The White House is briefly shutting down the "We The People" petition website, but promises that all existing petitions will be reinstated on the new, less costly site:
The White House has said it will be shutting down its website for petitions from midnight on Tuesday until a new one is set up in late January. The "We The People" site was set up by the Obama administration in 2011. It promised a response to all petitions drawing more than 100,000 signatures but the Trump administration has not responded to any since January.
The White House said its new platform would save taxpayers more than $1m (£746,500) a year. The total budget of the White House for 2018 is $55m and its information technology budget for the year is $4.94m.
A White House official told the Associated Press news agency that the administration would "respond to public concerns next year" and that all existing petitions would be reinstated then.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:26AM (7 children)
Good god we knew this would happen! He is firing all of the IT staff and replacing them with cheaper Russian agents! They will hack petition results and change them to benefit Putin in his goal to conquer the world and destroy the united states. This has to be stopped we must impeach now and fire a first strike at Russia!
(Score: 5, Touché) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:55AM
Not to mention removing all the bad words like "science" and "evidence".
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:22AM (4 children)
Whoever modded that post informative probably missed the sarcasm font . . .
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:50AM (3 children)
You know? There actually is such a thing as "sarcastic modding"
Now... explicitly mod me +Sarcastic (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:25PM
I would add: +Sarcastic, +Inciteful, +Cynical, +SadButTrue.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Wednesday December 20 2017, @05:45PM (1 child)
I don't know about that. But there is a blank line between troll and spam. Wonder what that does?
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:05PM
Nothing. I just tried.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @10:09AM
Of course we knew it would happen. After all, the site was set up by Obama. Trump's #1 goal is to undo anything Obama did to the maximum extent possible.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:00AM (3 children)
"Disruption of communications can only mean one thing."
Yoda: "Begun, this clown war has."
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:26PM
Syntax problems in your post there are.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:06PM
Oh, shit. That was an early Christmas present. God bless you, AC.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:30PM
> Disruption of communications can only mean one thing
two things, if systemd manages something somewhere along the communication path.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:00AM (8 children)
I'm curious as to what they will try to replace Drupal with. You can't get much easier or cheaper than that. Given the general lack of competency and the overall high levels of corruption in the incumbent regime, I expect that the stated savings estimates are completly fictitious.
They haven't responded to any petitions since January so they have no interest in ensuring the site is functional anyway. I expect that they'll attempt to shoehorn M$ Sharepoint into the site, causing it to fall on its face hard, go into major cost overruns, continue to ignore the service as before, and then close it down, declaring "success".
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @10:02AM
See? That is the actual problem with Drupal: doesn't create jobs in maintenance, not does it contributes to the profit of some company. In short, nobody is benefiting from tax reductions with Drupal, all that work the politicians put is wasted with Drupal.
Isn't Oracle CRM coupled with Analytics and just-in-time-something a much more appropriate solution for MAGA?!? No? Then surely IBM technology is.
Or a cloud, a private White-Cloud-at-dusk seems nice, a perfect fit to a White House with an orange character inside.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday December 20 2017, @01:23PM (4 children)
No, the Trump admin hasn't taken the petitions seriously. But then, neither did the Obama administration.
The petition site has one purpose, and only one: It gives people a place to vent. Many people feel a need to do something, so they enter their opinion on this site, and then go quietly on their way. They've done something, so they can go back to being good little sheep.
What would be much more interesting would be a site that could force governmental action. Get x-million signatures, and Congress must officially and publicly debate the issue. Get y-million, together with draft legislation, and the legislation must be voted on.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 20 2017, @02:36PM
That would be like how the UK rolls:
https://petition.parliament.uk/help [parliament.uk]
Long list of caveats attached, but you can still get your petition debated by Parliament with only 100k signatures.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:30PM (1 child)
Seriously naive.
The single purpose is to gather names of troublemaker citizens to be rounded up at some unspecified future date, and to be monitored in the immediate present. The government is taking names.
Trump is making a list and checking it twice.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 2) by captain_nifty on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:56PM
This was my thought as well.
When it first opened, and it wasn't yet a total farce, I went on to vote and was immediately met with the need to identify myself. This seemed like a really bad idea to me and I went no further. Given the tepid level of responses, (i.e. here's a response from the head of the agency currently screwing you, saying everything is legal and A okay), I've never felt the need to voice my opinion in this useless manner again.
The holocaust should have taught us the inherent problems of really effective data collection, sadly we didn't learn that lesson.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:23AM
Ummm, yeah. Whatever. I'm sure they would do it, but they would first have to check with their high-rolling campaign donors to find out what their talking points would need to be during the debate.
Cynical? Moi?
(Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:35PM
Q. What could be cheaper than Drupal? Or any tech, no matter what tech is used?
A. A Russian run website that you don't have to pay anything for. Or that even pays Trump for the value received by the website. Payment might not be in direct cash, but could be in other forms, such as not calling in massive billion dollar loans that certain branded real estate properties were funded with after American and other foreign banks would no longer touch Trump with a ten foot pole. Or not releasing the pee pee tapes, or perhaps other recorded meetings.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:31PM
> I'm curious as to what they will try to replace Drupal with. You can't get much easier or cheaper than that.
I know I should not be giving them ideas, but a pipe to /dev/null IS easier and cheaper.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Funny) by lx on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:57AM (4 children)
To comply with incoming transparacy rules the new URL will be fuckthepeople.gov
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @10:04AM (1 child)
That's not a transparent name, it's just an-upfront-tell-it-how-it-is name.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by WizardFusion on Wednesday December 20 2017, @10:22AM
wewontnotfuckthepeople.gov ?
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
.gov?
Seriously?
Surely: fuckthepeople.com
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @06:16AM
Is there a difference?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 20 2017, @10:47AM (1 child)
First, kill the site, and fire anyone who works on it.
If the maintainence and the salaries of the fired don't add to $1,000,000, keep firing.
Woo hoo! Saved $1,000,000 per year!
Now, find that guy you know who said he could do it.
Get his company to do it
Pay for it out of a different cost centre.
Doesn't matter if it crashes a few times, or costs $2,000,000, plus maintenence (each year), you already saved the $1,000,000
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:36PM
Reminder: Trump's son is good with the cyber.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @02:50PM
They've just announced that the new go-live date will coincide with the release of Trump's tax returns. So soon. Keep watching this space.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:08PM (2 children)
You'd think 25 year old excuses would be too worn out to play any more. They're shutting down the website, temporarily, because it's too costly to run?!? $1 million per year, if that can be believed? Oh, what a budget buster! I read that a carrier strike group costs about $6.5 million per _day_.
Balance the Budget has been the Republican goto excuse for cutting everything they don't like. But when it's something they like, such as more military, more police, more spying, and now, a Big Beautiful Wall, then it's Security, we must have more Security!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday December 20 2017, @03:37PM
Security doesn't explain SLS. But you are on the right track.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 4, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:40PM
Don't forget adding $2 trillion in federal debt to pay for a tax cut for the rich!
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday December 20 2017, @06:05PM (2 children)
Evidently the public is still fucking stupid about this sort of thing, or they wouldn't think they could pull off an idiotic scheme like this.
The cost of building a new system to replace the existing system will dwarf the maintenance costs of keeping the existing system running. The only way this would not be true is if the existing system is subject to really bad contracts, which should not be the case with an open source implementation.
Given that they don't have to pay licensing fees for Drupal, the only explanation for the current maintenance price tag is a) bad infrastructure contracts, and b) bloated personnel costs. The solution to A is to move the existing system to cheaper infrastructure. The solution to B is to stop double-counting IT's time - when 30 minutes/day of maintenance is counted as a full 8-hour workday.
Furthermore, there's no reason to believe that the maintenance costs for the new system will be any less than the current system. Unless the orange man is going to negotiate the contracts himself (and let's be honest, they'd probably be more crooked if he did), we're likely to end up with about the same level of crappy infrastructure contract as before.
Next we'll hear that he wants to spend $5 billion to modernize the cheap, proven floppy-disk-based nuclear launch system...by putting it on the internet and paying for cloud deployments!
XKCD: Obsolete [xkcd.com]
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:32PM (1 child)
You don't actually believe there will be a new system rolled out next year, do you?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:13PM
I believe that the White House expects most people to believe such ridiculous claims, and that makes me sad.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @07:44PM (2 children)
Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016
Deport everyone that signed a petition to withdraw their state from the USA
Nationalize the Twinkie industry
Deport Justin Bieber and Revoke His Green Card
Establish new legal system of motorcycle riding "judges" who serve as police, judge, jury, and executioner all in one
Shut down White House petitions, since they never get a sincere response, few read them & they are ultimately worthless
And there's plenty trying to make thugs look like boy scouts
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday December 20 2017, @09:46PM (1 child)
> And there's plenty trying to make thugs look like boy scouts
This is genius.
My AI says this would cut the number of criminals down to 2% which BTW is the percentage of thugs who are actual boy scouts and well beyond salvation anyway.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 21 2017, @02:27AM
Deport Justin Bieber and Revoke His Green Card... I'd sign that petition AND buy the one-way airline ticket to fairyland.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 20 2017, @08:20PM
The site was contracted out to liberals. For conservative petitions, votes would sometimes disappear.
Something like this ought to be handled in-house, or at least with a contractor that is trusted by the current administration.