Politics

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A New York man has admitted to acting as an illegal Chinese agent by operating a secret police station for Beijing in Manhattan.

Chen Jinping, a 60-year-old U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty on Dec. 18 in front of U.S. District Judge Nina Morrison, a development that prosecutors lauded as the latest progress in countering the Chinese regime’s transnational repression scheme.

Chen was one of two individuals the FBI arrested in April 2023 over the illegal police station, one of more than 100 identified overseas Chinese police outposts Beijing had operated globally.

He faces up to five years in prison.

The New York site runs under the cover of a Chinese organization called the American ChangLe Association in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The association ostensibly serves as a mingling place for immigrants from China’s southeastern Fujian Province, where the namesake district, ChangLe, is based.

Chen was the secretary general of the association at the time of the arrest, while the other man, Lu Jianwang, was the former president. Lu, also known as “Harry Lu,” has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is awaiting trial.

The station was set up in mid-February 2022 and had since assisted an official from China’s Ministry of Public Security, the country’s police apparatus, to locate a person of interest, a California pro-democracy advocate who had served as an advisor to a 2022 congressional candidate from New York State, the federal complaint states.

Weeks before the station came into being, Lu forwarded a notice to Chen that stated: “in order to establish a smooth connection to the remote checkup identification renewal system every overseas service station has to grant access privileges to the 110 system,” according to the court document.

The number 110 is synonymous with police in China.

The notice instructed recipients to provide the service station IP address to a designated email address.

Xi Jinping’s Visit

Federal prosecutors said their investigation found Lu had a longstanding relationship of trust with Chinese authorities.

In 2015, during Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s trip to Washington, Lu, along with other local Chinese association leaders, dispatched members of their organizations to participate in counter-protests against public demonstrations by practitioners of Falun Gong. The faith group, persecuted in China since 1999, was attempting to protest the regime’s ongoing suppression.

The court document included a photo showing Lu holding a plaque with a Chinese police official celebrating his work “in ensuring that members of the Falun Gong religion did not disturb President Xi’s visit.”

Lu also acknowledged an affiliation with a former director of the 610 Office, a Gestapo-like agency created in 1999 specifically for persecution tasks. He had brought the official to his hometown in China for a tour, court documents show.

Another New York resident who appears to be a member of the American ChangLe Association, together with Lu, has been receiving tasks from Chinese officials to identify the Chinese regime’s targets since at least 2018, according to the filings.

The former in 2018 requested help from Lu to try to deport a Chinese dissident and green card holder from the United States back to China.

The dissident told the FBI that they had experienced threats of violence that same year and that their family had been harassed in China since they arrived in the United States.

The co-conspirator also asked Lu to help find a Chinese national who had lived in Manhattan, as well as the person’s close associates.

In doing so, the co-conspirator shared the victim’s name, address as of 2016, birthdate, and a photo of the person in a public park, stating they needed the victim’s information in relation to a lawsuit, the court document said.

The FBI raided the secret police station in October 2022 and seized the phones of the two men, upon which the agents noted that they had deleted conversations with the Chinese police official, officials said in the complaint.

Beijing refuted Chen’s guilty plea.

“The so-called secret police stations do not exist,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in a press briefing on Dec. 19.

U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York said the prosecution was part of their efforts to protect vulnerable people who “come to this country to escape the repressive activities of authoritarian regimes.”

Countering malign activities of foreign states that violate U.S. sovereignty by targeting local diaspora communities is a priority of his office, he said.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s national security division called Chen’s effort in operating the secret outpost “brazen.”

The Department of Justice will “pursue anyone who attempts to aid the PRC’s efforts to extend their repressive reach into the United States,” he said, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.

Robert Wells, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, said Chen’s admission of guilt was “a stark reminder of the insidious efforts taken by the PRC government to threaten, harass, and intimidate those who speak against their communist party.”

“These blatant violations will not be tolerated on U.S. soil,” Wells said.

Authored by Jim Jatras via The Ron Paul Institute

“I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.” – Winston Churchill, 1942

Many Americans, even a lot who never much cared for Donald Trump, voted for him in part because they believed – or at least hoped – that he would be, relatively speaking, a peace candidate compared to the hideous Biden-Harris record. To his credit, Trump’s first term was the only US presidency since Jimmy Carter’s not to get us embroiled in a new conflict, though he failed to extricate us from Afghanistan or Syria.

Such hopes need to be balanced against other aspects of Trump’s earlier tenure in office. Notably, on Ukraine, he oversaw provision of lethal aid to Kiev that had been denied by Barack Obama. Put another way, it was under Trump that Ukraine built up a NATO army in all but name, setting the stage for the February 2022 escalation of the conflict that had been brewing since the 2014 coup midwifed by Victoria Nuland.

Trump has said he would end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours, indeed, even before he takes office. While never unveiling anything resembling an actual plan, he has indicated that his “art of the deal” trademark bluster and threats would be applied to both Ukraine (terminate all aid if Kiev refuses to negotiate!) and Russia (vastly increase aid to Ukraine if Moscow refuses to negotiate!). The supposedly “transactional” President-elect is seemingly unflustered by little details like how, if both Russia and Ukraine balk at talks, he could simultaneously increase and cut off US assistance. Five-dimensional chess indeed!

While the thought of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence is balm for every peace-loving soul, the rest of Trump’s announced second-term team is anything but reassuring: Marco Rubio as Secretary of State and Michael Waltz as National Security Adviser, with supporting roles at the NSC by Sebastian Gorka and special envoy for Ukraine-Russia Keith Kellogg, all of whom have a record of the standard bellicose chest-thumping with respect to evil, evil Russia and our cuddly “democratic” “ally” Ukraine.

As Trump prepares to take office next month, one thing should always be kept in mind: like Winston Churchill with respect to the British Empire, Donald Trump has not returned to the Oval Office in order to preside over the liquidation of the Global American Empire (the GAE). Rather, all indications are that he seeks to disengage the US from the Ukraine conflict in a way that avoids total, humiliating defeat for NATO (and, probably, that organization’s long-overdue dissolution) in order to “pivot” to the Middle East and a looming war with Iran following a return to his “maximum pressure” policy. The encore will be the Really, Really Big Showdown with China. Hence Trump’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine.

What of the other side? Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and other top Kremlin and Duma figures have made it clear that Moscow has had enough with “non-agreement capable” Washington after repeated Western deceptions: on NATO expansion (“not one inch eastward”), the status of Kosovo (UN Security Council Resolution 1244 providing for its autonomy within Serbia, trashed by the US-sponsored unilateral declaration of independence in 2008), the February 2014 power-sharing agreement in Ukraine between then-President Viktor Yanukovich and his opposition (a dead letter before even one night had passed), the February 2015 Minsk 2 agreement on the status of the Donbass that was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council (but later admitted by Angela Merkel and other western leaders to have been a ruse to allow time to build up Kiev’s forces for a Blitzkrieg), and the failed April 2022 Ukraine-Russia agreement initialed at Istanbul (torpedoed by Boris Johnson with US backing).

Accordingly, the Russians have made it clear that they will accept no temporary truces, no ceasefires, no more promises made to be broken like piecrusts, no pauses as cynical tricks to get the Russians to forgo their current and growing military advantage. (Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president and the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, even suggested recently that new regions could soon be added to Russia. Putin recently re-floated the concept of Novorossiya, “New Russia,” a region of Imperial Russia that included Odessa.) No, they insist, there must be either a genuine, definitive, binding settlement that ensures a lasting peace based on mutual security, or Russian forces will press on until their objectives – notably “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine – are achieved militarily. Such an outcome would mean at least replacement of the current regime in Kiev and, more likely, the end of Ukraine’s statehood.

For the West, this would constitute a total debacle of Afghanistan-like proportions effectively signaling the end of US hegemony in Europe, the GAE’s crown jewel. What can Trump offer the Russians to avoid that?

Moscow’s latest peace proposal was voiced by Putin in June 2024, in which he specified that he’s willing to negotiate at any time but will not halt military operations until Kiev withdraws its forces from the four oblasts that, in addition to Crimea, Moscow claims to be part of Russia: Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson, Notably, this would include the cities of Zaporozhye and Kherson, under Kiev’s control as of this writing. (In fact, contrary to propaganda from the usual suspects, Putin has never rejected talks, unlike Ukrainian former-president-but-still-playing-the-role Vladimir Zelensky, who in October 2022 issued a decree forbidding talks with Russia as long as Putin is in office.)

