Spencer Bachus Is Still A Complete Moron

Bachus was my representative in Alabama. The first time I called him a moron was because of this statement:

Bachus also condemned homosexual marriage as the worst threat to the nation. “We could lose Iraq and survive; we lost Vietnam and survived, but if we lose this battle over gay marriage, we are doomed,” he said.

Proving his ignorance extends to all areas of moralizing, now we have this beauty from Bachus:

“McGill University found that one-third of college students who gamble on the Internet ultimately attempted suicide,” he averred. He added, “That is why the rate of suicide on our college campuses has doubled in the past 10 years.”

Really? No.

In a belated response to Bachus’ startling claim, the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, an industry group, cites McGill University gambling and addiction researcher Jeffrey L. Derevensky, who says:

“This assertion, which is reportedly based upon our empirical research, is not predicated upon any factual evidence. None of the studies conducted with adolescents or college students, to the best of my knowledge, have looked at a connection between Internet wagering and suicide attempts.”

And no:

while Bachus said suicides on college campuses have doubled in the last decade, the CDC says suicides among 15-to-24-year-olds fell by 28 percent between 1990 and 2003, then rose by 8 percent in 2004 before falling by 3 percent in 2005, the latest year for which data are available (PDF).

People like Spencer Bachus – not gay marriage, not gambling, not alcohol, not violence on television, not rap music, not illegal immigrants, not any of the other usual bogeymen – are the number one problem in this country. He has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about, but he knows what has to be done and if the facts say otherwise, well, damn the facts.

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