Judging by the most popular petitions filed with the White House, here are Americans' top demands of President Obama:
Legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group.
File charges against the 47 Republican senators who wrote a letter to Iran to undermine the nuclear deal.
Deport Justin Bieber and revoke his green card.
Extradite Twin Cities dentist Walter Palmer to Zimbabwe for killing Cecil the Lion.
These demands are among the six that received more than 200,000 electronic signatures on the White House We the People petition website, an experiment in direct democracy now in its fifth year. Anybody can start a petition, but it has to gain 150 signatures before it becomes public on the website, and then reach a threshold of signatures (currently 100,000) within 30 days to elicit a response from the administration.
Only 275 have earned a response, out of more than 411,000 petitions filed since 2011. The Obama administration credits We the People petitions for leading to policy changes on such issues as unlocking cellphones and cracking down on puppy mills. But they haven't unleashed a flood of executive orders or dramatic reforms. Immigration has no plans to send Justin Bieber back to Canada, despite the 273,968 signers who call him a "terrible influence" on young people.
J.H. Snider, a public policy researcher who has studied We the People, called the petition site "a gem in the rough" that has so far fallen short of its promise.