Moe Davis: rebuilding Western North Carolina in a post-pandemic world
The jobs report came out Friday and the numbers were dire. Unemployment is at Depression-level 14.7 percent. It will take years for the country to recover.
We can’t go back to the way it was, and we’ll tell you this now: we shouldn’t. Western North Carolina’s poverty rate was already above the national average before the coronavirus pandemic. Jobs didn’t pay well enough and here’s one result: a report last week in the Asheville Citizen Times noted that one in four children in Western North Carolina didn’t have enough food to last a weekend.
Let’s not go back to that. Let’s find a better path forward.
We can’t keep marching along with the Republican drummers – taking healthcare away, ignoring the need for broadband internet access and underfunding public education in order to cut the budget and give tax breaks to big corporations and the richest among us.
These shortsighted policies in Washington and Raleigh are hurting Western North Carolina.
Let’s foster green jobs and green technology, because it makes perfect sense. They’re good jobs that pay well. They’re good for the environment, which is so important for our tourism-based economy. And they’re good for national security because if we’re energy independent here at home we don’t need to send our troops to defend foreign oil.
North Carolina ranks second in the country in solar energy production. We should be manufacturing those solar panels right here. So how do we attract those jobs?
1. We invest in infrastructure to make broadband available throughout Western North Carolina to attract businesses who would consider relocating here.
2. We immediately expand Medicaid on the state level, but we also create a public option so that everyone has access to healthcare. More access also means more healthcare jobs to meet the needs of our communities.
3. We invest in educating our students for the high tech jobs of today and tomorrow so there is a workforce in Western North Carolina that’s a magnet for employers.
Or we can keep voting against our own interests and with the Republicans who’ve led us into high poverty, a healthcare crisis and a resource-starved educational system that’s not setting the next generation up for success.
Have you seen anything from Madison Cawthorn or Lynda Bennett, the two Republicans in a runoff to face Moe Davis in November, that tells you they have the vision, work experience or desire to improve lives in Western North Carolina?
The future of Western North Carolina is on the ballot on November 3rd. What are you going to do about it?
Major Endorsements
The North Carolina Association of Educators, the largest education advocacy organization for public school employees in the state, has announced its endorsement of Moe Davis.
The Progressive Turnout Project, a grassroots-funded organization that reaches out to Democratic voters and works to improve turnout at elections, has endorsed Moe Davis as well.
Moe Continues Talking…
Whether you watch on Facebook Live or Zoom, Moe Talks continue at 12:30 p.m. on Mondays and 7 p.m. on Thursdays.
These are valuable opportunities to ask Moe questions and get answers about the pressing issues of the day. We can guarantee Moe has spent more time talking to the public in Western North Carolina since December than Mark Meadows did in his seven years as an absentee congressman.
Please use this link to access Monday’s Zoom events and this one for Thursday’s. And if you can’t watch live, they are available on Facebook, YouTube, and the campaign website.
You can send questions to info@moedavis.com. And please share Moe Talks sessions on your personal Facebook page, especially if you have friends, family, co-workers and/or neighbors who are registered as unaffiliated or Republican.
Less Than 6 Months to Go!
We don’t accept corporate PAC money, so we need your donations to compete against a GOP that has already spent $1.7 million to try to buy this seat for Republicans. Don’t let them get away with it. Please support our campaign here.
Democracy will thank you.
Stay home. Stay safe. Stay healthy.
Mountain Strong
Covid-19 Affects Us All
We need to work together and treat each other with kindness in the mitigation of COVID-19. We need to focus on mitigation because the opportunity for suppression has passed.
Suppression of an epidemic requires early and widespread testing to facilitate isolation of positive cases to reduce the number of new cases infected as close to zero as possible. The goal of suppression is to eliminate or control the epidemic for the long term.
Mitigation involves slowing the epidemic, but not necessarily reducing the overall number of people who will get infected. The idea is to limit the rate at which people get infected so that the healthcare system does not get overwhelmed. When that happens, doctors need to make the tough choices on who gets treated and who doesn’t because they don’t have the facilities or resources to treat everyone. The best guess from experts in the UK is that as many as two million Americans are likely to die from COVID-19.
How did we miss the opportunity to implement suppression and instead get to where we are? The answer is the gross negligence and denial of President Trump and his administration. Instead of taking steps to get effective testing in place, Trump said he did not want his “numbers to go up” which would result with testing. Instead of initiating action, we got unrealistic ramblings interspersed with a progression of classic Trump lies (It’s a hoax; just a conspiracy to make me look bad; everyone can get tested) and dangerous misinformation (You can go to work if you are not too sick).
