Sarah Palin AKIP Missing Link: Mark Chryson

TPM has nailed down the true extent of Todd Palin's membership in the anti-American secessionist group known as AKIP. Previously, I had referred to them as AIP - the Alasakan Independence Party- but they seem to have a preference for AKIP. And this is more than just the membership in the '90s and attending an AKIP convention in '94 as was previously reported on, concerning both Todd and Sarah Palin, by the media when her 2006 video address to the group surfaced.

This afternoon, the director of Division of Elections in Alaska, Gail Fenumiai, told TPMmuckraker that Todd Palin registered in October 1995 to the Alaska Independence Party, a radical group that advocates for Alaskan secession from the United States.

Besides a short period of a few months in 2000 when he changed his registration to undeclared, Todd Palin remained a registered member of AIP until July 2002 when he registered again as an undeclared voter.

There appears to be some conflicting reports on the Sarah Palin's membership which I think I have found the way to clear up. But there is no doubt that they both attended a 1994 convention, as well as Sarah Palin's video address to the group in 2006 (Video Below).

And make no mistake about the significance of this when you consider that as the "First Dude/Dunce" of Alaska, Todd Palin, has been seen having a significant hand in Alaskan politics not typically allowed for a person with the status of citizen, given his access to what is claimed as supposedly confidential information, information that Sarah Palin refuses to release to the media or any other citizen based on obviously and demostrably false claims of "executive privilege" Sounds like the corrupt bush admin. all over again, eh? Now wonder McCain likes her.

A phone number search for a number I got out of AKIP archives sent me to this dKos Diary by Ash Meerstrand... It appears he had the same lead I was on. The phone number:

The claim that the AIP held meetings in the town where Palin was mayor while her husband was a member can easily be confirmed using Internet Archive. Meeting information from that time (the first set is from 1998, the other 2000):

Wasilla ,Alaska

Country Kitchen Restaraunt,

411 W. Parks Highway, Wasilla

Tuesdays at 7:00 PM

Wasilla, Alaska

Nobody's Inn Restaraunt,

W. Parks Highway, Wasilla

Tuesdays at 7:00 PM

Call 376-8285

It's only 8pm in Wasilla, Alaska. Is it too late to investigate? Wasilla has only about 9,000 people, and about 5,500 people lived there in the year 2000, so maybe there could be someone there that would know if Todd or Sarah ever showed up.

Check out the other place I found the phone number:

Web Alaska
Wasilla
376-8285
mailto:web-ak@ak.net

I edited out the "image source" and formatting crap so you could see the plain email addy for the "same phone" number contact. I was unable to find another reference on a quick Google of that eMail BUT I also did on a search of "web-ak". Info on website addy for this site

Excerpted from the website description:

Alaskan owned and operated, Web Alaska offers web services for Alaskans and outsiders alike. Compu Doc offers computer repair and services thoughout South Central Alaska.

edit Languages

English
edit Address

2140 Wolverine Cir
Wasilla AK 95654 US

edit Contact

Mark Chryson
+1 907 376 8285

Forget the phone number... We have a name! This from a Google search for "Chryson" and "Palin":

The following is a first hand account of a gentleman who has a story to tell about his experiences with Sarah Palin. I am granting him this venue to say what he has to say because firstly, it gives us another non-press view of a soon-to-be mainstream name, and secondly, the person giving this account is a Geek with Guns (and used to host this website for me when I needed his help).

"I just wanted to let you know ... Sarah Palin who McCain just picked as the next vice president is one of the most honest people I have known. I have known her for over 15 years, been in her house and have had numerous conversations with her, in person, on the phone both for personal issues as well as political issues.

"She is an excellent choice and this might have even saved McCain from going down in history as a loser in the presidential race. Sarah is one elected official that I can’t say anything negative about. And after 15 years of knowing her if there was something that was bad I would have known it.

