Like others, I have found the wall-to-wall cable television coverage of Michael Jackson's death and any subsequent 'news' in its aftermath to be revealing about American culture and 'news' coverage -- as well as extremely depressing.

This morning I turned on MSNBC to see what news they would be highlighting today and was again assaulted by saturation coverage of Michael Jackson, so I changed the station to something else in order to escape the nonsense of it all.

I figured that Turner Classic Movies, one of my favorites, would be a place to hide from the deluge of Jackson coverage.

The movie? Idiot's Delight.

Jesus Christ, I thought, it's like a goddamned theme from which there will be no escape...

Byron York:

... Rep. Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, has come up with a proposal to spend any TARP profits before they can be returned to the taxpayers. Last Friday, Frank introduced the "TARP for Main Street Act of 2009," a bill that would take profits from the program and immediately redirect them toward housing proposals favored by Frank and some fellow Democrats.

In exchange for receiving TARP money, financial institutions were required to hand over shares of preferred stock that paid a dividend for the government. In theory, if a financial institution paid the dividend faithfully, and then repaid the TARP money, then the government would turn a profit. Last month, the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported that, through June 12, 2009, the government had received $6.2 billion in dividend payments. The original TARP legislation required that money made from the program "shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt."

Frank, however, wants to spend the money before it can be used to pay down anything. First, the "TARP for Main Street" proposal would take $1 billion "from dividends paid by financial institutions that have received financial assistance provided under…the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and apply it to a trust fund that Frank has long wanted to create for low-income rental housing. (The measure, unfunded, was part of last year's bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.) Next, Frank would take $1.5 billion from TARP dividends for a so-called "neighborhood stabilization" fund. Republican critics have charged that both measures might allow federal dollars to be distributed to activist groups like the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, or ACORN.

July 3 ...

In 1608 the city of Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain. In 1775 Gen. George Washington took command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, MA. In 1863 the three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg ended in a major victory for the North as Confederate troops retreated. In 1884 Dow Jones published its 1st stock average. In 1890 Idaho became the 43rd state of the Union. In 1898 the US Navy defeated a Spanish fleet in the harbor at Santiago, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War. In 1930 Congress created the US Veterans Administration. In 1941 Harlan Fiske Stone is sworn in as the 12th Chief Justice of the United States. In 1962 Algeria became independent after 132 years of French rule; also on this day, Brooklyn Dodger great Jackie Robinson became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1976 103 hostages were rescued by an Israeli commando unit at the raid on Entebbe airport in Uganda. The hostages had been taken from an Air France jetliner. In 1986 President Reagan presided over a gala ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty. In 1988 US Navy warship USS Vincennes accidentally shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard. In 1998 Japan joined US and Russia in Mars space exploration with the launching of the Planet-B (known as "Nozomi") probe. The mission failed to achieve Mars orbit.

American Glob:

As the Tea Party movement continues and many Americans grow more concerned by government expansion, the interest and support for Libertarian style Republicanism is knocking loudly at the front door of conservatism. The GOP would be wise to answer.

July 2 ...

In 1566 French astrologer, physician, and prophet Nostradamus died unexpectedly. In 1776 the Continental Congress passed a resolution saying that "these United Colonies are, and of right, ought to be, Free and Independent States." In 1881 President James Garfield was shot by Charles J. Guiteau at the Washington railroad station; Garfield died the following September. In 1890 Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act. In 1908 Thurgood Marshall, the first black US Supreme Court Justice, was born in Baltimore, MD. In 1926 the United States Army Air Corps was created. In 1937 aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first round-the-world flight at the equator. In 1961 author Ernest Hemingway shot himself to death at his home in Ketchum, ID. In 1964 President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1976 the Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual. In 2000 opposition candidate Vicente Fox won Mexico's presidential elections, ending the Institutional Revolutionary Party's 71-year reign. In 2002 American adventurer Steve Fossett became the first person to fly non-stop a balloon solo around the world.

From the 'consider the source' department of American political demagoguery, this pearl from the eminent Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), chair of the House Ways and Means Committee:

From AP:

One of the principal authors of health care legislation taking shape in the House accused drug companies and other medical providers Wednesday of stealing, and said they are now offering concessions in the hopes the bill that emerges will not demand too much of them.

"Everyone knows that people around the table are stealing, but they don't want to turn each other in if they're going to have to pay the full penalty," said Rep. Charles Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Asked in an interview on MSNBC what he meant by stealing, the New York Democrat replied, "I mean stealing."

Stealing, he would know...

The obituary of Retired Marine Corps Col. Kenneth L. Reusser: (via Ace) (emphasis added)

Retired Marine Corps Col. Kenneth L. Reusser, 89, a highly decorated aviator who was shot down in three wars, died June 20. He lived in the Portland, Ore., suburb of Milwaukie.

Col. Reusser flew 253 combat missions in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. He was shot down in all three, five times in all.

His 59 medals included two Navy Crosses, four Purple Hearts, and two Legions of Merit.

In 1945, while based in Okinawa, he stripped down his F4U-4 Corsair fighter and intercepted a Japanese observation plane at high altitude. When his guns froze, he flew his fighter into the observation plane, hacking off its tail with his propeller.

