Category Archives: Fiscal Freedom

As prepared for delivery:Distinguished members of the Peacebuilding Commission,

Excellencies,

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear virtually before you today.

On behalf of UNDP, allow me to commend the leadership of the Peacebuilding Commission in particular the chairs from Canada, Japan and Colombia for organizing this meeting.

We welcome the opportunity to amplify our recent and recurring engagement with the PBC in our role as the UNs development voice in building sustainable pathways for peacebuilding and tackling violence, conflict and fragility as the largest PBF implementing partner on the ground. And we thank PBSO for the excellent collaboration in facilitating our engagement with the PBC.

You heard from our Administrator two weeks ago on the importance of UN system-wide engagement and strengthening institutions for sustaining peace and peacebuilding in a new post-COVID-19 world.

Today, I will go a bit further to reflect on how we can strengthen the peacebuilding thumbprint in the UN Socioeconomic Framework so that we can help countries recover from this crisis and build back better with more resilience , and security, to future shocks and crisis.

The UN Framework for the Immediate Socioeconomic Response to COVID-19 has five pillars:

Trends and patterns emerging from socioeconomic impact assessments show severe shrinking of fiscal space, policy space, political and governance space, human rights and civic space, erosion of social cohesion; thus pushing SDGs further off-track.

In some countries, economic growth is contracting in double digits; we are seeing sharp increases in prices, decrease in incomes and remittances, and significant job losses, with massive numbers of people at risk of slipping into poverty.

The Human Development Index, for the first time since its inception in 1990, will likely fall. A reduction that would most likely take us back six years .

Countries impacted by fragility, violence and conflict are facing reductions in peacebuilding spaces that will be difficult to reclaim after the end of the crisis.

Overall, there is a serious contraction in critical development and peace gains with the most vulnerable at the greatest risk of being disproportionately impacted by this pandemic.

The impact of COVID-19 is likely to be more severe in fragile and conflict-affected countries, where pre-existing vulnerabilities in health and governance systems, as well as in inter-communal relations, are amplified, thus exacerbating heightened risks to fragility, conflict and violence across communities and borders.

How we collectively respond to the socio-economic impacts of the crisis will have significant consequences on conflict and peace all around the world.

Recognizing the urgency of the crisis, on 23 March, the Secretary-General called for a global ceasefire, urging warring parties to silence their guns to help create conditions for the delivery of aid and to open up space for diplomacy. The response to the SGs appeal has been mostly positive. However, initial gestures of support have not translated into concrete change on the ground. The Security Councils inability to agree on a resolution in support of a global ceasefire has been disappointing.

We need Member States with leverage on conflict parties to use their influence to end these wars. This is especially urgent because COVID-19 has increased risks of violent conflicts, exacerbating existing grievances and inequalities, which were main themes of the protests around the world in 2019.

The social contract between the state and the population is seeing further erosion. In several countries we are already seeing public frustration with the government responses. We also see systematically weak judiciary systems; limiting the protection of human rights and access to justice for many. Potential politicization of governments response could increase political animosity. Weak and uneven government responses could further undermine the social compact and trust.

Despite these challenges, the ceasefire appeal has refocused attention on the urgency to end fighting and the spur stalled peace processes - in order to face a new global common threat.

A few countries are grappling with preparing for elections and the planning for the possibility of delayed or altered elections (with risks of civil unrest and political strife). COVID-19 restrictions could be instrumentalized for electoral purposes and will need to be carefully monitored.

Some governments are restricting freedom of speech and of assembly beyond what is medically necessary, sometimes targeting the opposition. Hate speech and fearmongering against vulnerable populations has proliferated.

Despite challenges of social distancing, local peacebuilders are finding innovative ways to boost opportunities for mutual aid and community-building initiatives using digital solutions to bring communities closer together in sharing life-saving public information on how to survive the pandemic.

Communities led by women and youth are stepping up and forward to strengthen social cohesion between and within local communities as they battle the health pandemic together, building pathways for peace dividends to bloom.

The UN Socioeconomic framework will need to triangulate with existing peace and reconciliation initiatives ongoing in conflict-affected contexts with a strong conflict sensitivity and risk adaptive lens.

Through strong interagency coordination, UNCTs support to countries responses so far have oriented mainly on the immediate crisis response, with a special focus on enhancing institutions, addressing structural deficiencies, supporting most vulnerable people and places; and addressing the harrowing problem of data gaps.

While responding to the pandemic, a few countries with the support of UNCTs(and the UN at large), are already reflecting on the path to recovery. For countries impacted by fragility and violent conflict, our response must be both institutions-based and people-centered. Peacebuilding must be at the heart of a sustainable recovery that (re)builds trust and social cohesion. To bring the dependency cycle to an end , our response must focus on building resilience, institutional capacity and disaster risk reduction while ensuring we remain highly attuned to the conflict drivers and risks as countries recover.

All this will require a robust conflict analysis as part of the socioeconomic recovery assessments.

UNDP is currently reviewing the submissions of 61 countries undertaking socioeconomic impact assessments to ensure that countries are adequately sensitive to the social cohesion and peacebuilding dimensions of COVID-19, including not just the challenges but also the opportunities to secure peace dividends. This is especially relevant for countries impacted by fragility, violence and conflict, or whose transition or peace processes are stalled. Where the peacebuilding lens is weak, UNDP welcomes the opportunity to work with DCO and PBSO to support UNCTs at country/regional levels to strengthen the peacebuilding thumbprint in recovery planning.

Indeed, as the largest recipient and implementer of PBF interventions in nearly to 40 countries, UNDP welcomes the PBFs proactive support to UN Country Teams in Guatemala, Cote dIvoire and Mali to adjust existing projects to address peacebuilding and prevention dimensions of the pandemic.

UNDP would welcome the opportunity to work together with PBSO to help all UNCTs further calibrate existing PBF-funded programming with central funds such as the CERF and the UN COVID-19 Fund to maximize the potential impact on the ground.

UNDP is also working closely with PBSO to accelerate and finalize UN guidance on Conflict Sensitivity, Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace, along with UNICEF, UNHCR, FAO, UN Habitat, WFP, and UNOPS. The guidance note, which is most relevant and timely in the COVID-19 response, should be ready in the coming days and weeks.

UNDP is also working together with partners like the World Bank in fragile and conflict-affected settings using a whole-of-society and whole-of-government approach to explore how we can leverage our resources, expertise, and capacities to help countries recover and build back better. UNDPs strong partnership with the World Bank includes our support to strengthening responsive, accountable and inclusive core government functions in fragile and crisis-affected settings as a core element of sustaining peace and peacebuilding. We are also reflecting on and adapting how core governance institutions (central and local) can and must adapt to this brave new world -- through improved ways of delivering services -- and through the use of digital technologies.

In the meantime, UNDP and DPPA continue to support our 50+ Peace and Development Advisors to help countries adapt to this new reality and indeed, new way of working in a post-COVID world through our joint UNDP-DPPA Programme on Building National Capacities for Conflict Prevention.

In sum, we can and indeed, we must build back better to regain stability and spur peace and prosperity in a world that is now changed forever. Ensuring a strong social cohesion and peacebuilding lens on how societies and institutions recover from this crisis is at the heart of turning the tide on the greatest reversal of human development into a decisive leap forward.

Let me conclude by emphatically stating that , to build a secure world , we must keep massively investing in Human Security! It is an investment with highest return; on Peace and on Prosperity. It is our strongest insurance policy as well as our passport to a secure future !

Thank you.

See the rest here:

Tailoring the Socioeconomic Response to COVID-19 in Peacebuilding Contexts - UNDP

In the heat of the current global campaign and protests against systemic and deeply entrenched racism in the United States of America and other parts of the World which came once again to the limelight with the killing by the White police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, Minnesota of the 46 year old black man Mr. George Floyd, there was a significant and symbolic event that took place in the White house.

This event with global ramifications which tool place was the signing into law of the Executive order on advancing international religious freedoms by President Donald John Trump.

This momentous occasion was drowned unfortunately by the protests over the killing of the black man in the USA and also the inelegant handling of the aftermath of the huge crises that followed by the United States 45th President did not also help matters thereby relegating the important achievement that is embedded in the Executive Order on advancing international religious freedoms by President Donald John Trump.

Although here in Nigeria, we are also confronting the demon of rape and killings of many teenage girls by their rapists all across the Country and the killings of villagers by the armed Islamists and Fulani herdsmen have escalated, the significance of what President Donald John Trump did around June 2nd 2020 in the imposing complex of White House will forever be a source of encouragement.

There is therefore the need to enlighten the people of Nigeria about the existence of this international persuasive tool that can be relied upon to beat back the increasing threats to lives of religious minorities and Christians in the mostly Moslem North West and the terrorism infested North East of Nigeria which has a significant percentage of Christians even though the Moslems are the majority holding political offices of influence in those states with the exception of only a few.

There is little doubt that the spate of killings orchestrated by the armed Islamists and Fulani herdsmen in places such as Benue, Southern Kaduna State, Plateau, Delta, Enugu, Ebonyi are all motivated by the hatred of religious plurality and the fact that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has in the last five years concentrated the strategic security and defence positions in the hands of only Moslem Northerners and therefore relegating millions of Christians to the background.