"This lady has contacted me personally to get help discovering how one of her co workers was abusing his state office because she didn’t believe she could trust the states department of law. The guy later copped a plea, paid a hefty fine and lost his state job but this was after she quit her 2000 / week job and was forced to go public to expose his corruption. By the way he was/is the chairman of the state republican party
"She is VERY approachable which is going to make the insiders and secret service crazy."Wanted to let you know."

Mark Chryson
Wasilla, Alaska

If you would like to know more about the personal experiences of Mark in regards to Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin, Mark has given us permission to present the following contact information for that purpose, and offered his phone number up for that purpose as well (which I will decline to provide here do to the GwG haters).

mark [at] web-ak.com - Email Mark Chryson by removing the [at]

I have not verified the credibility of "Geeks with Guns," BUT remember how she hacked computers to out the Alaska Republican chairman...

Now from Jack Tapper's update at Political Punch:

But Fenumiai adds that Palin's husband Todd was a member of the AIP from October 1995 through July 2002, except for a few months in 2000. He is currently undeclared.

As part of their pushback against the charges of Lynette and Dexter Clark of the AIP, the McCain campaign says that Palin did not even attend the AIP convention in Wasilla in 1994.

But another former AIP official -- Mark Chryson, chairman of the AIP from 1995 to 2002 -- tells ABC News that "Palin was at the convention in 1994. She was there."

Was she a member?

Chryson can’t say. "She may have been, I do not know," he says. Their records don't go back that far.

"Ask Sarah," he suggests.

I'd love to. But she hasn't exactly been making herself available to the press.

Former AKIP chairman Chryson, friend and neighbor of the Palins for over 15 years. Chryson was in charge of Wasilla meetings for the AKIP. And Todd Palin was a member almost the entire time Chryson was in charge.

Chryson can't say if she was a member of AKIP? Or he won't say it knowing it would doom her politically.

Chryson's computer expertise coupled with Palin's inside access to computers brought down the Alaskan Republican Party Chairman leaving a power vacuum. I wonder how many AKIP connected people have since been elevated in the Alaskan GOP? Sarah Palin sounds like a woman on a super-duper-double-secret mission to me. An AKIP mission, IMHO.

This may turn into the missing link if we dig enough... heh

Side Note: Just a follow up on Secessionist Sarah diary I did earlier that I felt deserved to be more than just an update in an outdated diary.

[update] Some preliminary digging on Mark Chryson, and this ain't pretty:

various comments at dKos from myself and others that are digging.

Okay, so Walter Hickel is widely believed to have just run on the Alaskan Independence Party ticket because he felt the Republican nominee was too liberal, since he was a major advocate for statehood in the first place. He did, however, threaten to "take our star off the flag."

This was documented once on the AIP's website until 2000, and it still has a reference here: http://www.akip.org/history1.html

The audio is from her 2006 inaugural speech, which I already wrote about, but failed to mention that. Nevertheless, here it is again: http://www.gov.state.ak.us/audio/inaugural_v1.mp3

Now, the Alaska state government may be scrubbing their website, but so far it's mostly as far as links go. If you poke through Internet Archive, even if their robot crawler didn't copy the old 2007 web page, odds are it'll still be hosted somewhere on their servers and accessible via Internet, if you just remove the Internet Archive part of the URL.

That might be a good place to dig.

You can't see them on the 2008 website, and http://www.gov.state.ak.us/... is "forbidden," but here's a link to 212 audio files.

http://web.archive.org/...

I'll get crackin'.

dKos again, and this is some weird, scary and wacky stuff:

Okay, it appears that web-ak.com is a webhosting company that is owned by this friend of Palin's. I went to this site and had a look around. Under the links page, we find something called the "Waco Holocaust Museum". Now, note that this is on the links page and is hosted on the same domain. In fact, it appears to be the only thing on the links page on the same domain. At the bottom of this Waco page, there are more links, a big list of them at the bottom. Half the links don't work (archive.org anyone?), but the ones that do work include:

"Seventh Seal" An 'apolitical' history of the Axis (Nazis).

"The Confederate Memorial Association"

"Brasscheck" Appears to be a 9/11 truther site.

