Lawsuit says Hardin, former police chief retaliated against tow truck operator for speaking out.

By DARRELL EHRLICK | Editor-in-Chief

"While we are all unified in funding the rest of DHS, we are absolutely horrified that we are blowing up the appropriations process to target those brave men and women who are doing the Lord’s work to keep us safe from cartels, from dangerous actors and from illegal aliens across the streets of America that have been endangering the American people," – Rep. Chip Roy of Texas on passing funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

Columnist George Ochenski says that U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana needs to either come up for air or talk to more Montanans. His plans of fast-tracking a ballroom at the White House are out of step with the pain Montana farmers and ranchers are feeling.

Longtime North Dakota columnist Jack Zaleski wonders about what’s happening with the tourism and the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in the Badlands. Has the area become a place to celebrate the rugged history of Roosevelt’s Badlands days, or is it just becoming a western circus worthy of P.T. Barnum?

After The United States Supreme Court significantly weakened a provision on the Voting Rights Act, Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, said that state legislatures should consider redrawing Congressional maps, which some experts have said would give an advantage to Republicans.

After three months and three shutdowns, the United States House of Representatives has passed a funding bill that will keep the Department of Homeland Security. That means that the immigration enforcement will be funded through the remainder of President Donald Trump’s term. The measure was passed without Democratic support, largely because the GOP was unwilling to apply stricter standards to law enforcement officers working for DHS, like not using masks in most cases.

Officials in Washington are going to federal court to ask a judge to let them into a immigration detention facility that is located Tacoma. They said they’re concerned about the health and safety of those being held in the facility.

After a historic ruling by the United States Supreme Court significantly weakening some of the provisions of the Voting Rights Acts protecting minority communities, the Congressional Black Caucus condemns the ruling, saying it will allow lawmakers to redraw map lines without any concern about disenfranchising minority voters.

A new report looking at the rise of energy prices across America says that Americans will pay significantly more to run their air conditioning this summer. The report says that the average cost will rise by about 9%, and in the past six years, the costs have been driven up close to 40%.

Voters in North Dakota are considering whether to amend the Peace Garden State’s constitution to require constitutional amendments to be a single-subject. That may sound familiar to Montanans who have had that provision baked into the Treasure State’s Constitution.

Congress passes a slimmed down farm bill that continues to fund many of the farming programs, but continues with large cuts to food assistance programming, worrying state leaders. Previously, the Trump administration has said that states should be responsible for food aid, not the federal government.

The suspect in the shooting at the White House Press Correspondents’ dinner last week will remain in jail — something that his attorneys didn’t contest during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

Democrats in Congress are worried that with the new funding for immigration that the Department of Justice is preparing to target “Dreamers” — those children who were brought to the country as small children or infants, but have essentially only known America. Immigration advocates worry that they’ll be targeted and deported to countries the do not know. 

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Remember those boat bombings in the Caribbean in which the Trump administration said that they were drug boat smuggling, although other reports say the boats were just fisherman in the wrong place? Well, even though other things like the Epstein files and the war in Iran have consumed the news bandwith, The New York Times reports that our attacks on small boats in the Caribbean have continued with more deaths.

The New York Times has also gotten to one of the most important topics facing us: How do our dogs learn words? New research and reporting by The Times suggests that dogs build their vocabularies the same way human toddlers do — one basic word at a time. Meanwhile, when asked about how they learn language, cats told the paper it was none of their damn business.

Our friends at the Oregon Capital Chronicle have published a story about a troubling report from the chief justice of the appellate court system there who says that more courts are having to deal with legal briefs which are written by artificial intelligence. This has led to some attorneys being fined, while bogging down the court as it tries to track down cases that don’t exist.

Well folks, it appears as if he really did take this job and shoved it.

We learned on Thursday that legendary country singer and outlaw David Allan Coe had died at the age of 86. He was probably remembered for his persona and the songs he wrote for other people more than even his own collection of hits. For example, “Take This Job and Shove It,” was made popular by Johnny Paycheck, another key artist in the late 1960s and 1970s trend of “outlaw country” which featured others like Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings.

An obituary in Rolling Stone summarized his life, saying that he was wont to embellish his tales, but his life included reformatories, jails and some other scrapes with the law, which only added to his country credibility.

Growing up listening to these mavericks and outlaws, you always expected many of them to die in some sort of backcountry bar shoot-out or on some crazy car chase borrowed from “Smokey and the Bandit” or “The Dukes of Hazzard.” It’s an odd thing to see many die as successful older men who earned a sort of elder country statesman status, even though no one ever accused Coe of being diplomatic. Even though he earned his place into country music stardom, financial troubles followed him. He was also rightly criticized for a handful of misogynist and bigoted statements, which cannot be overlooked if you’re dealing with the man’s life honestly.

In the end, it’s hard to argue — no matter how you feel about Coe or his brand of rebellious music — that country music has lost another giant figure.

And, if there ever was a better a Friday song to prepare us for the weekend, it’s probably this one.

If you have a song that you’d like to share, or would like to get in touch with us, please send us a note at [email protected]

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