Having eliminated the task force on pandemics (Trump lied that he had not done this), Trump put politicians and political appointees out to take the fall for his incompetence. Pence, who had botched a health emergency as governor, was put in charge. All we got from him was phony praise for the great leadership that Trump was providing and lots of promises on what they were going to do – but never did.
Trump is not alone in his denial of the problem. Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, adjourned the Senate for a long weekend so he could attend festivities in Kentucky instead of working on legislation to deal with the pandemic. Other Congressional Republicans have urged people to ignore precautions and gather in public places until some of their colleagues got sick.
To this day – more than two months after it became obvious there was a serious problem – the federal government has been largely missing in action. Governors have stepped into the breach and started doing what they could on their own. This is good, but not enough. Only the federal government can put the Army into action to set up temporary hospitals for the overflow that will occur at our local hospitals. Only the federal government can take nationwide initiatives to mitigate the infection rate.
So, as initially stated, we need to take care of our neighbors and ourselves because we cannot expect any help from the Trump administration. Practice known mitigation practices, such as hand washing and social distancing. Viruses in general are killed by ultra violet light, so putting things and ourselves in sunlight might be helpful. Go for walks, but not near others. If you need to go to the store, use wipes, if you have them, before you go inside at home. We need to do what we can to stay safe in reducing possible exposure to the virus.
COVID-19, like climate change, does not care about what you believe or what you deny. They don’t care about your political opinions or your religious beliefs. They will continue on their course unless we take effective action.
11th Congressional District Democratic Nominee Moe Davis Calls on North Carolina Senator Richard Burr to Resign
ASHEVILLE — The coronavirus pandemic has roiled our country, sent our economy into a tailspin and created a desperate need to support everyday workers who have been devastated by a loss of income.
Now is a critical moment for leaders to step up to the challenge and do what’s best for our country.
How disgusting to learn that U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and others instead used insider knowledge of that coming devastation to do what is best only for themselves. Following Senate updates on the spread of the coronavirus and impact on our country, Burr reportedly sold as much as $1.7 million in stock before the market crashed.
Moe Davis, Democratic nominee for Congress in North Carolina’s 11th District and a constituent of Burr, joins many in the country and in Western North Carolina calling on Burr to immediately resign his Senate seat and face investigation to see if he violated any insider trading laws. Davis also calls for an investigation into all members of the House, Senate and OGE-278 filers (senior government officials) who had access to non-public information on COVID-19 and used it to personally profit, whether they are Republicans or Democrats.
“I’m running for Congress to restore integrity and accountability to Washington,’’ Davis said. “Nothing erodes public confidence in government more than public servants serving themselves ahead of the interests of their constituents. It’s particularly appalling when personal profit takes priority over public safety during a global pandemic where countless numbers will get sick, scores will die and millions will suffer.”
In the meantime, Davis will make this pledge to voters in Western North Carolina today: When he is your representative in Congress, he will place all investments in a blind trust.
We need leaders who are in office to look out for our country, not their own pockets.
Mountain Strong
Some Changes to Our Calendar
We will not be staffing our office on a regular basis, but due to the state of emergency declared by Governor Roy Cooper and the Town of Waynesville, we are working on a very limited schedule.
We will be checking our email and voicemail on a regular basis, so please send a message to haywooddemocrats@gmail.com or call and leave a message at 828-452-9607.
Candidates who won the Democratic primaries for Election Day Tuesday November 3
President – Joe Biden – Not the official candidate. Won the NC primary.
US Senate – Cal Cunningham
US House – Moe Davis
Governor – Roy Cooper
Lt. Governor – Yvonne Lewis Holley
Secretary of State- Elaine Marshall
Attorney General – Josh Stein
NC Auditor – Beth Wood
Commissioner of Agriculture – Jenna Wadsworth
Superintendent of Public Instruction – Jen Mangrum
Commissioner of Labor – Jessica Holmes
NC Treasurer – Ronnie Chatterji
Commissioner Of Insurance – Wayne Goodwin
Haywood County Board of Commissioners
Leah Hampton – Waynesville West Precinct
David Young – Saunook Precinct
NC House District 118 (the seat vacated by Michele Presnell):
Alan Jones – Beaverdam 5/6 Precinct
NC House District 119
Joe Sam Queen
NC Senate District 50 (the seat vacated by Jim Davis)
Victoria Fox – Beaverdam 3 Precinct
To dig into details of the results, visit https://er.ncsbe.gov/.
Fun Items for Sale
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