"Real History Archives" Assorted conspiracy theories.


"Brood of Vipers" More conspiracy theories.

"Final Conflict" Incoherent website about Nationalism. The page has an article "Did six million really die?"

Enjoy!

There are also hundreds of photos, gifs and other stuff stored in zips with file titles like /death/burial.jpg, /death/waco/burial.gif, /death/coffin.gif, /waco/coffin.html etc.. This is one wacko dude.

http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/web-ak.com/

McCafee site advisor shows 4 ZIP files that can be downloaded from the site... Virus free and all. But they look like they are just stuff for his wacky website. I really don't think I want to sift through them after looking at the site.

at the bottom of the waco page:

Published by Public Action, Inc, a news and news analysis service. All commercial rights are reserved. A full statement of terms and conditions for copying and redistribution is available in the Museum Library. "Waco Holocaust Electronic Museum," "SkyWriter," and the sky writing logo are trademarks of Public Action, Inc.

http://www.Public-Action.com/...

or http://206.55.8.10/...

Curator@Public-Action.com

All original material is copyright 1996-2000 by Carol A. Valentine, on loan to Public Action, Inc.

Postal Address: Carol A. Valentine, PO Box 10933, Burke, VA 22009

This page last updated February 28, 2001


This Page is mirrored courtesy of Web Alaska

Not "hosted by web-ak"

"This page is mirrored COURTESY OF WEB-AK"

Interesting choice of outfits to offer freebies there...

More dKos comments because I had to wonder if he goes to Sara Palin's "non-demonicnational" church:

I couldn't find anything to that effect. But I did find a choice quote by him in an apparently defunct guestbook on the akip site that does not appear to be accessible from the main page.

I am not paranoid because socialists and communists are everywhere.

--Mark Chryson on March 2, 2000.

This guy is seriously out there. He also derides someone else who posted to the guestbook as being "government educated" on Feb 25, 2001.

and a second reply:

Sorry about the second reply, but did you notice the article linked at the top of the Waco page called "The FBI's Catholic Church"? It seems to be trying to make the argument that Waco was a plot by the Catholic church because some FBI agents happen to be Catholic. These people are seriously lunatics.

Chryson is as loony as a right wingnut can possibly get...

And this is the guy who was the leader of Todd Palin's political party when he was a member? As well as their neighbor who ran the local AKIP meetups? And Sarah Palin got help from him to bring down the Alaskan GOP chairman according to Chryson's words.

And the media gave him a public stage to give a Sarah Palin testimonial. WTF???

Obama Hits Republicans Mocking Community Organizers

In York, PA Democratic party Presidential hopeful Barack Obama hits back hard on the Republican convention talking point of insulting community organizers:



Not only does Obama destroy most of the GOP's trivial insinuations that are trying to be made with Republican's ridiculous attack on community organizers across America, but he throws the reality of what it all truly means right back in the faces of the meek-minded GOP talking point brigade spectacle that was the RNC. Republicans really are out of touch with the average American.

And Another Palin Scandal Coming - An Affair?

Via the Telegraph, all of the sudden they want to talk about the issues:

“Senator McCain and Governor Palin look forward to discussing the issues that Americans care about, fixing broken government, creating jobs, making our country energy independent and securing the peace for the next generation by bringing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to a victorious end,” Mr Schmidt continued.

After spending the entire "meet some Alaskan lady who ain't what she says she is" evening attacking community organizers, the average American kind of person trying to help others in thousands of little people ways, and as a back handed attack on Barrack Obama's previous works, and instead of concentrating on defining their positions on real issues... Now, all of a sudden they want to talk about the issues?

Via the AP, and I know this may shock some of you - the McCain campaign is so shocked they are threatening to sue the National Enquirer - but it appears that adultery may run in the Palin family:

The National Enquirer wrote in its edition dated Sept. 15 that Palin had an affair with a business associate of her husband, Todd Palin. He discovered the infidelity and dissolved the business, the article said. It attributed the allegation only to "an enemy" of the Alaska governor.

