See those maniacs at right? The ones a-hootin' and a-hollerin' about how, if they had their own country, the blacks and gays and A-rabs wouldn't be able to take their women and bars and money, respectively? Ironically, those clowns calling for a Southern nation in America seem to have a lot more in common with the North than they think. The far North, that is. And you know we wouldn't be talking about the crazies in Alaska right now if it had nothing to do with witchy ding-dong Sarah Palin.

Turns out that Sarah Palin really is as nutty as we've made her out to be!

Though [Mark] 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 [Alaskan Independence Party], 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.”

Chryson, Salon reporters Max Blumenthal and David Neiwart write, is never without a gun on his person, and, by his own admission, could "raise a small army in [his] basement."

This whole AIP thing started with a fella named "Old Joe" Vogler, who sane Alaskans used to laugh at. Vogler ran for governor in 1982 on his toy party's ticket, along the way offering brilliant ideas like, "Let's explode Alaska's glaciers with nuclear weapons to extract gold from under them." Unfortunately, Vogler never got around to blowing up parts of his state with gigantic bombs:

With sponsorship from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Vogler was scheduled to present his case for Alaskan secession before the United Nations General Assembly in the late spring of 1993. But before he could, Old Joe’s long, strange political career ended tragically that May when he was murdered by a fellow secessionist.

Since Vogler's death, Chryson has taken it upon himself to get rid of a lot of Old Joe's more "racist" policies and push the party forward, choosing instead to advocate much more rational platforms, including widespread intolerance of gays, a heavily armed citizenry, zero taxes and a complete Alaskan secession from the United States of America.

In 1994, Sarah Palin attended the AIP's statewide convention. The next year, Palin's husband, Todd, changed his voter registration to AIP. (This stay his affiliation until 2002, when he changed it to undeclared.) And then, in 1996, Chryson laid the groundwork for Palin's run for Mayor of Wasilla. She won, of course, and the rest is bigoted, hateful, frightening history.

Says Chryson: "…the door remains open now that Palin is governor."

Bill Ayers, eat your heart out.