By The OttO Show, on June 2nd, 2010 | 11:05 am Israel has said it will continue a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip despite growing global pressure to lift the siege after a navy raid on a Turkish ferry carrying aid killed nine activists this week.
What is the legality of the blockade and did Israel’s intervention breach international law? Below are some questions and answers on the issue:
CAN ISRAEL IMPOSE A NAVAL BLOCKADE ON GAZA?
Yes it can, according to the law of blockade which was derived from customary international law and codified in the 1909 Declaration of London. It was updated in 1994 in a legally recognised document called the “San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea”. Under some of the key rules, a blockade must be declared and notified to all belligerents and neutral states, access to neutral ports cannot be blocked, and an area can only be blockaded which is under enemy control.
“On the basis that Hamas is the ruling entity of Gaza and Israel is in the midst of an armed struggle against that ruling entity, the blockade is legal,” said Philip Roche, partner in the shipping disputes and risk management team with law firm Norton Rose.
via Reuters AlertNet – Q&A-Is Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza legal?.
By The OttO Show, on May 31st, 2010 | 12:28 pm From 5/20/2010 speech on floor of Congress:
M. Speaker:
I rise to take strong exception to the speech of the President of Mexico while in this chamber today.
The Mexican government has made it very clear for many years that it holds American sovereignty in contempt and President Calderon’s behavior as a guest of the Congress confirms and underscores this attitude.
It is highly inappropriate for the President of Mexico to lecture Americans on American immigration policy, just as it would be for Americans to lecture Mexico on its laws.
It is obvious that President Calderon does not understand the nature of America or the purpose of our immigration law.
Unlike Mexico’s immigration law — which is brutally exclusionary — the purpose of America’s law is not to keep people out. It is to assure that as people come to the United States, they do so with the intention of becoming Americans and of raising their children as Americans.
Unlike Mexico, our nation embraces immigration and what makes that possible is assimilation.
A century ago President Teddy Roosevelt put it this way. He said:
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
That is how we have built one great nation from the people of all the nations of the world.
The largest group of immigrants now comes from Mexico. A recent RAND study discovered that during most of the 20th Century, while our immigration laws were actually enforced, assimilation worked and made possible the swift attainment of the American dream for millions of immigrants seeking to escape conditions in Mexico.
That is the broader meaning of our nation’s motto, “E Pluribus Unum” – from many people, one people, the American people.
But there is now an element in our political structure that seeks to undermine that concept of “E Pluribus Unum.” It seeks to hyphenate Americans, to develop linguistic divisions, to assign rights and preferences based on race and ethnicity, and to elevate devotion to foreign ideologies and traditions, while at the same time denigrating American culture, American values and American founding principles.
In order to do so, they know that they have to stop the process of assimilation. In order to do that, they must undermine our immigration laws.
It is an outrage that a foreign head of state would appear in this chamber and actively seek to do so. And it is a disgrace that he would be cheered on from the left wing of the White House and by many Democrats in this Congress.
Arizona has not adopted a new immigration law. All it has done is to enforce existing law that President Obama refuses to enforce. It is hardly a radical policy to suggest that if an officer on a routine traffic stop encounters a driver with no driver’s license, no passport, and who doesn’t speak English, that maybe that individual might be here illegally.
And to those who say we must reform our immigration laws – I reply that we don’t need to reform them – we need to enforce them. Just as every other government does. Just as Mexico does.
Above all, this is a debate of, by and for the American people. If President Calderon wishes to participate in that debate, I invite him to obey our immigration laws, apply for citizenship, do what 600,000 LEGAL immigrants to our nation are doing right now, learn our history and our customs, and become an American. And then he will have every right to participate in that debate.
Until then, I would politely invite him to have the courtesy while a guest of this Congress to abide by the fundamental rules of diplomacy between civilized nations not to meddle in each other’s domestic debates.
via “E Pluribus Unum” – A Response to President Calderon | Tom McClintock for Congress.
By The OttO Show, on May 31st, 2010 | 11:08 am
Thanks to Leftist activists and anti-Semites (is that redundant?), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to beat President Obama to the snub this week and cancel a White House appearance in order to address an armed conflict. Apparently, Netanyahu is more concerned about Palestinian terrorist sympathizers in the West Bank than he is about Palestinian terrorist sympathizers in Washington.
The good news is that this should free up some time for Obama to meet with Arizona governor Jan Brewer to discuss strategy on dealing with a potential Democrat voting bloc: illegal aliens. The Obama White House, while wringing it’s hands over the possibility that people might use the Arizona law to question why the feds aren’t enforcing theirs, couldn’t put aside an hour of time to meet with Brewer to discuss this controversy.
Apparently, everyone in the administration is too busy scrambling to read the ten page law that they already condemned.
With Obama touting his busy schedule, perhaps the country’s best investigative journalists (AKA James O’Keefe disguised as a caddy) can report on just how many golf games Obama squeezes in this week.
Obama was even too busy to attend the ceremony at Arlington National, instead opting to send his stand-up stand-in, Joe ‘Leave ‘em Laughing’ Biden, to place the wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
I understand that it’s not mandatory for a president to attend this sacred rite but let’s put it in perspective. Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush didn’t attend these events religiously (Bush reportedly didn’t attend any in his four year term).
The difference of course is that the military loved and respected these leaders. Reagan aimed to shave the military of its Vietnam-five-o’clock-shadow and Bush was a war hero who led a brilliant military campaign against Saddam Hussein.
Flash forward and today we have a Leftist president with a history of being on the wrong side of America’s foreign policy, including his own. Obama has done little to instill confidence and devotion to the nation’s defenders. The Fort Hood massacre saw a detached and canned response from it’s Commander-in-Chief. The Iraq War has been over since Obama was declared the president-elect in November 2008. The Afghanistan War displayed the Obama Revolving Door policy of winning a war where soldiers are sent on a round trip vacation with no goals but the promise of getting shot at.
Incidentally, Obama’s favorite soldiers are robots that drop bombs from overhead. The president is scheduled to place a wreath at the Chicago Sci-Fi convention later today.
Whoever is running Obama’s PR machine should be tried for treason. No one could accidentally make the president look this obtuse when it comes to our soldiers. But I’ll give credit where credit is due – Vice President Biden was able to walk on stage, place his hand on his heart, stand….and walk off stage without embarrassing himself or those around him. Good job, Joe!
Joe Biden really stepped up to the plate here after it became clear that the president would not and after Joe Sestak apparently turned down the offer to conduct the ceremony himself in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania senate race.
God bless those who serve, those who have served and those who are never coming home.
By The OttO Show, on May 31st, 2010 | 9:45 am HEROES UNAWARE
By Mark A. Wright
via usmemorialday.org
 God Bless I first saw him on a park bench
I’ve seen him every day
Sitting in a shady grove
Where my children come to play
Sometimes he feeds the birds and squirrels
Or whittles little toys
Sometimes he just sits and smiles
At the laughing girls and boys
And I never paid him any mind
‘Till one day just this year
I noticed that he wore a frown
And on his cheek … a tear.
