Last Thursday, the local Tea Party blog, Reboot Congress, posted a video (viewable below) of SLPOA's former president, Sgt. Gary Wiegert, speculating that the sponsor of HB 71 is aligned with the militant group the New Black Panthers. Wiegert makes this claim based on the flimsiest of evidence -- a photo (right) of state representative Jamilah Nasheed (D - North St. Louis) in which alleged members of the New Black Panthers stand behind her at a rally.
The video goes on to produce a flyer from 2006 in which Nasheed was a panelist -- along with the editor of the St. Louis American and several black leaders -- to discuss the historical significance of the Black Panthers forty years after its founding.
Does that make her a Black Panther sympathizer?
Apparently so, according to Wiegert and Reboot Congress. Yesterday in Jefferson City, the co-sponsor of the Nasheed's bill and Republican speaker of the house, Steve Tilley, called the efforts by Wiegert and Reboot Congress "race-baiting at a level that I haven't seen since I've been here."
That prompted St. Louis Tea Party co-founder Bill Hennessey to respond: "We truly regret that Speaker Tilley has chosen to make the vote over Local Control an issue of race, as opposed to what is truly best for the citizens of the city of St. Louis."
Nasheed's bill, BTW, passed by a veto-proof 109-46 margin and now heads to the Senate.
Here's that video:
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