In his desperate need to undo everything that Obama accomplished Donald Trump even wanted to change the name of North America's highest mountain, which happens to be in Alaska.

This was from a story in Alaska Dispatch published two ago about Senator Dan Sullivan's appearance at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention.

During that appearance Sullivan shared this anecdote:  

He described an hour-plus meeting that he and Sen. Lisa Murkowski had a few months back with Trump and Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke in the Oval Office. 

"We had maps and we were talking all about Alaska issues. So many issues. Our fisheries. Whaling, the culture of whaling in Alaska. The economy. The military," Sullivan said. 

They brought up Obama administration actions that they said hurt Alaska, such as a block on the King Cove-Cold Bay road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, Sullivan said. 

On each one, Trump asked Zinke: "Can we change that and help Alaska?" 

Trump thought of one on his own. Wasn't the name of a big mountain in Alaska changed by executive order? he asked, referring to Denali, the former Mount McKinley named for the president from Ohio. 

"Lisa — Sen. Murkowski — and I jumped over the desk. We said no, no!" said Sullivan, who is originally from Ohio. 

Why? Trump asked. 

"The Alaska Native people named that mountain over 10,000 years ago," Sullivan said he told him. "Denali, that was the name."

Not that we needed it, but this is just more proof that Trump's presidency is almost exclusively defined by his desire to undo every single thing that President Obama accomplished during his eight years in office.

By  the way you can bet big money that if Murkowski and Sullivan had not seen their political future pass before their eyes at the prospect of being blamed for the renaming of Denali, that Trump would already have written that executive order and christened it "Trump Mountain."

This is why we can't have nice things in Alaska.

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:  

A moose with an appetite for music surprised a Denali National Park and Preserve employee last week at her home in Interior Alaska. 

On May 4, Britta Schroeder was drifting off to sleep when her wind chimes began to ring. It’s windy in Healy, the Interior Alaska community just north of the park, so at first she didn’t think much of it, Schroeder said. 

But “it continued on and on,” Schroeder said. Once her dog’s ears perked up, she realized an animal must be outside her door. 

She peeked outside and saw the moose, which a co-worker told Schroeder is likely a female. Schroeder opened her door just a crack -- so that her dog wouldn’t get outside -- to take video.

You know that moose has a good ear for music. That was actually a little pleasant.

Of course she kind of broke the chimes, but what do you expect? She's a moose.

You know I don't think you can actually live in Alaska for too long without having at least one or two moose stories to share.

I have a few such as the day I was delivering newspapers and hit a baby moose while standing uncomfortably close to its mother.

Or the time that I accidentally blocked the only exit out of a fenced back yard and in response was charged by a bull moose which chased me all the way back to my car.

Or the time I put my name on the list to help a non-profit organization harvest the meat from a moose that had been struck by a car. Yeah, that was a bad night.

For the most part however the moose and the people live in some harmony, though there are certainly times of the year when you want to give them a wide berth. 

Sarah Palin writes article about President Obama's trip to Alaska using "Denali" as her nom de plume. No, I am not kidding.

Sarah Palin February 20, 2008.

Okay so either I am having another LSD flashback (I swear I thought they were just sugar cubes.) or Sarah Palin just passive aggressively threw her daughter, and her daughter's ghostwriter under the bus by using the name that the Secret Service gave her as her byline for this article entitled "What the President didn't see from Alaska."

As you can imagine it is full of attacks on the President, though unlike her Facebook posts there is an attempt at civility.

Here are a few of the low lights.

It starts off with this qualifier:

NOTE: “Denali” was the name assigned to Gov. Sarah Palin by the United States Secret Service during the 2008 campaign. Her husband’s code name, per Secret Service, was “Driller.” 

Of course WE already explained all that days ago.

There is a little gentle teasing at first:

While here, he enjoyed spectacular autumn weather which he commemorated with many selfies on a stick. He danced, he held a fish, he hiked a glacier (thankfully not the Mendenhal Glacier, for that chunk of ice is, literally, the size of Rhode Island. Instead, he enjoyed one of the other 100,000 Alaskan glaciers). And, he renamed a mountain…our mountain…the tallest peak on the North America continent.

That's really all Palin says about the renaming, which kind of leaves Nancy French and Bristol out on that iceberg of ignorance all on their own. Now that is cold.

But enough with the sweet talk, time for Palin to pull off the mittens. Which she does by jabbing Obama over his message concerning climate change:

Unlike most tourists, the President heads home now with his enormous fleet of transport vehicles – ironically after plenty of finger pointing on this Global Warming tour. Astoundingly, with just this one trip, a bigger carbon footprint was created than what 33 cars combined would create in an entire year.