This act of lawlessness has constituted not only a constitutional threat but a huge national security threat because in the last five years the majority of all those who watch over our national security are all virtually drawn from one tribal grouping and one religious group being the Moslem religion which in itself violates section 14(3) of the Nigerian constitution but this scheming out of Christians in the scheme of things in the defence sector has led to the high rate of violent attacks against Christian communities by armed Fulani herdsmen and in some instances the attackers after destroying these communities occupied by force the farms of these villagers who are forced to flee to cities to live in the internally displaced people's camps whilst their ancestral lands are occupied by occupying forces aided by armed security forces mostly controlled and commanded by Moslems.

Ironically, the President Muhammadu Buhari who is Fulani Moslem does not give a damn and is in denial of all these atrocious and murderous killings which he dismissed as mere farmers/ herders crises which is totally incorrect and deceptive.

The following words captures the imminent implosion that may result from the heavily one sided defence team set up by President Muhammadu Buhari: "Skewed appointments into the offices of the Federal Government favouring some and frustrating others, shall bring ruin and destruction to this nation."- Col. Abubakar Umar (retd), former military governor of Kaduna State to President Buhari.

It is no secret that in a lot of places in Northern Nigeria, like Katsina, Kano, Zamfara and adjoining States, Christians are not allowed official plots of land by the state governors to build their places of worship just as young Christian girls are too often forced into conversion and marriages to Moslems.

The worst of these invidious and insidious attacks against Christian communities pale into insignificance when you compared these institutional apartheid policies of some Northern State governments to the physical violence that are now unleashed on Christian communities by armed Fulani herdsmen seeking to displace them from their ancestral homes and the government does nothing.

The Special Adviser to Mr President on Media Femi Adeshina was quoted as asking persons under attacks to give up their lands than to be buried underneath..

That incendiary, callous and insensitive comments made on national television by no other person than the Special Adviser on Media and publicity to Mr President is to say the least a confirmation that government is unwilling to take steps to stop these attacks.

Then coupled with the total domination of Moslems controlling all internal security architectures in Nigeria you can then know that Nigerian Christians need to look towards United States of America for the implementation of this Executive order on advancing international religious freedoms by President Donald John Trump.

The Bishop of Sokoto Mathew Hassan Kukah who hails from Southern Kaduna State whereby Christian communities have faced torrents of violent attacks by jihadists terrorists has also lost a Seminarian to the dastardly criminal acts of terror attacks and genocide of Christians in Northern Nigeria.

The following was the speech Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah read at the burial of the Seminarian Michael killed by armed Fulani herdsmen recently. Bishop Kukah wrote thus: "Nigeria needs to pause for a moment and think. No one more than the President of Nigeria, Major General Muhammadu Buhari who was voted for in 2015 on the grounds of his own promises to rout Boko Haram and place the country on an even keel. In an address at the prestigious Policy Think Tank, Chatham House in London, just before the elections, Major General Buhari told his audience: I as a retired General and a former Head of State have always known about our soldiers. They are capable and they are well trained, patriotic, brave and always ready to do their duty. If am elected President, the world will have no reason to worry about Nigeria. Nigeria will return to its stabilizing role in West Africa. We will pay sufficient attention to the welfare of our soldiers in and out of service. We will develop adequate and modern arms and ammunition. We will improve intelligence gathering and border patrols to choke Boko Harams financial and equipment channels. We will be tough on terrorism and tough on its root causes by initiating a comprehensive economic development and promoting infrastructural developmentwe will always act on time and not allow problems to irresponsibly fester. And I, Muhammadu Buhari, will always lead from the front.

"There is no need to make any further comments on this claim. No one in that hall or anywhere in Nigeria doubted the President who ran his campaign on a tank supposedly full of the fuel of integrity and moral probity. No one could have imagined that in winning the Presidency, General Buhari would bring nepotism and clannishness into the military and the ancillary Security Agencies, that his government would be marked by supremacist and divisive policies that would push our country to the brink. This President has displayed the greatest degree of insensitivity in managing our countrys rich diversity. He has subordinated the larger interests of the country to the hegemonic interests of his co-religionists and clansmen and women. The impression created now is that, to hold a key and strategic position in Nigeria today, it is more important to be a northern Muslim than a Nigerian.

Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah affirmed: "The persecution of Christians in northern Nigeria is as old as the modern Nigerian state. Their experiences and fears of northern, Islamic domination are documented in the Willinks Commission Report way back in 1956. It was also the reason why they formed a political platform called, the Non-Muslim League. All of us must confess in all honesty that in the years that have passed, the northern Muslim elite has not developed a moral basis for adequate power sharing with their Christian co-regionalists. We deny at our own expense. By denying Christians lands for places of worship across most of the northern states, ignoring the systematic destruction of churches all these years, denying Christians adequate recruitment, representation and promotions in the State civil services, denying their indigenous children scholarships, marrying Christian women or converting Christians while threatening Muslim women and prospective converts with death, they make building a harmonious community impossible. Nation building cannot happen without adequate representation and a deliberate effort at creating for all members a sense, a feeling, of belonging, and freedom to make their contributions. This is the window that the killers of Boko Haram have exploited and turned into a door to death. It is why killing Christians and destroying Christianity is seen as one of their key missions."

From series of internet sources we were reminded that last year over Christmas, Islamic State Beheaded 11 Nigerian Christians. Shocking news reports with in depth analysis from the BBC on the ideology that is intent on creating a genocide in Nigeria.

Relatedly a parliamentary debate held 18 months ago in Great Britain contained the warnings of systematic persecution and horrific executions, abductions, and an unfolding genocide in Nigeria that have been wantonly ignored. These terrible executions in Nigeria will be a first test of how the UKs Foreign Office and Aid programmes will be deployed to provide substance to Boris Johnsons very welcome commitment to end such barbarism., says a foreign affairs observer in Great Britain.

The BBC and other news outlets have provided shocking news reports with in depth analysis from the ideology that is intent on creating a genocide in Nigeria.

The reporter then asserted that perhaps this will finally wake up officials in the UKs Foreign Office and in the Department for International Development who insist on saying that Nigerias killings are overwhelmingly a result of climate change, loss of grazing land and poverty.

These may all be factors but to ignore the role of a ferocious ideology is absurd, self-deceiving, wishful thinking. Climate change didnt behead these innocent people whose only crime was their Christian faith.

The Prime Minister has rightly said that In light of mounting evidence that Christians suffer the most widespread persecution We will use the UKs global reach and programme funding to improve the lives of persecuted people. And that We will do everything possible to champion these freedoms. We are determined to use the tools of British diplomacy in this cause, including our permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

These terrible executions in Nigeria will be a first test of how the UKs Foreign Office and Aid programmes will be deployed to provide substance to Boris Johnsons very welcome commitment.

Whilst Great Britain still contemplates what to do to stop the persecutions of Christians in Nigeria, the United States of America may have come to the rescue of millions of Christians facing extinction under the watch of a President who gave all national defence positions in Nigeria to Moslems and therefore this one sided defence team are looking the other way as armed Fulani herdsmen kill thousands of Christians and not one killer is behind bars in the last five years. Below are the contents of the Executive order.

President Donald John Trump said the Executive order on advancing international religious freedoms by was done by the authority vested in him as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. (a) Religious freedom, Americas first freedom, is a moral and national security imperative. Religious freedom for all people worldwide is a foreign policy priority of the United States, and the United States will respect and vigorously promote this freedom. As stated in the 2017 National Security Strategy, our Founders understood religious freedom not as a creation of the state, but as a gift of God to every person and a right that is fundamental for the flourishing of our society.

(b) Religious communities and organizations, and other institutions of civil society, are vital partners in United States Government efforts to advance religious freedom around the world. It is the policy of the United States to engage robustly and continually with civil society organizations including those in foreign countries to inform United States Government policies, programs, and activities related to international religious freedom.

Sec. 2. Prioritization of International Religious Freedom. Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of State (Secretary) shall, in consultation with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), develop a plan to prioritize international religious freedom in the planning and implementation of United States foreign policy and in the foreign assistance programs of the Department of State and USAID.

Sec. 3. Foreign Assistance Funding for International Religious Freedom. (a) The Secretary shall, in consultation with the Administrator of USAID, budget at least $50 million per fiscal year for programs that advance international religious freedom, to the extent feasible and permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations. Such programs shall include those intended to anticipate, prevent, and respond to attacks against individuals and groups on the basis of their religion, including programs designed to help ensure that such groups can persevere as distinct communities; to promote accountability for the perpetrators of such attacks; to ensure equal rights and legal protections for individuals and groups regardless of belief; to improve the safety and security of houses of worship and public spaces for all faiths; and to protect and preserve the cultural heritages of religious communities.

(b) Executive departments and agencies (agencies) that fund foreign assistance programs shall ensure that faith-based and religious entities, including eligible entities in foreign countries, are not discriminated against on the basis of religious identity or religious belief when competing for Federal funding, to the extent permitted by law.

Sec. 4. Integrating International Religious Freedom into United States Diplomacy. (a) The Secretary shall direct Chiefs of Mission in countries of particular concern, countries on the Special Watch List, countries in which there are entities of particular concern, and any other countries that have engaged in or tolerated violations of religious freedom as noted in the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom required by section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-292), as amended (the Act), to develop comprehensive action plans to inform and support the efforts of the United States to advance international religious freedom and to encourage the host governments to make progress in eliminating violations of religious freedom.

(b) In meetings with their counterparts in foreign governments, the heads of agencies shall, when appropriate and in coordination with the Secretary, raise concerns about international religious freedom and cases that involve individuals imprisoned because of their religion.

