Want to know more about Zinke's hand-picked successor? He 'talks' a lot.

By DARRELL EHRLICK | Editor-in-Chief

"Senator Markwayne Mullin is a great guy and a great choice to lead DHS, restore competence, and refocus efforts on quickly distributing disaster aid, keeping the border secure, and targeting violent illegal immigrants for deportation. Another big positive: He likes dogs." – Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, on his support of Mullin to replace ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

Both the Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Montana Department of Environmental Quality have said that the asbestos that swirled around Park City from a roof torn off in a hurricane-like windstorm has been removed, and students are back safely in school. State and federal leaders cheered on the joint cooperation that fast-tracked the solution.

As former U.S. Attorney for Montana Kurt Alme enters the first political contest of his career to run for the United States Senate, Tim Racicot becomes the acting U.S. Attorney for Montana — a position he held after President Donald Trump was re-elected and after Jesse Laslovich was booted because he had been appointed by the Biden administration

The rollback of rules by the Trump administration around lignite coal has meant that power plants as well as mining in North Dakota got an unexpected boost. Changes implemented by the Biden administration limiting airborne pollutants were rolled back, and state officials there said those updates could have cost more than $1 billion.

The United States House of Representatives narrowly rejected a war-powers resolution that could have hemmed in the power that President Trump has in making war on Iran. A similar measure also failed in the U.S. Senate.

President Trump finally gives the boot to embattled Department of Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem, although he announced that she will be leading a different initiative. Markwayne Mullin, a senator from Oklahoma, confirmed that he’ll be Trump’s pick to take over.

Democrats in Congress have requested that the Congressional Budget Office calculate what the war and a projected future war with Iran will cost the American taxpayers.

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Bad news for all you crawfish fans. The harvest in Louisiana is much lower this year because of the strict immigration rules that have been implemented by the federal government. Republican leaders in Louisiana are calling for more work visas to help with the labor shortage, according to our colleagues at the Louisiana Illuminator.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports that Health and Human Services Secretary has picked a fight with the beloved coffee and donut chain, Dunkin’ Donuts. Turns out: People in his home state of Massachusetts are not happy about Kennedy “dunkin’ on Dunkin’.” C’mon, Bobby — you should know better. Dunkin’ is to the Northeast what Waffle House is to the South.

It’s not easy for columnist George Ochenski to keep up with the all the political news — and did we mention chaos? — coming from the Republicans looking to Make America Great Again. Sadly, with wars, inflation and immigration dominating the national scene, the rocky political landscape is no more settled in Montana.

AND

Columnist and attorney John Heenan writes that outgoing U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and his hand-picked candidate Kurt Alme think so little of Montana residents that they didn’t even allow others to run for the U.S. Senate seat. To Heenan, that smacks of the bad old days of the Copper Kings.

We have talked a lot about the war protest songs during the Vietnam Era. Those songs would likely have been impossible if not for the nascent folk music scene that had begun in the Great Depression, rebelled against the tyranny of fascism in World War II, only to get an unexpectedly restless audience during the Vietnam War.

To be sure, many of the protest songs don’t translate perfectly. Although what would music be without some of the icons of that era, including folks like Neil Young and Bob Dylan?

And yet as one of our Hooksters, Larry Mitchell, points out, one of the greatest folk groups — if not the top — has a song that it produced way back in 1959 that runs some amazing parallels. As Mark Twain was rumored to say: History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

Below you’ll find a video of the Kingston Trio’s “Merry Little Minuet,” which was recorded during a live performance at the “Hungry I” and featured on their first live album, which was groundbreaking because it set the standard for recorded folk music becoming just as prominent as studio recordings. This version has the words on it. See how many things sound as contemporary as they were back then.

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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