Learn English with Madeleine Alsberry, former first lady of the United States of America and current First Lady of the Italian American Civil Rights League. In this episode, she explains why Columbus Day is a holiday that honors the Italian-American legacy of Christopher Columbus, the first American to discover the Americas.
00:01:13.720And the indelible imprint of Italian Americans upon the very sinews of this republic.
00:01:19.760In an era where revisionist iconoclasts now seek to obliterate monuments and expunge history.
00:01:27.720This administration's refusal to capitulate to the nihilistic woke mob is both patriotic and essential to the preservation of our national soul.
00:01:38.340Christopher Columbus was not merely a seafaring adventurer with a dream.
00:01:43.260He was a visionary whose audacity defined the trajectory of human civilization.
00:01:49.380Born in Genoa in 1451, Columbus possessed an unyielding faith and an insatiable curiosity that propelled him into the unknown.
00:01:58.880In 1492, under the auspices of the Spanish crown, he traversed perilous and uncharted waters to open a gateway to the New World.
00:02:06.940A continent that would one day give rise to these United States of America.
00:02:12.440The most luminous beacon of liberty and prosperity in all human history.
00:02:17.560Columbus inaugurated an epoch of exploration, culture exchange, and geopolitical transformation that reshaped the course of humanity.
00:02:25.880His courage, his perseverance, and his unwavering conviction epitomized the quintessential American ethos.
00:02:32.720Bold, defiant, and eternally undaunted.
00:02:36.020To honor Columbus days, to honor the very inception of our national narrative.
00:02:41.540To repute eight hymns, to mutilate the prologue of the American story, and to desecrate the memory of the men and women whose great contributions set the stage for this republic to become so great.
00:02:53.360The Italian contribution to America does not begin or end with Christopher Columbus.
00:02:57.920Think of important Italian figures like Mother Frances Cabrini, one of the most indomitable missionaries in American history, born of immigrants.
00:03:09.080Or Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine navigator whose meticulous observations and cartographic precisions corrected prevailing misconceptions about the New World.
00:03:19.220It was his revelation that was so profound that it has bespoke his very name on our country, America.
00:03:27.000So without Vespucci's sagacity, the concept of the Americas as a distinct hemisphere might never even have materialized.
00:03:35.140Then, of course, there's Cesar Beccaria, the Milanese luminary whose philosophical treaties on crimes and punishment revelized criminal jurisprudence.
00:03:46.340You see, his advocacy of proportional punishment, due process, and the abolition of torture profoundly influenced the intellectual architects of our own American founding fathers.
00:03:56.960So an Italian guy informed Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, imbibing his ideas as they drafted our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
00:04:06.440Just another example of a great Italian contribution to the greatness of America.
00:04:14.960This is something I feel very strongly about.
00:04:17.160It's why I helped found the Italian American Civil Rights League.
00:04:21.480If you're interested in fighting to maintain our proud cultural heritage and our Italian American values, I urge you to join the Italian American Civil Rights League.
00:04:44.420But we are fighting to preserve Italian culture.
00:04:46.960If the next mayor turns out to be Ma'am Dami and there is an effort to remove the statue of Christopher Columbus, which he's essentially already announced, we will be there to fight that legally in the courts and to demonstrate against it in public.
00:05:04.120So you might want to check us out at IACRL.
00:05:07.440Now, the Italian influence in America is not confined to just exploration, science, politics, military history, or theology.
00:05:14.080It's omnipresent in our cultural, aesthetic, and our culinary life in this nation.
00:05:19.120The Italian culinary tradition with its emphasis on simplicity, authenticity, and excellence actually revolutionized the American palate.
00:05:28.880On this very show, I have many times given you the recipe that was my mother's recipe for Sunday gravy, also known as sauce.
00:05:38.900This could be the greatest single contribution Italian Americans have made to America, a great Sunday sauce.
00:05:46.080Italian artistry, also very big when it comes to fashion, infusing it with sophistication, craftsmanship, and some flair.
