Ordinary World: Juneteenth Edition

Juneteenth Celebration at Emancipation Park 1880. Photo by Crowdsourcing form MSS0281-PH053, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Welcome to Juneteenth, officially styled Juneteenth National Independence Day, our newest federal holiday since 2021 to celebrate the events of June 19th,1865 of the ending of slavery and the last of the enslaved learning of their freedom. Seems like a good time to break out a classic Ordinary World listicle for your reading and discussing pleasure. And as you celebrate freedom, please do so responsibly…

[JT1] Bringing Juneteenth home

From the AP: Opal Lee gets keys to her new Texas home 85 years after a racist mob drove her family from that lot

Opal Lee, the 97-year-old Texan known for her push to make Juneteenth a national holiday, was given the keys Friday to her new home, which was built on the same tree-lined corner lot in Fort Worth that her family was driven from by a racist mob when she was 12.

“I’m so happy I don’t know what to do,” said Lee, sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of the home just before the ceremony.

The ceremony to welcome Lee into the newly completed home comes just days before the nation celebrates Juneteenth, the holiday marking the end of slavery across the U.S. that means so much to Lee. Several area groups came together to build and furnish the house, which was completed less than three months after the first wall was raised.

Lee said she plans to hold an open house so she can meet her new neighbors.

[JT2] “Dems in Disarray” or something

Axios: Top Dems: Biden has losing strategy

The angst among many Democrats is about the larger narrative Biden’s team is telling rather than its tactics, as it’s poured money into field programs and zeroed in on key voters.

Democrats close to the campaign told Axios that morale and management have largely improved since Jen O’Malley Dillon left the White House and joined the campaign earlier this year.

Donilon frequently talks about democracy, but the campaign’s most-run TV ad so far is about Obamacare, according to an analysis by NPR and AdImpact.
And polls do show there are many voters concerned about democracy after Trump tried to overturn the results of the last election.
The intrigue: Biden aides worry that they didn’t take full advantage of the head start they had in 2023.

Biden’s inner circle often makes decisions by committee. That slowed down the campaign’s decision-making, people familiar with the dynamic told Axios.
There also has been internal second-guessing over the team spending $25 million-plus on an ad buy last fall that didn’t move Biden’s numbers.

Many Democrats think the president and his closest aides learned the wrong lessons from Democratic wins in 2020 and 2022, and it’s causing them to misread 2024.

Biden’s core team, including Donilon, believes Biden won in 2020 because his “soul of the nation” message resonated and he presented a clear “moral contrast” to Trump. In 2020, Donilon wanted to focus on Trump’s character over the economy, even though “our own pollsters told us that talking about ‘the soul of the nation’ was nutty,” he told the New Yorker. Biden’s closest aides also argue that framing Republicans as “ultra MAGA” — along with Biden’s speeches about democracy, which were mocked by some Democrats at the time — helped prevent a predicted “red wave” in 2022.

Biden and his close team have defied their doubters in the 2020 primary, the 2020 general election and the 2022 primaries. That’s led them to be defiant toward those voices this time. But many Democrats — including some in the administration — say the Biden team’s view of itself is distorted:

Biden won the 2020 Democratic primary largely because the party consolidated to stop Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and picked the candidate who polls showed as the most competitive. Even with a once-in-a-century pandemic, Biden barely beat Trump by less than 45,000 votes across three states. “Biden didn’t win, Trump lost,” one Democrat close to the White House put it. One Democratic operative who worked on several close races in the midterms told Axios: “2022 was a classic case of running away from a president, and their takeaway was, ‘Wow people really like us.’ ”

“… I get why they spun it that way, but I also think many of them believe it.”

[JT3] “Trump in Disarray” or something

CSPAN: CEOs at Trump meeting: Ex-president ‘meandering’ and ‘doesn’t know what he’s talking about’

Former President Donald Trump failed to impress everyone in a room full of top CEOs Thursday at the Business Roundtable’s quarterly meeting, multiple attendees told CNBC.

“Trump doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” said one CEO who was in the room, according to a person who heard the executive speaking. The CEO also said Trump did not explain how he planned to accomplish any of his policy proposals, that person said.

