Free Republic

The battle over direct shipping of wine from producer to consumer has returned to Congress. Last month, Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) introduced legislation pushed by beer and wine wholesalers that could make it nearly impossible for consumers to have wine shipped to their door. Delahunt's bill would effectively overturn a U.S. Supreme Court ruling issued five years ago this month in Granholm v. Heald, a case brought by the late Virginia vintner Juanita Swedenburg. The ruling held that states had primary responsibility for regulating the distribution of alcoholic beverages, but that they could not discriminate against out-of-state producers by allowing...

One day after Rep. Eric Massa (D.-NY) stunned political pundits by announcing he was stepping down after one term, the veteran Democratic House Member that everyone has guessed will call it quits made it official Thursday. At 68 and after 14 years in the House, far-left Democratic Rep. William Delahunt announced that he would not seek re-election to his Cape Cod-area House district. The lawmaker cited the usual “personal reasons” that most retiring politicians do for leaving office. In his words, “[Retirement has] got nothing to do with politics. Life is about change. I think it’s healthy. It’s time.” But...

Howie thread starting off with his Sunday Herald column

WASHINGTON - Representative William D. Delahunt will announce today that he will not seek reelection to Congress, ending a nearly 40-year career in elected office and giving Republicans hope of capturing the district, which stretches from Cape Cod to the South Shore. Discuss COMMENTS (23) “It’s got nothing to do with politics,’’ the seven-term Democrat from Quincy said yesterday. “Life is about change. I think it’s healthy. It’s time.’’ The 68-year-old lawmaker said he has been considering leaving the House for several years, but was talked out of it two years ago by the late senator Edward M. Kennedy, who...

WASHINGTON -- Representative William Delahunt will not seek re-election to Congress, the seven-term Democrat will announce tomorrow, ending a nearly 40-year career in elected office and giving Republicans hope of capturing the seat, which stretches from Cape Cod to the South Shore.

By ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer Andrew Miga, Associated Press Writer – 14 mins ago WASHINGTON – Massachusetts Rep. William Delahunt has decided not to run for re-election. The seven-term Democrat said Thursday night that his decision was not motivated by political concerns. He says in a statement that "he's been "wrestling with this decision for a while."

With speculation mounting that US Representative William D. Delahunt will not seek reelection, Joseph P. Kennedy III, son of the former congressman and great-grandson of the Kennedy family patriarch, is eyeing a run to succeed him in the 10th Congressional District, senior Democratic sources say. The sources say that Kennedy, a 29-year-old assistant district attorney on the Cape considered by many to be the most promising member of his generation to extend the family’s political legacy, is not close to making any decisions and will not speak publicly until Delahunt announces whether he will seek another term. The discussions are...

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt blew nearly $560,000 in campaign cash last year - much of it on lavish meals and a family-friendly payroll that includes his ex-wife, son-in-law and daughter - stoking speculation the Quincy Democrat is emptying his war chest and won’t seek re-election. -snip- Delahunt told the Herald last week that he was still weighing whether to seek re-election, but Democratic Party sources have privately indicated his departure is anticipated - and expected to draw a host of candidates-in-waiting out of the woodwork.

This week, U.S. Rep. William Delahunt spoke publicly and took questions, for the first time, about his decision not to charge Amy Bishop with a crime in connection with the shooting death of her brother, Seth, back in 1986. Rather than taking responsibility, Delahunt pointed the finger of blame at Braintree cops, claiming it was their fault he knew nothing about the fact that after Bishop shot her brother to death, she ran to a nearby auto body shop and aimed the weapon at an employee. Delahunt said he would have filed weapons charges against Bishop, had he known, so...

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt blew nearly $560,000 in campaign cash last year - much of it on lavish meals and a family-friendly payroll that includes his ex-wife, son-in-law and daughter - stoking speculation the Quincy Democrat is emptying his war chest and won’t seek re-election. Nickolai Bobrov, who is married to Delahunt’s daughter Kara, has raked in $47,732 since landing on the payroll as the congressman’s campaign manager in July, including a $10,000 payment that month marked retroactive for “consulting services April-July,” according to campaign finance records. Bobrov also is listed as treasurer of Delahunt’s Campaign for Change political action...