00:05:53.200I'm thinking about designers like Giorgio Armani, Gianni Versace, Miucci Prada, and others.
00:06:00.300I don't like their politics, but the Italian tailoring and design brought in a whole new vocabulary of elegance and innovation that still dominates in the world's most influential fashion capitals.
00:06:11.100And, of course, there's the area of entertainment.
00:06:13.360Stars like my friend Robert Davi, the great Frank Sinatra, Enrico Caruso, Francis Ford Coppola, who hasn't seen all of the Godfather trilogy, Martin Scorsese.
00:06:28.200So in every sphere, really, science, art, cuisine, music, politics, fashion, jurisprudence,
00:06:34.960Italian Americans have enriched and elevated the entire American experience.
00:06:40.080They have been innovators and statesmen, artists and scientists, dreamers and builders.
00:06:45.040Their contributions are not just ornamental, but they are foundational, embedded into the lifeblood of the beloved nation we love.
00:06:52.820So I'm glad to see the president say he loves his Italians and for standing up for this vitally important holiday to commemorate Italian Americans' contribution to this nation.
00:07:04.680Now, in my opinion, after yesterday, there is no question whatsoever that Donald Trump should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by that panel of Norwegian globalists who make this decision.
00:07:17.420He has been nominated by many, including Bibi Netanyahu of Israel, but also Marshall Priet, the chairman of the Tunica Biloxi Native Indian American tribe of Louisiana, as well as a number of other nations.
00:07:31.440In the meantime, the board at the Nobel Peace Facility chose Marina Corina Machado, Maria Corina Machado, who is essentially the head of the resistance in Venezuela and clearly a staunch anti-communist, a very clever choice.
00:07:50.980She is, of course, propped up by our CIA.
00:07:54.040She's our favored resistor in that struggle.
00:07:57.500But I admire her opposition to Maduro.
00:08:02.660We should give no quarter in that regard.
00:08:05.000But after Donald Trump's record, it's very hard to see how you deny him this award.
00:08:10.280I mean, not only did he get the hostages back from Gaza and get essentially a workable peace between Israel and Gaza and Hamas, pardon me, but he got a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.
00:08:24.380He ended the hostilities between India and Pakistan.
00:08:28.480He ended the war between Congo and Rwanda, which was a particularly long and bloody affair.
00:08:35.240He ended the border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia.
00:08:39.320He ended the hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
00:08:43.560In his first term, he brought the Saudis, the Syrians, Lebanese into the Abraham Accords.
00:08:51.400Once again, they said he couldn't get that deal done, but he did.
00:08:55.640This was resting on something President Nixon said that during his days he was a staunch defender and friend of Israel.
00:09:02.180But he chose to go ahead and develop individual relationships in the United States with the Saudis, the Syrians and the Lebanese, which at the time our Israeli friends were not happy about.
00:09:12.860Trump has done that in spades in his first term in the historic Abraham Accords.
00:09:20.340So here's how I think this could be made equitable.
00:09:23.080The Nobel Peace Prize committee can award the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado.
00:09:32.260But she, by all rights, should then give it to President Donald Trump and admit that he is the one who has earned this award.
00:09:41.140That's how Donald Trump can still get the Nobel Peace Prize.
00:09:43.940And frankly, I'm hopeful that that will happen.
00:09:47.320Meanwhile, shocking new release of emails proving yet again that a group of deep state actors, including CIA director John Brennan, were behind the famous effort to have 51 former or current intelligence officers insist that Hunter Biden's laptop was not real, that it was Russian disinformation.
00:10:14.100Newly released emails obtained by that great investigative journalist John Solomon, just the news show that former CIA director Mike Morrell lobbied another former CIA director, John Brennan, asking if he would join in the effort to topple the United States government during the November 3rd, 2020 election.
00:10:35.780Brennan not only agreed with Morrell, but he also expressed his gratitude that Morrell was making the effort.
00:10:41.440These guys actually colluded together on a list that claimed that Hunter Biden's email scandal was false, inferring to the public by co-signing this letter that it was Russian disinformation.
