\n“With over 1 out of 30 Americans controlled by the penal system, why not legalize, control, and tax marijuana to change the failed war on drugs into a money making, money saving boost to the economy? Do we really need that many victimless criminals?”<\/p>\n
“We have been forced to slowly liquidate my wife’s 401K to make our monthly mortgage payments. We dread the implications ahead when we have to file our 2009 federal tax returns. Do you foresee leniency on 401K liquidating for “qualified” candidates?”<\/p>\n
“Will we ever see high speed passenger rail service in the U.S.?”<\/p>\n
“I’m hard working, always make my mortgage payment on time, and bought a house I knew I could afford. My ARM is adjusting, and I’m not eligible for any great program. Why haven’t better loan options become available for the responsible middle class”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Compare these questions to those posed by the media at last nights press conference:<\/p>\n
Apparently the demand for marijuana law reform is huge (insert Peter Tosh lyrics here). Now I’m not saying that marijuana laws should be at the top of the president’s agenda, but it’s significant that the Web 2.0 provide a new mechanism for agenda access. Rather than relying on institutions to “problematize” issues for the public agenda, individual citizens can throw their hat in the ring and potentially get a brief hearing. The serious test will be whether large numbers of people watch the Thursday morning town hall. If they do, the “on-line town hall” become a new avenue for policy entrepreneurs to reach the public agenda. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OK, the Internet provides citizens with new vehicles to get involved in the political process, but will people “walk through the portal”? We will soon find out. The WhiteHouse has created a site called “open for questions,” a Digg-like site where residents can submit questions and vote on their favorites. The president will answer some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[194,1240,1241,796],"class_list":["post-790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-obama","tag-participation","tag-town-hall","tag-web20"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":791,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790\/revisions\/791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/thickculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n