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March 16, 2009, 10:28 am

Obama to Appear on ‘Tonight Show’

By Helene Cooper

 

 

 

Paul Drinkwater/NBC

 

  Barack Obama appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” in 2007 when he was running for president.

President Obama will be making a guest appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” on Thursday, a White House official said, in a rare personal visit by a commander in chief to late night television.
Mr. Obama will swing by the Leno show as part of his trip to southern California. The White House official said that Mr. Obama plans to talk about the economy with Mr. Leno and said he will try to focus on substance, possibly a tall task given the show’s format.
Will he be funny? “As funny as the times allow,” the official said.
Presidential candidates often appear on television shows when they’re trying to get elected, but once successful, it is rare to find a commander in chief appearing on TV shows except as joke fodder. President Bush did show up on NBC’s “Deal or No Deal” last year, but it was in a taped appearance in which he voiced support for a contestant who had served three tours of duty in Iraq.

The 44th President, barack obama, economy, jay leno

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March 19, 2009, 4:49 pm

Senate Passes Lands Bill One More Time

By Kate Phillips

 

The Senate passed the omnibus public lands bill today, on a vote of 77-20, virtually ensuring that the bill creating new national parks and designating millions of acres as wilderness will become law sometime soon.
Representative Steny Hoyer, the majority leader in the House, just said that members would be voting on the bill next week, under a measure that provides for a simple majority vote. He and Representative Eric Cantor, the Republican whip, exchanged a few words on the House floor when Mr. Cantor sought to inquire as to whether the bill — in its latest incarnation — would be open for amendments.
Nope, Mr. Hoyer said. The House Democratic leadership has been trying to prevent that all along, and that’s one of the reasons the bill ran into trouble two weeks ago when they tried to get it passed under a rules suspension requiring two-thirds approval. It fell two votes short.
The House and the Senate have been engaged in a few procedural moves on the measure, a wrap of more than 160 bills, because of an increasing number of conservative Democrats who are likely to side with gun advocates opposed to limiting recreation like hunting, fishing and trapping on public lands. Additional language was added to the bill to try to assuage those concerns, although Republicans in the House still opposed it by and large over energy and property issues, too.
Mr. Hoyer reminded Mr. Cantor that even though the bill fell short in the House the first time around, the total was a good indicator that it had overwhelming support.

The bill would create 2 million acres of wilderness in nine states — many of them in the West. The list includes wilderness expansions in California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada, Mount Hood in Oregon, Zion National Park in Utah, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, in Jefferson National Forest in Virginia and the Monongahela in West Virginia. It also calls for establishing a 26-million-acre national conservation system, a new national monument, thousands of miles of trails and increase the number of protected miles along rivers.
Paul Spitler, of the Wilderness Society, called the legislation “the most important conservation measure in a decade.”
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, acknowledged some of her fellow Republicans’ concerns today as she stood in favor of the bill. She noted that the measure did not limit recreational hunting, fishing or trapping on the new designated areas, nor, she said, was it a “federal land grab.”

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Another Governor will Refuse Bailout Money

Another Republican Governor openly admits that not all of the monies that will be available to their state will be used. In a bold statement, this time Governor Palin of Alaska claims that she will only accept approximately 55% or 514.1 million out of the nearly 1 Billion dollars that is scheduled to arrive in her state from the Federal Government. Capital projects that she expects the money to be used for will be for transportation and aviation projects and the rest for water and sewage, public housing, a University of Alaska Fairbanks research vessel and other smaller projects. Every one of these projects will be designed with the idea of creating jobs. Another reason for the refusal of the money is that the monies will only be available for a maximum of 2 years. After that time, the funds will no longer be available, and she doesn't see it necessary to try and fund temporary projects that would not survive after 2 years. She says thanks, but no thanks for the money.

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