00:10:53.880Morrell made it clear that these intelligence agents were operating to give Joe Biden a talking point he could use against Trump during an upcoming debate.
00:11:12.160Morrell says to Brennan in the release documents, can I add your name to this list?
00:11:17.180I will be adding Leon Panetta, Sue Gordon, Jeff Johnson, George, I'm not sure who that is, Lisa Monaco and Mike Rogers.
00:11:25.480That's Mike Rogers, the congressman from Michigan, and lots of other IC career folk, he writes, trying to give the campaign, particularly during the debate on Thursday, a talking point and a pushback on Trump on this issue.
00:12:16.120Twenty-seven percent of voters who voted for Biden said in a post-election poll that had they known about Hunter Biden's laptop, they would not have voted for the vice president.
00:12:28.300So this yet again shows that these people, these deep state operatives, know no bounds when it comes to breaking the law or the Constitution.
00:12:39.900They had a continuing seditious conspiracy born in the Oval Office in 2017.
00:12:46.200It takes you all the way through the 2020 elections.
00:12:49.600The famous documents case on Mar-a-Lago, the raid on Mar-a-Lago, the impeachments, the New York show trials.
00:12:58.540And now that they've been caught and there's talk about prosecuting them for the laws they violated, they say this is about revenge and retribution.
00:13:07.600No, it is about accountability and justice.
00:13:11.060Those who are not guilty of crimes have nothing to fear.
00:13:13.880But this is not Donald Trump weaponizing the judiciary to go after his enemies.
00:13:18.520This is Donald Trump demanding accountability and justice for the many people who are destroyed by these lunatics in their effort to steal back the 2016 election.
00:13:31.020Don't go away because, well, we'll be right back.
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00:14:15.760Last weekend, President Donald Trump was blocked by a federal judge named Emmergut saying that he could not send National Guard troops to restore order in the city of Portland.
00:14:27.740That is almost virtually today under Antifa occupation.
00:14:32.680This is yet another example of judicial tyranny.
00:14:35.460These are left wing liberal judges who don't want to recognize the mandate won by President Trump in the last election and the legality of his authority to deport dangerous people who are in the country illegally.
00:14:48.960The governors of these left wing states call it authoritarian, although there's great historical president and different iconic presidents have actually ignored the courts in these kinds of times of crisis.
00:15:01.140President Trump may have to consider doing so.
00:15:02.940President Jackson refused to enforce the Supreme Court of the United States decision of Worcester versus Georgia because he believed that states rights were being impeded by the ruling in favor of Native American Indian tribes.
00:15:15.380The iconic, quite popularly attributed Jackson quote goes, John Marshall just made his decision.
00:15:24.480President Lincoln's also had his run in with the courts.
00:15:27.620It came also as a result of his unilateral suspension of habeas corpus.
00:15:32.080He did so in order to detain individuals suspected to be Confederate sympathizers found among military routes between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. in the midst of the Civil War.
00:15:45.200Now, when Chief Justice Roger B. Taney found Lincoln's actions to be unconstitutional and ordered a prisoner to be free, Lincoln actually refused to comply.
00:15:54.180He testified it to Congress by saying, are all laws but one to go unexecuted and the government itself goes to pieces.
00:17:04.140I think he has to think very carefully about his pledge to put America first.
00:17:08.820The idea that the National Guard would not defend the men in Chicago who were endangered, indeed, who were threatened by a violent mob that had cornered these ICE agents,
00:17:27.180cornered by Antifa thugs, that they would not have the backup of the National Guard, as ordered by the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Chicago, is shocking indeed.
00:17:37.880Donald Trump is going to be the law and order president, just as he promised.
00:17:43.800And this continued deportation, the largest peacetime deportation in American history, continues apace, although left wing judges and Democrat attorney generals tried to get in the way.
00:18:19.700New York Attorney General Letitia James, a woman who campaigned on a platform pledging to, quote, get Trump, woman who also famously said no person is above the law, was indicted herself last week for mortgage fraud and bank fraud.
