Carry on voting on my puppy’s name – and that’s an order – but meanwhile, buy this glorious cookery book. Damn it, the cover alone is worth it.
“There are plenty of delectable cakes, custards, tarts, cookies, ice cream and other items to enhance your pastry repertoire, such as Rum Cake with Spiced Butter Rum Glaze, Chocolate Walnut Financiers, Amadeus Cookies, Yogurt Cake with Five-Spice Plums, Maple Custard, Poppy Seed Rugelach, Torta Caprese, Brown Sugar Crème Fraiche Ice Cream with Balsamic Syrup and much, much more”
Katie Johnson, President Barack Obama’s personal secretary, far right, talks with Larry Summers, Director of the National Economic Council, before the start of the President’s daily economic briefing in the Oval Office, Sept. 8, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
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The Week Ahead:
Sunday: The President has no public events scheduled
Monday: Attends meetings at the White House and sits down with network and cable news outlets to discuss Syria
Tuesday: Addresses the nation from the White House
Wednesday: The President, the Vice President, the First Lady, Dr Jill Biden and White House staff will gather on the South Lawn of the White House to observe a moment of silence to mark the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The President will then travel to the Pentagon Memorial to attend the September 11th Observance Ceremony
Thursday: The President will hold a Cabinet Meeting. The Vice President will attend
Friday: Welcomes to the White House the Amir of Kuwait, His Highness Shaykh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al Sabah
Uninsured Minnesotans in the Twin Cities can expect to pay as little as $91 a month for health care coverage bought through MNsure, the state’s new online marketplace. “We believe that … these rates that we’re announcing today undeniably are extremely competitive,” Minnesota Commerce Department Commissioner Mike Rothman said. His department regulates insurance products.
Rothman said that Minnesota has the lowest average rates in the country compared to plans offered on 11 other exchanges. A total of 141 plans for individuals and families will be offered on MNsure, and 63 plans will be available to small businesses. “Many individuals and small businesses through MNsure will get even lower cost coverage,” said MNsure Executive Director April Todd-Malmlov. She said roughly half of the people who use MNsure will be eligible for the subsidies. Subsidies are available for people with annual incomes of $23,000 to about $46,000. For a family of four, the income range is $55,000 to $110,000. Government health plans are available for people making less.
On the day Bennie Coleman lost his house, the day armed U.S. marshals came to his door and ordered him off the property, he slumped in a folding chair across the street and watched the vestiges of his 76 years hauled to the curb. Movers carted out his easy chair, his clothes, his television. Next came the things that were closest to his heart: his Marine Corps medals and photographs of his dead wife, Martha. The duplex in Northeast Washington that Coleman bought with cash two decades earlier was emptied and shuttered. By sundown, he had nowhere to go.
All because he didn’t pay a $134 property tax bill. The retired Marine sergeant lost his house on that summer day two years ago through a tax lien sale — an obscure programrun by D.C. government that enlists private investors to help the city recover unpaid taxes.
Ruby Cramer: Alongside His Family, Bill de Blasio Denounces Bloomberg Comments
At a rally in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood, Bill de Blasio responded to a recent interview with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the man he hopes to succeed in City Hall, calling his charges of racism “very unfortunate and inappropriate.” Just days before Tuesday’s New York City primary, Bloomberg told New York Magazine, in an interview published Saturday morning, that de Blasio has run a “class-warfare and racist” campaign because of the way in which he has used “his family to gain support,” the outgoing three-term mayor said.
Mayor #Bloomberg on poor New Yorkers: LET THEM EAT CAKE!
“I think we have run a campaign about the ideas, about the issues, about how to move this city forward,” said de Blasio, who led a recent Quinnipiac poll with 43 percent of the Democratic vote. “I’m very proud of that. I’m exceedingly proud of my family, and as you’ll know meeting every member of my family, they are each and every one strong and independent and make their own decisions.”
After the rally, where de Blasio appeared alongside Ken Thompson, a candidate for Brooklyn District attorney, his daughter Chiara told reporters she and her mother and brother, 16-year-old Dante, participated in the campaign on their own terms. “My mom, my brother, and I are all capable of making our own decisions,” she said. “Twenty years ago, my dad did not know he was running for mayor and did not seek to marry a black woman to put on display.”
Reuters: Kerry Says No Decision Yet On Whether To Seek U.N. Vote On Syria
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday the United States did not rule out the possibility of returning to the United Nations Security Council to secure a resolution on Syria once U.N. inspectors complete their report. Speaking at a news conference in Paris with his Qatari counterpart Khaled al-Attiya, Kerry said President Barack Obama had yet to make a decision on the issue.
Karl Rove argued this afternoon that President Obama has created a “longing” for a “decisive” George W. Bush. I’m reasonably certain Rove wasn’t kidding. He might as well have been. Bush excelled in being “decisive,” which is admirable just so long as we ignore whether those decisions had merit. The problem for the failed former president, however, is that Americans care less about whether a leader makes decisions quickly based on instinct and care about whether a leader makes the right decisions. Pausing to reflect and think through decisions based on evidence is not a bad idea.
In Bush’s case, the Republican had a unique ability to decisively make the wrong call in every possible instance that really mattered. He was “decisive” when he chose to ignore warnings about Osama bin Laden in August 2001; he was “decisive” when he brushed off concerns as Hurricane Katrina barreled down on New Orleans; he was “decisive” when he pursued one misguided economic policy after another; and he was “decisive” when he launched a catastrophic war in Iraq based on lies and ideological ambitions.
Niraj Chokshi: White House’s McDonough Argues Chemical Weapon Prohibition Has Benefited Troops
In pressing the case for military intervention in Syria on the Sunday morning political talk shows, White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough argued that a ban on the use of chemical weapons has benefited American troops. “As a result of that prohibition, our troops have not faced that chemical weapon since World War One,” McDonough said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It has a very direct consequence for our men and women.”
In multiple appearances Sunday morning, McDonough challenged lawmakers to watch recently released videos of Syrian citizens suffering from the alleged attack before coming to a decision on whether to authorize the use of military force in Syria. Congress reconvenes on Monday and will begin debating the issue this week.
President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden pose for a photo with Supreme Court Justices prior to the investiture ceremony for Justice Sonia Sotomayor, at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., Sept. 8, 2009. From left: Associate Justices Samuel Alito, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice John Roberts, the President, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Vice President, Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, and retired Associate Justice David Souter (Photo by Pete Souza)
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President Barack Obama watches a monitor in House Speaker John Boehner’s Ceremonial Office at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., before addressing a Joint Session of Congress to outline the American Jobs Act, Sept. 8, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
The Obama Diary 
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