Putin’s June proposal was dismissed out of hand by Kiev and its western backers. Given Moscow’s rejection of a ceasefire at the conflict’s line of control, things are at a seeming impasse.

But are they?

With the rapid and accelerating advance of Russian forces, the physical distinction between the military line of confrontation (a freeze line rejected by Moscow) and the constitutional limits of the four oblasts (evacuation of which Moscow demands) becomes less every day. That is, the territorial question – which Russia has never stated to be paramount in its goals for launching its “Special Military Operation” (SMO) in the first place – becomes less of an issue.

Rather, the real question for the Trump Administration becomes a political one of how much wiggle room there is in the Russians’ stated determination not to rely on more promises of the sort that have been repeatedly broken in the past. Put another way: if Trump-Lucy wants to avoid utter defeat in the European theater of the worldwide confrontation between the GAE and BRICS-Eurasia, so he can get on to mixing it up with Iran and China, can he dupe Putin-Charlie Brown into taking another run at the football?

I think he at least has a good shot at it. Keep in mind that, despite the ubiquitous narrative, Putin is neither a dictator nor a hardliner toward the West. Regarding the former, he’s a balancer in a system that still retains many (too damn many, in my opinion) western liberals dying to see the day they can again send their snotty kids back to elite western universities and their fat wives and svelte mistresses shopping at Harrods, while saluting a rainbow flag raised over Lenin’s Mausoleum. As to the latter, as lately demonstrated by his restrained response to ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles launched into pre-1991 Russia by NATO personnel from Ukrainian territory, Putin has shown a dogged determination to come to an understanding with his Western “partners” long after it became clear to everyone (except him, evidently) that they have no intention of ever getting along with him or Russia but are hell-bent on destroying both. (“Hello, Volodya It’s me, Bashar. I’m out front of Resurrection Gate, near Zhukov’s statue …)

Far from the “shock and awe” demonstrated by the United States in Serbia, Iraq, Libya, etc., or Netanyahu’s in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria, Putin’s light military footprint in Ukraine – the limited size of the incursion force, declining to destroy the Dnepr bridges, limited (but now increasing) attacks on infrastructure, the pullback of Russian forces from Kiev as a good will gesture before the 2022 Istanbul talks, not eliminating Kiev regime leaders who’d kill him if they could – all point to a strategy based on accepting a reasonable deal if one might be presented, not on settling things by force of arms, 1945-style. (It’s largely forgotten now that at the outset of the conflict foreign embassies decamped from Kiev and moved to Lvov in the far west, and consideration was even given for the Zelensky regime to abandon Ukraine entirely and establish a government in exile, in the expectation that Russia would quickly overrun the whole country – then face an Afghan-type insurgency that would bleed Russia white, leading to regime-change in Moscow.) Unexpectedly, the Russians didn’t behave as the West had anticipated. Instead, it’s clear their approach was “pedagogical” from the start: show the West they mean business so they’ll come to the table. It is also suggested that a deal, not a military resolution, would be preferable to Putin’s BRICS partners, whose opinion he can’t afford to ignore.

The frustration this approach has caused in the Russian military and in large sectors of the public is well known. That said, as observed by Moscow-based John Helmer, Putin may deem that his high levels of public support allow him to accept a settlement that falls short of, or at least redefines, his SMO goals as originally stated. It’s an open question whether that support could be sustained when (inevitably, in my opinion) the West contemptuously disregards its obligations under whatever is agreed-to.   

Some say Putin has finally learned his lesson about the West. Others say not, that he would jump at any remotely reasonable transaction proffered by Trump & Co., Inc. We will soon see.

Looking at the longstanding pattern of Putin’s Kremlin and the smoke signals from Washington, mediated by the good offices of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the contours of a kind of Minsk 3 or Istanbul-double-plus-good “deal” are already discernable:

1. A ceasefire in early 2025: Ukrainian forces would evacuate whatever shrinking part, if any, of the four oblasts they might still hold, plus of Russia’s Kursk region if any Ukrainians are still there. A Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) would be established. (Some ad hoc arrangement might have to be reached on the cities of Zaporozhye and Kherson, if the Russians hadn’t taken them yet. Perhaps they would remain under Ukrainian administration inside the DMZ, “claimed by Russia.”)