Never going to stop being that mean girl from Wasilla High are you Sarah?

Oh here is one of the conservative's favorite new talking points, the Chinese ships in the Bering Sea.

Five Chinese warships off our Alaska coast – right there in the Bering Sea this morning – a signal that growing Superpowers like China (and Russia, with its recent brazen claims to lands and waterways that a sleepy America should be claiming) are no longer respectful of America, nor intimidated.

Bristol's ghostwriter also made some hay with this.

However the facts are that the Chinese are breaking no laws as those are international waters, and the Defense Department does not characterize their actions as a threat:

Another official told the Wall Street Journal the defence department did not "characterise anything they're doing as threatening".

I am not sure what Palin would have President Obama do, short of sending Donald Trump out on a rubber raft to start insulting them until they left the area.

Palin, sorry "Denali," also bitched about all of the oil still underground in Alaska that has not been ripped out, burnt, and released as a toxin into our atmosphere.

She then dinged the President for not visiting any of the military bases: 

The Commander in Chief wasn’t able to make time to visit with Alaska’s 22,000-plus active duty military personnel proudly fighting for our freedom. We’ll thank the troops for you, sir.

Hang on I have to wipe the venom off of my keyboard.

And then Palin complained that the President did not visit one of Franklin Graham's bullshit charities:

Next time I hope the President can take a minute to visit groups like Franklin Graham’s “Operation Heal our Patriots” near Bristol Bay; the faith-based charity working to heal scars inflicted in war.

Does she mean scars inflicted by the wars that George W. Bush started, and President Obama ended, thereby saving perhaps hundreds of American military lives?

Then, believe it or not, Snowdrift Snooki complains that Obama did not bother to confirm that yes you can see Russia from Alaska. (Damn she simply CANNOT let things go can she?)

The article ends with this blurb:

Denali served as Alaska’s 9th Governor, the youngest and first woman governor of America’s largest state. Prior to serving as Governor she was Mayor and Manager of the state’s fastest growing community, then went on to regulate energy development as Chairman of Alaska’s Oil & Gas Commission. Denali’s husband, a Yupik Eskimo from Dillingham, is the four-time “Iron Dog” race champion, is a pilot, and worked for nearly two decades as an oil field production operator in Prudhoe Bay. The family owns and operates a commercial fishing business in Bristol Bay.

Can you believe that shit?

Now if you will excuse me I have to go rinse my brain out with disinfectant.

So true.

Okay well the graphic's a few days out of date now, but it still makes a very valid point.

When was the last time that you heard anybody EVER arguing for something to be named, or remain  named, after freaking William McKinley?

I swear that if President Obama gets up tomorrow, takes a deep breath, and declares that oxygen is the greatest thing ever, every Republican in the country will suddenly refuse to breath.

Hey....might be worth a try.

Or is that just mean?

Does anybody want to see Bristol Palin getting ripped to shreds for her ignorant post yesterday? Sure you do.

So I don't have to tell you that Bristol really stepped in it yesterday with this post: 

By the way, no one is buying the “Denali is what the Alaskans have called it for years” line. I’ve never called the mountain Denali .. and neither does anyone I know … 

It’s Mt. Mckinley … It always has been and always will be to most of us… 

You know there's stupid, and then there's the Palin brand of stupid.

And that did not escape the notice of various blogs and websites who are having a field day with mocking the unwed mother to be part deux.

First there's this from The Hollywood Gossip: 

“The list goes on and on," she blogged "But instead he worries about renaming a mountain… The next election can't come any sooner." 

We're guessing Bristol meant the next election can't come soon enough. 

But we stopped questioning someone who made $300,000 as an abstinence spokesperson, only to then go ahead and get pregnant again, a long time ago.

Others focused on the fact that even Bristol's mother had referred to the mountain as Denali during her farewell address.

This from Raw Story:

It is entirely possible that Bristol wasn’t listening to her mom (teenagers, hmphh!) which makes sense because if she had ever listened to her mom before– who is pro-condom — she wouldn’t be adding on all that baby weight. 

Again.

And then of course the folks at Wonkette had to have their say:

OH YEAH, BRISTOL? Maybe you were too busy getting knocked up by the Lord to know What Mountains Is Called, but your mother, your repugnant idiot mother, you know, that lady who ran Alaska for like seven minutes before she ran out to buy cigarettes and never came back, SHE KNOWS what the mountain is supposed to be called, and it’s called “Denali,” according to Alaskans.