Saying he had questions about the original investigation, Norfolk District Attorney William Keating today requested an inquest into the death of Seth Bishop, who was killed by his sister, Amy, in 1986. The incident, ruled an accident at the time, has been under scrutiny since Amy Bishop allegedly went on a shooting rampage at the University of Alabama. Keating said this afternoon that he filed a request for the inquest at Quincy District Court. He said he was seeking the inquest because he was not getting cooperation from Bishop's parents, Judith and Samuel Bishop. "They have refused upon our efforts...

The Amy Bishop debacle has gone from horrifying to humiliating over the past week - and it’s getting worse by the day. Amid the cacophony and the finger-pointing, somebody needs to play the role of the adult. Braintree and State Police were corrupt, or incompetent, or perhaps both, when they let Bishop walk completely free after she shot her younger brother in the chest in 1986 and ran around town with a shotgun under her arm. Now that Bishop has allegedly killed three of her colleagues at the University of Alabama and critically wounded two others, an embarrassing blame-game is...

Amy Bishop, neuroscientist, inventor, murder suspect, has become bigger than life, a symbol for those who think that genius is close to madness, or that women cannot get ahead in science, or that tenure systems in universities are brutalizing — or even that progress against fatal diseases is so important that someone like Dr. Bishop should be set free to pursue cures. At least that is what emerges from hundreds of comments on the Internet about Dr. Bishop, the assistant professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville charged with shooting six colleagues — three of them fatally — at...

QUINCY — U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, the former district attorney whose office investigated the fatal 1986 shooting of Seth Bishop by his sister Amy, said Monday he does not feel his office “bears any responsibility” for Bishop being freed without charges. In a telephone interview with the Patriot Ledger, the Quincy Democrat said State Police Trooper Brian Howe correctly concluded that Amy Bishop shot and killed her 18-year-old brother, Seth, by accident. But Delahunt said he has “very serious concerns” that Braintree police never alerted Howe or his prosecutors that, after the shooting, Amy Bishop fled with a loaded shotgun...

. . . Delahunt’s people have offered one ridiculous excuse after another for his weeklong silence. The congressman, they have said, is traveling in Israel. He was, but it isn’t as though there are no phones there. He doesn’t remember much, they say. Talk to the Braintree police . . . Look, I’ve known Delahunt for years, and I’m not, at this point, reading too much into his actions. But Bishop’s alleged slayings constitute a huge tragedy, and how they happened is a matter of urgent business. There were not just red flags that she was criminally dangerous; there were...

BRAINTREE — When a veteran Braintree police captain sought town meeting approval in 1986 to stall his mandatory retirement, Judith Bishop was among the town meeting members to support him. A Patriot Ledger article published on May 14, 1986, quoted Bishop voicing her support for Capt. Charles Solimini at the spring town meeting vote. Seven months later, another Solimini on the Braintree force, patrolman Ron Solimini, and another officer apprehended Bishop’s daughter, Amy, in a brief but tense standoff with the armed 21-year-old. Patrolman Solimini’s relationship to Capt. Solimini could not be determined Thursday. Amy Bishop had just shot and...

The Braintree Police Department, the Norfolk County Prosecutor and the Massachusetts State Police are trying to get their stories down as to why no charges were filed against Amy Bishop in the 1986 shooting death of her brother.  Although the police file that had been missing for more than 20 years was found among the papers of a retired police investigator, now deceased, the case remains highly controversial.  Shortly after being apprehended in ‘86, Bishop was released without being charged. Congressman William D. Delahunt was the Norfolk DA at the time.  The current holder of the post, William R. Keating, is investigating the entire matter. It is...

Norfolk District Attorney William Keating said his office is probing the botched investigation of the 1986 Amy Bishop shooting to find out if “elements of criminality” were involved. Investigators have discovered nothing to challenge the conclusion of Braintree and State Police 23 years ago that Bishop fatally shot her 18-year-old brother, Seth, accidentally. But questions have arisen over why the 21-year-old shooter – now accused in an Alabama triple homicide – faced no consequences for allegedly pulling a shotgun on two men at an auto body shop while demanding a getaway car or for a brief armed standoff with police....

If Bill Delahunt had done his job, three Alabama families wouldn’t be in mourning today. Period. If then-Norfolk District Attorney Delahunt, his staff or the police hadn’t been negligent, corrupt or both back in 1986, Amy Bishop would have been prosecuted for killing her brother. Based on what we know now - and what investigators knew then - probably some charge of manslaughter. But at the very least, Bishop probably would have had a felony gun conviction on her record, teaching her a tragic personal lesson. Instead, the political culture of Massachusetts taught her something very different: It’s not what...

