Lucid Links (021810, Morning)

The Associated Press has done another story on Amy Bishop’s past in Massachusetts that refers to Bay State Congressman William Delahunt’s role:

Since the shooting, other disturbing behavior from Bishop has come to light.

In 1986, she killed her 18-year-old brother with a shotgun blast in Braintree, Mass., then demanded a getaway car at gunpoint from an auto dealer, authorities said. She claimed the gun went off accidentally, and she was never charged.

Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass., the district attorney at the time, said Wednesday he has limited memory of the case. He spoke with The Associated Press in Israel, where he was traveling.

“I understand I haven’t had a real opportunity to get into the details of the case, but I suspect when I return I’ll have an opportunity to become debriefed,” the congressman said.

Bishop and her husband were also scrutinized in 1993 after someone sent pipe bombs to a Harvard professor with whom she worked. The bombs did not go off and no one was ever charged.

In 2002, Bishop was charged with assault, battery and disorderly conduct after a tirade at the International House of Pancakes in Peabody, Mass. Police said Bishop became incensed when she found out another mother had received the restaurant’s last booster seat.

Bishop began shouting profanity and punched the woman in the head while yelling, “I am Dr. Amy Bishop!” according to the police report. She admitted to the assault in court, and the charges were dismissed six months later after she stayed out of trouble.

As reported in the Boston Globe (here and here, and several others), new disclosures about the investigation of Bishop’s 1986 shooting of her brother appear to point to a failure to appropriately prosecute.

“Somehow,” as is the case with previous AP stories that referenced Delahunt’s involvement in the Bishop case, this one doesn’t show up in a search on his last name at the AP’s main site, even though a different story yesterday refers to Delahunt’s outrage over being snubbed by Israeli government officials. The Bishop story is not a local one, given that it had contributions from writers in Israel, Massachusetts, and Alabama. So how can this be?

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This quote (HT Instapundit) from Bill Quick over the weekend shouldn’t go by without notice, given that it serves as a de facto warning to the scaredy-cats at ORPINO (the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only):

If the GOP cannot find some way to align itself with the Tea Party and its ethos, then it will be swept away.

In the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, Instapunditeer Glenn Reynolds noted the existence of Ohioans with broomsticks at the ready:

Cincinnati tea-party activists are running candidates for Republican precinct executive in every precinct in their area—if elected, these candidates will help set policy platforms within the GOP and have sway over which candidates the party endorses. Activists in other states are doing the same. Adam Andrzejewski, who ran in the Republican primary for governor in Illinois, told me he will run candidates in each of Illinois’ precincts, and Utah activists are turning that state’s convention-based nominating system into a trial for incumbent Republican Sen. Robert Bennett. Plus, tea-party activists used their convention to launch a political action committee.

If 2009 was the year of taking it to the streets, 2010 is the year of taking it to the polls.

Michael Shawn McCabe (HT fellow SOBer Matt Hurley at Weapons of Mass Discussion) relays a further Buckeye State-related development:

Currently in Butler County, Ohio, just a few days prior to the May Primary candidate petition filing deadline, over 50 Central Committee seats within the Republican Party are being challenged. Virtually none of them are members of the Republican Party yet nearly all of them voted Republican or Independent in the recent past.

ORPINO’s top leadership continues to thwart Tea Partiers’ will at its grave peril.

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From the incomparable Victor Davis Hanson (”The Greek Lesson”) — “Greece is the canary in the mine of the impending crack-up of the modern welfare state.”

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Peak Oil, Schmeak Oil Update (”Exxon Hits Peak Oil… Reserves”) — “Exxon, who has been accused in the past of being too conservative in terms of exploration and development, has been finding more oil than it produces for each of the last 16 years.”

A concise 100-year-plus rendering of wrong predictions about available oil supplies is here.

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There’s little doubt that homelessness (i.e., living in shelters or on the streets) is growing, as an AP report notes, but this doesn’t count:

When families lose their homes and relocate, their children’s schooling can be disrupted. Some move into extended-stay hotels that cost about $175 a week, but that sometimes exposes them to criminal activity like prostitution and drug deals, Bus said.

Being a “transient” is stressful, but unless the goal is to ruin the word’s meaning, it is not “homeless.” Shoot, under this definition a well-off family staying in a hotel during the time between moving out of one home and into another would be considered “homeless.”