10 Most Popular Unanswered Petitions to the White House

[The Straight Story]

10 Most Popular Unanswered Petitions to the White House

Since creating the We the People website in September, the White House has posted more than 130 petitions from Americans urging changes in government policy. Initially, officials promised to respond to petitions that received more than 5,000 signatures in a month; later, the threshold was upped to 25,000 signatures after the White House realized it had underestimated the response.

The White House took action to speed up implementation on reducing student loan debt following petitions it received in that area.

But response to a petition won’t be enough in all cases to get the White House to act.

Last week, it publicly refused to embrace changes in marijuana laws, despite receiving eight petitions on the subject, including one, “Legalize and Regulate Marijuana in a Manner Similar to Alcohol,” that attracted 74,169 signatures. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, said marijuana is “not a benign drug” and is “associated with addiction, respiratory disease and cognitive impairment.”

As of Saturday, the 10 most popular open petitions (based on signatures) were:

http://www.allgov.com/Top_Stories/ViewNews/10_Most_Popular_Unanswered_Petitions_to_the_White_House_111105

[burrowowl]

1. Interesting!

[Courtesy Flush]

2. Apparently they've never watched one of those drug commercials

If a drug has to be benign, wouldn't that rule out any that have side effects like suicidal ideations, blindness, and increased risk for liver disease?

How did those make the cut?

Oh, wait. Now I remember.

[Number23]

3. How interesting. "Crack down on puppy mills" has more than twice the votes of

"legalize same sex marriage." Mind-blowing.

Shortly after Barack Obama’s inauguration, it asked citizen’s to send in their ideas and then asked people to vote for their favorites, which 1,400,000 Americans did. Two of the top three choices dealt with legalizing marijuana.

Sigh.

[Cal Carpenter]

6. Consider how these get advertised (for lack of a better word)

They get spread through email lists, facebook pages, message boards. This is one reason why internet 'activism' is inherently flawed. It's not even a popularity contest, it's just a persistence contest.

If 20 orgs with email lists sent out the puppy mill link, and only 5 sent out the gay marriage link, well, you get the picture.

[Rageneau]

4. Why does Obama ask what we want when he he so obviously doesn't care?

Because he wants to add hypocrisy to indifference?

[Tesha]

7. He's hoping you won't notice. (NT)

[Cal Carpenter]

5. That's why we should all sign this one:

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/we-demand-vapid-condescending-meaningless-politically-safe-response-petition/gCZfn86x

We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition.

Since these petitions are ignored apart from an occasional patronizing and inane political statement amounting to nothing more than a condescending pat on the head, we the signers would enjoy having the illusion of success. Since no other outcome to this process seems possible, we demand that the White House immediately assign a junior staffer to compose a tame and vapid response to this petition, and never attempt to take any meaningful action on this or any other issue. We would also like a cookie.


With thanks to backscatter712 here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2246610

[Tesha]

8. Ain't *THAT* the truth! (NT)