President Barack Obama announced his nominee for the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Regina Benjamin, today at the White House. Mr. Obama said "Dr. Benjamin has an extensive and distinguished career in medicine."                She is the Founder and CEO of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in Alabama, which aims to provide primary care to people of any age regardless of their financial situation. She previously served as Chair of the Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States, and as the Associate Dean for Rural Health at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine.                                                                                                           Additionally, she was chosen as President of the Medical Association of Alabama in 2002, becoming the first African-American woman to be president of a state medical society.  She was also the first African-American woman and physician under 40 to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees.               She received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights in 1998, among other honors.       The President emphasized this experience in his remarks, chronicling her dedication to providing health care for her rural community in the face of adversity: "For nearly two decades, Dr. Regina Benjamin has seen in a very personal way what is broken about our health care system. She's seen an increasing number of patients who've had health insurance their entire lives suddenly lose it because they lost their jobs or because it's simply become too expensive. She's been a relentless promoter of prevention and wellness programs, having treated too many costly and -- diseases and complications that didn't have to happen. And she's witnessed the shortage of primary care physicians in the rural and underserved areas where she works."                           "But for all that she's seen and all the tremendous obstacles that she has overcome, Regina Benjamin also represents what's best about health care in America -- doctors and nurses who give and care and sacrifice for the sake of their patients; those Americans who would do anything to heal a fellow citizen."

As the President explained, through this personal experience working with the poor and uninsured, Dr. Benjamin understands firsthand the urgent need for health care reform.  As Surgeon General, she will be the people’s health advocate, and will play a key role in health care reform.   

On this day in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. As always, this most American of holidays will be marked by parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues across the country.

The Star-Spangled Banner

This is the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The flag, which flew over Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the 1814 battle at the fort, is a 15-star, 15-stripe garrison flag made in 1813 and loosely woven so that it could fly on a 90-foot flagpole.

This patriotic song, whose words were written by Francis Scott Key on Sept. 14, 1814, during the War of 1812 with Great Britain, was adopted by Congress as the U.S. national anthem in 1931. For many years before Congress made this choice, the song was popular and regulations for military bands required that it be played for ceremonies.

Though Key wrote the words during the British bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore, the melody was an English tune well known in America by the 1790s. It was the music for a poem, “To Anacreon in Heaven,” written about 1780 as the official song of a British social and musical organization, the Anacreontic Society. In fact, Key had used the music in 1805 to accompany another poem he wrote to honor Commodore Stephen Decatur.

Key Detained While Negotiating
Key was a well known 34-year-old Washington, D.C., lawyer-poet. The British had captured Washington and taken William Beanes, a physician, prisoner. They were holding him aboard ship in their fleet off the Baltimore shore. Friends of Beanes persuaded Key to negotiate his release. Key went out to the British fleet and succeeded in gaining Beanes’ release but, because the British planned to attack Baltimore at that time, both were detained.

During the night of Sept. 13-14, Key watched the bombardment of Baltimore from the deck of a British ship. Although rain obscured the fort during the night, at daybreak he could see the American flag still flying from Fort McHenry. The fort still stood after the British had fired some 1,800 bombs, rockets and shells at it, about 400 of them landing inside. Four defenders were killed and 24 wounded. Key drafted the words of a poem on an envelope. The American detainees were sent ashore, the British fleet withdrew, and Key finished the poem and made a good copy of it in a Baltimore hotel the next day.

Poem an Instant Hit in Baltimore
According to some accounts, Key showed the poem to relatives of his wife in Baltimore who had it printed immediately and distributed throughout the city on a handbill, entitled “The Defense of Fort McHenry.” Within a couple of weeks, Baltimore newspapers published the poem. It gained instant popularity and was renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner.” An actor sang it to the popular British tune at a public performance in Baltimore.

Only with the start of the Civil War did “The Star-Spangled Banner” become a nationally popular song. During World War I, a drive began in Congress to make it the official anthem of America ’s armed forces. There were other contenders for the title, including “ America the Beautiful” and “Yankee Doodle.” Maryland legislators and citizens were among the most active groups and individuals who pressed to get Francis Scott Key’s words and accompanying English tune ratified into law as the country’s first national anthem. That finally happened when President Herbert Hoover signed legislation on March 3, 1931.

The anthem has four verses, each ending with the line, “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

Color Daily Extra

"I join all Minnesotans in congratulating our newest U.S. Senator, Al Franken," said Norm Coleman.