No need to wonder why the sudden change of direction from the misfiring McCain-Palin for Alaskan Independence ticket...

“The National Enquirer's coverage of a vicious war within Sarah Palin's extended family includes several newsworthy revelations, including the resulting incredible charge of an affair plus details of family strife when the Governor's daughter revealed her pregnancy.

“Following our John Edwards exclusives, our political reporting has obviously proven to be more detail-oriented than the McCain campaign's vetting process. Despite the McCain camp's attempts to control press coverage they find unfavorable, The Enquirer will continue to pursue news on both sides of the political spectrum."

Now this is the funny thing here that doesn't make much sense at all - and I credit my wife for noticing this before I did - Why the hell is the McCain campaign threatening legal action? Neither McCain nor his campaign should have any legal standing here. Shouldn't Sarah Palin be the one doing that? Unless she knows she would lose...

I have this feeling the National Enquirer featuring the scandalized Sarah Palin will fly off the shelves in the next little while.

The ENQUIRER has also learned that Palin’s family is embroiled in a vicious war that is now exposing her darkest secrets, threatening to destroy her political career.

Palin’s ongoing war with her ex brother-in-law Mike Wooten, a state trooper, has caused multiple sources to come forward with shocking allegations about the governor.

Details of those allegations, the family feud, and Palin’s attempt to cover up her teen daughter’s pregnancy are in the new issue of The ENQUIRER.

At this point in time I am beginning to wonder if the GOP should forget about just bringing in a new VP candidate to replace Sarah million and one scandals Palin and yank their endorsement of John McCain entirely.

Because John McCain really blew it big time when he picked Palin.

Side Note: After putting so much effort into building up the National Enquirer's credibility during the John Edwards scandal it should be interesting to watch the right wing try and tear them down as a source this time.

[update] Image via Phillybits:



[update deux] Via the Alaska Blog Mudflats... The shit is really gonna hit the fan across the media:

The latest story the National Enquirer is working on is that Palin had an affair with Todd’s ex-business partner in an Anchorage Car Wash venture. This was an interesting twist because it was also rumored that Todd Palin had an “Edwards problem”. Maybe he has an Elizabeth Edwards problem. I generally try to resist getting too caught up in the smarminess, unless it becomes impossible. It just did.

Two days ago, Todd’s ex-business partner filed an emergency motion to have his divorce papers sealed. Yesterday the motion was DENIED.

And the squeaky clean Hockey Mom's purported lover?

A local Palmer politician and...
A hockey coach? (see update below)

You just can't make stuff like this up! lol

[update trois] A welcome to Buzzflash readers: and a reminder of the many great services they provide to the Blogosphere:

Visit the BUZZFLASH Family of Political News Websites:

BuzzFlash.Org | BuzzFlash.Net | Last Chance Democracy Cafe | Wings of Justice.Com
GOP Hypocrites.Com | Media PUTZ.Com | BE-ELECTED.com | Libby Defense Fund.Com
BuzzFlash MarketPlace.Com | Send Comments to BuzzFlash's Mailbag

And a friendly note to Friendly Bear at the TulsaNow Forum: I am an unaffiliated little "i" indie and, YES, I support Obama. Big whoop! Just a liberal with those frickin' pesky liberal facts. Other than being among the millions of Obama supporters there is no connection to any political party, news agency or campaign. But seriously, WTF? Did you think the GOP would be pumping this stuff out like they did with the Enquirers stories on Edwards? You will be waiting forever an a day for them to write on this. And please note the AP and Telegraph sources as well. Unlike the ludicrous GOP talking point brigade, I waited for multiple sourcing before I Blogged on this.

[update quatre] Right now there are all kinds of rumors floating around... While there is the original rumor of a guy named Brad Hanson as the lover, there is also a guy named Richter that shares a property with the Palins and that wanted to get his divorce papers sealed, and another former business partner named Ray Wells...

From what I have read about the Palins so far... I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out they were swingers! lol And it is fun to watch republicans squirm over this.

