
Hackers, can I get Obama to consider my father's clemency bid? He's 69 - srimenow
http://freedrprakash.com
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srimenow
First of all I understand that this is a hail mary attempt, and the odds of
anything working are as close to 0% as they get.

That being said, as someone who has followed Paul Graham since the early days,
admired Niklas Zennströmin college essays, I believe as entrepreneurs our job
is to be dreamers.

If we stop dreaming, the world stops moving, both is and we cease to exist.

Yes the most likely solution is this falls flat on it's face, but what's worse
would be to do nothing.

All I want to bring closure to this issue is for President Obama to simply
consider my petition, that jailing a man who had a very minor role in a
conspiracy for 10 years, when the men above him were only sent away for 2
years is just plain wrong.

Visit the website and see the extent of injustice for yourself before
attacking me.

I am debating flying to DC in order to try and deliver this application for
clemency in person.

What do you guys think of this approach? I know DC will be crowded, etc etc,
but the clock is ticking fast and I figure I might as well get on a plane and
figure it out from there. If any of you on here, in my opinion some of the
smartest people in the world, have any idea how I can draw attention to this
without risk of injury to anybody including myself.

Yes this is slightly off topic for Hacker News, but considering I might be
getting on a plane in a few hours to try and get the President to consider my
petition I am hoping a 2 day exception can be made so I can get advice from my
fellow coders.

I much appreciate any ideas, there are no bad ones, except for most of mine :)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
From my understanding, the clemency process is actually incredibly time
consuming, as every case that receives a Presidential pardon is thoroughly
reviewed by staff, before the President himself. I suspect it would be almost
impossible to get a pardon at this stage from President Obama, there simply
isn't enough time for him to review a last minute case amongst all the other
things his office is trying to do before he leaves office.

While pardons are predominantly issued at the tail end of a President's term,
there is no requirement that they be so, so you can certainly still appeal
once the new President takes office.

~~~
srimenow
Everyone said I was crazy to do this. I think the exact words were it is never
going to happen, how are you going to crack through all that noise in DC, and
that nobody is really going to care right now.

I think people assumed I was stupid, since my response to most was look I know
the odds of Obama granting this are practically none, and getting him to look
at it, there’s not really a chance. I probably have 3 people who have looked
at my thread, and it’s true that nobody really cares.

Here’s how I look at it, the federal government took 6 years of my dad’s life,
6 years of my life, our family, our friends, they spent over $2 Million
dollars prosecuting this man, who when you look at the site and the facts was
a complete waste of taxpayer money. And we continue to pay to jail him, simply
to send a message to all of those who dare challenge the federal government by
pleading not guilty.

I will be thrilled if we receive clemency, but that’s not the most realistic
thing in the world. What I think I have earned the right to, is simply have my
voice heard. With one swoosh of the pen Obama can change everything and
reunite me with my father, is 5 minutes consideration really too much to ask?

Part of Obama's last days in office are about protecting his legacy.
Correcting this injustice is one thing Obama could achieve with the swoosh of
a pen.

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malikNF
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~~~
srimenow
Thank you very very much for this great feedback! I tracked down the bug while
on the plane and for some reason Docker was not minifying the files. I went
ahead and tweaked it, sending one js file down the pipeline instead of all the
assets, but can't deploy yet due to slow wifi.

Edit, just spent 20 minutes pushing via GOGO, don't have to wait until I get
into IAH. Let me know if the fix worked for you.

Sorry for the late response, but I decided to go ahead and take the flight to
Washington DC and figure everything out on my way there, landing at 11:30AM