It's kind of hard to say that yesterday's post is the dumbest thing that has ever appeared on Bristol's ghostwritten blog (After all there is SO much competition.), but it is definitely in the top five.

I am currently waiting for Nancy French to double down on the post, because as you know Palin's, and their ghostwriters, are genetically incapable of admitting a mistake.

But so far the only posts since that debacle has been one attacking Hillary, and another featuring that photo at the top of this page.

Perhaps French and Palin are conspiring to one up the Denali post with others that deny obvious truths in Alaska. Such as one claiming that climate change is a liberal plot, or that hypothermia is an imaginary condition, or perhaps that bears do NOT, in fact, shit in the woods.

At this point I cannot say I would be surprised by any of those.

Image of the day.

I am going to assume that none of you need to visit Snopes to find out how stupid this graphic is, but sadly there were a lot of folks that did.

And here I thought the post from Bristols blog was the most ignorant thing I would read today.

Somebody sent me this awesome Daily Show clip that really helps to illustrate what dicks the people of Ohio have been for these last several decades.

In more uplifting news here is Alaska Dispatch's coverage of President Obama on day two of his visit.

Just look at how traumatized this poor woman was when the President shook her hand.

Here he is photobombing some people just trying to get breakfast at the Snow City Cafe

Honestly this is about the biggest thing that has happened up here since the 1964 earthquake.

Only the shake up caused by Obama's visit is far more beneficial to the Alaskan people.

Too cowardly to attack the President's Alaskan trip on her own, Sarah Palin sics Bristol's ghostwriter on him instead. Update!

Most recent photo of Bristol from her Pikore account.

I am going to include this entire bizarre rant in it's entirety because it really has to be seen to be believed.

Courtesy of Brancy's blog: 

President Obama is taking a trip to the Alaskan Arctic. 

I wish we could add up how much this trip costs the tax payers dollars……….. They probably had to BARGE limousines here!!!!!!! They rented out an entire TOWER at our nicest hotel here? A TOWER!!!!!!!!!! 

(Yes it costs a lot of money for the President to travel. We get that. Perhaps it would cost less if everybody wasn't always agitating people into threatening his life.)

Shut down most of downtown Anchorage.. So many protesters here in Alaska this morning awaiting his arrival.. This is just a joke for us.. (Not a joke to these Alaskans.)

I’m completely dumbfounded by his trip here. Why again? (To talk about Climate Change mostly, you can read about that here.)

And what does he seem most concerned about? Renaming a mountain. (Nope, that's not it.)

He announced yesterday that he will be renaming Mt. McKinley, Denali, its “traditional Native American name.” (Why is that last part in quotation marks? Does she thing that is a false claim?) But renaming a mountain is not going to make up for all the other ways he has let down the Alaskan people. 

Why doesn’t he check out our oil fields? Why doesn’t he open our pipeline so we can supply our own natural gas instead of buying it from our enemies in the Middle East… This is just a joke… (The President is allowing Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean, making many of his supporters quite angry, isn't THAT enough for this bitch?) The next election can’t come any sooner. (WTH does THAT mean?)

The President should be worrying about the radical jihadists in ISIS who are gaining land and power everyday as they enslave, rape, and murder their way through the Middle East. He should be worrying about Pastor Saeed and the other Americans held hostage in Iran while we send billions of dollars to them in a horrible nuclear deal. He should be worrying about the economy, which still hasn’t fully recovered. You should be worrying about our broken immigration system. 

The list goes on and on. But instead he worries about renaming a mountain. 

Mr. President, stop playing political games and start doing your job. (Says the ghostwriter, for the daughter, of the woman who quit her job a little more than halfway through.)

That’s what Alaskans really care about. 

By the way, no one is buying the “Denali is what the Alaskans have called it for years” line. I’ve never called the mountain Denali .. and neither does anyone I know … 

 It’s Mt. Mckinley … It always has been and always will be to most of us… 

What a waste.. 

Yes what a waste of SarahPAC money to type all of that garbage out in a blog post.

For the record Alaskans have been petitioning to have McKinley changed to Denali since 1975, but were blocked by those assholes in Ohio.

In 1980 Jimmy Carter renamed the area around the mountain Denali National Park, as a kind of compromise.

I have lived here my entire life, and the only people I know who still refer to Denali as Mt. McKinley are Cheechakos from out of state.

Personally I am a little shocked that Palin allowed this to be written on Bristol's behalf.

