Volunteer, apply for paid positions, engage. Look for local, state and national opportunities that match your skills and your bliss. For example:
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Comic Relief: Fake Lawyer Blogs Repost My Post About Their Fake Lawyer Blogs (LawSites)
LawSites’ January 18, 2017, blog post, “Fake Lawyer Blogs Repost My Post About Their Fake Lawyer Blogs,” by Robert Ambrogi is hilarious and worthy of a [TED Talk funny man] James Veitch award – and also certainly deserving of a Chuck Shephard News of the Weird entry. It also sounds like a Borowitz Report! Wowsers – a humor trifecta.
Official “End of Presidential Term” Digital Archives
End of Term Archive: US Federal Web Domain at Presidential Transitions (Today’s Internet Archive link.)
Other sources of Obama Presidency digital archives can be found at the Obama Whitehouse Archives website. (Today’s Internet Archive link.)
Research Tip: Additional official and unofficial digital archived webpages and other sources of presidential documents exist or will soon come into existence. Check the usual suspects: Presidential libraries, Library of Congress, National Archives, branch of government archives (e.g. Judiciary, Congress, Executive), the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, university libraries and archives, nonprofit legal and government information databases, fee-based legal and government information databases, and librarians everywhere.
“Vote” 365 Days of the Year: Talk, Talk, Talk to your Elected Representatives
We can “vote” 365 days of the year, not just on election days, at least as long as our U.S. Constitution remains intact:
Every Day is “Call Government Switchboard Day” or “Talk to Your Elected Representatives Day”:
Congress (use this one for contact info and this one for Congressional activities and documents), or:
Protect Your Constitutional Rights: “Vote” With Your Families on January 21, 2017
Oregon women and their families walk and speak out to protect all our Oregon and U.S. Constitutional rights: Womens March in Oregon
Project on Predatory Student Lending
Did you know there was a Project on Predatory Student Lending? This one is at the Harvard Law School Legal Services Center.
And don’t forget about the federal Consumer Financial Protection Board (at least for the next few days) and your state’s consumer law resources at the Department of Justice or maybe other departments. Your own state’s legal services organizations and your own school’s legal services office may also have free information and legal assistance for you.
Oregon 2017 Legislative Session Begins
Visit the Oregon Legislature’s website for more information about the 2017 Session:
“Organizational Days will run January 9th through the 11th. During Organizational Days, Members-elect are sworn in as legislators and bills are introduced. The 79th Legislative Assembly will convene on Wednesday, February 1….” [Link to Oregon Legislature’s website.]
You can link to the Find Your District and Legislators page from that homepage.
Country Corruption Indexes
A country’s financial health, among other measures, depends a lot on views of how corrupt its political and financial leaders and systems are rated. (E.g. would you invest in a country where corruption is high, where you can’t record officially and protect in the country’s courts your financial and real estate investments, where corporate and government employees are “on the take,” etc?)
Here are some Corruption Ranking sources of information:
Transparency International (or select an individual country) and read their “What is (and Costs of) corruption” pages. And the Wikipedia page.
“Dishonorable: The trouble with Oregon’s judicial elections” (Street Roots)
Portland’s Street Roots newspaper has some terrific reporting on a wide variety of topics. This article is from a November 2016 issue; you can find other articles at their website.
This is not, however, to discourage those of you lucky enough to be able to buy a print Street Roots from their vendors!
“Dishonorable: The trouble with Oregon’s judicial elections,“ by Emily Green, 3 Nov 2016 Street Roots: