Sarah Palin?s Radical Right-Wing Pals and Her Ties to the Pro-Secessionist Alaskan Independence Party

"a new investigation..sheds light on how Governor Palin’s ties to the
radical right are far deeper than previously thought. Journalists Max
Blumenthal and David Neiwert detail how Palin was elected Mayor of
Wasilla over a decade ago with the help of activists from the Alaska
Independence Party and the John Birch Society. They allege she tried
to return the favor later by attempting to appoint one of them to an
empty city council seat."

AMY GOODMAN: Max, let’s just start out with the Troopergate report. I
was just listening to her conversation with Alaska reporters on
Saturday—Governor Palin’s—where she said she has been completely
vindicated,

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, what the report found, everything Sarah Palin
had said in terms of her motives for firing trooper Mike Wooten, who
had divorced her sister, was completely false, that she felt
threatened by Trooper Wooten, for example, was completely contradicted
by the fact that as soon as she came into office, she demanded that
her security detail be significantly reduced. And so, just across the
board, everything she had said about Trooper Wooten being a threat to
her was contradicted by this report, and that Todd Palin, the self-
described “first dude” of Alaska, spent 50 percent of his personal
time, you know, in the governor’s office seeking ways to fire Trooper
Wooten and to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, who
happens to be sort of a local hero in Alaska. So, the report itself is
pretty devastating.."

..followed a terrible McCain campaign strategy—and this is a little
bit complicated—by which she would file an ethics report against
herself before the State Personnel Board. And the logic behind this
was that because the governor controls the State Personnel Board, you
know, reports directly to the governor, she could get a favorable
report on her handling of the trooper controversy, and this would have
a lot of public relations value and would sort of at least exonerate
her before the public. But what wound up happening was the State
Personnel Board appointed another tough prosecutor, someone named
Timothy Petumenos..and I expect that this report could be equally, if
not more, devastating for Governor Palin.

"And what we found was that she was more closely associated with this
party and with fringe right-wing elements than the media had
previously discovered or than Palin was willing to acknowledge. And
not only did she, you know, associate with them in order to advance
her political ambitions, she advanced their agenda on a local and
state level....these characters are very paranoid, conspiratorial
people who loathe the federal government and believe that the federal
government is responsible for all the ills that have befallen their
state. That’s why they—you know, that the Alaskan Independence Party
was founded. It was founded to find a means, some remedy, so that
Alaska could secede from the union. Its founder, Joe Vogler, said,
“I’m an Alaskan, I’m not an American. And I hate America and all her
damned institutions.” So this is what the party is about.

= = =

Max Blumenthal on Sarah Palin’s Radical Right-Wing Pals and Her Ties
to the Pro-Secessionist Alaskan Independence Party

As the McCain campaign continues to focus on Senator Obama’s alleged
ties to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, a new
investigation in Salon.com sheds light on how Governor Palin’s ties to
the radical right are far deeper than previously thought. Journalists
Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert detail how Palin was elected Mayor of
Wasilla over a decade ago with the help of activists from the Alaska
Independence Party and the John Birch Society. They allege that she
tried to return the favor later by attempting to appoint one of them
to an empty city council seat. [includes rush transcript]

= = =

Guest: Max Blumenthal, investigative reporter. He was in Alaska last
month investigating Governor Palin’s ties to the Alaska Independence
Party. He is a fellow at the Nation Institute and his latest article,
‘Meet Sarah Palin’s Radical Right-Wing Pals’. His website is
maxblumenthal.com

= = =

AMY GOODMAN: A new report from the Alaska legislature has concluded
Republican vice-presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin abused her
power and violated state ethics law by trying to get her former
brother-in-law Mike Wooten fired from the state police. The report by
former Anchorage prosecutor Stephen Branchflower states, “Governor
Palin knowingly permitted a situation to continue where impermissible
pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a
personal agenda.”

Palin, on the other hand, is claiming the report completely exonerates
her in the so-called “Troopergate” controversy. She told reporters
Saturday, “Well, I’m very, very pleased to be cleared of any legal
wrongdoing, any hint of any kind of unethical activity.”

