Ah, the 4th of July! Picnics, barbecues, fireworks and a new tradition, brought to you by the folks at Fox–tea parties! Forget the ice tea, it’s time to have more tea bagging, as promoted by that sexual maverick, South Carolina’s very own Mark Sanford, along with Glenn Beck and what appears to be the whole Fox news brigade.

Think Progress reports that

Fox News contributor and former News Corp. lobbyist Angela McGlowan is scheduled to appear at the Memphis tea party later this week.

So this is pretty much a Fox sanctioned, if not created event. Hey if you can’t report the news, just make it up.

So far there are 1,334 registered tea parties. Oh yeah, and merchandise. Sadly

the Atlanta Tea Party was forced to cancel its Independence Day celebration in Gwinnett, after losing its location…Although the event was on private property, the mall was able to assert authority on the matter due to recipricol [sic] property easement agreements."

Event Co-Chair Debbie Dooley stated, "Our Atlanta Tea Party team tried for the next day and a half to find an alternative location large enough for the event, and with the proper layout for our vendors, children’s activities, and fireworks show, but we could not find anything suitable that would have been available on July 4th."

Aren’t private property rights really important to Republicans? Along with home school and school vouchers…

[h/t Think Progress ]

Sanford misleads over mistress! John Edwards sex tape? At least the Dems don’t shove family values down our throat.

Starting today, Continental Airlines, under the aegis of Cuba Travel Services begins weekly flights to Cuba. Along with expecting to attract some of the 100,000 Cubans living in California to travel back to Havana, Cuba Travel–a group of L.A. based business professionals–are hoping

to serve journalists, government officials and researchers, as well as sports teams, educational facilities and other groups.

Does this mean a  Hard Rock Havana is on Castro’s agenda?

If some of McCain’s staff members wonder about Sarah Palin’s emotionalism and if it’s caused by post-partum depression, is that sexism, or reality? Is it sexist to point out that Palin has emotions and wears high heels ? Expect Palin, if she and her spokes-

creature Meg Stapleton choose to to respond to the Vanity Fair article about the former GOP VP hopeful, to take the angle that she’s being picked on for being like, a girl and stuff.

Former legislative director and close friend John Bitney has some things to say about Palin to Vanity Fair. Keep in mind Gov Palin fired Bitney for having an affair with Debbie Richter, one of her close friends who was  in charge of the Permanent Fund Dividend Division at the Department of Revenue, distributing oil revenues to Alaska residents:

It’s just a lot of emotions and stuff. I find it’s frustrating dealing with Sarah, because it seems we’re always dealing with emotional crap and we never seem to be able to focus on the business at hand that needs to be done. 

The Vanity Fair article also points out:

All the while, Palin was coping not only with the crazed life of any national candidate on the road but also with the young children traveling with her. Some top aides worried about her mental state: was it possible that she was experiencing postpartum depression? (Palin’s youngest son was less than six months old.)

 Is that sexism? Or is Palin simply a "whack job" and a "diva" as mentioned in the article? (Oh for some delish anecdotes and attributions..!) Maybe  staffers were hoping maybe this was just a passing phase?  Maybe Palin could help banish charges of sexism by banishing her husband who  lurks in the background, sitting in her office, acting as a close adviser.

I’m anticipating that Palin will also scream about how the media is raping Trig with their keyboard pounding fingers because of this choice item in the VF piece:

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly. When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

 This is not a flattering article by any means, revealing a stubborn, know-it-all Palin,  hamstrung  McCain staffers, lack of due diligence.

Most importantly it points out the major splits within the GOP: Social conservatives vs fiscal conservatives, something we’re seeing played out now as the GOP "family values" platform have become a termite-ridden laughing stock.

Sarah Palin is a star in Evansville [at the world's largest right-to-life banquet] and all the many Evansvilles of America, but there is a big part of the Republican Party—the Wall Street wing, the national-security wing—in which she cuts no ice.

There’s been a heap in the news about family values and the GOP. From the New York Times to  Theopalinsim.com, the"values" of the Right are called on the carpet (which has some pretty nasty stains). Over at Oxdown, TobyWollin sums it up nicely:

Sorry, guys – in all these cases, we had elected officials who behaved in this way for a very long time and turned what should have been private/personal activities into public issues – AND it might not have been ‘reflective OF’ the GOP but it sure as hell has ‘reflected ON" the party.

And one of the biggest reflections is that you guys are more than enthusiastic about wrapping yourselves in that ‘family values and purity’ flag – but you never, ever are willing to clean your own house or police your own. You are more than ready to dump truckloads of shit on Democrats for their personal peccadilloes – you are more than enthused to go after (and perhaps even aid and abet entrapment – I’m talking to you Roger Stone and Maurice Greenberg vis a vis Elliot Spitzer) anyone who does not agree with you.

What is astounding is the New York Times chart which takes politicians out of the mix and breaks it down into the values that the Right espouses: Anti-divorce, anti-porn and anti-teen sex. Well gosh, even with my admittedly and embarrassingly bad math skills, it’s clear that eight out of the ten states with highest rates in the categories of divorce, teen pregnancy and online porn usage were states where McCain came out ahead in the 2008 election.

Obviously an America with "traditional family values" is a Utopian ideal for some, but one which their party can’t create or enforce–especially when the party has leaders who are just as human as their constituents. Maybe it’s time to take "morality" out of the electoral equation and focus on the Utopian ideals of affordable health care, equal rights,  sex education and realistic pregnancy prevention,  living wages, and our Constitution.

