United States Senator Steve Daines is not seeking re-election and at the very last minute brought in Kurt Alme to run in his place. But Alme isn’t the only one running. Longtime educator and college professor Ray Curtis is running as a Republican — and his is a throwback, retro campaign that prizes cooperation as well as an older style of GOP politics.

The body of a missing hiker was recovered in Glacier National Park and officials presume that he was killed in a bear attack. It’s the first bear attack at the park since 1998.

As Americans come closer to the midterm elections, new polling data shows that healthcare remains one of the largest concerns, especially with inflation going up and Medicaid reducing the number of people on the rolls.

Another court, the United States International Court of Trade, has also struck down the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. The dispute stems from a 10% tariff on products and a small company in Washington that was hurt by them.

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When I was a journalist in Utah — more than two decades — I covered Box Elder County, and it was a rural community with not a lot of people. That’s what makes the more than 1,500 people who showed up to oppose the construction of a large data center so impressive. And before thousands of upset residents, the county commissioners still voted to approve it.

The Atlantic, which is facing a $250 million lawsuit from FBI Director Kash Patel, details how reporting on the director’s erratic behavior, which includes serious accusations of heavy drinking, has made the magazine a target for investigation. The magazine’s editor says that such an investigation is nothing more than retaliation for the unflattering article.

As the Tennessee Legislature raced to redraw the lines of its seats for the U.S. House of Representatives, residents swarm the Capitol and shout at the Republican leadership, which carved up Memphis, the state’s largest concentration of African-Americans, in an overt attempt to reduce the influence of that voting bloc and give a win to the GOP, according to the Tennessee Lookout.

A group of businesses that depend on outdoor recreation and the tourism economy write that Congress is ignoring American citizens in favor of a multi-national mining corporation in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters. They say that many members of Congress, including Montana’s delegation, say they’re for preserving public lands and the great outdoors, but vote against them.

One of the reasons we developed “The Hook” was to spotlight bands or artists that were routinely overlooked. You know the kind of songs when you hear them again, you think: “I loved that song,” while also thinking, “I haven’t heard that for years.”

I suppose there are only so many songs and artists that you can hold in your memory at once.

And oftentimes when we remember the country-rock fusion with lots of harmonies of the late 1960s and early 1970s, we think of groups like the Byrds as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young as leaders of that genre, which seemed to drift effortlessly between twangy rock and rocky country.

One of the groups that was very popular but nearly forgotten today was Poco, which was closely related to the Byrds and CSN, with some of the remaining members of the Buffalo Springfield, as well as future members of the Eagles. And that makes sense because as you read about the history of rock, and the advent of the “California” sound of the 1970s, which gave rise to the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and a variety of other artists, Poco’s name keeps coming up in the conversations.

When the band released its eponymous album name in 1970, it became a solid hit, with the track, “You Better Think Twice,” a sort of signature. And the entire second side of the Poco album is part of a two-track jam that lasts nearly a half hour. Usually, I’m ambivalent about those, but this one is worth a listen.

In fact, the whole album is worthy of a listen and the band is worthy of reconsideration. What critics may not have fully appreciated at the time was that Poco wasn’t merely creating music that sounded like some of the other music being created at that time by groups like Crosby, Stills and Nash — they were actually helping to define an entire genre that would last the decade.

Heady stuff for a Monday, I realize.

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