2. Moscow would continue to regard the areas it holds as sovereign Russian territory. The rest of the world would still deem them Ukrainian under temporary Russian occupation, similar to how the US regarded the Baltic Republics of the USSR. Both sides would tolerate a rough balance between Zaporozhye and Kherson cities (claimed by Russia but under Ukrainian administration) and the rest of the oblasts and Crimea (claimed by Ukraine but under Russian administration).

3. As Trump has suggested, supposedly non-NATO European Union peacekeepers would be deployed on the Ukrainian side of the DMZ (with Moscow’s agreement, contrary to astute observers’ insistence that the Russians would never allow it), subject to strict limits on numbers, weaponry, etc. These limits, of course, would not be honored (see Lucy and Charlie Brown, above).

4. NATO membership for Ukraine world be deferred indefinitely. This is an obvious Lucy lie that Moscow would pretend means permanent neutrality. In fact, rump Ukraine would be treated as a NATO state in all but name but not receive formal membership.

5. Security guarantees: the US, NATO, Russia would sign an updated version of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum (possibly in the form of a treaty, which the original Budapest Memorandum wasn’t) enshrined in a Security Council Resolution, guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity (taking into account “provisional arrangements”), its neutral status, and a bar of foreign troops on Ukraine’s territory (except those permitted in this agreement); parallel provisions would be put into the Ukrainian constitution. It goes without saying that these Lucy assurances would not be honored by the West any more than were past formal commitments on Kosovo, the Donbass, and other topics.

6. Demilitarization “guarantees”: Strict limits would be placed on the size and composition of Ukraine’s military and placement of foreign forces and weapons on its territory. More Lucy lies.

7. Denazification “guarantees”: Parties and movements with specified “extremist” ideologies would be legally banned. More Lucy lies. Elections would be held in rump Ukraine. All sides would pretend the resulting regime is democratic, legitimate, and “moderate.” Banderist neo-Nazi groups, formally illegal, would retain their guns and wield a permanent veto over any Kiev regime.

8. Kiev would commit to protections for the Russian language and Russian culture, the canonical Orthodox Church, etc. More Lucy lies.

9. The West would promise a phased lifting of sanctions and the return of frozen/confiscated Russian assets. “You can trust me this time, Charlie Brown!” Consider how long it took Russia to be removed from 1974 Jackson-Vanik sanctions only to then be immediately slapped with new Magnitsky Act sanctions.

The bottom line is that Moscow would pretend to have substantially if not entirely achieved its SMO goals, giving up its immediate military lead in exchange for false promises: déjà vu all over again. Pretenses aside, it would accept a “quarter of a loaf” truce that preserves NATO to fight another day and sustains an anti-Russia Ukrainian rump state as a de facto NATO platform, as opposed to a clear military victory – which at the very least would have to include annexation of Odessa and Kharkov, and probably Kiev, plus either liquidation of the Ukrainian state entirely or, at worst, creation of a minimal rump Ukraine that’s effectively a Russian satellite and a member of the Union State with Russia and Belarus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin says he hasn’t spoken to US President-elect Donald Trump in over four years but is ready to meet with the incoming US leader “if he wants it.”

Read more: https://t.co/M1XtNOT6Ku pic.twitter.com/ObjwAPv7df

— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 19, 2024

The latter outcome would shatter NATO and probably NATO’s concubine, the European Union. That’s precisely what the Washington Swamp can’t afford, Trump or no Trump. Thus, even if Trump were entirely sincere in promises to Moscow made on behalf of the United States (a very big “if” in my opinion), his ability to deliver on them would be at best highly questionable in light of an Executive Branch packed with neocons (what’s new?) and the implacable bipartisan hostility toward Russia in Congress. Then, even if, by some unbelievable miracle, Trump were able to ensure US and NATO performance on their commitments for the balance of his tenure, there would be no binding effect once he left office.

Granted, the above is just one possible scenario but one I submit is all too conceivable based on past performance of those concerned. If things go this way, not only does the GAE get a new lease on life and NATO live to fight another day, it would usher in heightened danger of war in the Middle East and the Western Pacific and, in due course, set the stage for renewed and possibly uncontrollable conflict in Europe in the not-too-distant future. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov recently warned that his country needs to be ready to fight a war with NATO within the next decade, and he’s almost certainly right – especially if he and his boss allow that organization to slip out of its well-deserved fade into oblivion, almost ensuring that war will come a lot sooner than in ten years.