Meanwhile, as the McCain campaign continues to focus on Senator
Obama’s alleged ties to former Weather Underground member William
Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois, a new
investigation at Salon.com sheds light on how Governor Palin’s ties to
the radical right are far deeper than previously thought. Journalists
Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert detail how Palin was elected Mayor of
Wasilla over a decade ago with the help of activists from the Alaska
Independence Party and the John Birch Society. They allege she tried
to return the favor later by attempting to appoint one of them to an
empty city council seat.

Governor Palin is not a member of the Alaska Independence Party, but
she has attended party conventions and even addressed this year’s
convention.

GOV. SARAH PALIN: I’m Governor Sarah Palin, and I am delighted
to welcome you to the 2008 Alaskan Independence Party convention in
the Golden Heart City, Fairbanks. Your party plays an important role
in our state’s politics.


AMY GOODMAN: Max Blumenthal was in Alaska last month investigating
Palin’s ties to the Alaska Independence Party. He’s a fellow at the
Nation Institute. His latest article is “Meet Sarah Palin’s Radical
Right-Wing Pals.” It’s online at Salon.com. He joins us now from
Arizona.

We welcome you to Democracy Now!, Max Blumenthal.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, great to be here.

AMY GOODMAN: Max, let’s just start out with the Troopergate report. I
was just listening to her conversation with Alaska reporters on
Saturday—Governor Palin’s—where she said she has been completely
vindicated, legally as well as any other way, in terms of any pressure
brought to bear on the firing of the commissioner, the public safety
commissioner of Alaska. Can you summarize for us what the report
found?

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, what the report found, everything Sarah Palin
had said in terms of her motives for firing trooper Mike Wooten, who
had divorced her sister, was completely false, that she felt
threatened by Trooper Wooten, for example, was completely contradicted
by the fact that as soon as she came into office, she demanded that
her security detail be significantly reduced. And so, just across the
board, everything she had said about Trooper Wooten being a threat to
her was contradicted by this report, and that Todd Palin, the self-
described “first dude” of Alaska, spent 50 percent of his personal
time, you know, in the governor’s office seeking ways to fire Trooper
Wooten and to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, who
happens to be sort of a local hero in Alaska.

So, the report itself is pretty devastating, and what Sarah Palin is
saying is that she hasn’t—that the report finds that she hasn’t broke
n
any laws. And technically, while that’s true, she also stands to be
censured by the legislature and/or fined, which would completely erode
her image as a reformer who’s above party politics and personal
corruption, something that, you know, the McCain campaign had sought
her out for.

Beyond that, there’s more trouble ahead for Sarah Palin. She had
followed a terrible McCain campaign strategy—and this is a little bit
complicated—by which she would file an ethics report against herself
before the State Personnel Board. And the logic behind this was that
because the governor controls the State Personnel Board, you know,
reports directly to the governor, she could get a favorable report on
her handling of the trooper controversy, and this would have a lot of
public relations value and would sort of at least exonerate her before
the public. But what wound up happening was the State Personnel Board
appointed another tough prosecutor, someone named Timothy Petumenos,
an Anchorage—an Anchorage lawyer, who also happens to be a Democrat.
And they’re going to release their report in a few weeks, and I expect
that this report could be equally, if not more, devastating for
Governor Palin.

AMY GOODMAN: And is that report expected to be released before the
election, before November 4th?

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, I think it is.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Max Blumenthal, let’s talk about your piece, “Meet
Sarah Palin’s Radical Right-Wing Pals.” You’re just recently back fro
m
Alaska. What did you find?

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, I took a trip to Alaska about two weeks ago and
interviewed the former chair of the Alaskan Independence Party. And
then a reporter named David Neiwert, who’s been covering the anti-
government militia movement since the early ’90s, took his own trip
there, and in addition to interviewing, you know, the former AIP
chair, Mark Chryson, we talked to people who served on the city
council in Wasilla with Sarah Palin; we talked to her predecessor as
mayor, John Stein; and we combed through city council records,
investigating the extent of her ties to the Alaskan Independence
Party, because we didn’t think that this has been sufficiently
covered.

