You know what kill’s me? It’s the fact that I keep hearing how the media has been in the pocket of Senator Obama this hold time and how hard it’s been to run against an African American to the point of making me nauseas’. On shows such as morning Joe and race for the white house as well as various others all I hear is distain dripping from nearly every comment, even a supposed complement has a backhanded insult attached. But you hear not a word about Governor Palin’s background and that’s not right, so please take a look below and call your local news stations and ask why they refuse to bring these issues to light

Vigilante Pals of Palin's not so Distant Past
By Russ Bellant Sun Oct 26, 2008 at 10:51:52 AM EST
"...the most compelling hypocrisy of the "terrorism" issue is Palin's own contemporary associations with fringe groups more committed to themes of antigovernment violence. A number of reports have noted, for instance, Palin's association with the Alaska Independence Party (AIP), a group that is trying to get Alaska to secede from the United States. Largely unreported is the deeper extremism of the AIP and its national party organization, the Constitution Party. The Ayers story is a distraction from the real and ongoing relationships that Sarah Palin has with armed rightists, a story she invites with her vacuous allegations on 'terrorism.' "
[vote up this story on Buzzflash] In the last weeks of their struggling national campaign, the McCain-Palin ticket and the Republican National Committee have chosen to attack Barack Obama for his rare and insignificant contact with Bill Ayres, a former Weather Underground member charged but not convicted of bombing federal targets at the height of opposition to the Vietnam War four decades ago.
Palin has led the charge that Obama "pals around" with terrorists, based solely on the very limited contact he had with Ayres decades after his Weather Underground days. Some of that contact is due to education projects funded by Walter Annenberg, who is also donating to the McCain campaign. Annenberg has not been accused of funding terrorism by McCain or Palin.

But the most compelling hypocrisy of the "terrorism" issue is Palin's own contemporary associations with fringe groups more committed to themes of antigovernment violence. A number of reports have noted, for instance, Palin's association with the Alaska Independence Party (AIP), a group that is trying to get Alaska to secede from the United States. Largely unreported is the deeper extremism of the AIP and its national party organization, the Constitution Party. The Ayers story is a distraction from the real and ongoing relationships that Sarah Palin has with armed rightists, a story she invites with her vacuous allegations on "terrorism."
The Constitution Party, formerly known as the U.S. Taxpayers Party (USTP), was founded in 1992 as an electoral vehicle for the growing vigilante movements that called themselves militias, as well as racists and violent antiabortion militants.
The origins of the national party go back to the American Independent Party of 1968, which was a joint effort of the John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan to run George Wallace for president. Various carryover elements, including the Birchers, led to the creation of the Constitution Party.
After the party was formed, a 1994 research report by Planned Parenthood, which was tracking antiabortion violence, characterized the group as "the new political home to a growing and unusual convergence of militant antiabortion leaders, elements of the violent and racist right, members of the John Birch Society and Far Right politicians."
Palin first attended an AIP event in 1994, according to ABC News interviews with party officials. By that time the theocratic and paramilitary elements of the party were manifest. An examination of who was part of the party at the time that she first made contact with the AIP and concurrent with her husband's joining the AIP, you can see the nature of the movement that she had comfort with:
* At a Wisconsin party convention in 1994, Rev. Matthew Trewhella called for the formation of church-based "armed militias" to fight abortion and bragged about training his 16 month old son on the identification of his trigger finger, according to a Planned Parenthood report on potentially violent antiabortion groups. Trewhella, a member of the national committee of the Constitution Party, also sold manuals on behalf of his Party titled Principles Justifying the Arming and Organizing of a Militia on methods of organizing and training "militias" and conducting house assaults. He recommended that that party members "buy each of your children an SKS rifle and 500 rounds of ammunition." Trewhella also publically cosigned a statement saying that killing abortion doctors was morally justifiable.
* Florida party head and National executive committee member Jeffrey Baker in 1994 also endorsed the "justifiable homicide" of any doctors who performed abortions, or their associates.
