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NIAF TO HOST ITALIAN AMERICAN RALLY FOR JUDGE ALITO IN N.J.             (Washington, DC—December 20, 2005)  The National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) will host a rally in support of the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., with the Italian-American community in Jersey City, N.J.,  on Friday morning, January 6.  The bi-partisan rally will be held at the Hyatt Regency Jersey City on the Hudson, 2 Exchange Place, Jersey City, in the Manhattan Grand Ballroom at 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.              Constitutional law experts and fellow attorneys including: Honorable Donald DiFrancesco, former Acting Governor of New Jersey; Justice Marie...

A young "Sopranos" actor accused in the slaying of an off-duty police officer said in a jailhouse interview he's sorry and didn't know his alleged burglary accomplice was carrying a gun. Lillo Brancato Jr., who appeared opposite Robert De Niro "A Bronx Tale" and more recently was in several episodes of "The Sopranos," was charged with murder and other counts in the Dec. 10 shooting of Daniel Enchautegui during a gunfight. He told the New York Post in an interview published Thursday that he wept while reading a newspaper account of Enchautegui's funeral. "When I saw the picture of his...

A hot issue will be a 1991 ruling on a Pennsylvania law requiring a woman to tell her husband before having an abortion — except in cases where spousal abuse or threat is involved or the child isn't her husband's. Alito voted to uphold the provision, which was later struck down by the Supreme Court. Polls, however, show most Americans favor spousal-notification laws. But Alito's dissent was limited and said nothing about his overall legal views on abortion. In more recent cases, he ruled against a ban on "partial-birth" abortion and against restrictions on Medicaid-funded abortions for rape victims. Italian-American...

National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) Statement: The NIAF is distressed by the attempts of some senators and the media (CNN, CBS) to marginalize Judge Samuel Alito's outstanding record, by frequent reference to his Italian heritage and by the use of the nickname, "Scalito." Appropriately, no one mentioned that Justice Breyer was Jewish or suggested that he was lock-step ideologically with the other Jewish Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it would have been outrageous to do so. We still do not know Justice Robert's ethnicity. We are justly proud of Justice Alito's Italian heritage and his sterling academic and judicial...

MEDIA/DNC NICKNAME 'SCALITO' SEEN AS RACIALLY INSENSITIVE Mon Oct 31 2005 08:42:57 ET Before Judge Samuel Alito was even officially announced as President Bush’s next Supreme Court nominee, he met a wave of racial discrimination from numerous corners of the mainstream media and the Democrat Party. Because of Judge Alito’s conservative and Italian-American background he is often been compared to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and has been nicknamed by the mainstream media “Scalito.” This morning, on CNN’s AMERICAN MORNING host Soledad O’Brien said, “we've heard the nickname ‘Scalito’…. which is of course combining the Scalia, Justice Scalia and...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 17, 2005 – All Americans enjoy their freedoms today "because there are thousands and thousand of troops protecting us," the U.S. military's top general said at the National Italian American Foundation's annual awards dinner here Oct. 15. The NIAF recognized Marine Gen. Peter Pace for his distinguished military service. The son of an Italian immigrant, Pace recently became the first Marine appointed as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The general's name is pronounced "PAH-chay" in Italian, which means "peace." Pace was among four Italian-Americans honored at the organization's awards ceremony, which followed the dinner. America's servicemembers...

 ANTONIN SCALIA, US SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, NAMED GRAND MARSHAL OF NEW YORK’S COLUMBUS DAY PARADEJustice Celebrated In Pageant of Italian-American AchievementNew York, NY, September 23, 2005 - Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, will be Grand Marshal of Manhattan’s 2005 Columbus Day Parade, Lawrence Auriana, president of the Columbus Citizens Foundation, announced today. The parade, which is produced by the non-profit Foundation, is the largest Columbus Day event in the world and will be held on New York’s Fifth Avenue on October 10, 2005.  "We are honored that Justice Scalia has accepted our invitation to be...

<p>NEW YORK -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said Saturday that he had not expected President Bush to nominate him to replace the late William Rehnquist as chief justice. "I'm not even sure I wanted it, to tell you the truth," Scalia told reporters at a media briefing before a gala dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan Bush, who had in the past mentioned Scalia as one role model for an ideal chief justice, passed on Scalia and nominated John Roberts after Rehnquist's death. Scalia said the time he would have had to devote to administering the court as chief justice would have taken away from his thinking and writing.</p>

Rosen: Columbus clash, 2005 September 30, 2005 We're about a week away from Denver's annual Columbus Day confrontation. Each year at this time, Italian-Americans lawfully assemble to hold a parade honoring Christopher Columbus and celebrating their heritage while the usual suspects - professional Indian activists, assorted lefties and recreational demonstrators who do this kind of thing for fun - violate the civil rights of paraders

We're about a week away from Denver's annual Columbus Day confrontation. Each year at this time, Italian-Americans lawfully assemble to hold a parade honoring Christopher Columbus and celebrating their heritage while the usual suspects - professional Indian activists, assorted lefties and recreational demonstrators who do this kind of thing for fun - violate the civil rights of paraders and seek to block and disrupt the event. There's one new wrinkle this year. The Denver City council, in June, passed new ordinances that specifically outlaw the obstruction or disruption of duly authorized parades like this. In the past, the law was...