An Alabama college professor accused of killing three colleagues during a faculty meeting is likely insane, and she can't remember the shootings, her attorney said. Roy W. Miller, the court-appointed attorney for Amy Bishop, told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that his client has severe mental problems that appear to be paranoid schizophrenia. Miller discussed the case hours after hundreds of mourners attended the first funeral and memorial services for Bishop's slain co-workers.

Federal law enforcement officials did not send Amy Bishop and her husband a letter telling them they were cleared in the 1993 mail bombing investigation of a Harvard Medical School professor, an official said today, contradicting statements Bishop's husband has made to the media since his wife was charged in an Alabama shooting rampage. "No letter was ever sent,'' said the law enforcement official, who is not authorized to speak publicly on the case. Bishop's husband, James Anderson, has acknowledged the couple were both questioned by federal investigators after a package containing two pipe bombs was sent to the Newton...

The Norfolk district attorney ramped up his criticism of the 1986 investigation of Seth Bishop’s death yesterday, saying that it was “glaring’’ and “striking’’ that local police accounts of Amy Bishop’s armed standoff at a local business were not included in the State Police report or considered as part of the prosecutor’s decision about whether to pursue charges.

Bill Delahunt, come on down! The only question is, does he permanently adjourn to Hedonism II now, or in 2012? It’s like a logging forest out there for congressional Democrats these days. Timber! First Chris Dodd falls, then Patches Kennedy, not to mention a whole host of lesser-known Beltway banditos. They’re all retiring due to ill health - the voters are sick of them. The question now is the same one they ask at the deli counter. Who’s next? Consider why Delahunt might want to call it a career. First, he’s already got a state pension - $58,343.76 a year....

US Representative William Delahunt said yesterday that he is considering retiring from his congressional seat representing the South Shore and Cape Cod, although he portrayed his deliberations as routine and said they are not related to challenges from Republicans who are energized by Scott Brown’s upset victory in last month’s special Senate election.

<p>TEL AVIV, Israel—A U.S. congressman says he's seeking clarification from Israel after an apparent snub by a top Foreign Ministry official. Rep. William Delahunt of Massachusetts is touring the region with a congressional delegation hosted by J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace.</p>

Amy Bishop was crouched behind a parked car, gripping a pump-action shotgun with one shell in the chamber and another in her pocket. Workers at a nearby business were yelling, “There’s a girl with a gun!’’ and running away. A police officer approached cautiously, holding his pistol behind his leg as he tried to reason with the wild-eyed 21-year-old. But Bishop would not budge. “Miss Bishop seemed frightened, disoriented, and confused, but she kept both her hands on the shotgun at all times,’’ the officer wrote in a police report. “She wouldn’t drop the gun.’’ It wasn’t until another officer...

Nobody needs another investigation into whether Amy Bishop killed her brother by accident or on purpose when she fired a shotgun into his chest on Dec. 6, 1986. Bishop could have been tried, DA says Report: Bishop held shotgun on police after killing brother The families of the three dead faculty members in Alabama will attest that it’s too late for that now. What we need, though, immediately, is for the governor to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate whether local and state authorities were corrupt or completely incompetent in the way they rushed to exonerate Bishop of criminal responsibility...

Cites actions that followed brother’s death Amy Bishop could have been charged with three serious crimes after she shot her younger brother to death in 1986, instead of being allowed to walk away without a mark on her criminal record, Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating said yesterday as he released Braintree police records missing for more than 20 years. snip......Attempts to reach US Representative William D. Delahunt, who was Norfolk district attorney at the time, were unsuccessful yesterday.

One of the survivors of Friday's deadly shooting at the University of Alabama in Huntsville said she tried to talk Amy Bishop into putting the gun down. "The first thing I said was, 'Amy, think about my grandson, think about my daughter," Dr. Debra Moriarity, UAH's graduate school dean and a member of the biology faculty, said today. "I said, 'Amy, you know I've helped you, I'll help you again. It's me, it's me." "Part of my brain thought she'd go, 'Oh, it's Deb,' and she'd quit." But Moriarity said Bishop, an assistant professor, never responded. So Moriarity crawled through...

U.S. Rep. and former Norfolk District Attorney William Delahunt yesterday backed off earlier claims he didn’t recall the 1986 shooting death of Amy Bishop’s brother, with a top aide now saying police downplayed the need for further investigation. Mark Forest, Delahunt’s chief of staff, said both state and local police told the former top prosecutor they believed Amy Bishop, then 20, had accidentally blasted her 18-year-old brother, Seth, with their father’s shotgun. “They pretty much found the death was accidental and there was no need for further action,” Forest told the Herald. But Republican Joe Malone, a former state treasurer...