McCain Whiners Crumpling Under Campaign Pressure

I wonder why?

Steve Schmidt, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) top campaign strategist, yesterday accused the media of being “on a mission to destroy” Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) by displaying “a level of viciousness and scurrilousness” in pursuing questions about her personal life. Schmidt said the McCain campaign feels “under siege” by news inquiries on Palin.

Let us review the situation that got you where you are, shall we?

1. McCain picks Sarah Palin as his running mate.
   
   
2. A - Barrage - Of - Epic - Proportions - Casting - Serious - Doubt - On - This - Reckless - And - Incompetent - Decision - Is - Unleashed - Upon - McCain.

Could the problem, just maybe, be the McIdiot that picked Palin in the first place? And just a thought - whining about the Palin pick afterwards doesn't help McCain's pitiful situation much.

Palin Speech Canceled - Will she be dumped?

The McCain campaign provides what I believe to be spin on what may be a necessary reaction to the complete failure of John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate:

Conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly lashed out Tuesday at the McCain campaign after it suddenly canceled an appearance by vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin at an event sponsored by Schlafly’s Republican National Coalition for Life.

Palin was to receive the “Life of the Party” award and deliver the keynote speech at the event this afternoon, but the McCain campaign canceled her appearance, citing the need for her to prepare for Wednesday night’s speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Schlafly said.

“I think this is clearly somebody in the McCain campaign who doesn’t understand where the votes are coming from,” Schlafly told ABC News.

Given the number of scandals that are breaking on Palin, new scandals nearly by the hour since McCain picked Palin without properly vetting her, I think that Bob and others may be speaking the truth here:

The Sarah Palin Death Watch

It's getting worse for Ms. Palin every day. The MSM has picked up the loose threads of her various issues, and they're digging hard. How long before she either a) withdraws because of "family issues", or b) is unceremoniously dumped by McCain and the GOP?

I was giving odds (3-1 at last estimate) but a metaphorical death watch seems more appropriate. It's not whether it's going to happen, but when? I say 9/7/08 is going to be the day.

Over on FDL they've started a "Sarah Palin Goodbye Watch", but really, shouldn't it be called a figurative "death watch"? Because her political ambitions are going to expire well before their time (which would have been November 4th anyway).

A lot of the scandals have yet to be fully absorbed in the mainstream media and feed into the public eye-line, considering not everyone is a news and policy junkie Blogger in America, but the media is catching up and a lot of the stuff is going to be in your face from the traditional media newspaper sources as well as in the supermarket magazine racks:


The article inside is as scathing as the cover stories promise, though it won't include the more recent scandals and updates on the old ones.

On January 15, Alaska governor Sarah Palin laughed along with an Alaskan shock-jock DJ who called her political rival Lyda Green a "cancer," a "bitch" and ridiculed her weight. (Green is a cancer survivor.)

"People were so nice and were motified. Newspapers that were never Lyda Green-friendly, they demanded that [Sarah] apologize," Green told Us.

"You know what she said? She said, 'I'm calling to apologize. I hope you didn't misunderstand the radio program,'" Green says. "I told her, 'I didn't misunderstand.'"

The Alaska state senator added, "It's not a good way to behave. Why would anybody call a shock jock?"

So what did Green think when she heard Palin was John McCain's vice presidential candidate? "It's been very difficult to work with her," she tells Us Weekly. "I wish there had been more vetting."

Monday, Palin released a statement confirming that her daughter Bristol, 17, was five-months pregnant.

Mom-of-five Palin is antiabortion (even in cases of rape) and opposed to sex-education classes (she believes in abstinence instruction for teens).

The latest scandal du jour on Palin exemplifies the kind of bush failure that the eratic John McCain has further embraced as his own in his pick of the deeply scandalized Palin:

Mat Maid in brief:

Palin fired the whole state Agriculture and Conservation board in July 2007, ostensibly to save a mismanaged state-owned dairy, and replaced it with her usual gang of cronies.

