We call it censorship around here.
"Right to petition White House no laughing matter" by David Nakamura | Washington Post, December 16, 2012
No, it isn't. It's a right enshrined in the ruling document of this land; however, I'm sure the agenda-pushing media will make a joke of it.
WASHINGTON — Forget the fiscal cliff: When it comes to the nation’s most pressing concerns, other matters trump financial calamity.
Several thousand Americans, for example, are urging President Obama to nationalize the troubled Twinkies industry to prevent the loss of the snack cake’s ‘‘sweet creamy center.’’
Related: Boston Globe Junk Food
It's called a newspaper.
Thousands more have signed petitions calling on the White House to replace the courts with a single Hall of Justice; remove Jerry Jones as owner of the Dallas Cowboys; give federal workers a holiday on Christmas Eve; allow members of the military to put their hands in their pockets; and begin construction of a ‘‘Star Wars”-style Death Star by 2016.
I agree with the Xmas Eve holiday, and I imagine we already have a Death Star up there somewhere.
And that’s just within the past month.
The people have spoken, but it might not be what the Obama administration expected to hear.
Yeah, so they raised the level of signatures required for a response -- and the American public promptly reached those levels.
More than a year after it was launched, an ambitious White House online petition program aimed at encouraging civic participation has become cluttered with thousands of demands that are often little more than extended Internet jokes.
What is a joke is the government pretending it cares what we think. If they had, this country wouldn't be in the condition it is.
As quirky as some of the most popular petitions are, White House officials profess to be encouraged by public interest and participation.
Globe must not have been because it chopped the rest of the printed version.
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What the Globe web version left on the floor:
"Interest has escalated in the wake of Obama’s reelection, which spurred more than a dozen efforts from tens of thousands of petitioners seeking permission for their states to secede from the union.
That's like up to 20 states now, and I'm all for it. We need the shed ourselves of the life-sucking and looting feds.
The idea, dubbed “We the People” and modeled loosely on a British government program, was meant to encourage people to exercise their First Amendment rights by collecting enough electronic signatures to meet a threshold that would guarantee an official administration response. (The level was initially set at 5,000 signatures, but that was quickly raised to 25,000 after the public responded a little too enthusiastically.)
I knew that before I read the piece because of blogs, but...
Administration officials have spent federal time and tax dollars answering petitioner demands that the government recognize extraterrestrial life, allow online poker, legalize marijuana, remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance and ban Rush Limbaugh from Armed Forces Network radio.
Okay, I'm sorry, but I'm not a believer in visitors from outer space anymore, so you can toss that one. Given the amount of media attention to that topic it is an obvious diversion and ruse so that the U.S. can work on their technological research under that cover. I'm against the gambling and for the weed. The Pledge is lie anyway (equal justice for all!), and who would want to listen to Rush?
The last issue merited a formal response from the Defense Department: “AFN does not censor content, and we believe it is important that service members have access to a variety of viewpoints,” spokesman Bryan G. Whitman wrote to the more than 29,000 people who signed the anti-Limbaugh petition."
Unless they are 9/11 truth websites and such.
More
than 94,000 petitions have been created, and they have garnered
5.9 million signatures from 4 million users, said Macon Phillips, the
White House director of digital strategy. The administration has issued
82 responses.
Unlike some of his peers, Phillips, 34, who worked on Obama’s first campaign, believes there’s no such thing as bad publicity. He contends that the notoriety surrounding the more offbeat petitions has helped drive interest to more serious efforts, including some that have had a direct effect on policy.
As an example, Phillips points to the administration’s response to two petitions that garnered more than 100,000 signatures opposing legislation aimed at forcing Web sites to monitor users for copyright infringements. In an 820-word response, the White House indicated it would not support the bills as written — and both were later dropped by Congress.
I paid for this paper and web access, Mr. Bu.... oh, sorry, Sunday morning flashback.
“I don’t think the administration would have weighed in as quickly” without the petitions, said Phillips, who envisions linking “We the People” to Facebook and other social media to solicit even greater participation.
What the WaPo web added:
The “We the People” program emerged in the news last week when petitioners demanded that Obama block an appearance at Sunday’s “Christmas in Washington” concert by Psy, the South Korean “Gangnam Style” singer who is under fire for anti-American lyrics.
Yeah, but he apologized, so....
The program’s rules require that petitions relate to “current or potential actions or policies of the federal government,” prompting the White House to pull down the petition because Obama has no authority over booking at the privately run charitable event....
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Globe signed it:
"Obama’s wild online petition party" January 20, 2013
Back in 1829, newly inaugurated President Andrew Jackson vowed to remain close to the people who elected him. Turning over a new leaf, he held a no-invitation reception at the White House, which quickly opened the doors to clouds of smoke, barrels of wine, and a fair share of brawls. Jackson had to flee the chaos. Eventually, aides served liquor outside to lure the revelers back out to the lawn.
Jackson’s desire to stay close to the masses is reflected in the Obama administration, but in a virtual way, through its wildly popular “We the People” online petition process. Starting in late 2011, the president vowed to respond to any petition that accumulated 5,000 online signatures, a figure quickly raised to 25,000. But as Obama prepared for his second inauguration, the White House announced it was again raising the bar. Given the scores of petitions that passed the 25,000 mark to require a White House response, including ones to build a “Death Star,” deport CNN talk-show host Piers Morgan, and impeach the president himself, the new threshold is now 100,000.
Well, when they keep changing the goal line you know they are not serious. This is about signing something so they can get your name and mark you as a troublemaker while diverting the masses into thinking they took action.
You are better off out in the streets, folks. Then they will listen, and they have the security forces to prove it.
Btw, I'm for the deportation and haven't thought about impeachment since George Bush, but I'd go along. The fact is AmeriKa's whole political leadership is damn near impeachable.
In a nation of more than 300 million people, that’s a reasonable cut-off, and still low enough to allow causes with bona fide support to be heard. The sillier petitions may attract more attention, but the site has also opened a window to political issues that enjoy more widespread public backing than lawmakers might have realized, including massive support for marijuana legalization.
Yup, the people support legalization of marijuana as the government raids on pot shops and the rest has risen -- even thought that is not the impression that has been fostered through the mouthpiece media.
Related: Obama Administration Goes to Pot
Stinks to high heaven now and he's just started his second term.
And if the occasional gag petition continues to qualify, the White House staff can find creative ways to respond. (Its response to the Death Star petition: Obama does not “support blowing up planets.”)
Not all in one shot from space anyway. He's doing a hell of a job little by little with his damn drone strikes.
And is a gag petition anything like a gag editorial?
Jackson would be pleased. He was, after all, the first president who did not come from America’s political elite, a man that citizens considered their own.
I guess that's why the bankers tried to kill him, huh?
Yup, Jackson was against the creation of a private central bank (think Federal Reserve, folks)
They wanted to see him, to talk to him, because he was one of them.
And more importantly, he looked out for our interests.
But as he gathered from his wild inaugural party, there have to be some rules and limits. Obama could have learned from his predecessor’s woes: If invited, the people will come, en masse.
Yeah, what a bummer that we care about this country and world.
Obama failed to learn, too. In the pocket of the bankers, and his war policy reminds one of Jackson's attitude toward Native Americans.
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