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Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.

What do these three demands have in common?
All three are titles of petitions that have been submitted to the White House, each with tens of thousands of signatures, that continue to be ignored by the Obama administration.
The petitions are among a slew of others submitted through the White House's "We the People" website that was established in 2011 to provide "a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country."
However, as the website WH Petitions Info points out, not all petitions get a fair shot.
Of the 232 White House petitions that met their signature requirements, the Obama administration has left 30 unanswered. The average wait time for those petitions is 241 days--so far.
Roughly 87% of the other petitions have been met with an average response time of 61 days.
Eli Dourado, a researcher at George Mason University who created the petition info website, told The Washington Post that the list of successful petitions still awaiting a reply was a "glaring omission" from the Obama administration's own We The People site. Dourado said there is a "purgatory" where petitions that the Obama administration "doesn't want to answer can disappear," Andrea Peterson at the Post reports.
"It's curious that the White House responded to a joke Death Star petition," writes Peterson, while other more pressing petitions, that have also met the signature threshold required by the White House, are left in the dark.
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Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Jacob Chamberlain is a former staff writer for Common Dreams. He is the author of Migrant Justice in the Age of Removal. His website is www.jacobpchamberlain.com.

What do these three demands have in common?
All three are titles of petitions that have been submitted to the White House, each with tens of thousands of signatures, that continue to be ignored by the Obama administration.
The petitions are among a slew of others submitted through the White House's "We the People" website that was established in 2011 to provide "a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country."
However, as the website WH Petitions Info points out, not all petitions get a fair shot.
Of the 232 White House petitions that met their signature requirements, the Obama administration has left 30 unanswered. The average wait time for those petitions is 241 days--so far.
Roughly 87% of the other petitions have been met with an average response time of 61 days.
Eli Dourado, a researcher at George Mason University who created the petition info website, told The Washington Post that the list of successful petitions still awaiting a reply was a "glaring omission" from the Obama administration's own We The People site. Dourado said there is a "purgatory" where petitions that the Obama administration "doesn't want to answer can disappear," Andrea Peterson at the Post reports.
"It's curious that the White House responded to a joke Death Star petition," writes Peterson, while other more pressing petitions, that have also met the signature threshold required by the White House, are left in the dark.
_______________________
Jacob Chamberlain is a former staff writer for Common Dreams. He is the author of Migrant Justice in the Age of Removal. His website is www.jacobpchamberlain.com.

What do these three demands have in common?
All three are titles of petitions that have been submitted to the White House, each with tens of thousands of signatures, that continue to be ignored by the Obama administration.
The petitions are among a slew of others submitted through the White House's "We the People" website that was established in 2011 to provide "a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country."
However, as the website WH Petitions Info points out, not all petitions get a fair shot.
Of the 232 White House petitions that met their signature requirements, the Obama administration has left 30 unanswered. The average wait time for those petitions is 241 days--so far.
Roughly 87% of the other petitions have been met with an average response time of 61 days.
Eli Dourado, a researcher at George Mason University who created the petition info website, told The Washington Post that the list of successful petitions still awaiting a reply was a "glaring omission" from the Obama administration's own We The People site. Dourado said there is a "purgatory" where petitions that the Obama administration "doesn't want to answer can disappear," Andrea Peterson at the Post reports.
"It's curious that the White House responded to a joke Death Star petition," writes Peterson, while other more pressing petitions, that have also met the signature threshold required by the White House, are left in the dark.
_______________________