Lynn Sweet

WASHINGTON--Before flying to Moscow on Sunday, President Obama sat down Thursday with Jennifer Loven, the Associated Press White House bureau chief for a wide ranging interview; view the 24-minute exchange here.

WASHINGTON--President Obama returns to Chicago on July 23--his third trip home since becoming president--to host two fund-raisers for the Democratic National Committee.

WASHINGTON--Cheryle Jackson, the president of the Chicago Urban League, is moving closer to a run for the U.S. Senate, opening an exploratory committee this week.

Jackson told me she will decide in the coming months if she will officially get in the Illinois Democratic Senate primary and that she is pulling together a fund-raising and campaign team. Jackson told me Thursday her decision will not hinge on whether or not Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan gets in the contest.

"It is not about who else is in the race," Jackson said. Her main issues will pivot around economic development, she said.

WASHINGTON--Another Chicago area resident, Fay Hartog-Levin, a longtime Democratic activist and fund-raiser and an early career supporter of Barack Obama, was tapped Thursday to be ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Her husband, Daniel Levin, is the chairman of The Habitat Company and the founder of the East Bank Club. Valerie Jarrett, before joining the Obama White House as a senior advisor, was the President and Chief Executive Officer of The Habitat Company. Levin's cousins are Michigan Democrats, Sen. Carl Levin and his brother, Rep. Sandy Levin.

A Winnetka resident, Hartog-Levin is a senior consultant at the Res Publica Group, a Chicago-based public affairs and media relations firm.

Other Chicagoans nominated for ambassadorships: Big Obama fund-raisers Lou Sussman for England and David Jacobson for Canada

WASHINGTON--The Obama White House on Wednesday released a list of the salaries of 487 White House staffers. You can read the list here or check out the searchable database at www.whitehouse.gov.

The top Chicagoans in the Obama White House also earn the top White House salaries--capped at $172,200, according to a list released Wednesday.

Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod, left, accompanied by Education Secretary Arne Duncan, reads the book, "First Dog," to children, Tuesday, June 30, 2009, in front of the Education Department in Washington. Axelrod read as part of the Obama administration's summer reading. (AP photos)

Sarah Palin and her wobbly performance as John McCain's vice presidential candidate is dissected by Todd Purdum in the new issue of Vanity Fair.

Purdom says it's hard to see her as a 2012 presidential candidate.

It's now Sen.-elect Al Franken. After the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, now former Sen. Norm Coleman said he will give up pursuing more legal challenges.

"It's over," Coleman just said at a press conference in Minnesota.

This means the Senate Democrats now have 60 votes, a supermajority.

President Obama headlined a dinner Monday night for his best donors and bundlers at an event where top Democratic National Committee contributors also attended. Obama gave a shout out to his campaign national finance chair, Penny Pritzker.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan is in Chicago on Tuesday to deliver remarks at the Solutions for Working Families: 2009 Learning Conference on State and Local Housing Policy sponsored by the National Housing Conference and at the Rainbow/PUSH annual conference.

Click below for Donovan's housing policy speech.

WASHINGTON--President Obama and First Lady Michelle welcomed gay activists to the White House on Monday, with a contingent from Chicago flying in to mark LGBT pride month.

Invited guests from Chicago (not spouses or partners who came with) from Chicago included Debra Shore, Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago; Michael Bauer; Fred Eychaner; Vernita Gray; Mary Morten: Miriam Redleaf; Catherine Renna; Laura Ricketts and Jane Saks.

The Obama administration's lack of progress on key gay issues has been a source of disappointment within the gay community.

"Many in our community feel he is not doing enough," Shore told me after the event. "I feel it's just not up to him. It has to be up to all of us. The slogan was not "Yes, he can." It was "Yes we can." So we have work to do."

With the first lady seated by his side, Obama in his remarks tacitly acknowledged the critics.

"I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration," the president said.

Obama announce at the reception that he was lifting a ban that kept some who tested positive for HIV from entering the U.S.

