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Amateur Diplomacy: Somebody explain to us why an official U.S. delegation was sent to Caracas for the funeral of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. It only boosts our enemies while diminishing America. The death of Chavez this week should have been an opportunity for the U.S. to rally global support for Venezuela's battered democrats and make a stand for democracy. Instead, the Obama administration has done all it can to validate and bolster Chavez's gangsterly minions desperate to perpetrate their Marxist kleptocracy. Already these surviving Chavistas have made clear who they are and what the U.S. can expect: President Obama called...

The Obama administration has sent an official three-person delegation to Caracas to attend Friday’s funeral for deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. According to US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, they are former Massachusetts Congressman William Delahunt, U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York and State Department diplomat James Derham. Chavez´s funeral is being attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Cuban President Raul Castro and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, all of whom, like Chavez, have their issues with Western capitalist society.

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....