* Organizer Michael Bray had been convicted in 1985 and served four years in prison for bombing 10 clinics. He later wrote A Time To Kill, advocating the killing of doctors who perform abortions. He was characterized as the "father of violence" in Wrath of Angels, a book about antiabortion violence. Prior to this convention, a number of doctors who perform abortions had been wounded or killed and about 200 clinics had been bombed, torched or vandalized. The endorsement of these murders was not merely a symbolic statement..* Byron Dale, a 1994 convention speaker and workshop leader, had been a "confidant" of Gordon Kahl of the Posse Commitatus, a racist and anti-Semitic paramilitary group. Kahl killed two U.S. marshals in South Dakota before dying in a shootout. Dale said that he would kill any feds that tried to encroach on him.
* Randall Terry, who led the Operation Rescue blockades of abortion clinics, ran for Congress on the US Taxpayers Party ticket. He called for Christians to "take up the sword" and to "overthrow the tyrannical regime that oppresses them" so that they can install a theocratic regime based on "Biblical law." Other OR leaders involved with arrests for antiabortion actions were also Party leaders and candidates, according to the Planned Parenthood report.
* Prior to founding the Constitution Party, Howard Phillips, was the foremost American organizing support for the apartheid regime of South Africa and its African surrogates in the 1980's. He organized trips to South Africa for American sympathizers to meet the top political, intelligence and military leaders of the apartheid regime, which was the only surviving post World War II nazi party still holding power. Phillips and his allies supported Renamo, which the Ronald Reagan's State Department had condemned for having murdered over 100,000 civilians in Mozambique, as well as Unita, which was conducting killings in Angola. This writer attended one of his private organizing meetings where he marshaled his decades of political networking experience to push the Reagan State Department and the Congress to support the slave state of South Africa. Phillips was the 1992 and 1996 presidential candidate for his Party.
* Joining the formation of the Party and holding a seat on the national executive committee in 1994 was William K. Shearer of Lemon Grove, California. Shearer took his position after the folding of the Populist Party, a group formed by Willis Carto and his Liberty Lobby. Most notorious for creating the-holocaust-didn't happen propaganda and maintaining links to white supremacist groups, the Liberty Lobby and the Populist Party were condemned by the Anti Defamation League and the Atlanta-based Center for Democratic Renewal for what the latter group called "an amalgamation of neo-Nazis, skinheads, former Klansmen and other extremists who banded together."
In 1989 this writer attended a Populist Party meeting in Chicago chaired by Shearer where the featured speaker was David Duke. Security was provided by Art Jones, Chicago's foremost uniformed Nazi, who choked a TV news reporter with his necktie for critically questioning Duke at the meeting. Jones was also a regular participant in Aryans Nation gatherings when they were planning insurrectionist activities, at least two of which were witnessed by this writer. It is not clear why Shearer picked Jones to provide security or why Phillips selected Shearer for national leadership of the new Party.
During and after this period Sarah Palin maintained friendly relations with the Alaska branch of the Constitution Party for many years, according to many news reports. She attended their convention again in 2000 and in 2006 sought their support for her run for governor. In June 2008 she sent them a video wishing them "good luck on a successful and inspiring convention, keep up the good work and God bless you."
Her husband Todd joined the party during the period of militancy in 1995 and changed his voter registration in 2002 to "undeclared."
A recent review of the websites of the AIP and its parent Constitution Party demonstrates that these groups are still the home of the violence-inclined far right. The national platform, for instance, pledges to "support and encourage unorganized militia at the county and community level."
Its origins in the southern racist elements is reflected in the group's calls for repealing "hate crime legislation," the Voting Rights Act (which ended the disenfranchisement of millions of voters in the deep South) and, most tellingly, supports the claim that states ( not just Alaska ) can secede from the United States at any time. The plank on secession states that "each state's membership in the Union is voluntary."
The well-reported fact that the AIP advocates secession from the United States is also supplemented by the group's constitution, which requires playing only the Alaska Anthem, not the national anthem. This could not be lost on Palin, who has attended at least three AIP conventions and continues to praise them.
Another element of extremism in the Constitution Party is its assertion that the U.S. should be governed by "Biblical law" and places as their first policy plank a complete prohibition on all abortions, regardless of the circumstances. They also call for the repeal of the federal law that restricts antiabortion militants from physically disrupting clinics where abortions are performed.