And what we found was that she was more closely associated with this
party and with fringe right-wing elements than the media had
previously discovered or than Palin was willing to acknowledge. And
not only did she, you know, associate with them in order to advance
her political ambitions, she advanced their agenda on a local and
state level. Beginning with Mark Chryson and a character named Steve
Stoll, who’s known around Wasilla as “Black Helicopter Steve,” becaus
e
he’s rumored to have buried several high-powered automatic weapons in
his front yard in expectation of the federal government ushering in
the new world order, these characters are very paranoid,
conspiratorial people who loathe the federal government and believe
that the federal government is responsible for all the ills that have
befallen their state. That’s why they—you know, that the Alaskan
Independence Party was founded. It was founded to find a means, some
remedy, so that Alaska could secede from the union. Its founder, Joe
Vogler, said, “I’m an Alaskan, I’m not an American. And I hate Americ
a
and all her damned institutions.” So this is what the party is about.

And these characters were—you know, befriended Sarah Palin in the
early ’90s, when she first started her political career. Mark Chryson
sort of claimed partial credit for her conversion from sort of middle-
of-the-road bipartisanship to hardcore conservative ideology. And he
worked hand-in-glove with Sarah Palin when she was in the city council
on reducing property taxes and legislation like that. At the same
time, they encouraged her to run for mayor against John Stein. And the
mayor in Wasilla was at the time considered a nonpartisan position,
but she ran an extremely partisan campaign with the help of her
church, the Wasilla Assembly of God. And, by the way, I have an
exclusive video report about her church at a website called
thedailybeast.com. And while her church put out fliers calling her the
Christian candidate, which sort of subtly, in a subtle way, may have
suggested that John Stein, whose name is Jewish but was actually a
Lutheran, was a Jew, Mark Chryson and Black Helicopter Steve Stoll
created a lot of the negative backscatter around the campaign, for
example, demanding that John Stein produce a marriage certificate
proving that he and his wife were legally married. They claimed that
they were not actually married, which is a devastating charge in a
culturally conservative environment like Wasilla. This eventually led
to Sarah Palin’s election.

So, as soon as Sarah Palin was elected, what did she do? She wanted to
reward her supporters, for example, Black Helicopter Steve. So the
city council seat she had just vacated, she nominated Steve Stoll for
this seat. His nomination was blocked by a city councilmember named
Nick Carney, who we interviewed, and Nick Carney told us he blocked
the nomination because Steve Stoll was a violent influence on a local
level. And John Stein told us this is the kind of character who, if
you had a disagreement with him, he’d take you out in the parking lot
and try to beat you up. And these are the people Sarah Palin was
working with. Beyond that, they claim that they always had an open
door into her office as mayor, and that continued as governor.

And they worked with her, and she supported them on efforts to, for
example, amend the state constitution’s language to make it impossible
for municipalities to enact their own gun control laws. And the reason
that the Alaskan Independence Party wanted to do this was to make it
easier to form anti-government militias. This is a party that’s been
intimately connected to the militia movement on a national level,
including figures like Bo Gritz. So, Sarah Palin knew the views of
these groups. That’s according to Mark Chryson. She knew his views,
but she was willing to work with them to advance her ambition. And she
was willing to enact their agenda. So it didn’t matter whether or not
she was a member of this group; she was at least a member in spirit.

AMY GOODMAN: Max Blumenthal, we’re going to go to break. When we come
back, we’re going to hear a clip of the interview you did with the
former chair of the Alaska Independence Party, Mark Chryson, and we’ll
also play the piece that you did on her church. This is Democracy
Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Max Blumenthal interviewed the former chair of the Alaska
Independence Party, Mark Chryson, about how well he knew Governor
Palin.

MARK CHRYSON: There were a number of times I had to do stuff
over inside the city where I just showed myself up over at City Hall
and said, “Hey, Sarah, we need to talk to you.” And I think there was
only one time where I was not able to talk to her, and that was
because she was over in some other meetings on there. But any other
time, she made—the door was open. I do; I consider her a friend.