(c) The Secretary shall advocate for United States international religious freedom policy in both bilateral and multilateral fora, when appropriate, and shall direct the Administrator of USAID to do the same.

Sec. 5. Training for Federal Officials. (a) The Secretary shall require all Department of State civil service employees in the Foreign Affairs Series to undertake training modelled on the international religious freedom training described in section 708(a) of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-465), as amended by section 103(a)(1) of the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (Public Law 114-281).

(b) Within 90 days of the date of this order, the heads of all agencies that assign personnel to positions overseas shall submit plans to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, detailing how their agencies will incorporate the type of training described in subsection (a) of this section into the training required before the start of overseas assignments for all personnel who are to be stationed abroad, or who will deploy and remain abroad, in one location for 30 days or more.

(c) All Federal employees subject to these requirements shall be required to complete international religious freedom training not less frequently than once every 3 years.

Sec. 6. Economic Tools. (a) The Secretary and the Secretary of the Treasury shall, in consultation with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and through the process described in National Security Presidential Memorandum-4 of April 4, 2017 (Organization of the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, and Subcommittees), develop recommendations to prioritize the appropriate use of economic tools to advance international religious freedom in countries of particular concern, countries on the Special Watch List, countries in which there are entities of particular concern, and any other countries that have engaged in or tolerated violations of religious freedom as noted in the report required by section 102(b) of the Act. These economic tools may include, as appropriate and to the extent permitted by law, increasing religious freedom programming, realigning foreign assistance to better reflect country circumstances, or restricting the issuance of visas under section 604(a) of the Act.

(b) The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, may consider imposing sanctions under Executive Order 13818 of December 20, 2017 (Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption), which, among other things, implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Public Law 114-328).

Sec. 7. Definitions. For purposes of this order:(a) Country of particular concern is defined as provided in section 402(b)(1)(A) of the Act;

(b) Entity of particular concern is defined as provided in section 301 of the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (Public Law 114-281);

(c) Special Watch List is defined as provided in sections 3(15) and 402(b)(1)(A)(iii) of the Act; and

(d) Violations of religious freedom is defined as provided in section 3(16) of the Act.

Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) hereby charges Christian leaders and stakeholders to compile and document evidences of these mass killings of Christians so these data are sent to the President of the United States of America and the Congress of the United States of America for their immediate actions to ensure that the hundreds of killers who are walking the Nigerian streets freely are arrested, prosecuted and punished for these crimes against humanity.

Emmanuel Onwubiko is the Head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria and[emailprotected];www.emmanuelonwubikocom;www.thenigerianinsidernews.com;[emailprotected]

Disclaimer: "The views/contents expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of Emmanuel Onwubiko and do not necessarily reflect those of The Nigerian Voice. The Nigerian Voice will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article."

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Nigeria In The Eyes Of The World On Freedoms - The Nigerian Voice

In the heat of the current global campaign and protests against systemic and deeply entrenched racism in the United States of America and other parts of the World which came once again to the limelight with the killing by the White police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis, Minnesota of the 46 year old black man Mr. George Floyd, there was a significant and symbolic event that took place in the White house.

This event with global ramifications was the signing into law of the Executive Order on advancing international religious freedoms by President Donald John Trump.

This momentous occasion was drowned unfortunately by the protests over the killing of the black man in the USA and also the inelegant handling of the aftermath of the huge crises that followed by the United States 45th President did not also help matters thereby relegating the important achievement that is embedded in the Executive Order on advancing international religious freedoms by Trump.

Although here in Nigeria, we are also confronting the demon of rape and killings of many teenage girls by their rapists all across the country and the killings of villagers by the armed Islamists and Fulani herdsmen have escalated, the significance of what President Donald John Trump did around June 2nd 2020 in the imposing complex of White House will forever be a source of encouragement.

There is therefore the need to enlighten the people of Nigeria about the existence of this international persuasive tool that can be relied upon to beat back the increasing threats to lives of religious minorities and Christians in the mostly Moslem North West and the terrorism infested North East of Nigeria which has a significant percentage of Christians even though the Moslems are the majority holding political offices of influence in those states with the exception of only a few.

There is little doubt that the spate of killings orchestrated by the armed Islamists and Fulani herdsmen in places such as Benue, Southern Kaduna State, Plateau, Delta, Enugu, Ebonyi are all motivated by the hatred of religious plurality and the fact that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has in the last five years concentrated the strategic security and defence positions in the hands of only Moslem Northerners and therefore relegating millions of Christians to the background.

This act of lawlessness has constituted not only a constitutional threat but a huge national security threat because in the last five years the majority of all those who watch over our national security are all virtually drawn from one tribal grouping and one religious group being the Moslem religion which in itself violates section 14(3) of the Nigerian constitution but this scheming out of Christians in the scheme of things in the defence sector has led to the high rate of violent attacks against Christian communities by armed Fulani herdsmen and in some instances the attackers after destroying these communities occupied by force the farms of these villagers who are forced to flee to cities to live in the internally displaced peoples camps whilst their ancestral lands are occupied by occupying forces aided by armed security forces mostly controlled and commanded by Moslems.

Ironically, Buhari who is Fulani Moslem does not give a damn and is in denial of all these atrocious and murderous killings which he dismissed as mere farmers/ herders crises which is totally incorrect and deceptive.

The following words captures the imminent implosion that may result from the heavily one sided defence team set up by President Buhari: Skewed appointments into the offices of the Federal Government favouring some and frustrating others, shall bring ruin and destruction to this nation.- Col. Abubakar Umar (retd), former military governor of Kaduna State to President Buhari.

It is no secret that in a lot of places in Northern Nigeria, like Katsina, Kano, Zamfara and adjoining States, Christians are not allowed official plots of land by the state governors to build their places of worship just as young Christian girls are too often forced into conversion and marriages to Moslems.

The worst of these invidious and insidious attacks against Christian communities pale into insignificance when you compared these institutional apartheid policies of some Northern State governments to the physical violence that are now unleashed on Christian communities by armed Fulani herdsmen seeking to displace them from their ancestral homes and the government does nothing.

The Special Adviser to Mr President on Media Femi Adeshina was quoted as asking persons under attacks to give up their lands than to be buried underneath.

That incendiary, callous and insensitive comments made on national television by no other person than the Special Adviser on Media and publicity to Mr President is to say the least a confirmation that government is unwilling to take steps to stop these attacks.

Then coupled with the total domination of Moslems controlling all internal security architectures in Nigeria you can then know that Nigerian Christians need to look towards United States of America for the implementation of this Executive order on advancing international religious freedoms by President Donald John Trump.

The Bishop of Sokoto Mathew Hassan Kukah who hails from Southern Kaduna State whereby Christian communities have faced torrents of violent attacks by jihadists terrorists has also lost a Seminarian to the dastardly criminal acts of terror attacks and genocide of Christians in Northern Nigeria.

The following was the speech Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah read at the burial of the Seminarian Michael killed by armed Fulani herdsmen recently. Bishop Kukah wrote thus: Nigeria needs to pause for a moment and think. No one more than the President of Nigeria, Major General Muhammadu Buhari who was voted for in 2015 on the grounds of his own promises to rout Boko Haram and place the country on an even keel. In an address at the prestigious Policy Think Tank, Chatham House in London, just before the elections, Major General Buhari told his audience: I as a retired General and a former Head of State have always known about our soldiers. They are capable and they are well trained, patriotic, brave and always ready to do their duty. If am elected President, the world will have no reason to worry about Nigeria. Nigeria will return to its stabilizing role in West Africa. We will pay sufficient attention to the welfare of our soldiers in and out of service. We will develop adequate and modern arms and ammunition. We will improve intelligence gathering and border patrols to choke Boko Harams financial and equipment channels. We will be tough on terrorism and tough on its root causes by initiating a comprehensive economic development and promoting infrastructural developmentwe will always act on time and not allow problems to irresponsibly fester. And I, Muhammadu Buhari, will always lead from the front.

There is no need to make any further comments on this claim. No one in that hall or anywhere in Nigeria doubted the President who ran his campaign on a tank supposedly full of the fuel of integrity and moral probity. No one could have imagined that in winning the Presidency, General Buhari would bring nepotism and clannishness into the military and the ancillary Security Agencies, that his government would be marked by supremacist and divisive policies that would push our country to the brink. This President has displayed the greatest degree of insensitivity in managing our countrys rich diversity. He has subordinated the larger interests of the country to the hegemonic interests of his co-religionists and clansmen and women. The impression created now is that, to hold a key and strategic position in Nigeria today, it is more important to be a northern Muslim than a Nigerian.

Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah affirmed: The persecution of Christians in northern Nigeria is as old as the modern Nigerian state. Their experiences and fears of northern, Islamic domination are documented in the Willinks Commission Report way back in 1956. It was also the reason why they formed a political platform called, the Non-Muslim League. All of us must confess in all honesty that in the years that have passed, the northern Muslim elite has not developed a moral basis for adequate power sharing with their Christian co-regionalists. We deny at our own expense. By denying Christians lands for places of worship across most of the northern states, ignoring the systematic destruction of churches all these years, denying Christians adequate recruitment, representation and promotions in the State civil services, denying their indigenous children scholarships, marrying Christian women or converting Christians while threatening Muslim women and prospective converts with death, they make building a harmonious community impossible. Nation building cannot happen without adequate representation and a deliberate effort at creating for all members a sense, a feeling, of belonging, and freedom to make their contributions. This is the window that the killers of Boko Haram have exploited and turned into a door to death. It is why killing Christians and destroying Christianity is seen as one of their key missions.