The influence for these views comes from the Christian Reconstructionist movement founded by the late R.J. Rushdoony, a Constitution Party cofounder. The conservative evangelical magazine Christianity Today in 1987 published a critical article about Reconstructionist goals to assert Old Testament law over society in which "homosexuals, adulterers, blasphemers, astrologers and others will be executed." The formation of so called militias ( read: vigilante groups ) as the armed forces of Reconstructionism is the core of what the Constitution Party is about.
Reporters for Salon.com, funded by the Nation Institute for Investigative Journalism, found that Palin had local ties to this extremist movement. They reported that in Palin's successful campaign for mayor of Wasilla, that Mark Chryson, a long time state leader of the AIP, and Steve Stoll, a leader of the John Birch Society, played influential roles. "During the 1990's, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical rightwinger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played a major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory."
Chryson told Salon that he stays in touch with secessionist groups in 30 states. He said that he and Palin worked to together to alter the state constitution "to better facilitate the formation of antigovernment militias." Chryson added that "every time I showed up her door was always open. And that policy continued when she was governor."
Palin also tried to install Stoll in a vacant city council seat when she was mayor, even though he was well known in the area as "Black Helicopter Steve," according to the Salon.com report, apparently due to his militia-like conspiracy theories.
When she was city council member, Palin posed for what appears to be her official photograph with a John Birch Society publication. The JBS is the ideological core of the so-called militia groups and coined the phrase that "the US is a republic, not a democracy" and opposed the public election of US senators, instead having them appointed by state legislatures, a view reflected in the Constitution Party platform. The Birchers became notorious years ago for characterizing the U.S. as partially communist and placed presidents such as Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon as complicit in the "Communist conspiracy."
Another arena in which militant talk is associated with prospectively violent results is in Palin's church life. Since becoming Governor, she has attended the Juneau Christian Church, which has affiliated itself with leaders of the "Toronto Blessing." The Toronto Blessing an ultracharismatic practice centered on "Holy Laughter"(otherwise known as hysterical laughter) which includes howling, barking like dogs, screaming, spasmodic jerking and rolling on floors as part of, even the substance of, "church" services. This has been reported on, taped and criticized by traditional, conservative evangelical ministries but it has spread across North America.This may sound harmless, but it binds members together in perceived antidemonic "power evangelism" to turn their cities into citadels for the righteous. One of those leaders, Rodney Howard Browne, exhorted congregants to great applause when he claimed that their movement is "going to shake this nation to its very foundations, to its very core...its going to shake America like a tsunami" and told them that "if it means death, so be it."
In a video posted by Bruce Wilson on the website of Talk To Action, Browne is described as closely linked to Palin's Juneau church and its minister. They are identified as part of a movement that seeks to "restructure the churches of America to do battle with evil prior to the return of Jesus. They are also preparing a generation of youth to serve as "Joel's Army" and to attack the "demonic strongholds" of America." Joel's Army refers to a violent end time army in the Old Testament book of Joel. Wilson previously published videos that caused John McCain to drop his affiliation with controversial ministers John Hagee and Rod Parsley.
It is unclear what Palin believes regarding the themes of violence of most the extreme elements of the groups that she has associated with for many years. But if she is going to use guilt by association methods based on activities that occurred decades ago, she has some more recent associations of her own to explain. If she believes her frequents assertions that the US is a "great nation," then why does she associate with secessionists that try to break it up? If she opposes domestic violence for political ends, how can she be associated with a group with leaders that have embraced `justifiable homicide"? It is disturbing that she declined to condemn the violence and murder against abortion providers in the NBC interview with Brian Williams, even though he asked her twice about that matter.
There is no statewide elected leader, either as governor or U.S. Senator, that has more extreme right wing, violence-prone associations that Sarah Palin. John McCain has asked us to endorse her, but even if the ticket fails this time, he has elevated her to a contending position for the 2012, energizing and empowering the extreme right in the process. No wonder that even some informed elements of the Republican Party are abandoning him.


If Sarah Palin isn’t a Member of the John Birch Society, She Should be
By mark karlin
Created 10/27/2008 - 8:09am
MARK KARLIN'S EDITOR'S BLOG
October 27
Sarah Palin has got a pass because the corporate news media has largely let her off the hook for her radical anti-American beliefs.