Sure looks like a lot of the Democrat incumbents have seen the handwriting on the wall, and have realized that their days in Congress are numbered. They have been weighed in the balances by their constituents, and are found wanting. As a result, Democrat incumbents are dropping like flies. The latest? Illinois Sen. Evan Bayh,who joins Patches Kennedy of RI, Chris Dodd of CT, and Sen. Byron Dorgan of ND in unexpected retirement. Next on the list could be my own representative, William Delahunt of Massachusetts, who, after Scott Brown swept to a Senate victory last month, and amid some...

Saturday's Boston Globe reported that Congressman William Delahunt may not run for reelection. "US Representative William Delahunt said yesterday that he is considering retiring from his congressional seat representing the South Shore and Cape Cod, although he portrayed his deliberations as routine and said they are not related to challenges from Republicans who are energized by Scott Brown's upset victory in last month's special Senate election. 'Every election cycle, I take my time, I think it through, and I think, not about whether I can win or lose, but: ‘Am I in a position to make a difference?' Delahunt, a...

UPDATE, 6:15 P.M.: An unbylined 11:57 a.m. AP report (i.e., 54 minutes after the time stamp of the original post at BizzyBlog) contains two paragraphs about Delahunt's involvement. Based on a search on Delahunt's last name at about 6:15 p.m., this version of AP's report is either still not at its main site, or has not been indexed by its search engine. Democratic Congressman Bill Delahunt's far from minor role in the 1986 release of Amy Bishop, the University of Alabama in Hunstville biology professor implicated in the murder of three colleagues on Friday, has garnered significant press attention in...

""Amy further stated that she does not recall putting any additional bullets into the gun after it discharged, and that she then unscrewed the bottom of the shaft in an attempt to empty the weapon, and when being unable to empty the weapon this way, she stated that she then screwed the bottom of the shaft back on." Amy stated that she then heard her brother come into the house downstairs ( But the cover up State Police officer accepted that Judy Bishop couldn't hear a shotgun blast upstairs???)and she went right downstairs to ask Seth to help her unload...

The professor who is accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama on Friday was a suspect in the attempted mail bombing of a Harvard Medical School professor in 1993, a law enforcement official said today. Bishop surfaced as a suspect because she was allegedly concerned that she was going to receive a negative evaluation from Rosenberg on her doctorate work, the official said. The official said investigators believed she had a motive to target Rosenberg and were concerned that she had a history of violence, given that she had shot her brother to death in 1986.

US Representative William Delahunt said yesterday that he is considering retiring from his congressional seat representing the South Shore and Cape Cod, although he portrayed his deliberations as routine and said they are not related to challenges from Republicans who are energized by Scott Brown’s upset victory in last month’s special Senate election. Discuss COMMENTS (150) Related Photos Kennedys in public life Pondering a Congress without Kennedys McGrory: With iconic father gone, son seeks his own path Colleagues ponder Kennedy’s future, praise work ethic Rep. Kennedy lacked ‘fire’ for another race Kennedy out, R.I. voters say change is in the...

Joseph Kennedy III, the son of former congressman Joe Kennedy, is being tipped to launch a political career soon as insiders mull over who the next Kennedy in public life will be. Kennedy, 29, may be interested in the South Shore-Cape Cod House seat currently held by Democratic Congressman Bill Delahunt, who has not yet committed to a tough re-election fight. “Massachusetts – and Capitol Hill – without a Kennedy is like Fenway Park without the Wall,’’ Dan Payne, a Democratic media consultant, referring to the famous Green Monster told the Boston Globe. “They were meant to be together.’’ Others...

A poll commissioned by likely GOP congressional challenger Joseph D. Malone shows he’s neck and neck with U.S. Rep. William Delahunt as Scott Brown fever continues to grip Bay State voters. Malone of Scituate commissioned the poll that has him with 37 percent of the vote to the Democratic incumbent’s 34 percent with a 5.7 percent margin of error. “I’m very encouraged by it,” Malone said. “My sense is that the voters of the district are people who recognize Delahunt has been following (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi’s policies and are sick of it.” The former state treasurer’s lead widened to...

