Jihadist evil knows no limits.

(Daily Mail) — A 24 year-old woman who was being groomed as a ‘Black Widow’ suicide bomber in Moscow has revealed the barbarity behind the terrorist cell which unleashed last week’s airport bomb in the Russian capital, it was claimed yesterday.

Before fleeing the extremist Islamic gang, Zeinat Suyunova was being schooled for the airport bombing, or a planned attack on a shopping centre almost underneath the Kremlin, say investigators.

Now being debriefed by Russian intelligence, she is giving crucial information on preparations for the deadly attack under the radar of the secret services, claimed a Russian media report yesterday.

The mother of one told how she discovered to her shock that her devout Moslem husband — the father of her baby daughter who she met when she studied at a respected medical academy in southern Russia — was involved in perpetrating a terrorist atrocity.

Soon afterwards she was kidnapped, her daughter taken from her. She was told the child would be killed unless she became a bomber to avenge her husband’s capture by the Russian secret services.

‘They threatened to kill my daughter if I did not agree to go to Moscow and help with explosions,’ she told investigators.

They kept threatening, on and on, and in the end I agreed.’

She said: ‘I did not have a choice. My daughter was kidnapped by these people. I was told that either I go and do the explosion, or my daughter will be killed.’

In Moscow, she was kept in a hotel with another young woman named Aminat as they were trained for explosions at Domodedovo airport, and an underground shopping centre close to Red Square.

However, Aminat — believed to be the wife of an extremist leader in strife-torn Dagestan — was killed accidentally detonating a belt packed with explosives. Another version says she died when a spam text message on her mobile set off the explosive device on 31 December.

Suyunova then claims she fled to the south of Russia where she later gave herself up, and is now back in Moscow assisting the FSB secret services.

The terrorists went ahead with the airport plan, killing 35 people, but did not carry out the shopping centre attack. It is unknown if she has been re-united with her baby.

Experts said that the bomb — which targeted foreigners arriving at the Moscow airport killing one Briton — had a sophisticated device allowing it to be detonated either by the man carrying it, or remotely.

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Via the Soros-funded lefty cesspool Think Progress:

Thousands of Egyptians continue to take to the streets in protest of President Hosani Mubarak’s 30-year-long authoritarian regime. But while the Obama Administration inches towards public support for the Egyptian people, many Republican hardliners are throwing up roadblocks to U.S. endorsement of democratic reform. Their delusion-du-jour? The threat of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Those who subscribe to Rep. Thaddeus McCotter’s (R-MI) and Amb. John Bolton’s fear-mongering warn that the inevitable result of this pro-democracy movement will be the enfranchisement of the Muslim Brotherhood and other anti-American “jihadist nutjobs.”

Today on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, former International Atomic Energy Agency director, Egyptian activist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Mohamed El Baradei blasted the delusion as a “myth” lacking “one iota of reality.”

HT: Angry American

Update to this post from earlier today: NYC Mayor Bloomberg Running Gun Show Sting Operations in Arizona

(Daily Telegraph) — Ministers secretly advised Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan regime how to secure the successful early release of the Lockerbie bomber, documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph have disclosed.

A Foreign Office minister sent Libyan officials detailed legal advice on how to use Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s cancer diagnosis to ensure he was released from a Scottish prison on compassionate grounds.

The Duke of York is also said to have played a behind-the-scenes role in encouraging the terrorist’s release.

The Libyans closely followed the advice which led to the controversial release of Megrahi — who was convicted of the murder of 270 passengers on Pan Am Flight 103 — within months of the Foreign Office’s secret intervention.

The disclosure seriously undermines British Government claims that is was not complicit in the release of al-Megrahi, and that the decision to free the convicted terrorist was taken by the Scottish Executive alone.

It will also lead to renewed pressure from senior American politicians on David Cameron to release all internal documents detailing Britain’s role in the scandal. Last summer, the Prime Minister pledged to release the relevant information — but the publication has yet to occur sparking fears that a cover-up may have been ordered.

As if the Copts don’t have it bad enough.

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt—Like the protesters who have flooded the streets of Egypt in the past week, the country’s large minority of Coptic Christians worry about joblessness and lack of freedoms. But most want President Hosni Mubarak to stay in power.