One one of the most sensitive issues, getting Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, Obama said he was trying. "Now, I want to add we have a duty to uphold existing law, but I believe we must do so in a way that does not exacerbate old divides."

As for the controversial military "don't ask, don't tell" policy--which can only be repealed by Congress--Obama pleaded for patience.

"I believe "don't ask, don't tell" doesn't contribute to our national security.

"..Someday, I'm confident, we'll look back at this transition and ask why it generated such angst, but as Commander-in-Chief, in a time of war, I do have a responsibility to see that this change is administered in a practical way and a way that takes over the long term," he said.

WASHINGTON--Contrary to the impression that may have been left from a Time Magazine report, the White House said Monday that President Obama has not stopped his search for a new church. The Obama family quit Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ during the presidential campaign because of the controversies surrounding the former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Gibbs was asked at the briefing, "Is the Time magazine report correct, that the president has told his staff that he intends to not search for a church in Washington but he will worship at Camp David instead?

Gibbs' answer used the word formal many times--a wiggle word, perhaps.

He replied, "No. He's -- there have been no formal decisions about joining a church. I think I've mentioned in here, in the past couple of weeks, that when he goes to Camp David, he has attended services at the chapel there. He enjoys the pastor there.

"They're not formally joining that church. And there have been no formal decisions on joining a church in this area. I will say, I think, one aspect of the article that is true, as I mentioned here in that same discussion, was the concern that the president continues to have, about the disruptive nature of his presence on any particular Sunday, in some churches around the area.

WASHINGTON--President Obama, with First Lady Michelle Obama at his side, is hosting right now a reception at the White House for gay leaders, pegged to the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

There are "unjust laws to overturn," Obama said, "unjust practices" to stop.

WASHINGTON--Another Chicagoan, Ertharin Cousin, a veteran of local and national politics, non-profit and corporate work, is joining the Obama administration. Cousin has been tapped to be the next U.S. ambassador to the Rome-based U.N. Agencies for Food and Agriculture.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is jumping in Monday to defend President Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in the wake of the Supreme Court reversing her in the New Haven firefighters case.

Meanwhile, the White House tells me Sotomayor is in Washington today.

below, from a release....

WASHINGTON (Monday, June 29, 2009) - Senate Judiciary Committee Member Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will speak to reporters via conference call Monday afternoon to discuss Associate Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor's judicial record. Schumer will be joined on the call by Austin Schlick, Chief of Litigation in the Maryland Attorney General's office, and Richard Primus, a legal scholar and law professor at Michigan Law School, and Andy Pincus, a Supreme Court advocate and former Assistant to the Solicitor General

Con man Bernard Madoff, 71, who bilked billions of dollars from his victims, was sentenced to 150 years in prison on Monday morning.

UPDATED MONDAY AT 2:42 p.m. eastern

Click below for Justice Department statement

WASHINGTON--The Supreme Court reversed Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's Supreme Court nominee on Monday, in the New Haven firefighters case.

Sotomayor, who sits on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled that white firefighters in New Haven had not been denied promotions in a case where the city had thrown out the results of a test where white firefighters did better than minorities.

The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision ruled that New Haven should not have discarded the results of the test.

Political bottom line: Senate opponents of Sotomayor's nomination will use the reversal as fodder that she is an activist judge. Supporters will stay supporters. This reversal is gut kick to Sotomayor, but one she will survive.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg offered a spirited dissent:

This case presents an unfortunate situation, one New
Haven might well have avoided had it utilized a better
selection process in the first place. But what this case
does not present is race-based discrimination in violation
of Title VII. I dissent from the Court's judgment, which
rests on the false premise that respondents showed "a
significant statistical disparity," but "nothing more."

(Click to read the entire Supreme Court opinion or look at it here.)

Barack and Michelle Obama taking HIV tests in Kenya, 2006
(photo by Lynn Sweet)

WASHINGTON--President Obama marking HIV Testing Day, urges people to take the test. While visiting Kenya on Aug. 6, 2006, while an Illinois senator, Obama and wife Michelle made a public display of taking HIV tests in order to encourage more men to do the same.

Watch the video from the Kenya event

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