Search Results: subpoena (20)

Charlo Greene, the infamous Alaska news reporter who quit her job on-air to become a full-time cannabis business owner and activist, has been ordered to comply with a subpoena regarding alleged campaign finance misdoings.
As we reported last week, the state Public Offices Commission says Greene may have run afoul Alaska state laws with an online fundraising they say went directly to Alaska’s Ballot Measure 2, which legalized small amounts of pot for adults 21 and up.

Charlo Greene.

Charlo Greene, the former news reporter who made herself famous in September by quitting her job on-air while admitting to being a cannabis activist, may have violated state campaign finance laws. The state Public Offices Commission says they are debating whether or not to subpoena Greene over an online fundraising they say went directly to Alaska’s Ballot Measure 2, which legalized small amounts of pot for adults 21 and up.
According to the Alaska Dispatch News, Greene admits she collected donations to the tune of $8,400. But says she wasn’t collecting for the measure and says she never had to register as an official entity advocating for a campaign, which is Alaska law.
For her part, Greene contends that the money collected on an online IndieGogo campaign was going to her own “freedom and fairness” campaign that wasn’t exactly linked to Measure 2. All the money, she says, went to her and her business – something the APOC has no jurisdiction over. Greene is starting a cannabis club in Alaska.
But APOC campaign disclosure coordinator Tom Lucas says that’s not the case. He says even businesses have to disclose their advocacy for or against a campaign or politician. He also noted that Greene has been difficult through the entire process.
“The fact that it is a business entity does not take it out of the jurisdiction of the Alaska Public Offices Commission,” Lucas said at a hearing yesterday, according to ADN. He also denied claims by Greene that Lucas had harassed her with constant calls and voicemails. He says he was merely trying to settling the issue. “The purpose of the contact was to try to bring her into compliance as soon as possible so any civil penalties that could be growing could be stopped in their tracks.”
Greene says she’s being targeted for being an outspoken opponent. She says that other campaign groups that are directly tied to campaigns – including ones on Facebook – have not faced the same scrutiny.
“We understand the position that we’re put in and that we have extra scrutiny paid to us and probably will for a long time,” Greene told the commission yesterday. “But we just want to make sure we understand the position we’ve been put in and protect ourselves and other people’s rights.”

Jean Hamamoto/Jean’s Artworks

Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and County Counsel hold closed-door meeting Tuesday after 9 a.m. public comment period
The Mendocino Board of Supervisors and County Counsel Thomas Parker met in a closed-door session Tuesday to discuss a pending federal subpoena for records held by the Sheriff’s now-defunct medical marijuana cultivation program, County Code 9.31, in which registrants were allowed to grow collectively up to 99 plants and were sold zip ties for $25 per plant to show they were being cultivated in compliance with state law.

FlickrCommons
Virginia Ervin gave up college and motherhood to protect her criminal boyfriend after he set her and her baby on fire


“She then realized that both her and her child’s hair were on fire”
Not the sort of words you’ll ever hear leading up to a ‘Mother of the Year’ acceptance speech, but those just so happen to be the exact words written in the affidavit prepared by officers from the Missoula Police Department after investigating the aftermath of a hash oil related explosion earlier this month.
18-year old Virginia Ervin, a student at the University of Montana, initially avoided being arrested in connection to the apartment explosion that we reported on two weeks ago. As the smoke was still clearing on the scene, she readily admitted that she made a conscious decision to “just chill” with her infant child in the same apartment where the highly explosive hash oil extraction was being performed. Still, she walked away free…until last Friday.


Cops in Grand Rapids, Michigan say a local physician helped a “drug trafficking” ring by writing medical recommendations for cannabis without ever seeing patients or even looking at medical records.
For his part, Dr. Gregory Kuldanek says he was always following state laws.
The charges, made this week in U.S. District Court, allege that Kuldanek and nine other people worked together to grow more than 100 marijuana plants. Kuldanek was also charged with “maintaining a drug-involve premises.” In other words, the DEA is arguing that the doc wrote fake recommendations to members of the pot ring to covering their activities in the state medical marijuana program.
According to the DEA, Kuldanek wrote recommendations for 66 patients and caregivers linked to the organization, often signing over “stacks” of them on the same day. Prosecutors say there’s no way he could have seen all of those patients in that time span.

An exclusive report released today by Reuters outlines a long-running campaign of the federal government knowingly withholding evidence in numerous cases involving the DEA, and a highly classified multi-agency wing of the DEA known as the Special Operations Division (SOD). By withholding the true sources of their investigations, critics contend that defendants’ rights to a fair trial are being compromised daily.

Marijuana Times

Advocates support county’s motion to quash, argue Obama Administration is attempting to undermine state law, violate patient privacy
Three medical marijuana groups have teamed up to support Mendocino County officials in their effort to fight a sweeping federal subpoena filed in October, seeking “any and all records” for the county’s medical marijuana cultivation program, otherwise known as County Code 9.31.
On December 21, Mendocino County filed a motion in San Francisco federal court to quash the Justice Department’s subpoena, and on Wednesday Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and the Emerald Growers Association (EGA) filed a joint amicus “friend of the court” brief in an attempt to protect the private patient records being sought.

Politically Incorrect Conservative

In a cynical move, a Senate proposal which had been touted as protecting the email privacy of Americans has been rewritten — and it now gives government spooks even more power to spy on citizens than then already have under the execrable PATRIOT Act.

Patrick Leahy, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who himself wrote significant portions of the PATRIOT Act, has “dramatically reshaped” his legislation in response to “law enforcement concerns,” reports Declan McCullagh at CNET. (If the “law enforcement concerns” were that they were allowed to spy, unrestrained, on citizens not suspected of any crimes, then, good job, Senator Leahy — asshole.)

Care2

In an ominous development, the United States federal government has subpoenaed financial records kept by Mendocino County, California, regarding its medical marijuana program, official sources have confirmed.

County officials on Tuesday confirmed that a federal grand jury issued a subpoena to the Mendocino County Auditor-Controller’s Office for records of fees paid to the county under its medical marijuana ordinance, County Code 9.31, reports Tiffany Revelle at the Ukiah Daily Journal.

The subpoena arrived in late October, according to one source. The reason for the federal request isn’t clear; neither local nor federal authorities have made a statement.
The federal subpoena seems to confirm the darkest fears of those within the medical marijuana community who are reluctant to cooperate or participate with state- and county-level medicinal cannabis programs, since the herb is still illegal for any purpose at the federal level. Many have argued that filing paperwork with any local or state government puts medical marijuana growers at risk of federal prosecution.

Axis of Logic

By Robert Raich
The expansion of the police state under the Obama Administration is alarming and belies a wholesale erosion of individual liberties. As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama made numerous promises that would have led to reducing the pernicious power of the police state in America; however the actions of his administration are in opposition to those promises. 
One such promise was candidate Obama’s pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and dismantle the military commissions within his first year in office. Candidate Obama promised, “As president, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions.”
Yet now, during Obama’s fourth year in office, the prison in Guantanamo Bay remains open and the military commissions persist, in violation of international human rights conventions.  
The Obama Administration has not renounced the use of torture, continues to operate secret prisons around the world, retains the use of extrajudicial kidnapping euphemistically called “extraordinary rendition,” and has ended a longstanding principled policy against assassinations.  President Obama contrived a secret “kill list.” Although widely discussed in the media, the program’s existence – as well as its alleged legal “justification” – are themselves kept secret. 
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