New Tea Party Lobbyist Helped Push Conspiracy That Tilley Is "Aligned" With New Black Panthers

The Post-Dispatch notes this morning that the St. Louis Tea Party has a new lobbyist in Jefferson City -- Gary Wiegert. Weigert's registration with the Missouri Ethics Commission was first reported (to my knowledge) by Dave Drebes.

Unfortunately, Jake Wagman's post neglects to mention the most salient detail of Weigert's activism against legislation to move control of the St. Louis Police Department away from the state -- his involvement in pushing conspiracy theories that Speaker Steve Tilley and the "Missouri House Leadership" are "aligned with the New Black Panthers." 

Weigert is the centerpiece of a video posted in February by Darin Morley of Reboot Congress outlining this theory, which basically goes like this: There's a picture of Rep. Jamilah Nasheed (D-St. Louis) standing next to a large black man with a beret.  Nasheed was appointed to a chair the House Urban Issues Committee by Tilley. Therefore, Tilley and the entire GOP leadership in the House are "aligned" with the New Black Panthers. 

Nasheed isn't a member of Black Panther organization, but Weigert and the St. Louis Tea Party leadership really don't like the idea of local control for the STLPD, and this is how they've decided to try to persuade legislators to vote against the relevant legislation.  "I think if the citizens of St. Louis saw who all these people are and they were outed, I think they would be outraged," Weigert says in the video, which you can watch in full here.

Weigert's active participation in this garbage is not a minor detail, both when considering the extremism and tactics of the St. Louis Tea Party, and when considering how this sort of race-baiting (Tilley's words) might affect the organization's ability to effectively lobby in the Capitol.