Just saw this from Gina Smith on Twitter:
State budget cuts mean Dept of Commerce will likely “suspend all foreign trade missions.” Maybe this should have been considered in 2008?
I gather that Gina — who, as you will recall, was the one who caught our governor at the airport sneaking back into the country from Argentina — is covering some sort of hearing on budget cuts at the State House. (Maybe she’s at the “the Tuesday Ways and Means Standing Committee Budget Briefing for Members of the House;” I don’t know.)
Anyway, it’s not all fun and games, as Gina goes on to reveal just moments ago:
Commission on Indigent Defense is likely to cut 43 public defenders bc of state budget cuts. Good gravy! How many are left? Like 3?
You have to have a certain ability to take things lightly, covering the State House, or you’ll go quite mad…
Indigent Defense can just shanghai private lawyers to defend people—they never seem to have funds to pay them anyway, so it’s really low cost, and who in state government cares if there’s any quality to the defense work?
It’s hard to believe, I know, but criminal defense work is a specialty and most lawyers don’t really know how to do it very well. Alex Postic, Mr. Shop Tart, is excellent, btw….and you’d be surprised at how many regular people can use a good criminal defense attorney….
You don’t have to be on City Council to get into legal troubles…
The real story should be what isn’t cut. Plenty of waste, fraud, and abuse will remain as will bureaucrats who do nothing but are politically connected.
Blame the legislature as always and the hacks at the top.
read “the Family” by Jeff Sharlet and notice Lindsey, DeMint and Sanfraud are members of this family.
the book explains it all.
@ orphan annie– that’s last summer’s news, now. We got it back then…