Well I asked him why he seemed so down
He looked up, began to say
I lost half my friends 60 years ago today
He told me of the terror
As he fought to reach dry land
By the time the beachhead was secure
Half his friends lay in the sand
That was just in one long day
He fought on for 4 years more
And the 60 years from then to now
Have not dimmed His sights of war
He said they have reunions
Just to keep in touch and share
And for each comrade who has gone on
They leave an empty chair
Well, His park bench has been empty now
About 6 months or so
And if I’d never took the time
Then I never would’ve known
That sitting on that simple bench
With bread crumbs and little toys
Was a man who gave his all
To guarantee my daily joys
So give thanks to all the men and women
Who’re still here or have gone before
And made the highest sacrifice
In both Peace time and in War
Because they bought our freedom
Paid their own blood, sweat, and tears
Then endured the heartache of those empty chairs
For all these years
So please do not ignore them
Or speed by without a care
‘Cause you never know
When you might pass by
A hero, unaware
Note by the poet: “The old man in this story is an amalgam of my grandfather who used to sit in a chair behind his house and tell me stories of WWI after I came in from the fields at the end of the day. He was mustard-gassed there, fighting with modern weapons, but using mules. Of Noris Tanton, of Commerce Texas, who barely made it off the ship with his life at Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941. And all the other WWII survivors I have talked to throughout the years. My father-in-law, James Rowse of Wolfe City Texas, who, even though he fought in Korea, graciously considers me a Comrade in Arms because of my Naval Submarine service over the last 18 years. Lowell Clemens, Jim Sullivan, and all the other Viet Nam Vets who I have had the privilege of knowing and serving with. And lastly, all the people like Barry Shay, Thomas Galliher, Mark Heithaus, Patrick Rourk, Marv Mumblo, Chip Green, Chip Sumner, Tony Zilar and the list goes on, that I have served with on Submarines and Surface Ships, with the Marines, in clinics, Hospitals and school for all these years of turbulent peace.
My heroes Unaware.” — Mark A. Wright, HMC(SS) – 6/22/2000
By The OttO Show, on May 30th, 2010 | 11:22 pm 
Being a Washington press pooler is not that exciting. Usually it’s observing stuff even too boring for C-Span. But last night, camped outside a friend of Obama’s home, the press pool had an adventure with the Nation of Islam.
The press pool had gathered outside the Chicago home of Obama family friend Martin Nesbitt, where Obama was attending a cookout. They were waiting in a bus across the street. Chuck Todd started begging Ed Henry for a bite of his turkey sandwich. (Unconfirmed.) Little did they know, they had parked in front of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan’s mansion. The Times’ Jackie Calmes was assigned that night to write the pool report, and she filed these emails from her Blackberry detailing the press pool’s encounter with the Nation of Islam.
via White House Press Pool Barely Escapes Death at Hands of Nation of Islam Agents.
By The OttO Show, on May 16th, 2010 | 6:35 pm 
As long as there has been gossip about people in public life, there has been a debate about the relevance of a very private matter: sexual orientation. But in an era when the Internet can amplify a whisper to a roar, an arched eyebrow to a slander, the politics that drive such speculation can matter more than the facts themselves.
So it was that the process of filling the latest Supreme Court vacancy produced a first: The White House declared publicly, even before President Obama nominated Elena Kagan, that she is not a lesbian.
“False charges,” White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said after a conservative blogger wrote last month on a CBS News Web site that Kagan would be the “first openly gay justice.” LaBolt’s description of the rumor as “charges” was itself awkward, coming from a pro-gay-rights Democratic administration. His statement almost begged for a Seinfeld-esque not-that-there’s-anything-wrong-with-that qualifier.
Why the White House chose to engage on this question at all is telling of the currency and the potency of the innuendo. In an age when the Internet sometimes ignites the burners of the mainstream media, “a rumor unaddressed becomes fact,” said Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director who has reenlisted to advise on the Kagan nomination.
via Is sexual identity our business, or are we a nation of busybodies?.
By The OttO Show, on May 14th, 2010 | 11:49 pm
Here is an excerpt from a Washington Times article pointing out that Holder was bashing a law he hasn’t…read!? This excerpt has been modified. Imagine…
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who has been critical of [the United States Constitution], said Thursday he hasn’t yet read the [constitution] and is going by what he’s read in newspapers or seen on television.
Mr. Holder is conducting a review of the [constitution], at President Obama’s request, to see if the federal government should challenge it in court. He said he expects he will read the [constitution] by the time his staff briefs him on their conclusions.
Maybe he could combine legal challenges against Arizona with the KSM trial and truly embarrass himself. By the time he’s done it will be determined that KSM will not have to provide his identification and he’ll be released with an apology…
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