Xiaotong (Tom) Zhu joined Tesla in 2014. Before that Zhu was Vice President for Kaibo Engineering Group, a China-based project management firm that focuses on overseas projects (One Belt – One Road) invested by the Chinese government.

One would think a project manager tied to the key initiatives of Chairman Xi, would have deep CCP ties.  There is also speculation that Mr. Musk may be assigning Mr. Zhu to be the lead of Tesla internationally.

(Via Bloomberg) Elon Musk has tapped a longtime Tesla Inc. executive in China who oversaw construction of the Shanghai gigfactory to help run the electric carmaker’s newest plant in Austin, Texas, people familiar with the matter said.

Tom Zhu, who joined Tesla in 2014 to help build its Supercharger network and most recently has been heading the carmaker’s Asia Pacific operations, is in Austin this week and has brought some of his engineering team from China with him to assist in overseeing the ramp up of Giga Texas — a US hub for the Model Y and future production of the Cybertruck — the people said, asking not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly.

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Incoming House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (U-DC) appears with Maria Bartiromo to promise House investigations of the Biden Laptop and Twitter Files from Elon Musk.

Kentucky’s best and brightest DC republican, and formidable letter writer, becomes the 5th Republican Chairman in the past ten years on the Oversight Committee to promise investigations and accountability based on demonstrable corruption. Chairman Comer is very concerned about the possibility of corruption.  Additionally, Comer is very excited to get into the details of the Elon Musk “Twitter Files” and explore all the investigative possibilities they provide.

Finally, on an issue close to the personal interest of Mr. Comer, he states his desire to investigate the Joe Biden energy policy. WATCH:

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In the 2024 GOPe roadmap for 2024, analytically and strategically South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem would be anticipated as the second-to-last entrant, followed by a carefully introduced Governor Ron DeSantis.

The most likely establishment framework would be for the prior entrants, Nikki Haley, Liz Cheney, Tim Scott and the two Mikes  Pence/Pompeo to do the maximum negative attack damage against President Trump prior to the dynamic duo arrival.  Flow through the ’24 primaries and Trump, DeSantis and Noem would be the last three standing before the wunderkinds team up after Nevada for the final assault.  Standing where we are today, something like that seems most likely. It tracks.

With that in mind, and reminding ourselves that Noem has already pre-seeded with the customary and proverbial book launch, it is worthwhile paying close attention to how Team Koch and Kristi Noem organize their staging.  In this interview, which reflects her very good and pragmatic position as a sponge for base voters, Mrs. Noem outlines her current views on the state of all things political, and, similar to Team DeSantis, stays high-road and reserves her jabs for Biden.

However, perhaps the most interesting aspect to the pragmatic position is Noem’s willingness to politely distance herself from the RNC mainstream by saying it’s time for new leadership at the chair.  At 06:35 of the interview segment below, Noem does a good job of strategically and diplomatically calling for Ronna McDaniel to be replaced. WATCH:

Sharp, very sharp.  Governor Noem is formidable, dare I say strategic, and Wall Street stealthy in her pragmatism.  She knows where the third rail of anti-MAGA is located and has a solid skillset around how to avoid it. When she enters, she will scoop up Haley’s fractured team – hence a later entry should be predicted.

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On November 23rd a fire broke out in Urumqi’s Jixiang Yuan district in an apartment complex. Because of the Chinese COVID lockdown, it is claimed the doors to the building were locked from the outside; people could not escape.  Jennifer Zeng has been documenting the story on Twitter.

Fire trucks were not permitted to get close enough to the building and the people locked inside could not escape.

Chinese media initially said 10 people were killed; however, it was widely believed the death toll exceeds that number with a 3-year-old included.  The current death toll stands at 44 victims.

This horrific event seems to have become the inflection point for a large uprising against the Chinese Communist Party and the continual COVID lockdown rules.

(MSM) “Now the episode in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, has unleashed the most defiant eruption of public anger against the ruling Communist Party in years. In cities across China this weekend, thousands gathered with candles and flowers to mourn the fire’s victims. On campuses, students staged vigils, many holding up pieces of blank white paper in mute protest. In Shanghai, some residents even called for the Communist Party and its leader, Xi Jinping, to step down, a rare and bold challenge.”

For the past several days mass protests have been spreading throughout the populous region. Things are getting very spicy as the communist government does not accept civil disturbances as a right of protest.

SHANGHAI (AP) — Protesters angered by strict anti-virus measures called for China’s powerful leader to resign, an unprecedented rebuke as authorities in at least eight cities struggled to suppress demonstrations Sunday that represent a rare direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party.

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We have been closely monitoring the signs of a global cleaving around the energy sector taking place.  Essentially, western governments’ following the “Build Back Better” climate change agenda which stops using coal, oil and gas to power their economic engine, while the rest of the growing economic world continues using the more efficient and traditional forms of energy to power their economies.

Within the BBB western group (identified on map in yellow), the logical consequences are increased living costs for those who live in the BBB zone, and increased prices for goods manufactured in the BBB zone.  In the zone where traditional low-cost energy resources continue to be developed (grey on map), we would expect to see a lower cost of living and lower costs to create goods.   Two divergent economic zones based on two different energy systems.