Fear of what may follow the removal of Mr. Mubarak, a secular strongman who has ruled the country for the past 30 years, is making reluctant supporters out of the country’s Christians, an estimated 10% of Egypt’s 80 million population. Mr. Mubarak has been aggressive in pursuing perceived Islamist extremist groups, a policy that has endeared him to Coptic Christians, not to mention the U.S.

Many Copts worry that Mr. Mubarak’s exit would leave them dangerously exposed—either by chaos, or to a government that may be more tolerant of Islamist extremists.

Pope Shenouda III, head of the Coptic Church, expressed support for Mr. Mubarak in an interview with Egyptian state television on Monday. “We have called the president and told him we are all with you and the people are with you,” Mr. Shenouda said, according to a transcript of the interview on the state television’s website.

I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

One rocket nearly scored a direct hit on a wedding party.

(JPost)- The relative calm in the South was shattered on Monday night when Palestinians in Gaza fired a barrage of powerful Grad rockets and mortar shells at the western Negev.

One Grad-type rocket fired from Gaza smashed into the town of Ofakim and a second rocket slammed into Netivot, not far from a building where a wedding celebration was taking place.

Four people were treated for shock from the attack on Netivot and a vehicle was damaged.

Wedding guests reported hearing a deafening explosion, and say that the Color Red rocket alert system failed to go off. The IDF Home Front Command said it would look into why alert was not activated.

No injuries or damage were reported in the attack on Ofakim.

Isn’t judicial activism a hallmark of the left?

(Whitehouse.gov) — Today, a judge in Florida issued a decision in a case filed by 25 Republican Attorneys General and Governors striking down the Affordable Care Act. This ruling is well out of the mainstream of judicial opinion. Twelve federal judges have already dismissed challenges to the constitutionality of the health reform law, and two judges — in the Eastern District of Michigan and Western District of Virginia — have upheld the law. In one other case, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia issued a very narrow ruling on the constitutionality of the health reform law’s “individual responsibility” provision and upheld the rest of the law.

Today’s ruling — issued by Judge Vinson in the Northern District of Florida — is a plain case of judicial overreaching. The judge’s decision contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent that support the considered judgment of the democratically elected branches of government that the Act’s “individual responsibility” provision is necessary to prevent billions of dollars of cost-shifting every year by individuals without insurance who cannot pay for the health care they obtain. And the judge declared that the entire law is null and void even though the only provision he found unconstitutional was the “individual responsibility” provision. This decision is at odds with decades of established Supreme Court law, which has consistently found that courts have a constitutional obligation to preserve as a much of a statute as can be preserved. As a result, the judge’s decision puts all of the new benefits, cost savings and patient protections that were included in the law at risk.

Exactly when is Weiner not pissed?

(The Hill)- Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) says he’s “still pissed” that Democrats gave up on including a public option in their healthcare reform bill.

On the heels of a federal judge’s ruling on Monday striking down the entirety of President Obama’s healthcare law as unconstitutional, Weiner expressed regret that his party abandoned a government-run health insurance option.

Weiner had been a leading proponent of the public option during the months-long healthcare debate in Congress. But his party’s leadership had to cut it from the bill after centrist Democrats in the Senate refused to vote to advance legislation that included the controversial provision.

Someone just got bit in the ass.

(Washington Times) — In ruling against President Obama’s health care law, federal JudgeRoger Vinson used Mr. Obama’s own position from the 2008 campaign against him, arguing that there are other ways to tackle health care short of requiring every American to purchase insurance.

“I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that ‘if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,’” Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote toward the end of the 78-page ruling Monday.

Judge Vinson, a federal judge in the northern district of Florida, struck down the entire health care law as unconstitutional on Monday, though he is allowing the Obama administration to continue to implement and enforce it while the government appeals his ruling.

The footnote was attached to the most critical part of Judge Vinson’s ruling, in which he said the “principal dispute” in the case was not whether Congress has the power to tackle health care, but whether it has the power to compel the purchase of insurance.

Judge Vinson used Mr. Obama’s campaign words from an interview with CNN to show that there are other options that could fall within the Constitution — including then-candidate Obama’s plan.

A thinly veiled attack on capitalism.

(Guardian)- The world’s current economic model is an environmental “global suicide pact” that will result in disaster if it isn’t reformed, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, warned today.

Ban said that political and business leaders need to embrace economic innovation in order to save the planet.

“We need a revolution,” he told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on how best to make the global economy sustainable. “Climate change is also showing us that the old model is more than obsolete.”