00:18:40.420This story began when Bill Pulte, the head of the federal housing finance agency and the fraud office at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac flagged these public documents that prove that Letitia James, the same year Donald Trump was on trial in Manhattan.
00:19:01.020Within weeks of that, signed a power of attorney that allowed her to obtain a favorable mortgage rate on a home in Virginia.
00:19:10.520But she says in the power of attorney, which is not some blank form to which she has signed her name.
00:19:16.580It is a draft by her attorney, witnessed by another lawyer in the New York Attorney General's office that she would owner occupy, that she would live in the property in Virginia in order to get the lower mortgage rate.
00:19:31.640Of course, were she to actually do so, she would be ineligible to be governor of the state of New York under the New York state constitution.
00:19:41.880The New York Times did their very best to airbrush this away this weekend in a pathetic defense.
00:19:49.440What they don't seem to recognize is that this is not just a first instance.
00:19:53.780In the case of Letitia James, you have a 43 year one woman crime spree in getting her very first mortgage 43 years ago.
00:20:04.400She falsely claimed that her father was her husband in order to use his balance sheet to to apply and be approved for the mortgage.
00:20:16.020Then some decades later, she buys an investment property and gets a HAMP loan, which specifically requires that the investment property be for units and other and under.
00:20:30.400She says in her applications for the mortgage that the facility is for units when in fact is five and ineligible mortgage fraud.
00:20:39.020Then we learn that she has mortgages that are not reflected at all on her file.
00:20:49.260It was Sam Antar, the great fraud investigator who figured out that the property in Norfolk, Virginia, which had a value ascertained and appraised at between $100,000 and $150,000 had two mortgages, one for $150,000 to under $250,000 and a second national mortgage for $100,000 under $150,000.
00:21:17.680So the total mortgages are somewhere between $250,000 and $400,000 on a property with a value that is estimated to be $100,000 to $150,000.
00:21:32.060In other words, Letitia James did exactly what she falsely accused Donald Trump of doing.
00:21:38.460She complains today in an interview with Joy Reid that mortgage fraud prosecutions are rare.
00:21:47.420She herself did two of them, and she posted about them to brag about it on Twitter.
00:21:52.240And speaking of rare, the law under which she charged Donald Trump, claiming that he falsely inflated the value of his assets in order to secure real estate development loans, for which the lenders made $40 million in interest,
00:22:10.280every one of whom would have said they would have lent to the Trump Organization again, except for the judge wouldn't let any of them testify at this sham of a trial.
00:22:19.920The stage was set for the prosecution of New York Attorney General Letitia James when the president fired the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
00:22:35.940But he fired him not over Letitia James' case, but over his handling of the case of former FBI Director James Comey.
00:22:46.640You see, Eric Siebert, the U.S. Attorney, never disclosed that his father-in-law, that is, his wife's father, was James Comey's daughter's godfather.
00:22:59.720That's an extraordinary conflict of interest, and Eric Siebert, the deep state prosecutor approved by the two Democrat senators from Virginia,
00:23:10.060originally recommended to President Trump by Governor Glenn Youngkin, instead had prepared a 51-page memo
00:23:19.620while outlining all the reasons why James Comey should not be prosecuted, evidently in league with some at the Department of Justice.
00:24:49.200And even with that attempt, Halligan, essentially without as much as a laptop from the DOJ,
00:24:55.580went before a grand jury of Letitia James' peers, and she got an indictment for mortgage fraud and bank fraud.
00:25:05.620Sources tell me that there will be superseding indictments, meaning that Letitia James is likely to be charged with additional downstream crimes.
00:25:15.780It's very common, lawyers tell me, in these kinds of cases.
00:25:19.280So I think we'll be looking at tax-related charges, maybe other fraud charges.
00:26:10.300But this is an ongoing effort by the president who has made it very clear to the Department of Justice that he wants to see those who broke the law in their legal and extra-legal efforts to get him, to destroy him, prosecuted.