The neurobiologist accused of killing three colleagues at the University of Alabama in Huntsville on Friday fatally shot her brother in 1986 in suburban Boston, the authorities in Massachusetts confirmed Saturday. [...]Early Saturday, the police in Huntsville charged the neurobiologist, Amy Bishop, 45, with capital murder in the shootings Friday during a faculty meeting that also left three people wounded. On Saturday afternoon, the police in Braintree, Mass., announced that Ms. Bishop had fatally wounded her brother in their home 24 years ago, which The Boston Globe first reported on its Web site on Saturday. Ms. Bishop was not charged...

It’s like a logging forest out there for congressional Democrats these days. Timber! First Chris Dodd falls, then Patches Kennedy, not to mention a whole host of lesser-known Beltway banditos. They’re all retiring due to ill health - the voters are sick of them. The question now is the same one they ask at the deli counter. Who’s next?

By Nancy Reardon Patriot Ledger State House Bureau Posted Jan 26, 2010 @ 07:45 AM BOSTON — South Shore Republicans have painted a bull’s-eye on U.S. Rep. William Delahunt. At least five people are considering a run for the 10th Congressional District seat he has held since 1997. The growing field includes three former and current state office holders – former State Treasurer Joe Malone of Scituate; state Sen. Robert Hedlund, R-Weymouth; and state Rep. Jeff Perry, R-Sandwich – as well as two political newcomers, Don Hussey of Hingham and Ray Kasperowicz of Cohasset. Hussey and Kasperowicz are the only...

Former Treasurer Joe Malone says he’s almost certainly going to challenge Rep. William Delahunt for re-election because he thinks the veteran Democratic congressman has lost touch with his district. Malone, a Republican, told The Associated Press Thursday he was convinced to get back into politics after seeing the public surge behind GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown, who won the special election for the late Edward Kennedy’s seat this week. Malone was treasurer from 1991 to 1999, leaving office after a failed campaign for governor in 1998. The Waltham native and Harvard graduate now lives in Scituate. It’s part of Delahunt’s...

Hopefully the earthquake Scott Brown created in Mass will give rise to a tsunami and take this blue state purple if not red...

"U.S. Defense Department official said Georgia was not ready for weapons acquisition, the issue pushed by President Saakashvili before the Vice President Biden’s visit to Tbilisi. Celeste A. Wallander, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, however, also told a congressional panel on July 28, that the issue was “not off the table” in the future. She made the remarks at the hearing of U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe after she was asked to comment about President Saakashvili’s statement made in an interview with The Washington Post asking the U.S. to provide Georgia with defensive...

William Delahunt(D-Mass) has met with President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and says he's encouraged about the possibilities of improved relations between Venezuela and the United States. Delahunt exclaimed he had a "very positive and constructive conversation" with Chavez.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Massachusetts Congressman William Delahunt has met with President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and says he's encouraged about the possibilities of improved relations between Venezuela and the United States. The Democrat says he had a "very positive and constructive conversation" with Chavez.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24351 Chavez, Joe Kennedy and Oil Math by Gen. Donald Blaine Smith and Christopher Brown It’s hard to avoid the commercials starring former Congressman Joseph Kennedy II explaining how friendly Venezuela and Hugo Chavez are to the American people. After all Chavez and Kennedy are bringing relief to the poor people of America who suffer under the evil tyranny of high fuel costs. However, reality has a tendency to get in the way of press events for Citgo and Citizens Energy Corporation such as the scenes of Joe Kennedy driving up to house in a Citgo truck to deliver 40%...

About 850 people attended the fund-raiser, which cost between $1,000 and $4,600 per ticket. Among those, 250 also ate dinner with Obama - for $15,000 per ticket or $28,500 per couple. Guests began dinner with heaping helpings of field greens, heirloom lettuces, candied hazelnuts and port-soaked currants tossed with a sherry Dijon vinaigrette. The main course: cinnamon-and-red-wine-braised short ribs and roasted porcini-crusted sea bass, plus a trio of potato confit, and hand-rolled gnocchi with wild mushrooms and a vegetable bouquet. Guests washed down that sumptuous repast with a perky 2004 Cloudy Bay Sauvingnon Blanc “Te Koko” and an impertinent 2004...

Former Atty. Gen. Testifies Today Former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft answered questions about his role in the drafting of detainee interrogation rules. In his opening statement, Ashcroft admitted that he had "limited recollection" of the events pertinent to the committee's inquiry.

You may have heard about this shameful remark by Rep. William Delahunt, basically suggesting he's happy al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN so they can finally see and/or target Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff David Addington...