Extremists Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll helped launch Palin’s political career in Alaska, and in return had influence over policy.
"Her door was open," says Chryson — and still is.
Salon reporter Max Blumenthal, and David Neiwert who collaborated on the article, traveled to Alaska to investigate Sarah Palin's relationship with these two extremists.
Mr. Chryson had met Mr. Blumenthal at a nearby park to discuss his ties to Gov Palin. While there Chryson asked Mr. Blumenthal if he would like to see a few items inside his pickup truck that were intended for his personal protection.
"This here is my attack dog,"
he said with a chuckle, handing the reporter an exuberant 8-pound papillon from his passenger seat.
"Her name is Suzy."
Then he pulled a 9-millimeter Makarov PM pistol — once the standard-issue sidearm for Soviet cops — out of his glove compartment.
"I’ve got enough weaponry to raise a small army in my basement,"
he said, clutching the gun in his palm.
"Then again, so do most Alaskans."
Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin.
Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of Sarah Palin for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin’s campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory.
Max Blumenthal's trip to Alaska to visit Palin's extremist "pals" is a must read. This is quite a story and lengthy so please make sure to read it in it's entirety.
Sarah Palin has the audacity to smear Obama about "palling" around with terrorists, yet she continues to have ties to radical friends who want to secede Alaska from the Union.
Call me naive but damn, the more I get into this story the more I'm just sitting here at 2am MST in the morning in utter shock that this is taking place while the governor is slandering Obama. So I expect Gov Palin to continue her assault on Senator Obama who she claims is 'palling' around with terrorists just like they keep telling her to do.
But just remember, "people who live in glass houses."
UPDATE: A legislative investigator found that Palin violated state ethics laws and abused her power by trying to have her former brother-in-law fired as a state trooper.
The legislative committee that released the report Friday recommends no criminal investigation and has no authority to sanction the governor, the Republican vice presidential nominee.
"It is out of the Legislative Council's hands. It goes to anyone's hands who got a copy or clicks the link on the Web," said Democratic state Sen. Kim Elton, the chairman of the committee that released the report. "I can't tell you how the process ends."
Contents of the Branchflower Report can be read here.