This potential outcome just seemed to track with the logical conclusion.  The yellow zone also represented by the World Economic Forum, and the gray zone also represented by an expanding BRICS alliance.  Against this predictable backdrop we have been watching various events unfold, some obvious and some less so.

Today, we get an obvious example:

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Go figure.  If you read between the lines of the Washington Post’s current description of the “classified” documents, as noted by anonymous federal officials connected to the investigation, the ‘classified‘ documents in context were personal correspondence between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un about the need to chill out on the nuclear stuff.

President Trump considered these types of papers personal mementos, while the administrative state -seeking to weaponize the DOJ/FBI for maximum political damage and narrative engineering- considered them top secret national security documents.

The election is over, so the narrative is no longer needed. Narrative dropped…

(Via WaPo) – Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.

As part of the investigation, federal authorities reviewed the classified documents that were recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club, looking to see if the types of information contained in them pointed to any kind of pattern or similarities, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

That review has not found any apparent business advantage to the types of classified information in Trump’s possession, these people said. FBI interviews with witnesses so far, they said, also do not point to any nefarious effort by Trump to leverage, sell or use the government secrets. Instead, the former president seemed motivated by a more basic desire not to give up what he believed was his property, these people said.

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If you have not watched this video, you really should.  Justin from Canada leaked the content of a private bilateral conversation with Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping to the media.  Chairman Xi was not happy with the breach of diplomatic protocol.

What makes this video remarkable is the purposeful decision by Chairman Xi to confront Justin from Canada in front of a western audience.  Xi never speaks directly in public and is always aware of cameras. The Chinese Chairman almost always goes through spokespeople to relay his public communication, reserving his voice for controlled and disciplined conversation with national leaders.   However, not this time.

Chairman Xi dresses down Justin from Canada publicly, in view of cameras and microphones. Watch, and stay with it to the end when Justin from Canada awkwardly looks for somewhere to hide.  It’s quite funny.  WATCH:

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In semi-related election news, this is interesting.  Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, a man of notoriously sketchy political disposition, has dropped the charges against Konnech CEO Eugene Yu, although leaving the door open to refile charges at a later date.

Eugene Yu, the CEO of Konnech Inc, was charged last month with two felonies for allegedly violating the company’s contract with Los Angeles County and transferring election workers’ personal information along with data files to computer servers in China.

(New York Times) – […] Los Angeles County dropped criminal charges against the top executive of an elections technology company on Wednesday, bringing to an abrupt end an unusual case that became the focus of Americans who distrust the country’s electoral system.

The district attorney’s office said in a statement that it had dropped the case against the executive, Eugene Yu, because of concerns about the “pace of the investigation” and the “potential bias in the presentation” of evidence in the case. The office said the county had assembled a new team to “determine whether any criminal activity occurred.”

The prosecutors did not respond to questions about the decision. (read more)

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True the Vote founder Catherine Englebrecht and election data security analyst, Gregg Phillips, were previously in contempt of court and placed in jail for failing to outline the participants in a 2020 hotel discussion that revealed the Konnech election data compromise that was transmitted to Chinese networks.  {Go Deep} Konnech CEO Eugene Yu was arrested for exploiting access to U.S. election data, including election worker information, and transferring the files to China.

Eugene Yu and Konnech sued True the Vote and are using the U.S. civil judicial system to find out who told the FBI about the Chinese data harvesting operation. Federal Judge Kenneth Hoyt demanded that Phillips and Englebrecht reveal the names of everyone who was present when the original data files were shown to True the Vote.

Englebrecht and Phillips stated they did not ever possess the data file, do not have it and refused to name all the participants who may have seen it.   Judge Hoyt threw them in jail last Monday until Englebrecht and Phillips give up the names to the court and the Chinese Communist Party.  Tucker Carlson discusses {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH:

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According to U.S. Pentagon officials and representatives of South Korea, the North Korean military tested another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBN).

The ICBM was fired around 7:40 a.m. local time from close to Pyongyang’s Sunan area and is seen as a provocation by the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and South Korea’s (ROK) Minister of National Defense Lee Jong-sup.

During a Pentagon press conference, no one in media seemed to be puzzled about the timing of North Korea’s ICBM test or the conspicuously convenient ROK Defense Secretary Lee Jon-sup being in Washington DC.  Apparently, as the story is told, Jon-sup’s visit was just an odd coincidence, I digress.

The contrast is stark, yet no one in the media will ever point it out.  During President Trump’s term in office the Republic of Korea (South) and the Democrat People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North), were not in conflict.  There was even widespread discussion of a peaceful unification of the Korean peninsula between Chairman Kim Jong-un and President Moon Jae-in.

During the Trump administration, there were no tensions as President Trump brought the two Korea’s together and brokered both sides in the direction of sustainable peace. President Trump leveraged his own position, and the economic strength of the U.S. to weaken the influence of China upon the DPRK and Trump created breathing room for Kim and Jae-in to remove conflict.  Fast forward two years later and suddenly they are in conflict again.  What changed? Joe Biden.

The DPRK is a proxy province of China, and Beijing leverages their control within North Korea to achieve strategic geopolitical objectives.  All other presidents before Donald Trump played an international game of pretending not to know China controls North Korea.  Chairman Kim is a hostage to the influence of Chairman Xi.  Kim walks a very tenuous tightrope with Xi’s regime constantly over his shoulder and almost certainly in control of the DPRK military.

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