All—she knew mine. The entire—the entire state knew mine. I
wasn’t afraid of being on camera in front of the news speaking my
views.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, you’ve got to be proud of it

MARK CHRYSON: And I was not afraid of saying my views. However,
that doesn’t mean that just because you say, hey, you’re a friend to
somebody who’s got those views, it means you—it doesn’t mean that you
share those views.


AMY GOODMAN: Mark Chryson, the former chair of the Alaska Independence
Party. And again, Max Blumenthal, for people just joining us, explain
what the Alaska Independence Party is. And wasn’t Sarah Palin’s
husband, Todd, a member of it?

MAX BLUMENTHAL: The Alaskan Independence Party is a neo-secessionist
political party in Alaska that has links to thirty other neo-
secessionist groups, including neo-Confederate groups and white—and
parties that have served as havens for white nationalists and
theocrats across the country. It’s essentially a fringe right party
that’s gained a political foothold in Alaska because of anti-
government sentiment in that state. And a lot of people have joined
that party, because they were sympathetic to parts of its party
platform. Todd Palin was among those people; however, he was not an
active member. But that’s besides the point.

In 2007, Alaskan Independence Party Vice Chair Dexter [Clark] unveiled
the party’s new strategy at a neo-secessionist convention in
Tennessee, which was attended by all the neo-Confederate groups that
the Alaskan Independence Party affiliates with. And his new strategy
was called the infiltration strategy, that because these fringe
parties can’t get anyone elected running under their own party banner,
he urged them to infiltrate the other two, the two major political
parties, the Republican and Democratic parties. And he pointed to
Sarah Palin as the most successful example of this strategy, that she
was essentially—this is in his words, and I’m paraphrasing his words—
she was essentially an Alaskan Independence Party cadre, boring from
within the Republican Party’s infrastructure.

And while the McCain campaign was able to discredit his claim that she
was an AIP member, they weren’t able to discredit the fact, and they
haven’t even addressed the fact, that she worked hand-in-glove with
the Alaskan Independence Party during the early ’90s and throughout
her governorship. And when she spoke before the Alaskan Independence
Party in 2008, she pointedly refused to or just did not address the
Democratic Party. So that raises questions in itself.

AMY GOODMAN: Max Blumenthal, I wanted to play the report you referred
to earlier about Governor Palin’s former church, the Wasilla Assembly
of God. It begins with a clip from a 2005 sermon by the visiting
Kenyan Pentecostal preacher Thomas Muthee. He is praying over Sarah
Palin.

BISHOP THOMAS MUTHEE: In the name of Jesus, in the name of
Jesus, every form of witchcraft is what we’re revoking in the name of
Jesus. Father, make our way now, in Jesus’ name, amen.

REV. HOWARD BESS: I probably have paid a real price for my
speaking out. The name of the book is Pastor, I Am Gay. I describe
myself as a born-again evangelical Christian in the tradition of
American Baptist. The book was published, and the religious right in
the community decided to pursue the book, and they were successful in
keeping it out of all of the bookstores here in the valley, including
Walden Books. And it was in that context then that we know that Sarah
Palin came and put pressure on the librarian to get rid of certain
books, and one of them was Pastor, I Am Gay. If she is elected vice
president, it is going to be a rough four or eight years for all of my
gay friends.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Why is that?

REV. HOWARD BESS: Because she believes they’re evil.

BISHOP THOMAS MUTHEE: We come against that python spirit. We
come against that spirit of witchcraft as the body of Christ right now
in the name of Jesus. Oh-raba-saka-tala. Pray, pray. Raba-sandalala-
bebebekalabebe. Shanda-la-bebebeka-lelebebe. That’s why we come
against all forms of witchcraft. All the python spirits that are
released against the body of Christ and bring this nation into the
kingdom.