In laying out this possible near-term scenario, I would dearly love to be proven wrong by events. However, I have vanishingly small hope that the foregoing could resonate with any reader with agency on the American side. Perhaps chances are slightly better on the Russian side. As for the Ukrainians and the Europeans – what they think doesn’t matter to anyone, not even to themselves. 

This week California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) declared a state of emergency over avian influenza, aka Bird Flu.

And while Newsom says the order was simply a precaution after one person in Louisiana was hospitalized with the first severe illness caused by the bird flu in the United States, one has to wonder – WTF…

“This proclamation is a targeted action to ensure government agencies have the resources and flexibility they need to respond quickly to this outbreak,” Newsom said in a Wednesday statement.

According to the governor’s office, Bird flu has been found in dairy cows in Southern California – therefore, the emergency is needed to “contain and mitigate the spread of the virus” despite the fact that there have been no reported cases of person-to-person transmission in the state.

What makes this extra-interesting is a tidbit at the end of the new documentary, Thank You Dr. Fauci – notably an infamous op-ed penned by Fauci and his former ‘boss’, NIH head Dr. Francis Collins, in which they suggested that their dangerous research was a “risk worth taking.”

Fauci and Collins penned infamous op-ed for @washingtonpost claiming this dangerous research could cause a pandemic but it was a “Flu Risk Worth Taking” See past 🧵from @Bryce_Nickels https://t.co/rq4tfVzQXP and continue this 🧵 for more…

— Thank You Dr Fauci (@ThankYouDrFauci) December 19, 2024

Click into the tweets to read the rest of the thread…

Which brings us back to California – where the new emergency declaration will empower state and local agencies with additional funding and flexibility in dealing with the virus, that nobody in the state has caught… yet.

As the Epoch Times notes further, While not linked to human bird flu cases, a raw milk dairy based in California issued a voluntary recall several weeks ago after avian influenza was found in a lot.

All of the illnesses in the United States, except for the Louisiana case, have been mild, and the vast majority have been among farmworkers exposed to sick poultry or dairy cows. This year, more than 60 bird flu infections have been reported, with more than half of them in California, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In the Louisiana case, the infected person is older than 65, has underlying medical problems, and has also been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock, according to the CDC.

Last month, Canadian officials reported that a teen in British Columbia was hospitalized with a severe case of bird flu. CDC officials did not answer a question about whether the new U.S. case and the case in Canada had any similarities or differences, directing reporters to ask Louisiana officials.

Health officials say bird flu is still mainly an animal health issue and that the risk to the general public remains low. There has been no documented spread of the virus from person to person in the United States or elsewhere.

 

Authored by Wilk Wilkinson via RealClearPolicy,

Just weeks before President-elect Trump announced that Dr. Jay Bhattacharya would be his nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Bhattacharya and I were together at Stanford University for a bold, first-of-its-kind symposium on public health decision making during the COVID-19 crisis. 

The idea behind the symposium was to shatter the public health echo chamber and bring diverse perspectives together in respectful dialogue. Dr. Bhattacharya and I are close friends, but our backgrounds are quite different. He is firmly at home at Stanford, having gone there as an undergraduate, and then going on to get a medical degree and a Ph.D. there before joining the faculty as a Professor of Health Policy. I, on the other hand, am a blue-collar Midwesterner who enlisted the in U.S. Navy after high school. I carry no titles of academic distinction and was likely the only participant at the symposium without a medical degree or PhD.

Yet, I was invited by Stanford to moderate the symposium’s opening panel with seven leading public health authorities from top institutions across the world. What brought me into this unusual position was my expanding work to rebuild truth and trust in public health—a collaboration that began with former NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins and the Braver Angels organization, which is nation’s largest movement working to bridge the partisan divide.

My work with the Truth & Trust Project began in early 2022 when Dr. Collins was the outgoing Director of NIH. He approached Braver Angels – of which I am an active member, ambassador and volunteer – with a unique request: he wanted to better understand his own “blind spots” and find ways to rebuild public trust in the U.S. health system after America’s bitter experience with it throughout the COVID-19 crisis. Braver Angels saw an opportunity to pair Dr. Collins with someone outside the the typical public health echo chamber, but who cares deeply about the subject. That unlikely someone was me.