Every real Alaskan up here is going to immediately smell the mooseshit wafting off of the post, and happily point that out to any reporter who wants to ask them about it.

I don't know whose ass Palin is trying to kiss now, but she just lost the very last shred of credibility that she might have had left with the Alaskan people.

Update: And yes it should be noted that "Denali"  was the code name the Secret Service gave Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign.

Which makes this post even more incredibly stupid.

Update 2: And yes Palin referred to the mountain as Denali as well, but Shatner did it better.

President Obama arrives in Alaska. Update!

So the President has landed here in Anchorage, and he is currently staying at the Captain Cook hotel only eight miles from where I am right now, and a place where I once spent the night in order to impress some woman I was dating.

I have been invited to a rally downtown tomorrow for the President but I think work is going to make that impossible.  (I know that most people think this is my job, but yeah not so much.)

As Anchorage prepares for the Commander-in-Chief there have been a few bumps, such as the fact that APD accidentally towed away a Secret Service vehicle.

But don't worry they put it back.

Apparently while up here the President will participate in one of our favorite Alaskan pastimes, appearing in a reality show: 

Obama will appear on a special episode of the NBC outdoor adventure show Running Wild with Bear Grylls, the network announced Monday in a news release. The president and the host will be trekking through the Alaskan wilderness. The episode, to be taped, will air on NBC later this year. It will highlight the effects of climate change in that area.

You know I bet that episode gets MUCH higher ratings than another short lived reality show featuring a politician that I can think of.

As previously reported the President will be here all the way through Wednesday of this week, and I am sure that he will be greeted warmly by most of my fellow Alaskans.

To be honest so long as he avoids the Mat-Su Valley and Fairbanks he will probably see mostly friendly faces.

Speaking of friendly faces, the President might also want to avoid going to Ohio anytime soon as they are in a real snit over his decision to officially rename our largest mountain by the name we have been calling it all along.

Apparently by doing that he has insulted Ohioans, disappointed Republicans, angered conservatives, and pissed in John Kasich's cornflakes.

As POTUS once again oversteps his bounds, Ohio knows every carnation is a monument to our own William McKinley. -John pic.twitter.com/GvQfqnIKOh

— John Kasich (@JohnKasich) August 31, 2015

Yeah Kasich kind of lost me there, but all I know is that it is none of his, the Republicans, or the people of Ohio's business what we call OUR mountain.

If they want to honor William McKinley so badly why don't they name one of THEIR mountains after him?

Oh that's right, they don't have any.

Update: Well Donald Trump just lost the Alaskan vote.

President Obama wants to change the name of Mt. McKinley to Denali after more than 100 years. Great insult to Ohio. I will change back!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2015

President Obama just renamed Alaska's tallest mountain.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

President Obama has changed the name of Alaska's Mt. McKinley to Denali, the White House announced Sunday, a day before the president is set to visit the state. 

"Denali" is the Alaskan Native name for the mountain, which is North America's tallest - and a site of cultural significance to Alaska's native population. 

U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell signed the order renaming the mountain on Friday. Obama will officially rename the peak in Anchorage tomorrow, where he will kick off his presidential visit to the 49th state. 

The name change follows a longstanding effort to re-designate the mountain by its Athabascan name. In 1975 Alaska's governor formally requested that the secretary of the interior work to change the name, following a resolution from the Alaska State Legislature. 

"For centuries, Alaskans have known this majestic mountain as the 'Great One.' Today we are honored to be able to officially recognize the mountain as Denali," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, wrote in a statement thanking the president.

Well I'm glad to see that Lisa Murkowski is supporting the name change, because true Alaskans have been  arguing for it for decades.

Denali was renamed Mt. McKinley by some white gold prospector and that became the official name back in 1917. And it has been pissing off the Alaska natives ever since.

The name Denali means "the great one" and if you have ever seen it you know that is the name it deserves.

Look, President Obama is already doing great things for Alaska, and he has not even landed here yet. One can only imagine how much he will accomplish in the three days that he is scheduled to be here.

Update: Oh and by the way fuck Ohio. That's right, I said it!

Just what kind of reality show is Bristol Palin filming in Wasilla? Update!

A little (very well connected) bird told me that Bristol is currently filming some sort of reality show around Wasilla, as well as in Anchorage and up toward Denali, from July 26th to August 3rd.

Apparently she also purchased a home on Lake Lucille (Doesn't she already have a place to stay on Lake Lucille?), to use for the show.

It kind of seems odd that she would buy a house on the same lake as her mother, if she was going to be living in LA in the near future don't you think?