An update on this thread.
http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php/topic,54773.msg621104.html#msg621104It's a new campfire.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x567639Fly by night Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Mar-05-11 08:20 PM
Original message
One person can make a difference. On my behalf, 158 people (so far) are trying. (Pardon me campaign)
Edited on Sat Mar-05-11 08:40 PM by Fly by night
Good evening, all y'all. This is a brief update on how things are going here in my Tennessee deep hollow home as I prepare to send my application in to the US Department of Justice to apply for a Presidential pardon for my medical cannabis conviction.
As you will see, it has been a busy few weeks. (Boy howdy.)
Yesterday was to be the deadline for receiving support letters/affidavits to accompany my Presidential pardon application. However, the letters are still coming in so fast and furious that I have decided to keep accepting them into next week.
As of this Saturday afternoon, I have 158 original, notarized support letters/affidavits in hand. Neighbors are continuing to bring letters to my house and -- based on emails -- I expect another 15-30 support letters/affidavits from friends and colleagues around the country to arrive in the next few days. (As I have mentioned here before, I am only required to submit three support letters.)
So far, I have letters/affidavits from 12 TN legislators (Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, and am expecting more), 1 former (Republican) governor of Delaware, 1 current and 1 former Assistant US Attorney, the former director of the US Probation Office for middle Tennessee, 1 former (Democratic) US Senate candidate, 2 TN/NAACP officials, 1 former head of the TN Democratic party, state officials from 5 other states, dozens and dozens and dozens of friends, neighbors, professional colleagues, other government officials, election integrity and medical marijuana activists, 5 cancer/HIV survivors I helped and/or kinfolk of same and a few very nice surprises (including 1 Grammy winner, 1 Emmy winner and 1 Oscar nominee.) At least four of the letter-writers could make a direct call to offices near the Oval Office in the White House and have their calls answered.
I know all of these people personaly. Not bad for an ole hermit/felon.
I am collecting quotes from the letters to use in a briefing packet and I will post another thread sometime next week of those quotes. There are many, many notable ones. Earlier this week, I received a letter from a Professor of Computer Science at Georgia Tech (with whom I have worked on the verifiable voting issue.) That letter opened this way: "Mr. President, I am writing to request that you pardon Bernie Ellis for the "crime" of growing medical marijuana and giving it away free to four terminally ill neighbors. It would be more appropriate for me to be writing you to nominate Bernie for a Presidential Medal of Freedom."
(BTW, I'd be happy to pick up the pardon and the medal at the same time, at least in my dreams.)
Among the letters yesterday was from a local friend who asked where all the supposed "evidence" against me went to between the raid on my farm and the assessment of the evidence at the state lab. The letter writer said "Maybe the Federal agents took some to help their own very sick
friends. Or, more likely, maybe they never found the amount of marijuana they initially alleged on Bernie's farm to begin with."
Another new friend (who I've known only a short time) said: "Mr. President, look at the caliber of people who are writing on Bernie's behalf. We are not couch-potato stoners; we are productive, tax-paying, patriotic Americans." Indeed.
With that last letter, I can now say that I have letters from 11 people who have known me more than 40 years and 1 person who's known me less than 40 days. I have a letter from someone I've known since she was 4 (she says I am her only memory of that year), and from folks I met for the first time in their 70s. Nice time spans, those.
The longest letter (7 pages) is from the MD/PhD who had a pivotal role in convincing the American Medical Association to reverse its medical marijuana policy. The shortest affidavit is from a country neighbor who simply printed (on his notarized form), "Bernie is a good neighbor and friend."
One letter is from the longest surviving federally approved (and provisioned) medical marijuana patient, who wrote that he has been given 10-12 free joints PER DAY by the federal government for the past 28 years (which shows, among many other things, that the feds don't know how to grow good pot.) That letter writer said: "Mr. President, this case has cost Bernie nine years of his life and over $1 million for less usable marijuana than you provide me free each and every year. And Bernie was sharing it free with four very sick people, none of whom lived a year after the raid on his farm. As an investment broker, this just doesn't compute."
Eight DUers wrote articulate, well-reasoned, passionate, even witty letters. Of course, I wouldn't expect anythng different from this community.
These letters and affidavits help me remember the days when I could actually be of service in my profession, in my communities and in my country; rather than be just another punching bag for the federal "drug worriers" in their senseless war on "some" drugs.
If I receive the pardon, maybe those productive days will soon come again.
One person can make a difference .... Thanks, all y'all, for trying.
Your favorite felon, FBN
loudsue Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Mar-05-11 11:10 PM
Response to Original message
16. Bernie! I just saw this thread!
I forgot to get the letter done!
Doing it now....
Sorry!
As he wakes from his drug induced stupor.
Fly by night Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sat Mar-05-11 11:24 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. Thanks. I would be glad for more letters from folks who know me here.
Just don't forget to get it notarized when you sign it and get it here no later than mid-week.
Address your letters to the President, tell him you are aware of my medical marijuana conviction, then say how you know me, how long you've known me, what you think of me and why you support a Presidential pardon. That's the basic format. The focus should be on the pardon, rather than on drug policy reform (though I do think the former might help impact the latter in positive directions.)
Thanks again for everything. Come join the crowd.
Shouldn't there be some sort of reference or case number attached!
Fly by night Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun Mar-06-11 06:10 AM
Response to Reply #21
23. Amen. After a week of not sleeping, I actually got five hours sleep last night.
Edited on Sun Mar-06-11 06:57 AM by Fly by night
Much needed and much appreciated.
Thanks to the kindness of friends and the kind-ness of their friends.
It all goes around and around. Now to put more wood on the fire and to climb up on the exercise bike. While cycling to nowhere in my stove room, I am reading a new book "Broken -- A Love Story" about a Northern Arapaho healer, who is also a quadraplegic horse trainer. I've just started reading the book and realized that this remarkable man was the person who, after leading a peyote ceremony on the Wind River rez' seven years ago, told another Arapaho friend to call me and let me know that, in his vision, he saw that I would not be going to prison.
That call came six months before the judge sentenced me to probation (when I was facing 10-70 years in prison.) It also came when I smelled the cedar and sage of their prayerful ceremony on the western wind, sitting on my front porch drinking my early morning coffee.
It is indeed a small (loving, caring, protecting) world. I am honored to have worked with the Arapaho and thankful for the kindness (and cosmic connection) of one of their healers who I've never met (yet).
Just like you and others here at DU.
Is the guy a quad that trains horses or a guy who trains quad horses? Either way, FBN is full of shit.
Fly by night Donating Member (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Sun Mar-06-11 11:15 AM
Response to Original message
30. Two final tidbits -- letters have arrived from 23 states and Mexico (so far) ...
... and letters have comee from a dozen DUers (miscounted earlier).
Now to the Garden. Thanks again, all y'all.
Only a dozen out of a total membership of 100,000+
