Trish is fond of characterizing independents like myself as wishy-washy fence-sitters she says always vote for the same party every election anyway, so we might as well get off the fence and join the Democrat Party.

Well, Trish, today I got up on a higher, more solid fence and joined the Independent Voters of America.

Here’s a video that succinctly sums up the IVA’s position:

According to Tech President:

Veteran political ad-maker Bill Hillsman — the man behind “hilarious and highly effective ads” for Paul Wellstone, Jesse Ventura, Ross Perot and others — has launched Independent Voters of America.

Said Hillsman: “We are building the largest online community of self-identified independent voters, with the goals of bringing fresh voices and more choices into our politics, acting as a counterweight to the two major political parties, and to reduce gridlock, force progress and bring a new accountability to Washington.”

My iVoter score is 533. I don’t know what that means yet, so I’ll assume it’s somewhere on the left of the political spectrum because the old white guy in the video was in the 300s and the middle-aged black guy was 675.

When Andrew Breitbart died unexpectedly in March 2012,* he was hailed by those on both the right and the left who lauded his “mischievous spirit and Barnum-esque knack for creating a stir.” But he wasn’t really like some little bad boy, he was a big bad boy, capable of mean-spirited and dishonest acts.

As this long-lost video shows, however, the only thing Breitbart really cared about was winning the argument and defeating — by any means — the monolithic, juggernaught-like LEFT, which seeks to impose “cultural Marxism” and “political correctness” on the poor little helpless right.

So watch the tape (not the whole thing, it’s 18:30), but enough to remind you of Breitbart’s ability to talk and never really say anything. Given the current level of discourse in this country — an environment ripe for Breitbart’s brand of creative video editing and aggressive smear campaigns — we’re better off without him.

* Thanks for the correction, Paula.

Since everyone knows that Mormons no longer practice polygamy (in this life) and they also don’t consume alcohol, how could they be offended by a vodka named “Fives Wives?” Uh, you got us there.

But the Idaho State Liquor Division has banned the new libation from being sold in the state, based on the idea that the 23 percent of Idahoans who are Mormon might take it personally.

“We feel Five Wives Vodka concept is offensive to a prominent segment of our population and will not be carried,” according to a letter from the Idaho State Liquor Division to an Idaho distributor wishing to carry it…

The head of Idaho’s liquor division acknowledged that Mormons don’t drink, or at least that they don’t admit it if they do.

“Presumably, people of the LDS faith would not be shopping in our [liquor] stores, but that does not mean that we are not sensitive to them.” But [Jeff Anderson] said Five Wives was rejected for other reasons, too, including the fact that vodka is a “crowded and competitive category” and that “there was nothing that really differentiated [Five Wives] other than its name and its label that had five women with cats in their crotches covering their genitals.

How anything differentiates a clear liquor with no taste is debatable. One wonders where Anderson worships, but that’s beside the point. Or is it?

While [Steve Conlin, director of marketing and a partner at Ogden's Own, the Utah micro-distiller which makes the product] concedes the name could be seen as referencing polygamy (especially since it’s made in Utah), he said it carries many meanings. “The person who came up with name, she really liked the idea of five wives sitting around having a drink. There really is no pointed meaning to it and everyone can bring what they want to it … it’s not about making fun of Mormons at all. Quite simply it’s a name that seemed to fit.”

We’ll take his word, not having tried his vodka, that the name “fits” but I see no reason to protect the sensibilities of people who practice polygamy. Which of course, Mormons don’t. Anymore.

Birthers are adamant that certificates of live birth are not the same as birth certificates. Using their logic, the document Mitt Romney released yesterday is insufficient proof that he was born.

Many, many people believe Mitt Romney is a robot. If so, he would not have a birth certificate at all, would he?

What is Mitt Romney hiding?

And while the Romney campaign is at it, we also want proof that Ann Romney has no sister-wives.

Storify is among those chronicling the memes popping up after Mitt Romney’s new iPhone app misspelled the name of the country which Romney wants to run. And while we all wish him well on attaining the presidency of Amercia, we fervently hope he will never be the president of America.

Playing off the Obama campaign, which Romney just keeps doing, his team came up with a new tagline. You know how Obama asks, “Are you in?” Well Romney wants you to say you’re “With Mitt.” That this rhymes so closely with “nitwit” seems to have escaped Romney’s strategists.

You’re supposed to use the app to upload a picture of yourself and, choosing one of 14 pro-Mitt slogans provided, post it on Facebook or Pinterest or someplace else that people you know would enjoy seeing it.

Romney’s folks are learning what is meant by the loss of control that goes with social media, as people are using the hashtag #Amercia on Twitter to provide such bon mots as:

• If you’re applying for a job, and you misspell the name of the company you want to work for, you won’t get that job. #Amercia
• Mitt Romney: wrong for wemon, wrong for minotiries, wrong for #Amercia.
• Mitt’s gonna be holding an app designer down and cutting his hair today. #amercia
More after the jump »

The purpose of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate is to expand the number of the insured in order to increase the revenue to the giant insurance corporations in order to offset the loss of revenue caused by the more progressive elements of the law, particularly the end of denials coverage due to preexisting conditions and allowing parents to cover children up to the age of 26.

The individual mandate was a right-wing invention. It was created by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. But now Republicans in Congress are looking at polls showing that while voters still don’t like the right-wing individual mandate — which has been vilified in the conservative media for three years now — but do like the liberal provisions in the law, like ending denial of coverage and extending coverage to young-adult children.

Therefore, the GOP leadership in the House and Senate is signalling that, if the Republicans on the Supreme Court overturn the Affordable Care Act, as they are expected to do next month, congressional Republicans will propose new laws to reinstate the popular but revenue-draining aspects of the law but without any provision to replace the mandate as a vehicle to recoup the insurance corporations’ lost revenue:

Wiferism is the new birtherism.

Morganton (N.C.) News Herald:

More than 2,000 protestors armed with signs and slogans lined Newton’s Southwest Boulevard on Sunday morning. They were there in reaction to the May 13 sermon by Charles Worley, pastor of Providence Road Baptist Church. In the sermon, originally posted on the church’s website, Worley called for all gays and lesbians to be imprisoned behind an electric fence.

More after the jump »

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“I think it’d be marvelous if the Senate were to pick up Paul Ryan’s budget and to adopt it and pass it along to the president,” Mitt Romney told Wisconsin voters early last month — referring, of course to the federal budget passed by Republicans in the House on a party line vote that would cut trillions out of the budget over 10 years, including $3.3 trillion from programs that benefit low-income families.

But now Romney appears to view the draconian cuts he endorsed just a few weeks ago as decidedly un-marvelous. In a softball interview with right-wing Time Magazine reporter Mark Halperin published this week, Romney has executed one of his trademark 180-degree flip flops when it comes to cutting the budget: