Message to Jay Nixon: Missouri Needs You As Governor

Thank you for being Missouri's Attorney General. We need you. We need you to remove corruption from the state. We need you to be the next Governor of Missouri.

I was born in University City, Missouri. I grew up during the 60s and 70s and graduated from UC High School in the mid-70s. U-City was relatively devoid of Racism and anti-Semitism, but I saw or experienced both in other areas of St. Louis. My memories are of Blacks and Jews working together on social issues and for Civil Rights. I remember stories of white supremacist and neo-Nazis sharing a HQ in Overland. I gladly welcome any confirming sources, especially if someone can provide Internet sources. I have been unable to find any probably because that information on St. Louis of that period has not been posted to the Internet.

I have given this short background because it and Hurricane Katrina relate to a lawsuit Attorney General Jay Nixon has filed on Wednesday against an associate of hate groups for websites attempting to collect donations for hurricane relief to fund these groups.

There are two articles which cover this story Nixon sues to shut some relief Web sites, in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Missouri Sues Web Site Purporting to Raise Funds, in The New York Times.


This is the Post-Dispatch description of the lawsuit:

Missouri's attorney general filed suit Wednesday seeking to shut down at least 10 hurricane relief Web sites that he said are quietly run by a man with ties to a racist group - and that may not benefit storm victims at all.
…
"This is a horrendous use of the victims of Hurricane Katrina to the benefit of a hate group," Attorney General Jay Nixon said at a news conference. He said Weltner is associated with the National Alliance, which Nixon's office described as "listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the nation's most active neo-Nazi hate groups."

The New york Times give a the following details about the websites and Weltner:

Also named in the lawsuit, Mr. Nixon said, is the apparent operator of the donation sites, Frank Weltner, a St. Louis resident and radio talk show personality with ties to neo-Nazi organizations and the notorious Web site JewWatch.com.

That site, which indexes Adolf Hitler's writings, transcripts of anti-Semitic radio broadcasts, and other materials, drew wide headlines last year when it appeared at or near the top of Google search results for the query "Jew." It remains at No. 2 today.

The Missouri lawsuit seeks to freeze the assets of Internet Donations Inc., a nonprofit entity registered with the Missouri secretary of state's office by Mr. Weltner on Sept. 2, and to shut down the dozen or so Web sites with names like KatrinaFamilies.com, Katrina-Donations.com and NewOrleansCharities.com. Those sites appear to have been hastily registered and mounted since Hurricane Katrina devastated large swaths of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi last week.

The Web sites, which use similar imagery and slight variations on the same crude design, all point back to InternetDonations.org, which advises visitors interested in donating to the Red Cross, Salvation Army or other relief organizations, that "we can collect it for you in an easy one-stop location."

Most of the affiliated Web sites appear to have been registered using DomainsByProxy.com, a service that masks the identity of a domain name registrant. But Mr. Weltner's name appeared on public documents obtained through the Missouri secretary of state's Web site, indicating that he had incorporated Internet Donations as a nonprofit entity last Friday.

The Post-Dispatch contacted Weltner and reports:

Reached at his home in St. Louis, Weltner said he used to be a local public relations person for the National Alliance. Weltner declined to say whether he still holds that position.

He denied that another of his Web sites, jewwatch.com, is anti-Semitic, and he denounced Nixon for the suit. "That's slander," Weltner said. "None of it is going to any group that is a right-wing hate group."

He said his site is a "library" of information about Jews, some from Jewish sources or media outlets such as The New York Times. The jewwatch.com site claims, among other things, that 100 million Christians "were exterminated by All Anti-Christian Jewish Red Commissars in Russia under the orders of Trotsky, the Jewish Commissar of Commissars."

Attorney General Jay Nixon made the following statements:

(via StL P-D)
"This is a horrendous use of the victims of Hurricane Katrina to the benefit of a hate group," Attorney General Jay Nixon said at a news conference. He said Weltner is associated with the National Alliance, which Nixon's office described as "listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as one of the nation's most active neo-Nazi hate groups."

(via NYT)
"It's the lowest of the low when someone solicits funds" this way, Mr. Nixon said in an interview prior to announcing the lawsuit. "We don't want one more penny from well-meaning donors going through this hater."

Thank you Jay Nixon. At a time when our country is discussing issues regarding race in the shadow of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, you are exposing and fighting against perpetrators of hate. Hopefully, this will further the discussion by displaying the insidiousness of these hate groups.

We need you as Governor of Missouri. Our current Governor has shown his callousness on issues of race and hate most pointedly by ordering the flying of the Confederate Flag in state parks.