The mainstream press hasn’t explored the close relationship of Palin and her husband with the extremist, secessionist Alaskan Independence Party (AIP), because the McCain campaign says that she was never officially a "member." Of course, that’s a technicality because the Palins have been close to Alaskan Independence Party members, ideas and conventions, [1] with Governor Palin even sending a video tape welcome to the AIP convention [2] this year in Fairbanks, in which she commends them and indicates that she shares their values. And AIP members were among her earliest promoters for elected office, and Palin hasn’t forgotten them, not by a long shot.
And the corporate media has largely left unexplored Palin’s fanatical "Third Wave" End Times religious beliefs that promote her as a "prayer warrior" destined to take over the U.S. government to turn America into a Christian nation in which the non-believers will be shown the door. Not to mention that Palin has had a minister personally lay hands on her to protect her from witch doctors, has sat through a "Jews for Jesus" presentation in which the speaker espoused an "Elders of Zion" conspiracy theory about Jews, and proclaimed that the Iraq War is divinely inspired. And that’s just for starters.
But the corporate media listens to the campaign evasion that Palin doesn’t officially belong to a church (even though she is tied at the hip, thigh, and ankle bone to the Wasilla Assembly of God) and proclaims, "case closed."
In short, what passes as the mass media in America is acting like it doesn’t have a curious brain in any of its multi-billion dollar corporate body.
Supposing a teenager was caught driving around drunk, smashing into cars, and doing untold damage on numerous occasions. Supposing that whenever the case came to court the teenager’s lawyer pleaded to the judge that the teen could not be guilty of drunken driving because he didn’t have a driver’s license. Supposing the judge dismissed each case by saying, "I don’t know how the young man could be charged with drunken driving when he doesn’t have a license to drive. Case dismissed."
Well, that, "my friends" (to quote John McCain), is the stance of the establishment press – with few exceptions – toward Sarah Palin’s stark raving bonkers extremist views on several fronts.
Now, we have another group that she doesn’t officially belong to, but to whose outlook she clearly subscribes: The John Birch Society. (There is a photo going around the Internet [3], provided by Palin’s family, of her holding a John Birch Society publication from 1995, but that’s not really evidence of much. The evidence is in her beliefs, not what she has in her hand.)
While in Iowa over the weekend, speaking to a group that reportedly was filled with shouts of "Marxist," "Socialist," and "Communist" every time that Palin mentioned Obama, Palin said [4]:
"See, under a big government, more tax agenda, what you thought was yours would really start belonging to somebody else, to everybody else. If you thought your income, your property, your inventory, your investments were, were yours, they would really collectively belong to everybody. Obama, Barack Obama has an ideological commitment to higher taxes, and I say this based on his record... Higher taxes, more government, misusing the power to tax leads to government moving into the role of some believing that government then has to take care of us. And government kind of moving into the role as the other half of our family, making decisions for us. Now, they do this in other countries where the people are not free. Let us fight for what is right. John McCain and I, we will put our trust in you."
Whoa, that is certainly crossing over into John Birch Society extra-terrestrial whacko terrain!
So let’s go to the source -- the John Birch Society website -- for this quotation [5], which mirrors Palin’s, but with correct syntax:
"It is understandable that the severe crisis of traditional family life is fueling our overall cultural breakdown. It is also understandable why revolutionaries who wage war against God and man, and who see the family as an obstacle in their path, would work to subvert and destroy the family. Karl Marx, in his Communist Manifesto, explicitly called for the "abolition of the family." Both before and after Karl Marx, from ancient Sparta where children were taken away from their parents and brought up communally, to Nazi Germany, where the young were forced into the Hitler Youth, totalitarians have tried to supplant the family with the Almighty State. But try as they might, the family, though weakened at times, has never been destroyed."
On the John Birch Society website it also proclaims [6]: "Vibrant and healthy families are essential to securing limited government interference in a free society. Actions which empower families should be encouraged."
Of course, the corporate media will let this Palin John Birch Society affinity pass, because no doubt the McCain campaign will act indignant and say it is insulting to ask if she is a member.
Wake up dummies in the national press corps, membership is not the issue. If a person talks and acts like they are believers in the John Birch Society, membership doesn’t matter.
If Sarah Palin isn’t in the John Birch Society, she should be.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, just a few Google searches.