Former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican conceded defeat Tuesday to Democrat Al Franken in the disputed Senate race in Minnesota. The move followed a decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court that affirmed Franken's narrow win.
More than seven months after the election, Norm Coleman came before reporters at his home in St. Paul, Minnesota to concede defeat. "I join all Minnesotans in congratulating our newest U.S. Senator, Al Franken," said Coleman.
The announcement came after the state Supreme Court declared, in a unanimous decision, that Franken had won the race by a margin of 312 votes. The court rejected an appeal by Coleman to include some 4,000 absentee ballots that had been rejected for various reasons.
Two of the court's seven justices did not take part in the decision. They recused themselves because they had served on a canvassing board that performed a recount earlier this year.










: Democrats gain 60th Senate seat as Norm Colemen gives up fight to overturn Minnesota election

Victims in the courtroom burst into applause when the judge handed down his sentence.

A U.S. district judge has sentenced 71-year-old financier Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison for perpetrating the biggest investment scam ever in the United States.
Saying the staggering scale of the fraud called for a severe punishment, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin sentenced Bernard Madoff to 150 years in jail.
Prosecutors had sought 150 years, while Madoff's lawyers argued that 12 years was enough for their 71-year-old client to live out his days in prison.
Madoff swindled hundreds of investors and charities out of $65 billion over 20 years in what is known as a Ponzi scheme - taking money from new investors to pay dividends to established investors. Judge Chin said that "breach of trust was massive" and he hoped the sentence would deter other would-be fraudsters.
Victims in the courtroom burst into applause when the judge handed down his sentence.
Saying he acted alone, Madoff turned himself in to authorities in March and pleaded guilty to securities fraud and other charges without standing trial.
He apologized to a packed courtroom, saying he would "live with this pain for the rest of my life."

 By Jake Bernstein,  ProPublica  - June 23, 2009 12:28 pm EDT
June 24: This post has been corrected .

Jeffry M. Picower is alleged to have taken in $5.1 billion as a result of fraudulent returns from Madoff accounts. It is rare these days to see Bernard Madoff's name in print unaccompanied by the word "Ponzi." Yet recent allegations raise the possibility of one key difference between Madoff's crimes and those of legendary con artist Charles Ponzi. While Ponzi's scam was under way, Ponzi himself was its biggest beneficiary. It now appears that the biggest winner in Madoff's scheme may not have been Madoff at all, but a secretive businessman named Jeffry Picower.
Between December 1995 and December 2008, Picower and his family withdrew from their various Madoff accounts $5.1 billion more than they invested with the self-confessed swindler, according to a lawsuit filed by the trustee who is trying to recover money for those Madoff defrauded.
In contrast, shortly after he confessed, Madoff declared his household net worth to be between $823 and $826 million, according to court documents. While the Madoffs clearly lived opulently, no evidence has emerged that their combined assets and expenditures approached the amount the Picower family is alleged to have withdrawn from the scheme.
In an era when billions of dollars are being tossed about in financial collapses and government bailouts, remarkably little attention has been paid to Jeffry Picower's extraordinary success with Bernie Madoff. If Picower has penetrated the popular consciousness at all, it is as a Madoff victim. The victim narrative is buoyed by testimonials from the nonprofits who received funding from his charitable foundation – which quickly closed on the heels of the swindler's confession.

Please click headline to read more at ProPublica.

The U.S. military says a Yemeni detainee has died in an apparent suicide at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba. U.S. Southern Command said in a statement Tuesday that the detainee was 31-year-old Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, also known as Al Hanashi.
The military said guards conducting routine checks found Salih unresponsive and not breathing Monday. Officials say a physician later pronounced him dead "after extensive life-saving measures had been exhausted."
Salih had been held without charge at Guantanamo since February 2002. The military said intelligence reports indicate that he traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 and that he admitted to fighting alongside the Taliban. It said Salih resided in four different al-Qaida and Taliban-affiliated guest houses, and was captured at Mazar-e-Sharif following the uprising there.

Yemen saddened by death
In a statement, the Yemeni embassy in Washington said it was saddened to learn of the death and that the incident demonstrates the "urgency" of closing the detention facility.
It said an embassy representative was traveling to Guantanamo to be briefed on the situation and oversee that the remains are treated in accordance with Islamic customs. The embassy said it looks forward to cooperating closely with U.S. President Barack Obama to "expedite" the closure of the facility.
Military officials say an investigation is under way to determine the circumstances of his death. No further details were provided about the death - the fifth reported suicide at the facility.
President Obama has promised to close Guantanamo by early 2010, but the Democratic-controlled Congress recently blocked funds that his administration sought to close the prison, where some 240 detainees are being held.