FSTDT

Frank M. Nucera Jr #racist philly.com

The former police chief of Bordentown Township said blacks are “like ISIS, they have no value,” mused about joining a firing squad to mow them down, and used police dogs to intimidate black spectators at high school basketball games, federal authorities said Wednesday in announcing assault and hate-crime charges against him.

Frank M. Nucera Jr. has “a significant history of making racist comments concerning African Americans,” according to a criminal complaint filed by the FBI in federal court in Camden.

The charges stem from an incident a year ago in which Nucera allegedly attacked a handcuffed black suspect who was already in police control in the Burlington County town. He made a series of anti-black remarks following the assault, authorities said, remarks that were secretly recorded by an officer in his department who was alarmed by the chief’s hostility toward the community.

In the Sept. 1, 2016, incident, an 18-year-old African American man, accused of not paying his motel bill, was pepper-sprayed and placed in handcuffs, and was being led to the top of a motel stairwell by two Bordentown Township officers when Nucera arrived. The chief approached the suspect from behind and “slammed his head into a door jamb,” according to an affidavit filed by the FBI.

Acting U.S. Attorney William E. Fitzpatrick and FBI Special Agent in Charge Timothy Gallagher announced the bias and civil rights charges at a news conference at federal court in Camden, where Nucera later appeared before a magistrate judge and was ordered held on $500,000 bail.

An officer who witnessed the 2016 incident said the suspect was “shouting at the officers” while at the top of the stairwell and being led to a police cruiser, but was “not kicking or struggling,” the affidavit said. When the man’s head hit the metal door jamb, it made “a loud thud,” the officer reported. A second officer, who was standing next to the suspect, described the blow as “significant” and said he also pushed his shoulder into the door jamb while forcing him and the suspect through the doorway.

Following a 2015 incident involving another African American suspect, whom Nucera suspected of slashing the tires of a police vehicle, the chief allegedly confided in an officer that “these n—s are like ISIS, they have no value. They should line them all up and mow ’em down. I’d like to be on the firing squad, I could do it.”

His alleged animosity toward blacks was also expressed in other ways, authorities said.

“Nucera — also ordered the racially discriminatory use of police dogs to intimidate African Americans,” according to the complaint. “For example, when the BTPD provided security for high school basketball games, defendant Nucera instructed police officers to bring canines to certain games and to position the canine vehicles at the entrance to the gymnasium in order to intimidate African American patrons.”

Some of Nucera’s alleged statements were secretly recorded by an officer in the department, the FBI affidavit said.

Scott Wagner #racist philly.com

YORK, Pa. (AP) - A Pennsylvania state senator seeking next year's Republican nomination for governor says he doesn't plan to apologize for calling billionaire Democratic donor George Soros "a Hungarian Jew" with "a hatred for America."

Sen. Scott Wagner told the York Daily Record on Monday that "everybody's getting their knickers around their ankles over this and there's no reason for that."

Wagner's comments were recorded by an opposition tracker at a tomato festival in Pittston last week.

He says if Soros was Catholic, he'd have called him a Hungarian Catholic, and meant no offense by it. He says his comments weren't meant to be disrespectful or racist.

On Monday, the state Democratic Party described Wagner's comments as anti-Semitic.

Wagner says he has a long record of donating to the York Jewish Community Center.

Christine Flowers #sexist philly.com

[Regarding the Bill Cosby rape trial]

If I had my way, we’d never come to verdict on this case. The greatest damage has already been done, and that is the shattering of beloved myths and comforting relationships by the proxy of television and nostalgia. Bill Cosby is Cliff Huxtable, regardless of what the critics say. We are all made up of perception and reality, fact and fiction, aspiration and confirmation. It is ridiculous to argue that a man who was capable of creating the character that fathered a generation did not, at some deep level, possess those nurturing characteristics.

George Ciccariello-Maher #racist philly.com

[Summation: professor endorses "white genocide", says it's a joke and that white genocide is a figment of racist imagination, despite previously citing an actual literal instance of white genocide and saying it was a good thing]

A Drexel professor whose tweets about white supremacy sparked an uproar on social media says his words were misinterpreted satire.

"All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide," associate professor of politics and global studies George Ciccariello-Maher wrote on Christmas Eve.

He then wrote on Sunday: "To clarify: when the whites were massacred during the Haitian revolution, that was a good thing indeed."

Not long thereafter, Ciccariello-Maher's tweets were picked up by the Daily Caller, Breitbart and other conservative news sites. His tweets are not public, or at least weren't as of Monday morning. It is public, though, that he has over 10,000 followers and has tweeted over 16,000 times.

Ciccariello-Maher teaches in Drexel's Department of History and Politics. His bio on Drexel's website says he is "an expert and frequent media commentator on social movements, particularly in Latin America" who also "teaches, researches and writes about race, racism, prisons and policing in the U.S. and internationally, including how race is associated with suspicion and guilt."

[...]

Reached on Monday by The Inquirer, Ciccariello-Maher offered a reaction to the reaction.

"On Christmas Eve, I sent a satirical tweet about an imaginary concept, 'white genocide,'" he said in an e-mail. 'For those who haven't bothered to do their research, 'white genocide' is an idea invented by white supremacists and used to denounce everything from interracial relationships to multicultural policies (and most recently, against a tweet by State Farm Insurance). It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I'm glad to have mocked it."

Ward T. Williams #fundie philly.com

(This letter to the editor is in response to a column criticizing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia's failure to speak out against gun violence in the city.)
The Catholic Church is not a political lobbying organization, nor should it be, lest it lose even more credibility among the populace. One of the church's central tenets is "Thou shalt not kill," and there are already laws in place prohibiting murder. The church, therefore, rightly keeps its focus on overturning laws that permit killing the unborn and terminally ill. Its refusal to advocate for gun laws is a sensible choosing of battles by a rightly apolitical organization.

Bruce McDowell #fundie philly.com

The problem with Steven Newton's article concerning science being under attack is that it is not science itself that is under attack, but the presuppositions with which many scientists interpret their observations ("Science denial is on the rise," Thursday).

Much of the establishment in science disallows any kind of dissent or other views to be aired because the scientists are hemmed in by a philosophical and ideological viewpoint that doesn't allow for any scientific evidence that doesn't conform to their preconceived ideas. Highly qualified scientists are sidelined if they advocate any view that does not conform to the status quo. Those who believe God created the world (whether over a very long period or six days) are "unmoved by the wealth of fossil, molecular, and anatomical evidence for evolution" because they point to a different conclusion. The clear leap of faith one has to take with believing in macroevolution, with the lack of transitional forms, the lack of any evidence for life evolving from inanimate matter, and the clear evidence for Intelligent Design in all the intricate details of creation leaves the majority of people who believe in God unconvinced of evolution.

Rick Santorum #homophobia philly.com

(Former Senator Rick Santorum, who is known for his right-wing religious views.)

Is anyone saying same-sex couples can't love each other? I love my children. I love my friends, my brother. Heck, I even love my mother-in-law. Should we call these relationships marriage, too? Marriage is and always has been more than the acknowledgment of the love between two people.