As a result, the dairy lost more money than it had in twenty years.

The dairy, an Alaska icon, closed anyway in two months, taking hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional state money with it.

Millions of dollars in dairy equipment ended up, at a steep discount, in the hands of a local Palin ally, who now runs a remarkably similar operation with the help of a Ted Stevens earmark.

Want to learn more? Please read on - I've reworked my entry somewhat for clarity and added some new information.

...snip...

Once the new Board was seated and the death sentence on Mat Maid lifted, Palin immediately authorized paying out the $600,000 state grant to Mat Maid the prior board had refused. The money disappeared into the corporation’s general funds, where it was used to fund operations. Payments to Wasilla-area dairy farmers continued uninterrupted, even as other bills piled up. In fact,the Board raised the price of milk Mat Maid paid to dairy farmers, only making Mat Maid’s economic predicament worse, but shifting even more taxpayer dollars into the pockets of the well-connected.

Of course, this naked income redistribution - from hard-strapped Alaska taxpayers to well-connected dairy farmers - needed camouflaging. So the new Board spent several months, and tens of thousand of dollars, investigating the prior Board’s behavior, hiring an accounting firm (Mikunda, Cottrell and Company) to review the financial records of Mat Maid in search of the classic mismanagement trinity: waste, fraud and abuse. No significant improprieties were ever found.

Which, of course, only adds to Palin's clear ties to the eternally corrupt Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens - a prime candidate for the Corrupt Bastads Club - and further exposes her abusive mismanagement skills while rewarding her own cronies.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin began building clout in her state's political circles in part by serving as a director of an independent political group organized by the now embattled Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

Palin's name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors.

Sarah Palin tried to build an image as some kind of "reformer" in Alaskan politics. But it is proving that she did so simply for the reason that it allowed her to push many in the previous "old boys network" out of the way in order to install her own network of cronies and profiteers. She eventually turned on Ted Stevens as well. But only after it became clear that Stevens was not going to escape indictment.

Given the fact that McCain represents just more of the same corrupt corporate profiteering, as evidenced by his campaign backbone being run by some of the worst examples of corporate lobbying run amok in Washington D.C., it is becoming clearer every day why John McCain went out of his way to make this clearly incompetent and irrational pick of Palin as his running mate.

Previously brewed in New Milford:

Lobbying for the Truth Behind the McCain Affairs

The truth that the GOP is trying to avoid discussing... Has nothing to do with the fact that McCain cheated repeatedly on his first wife, finally leaving her when he found a suitable stepping stone spouse for his political career. I could deal with The Real McCain's family values disgraces but I'll leave that to the ostriches in the conservative echo chamber to choke on:

According to Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief, February 1, 2008, "[John McCain] used nepotism to get ahead: When he was rejected by the National War College, he used his father's contacts with the Secretary of the Navy to make them reconsider." Skousen also notes that "McCain cheated on his first wife after she had a severe accident. He then divorced her and married his multi-millionaire mistress, whose daddy bought McCain a spot in the Congress."

It has also never been explained why the son and grandson of Navy admirals would not rise to the rank of Admiral himself. (He exited the Navy as a Captain.) Was it his numerous adulterous affairs or his violent temper? Or both?

John McCain's biographer Robert Timberg chronicles McCain's numerous sexual affairs with subordinates both when he was an Executive Officer and later Squadron Commander. Obviously, such fraternization is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

They can torture themselves over McCain's hypocrisy on that issue while burying their heads in the sand from the real issue raised in the recent NY Times article. Glen Greenwald gets straight to the heart of the very real McCain issue, the issue that the GOP is avoiding like a neoconservative plague:

In issuing a very specific, point-by-point denial of the NYT story, McCain specifically denied that he ever talked to Paxson's CEO, Lowell Paxson (or any other Paxson representative) about this matter:

No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay discussed with Senator McCain the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proceeding. . . . No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC regarding this proceeding.

