Feds’ Petition for a Day Off Likely to Be Granted; Petition to Pardon Snowden Still Unanswered

The White House petition website “We the People” long ago
proved itself a
predictable charade of
sham accountability. But federal employees are trying their
luck anyway, petitioning President Barack Obama to give them
a(nother) day off on December 26.
The Washington Post reports:

The petition…asks the administration to “Declare an
executive order for all executive departments and agencies to be
closed 12/26/2014, for a four-day weekend.”

While the rest of us poor sods will be at work nursing our
eggnog hangovers, the feds are hoping for a longer holiday to help
them recover from a taxing year of
reading our emails and
taking our money. From
the petition:

Federal Employees have dealt with pay freezes and furloughs over
the past few years. Giving federal employees an extra holiday on
Dec. 26th, 2014 would be a good gesture to improve morale of the
federal workforce.

As of writing, the petition is still 60,000 signatures shy of
the 100,000 threshold required for the White House to respond. The
petitioners will probably get what they wish for, however, even if
the minimum isn’t reached in the next few weeks. Like George W.
Bush, Obama has a history of giving feds time off during the
holiday season.

Obama also
granted a petition in 2012 asking for a government Christmas
Eve holiday. And that’s just one of 150-odd petitions the White
House has responded to on a range of topics that deeply affect the
future of our polity, such as whether to institute the
metric system, how to address
pet homelessness, and whether to build a
Death Star.

But the administration has been reticent when it comes to
petitions that, you know, address issues that matter. Like the
one demanding
a pardon for Edward Snowden, to which the White House has yet
to respond more than a year after it reached 100,000 signatures.
GMO labeling
might be bunk, but a
popular petition on the subject from 2012 also continues to
gather cyberdust waiting for an administration response.

When there has been a response on a pressing topic,
such as marijuana legalization, the White House has remained
laconic and evasive. Or it just
downright misleads, as when the administration responded to a
petition demanding a right to opt out of Obamacare by promising,
again, that “if
you like your plan, you can keep it.”

If you’re thinking of submitting a petition a grade
above beer
brewing or the Lunar
New Year to The
Most Transparent Administration Ever, you might be better
served closing your eyes tightly and just hoping for change.