From series of internet sources we were reminded that last year over Christmas, Islamic State Beheaded 11 Nigerian Christians. Shocking news reports with in depth analysis from the BBC on the ideology that is intent on creating a genocide in Nigeria.

Relatedly a parliamentary debate held 18 months ago in Great Britain contained the warnings of systematic persecution and horrific executions, abductions, and an unfolding genocide in Nigeria that have been wantonly ignored. These terrible executions in Nigeria will be a first test of how the UKs Foreign Office and Aid programmes will be deployed to provide substance to Boris Johnsons very welcome commitment to end such barbarism., says a foreign affairs observer in Great Britain.

The BBC and other news outlets have provided shocking news reports with in depth analysis from the ideology that is intent on creating a genocide in Nigeria.

The reporter then asserted that perhaps this will finally wake up officials in the UKs Foreign Office and in the Department for International Development who insist on saying that Nigerias killings are overwhelmingly a result of climate change, loss of grazing land and poverty.

These may all be factors but to ignore the role of a ferocious ideology is absurd, self-deceiving, wishful thinking. Climate change didnt behead these innocent people whose only crime was their Christian faith.

The Prime Minister has rightly said that In light of mounting evidence that Christians suffer the most widespread persecution We will use the UKs global reach and programme funding to improve the lives of persecuted people. And that We will do everything possible to champion these freedoms. We are determined to use the tools of British diplomacy in this cause, including our permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

These terrible executions in Nigeria will be a first test of how the UKs Foreign Office and Aid programmes will be deployed to provide substance to Boris Johnsons very welcome commitment.

Whilst Great Britain still contemplates what to do to stop the persecutions of Christians in Nigeria, the United States of America may have come to the rescue of millions of Christians facing extinction under the watch of a President who gave all national defence positions in Nigeria to Moslems and therefore this one sided defence team are looking the other way as armed Fulani herdsmen kill thousands of Christians and not one killer is behind bars in the last five years. Below are the contents of the Executive order.

President Donald John Trump said the Executive order on advancing international religious freedoms by was done by the authority vested in him as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. (a) Religious freedom, Americas first freedom, is a moral and national security imperative. Religious freedom for all people worldwide is a foreign policy priority of the United States, and the United States will respect and vigorously promote this freedom. As stated in the 2017 National Security Strategy, our Founders understood religious freedom not as a creation of the state, but as a gift of God to every person and a right that is fundamental for the flourishing of our society.

(b) Religious communities and organizations, and other institutions of civil society, are vital partners in United States Government efforts to advance religious freedom around the world. It is the policy of the United States to engage robustly and continually with civil society organizations including those in foreign countries to inform United States Government policies, programs, and activities related to international religious freedom.

Sec. 2. Prioritization of International Religious Freedom. Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of State (Secretary) shall, in consultation with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), develop a plan to prioritize international religious freedom in the planning and implementation of United States foreign policy and in the foreign assistance programs of the Department of State and USAID.

Sec. 3. Foreign Assistance Funding for International Religious Freedom. (a) The Secretary shall, in consultation with the Administrator of USAID, budget at least $50 million per fiscal year for programs that advance international religious freedom, to the extent feasible and permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations. Such programs shall include those intended to anticipate, prevent, and respond to attacks against individuals and groups on the basis of their religion, including programs designed to help ensure that such groups can persevere as distinct communities; to promote accountability for the perpetrators of such attacks; to ensure equal rights and legal protections for individuals and groups regardless of belief; to improve the safety and security of houses of worship and public spaces for all faiths; and to protect and preserve the cultural heritages of religious communities.

(b) Executive departments and agencies (agencies) that fund foreign assistance programs shall ensure that faith-based and religious entities, including eligible entities in foreign countries, are not discriminated against on the basis of religious identity or religious belief when competing for Federal funding, to the extent permitted by law.

Sec. 4. Integrating International Religious Freedom into United States Diplomacy. (a) The Secretary shall direct Chiefs of Mission in countries of particular concern, countries on the Special Watch List, countries in which there are entities of particular concern, and any other countries that have engaged in or tolerated violations of religious freedom as noted in the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom required by section 102(b) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-292), as amended (the Act), to develop comprehensive action plans to inform and support the efforts of the United States to advance international religious freedom and to encourage the host governments to make progress in eliminating violations of religious freedom.(b) In meetings with their counterparts in foreign governments, the heads of agencies shall, when appropriate and in coordination with the Secretary, raise concerns about international religious freedom and cases that involve individuals imprisoned because of their religion.

(c) The Secretary shall advocate for United States international religious freedom policy in both bilateral and multilateral fora, when appropriate, and shall direct the Administrator of USAID to do the same.

Sec. 5. Training for Federal Officials. (a) The Secretary shall require all Department of State civil service employees in the Foreign Affairs Series to undertake training modelled on the international religious freedom training described in section 708(a) of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-465), as amended by section 103(a)(1) of the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (Public Law 114-281).

(b) Within 90 days of the date of this order, the heads of all agencies that assign personnel to positions overseas shall submit plans to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, detailing how their agencies will incorporate the type of training described in subsection (a) of this section into the training required before the start of overseas assignments for all personnel who are to be stationed abroad, or who will deploy and remain abroad, in one location for 30 days or more.(c) All Federal employees subject to these requirements shall be required to complete international religious freedom training not less frequently than once every 3 years.

Sec. 6. Economic Tools. (a) The Secretary and the Secretary of the Treasury shall, in consultation with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and through the process described in National Security Presidential Memorandum-4 of April 4, 2017 (Organization of the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, and Subcommittees), develop recommendations to prioritize the appropriate use of economic tools to advance international religious freedom in countries of particular concern, countries on the Special Watch List, countries in which there are entities of particular concern, and any other countries that have engaged in or tolerated violations of religious freedom as noted in the report required by section 102(b) of the Act. These economic tools may include, as appropriate and to the extent permitted by law, increasing religious freedom programming, realigning foreign assistance to better reflect country circumstances, or restricting the issuance of visas under section 604(a) of the Act.

(b) The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, may consider imposing sanctions under Executive Order 13818 of December 20, 2017 (Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption), which, among other things, implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Public Law 114-328).

Sec. 7. Definitions. For purposes of this order:(a) Country of particular concern is defined as provided in section 402(b)(1)(A) of the Act;(b) Entity of particular concern is defined as provided in section 301 of the Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act (Public Law 114-281);(c) Special Watch List is defined as provided in sections 3(15) and 402(b)(1)(A)(iii) of the Act; and(d) Violations of religious freedom is defined as provided in section 3(16) of the Act.Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:(i) The authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or(ii) The functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) hereby charges Christian leaders and stakeholders to compile and document evidences of these mass killings of Christians so these data are sent to the President of the United States of America and the Congress of the United States of America for their immediate actions to ensure that the hundreds of killers who are walking the Nigerian streets freely are arrested, prosecuted and punished for these crimes against humanity.

*** Emmanuel Onwubiko is the Head of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria.

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OPINION: NIGERIA IN THE EYES OF THE WORLD ON FREEDOMS - thewillnigeria

In the interstate economic-development wars, few rivalries can match the long-running one between California and Texas. At a time when so many Americans have such sharply divided attitudes on the proper role of government, these states illustrate the extremes. They're both also thought to be, in their own way, models of success, yet they have very different outcomes.

Texas is best understood as a place where the private sector prevails over the public sector. Among the 50 states, it ranks near the top in economic freedom, a measure of fiscal and regulatory policy, and near the bottom in overall tax burden. It's a state known for building, with Dallas and Houston routinely among the top metros in new home permits and Austin first in the nation for permits per capita since 2004. But state and local government spending per capita is the 11th-lowest of any state, according to data from the Tax Policy Center.

California's the opposite: a state where the government is large and powerful and the private sector is taxed and regulated to support that. It is near the bottom in economic freedom and near the top in overall tax burden. It ranks as one of the most regulated states for land use, highlighted by famously constricted metros like San Jose and San Francisco. It has strict labor laws high minimum wages, barriers to independent contracting, union favoritism that are meant to foster a middle class. State and local government spending per capita is the nation's sixth-highest.

So which model has better enabled prosperity? Well, advocates on both sides can point to strong numbers. California and Texas are in the top 10 in GDP growth, the top three in the number of Fortune 500 companies, and first and second in population. They're viewed by their respective ideological tribes as policy innovators Texas as a place where the working class can buy homes and start businesses, California as a place that cuts carbon, expands entitlements and spurs tech innovation.

But California's model increasingly comes with an asterisk. While its economy looks impressive on paper, fewer and fewer people get to enjoy it. Heavy land-use regulations make housing markets inelastic and expensive, with median home prices more than double the national number. The labor laws, rather than fostering a robust middle class, just make everything more expensive. The faith in and funding of government has not created superior public services, but rather a bunch of state and local bureaucracies that escalated debt by awarding themselves unsustainable pensions. Despite the high taxes which hit every resident California has the 10th-highest per-capita government debt; of the nine local governments that filed for bankruptcy between 2010 and 2019, three were in California.

People have responded with their feet. More leave California than move in, and a 2019 survey found that 53 percent of its residents were considering leaving the state, citing high costs. Much of the exodus goes to Texas. California is now the No. 1 exporter of people to the Lone Star State. It's not that California is losing population: Since 2010, it has gained 2.3 million residents. Meanwhile, however, Texas has added 3.9 million, more than doubling California's population growth rate.