Forty years ago, riots erupted in NYC’s Greenwich Village over raids at the Stonewall Inn. The four days of riots sparked and marked Gay Pride Movement, through forty years of progress and setbacks, of visibility and inclusion, HIV/AIDS activism which has prompted global health initiatives.

Let us not forget Matthew Shepard, Angie Zapata, Gwen Araujo and the hundreds of others murdered annually  because of their sexual identity here in the U.S. and abroad.

Hopefully, before the 45 anniversary this country will have repealed of  DOMA and DADT, and passed civil  marriage equality, ENDA, and adoptions by same-sex sex and single parents in all states.

 Happy Pride, LGBTQ from someone who is proud and inspired to be your ally. 

While Michael Jackson’s corpse has moved the front of the line at the Los Angeles County Coroner’s officer–proving that fame even in death has its perks, or maybe that it’s faster to do the autopsy that to keep answering phone calls about it–his at-home doctor has disappeared, and the Los Angeles Police Department would like to speak with him, and have impounded his  car.

Former (and let’s stress that) Jackson attorney Brian Oxman said he had warned family members about Jackson’s drug use and claims that Jackson had plenty of Rx meds on hand to help him deal with pain from a broken vertebrae and foot. TMZ reports that Jackson received a Demerol shot.

Liza Minnelli delivered the day’s understatement on CBS’s "The Early Show":

When the autopsy comes, all hell’s going to break loose, so thank God we’re celebrating him now.

Autopsy results could be released as soon as this afternoon, though toxicology reports may take weeks.

OMG Michael is DEAD per TMZ. He was admitted to UCLA with cardiac failure, and was not breathing. He was 50.

Bummer for the investors, Colony Capital, his fans and the folks who bought tickets for his 50 shows at London’s 02 Arena. And it makes Sky Saxon of the Seeds this millennium’s Darby Crash. Crash of the seminal punk band the Germs, died the night before John Lennon was murdered. Sky Saxon died just hours before Jackson in Austin, TX. His 1960s band the Seeds was best known for hit  "Pushing Too Hard."

Charlie’s Angel, poster girl, hair style icon Farrah Fawcett has died. Longtime partner Ryan O’Neal, friend Alana Stewart and her doctor Lawrence Piro were with her, and last rites were administered hours earlier.  Alana Stewart has produced and directed the documentary Farrah’s Story  which aired earlier this year in NBC and chronicled the cancer’s reappearance, alternative treatments in Germany and subsequent hospitalization. Her long time companion, Ryan O’Neal told People Magazine:

She’s gone. She now belongs to the ages. She’s now with her mother and sister and her God. I loved her with all my heart. I will miss her so very, very much. She was in and out of consciousness. I talked to her all through the night. I told her how very much I loved her. She’s in a better place now.

After some bit parts in Hollywood, Fawcett married the Six Million Dollar Man, Lee Majors in 1973 and hyphenated her name, a radical move at the time. Three years later she was cast by Aaron Spelling as part of his jiggle schedule on ABC’s Charlie’s Angels which made her a superstar. The ubiquitous, iconic poster followed, but in a classic Hollywood bad move, Fawcett decided to leave Charlie’s Angels after just one season over a salary dispute.

Bad movies came out of that bad move, until she struck a career high in 1984 with the made-for-TV movie Burning Bed about an abused woman who took matters into her own hands. Fawcett was nominated for an Emmy.

By then she had divorced Majors and begun a relationship with Ryan O’Neal. The two had a son Redmond who has had legal and drug problems. Redmond called his mother from jail last night, reports People magazine, and said:

how much he loved her and asked her to please forgive him that he was so very, very sorry. 

Fawcett’s medical records were leaked to the media by an employee of UCLA, perhaps creating her most lasting legacy, a new California law imposing tighter controls on medical files and stiffer penalties for privacy breaches.

Fawcett was an American icon whose life reflected her times: Her hair, her hyphenated last name, divorce, long term live-in relationship and its break up, drug addicted son, and battle with cancer are all part of the fabric of American life from the 1970s to present.  

Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal would be proud of the work being done at Manifested Glory Ministries in Bridgeport, Conn, where church members performed an "exorcism" to drive out homosexuality from a 16 year old boy. On th evideo, since yanked by the church form its site–gee why would they want to hide God’s work? maybe because it’s child abuse?– a church elder is heard screaming to the teen

Right now in the name of Jesus, I call the homosexuality, right now in the name of Jesus

During the 20 minute video the kid writhes and vomits. According to the New Haven Advocate, church "prophet" Patricia McKinney told a local reporter that the writer:

"could not possibly understand what went on" at the Holiday Inn. She insisted that what was seen on the video "is just a small portion of what we do."

As for the Freddy seen in the video, all McKinney would say is that he is no longer in Connecticut.

She did not want to explain what was happening in the video. "What’s going on is going on," the prophet said. "It’s up to us to share what we want to."

This sort of practice is part of the weird dominionist theocratic version of Christianity espoused by the New Assemblies of God, one of Sarah Palin’s churches and  is the type of stuff Jindal (who performed an exorcism in college) and Palin  (who helped cast a witch out of Alaska) really enjoy. One more reason these nutters don’t deserve to be in public office.