He called the current economic model a recipe for “national disaster” and said: “We are running out of time. Time to tackle climate change, time to ensure sustainable … growth.” The Guardian revealed yesterday that Ban is ending his hands-on efforts to reach a global climate deal through UN negotiations, and move to focus on a broader sustainability agenda.

Tell that to the people who live there.

(The Hill)- Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issued a stern warning to Mexican drug cartels on Monday as she vowed to push Congress to revamp U.S. immigration laws.

“It is inaccurate to state, as too many have, that the border is overrun with violence and out of control,” Napolitano said in prepared remarks. “This statement — often made only to score political points — is just plain wrong.”

“Not only does it ignore all of the statistical evidence, it also belittles the significant progress that effective law enforcement has made to protect this border and the people who live alongside it.”

Like Obama said, “elections have consequences.”

(Daily Caller)- Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming introduced legislation Monday afternoon that would prohibit federal agencies from regulating greenhouse gases without a direct mandate from Congress.

The Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act seeks to stop bureaucracies from unilaterally passing economically unsound regulations for the sole purpose of addressing climate change. It has seven co-sponsors, including Republican Sens. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and John Thune of South Dakota.

“It’s time for the administration to face the facts: Americans rejected cap and trade because they know it means higher energy prices and lost jobs,” said Barrasso in a statement.  “Washington agencies are now trying a backdoor approach to regulate our climate by abusing existing laws.  Congress must step in and stand up for the American people.”

Barrasso’s bill is the first to be introduced in the Senate this year to fight back against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new regulations on carbon dioxide emissions. Senate Republicans have also been working closely with Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan to craft a coordinated strategy to at least delay implementation of the rules.

Upton serves as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The Boy Wonder strikes again.

(Reuters) — If Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak is toppled, Israel will lose one of its very few friends in a hostile neighborhood and President Barack Obama will bear a large share of the blame, Israeli pundits said on Monday.

Political commentators expressed shock at how the United States as well as its major European allies appeared to be ready to dump a staunch strategic ally of three decades, simply to conform to the current ideology of political correctness.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told ministers of the Jewish state to make no comment on the political cliffhanger in Cairo, to avoid inflaming an already explosive situation. But Israel’s President Shimon Peres is not a minister.

“We always have had and still have great respect for President Mubarak,” he said on Monday. He then switched to the past tense. “I don’t say everything that he did was right, but he did one thing which all of us are thankful to him for: he kept the peace in the Middle East.”

Newspaper columnists were far more blunt.

One comment by Aviad Pohoryles in the daily Maariv was entitled “A Bullet in the Back from Uncle Sam.” It accused Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of pursuing a naive, smug, and insular diplomacy heedless of the risks.

Who is advising them, he asked, “to fuel the mob raging in the streets of Egypt and to demand the head of the person who five minutes ago was the bold ally of the president . . . an almost lone voice of sanity in a Middle East?”

“The politically correct diplomacy of American presidents throughout the generations . . . is painfully naive.”

“The question is, do we think Obama is reliable or not,” said an Israeli official, who declined to be named.

“Right now it doesn’t look so. That is a question resonating across the region not just in Israel.”

Writing in Haaretz, Ari Shavit said Obama had betrayed “a moderate Egyptian president who remained loyal to the United States, promoted stability and encouraged moderation.”

The ruling states that ObamaCare’s individual mandate “unconstitutional” and “not severable,” declaring the entire act “void.”

Update: Here’s the story.

(Forbes) — In a ruling out of the U.S. District Court in Pensacola Justice Roger Vinson has declared that the primary mechanism whereby the health reform achieves universal insurance coverage–the individual mandate–is unconstitutional.

With this ruling, and a similar one in December by Judge Henry Hudson in Virgina, it’s likely that the U.S. Surpreme Court will be the final arbiter of whether ObamaCare stands. (Two other lawsuits — one in Michigan and one in Virginia — were thrown out by other federal district judges last year who disagreed with the constitutional challenge.)

Henry Hudson, the Virginia judge who ruled in favor of that state’s legal challenge, focused on whether Congress has the ability, via the Commerce Clause, to force uninsured people to buy insurance. He concluded that it does not. Vinson, on the other hand, signaled in an earlier ruling that he was interested in whether the federal fine for not buying insurance is a tax or a penalty. If it’s a penalty, the legislation relies on a broad Commerce Clause interpretation. If it’s a tax, it’s much more difficult to make a constitutional claim against it.

