Earlier today, LEO received a candidate questionnaire drafted by the Freedom Heritages Forum, a group that exists because (1) Hell is very very real, and (2) someone has to undertake the thankless dirty-work necessary for placing conservative Christian candidates into positions of power. Theirs is not to reason why…

The questionnaire itself is essentially a litmus test to discern whether any given candidate is American enough to be worthy of the FHF’s endorsement — much in the same way those useless “USDA Certified Organic” labels say that what you’re eating is organic, but really it’s just full of cow shit and Monsanto corn derivatives hiding behind a green sticker.

Questions include “Do you believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman?; “do you support Metro Louisville Department of Health and Wellness using tax money to fund the local chapter of Planned Parenthood?”; and other run-the-mill, anti-everything hogwash.

However, the language of certain queries — notably one in which the importance of Christian prayer in public schools is somehow integral to stemming the Muslim onslaught that has “already taken over Europe and about to take over America” and use of the word “evil” as it presumably relates to any sane individual who opposes the views of FHF — made it seem that whoever wrote this document must be suffering from acute syphilitic derangement.

Spider-sense in full-tingle-mode, I called the number on the questionnaire. After a few rings the voice on the other end was, lo and behold, Mr. Frank Simon, lord of Jefferson County’s virulent teabagging netherworld and apparent point-man regarding this ridiculous document. To be immediately greeted by Mr. Simon was something of a shock; I had anticipated a willing underling, not the Man Himself.

When asked about the whole “Muslims conquering Europe again” part, Mr. Simon responded by attributing the 2005 riots in Paris as the fault of an entire, non-Christian religion, when in fact the reactionary murder of a minor by Parisian police stoked pre-existing socioeconomic unrest into a full-fledged riot. Mr. Simon admitted he didn’t know much about this, but it didn’t stop him from lamenting the travesty that is separation of church and state.

Simply put, Mr. Simon couldn’t abide that we’re kowtowing to Muslims in this country while Christian prayer isn’t even allowed in our schools. After I informed him that our country’s founding fathers were largely areligious secular humanists/deists — thereby making Mr. Simon’s reverence for such things moot — our conversation got a little, well… heated.

“YOU NEED TO GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!” he shouted.

I insured him that my facts were straight as natural matrimony, but before we could have a lucid conversation about the Jefferson Bible the screaming intensified. I told Simon we’d have to agree to disagree, thanked for his time and bid him good day.

The moral of this story, folks, is twofold:

(1) Constantinople can only be conquered by the Ottoman Empire once, and

(2) any candidate who receives the Freedoms Heritage Forum’s seal of approval is either a pathological liar, criminally misinformed about fundamental truths regarding science and American history, or some lovely, xenophobic combination thereof.

Time for some ibuprofen!

The latest passive-aggressive statement from Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Krazy) to his colleague and estranged friend Sen. Mitch McConnell involves the former accusing the latter of being a “control freak,” and then more or less tells him he cannot steer a boat, at which point Bunning notices music coming from outside his office window. He goes to open it and finds McConnell, clad in trench coat, standing on the lawn and holding a boombox above his head.

Or, at least that’s what should’ve happened.

You have to admire a man whom the smart money would deign him to act in line, march in step with his battered party, and generally not run his fucking mouth all the time. Sometimes, this man will make wild accusations about his opponent’s son’s resemblance to a certain deceased son of a certain deceased former Iraqi dictator. Sometimes, such a pristine specimen of what Nietzsche dubbed the ubermensch can — in an act of sheer will — claim to predict the deaths of those poor souls beneath him.

But if you’re Jim Bunning, you’re lucky if you get through the day without getting lost in the supermarket. And nothing makes Jim Bunning madder than getting lost in the supermarket.

Except, of course, reporters; as the C-J hath noted, Senator Bats told a round table of local reporters this morning that the results of a poll, which Bunning conducted to test the waters re: his (laughable) 2010 re-election bid, were “none of [their] god damn business,” which he followed with a hearty bellow. “If you paid the $20,000 grand for the poll, you can get some information out of it.”

It should be noted that the interview was conducted via conference call, which is lucky for the reporters; had ol’ Jimbo been there to smite these young technocratic rapscallions in person… Gannett wouldn’t be able to afford the hospitalization costs.

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