And it's not just people. Businesses are leaving California too, at an estimated annual clip of over 1,000. For 12 straight years Texas has been the biggest recipient of businesses leaving California. Texas has long sought to capitalize on and accelerate that trend, even running ads in California touting Texas' business friendliness.

More than data, though, it's the feeling of what can be accomplished in a state that emphasizes freedom versus one strangled in red tape and high taxes. Houston ended veterans' homelessness in part by cheaply building large supportive housing projects; California cities have spent billions fighting homelessness, but still have tent cities because it costs so much to build affordable housing there. Dallas has, over three decades, built the nation's longest light-rail system, and a private company is planning high-speed rail between there and Houston. California metros have struggled to add capacity to their transit systems, and last year the state's high-speed rail project lost federal funding due to ongoing delay. Perhaps most damning is an annual survey by Chief Executive magazine asking CEOs nationwide to rank state business climates. Texas has been first for 15 straight years, and California in last place for five.

This should be a wake-up call both to Californians, to fix the flaws within their government, and to those who want to make the California model national policy. While it aims to help people, it ultimately inflicts costs that drive them out. The fact that many of these people go to Texas speaks volumes about which model really works.

Governing's opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing's editors or management.

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A Leg Up in the Search for Prosperity: Economic Freedom - Governing

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TOPEKA Defiance of Gov. Laura Kellys handling of COVID-19 emerged immediately from members of the Legislature and gained momentum as barbers, ministers and gun-rights activists chafed under statewide government restrictions and led pandemic skeptics to increasingly thumb their nose at health risks.

Criticism of the Democratic governors performance since the crisis bloomed in March hasnt been universal.

President Donald Trump said during Kellys trip to the White House in mid-May that she was doing a "fantastic job," earning her a form of presidential praise Kansas GOP politicians eagerly seek from Trump.

Sen. Dinah Sykes, a Johnson County Democrat, said the decision by Kelly in March to be the first governor to call off in-person classes in all public and private K-12 schools "saved lives."

In self-defense, Kelly said health and safety considerations guided her thought process. She said she clung to that principle even while issuing executive orders disliked by a majority of the people she represented.

"This is not about power," the governor said. "It is about leadership. It means standing up for whats right and not being bullied into taking action that would be disastrous for the people of Kansas."

Divergent voices

Kelly launched a series of news conferences on COVID-19 broadcast live on Facebook. Each represented a rare chance for a Kansas governor to repeatedly take messages directly to the people. Most draw audiences of 30,000 or 60,000 viewers.

Still, the effort wasnt likely to mute criticism.

McPherson barber Luke Aichele created a stir by denouncing Kellys closure of nonessential businesses, including hairdressers and barbers struggling to hold on to their small businesses. He said shutting down his barber shop was "discriminatory, biased and not very well thought out."

In Manhattan, City Commissioner Mark Hatesohl said government officials exaggerated dangers of COVID-19 and he concluded it would be best to welcome spread of the infection and begin developing mass immunity so people could "get back to living."

Todd Eck, of Wichita, showed up at a Statehouse rally in opposition to the governors executive orders. He volunteered to be injected with COVID-19 to demonstrate it wasnt something to be feared. Others at the event, including Kennedy Horacek, brought semi-automatic rifles to proclaim their right to protect themselves from the kind of tyranny embodied by Kelly.

Maj. Gen. David Weishaar, adjutant general for the Kansas Army and Air Guard, had to tamp down bizarre claims on social media the National Guard would be mobilized to enforce a national quarantine. He said such claims "only create confusion" and advised people to seek out COVID-19 information from reliable sources.

Rep. Trevor Jacobs, a Fort Scott Republican, accused the governor of not being transparent with information about COVID-19.

"We are Kansans," Jacobs said. "We dont trust in fear, but in God. Dont keep us in the dark."

Virus cuts deep

Kansas health officials have affirmed nearly 10,000 residents of the state tested positive for the virus. Cases have been found in 88 of 105 counties. More than 840 Kansans have been hospitalized. At least 208 died.

This profound health, economic and political struggle has drawn out the best in people look no further than the mask donation by retired Kansas farmer Dennis Ruhnke, who sent a poignant letter to New Yorks governor while donating a mask to a New York health worker.

But the darker side of pandemic politics remains. There is an ongoing contest to assign blame to public officials, who are easy targets for folks not personally accountable for any outcome but eager to second-guess others shouldering that burden. The governor retains primary control of $1.25 billion in emergency federal aid, but county governments are free of most statewide orders issued in the past two months.

Kansas, so far, has experienced testing equipment shortages, closure of K-12 and college campuses, a shocking racial disparity among those killed, major outbreaks at prisons and meatpacking plants, a projected $1.2 billion state government revenue shortfall and wacky rumors of conspiracy theorists.

The governor issued more than 30 executive orders, most of which caused little controversy. Others, however, fostered huge conflict. That list includes the constitutionally questionable edict on in-person church services. It led to legal challenges, hyper-political commentary and a workable settlement.

Kellys controversial stay-at-home directive triggered distress among people unable to go to work. More than 200,000 people filed for unemployment in Kansas, but the tidal wave of applications inundated the state labor departments computer system. Some people are still waiting for checks.

The governor called on the Legislature to return Wednesday to craft a bipartisan bill updating state law guiding the government during pandemics. She vetoed a reform bill adopted during a 24-hour marathon gathering of the Legislature.

"I wish it had been a joke. I wish it had been some sort of metaphor," said Kelly, a former state senator from Topeka. "I also wish that this had not been the most embarrassing, irresponsible display of governing that we have witnessed throughout this ordeal."

The one-day proceeding at the Capitol was viewed skeptically by Rep. Ken Corbet, R-Topeka, who said: "It kind of reminds me of Gunsmoke everybody wants to load as much s*** on the wagon as they can before it gets out of town."

First case

A Johnson County woman who traveled to the East Coast was the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Kansas. She was hospitalized in a special hospital unit in Kansas City, Kan.

"We will have more cases in the state," said Lee Norman, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. "Its going to be hard ... to contain it."

The case was a preview of how deeply Wyandotte and Johnson counties would be touched by the virus. So far, the two counties account for more than 2,000 cases of infection and at least 130 deaths.

Kelly signed an order declaring a state of emergency on March 12.

Sen. Mike Thompson, a Johnson County Republican appointed to the seat in January, said the governors decision to close schools and limit large gatherings fueled public anxiety.

"For us to limit access of everyone to schools, to business, I think is inciting a panic that is unnecessary. This is not the ebola virus," Thompson said.

In an odd twist, the governors gender became an issue in the COVID-19 debate. Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, accused some Republicans of trying to blunt the governors authority because she was a woman.

"They are too blinded by their own egos and their fragile masculinity to respect the authority of the position," Hensley said.

Sen. Gene Suellentrop, R-Wichita, took exception to a letter Hensley sent to House and Senate members asserting that Suellentrop and Sen. Rob Olson, R-Olathe, engaged in "implicit racist attacks" of Delia Garcia, secretary of the Kansas Department of Labor. Both GOP senators had aggressively questioned Garcia during a Senate committee hearing about unresolved problems with processing unemployment benefit claims.

"I dont know what its like to be called the N-word. I cant even fathom that," Suellentrop said. "I feel its pretty darn close to that. The vile, vulgar accusation of being a racist."

Holy fight

Kelly issued an order April 7 limiting church gatherings to 10 people or fewer. She was responding to evidence 25% of infection clusters in Kansas were traced to church meetings. The governor, lacking enforcement authority to block church attendance, said she was "committed to protecting Kansas religious liberty."

GOP legislators aggressively argued Kelly sought to criminalize church attendance.

The Kansas Supreme Court let Kellys church order stand, prompting a First Amendment lawsuit in federal court. The case was handled by an Arizona organization on behalf of pastor Aaron Harris, of Calvary Baptist Church in Junction City, and pastor Stephen Ormord, of First Baptist Church in Dodge City.

"Singling out churches for special punishment while allowing others to have greater freedom not only makes no logical sense, its clearly unconstitutional," said Ryan Tucker, an attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt discouraged law enforcement officers and prosecutors from enforcing Kellys order on gatherings at churches. In response, Kelly accused Schmidt of an "overtly political attack."

Schmidt said he recommended against Kelly issuing the order regulating churches and promised to make his feelings known if she went ahead with her plan.

"She did, and so did I," Schmidt said.

Economic bite

Full scope of COVID-19s influence on the Kansas economy is unknown, but fiscal analysts believe the state government will experience a $1.2 billion budget shortfall in the fiscal year starting July 1. The states cash reserves of more than $900 million and infusion of billions of dollars in federal emergency assistance cushioned immediate impact of a derailed economy and unprecedented unemployment.

David Toland, secretary of the Kansas Department of Commerce, said in mid-April the fallout would be lasting.

"The Kansas economy has taken a body blow from COVID and that extended from the ag sector to manufacturing to the service sector," he said. "Everybody has been hit. Its urban, rural, suburban, across the board."

In Linn County, a county requirement that merchants compile lists of their customers for purposes of possibly tracking down people unknowingly infected with COVID-19 led to a court fight.

Jackie Taylor, owner and publisher of Linn County News, and Linda Jo Hisel, who operates Nana Jos restaurant in La Cygne, filed suit to reverse the order issued by the county regarding contact tracing. Violations of the countywide order carried a $500 fine.

"We have a great deal of trust in our county officials, but this just goes too far," Taylor said. "COVID is serious, but we cant let our most basic rights be eroded."

