Former Duke academic, David Price likes to pose as a 'moderate' liberal -- but in this election cycle, he has resorted to a Jekyll & Hyde tactic -- a piece of legislation to make Sarah Palin drool -- $600 million for border guards and pilotless drones to patrol the South West border to appeal the Tea Party in a "tough election year."
A former political science professor at Duke University, David Price has forged a career in North Carolina's progressive 4th District by projecting himself as a moderate liberal. Price draws his political strength from liberal and black Durham and Orange County the base of the progressive University of North Carolina.
However, Price's latest piece of legislation, HR 6080, is straight out of the Tea Party Playbook authored by Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Price's bill "passed" the House yesterday, apparently on a voice vote. Tragic.
This bill will cost $600 million to fund 1200 heavily armed border guards assisted by untold numbers of unmanned drones to patrol the south western border.
Yesterday, former president of Mexico, Vicente Fox, called for the immediate cessation of the US war on drugs -- a futile and counterproductive piece of political nonsense that Fox believes is fueling, arming and funding massive violence in Mexico. In fact, Fox went much farther: he believes that 28,000 Mexicans have died in the US war on drugs since 2006 -- although the war on drugs is now nearing its 39th birthday and the true number of its victims is probably closer to one million Mexicans.
David Price's election year default to the hard right is emblematic of the paranoia gripping US elected officials. Paranoia blocks out reason.
The US war on drugs and illegal immigrants is driven by a desire to incriminate, penalize and eradicate racial minorities from African-Americans (who bear the brunt of the police and political brutality) to Hispanics, to the young and the poor and the women and the children of countless families violated by the draconian federal and state drug laws. Price's district includes Durham the home of Duke University and a large black population where drug arrests roll on at a steady pace.
For this one bill alone, North Carolina voters should (shudder) strongly consider sending David Price a message in the form of a non-vote this November. Price's opponent is a knuckle-dragger extraordinaire, B. J. Lawson, but something definitely needs to be done to put the frighteners on such a casual hypocrite who poses as a liberal while kowtowing to the Tea Party.