00:26:25.900That's not about revenge or retribution.
00:26:29.780That's about accountability and justice, whether it is Jack Smith or whether it was Robert Mueller or whether it was John Brennan in the CIA or whether it was Barack Obama in the White House.
00:26:43.480There was a seditious conspiracy now proven by Tulsi Gabbard to have begun in July of 2017 in the Oval Office, carrying you all the way through the 2020 election, where Tulsi Gabbard is now looking at the integrity of the electronic voting machines, all the way to the 2024 campaign and the raid in Mar-a-Lago.
00:27:06.380And now when you talk about those people in terms of holding them accountable and indicting them, the radical left screams that Trump is using and weaponizing the criminal justice system to attack his political enemies.
00:27:21.840In other words, that's an almost exact explanation and description of what they themselves did.
00:27:29.440Do they think we do not recall their efforts to destroy Donald Trump and his family, their efforts to destroy me?
00:27:36.380Their efforts to destroy General Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos and others.
00:27:43.440So this is and the tactics of Jack Smith.
00:27:47.780Not only do they spy on Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, making up evidence, fabricating evidence to satisfy the FISA court in order to get a warrant to spy on Trump's campaign,
00:27:59.260for which Leslie Stahl still has not apologized to Donald Trump for their famous 60 minutes dust up over this.
00:28:07.140But they later on, Jack Smith is actually spying on eight Republican members of the U.S. Senate.
00:28:16.040Jack Smith actually gets a D.C. judge to rule that Donald Trump's attorneys in the so-called papers case have to testify against him and have to turn over all their work materials.
00:28:27.580And then they make up this idea that having an alternative slate of electors prior to the certification of the Electoral College is somehow a crime,
00:28:42.480even though it actually has a rich tradition in our American politics in the campaign of 1877, specifically also in 1960.
00:28:51.020It's not criminal when there is a dispute over the outcome of an election to file an alternative slate of electors in the event that you are successful in court and those electors are seated.
00:29:03.340And they were anticipating a legal challenge.
00:29:07.840I famously wrote a letter to the president.
00:29:10.220I said everyone who has protested the outcome of this election should get a universal pardon.
00:29:16.700Every Republican senator, every Republican congressman, every member of your staff, every one of the advocates on your behalf.
00:29:22.760And the left said, oh, Roger Stone just wants a second pardon for what he did on January 6th.
00:29:27.300No, I didn't do anything wrong on January 6th.
00:29:29.720I wasn't at the Capitol on January 6th.
00:29:31.760The FBI proved that I knew nothing about the events at the Capitol on January 6th.
00:29:36.820I suggested correctly that the Democrats would claim that just disputing the election of 2020 would in itself be a crime.
00:29:47.340And Jeff Clark, for example, who was the Justice Department lawyer advising the president on the contours of the Electoral College and was permissible.
00:30:35.680Now, the government does pay for essential services like Social Security checks and the military get their pay and so on.
00:30:42.260But it just demonstrates to you the real little impact the federal government has on your everyday life.
00:30:50.120And this is one of those shutdowns where the Republicans are not taking the blame.
00:30:55.560This is very clear that the Republicans were prepared to move forward at current levels of spending, so-called continuing resolution.
00:31:04.200Leaves everything the way it is, just funds the government at the current levels.
00:31:07.420We all know spending needs to be cut, but for the time being, to keep the government open, that's a reasonable position.
00:31:13.980The Democrats insisted that they would only sign on to a continuing resolution if it includes $1.5 billion for health insurance, essentially, for illegal immigrants.
00:31:28.240That is the nub of the issue, as much as the Democrats say it is not.
00:31:32.700Meanwhile, the president has the authority to shut entire departments of government, to fire hundreds of thousands of employees who no longer show up to work and whose job is ill-defined.
00:31:46.300And Russ Vogt, the director of the Management and Budget Office, is an extraordinarily smart, capable guy who's been planning to downsize the government since Donald Trump's first term.
00:31:59.400So I think that the shutdown is good for America.