In the end, the county modified the order and the case was dismissed.

Empathy

Dennis Ruhnke, a retired farmer in his 70s living near Troy with his wife, Sharon, decided in March to share one of his five medical-grade N95 respirators, which were coveted by health care workers.

He kept four masks for protection from the coronavirus pandemic, but mailed the respirator and a letter of explanation to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

"If you could," Ruhnke wrote, "would you please give this mask to a nurse or doctor in your state?"

Cuomo read from the letter during an April news conference.

"It's that love, that courage, that generosity of spirit that makes this country so beautiful," Cuomo said.

Kansas State University presented Ruhnke with a degree that he had been two credits short of earning for 50 years.

Damien Stevens, a critical-care physician at the University of Kansas Health System in Kansas City, Kan., volunteered to work for a week in a New York City hospital at height of the pandemic in April.

He said isolation required of dying patients at the Queens hospital was heartbreaking. In-person visits werent allowed, so nurses used iPads to link patients to family members.

"Thats kind of the final sadness," Stevens said. "I saw some patients that were married 30 to 40 years and we would transition them to comfort measures and the only way they had to say goodbye to family members would be through an iPad."

Originally posted here:

COVID-19 reveals conflict, compassion of Kansans wrestling with threat of pandemic - Leavenworth Times

Its 2009 again, or feels like it.

That was when spontaneous, grassroots protests against overweening government sprang up and were widely derided in the media as dangerous and wrong-headed.

The protesters then were inveighing against Obamacare; the protestors now are striking out against the coronavirus lockdowns.

The anti-lockdown agitation shows that, despite the revolution in Republican politics wrought by President Donald Trump, opposition to government impositions is deeply embedded in the DNA of the right, and likely will reemerge even more starkly if former Vice President Joe Biden is elected president.

The tea party that was so powerful in the Obama years, roiling Republican Party politics and making stars out of the likes of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, sputtered out and was subsumed by the Trump movement in 2016.

The emphasis on constitutionalism, opposition to deficit spending, and American exceptionalism gave way to an emphasis on American strength, opposition to immigration, and nationalism.

The differences shouldnt be exaggerated the tea party was opposed to amnesty for undocumented immigrants and Trump has faithfully nominated constitutionalist judges. The tea party, like Trump, hated the mainstream media with a passion. But the shift from an overwhelming focus on fiscal issues to Trumpian cultural politics was very real.

The change was exemplified by the House Freedom Caucus, founded in 2015 and defined by its hard line on government spending, reliably lining up behind Donald Trump who has pursued a notably expansionary fiscal policy with huge budget deficits even before the coronavirus crisis.

The intellectual fashion among populists and religious traditionalists has been to attempt to establish a post-liberty or "post-liberal" agenda to forge a deeper foundation for the new Republican Party. Instead of obsessing over freedom and rights, conservatives would look to government to protect the common good.

This project, though, has been rocked by its first real-life encounter with governments acting to protect, as they see it, the common good.

One of its architects, the editor of the religious journal First Things, R.R. Reno, has sounded like one of the libertarians he so scorns during the crisis. First, he complained that he might get shamed if he were to host a dinner party during the height of the pandemic, although delaying a party would seem a small price to pay for someone so intensely committed to the common good.

More recently, he went on a tirade against wearing masks. Reno is apparently fine with a much stronger government, as long as it never issues public-health guidance not to his liking.

Reno has published vituperative attacks on the conservative writer (and my friend and former colleague) David French, supposedly for having a blinkered commitment to classical liberalism. But it is the hated French who has actually tried to thoughtfully balance liberty and the common good during the crisis, favoring the lockdowns at first and favoring reopening now that the lockdowns' goals have been achieved.

What's happened during the lockdowns is that the natural distrust that populists have of experts has expressed itself in opposition to government rules. Being told what to do by epidemiologists and government officials wielding all-caps SCIENCE as their authority has been enough to bring tea party-era liberty back in vogue.

We've also seen a return of the glue that has held moral traditionalists and libertarians together in the conservative coalition for so long the belief that big government is a threat to traditional institutions. Hence, the focus on resuming church services.

In retrospect, the tea party wasn't as much a purely liberty movement as it seemed at the time. A populist anti-elitism was an enormously important factor, which is why it faded into the Trump movement so seamlessly. On the other hand, Trumpian populism has a big streak of liberty to it.

All it has taken to bring it to the fore is extraordinary government intrusion into our lives. If Biden is elected president, there's more where that came from.

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.

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Rich Lowry: The return of the tea party - Salt Lake Tribune

The people of India have by now come to expect the announcement of a new programme from the government at periodic intervals. Thus in the past six years, we have had Make in India, Swachch Bharat and Less Cash. Now there is something larger, a goal. In his address to the nation on May 11, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for an Atmanirbhar Bharat. Actually, self-reliance was the stated goal of economic policy in India in the early years after 1947. The architect of this plan was Jawaharlal Nehru, whose record as prime minister especially economic intellectuals associated with this government have trashed relentlessly. Now, over half a century after his death, the fulcrum of his vision for India has been ceremoniously brought back with nary an acknowledgement.

Both the facts of economic development across the world and advances in the methodology of empirical research would help us make sense of the economic policies of early independent India. History suggests that India did not pursue a strategy entirely out of line with what was adopted elsewhere. More importantly, we have evidence that growth here first accelerated in the early 1960s. This could only have been a consequence of the policies adopted in the earlier decade, notably the Nehru-Mahalanobis Strategy of investing in capital goods production via newly formed public enterprises. This evidence cannot be jettisoned easily. It is based on a statistical procedure that is free from the predilections of the practitioner. It conclusively disposes of the stance that nothing really changed in India after 1947, a view once held at both ends of the political spectrum but now the preserve of the right-wing. The same procedure also reveals that growth did not accelerate after the Modi government has come to power.

Jawaharlal Nehru. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

However, while we know that the 1950s were literally path-breaking, we also know that the performance of Indias economy has for far too long left much to be desired. This is apparent when we look to our east, where all countries have surged ahead of us, raising national income and spreading it widely. We also know exactly how this has been achieved. Even as they had accumulated physical capital, our East Asian counterparts developed their human resources. The question staring at us is why a society with a highly educated elite in power failed to observe this as development played out over decades.

Swaraj in ideas

The answer may be found in the work of an Indian philosopher who showed us exactly where the problem lay.In an address to the students of Hooghly College close to a century ago, Kalidas Chandra Bhattacharya spoke of swaraj in ideas. By this, he had meant the importance for a people to aim for self-determination in thought. Implicit in this was the idea that political freedom, at that time seen as the liberation of India from colonial rule, was insufficient; Indians must free themselves from the yoke of Europes premises. He was not advocating cultural chauvinism but an intellectual autonomy when choosing what is best for India.

Also Read: Will Indias Economic Recovery Be Quick? Modi Says So, But This Cant Happen in a Vacuum

In a striking demonstration of what can go wrong if we do not keep our own counsel, today India finds herself saddled with an economic model of unbounded growth that destroys natural capital and a political model based on the vision of a majoritarian nation-state that promises endless social turmoil. It is not clear that a course correction will emerge from Indias political parties competing for power. Only a collective effort can achieve it. However, India is severely challenged in doing so, and this stems from the absence of self-determination in the realm of ideas. It has meant that we are unable to see the intrinsic strengths that have served us so well for so long.

From a narrow economic point of view, it is easy to see that the failure to spread education has led India to the cul-de-sac where she finds herself. But the answer does not lie in expanding a flawed model unsuited to India. In his book Constructive Programme, Gandhi had already pointed this out when he said:

Foreign rule has unconsciously, though none the less surely, begun with the children in the field of education. Primary education is a farce designed without regard to the wants of the India of the villages and for that matter even of the cities. Basic education links the children, whether of the cities or the villages, to all that is best and lasting in India. It develops both the body and the mind, and keeps the child rooted to the soil with a glorious vision of the future in the realization of which he or she begins to take his or her share from the very commencement of his or her career in school.

Gandhi was able to identify the immediate consequence of adopting imported ideas without assessing their intrinsic worth, leave alone their suitability to India. An area in which India has had to pay a high price for following this practice is the economy.

The Washington Consensus

At the implosion of the Soviet Union and the end of its East European empire, the view that the world has arrived at the end of history triumphed. While Francis Fukuyama, the author of this view, had had in mind the installation of liberal democracy as the sole model of governance, he could not have imagined the sea change that was to come in the sphere of the economic architecture of societies. There occurred at that stage a wholesale shift to a set of economic ideas termed the Washington Consensus, eponymous with the centre of global power.

Public policy now came to be interpreted almost exclusively as macroeconomic policy, and among its tenets were the avoidance of budget deficits, flexible exchange rates and the pursuit of low inflation. The absence of microeconomic goals was not an accident, it merely followed from the view that there should be no interference with market forces represented by the actions of individuals. From the Washington Consensus emerged the idea of inflation targeting underpinned by central bank autonomy, which meant that there would be explicit inflation targets but none for employment. This implies that monetary policy must remain tight out of fear of stoking inflation even if a more accommodative stance can increase employment. It is not easily seen that this in effect privileges the owners of financial wealth, set to lose from inflation, over the aspiration of workers, who would gain from an expansion in output.