Au contraire, my fuzzy, feathery pet neocons:

But Newsweek's Mike Isikoff today obtained (or was given) the transcripts of deposition testimony which McCain himself gave under oath several years ago in litigation over the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold. In that testimony, McCain repeatedly and unequivocally stated the opposite of what he said in this week's NYT denial: namely, that he had unquestionably spoken with Paxson himself over the pending FCC matter:

"I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue -- an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named -- "I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]."

It's hard to imagine how there could be a clearer contradiction in McCain's statements than (a) "I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]" and (b) "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay discussed with Senator McCain the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proceeding."

I'll let the GOP cry over whether or not he cheated on his second wife, the lobbying mistress he left his first wife for after repeatedly cheating on her, and whether or not he married her for her money and used her to further his career ambitions... Most of the left could care less about McCain's spousal issues. It is a minor issue, and trivial to a certain degree. It is all just a shield for the right to try deflect from and avoid the lobbying allegations. Never mind the hypocrisy concerning other lobbying aspects of his dubious campaign:

Set aside the issue of the nature of his relationship with Iseman, and you have the undeniable conflict of McCain, the chest-beating reformer, being so undeniably close to lobbyists. That, many have pointed out, is the real story. The man who's absurdly proclaimed that "I’m the only one the special interests don’t give any money to" is surrounded by lobbyists.

And The Washington Post, a day after it ran its own Iseman story on page one, goes with that story on today's front page under the concise headline, "The Anti-Lobbyist, Advised by Lobbyists."

I'm not playing into John McCain's supporters hands and deflecting from the real issues of lying about unethical lobbyist connections because...

I'm Not Your Stepping Stone!

Certainly not when all John McCain has to offer is less jobs, and MORE WAR!

[update] Via MSNBC, McCain says he won't discuss his Lobbyist weaknesses any further:

"I don't have any more comment about this issue. I had a press conference yesterday morning, and I answered every question," McCain said.

"I'm moving on. I'm talking about the issues and the challenges of America and the big issues that Americans are concerned about. I addressed the issue and addressed every question that was addressed to me.

"I do not intend to discuss it further," he told reporters.

After omitting the fact that he lied at that press conference yesterday, McCain then goes on to exactly what he said he wouldn't do: Discuss it further:

"I square it one way," McCain said. "The right to represent interests or groups of Americans is a constitutional right. There are people that represent firemen, civil servants, retirees, and those people are legitimate representatives of a variety of interests in America.

WOOOHOOO! The old "Constitutionally protected" argument from a candidate that regularly ignores and tramples on The Constitution when it comes to your rights and mine. When McCain says he isn't going to talk about it anymore... He is really just praying that we will stop asking and digging on it. Good luck on that one!

[update deux] Crooks and Liars chronicles some of the lies from McCain:

So much for the Straight talk express. He’s been trying to spin the influence that Ms. Iseman had on him overall and specifically regarding the Paxson deal. McCain’s camp had this to say:

Statements from McCain’s office said Iseman met only with staff and indicated that a staff member was involved in drafting and sending the letter. Thursday’s statement went to lengths to say why McCain could not have met with Paxson.

There’s a slight problem with that. Bud Paxson basically called McCain a liar.

Broadcaster Lowell “Bud” Paxson yesterday contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson’s behalf.

Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson’s quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.

And what about Vicki Iseman, you know, the lobbyist that McCain called a “friend?”

Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, likely attended the meeting in McCain’s office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. “Was Vicki there? Probably,” Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post yesterday. “The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings.”

Oh yes! There's still more more lies and inconsistencies from McCain...

[update trois] Denis Horgan sums up the inconsistancies of McCain on the lobbyists well:

Snow is sunshine. The moon is Mars. What’s the difference? How is the truth relevant?

Oh, yes. We need four more years of this.

[update] Via the local Wasilla, Alaska Blogger at Mudflats, where a caption contest is suggested for this recent ly taken town picture:

Time for a caption contest! Anyone?

And No! That image isn't photoshopped... "We hold these truths to be self-evident"

Palin Membership in Anti-American Group Extended

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.