In 1950, he led an attack on a North Korean tank-repair facility at Inchon, then destroyed an oil tanker, almost blowing himself out of the sky.

In Vietnam, he flew helicopters and was leading a rescue mission when his Huey was shot down. He needed skin grafts over 35 percent of his badly burned body.

Wow. God bless him.

Apparently, it's true: Smoking does stunt your growth. (via Hot Air)

The Jerusalem Post's Sabina Amidi reports:

As the Iranian authorities warned the opposition on Tuesday that they would tolerate no further protests over the disputed June 12 presidential elections, a report emerged of the hangings of six supporters of defeated candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Speaking after Iran's top legislative body upheld the election victory of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, sources in Iran told this reporter in a telephone interview that the hangings took place in the holy city of Mashhad on Monday. There was no independent confirmation of the report.

Amity Shlaes:

The single most-profitable franchise for the Republican Party is growth, the kind of growth that sustains the relative competitiveness of the U.S. Instead of being the GOP, the Republicans should become the POG, the Party of Growth.

This growth franchise is Republicans’ for the taking because the Democratic Party leadership is in hot pursuit of other franchises -- the green biz, civil rights and their dearest goal, more government health care.

The growth franchise is also valuable because a lot of people, including many Democrats, recognize that a growth agenda is the only way to preclude a crisis worse than the current one. That crisis is the currency crisis that will occur if the world no longer wants to invest here.

How to make the GOP a POG? ...

Shlaes has four suggestions. Read them here.

July 1 ...

In 1863 the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg began. In 1867 Canada became a self-governing dominion of Great Britain as the British North America Act took effect. In 1898 during the Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt and his Rough Riders waged a victorious assault on San Juan Hill in Cuba. In 1902 famed movie director William Wyler was born in Mülhausen, Alsace, Germany (now Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, France). In 1944 delegates from 44 countries began meeting at Bretton Woods, NH where they agreed to establish the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In 1946 the United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. In 1968 the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union, and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In 1997 Hong Kong reverted to Chinese rule after 156 years as a British colony.

The Washington Post's Peter Whoriskey reports:

For the United States to fully recover its investment [in GM], the value of General Motors stock will have to ... [rise] above $68 billion. Even at its recent 2000 peak, GM's stock was worth only $56 billion.

What is the likelihood that this will happen, you might ask?

Well, at present, there are only 26 US companies that have market capitalizations greater than $68 billion.

All the rest are valued at less than $66 billion.

So, in order for the US taxpayer to get its money back, not only will General Motors' net worth have to be viewed as more valuable by investors than that attained at its own peak, but it will have to be viewed as more valuable than almost every US company today -- except for 26.

What are the odds?

Popular Science's Dan Smith reports:

Scientists have achieved a new milestone in brain imaging: we have seen a memory in the process of being formed. Using brain cells from a lowly sea slug, which actually makes a good model for our brains, images were captured of proteins forming between the neurons. These proteins distinguish the memory as a long-term one rather than short-term, as the proteins solidify the memory in the neurons. This process had been suspected but not visualized until now.

June 30 ...

In 1859 French acrobat Blondin (born Jean Francois Gravelet) crossed Niagara Falls on a tightrope as 5,000 spectators watched. In 1906 the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act became law. In 1908 the "Tunguska event" occurred when a meteorite exploded over Siberia, completely leveling about 800 square miles of forest. In 1921 President Harding appointed former President Taft Chief Justice of the United States. In 1934 Adolf Hitler began his "blood purge" of political and military leaders in Germany. In 1936 the novel Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell was published in New York. In 1962 Los Angeles Dodger Hall-of-Famer Sandy Koufax pitched his first no-hitter in a game with the New York Mets. In 1963 Pope Paul VI was crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1971 a Soviet space mission ended in tragedy when three cosmonauts aboard Soyuz 11 were found dead inside their spacecraft after it had returned to Earth; also on this day, the 26th Amendment to the Constitution, lowering the minimum voting age to 18, was ratified as Ohio became the 38th state to approve it. In 1984 John Turner was sworn in as Canada's 17th prime minister, succeeding Pierre Elliott Trudeau. In 1985 39 American hostages from a hijacked TWA jetliner were freed in Beirut after being held 17 days. In 2004 a federal appeals court approved an antitrust settlement Microsoft had negotiated with the Justice Department; also on this day, the Iraqis took legal custody of Saddam Hussein and 11 of his top lieutenants, a first step toward the ousted dictator's expected trial for crimes against humanity; and, after nearly seven years of travel, the international Cassini spacecraft entered Saturn's orbit.

Tom Bevan:

How is it possible, you may wonder, that the federal government, which is notoriously inefficient in almost everything it does, is suddenly a model of efficiency and able to create a "miracle of low overhead" when it comes to Medicare? Such a claim flies in the face of common sense. ... In fact, President Obama has made this claim several times. This statistic about Medicare's low administrative costs has become one of the linchpins in the argument for a "public option" on health care. The only problem, not surprisingly, is that it's hogwash.

Make sure to read the whole piece.