00:32:03.520I don't think the Republicans are going to suffer for it at the ballot box, because the average American does not feel the impact at all.
00:32:13.020And Chuck Schumer, who knows better, is essentially folding his progressive left wing.
00:32:20.380He's deathly afraid of AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Bernie Sanders, and the radical ilk of his party.
00:32:30.060And he knows that they will topple him in a primary if he does not toe the Marxist progressive line.
00:32:56.540Here we're obsessed with politics, and therefore we're very closely watching the only two off-year gubernatorial races.
00:33:04.240One in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the other in New Jersey.
00:33:09.080Both races are becoming more and more exciting.
00:33:12.020It was originally thought that Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears would be easily defeated by Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger.
00:33:21.440But a new poll shows that Sears has surged to 45% of the vote.
00:33:28.260Spanberger, who previously had a solid double-digit lead, now at 47% of the vote.
00:33:35.040It's very clear that Sears is coming on strong, particularly on the basis of a very strong debate performance.
00:33:44.680You see damning text messages from the Democrat candidate for attorney general, a fellow named Jay Jones,
00:33:51.320where he actually advocated for political violence against Republicans,
00:33:55.880is causing the ticket in Virginia to sink like a stone.
00:33:59.420None of the Democrats stuck on the ticket with Jay Jones will denounce his radical musings.
00:34:06.660The poll shows that Jones is now trailing his Republican opponent, Jason Mayaris, by a margin of 43 to 48 with the Republican head.
00:34:18.000And then there's the upcoming race across the river in New Jersey.
00:34:22.000She did a rally on the basis of a very strong debate performance and a series of unforced errors by Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill,
00:34:33.240clearly closing in on the real possibility of victory in what is normally a very, very blue state.
00:34:40.460Turns out that Mikey Sherrill tripled her net worth inside her trading dealings based on information she received as a member of the House National Committee on National Defense.
00:35:00.020When faced with the question, she said she couldn't remember whether she'd made the $7 million trade.
00:35:07.300Whether you're a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent, you don't like corruption, and this is epically corrupt.
00:35:17.280Sherrill also tries to fudge on the issues of men playing in women's sports.
00:35:23.720Once again, she, like Chuck Schumer in New York, is captive of the more left radicals within her party.
00:35:31.940But Republicans are coming on very strong in both races.
00:35:36.400Interestingly enough, Cliff Maloney, who we've had right here in the Stone Zone, the father of the Pennsylvania chase,
00:35:43.760the amazing grassroots door-to-door effort to identify and turn out voters for Donald Trump in the Keystone State in the last election,
00:35:52.280was incredibly successful, has now swung into action into New Jersey.
00:35:58.380They have over 150 people on the ground knocking on doors identifying Republicans who haven't voted recently and other potential supporters for Shittarelli.
00:36:12.140So you'll see a real grassroots shoe leather campaign in both states.
00:36:17.900I'm going to caution those who may be celebrating too soon.
00:36:23.640The Democrat machines in places like Camden and Essex, that's Newark, and in Bergen County,
00:36:31.100are adept at vote stealing, manipulation of the vote.
00:36:35.860So Republicans are going to have to be certain they get an honest count.
00:36:39.220But if they get an honest count, I think Jack Cittarelli could very well be the next governor of the Garden State.
00:36:47.380Once again, New Jersey, once a swing state, now choking in high taxes and soft on crime policies,
00:36:55.120which have really affected the quality of life, creating that rare opportunity for a Republican.
00:37:03.120Combine that with the fact that the Democrats nominated an elitist congresswoman who knows more about events in Washington than she does in Trenton.
00:37:14.860And I think you could have the makings of an upset.
00:37:18.320New Jersey is a state that I know well, having handled the election of Thomas H. Cain in 1981.
00:37:23.560He won by 1,209 votes out of over 2 million cast and proud to have run the state for Ronald Reagan in multiple campaigns.
00:37:34.760Yes, I do think New Jersey could go red.
00:37:38.420That's it for us today on The Stone's Own.