UNIDENTIFIED RUSSIAN PASTOR: …seriously, and right now we
exercise our power. We go against the spirit, and we put our feet
against the heads of the enemy in the name of Jesus.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: I’ve been attending Sarah Palin’s church, that
she attended since she was four, for the past few days, seeing a guy
named Bishop Thomas Muthee speak. How did the theology of Sarah
Palin’s church influence her decisions in dealing with people who she
sees as her political enemies?

ED O’CALAGHAN: That’s not a fair question. And—

MAX BLUMENTHAL: I think it’s a very fair question, and she wants
her life to be an open book, and she wants to tell her story, and we
have to go through you.

ED O’CALAGHAN: If that question was posed in a—

MEGHAN STAPLETON: And she’s waiting for the appropriate and
nonpartisan manner in which to tell her story.

ED O’CALAGHAN: Thank you. Thank you.

MAX BLUMENTHAL: I think this would be an appropriate time to
tell her story.

REV. HOWARD BESS: During this same period of time, they also
organized and took over the area politically. They took over the
Wasilla City Council, the Palmer City Council, the borough assembly,
the school board and the board of our local hospital. It was in that
context in which Sarah Palin was fully active, was very involved in
the political takeovers of all of the community organizations. In the
case of the hospital, they were able to pack the board, and at their
very first meeting passed a resolution banning all abortions.


AMY GOODMAN: Retired Baptist minister, Reverend Howard Bess, talking
to journalist Max Blumenthal. Bess’s 1995 book Pastor, I Am Gay was
among those Governor Palin tried to remove from the Wasilla Public
Library when she was mayor. Max Blumenthal, how do you know this?

MAX BLUMENTHAL: Howard Bess, you know, described to me three separate
occasions when Sarah Palin went to the Wasilla Public Library to
demand the removal of that book, and I went to the library myself, and
they told me it wasn’t there for space reasons. But Howard Bess and
people in the community know otherwise. Howard Bess estimates that he
has lost, you know, $500,000 for his church, which was de-
fellowshipped, because he allowed gay people to pray there. And Sarah
Palin was, you know, working—was directly involved with the forces
that have worked to destroy and demonize him simply for tolerating
homosexuals in his church. And this is the context in which, you know,
she was groomed and cultivated as a political leader.

The character you heard at the beginning and whose kind of garbled
preaching you heard in the middle of that video, for your radio
listeners, is a Kenyan pastor named—a Pentecostal pastor named Bishop
Thomas Muthee, who claims that he cast a witch out of a town named
Kiambu, Kenya, and then, you know, miraculously planted eighteen
churches there. When the Wasilla Assembly of God, Sarah Palin’s church
for over twenty years, found out about him through a popular video
disseminated through Christian right channels, they flew him over
there to bless Sarah Palin when she was running for governor. And he
blessed her by saying that we need more Christian leaders in all of
the seven spheres in society, and he complained that there are too
many Israelites—that was his, you know, obvious codeword for Jews—in
government and that Sarah Palin would be a remedy to that. She, after
he said that, walked up and turned her hands up to the sky and closed
her eyes and allowed him to lay hands on her and protect her from the
spirit of witchcraft.

Now, this is the language of spiritual warfare that comes out of her
church, the idea that behind reality is a secret spiritual world, a
clash between Satan and God. And this is what they believe, and this
is, you know, the Manichean worldview that informs Sarah Palin’s
extreme conservatism. It’s why she treated someone like Howard Bess so
harshly.

And I went to this McCain-Palin press conference, which you heard and
saw there, about the firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan
to ask how the theology of her church influenced her decisions in
dealing with perceived political enemies like Walt Monegan. Of course,
they treated it like an illegitimate question, but I think it really
is an essential question to understanding how Sarah Palin thinks about
the world. In a way, she’s more George W. Bush than George W. Bush
was.

AMY GOODMAN: Max Blumenthal, I want to thank you for being with us,
Puffin Foundation writing fellow at the Nation Institute. His website,
maxblumenthal.com. His latest article, “Meet Sarah Palin’s Radical
Right-Wing Pals,” online at Salon.com.

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