For fiscal policy, the Washington Consensus recommended low budget deficits, though the idea of fiscal deficit caps appears to have come from the architecture of the European Union. By the mid-90s, these ideas had reached Indias shores but it is the government of Narendra Modi that has adhered to them most closely by championing fiscal consolidation, the reduction of deficit, and institutionalising inflation targeting through an act of parliament.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks in the Lok Sabha. Photo: PTI/LSTV

While the US has shown itself to be willing to re-look at the tenets of the Washington Consensus when it faced a financial crisis in 2008 and now in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, India is locked into them. The principal indicator of this is the unwillingness to budge from a previously announced fiscal deficit target. It is, of course, difficult to conclude from this whether the government is motivated by the desire to adhere to the pre-announced fiscal deficit target on economic grounds or if it uses this arrangement as a convenient alibi for adhering to a non-interventionist stance that is its ideological lodestar. In any case, the so-called stimulus announced by the PM and detailed by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman reflects the ideas contained in the Washington Consensus.

Also Read: For India to Become Atmanirbhar in 10 Years, Do Indians Have to be Atmanirbhar Now?

India has paid highly for having abandoned the self-reliance in ideas that was the hallmark of its economic policy in the 50s. That experiment had drawn the best economists of the world to the country so that they could observe first-hand what was being attempted here. Right now, we are nowhere near regaining that situation as economic policy here is merely derivative of what was considered kosher in the US 25 years ago. It is striking that education did not figure among the five pillars that the PM identified as the foundation of an atmanirbhar Bharat: economy, infrastructure, system, democracy and demand. This could well turn out to be a momentous omission. Without overhauling our educational system, the prospect for self-reliance is limited.

Pulapre Balakrishnan is professor of Ashoka University, Sonipat and senior fellow of IIM Kozhikode.

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To Rebuild the Economy, India Needs to Be Atmanirbhar in Ideas - The Wire

The Covid-19 pandemic has laid bare many frailties in economies, government systems and business models; and exposed the costs of progress borne by society and the environment. Caught flat-footed, and wrestling to get a proper grip on a myriad complex and interrelated issues, policymakers have scrambled for solutions.

While the immediate policy response focused on public health implications, attention soon turned to managing economic fallout and ensuring rapid recovery. Yet, in an environment where rethinking is urged, policy responses have overwhelmingly lacked imagination. The knee-jerk policy reaction has been to labour furiously on getting the world back to work.

Indeed, an emphasis on a V-shaped recovery has dominated the discourse, with a fixation to ensure that the recovery is not some other shape, like U, W or, worse still, L. This hair-trigger reaction to restore growth at all cost is particularly evident in the developed world. The US and Japan lead the way, having primed their fiscal pumps by 10% and 7% of gross domestic product (GDP), respectively. To this, we can add massive monetary programmes that add another 11% of GDP in Japan and 6% in the United States.

With policy reactions generally taking the form of throwing money at the problem, this is not just shortsighted but arguably regressive. Even more than this, there are three key reasons why this drive for business-as-usual-as-quickly-as-possible is a poor outcome.

Fiscal and monetary flamethrowers

First, the fiscal and monetary policy flamethrower approach does not acknowledge the material shift in economic landscape and public mindset since the onset of Covid-19. Simply copying and pasting policies designed for a changed context will not yield the desired outcomes. Policy configurations must reflect behavioural and business model shifts and square up to the fact that we are in a different time. There is no template for managing such a situation and, as such, new or what some will regard as unconventional approaches are a precondition.

Furthermore, because the problems are substantially greater in magnitude, the remedial actions need to have far greater breadth and depth than before. What we need is policy sincerity that reaches for the core of the illness, rather than policy that rushes for remedies that dont cut to the fundamental social and economic weaknesses that brought us here. These weaknesses include political narratives that encourage nationalism, lowest-cost supply chains that promote concentration and inject industrial risk, a consumer orientation that places luxury ahead of lives, and the building of boundaries in a world where the enemy has no regard for human barriers like trade tantrums, border walls and door-slamming economic exits.

Second, even if we are wrong in our diagnosis of the ailments, the most widely offered solutions overlook the limitations of conventional fiscal and monetary policies in the new normal. Conventional policy is unlikely to work in a world where social distancing is expected to be the norm.

The pandemic has brought the world to a shuddering halt, highlighting that the status quo is unsustainable.

Stimulating the demand side of the economy when societys ability to engage economically is restricted will be partly effective at best, and entirely miss the target at worst. Indeed, access to cheap money cannot have the desired effects unless people can spend, build, grow and be productively engaged. The fiscal pump and monetary hose may feel like sensible short-term firefighting measures, but they do not address the core issues of creating meaningful employment, looking after livelihoods, and building a shared prosperity.

With 30 million Americans unemployed in 2020 (not to mention 122 million Indians and possibly five million South Africans), interest rates dont matter nearly as much as cash flow and cash flow becomes academic when the source of the next meal is unknown. This humanitarian dimension, rather than the myopic obsession with growth, must form the bedrock of policy responses. Policymaking options need to stretch far beyond interest rate cuts and tax deferrals to include business remodelling more than business rescue, universal basic incomes more than unemployment insurance, and looking beyond food parcels to a vision of meaningful work.

Third, with no clear indication of how long the pandemic will last, long-term policy formation has become even more complicated than usual. This is especially true amid a realignment of system architecture the future of capitalism and globalisation is likely to change radically, while localisation and digitisation are simultaneously on the rise. With societies, economies and industries undergoing wholesale change, it is paramount that policies square up to the real problem which is not about V-shaping back to where we were, but rather how we reshape of our social and economic conditions, starting with the pandemics of inequality and the failed socioeconomic fabric.

Back to the drawing board

Against this backdrop, it is incumbent on us to undertake a wholesale interrogation of the design, role and effectiveness of policy. Is policy fit for purpose in the changed context? What problem is policy solving, and at what visible and invisible costs? What are the policy impacts, who is benefiting, and does policy take us to a different place?

The pandemic has brought the world to a shuddering halt, highlighting that the status quo is unsustainable. It is difficult to put this point any more clearly than novelist Arundhati Roy when she writes: Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to normality, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.

Reflection allows us to dispense with the hopelessly tortured term new normal, and instead talk about the new. We must envisage this new paradigm in practical terms. What might this look like?

For starters, its hard to escape the conclusion that big government is back, with Covid-19s huge fiscal debt and monetary hoses being added to other peacetime interventions in the post-pandemic war.

Next, the furious debate over lives versus livelihoods is likely to be replaced by a drive for lives and livelihoods in communities, companies and countries. Those who ignore this call will be met by growing social tension and public intolerance. Then, policy will focus on prosperity and well-being to replace the policy obsession with economic growth; and successful policies will be made up of public and private, not public or private. All these themes are underpinned by the overwhelming need for seismic behavioural shifts which focus on the twin priorities of building trust and ensuring societal well-being.

Covid-19 has made it clear that fierce policy, with public buy-in, can flatten curves. If that is the case, it lays bare the call to flatten the most peaked curve of them all: inequality. What the pandemic has reinforced is that inequality is not just a matter of fairness, but a matter of social stability and public health security. The recent ruling by an Italian high court that stealing small amounts of food to stave off hunger is not a crime because the right to survival prevails over property has added a legal justification to the moral imperative to address this issue. All of this is about much more than rethinking risk, rethinking supply chains, migrating from physical to digital and waging war on disease. We need to rethink the entire, broken system.

Building beyond the doomsday machine

Encouragingly, certain countries and companies are already showing the way. In what was described as a game-changer, under the leadership of Jacinda Ardern, New Zealands national Budget is allocated on the basis of what best encourages the well-being of citizens, rather than focusing on traditional measures like productivity and economic growth. New policy guidance suggests all new spending must advance one of five government priorities: improving mental health, reducing child poverty, addressing the inequalities faced by indigenous people, thriving in a digital age, and transitioning to a low-emission, sustainable economy.

There are many more examples of firms that are responding to the public health crisis in novel ways, including Best Western hotels providing beds to medical staff and patients, AB InBev adapting manufacturing to produce disinfectant alcohol and hand sanitiser, and a Spanish consortium of companies repurposing 3D printers for ventilator creation.

Similarly, Estonia, through the savvy use of technology and digitisation, has created an efficient and caring state in an inclusive society, improving living standards and elevating levels of public trust. The purchasing power of Estonians has increased 400% over the last two decades, while life expectancy moved from 66 years in 1994 to 78 years in 2017. Estonia is ranked among the top countries in terms of economic freedom and stands out in the OECDs Better Life Index which looks beyond the raw numbers of GDP to consider jobs and earnings, housing, personal security, education and skills, environmental quality, civic engagement, social connections and work-life balance.

These examples offer a blueprint of what a future that places the collective good at the centre of decision-making may look like. But this is not limited to a country level. Since the onset of the pandemic, British restaurant chain Leon has reinvented itself by converting 57 sites into shops selling groceries and takeaway meals. The rapid shift was designed to save Leons 1,500 jobs, prevent its 70 suppliers going out of business and help reignite the wider industry. The result? A net increase in turnover.

There are many more examples of firms that are responding to the public health crisis in novel ways, including Best Western hotels providing beds to medical staff and patients, AB InBev adapting manufacturing to produce disinfectant alcohol and hand sanitiser, and a Spanish consortium of companies repurposing 3D printers for ventilator creation. Another of the more striking examples of such innovation comes from Zipline, a drone-delivery start-up which is delivering medical supplies to hard-to-reach clinics across Ghana and Rwanda. The great hope is that such endeavours are more than a flash in the pan and that they will offer a community-centric template of how businesses can remodel. If not, then this repurposing is the business model equivalent of a V-shaped recovery its the target but misses the point entirely.