Dr. Collins and I began having regular conversations, including public ones on my podcast, DerateTheHate. Our work together was eye-opening for both of us. Dr. Collins brought deep expertise and years of leadership in public health, while I offered a fresh perspective, shaped by my experiences in blue-collar Middle America. Through our collaboration, Dr. Collins and I kept returning to the critical question of how to rebuild trust in institutions that have grown disconnected from the people they serve.

Since our collaboration in this project began, I have had the opportunity to interview, engage, and develop personal relationships with many leading public health officials from across the nation, including Dr. Bhattacharya. The public health experts I have engaged do not always see eye-to-eye with each other on public health policy—in fact they often deeply disagree—but all are deeply troubled by the sharp declines in public health trust, and all have perspectives worth hearing. If we do not broaden our aperture and listen to dissenting voices from across America about where we went wrong in the last pandemic, we will not be prepared to manage the next one. It could arrive without warning at any time.

The Stanford conference felt like the start of something significant. The symposium brought together leading public health experts with different viewpoints on the pandemic response and it demonstrated how intellectual pluralism and dialogue only sharpen our thinking. The conference reinforced the idea that meaningful change can only come when we move beyond echo chambers and engage with those who see the world differently. 

What lessons did the COVID-19 crisis teach us?

COVID-19 exposed glaring weaknesses in our public health response, which in my view were largely driven by an overreliance on centralized decision-making. Federal agencies issued sweeping directives that often ignored the diverse needs and realities of local communities. Schools were closed, businesses were shuttered, and lives were upended by policies that felt disconnected and, at times, arbitrary.

We failed to recognize that local health departments, educators, and community leaders understand local needs, culture, geography and resources better than anyone at the federal level. We failed to empower them in the public health decision making process. By sidelining them in favor of centralized mandates, we not only eroded trust but also missed opportunities for effective and responsive solutions that could be supported and promoted by trusted local leaders.

Had public health institutions prioritized the concept of localized decision making – the principle of subsidiarity– trust might not have been so deeply eroded. Rather than a faceless bureaucracy issuing mandates, imagine a system where local doctors, school principals, and community leaders were the primary messengers of public health guidance. These are the people families trust, the voices they are more likely to listen to and follow.

The concept of subsidiarity is much more than a political or philosophical principle—it’s a deeply human and American idea that centers relationships, empowerment, and shared responsibility. Subsidiarity recognizes that the best solutions often come from those closest to the problem, and the principle fundamentally respects the knowledge, context, and capacity for self-governance of the American people.

What Can We Expect from Dr. Bhattacharya’s Leadership of NIH?

As I look to the future of public health under Dr. Bhattacharya, I am hopeful about what we can achieve. Dr. Bhattacharya demonstrated great professional courage and clarity during and after the pandemic, and he is a forceful advocate for a more localized and balanced response to the pandemic crisis. In The Great Barrington Declaration, which he co-authored, Dr. Bhattacharya underscored the importance of protecting the most vulnerable while minimizing societal disruptions like children’s learning loss, which the nation feels acutely as a result of pandemic school closures. Dr. Bhattacharya has argued that the federal government must focus on better equipping local health systems with tools and data rather than imposing rigid, top-down mandates. His vision is a public health system that is responsive, equitable, and grounded in trust – I could imagine no one better positioned to lead the NIH than him.

As President Trump’s nominee, Dr. Bhattacharya will bring the principle of subsidiarity to life on a national scale. His advocacy for empowering local communities to manage public health challenges will not only lead to a better pandemic response next time; it will repair the trust we lost in our handling of the last one. In our highly polarized environment, the principle of decentralized decision making is more vital than ever because trust is built from the ground up—through relationships, transparency, and mutual respect. 

Subsidiarity is about more than governance; it is about relationships, empowerment, and shared responsibility, too. Whether in public health, education, or any other area of American life, the principle reminds us that the solutions we seek are often closer to us than we realize. I know Dr. Bhattacharya well. I am confident that he will not only help us restore trust in public health as director of NIH but will demonstrate how the principle of subsidiarity can be help America rebuild trust in other areas of our democracy where it is deficient today. 

Wilk Wilkinson is a devoted husband, a loving father, a steadfast Christian conservative, and the insightful host of the “Derate The Hate” podcast.