Given that Sarah Palin spent much of the week blasting Barack Obama for allegedly “palling” around with a “domestic terrorist” with whom Obama was not actually close, you might think the news media would examine Palin's ties to far-right extremists who support not only Alaskan succession, but speak favorably of 30 other states succeeding, too.

You'd be wrong.

But Salon picks up the slack with a detailed look at Palin's relationship with Alaska Independence Party and John Birch Society leaders who “helped launch Palin's political career in Alaska.”

Salon reports:

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. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee 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.

Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution's language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as “Black Helicopter Steve,” to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. “Every time I showed up her door was open,” said Chryson. “And that policy continued when she became governor.”

There's more. Much more.

Salon isn't the only independent news organization doing the journalism the establishment media is ignoring. Yesterday, the Washington Independent published a lengthy look at a topic the rest of the media has largely ignored: Cindy McCain's financial ties to Charles Keating. The Independent finds their business dealings lasted far longer than was previously understood:

Sen. John McCain's wife and father-in-law continued a lucrative business partnership with disgraced financier Charles H. Keating Jr. for 11 years after the GOP presidential nominee said he ended his close friendship with Keating in March 1987.

Cindy McCain's business partnership with Keating in a real-estate development between 1986 and 1998 netted her a tidy profit, in addition to years of significant tax benefits. Her father, who died in 2000, earned similar returns.

Read the rest.