Celebrity panel examines popular perceptions of Italian-Americans SOUTH ORANGE, N.J. - Comedian Joe Piscopo wants to change the popular stereotypes of Italian-Americans promoted on television and in movies. The former "Saturday Night Live" star attended a panel discussion at Seton Hall University Saturday that examined why, according to one attendee, prejudice against Italians is tacitly accepted in popular culture. Piscopo, who said he is embarrassed by some of the stereotypical Italian characters he has played, is at work on a movie that portrays an Italian-American family from northern New Jersey. He is determined to get the film made, though he...

BOSTON (AP) - In this land of Kennedys, O'Neills, Fitzgeralds and Flynns, where shamrocks grace the jerseys of the basketball team, the Italians are taking over. With the ascendancy of Salvatore DiMasi to the speakership of the Massachusetts House last week, Italian-Americans hold the two top positions in the state Legislature for the first time in its 224-year history. "Finally," said Sheryl Iftikhar (maiden name Spataro), who works at a convenience store in DiMasi's lifelong home, the city's North End, a neighborhood where visitors can buy signs that read "Parking for Italians Only." DiMasi, who took over from Irishman Tom...

Dona DeSanctis is fine with the occasional Mafia movie or, as she puts it, a TV ad "where a big, fat Italian woman is doing somersaults in a field just because the spaghetti sauce comes in a jar." But DeSanctis, deputy executive director of the Order Sons of Italy in Washington, D.C., finds nothing funny about "Shark Tale," a DreamWorks animated feature set for release in October. DeSanctis' organization is collaborating with Italian-American activists in Chicago and across the nation who are angered by the movie's sharks -- big-nosed, brutish-looking wiseguys with names such as "Don Brizzi" and "Don Lino."...

A little New Year's humor... You Know You're Italian If... You have many relatives named either Joe or Mary, and you have at least one brother named Joe You grew up in a small house, but you still had two kitchens. (One was in the basement)When you were growing up, you had five cousins all living on the same streetWhen you were growing up, you thought that all wine was red and that it only came in gallon jugs If someone in your family grows beyond 6’ 2”, it’s presumed that the mother had an affair There were more than...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. beverage giant Coca-Cola says it will stop showing a short film showing mafia toughs intimidating movie viewers after a barrage of complaints from Italian-American groups. The film, "Mafia Movie Madness," by graduate student Jordan Ross, won the 2003 Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker Award and was released as a pre-movie reel in early November to chains that included Loews Cineplex and Regal Entertainment Group."We regret that anyone was offended and we are removing it from theatres by tomorrow," a Coca-Cola spokeswoman said on Thursday.The film shows one movie patron getting jumped after ignoring a gray-suited usher's order...

Columbus Day was the product of the Italian population of New York City, which organized the first celebration of the discovery of America on October 12, 1866. In 1869, the Italian – American population of San Francisco celebrated October 12, as Columbus Day. It was not until 1905, that a state, Colorado, observed a Columbus Day and in 1937 FDR proclaimed October 12 Columbus Day. Today Columbus Day is disparaged by liberal multiculturalists who distort the history of Christopher Columbus and has been since 1992. An October 2, 2003 post to the Portland Independent Media Center addressed the issue of...

<p>"The journey of the explorer from Genoa is one of the great stories of daring and discovery," President Bush said in a Columbus Day observance.</p> <p>"Every aspect of our culture, whether it be art or music, to law and politics, owes something to the influence of Italian Americans," Mr. Bush said.</p>

<p>President Bush yesterday asserted his authority as the chief decision maker on postwar Iraq and lashed out at critics for portraying his advisers as paralyzed by political infighting.</p> <p>"The person who is in charge is me," Mr. Bush said in an interview with Turner Broadcasting. "In all due respect to politicians here in Washington, D.C., who make comments, they're just wrong about our strategy. We've had a strategy from the beginning."</p>

Transcript of Remarks by President Bush on Columbus Day 10/13/03 12:02:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: White House Press Office, 202-456-2580 WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a transcript of remarks by President Bush on Columbus Day: Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Room 450 10:32 A.M. EDT THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, all, please be seated. Grazie, Antonio. (Laughter and applause.) Thank you all for coming. I'm honored to join you in observing Columbus Day and to celebrate Columbus Day in the District named after Christopher Columbus. The journey of the explorer from Genoa is one of the...

As Columbus Day approaches, not every American is gearing up to celebrate. Some are protesting. In what has become an annual ritual, hundreds of people banded together Friday night to stand against America's celebration of Christopher Columbus.Four groups of people, each wearing different colors meant to symbolize people of diverse races and nationalities, walked from various points in Denver starting at 5:30 p.m. and met in City of Cuernavaca Park in the Central Platte Valley.One group, dressed in yellow, burned incense, banged drums and chanted as they marched from the state Capitol down the 16th Street Mall.The group - over...