Wes McKinley

Can hemp escape the role of marijuana's sober stepsister?

See also: Top ten hemp legends: Which myths are true -- and which went up in smoke?

Twenty years later, there's still much we don't know about Rocky Flats

Hemp industry leaders to donate $50K to Amendment 64, marijuana regulation act

Amendment 64 is known as the Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act, but its provisions go beyond allowing adults to use cannabis recreationally. The initiative also directs the legislature to "enact legislation governing the cultivation, processing and sale of industrial hemp" by July 2014 -- language ... More >>

Marijuana: Industrial hemp study bill approved, but hurdles remain

With the passing of HB 1099 yesterday, which creates a soil remediation study using hemp as the filtering agent, Colorado could be the first state in the nation to grow industrial hemp since the late 1930s. But passing the bill was just the first obstacle. Actually implementing the plan might be mo ... More >>

Marijuana: Three cannabis-related bills still alive with one day left for General Assembly

With the Colorado General Assembly's regular session slated to end tomorrow, three marijuana related bills are still floating around with the possibility of passing. Below, we've put together a quick update about each piece of legislation and its status.

Medical marijuana registry-fund bill, industrial-hemp proposal take next steps

Even as Senator Steve King's proposed THC DUI bill is being debated this afternoonpassed through to the state House, two other state legislators are making one last push for their separate marijuana-related proposals with a little more than a week left before Colorado's General Assembly adjourns. ... More >>

Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant deal between Rockwell and feds turns twenty today

In June 1989, the FBI led a spectacular dawn raid on Rocky Flats, then an operating nuclear weapons plant sixteen miles northwest of Denver, to collect evidence of alleged environmental crimes. A special grand jury wanted to indict eight individuals. But instead, the government cut a deal with Rockw ... More >>

Hemp study bill could open doors for Colorado industrial hemp production

Representative Wes McKinley wants to save the earth with hemp, and not in some philosophical, hippie-dippy way either. Through a bill he has introduced this session that would study how hemp plants clean contaminated soil, McKinley is hoping to eventually revive industrial hemp production in Colorad ... More >>

Occupy Denver: John Hickenlooper and Michael Hancock have a stinky mess on their hands

Gitmo on the Platte.​Even as the last chapter of the three-year-old protests during the Democratic National Convention was closed in federal court, Mayor Michael Hancock and Governor John Hickenlooper were grappling with the challenge of dealing with the the Occupy Denver protesters they can s ... More >>

Occupy Denver celebrity visitor: Representative Wes McKinley pitches his teepee

Wes McKinley.​"But what do they stand for? I thought this was about Wall Street?" That was the plaintive cry of one woman who'd headed down to the Occupy Denver camp last night and wound up listening to one of the general assembly meetings, where this leaderless group tries to grapple with the ... More >>

25th Anniversary of Chernobyl: Protesters voice nuclear concerns at State Capitol

Wes McKinley.​Earlier this week, protesters marked the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster with a Capitol steps protest. Among the speakers: Wes McKinley, a state rep and onetime foreman of the Rocky Flats grand jury, which tops Alan Prendergast's list of Colorado's greatest whistleblow ... More >>

Wes McKinley rejects Rocky Flats wildlife refuge plan, favors grilling burgers on the Capitol lawn

Wes McKinley.​Wes McKinley has always done his civic duty -- even if those in power might quibble with how he defines it. Twenty years ago, the rancher/teacher from Walsh was the foreman of the federal grand jury that wanted to indict eight individuals for environmental crimes at Rocky Flats - ... More >>

Plans are heating up for the Rocky Flats Cold War Museum

Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site on horseback and by tank: 2 views of region under siege (VIDEO)

​Locals fighting the Army's plans for increased training on the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site -- the subject of this week's cover story, "The War Next Door" -- have a basic public relations problem. Unless you grew up in southeastern Colorado, you probably have never seen its stunning views, hidd ... More >>

Wes McKinley says howdy at the State Capitol

Big pic below.​Representative Wes McKinley, a Democrat who represents District 64 in the southeastern corner of the state, could well be the most colorful lawmaker in the Colorado General Assembly, with a background that includes ranching, teaching and serving as the foreman of the Rocky Flats ... More >>

Rocky Flats is supposed to be clean, but there's plutonium off-site, says Wes McKinley

Wes McKinley.​Representative Wes McKinley was standing on the steps of the State Capitol yesterday, discussing the discovery of "breathable particles of plutonium" near the now-defunct Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, when hundreds of bicyclists and a whirring helicopter drowned out the reve ... More >>

Beef: It's what's for lunch at the Capitol

Beef burgers almost as fresh as this cow.​Rural Colorado is coming to the Capitol today for Southeast Colorado Appreciation Day, and giving Denver a real taste of the area with a hamburger fry. The grill on the east lawn of the Capitol will be turning out burgers from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. tod ... More >>

John Hickenlooper rides into the Pinon Canyon controversy

​So many St. Patrick's Day parades, so little time. Gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper, decked out in a shamrock-green blazer, had to zoom from Denver's shamrock celebration to the Pueblo Democratic Party's St. Patrick Day's fundraiser. And there, he weighed in on one of Scott McInnis's ... More >>

Rocky Flats judgment appealed while plaintiffs wait... and wait

​Plutonium lasts forever, and so do legal cases involving Rocky Flats. Yesterday, 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges Stephen Anderson, Jerome Holmes and Michael Murphy heard arguments in the appeal of the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant class-action lawsuit -- filed by neighbors of t ... More >>

Wake-Up Call: Meanwhile, back at the ranch... and Pinon Canyon

​Representative Wes McKinley is sitting in a bar in Denver, but his mind is hundreds of miles away -- on the rangeland of southeastern Colorado, that stunning swathe of cactus and canyons and ranches that have been in families for generations. The land that the U.S. Army would like to conquer ... More >>

An unlikely posse of politicians wants to save Pinon Canyon from a bad guy: the Army

Judge Finesilver almost gave the Rocky Flats grand jury a big twentieth birthday present

Twenty years ago, the Rocky Flats grand jury started its search for justice. It hasn't ended yet.

Wake-Up Call: Meanwhile, back at the ranch

After all the Washington, D.C., pomp and circumstances (one major circumstance being that, Barack Obama's astonishing rise aside, most of those in power are indeed insiders), it's refreshing to consider Colorado's citizen legislature, which has a hundred part-time lawmakers who work until early May, ... More >>

Flipping the Bird at the Army

On the Picket Fence

Take in photographs of the contested Picket Wire Canyon.

Flats, Busted

Lawsuits against Rocky Flats, like plutonium, last forever.

Tour de Farce

You'll have the crime of your life in the Mile High City.

Folk at Home

Swallow Hill fest highlights pickin' and grinnin'

True Lies

The FBI agent who raided Rocky Flats finally sounds off.

Sing, You Sinners!

The sounds of silence at CU.

Hair Ball

Hairspray bops from the screen to the stage

Letters to the Editor

From the week of March 18, 2004

Toxic Shocker!

The government ambushed the Rocky Flats grand jury. Now its foreman is gunning for justice.

Off Limits

Party on!

Deliverance

Time's a-wastin' at Rocky Flats.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

A maverick makes a run for the Statehouse.

Civics Lessons

Gag Reflex

Political Animals

Grand Illusions

Independents Day

OFF LIMITS

LAY OF THE LAND

GLOWING REVIEWS

LETTERS

LETTERS

STRAIGHTEN UP AND FLY RIGHT

LETTERS

JUSTICE (DEPT.) IS SERVED