David Bruce Smith
320.7K posts
@hbbtruth
David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇸🇪🇫🇷 via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈
Over the past 9 months, I have been investigating how the Home Office has been preparing for the national grooming gangs inquiry - and crucially, whether vital evidence has been properly protected. What I’ve found is extremely concerning... In June last year, Baroness Louise Casey recommended a full national inquiry. Her Audit was clear that in the meantime, police forces, councils and authorities across the country should be required not to destroy any records that could be used as evidence. But we now know that didn’t happen. Freedom of Information requests now appear to show the Home Office waited a staggering 212 days - nearly seven months - before formally contacting police forces and other key agencies. Today, the Home Affairs select Committee has written directly to the Home Secretary warning that this 212 failure means that some records critical to the inquiry “might have been destroyed”. That is a staggering failure at the heart of government. I first raised the alarm on this in December, after uncovering that authorities in Bradford had not received any instruction at all from government. Just two days later, newly appointed Chair of the National Inquiry, Baroness Anne Longfield, wrote to the Government reinforcing exactly the same point. Yet even after that warning, it still took another 36 days for the Home Office to act and pass the Chair's message on to authorities. Freedom of information requests show that then-Permanent Secretary Antonio Romeo finally wrote to Home Office-funded Arm’s Length Bodies and Chief Constables across the country on 14 January 2026 - 7 months after the Casey Audit. The government now has serious and unavoidable questions it must answer. - Why was there such a delay? - What kind of records may have been lost? - What are the legal consequences if records have been lost, but the Home Office failed to act? Even now, it remains unclear whether local councils across the country were ever formally contacted at all about the protection of records. Unless the government can provide clear answers to these questions, they risk not only undermining confidence in this process, but failing victims who have already been let down for far too long. Read the Home Affairs Select Committee letter here: committees.parliament.uk/publications/5…
Commentators need to get their talking points straight. ICE is funded over and above Biden levels through 2029 because of last year’s four-year appropriation passed by those “many Republicans.” Any deal to diffuse this issue for the midterms will not affect ICE enforcement.
After 3 years and 148 days since my father's tragic death, today the defendant showed no remorse, saying,”Your Honor, the rumor is I didn't kill him; he died two days later." His lack of guilt after nearly 4 years in jail is disturbing #JusticeForVictims #StopAsianHate #EndCrime
‘Many have tried. Few have succeeded’: Tech, labor brace for years-long war in California dlvr.it/TRkV7z
NEW: San Francisco judge Linda Colfax has released a man who fatally assaulted an 84-year-old because the prison sentence would have a "poor impact" on him. 25-year-old Antoine Watson was granted probation just two months after he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and assault. Watson violently assaulted Vicha Ratanapakdee in 2021, which resulted in his death just two days later. He was acquitted of first-and second-degree murder charges and instead convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Colfax says Watson being in prison would have a "poor impact" on him and didn't think he should be there because he "expressed remorse," according to the SF Chronicle. Colfax is accused of hiding details from the jury in an apparent effort to help Watson escape prison time. Infuriating and evil.
Man who fatally assaulted elderly Thai man to be released on probation, SF judge rules: kron4.com/news/bay-area/…
Oakland - one of 'most corrupt cities in America' - considers huge pay bumps for council members trib.al/zUpe8YV
Just leaving the Capitol now at 3am as I wanted to be on the Senate floor through final passage of the vote to end the shutdown. As we promised, there was no funding for ICE without the reforms Americans demand. TSA at our airports funded; zero for ICE.