In today’s ruling he writes: “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void. This has been a difficult decision to reach, and I am aware that it will have indeterminable implications.”

Copy of the ruling:

Vinson Ruling

Update II: I just heard Shep Smith on Fox News say a “lot of people love” ObamaCare. What planet does this guy live on?

Update III: Again, the entire law must be voided!

(TPM) — A federal district court judge in Florida ruled today that a key provision in the new health care law is unconstitutional, and that the entire law must be voided.

Roger Vinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee, agreed with the 26 state-government plaintiffs that Congress exceeded its authority by passing a law penalizing individuals who do not have health insurance.

“I must reluctantly conclude that Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the Act with the individual mandate,” Vinson writes. “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.”

Credit where it’s due.

Washington (CNN) — Top Obama advisor David Axelrod, who left the White House last week to lay the groundwork for the president’s reelection campaign, is already needling a potential Republican rival.

In an interview with USA Today, Axelrod goes out of his way to credit Mitt Romney for implementing a universal health care plan when he was governor of Massachusetts that shares many similarities with the White House-backed law that has proved so unpopular with Republicans.

“We got some good ideas from him,” said Axelrod in a clear effort to highlight Romney’s involvement with implementing a law similar to that which is so disliked among Republicans nationwide.

Romney has stood by the 2006 implementation of universal health care in Massachusetts, but has said it was drafted to address Massachusetts’s problems, no those of the entire nation.

HT: Cubachi

Call me crazy but this seems to be a tad outside his jurisdiction.

Via Washington Examiner:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg may prefer “No Labels” but in his case, I think “gun grabber” is a pretty fitting one. As part of his misguided crusade to tighten up gun laws nationally, The New York Times reports that Hizzoner sent undercover cops to gun shows in Arizona and found they were violating the law:

In two instances, the New York undercover officers specifically said before buying a gun, “I probably couldn’t pass a background check,” but were still sold guns, city officials said.

In a third case, an investigator bought a Glock pistol and two high-capacity magazines like the ones used in the Tucson shooting. Such purchases were made without any background check but were perfectly legal.

Mr. Bloomberg’s office, which will release details of the undercover investigation on Monday, has for years pushed for tighter firearms laws. Since the Tucson shooting, Mr. Bloomberg has enlisted in his effort Daniel Hernandez, an intern in the office of Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. The congresswoman was the most seriously wounded, and Mr. Hernandez held her until emergency personnel arrived.

While some shady things might have occurred at the gun show and the authorities should be made aware of the problem, I can’t help but find New York’s investigation very unseemly.

Keep reading…

Errrr, you’re welcome?

(Telegraph)- Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood yesterday asserted itself in anti-government protests, blaming America for the unrest because of its support for President Hosni Mubarak.

Esam al-Erian, a senior member of the executive council, said the West’s fears for Egypt’s future were due to America’s “foolish policies”.

“America’s alliances are being exposed, one by one,” he told The Daily Telegraph on Monday. “You can take in the view from Tunisia to Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen and even Palestine to see what has happened.”

Mr Erian was one of 34 Muslim Brotherhood leaders arrested in advance of last Friday’s demonstrations but released when prisons were emptied on Saturday night. He arrived in Tahrir Square on Sunday evening to a hero’s welcome, and told the crowds they would hold fast “however many martyrs there are”.

The Brotherhood, which seeks to rebuild Egypt’s government on Islamic lines and has until this month presented the best-organised opposition to Mr Mubarak, says it does not want to take a leadership position in any interim government. But it has given its backing to attempts to form a government of national unity by Mohammed ElBaradei, the former United Nations nuclear agency head who has become an opposition figurehead.

And they’re right.

…Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu warned against the takeover of Egypt by “an organised Islamic group” as had happened in Iran.

The “protest of the millions” march is set to go ahead on Tuesday in Cairo, with reports that Alexandria will also have a mass march.

However, there have been some signs of disagreement within the opposition, with the largest group, the Muslim Brotherhood, appearing to go back on its endorsement of leading figure Mohamed ElBaradei as a negotiator with Mr Mubarak.

A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsy, told the BBC: “The Muslim Brotherhood is much stronger than Mohamed ElBaradei.”

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