Good economics and good business

What these examples suggest is that countries and companies that dovetail social value with shareholder value are those that will succeed, and that necessity will drive innovation. But this requires a recalibration in priorities which, in turn, requires discarding assumptions previously thought to be sacrosanct. Winners are likely to come from countries and companies that embrace, rather than resist, these changes.

In 1970, Milton Friedman famously argued that the only social responsibility of business was to maximise profits. The experiences of Leon and others show that this can run the other way around maximising social good may produce bigger profits by first ensuring business survival through business relevance.

In Good Economics for Hard Times, two winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo make the case that, People can flourish without endlessly accumulating more stuff. Another world is possible. Indeed, rather than rebuilding the broken machine and chasing the growth mirage, this crisis gives governments, businesses, countries and communities the chance to concentrate on what matters and to take specific measures with proven benefits, such as helping the poorest members of society get access to healthcare, education, and social advancement.

Through Arundhati Roys portal it becomes a world of both/and, rather than either/or and a world of us and ours. Both lives and livelihoods, growth and prosperity, employment and the environment, health and well-being. Covid-19 demands that we rethink, revisit and reimagine policy that is fit for purpose.

The alternative is a cure that curses us to recover quickly to more of the same. DM

Ronak Gopaldas is a director at Signal Risk and a fellow at the Gordon Institute of Business Science. Adrian Saville is the chief executive of Cannon Asset Managers and Professor of Economics, Finance and Strategy at the Gordon Institute of Business Science.

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Beyond the doomsday machine: Reimagining economic policies and practice in a post-Covid world - Daily Maverick

NEW ORLEANS (press release) On June 6,The National WWII Museumwill commemorate the 76th anniversary of the D-Day invasion and celebrate the 20th anniversary of its opening as The National D-Day Museum in 2000. Following its Congressional designation as The National WWII Museum in 2004, the institution has dramatically expanded its mission along with its campus to preserve and tell the stories of all Americans who served abroad and on the Home Front during World War II, solidifying itself as one of the top-ranked cultural attractions in the world.

The beginnings of the Museum date back to 1990, when best friends and fellow history professors at the University of New Orleans (UNO) Stephen Ambrose and Nick Mueller discussed plans for a modest D-Day museum on the campus of UNO. Ambrose envisioned a museum that would be a permanent home for the artifacts and oral histories he had collected for his forthcoming book on the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944.

The journey was far more arduous than they imagined. The concept struggled to gain acceptance and adequate fundinguntil the decision was made to move the project downtown into an old storage building in the Warehouse District, close to the heart of New Orleans tourism. In addition to providing a permanent place of honor for forgotten veterans of World War II, the new location would also pay tribute to entrepreneur and boatbuilder Andrew Jackson Higgins, whose thousands of landing craftbuilt in New Orleanshad been credited by President Dwight Eisenhower as key to winning the war.

Years of eort by UNO and fresh support from local business leaders culminated in a spectacular grand opening celebration and massive veterans parade on June 6, 2000, as the nations attention was drawn to The National D-Day Museum at the corner of Andrew Higgins Drive and Magazine Street. Since that day, the Museum has expanded to a campus of six pavilions (with work under way on a seventh), created extraordinary interactive exhibits and innovative educational programs, raised nearly $400 million dollars for the Road to Victory Capital Campaign and greeted more than 8 million visitors. Beyond its New Orleans campus, the Museum has reached over 500,000 students through distance learning programs, trained over 4,000 teachers onsite and across the country, and provided online historical content for millions across multiple content platforms. Through it all, leadership from the Museums Board of Trustees; support from the local community and the city, state, and federal government; and the inspirational generosity of friends around the country have led the way for each new success.

My friend and Museum founder Stephen Ambrose often spoke of his dream for the Museum to serve as a love song to democracy, said Gordon H. Nick Mueller, PhD, Museum Founding President & CEO Emeritus. I shared his dream and believe it has come true in the hearts and minds of millions who have visited. The Museum will always stand as a salute to those Americans who died in the ght for our freedom as well as those who came home and built our country into the richest and freest nation on earth.

The expanded campus now includes theSolomon Victory Theater, featuring the Tom Hanks-narrated 4D experienceBeyond All Boundaries(opened in 2009); theUS Freedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center(2013); theCampaigns of Couragepavilion (2014-15) housing its signatureRoad to TokyoandRoad to Berlinexhibits;Arsenal of Democracy(2017), a major exhibit on the Home Front in theLouisiana Memorial Pavilion;The Higgins Hotel & Conference Center(2019); and theHall of Democracypavilion (2019), which houses the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy and the innovative WWII Media and Education Center.

However, to reach this milestone anniversary and these successes, the Museum had to survive two near-bankruptcies in the 1990s, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the economic downturn of 2008, and now the profound financial challenges caused by COVID-19. The pandemic temporarily closed the Museums doors for two months, and visitation for the fiscal year ahead is predicted to be less than half of what was previously expected. Despite the Museum reopening on Memorial Day, May 25, the road to a full recovery is expected to take years.

Our Museum is facing the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis with the same unflinching dedication and determination needed to overcome every difficult time in our history, said Stephen J. Watson, Museum President & CEO. We only need to walk our own galleries to find the inspiration to prevail through adversity and an unpredictable future. Whether visitors are walking our physical campus or learning through our digital education platforms, it is clear that our mission continues and must endure.

Those challenges include building back the Museums visitation, which approached 800,000 annual visitors at the close of 2019, while expanding its national outreach through distance learning, research, conferences and overseas travel programs. Despite the current obstacles, the Museum is also working with a great sense of urgency to complete the final phase of its capital expansion plan while WWII veterans are still able to experience what is being built in their honor. As the Museum commemorates the 75thanniversary of the end of World War II this year, less than 300,000 WWII veterans are still alive today.

The final expansion projects currently underway include the architectural centerpieceBollinger Canopy of Peace(2020), made possible through a $20 million donation by Boysie and Joy Bollinger, and the campus capstoneLiberation Pavilion(2022), focusing on the wars legacy of freedom for America and the world.

Sadly, my friend Stephen Ambrose died in October 2002, but he lived long enough to witness the early success and rave reviews of visitors from across the nation, said Mueller. Steve saw concept plans for an expansion beyond the D-Day story into the larger vision for an epic museum that would one day cover three city blocks and hold exhibits in seven pavilions to portray the American WWII experience.

If he was still alive, said Mueller of Ambrose, he would be bursting with pride and gratitude. I certainly am.

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The National WWII Museum Celebrates 20 Years of Telling the Story of the American Experience in World War II - My New Orleans

The race is on for Democrats to replace Ben Ray Lujan in the CD3, which takes in all of northern New Mexico and Quay and Curry Counties in eastern New Mexico. The Democrat Primary has fielded eight candidates who have raised a record total of $4,707,002 as per currently published figures from the Federal Election Commission.

The Republicans have fielded five candidates who raised a total of $108,235.

Why is this House District so valuable to Democrats? It has been held by them since 1982, with the exception of one special election when Republican Bill Redmond won the district when then Representative Bill Richardson was appointed our Ambassador to the United Nations. It is also the district that holds New Mexicos capital city, Santa Fe.

The campaign funds raised by the Democrat candidates have come largely from outside the state. Valerie Plame has raised the most among the field with receipts of over $2 Million and disbursements of $1.7 Million, with most of her donations coming from outside New Mexico.

Conversely, the Republican candidates have much smaller war chests, but their funding comes mostly from New Mexicans.

Traditionally, northern New Mexicans have voted Democrats into office, but this last election we saw a split in the Democrat Party between the centrist and the progressives, with progressives winning the governorship, two congressional seats and several state legislative seats. Democrat Senator John Arthur Smith of Deming and Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee is a primary target of his party. He has traditionally called for fiscal responsibility which progressives cant understand and they are attempting to defeat him.

All of the Democrat candidates in the CD3 race are progressives and the pre-Primary Convention choice, Teresa Leger Fernandez has been accused by her competitors as bringing dark money in the race from groups attacking them. They had agreed not to encourage dark money, but thats politics.

Harry Montoya is the Republican pre-Primary choice in the race who campaigns on his record and has disbursements of $14,881. Yet, Montoya expects to win the primary and is determined to defeat his Democrat opponent with his experience and local support. He has been married to his wife Doris for 40 years and has made a life of community service through his fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus as well as serving as an elected member of the Santa Fe County Commission and the Espaola Public School District.

Being well known in the district, he has been endorsed over the other Republican candidates in the primary election by the Santa Fe New Mexican, Albuquerque Journal and Taos News, as well as former Congressman Bill Redmond (CD3) and a host of pastors and politicians.

Harry describes himself as a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, and pro-religious freedom conservative Republican who left the Democrat party last year because he said it had radically changed. It is because of the new, radical direction Democrats have taken that he feels he best represents the traditional values of all of northern New Mexico and not those who have brought outside money and influence into Santa Fes politics.

He has dedicated his entire life to helping those who suffer from substance abuse and he

founded Hands Across Cultures with a mission to educate our youth on substance abuse prevention. He is an internationally recognized expert on addiction and has served in Argentina and Mexico on assignments from the U.S. State and Commerce Departments to help them organize substance abuse programs. He took a leave to run for Congress from CYFD where he worked as the Constituent/Legislative Affairs Director.

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Opinion:Buying the Third Congressional District | LAMonitor.com - Los Alamos Monitor