Several CEOs “said that [Trump] was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map,” CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin reported Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Among the topics on which Trump offered scant details were how he would reduce taxes and cut back on business regulations, according to two other people in the room who spoke to CNBC.

Meeting attendees and people who spoke with them were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about the private event.

The same CEOs who were struck by Trump’s lack of focus “walked into the meeting being Trump supporter-ish or thinking that they might be leaning that direction,” Sorkin reported.

“These were people who I think might have been actually predisposed to [Trump but] actually walked out of the room less predisposed” to him, Sorkin said.

“President Trump was warmly received by everyone in the room and was commended for his policy proposals on deregulation and tax cuts,” said Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump presidential campaign.

[JT4] Meanwhile, over yonder

Washington Post: China cultivated high-rolling crime families before turning on them

For the scion of a crime family linked to human trafficking and enslavement, money laundering and global cyberscams, Wei Qingtao was brazenly public. His Douyin account, the Chinese-language version of TikTok, flaunted the excesses of his life in a remote corner of Myanmar by the border with China: Bentleys and Lamborghinis, rare cigars and private jets.

When the 27-year-old partied at the multistory, glass-walled nightclub he owned in a region called Kokang, he’d throw crisp Chinese yuan bills into the crowd as international techno DJs, chauffeured in along dirt roads, performed their sets.

In November, the good times rolled to a stop. Wei’s social media presence vanished. He soon appeared in a different kind of video: reading a scripted confession while in Chinese custody.

“The money we make from cyberscams comes from the pensions of everyday Chinese people,” Wei said, a baggy gray sweater replacing his bespoke blazers. “This time, the Chinese government has made up its mind. … We must not cling to any illusions.” Within weeks, his uncle was in cuffs on a plane to China, flanked by dozens of police officers.

The detention of Wei and at least 15 other alleged senior crime family members and their associates was lavishly covered by Chinese media, designed to showcase Beijing’s reach. This was proof, Chinese officials said, of their determination to crush transnational criminals victimizing their citizens, no matter where they are based.

Chinese state media trumpeted the arrests of the Myanmar crime families as testament to their ability to crack down on cyberscams. (Video: Chinese Ministry of Public Security)
The official Chinese Communist Party news outlet called the arrests a “death knell” for the scams, which tried to dupe people into giving up their money including through bogus investments schemes and fake online romances. “No matter how … big you become,” the People’s Daily wrote, “you cannot escape the severe punishment of the law.”

That crusading narrative is incomplete, however.

A Washington Post investigation found that Kokang’s criminal networks — principally led by the Wei, Bai and Liu families, according to U.N. officials, Chinese court records and analysts — had for more than a decade enjoyed close relations with Chinese officials, primarily in neighboring Yunnan province, along with support from Beijing and the military government in Myanmar. The Myanmar military chief, Min Aung Hlaing, further solidified the families as political and economic brokers after taking power in a 2021 coup.

[JT5] Northern (Housing Crisis) Exposure

From friend of the site, investigative journalist Molly McCluskey & NPR station KHNS:

Like many Alaska towns, Skagway has been dealing with a housing shortage for years. Unlike other towns, Skagway has little room for expansion and the number of housing units available doesn’t change much year over year, even as the ships get bigger, and more seasonal employees are needed to serve them. Recent changes have residents unsure how much longer it can go on. Molly McCluskey is a former reporter for The Skagway News, and she returned to report on Skagway’s housing challenges and some possible solutions. Tune in to the KHNS local News Wednesday Evenings and Thursday Mornings for this limited series; “The Skagway Shuffle”

[JT6] The “fix it” doctors

The New York Times:

Proponents call it “obesity first.” The idea is to treat obesity with medications approved for that use. As obesity comes under control, they note, the patient’s other chronic diseases tend to improve or go away.

“We are treating the medical condition of obesity and its related complications at the same time,” Dr. Deeds said.

Others are wary. People with obesity can be put off when a doctor mentions their weight. And, yes, the new obesity drugs may have unexpected benefits beyond obesity, like reducing inflammation. But the drugs are expensive, and many of the other potential gains have not been demonstrated in rigorous studies.

Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a clinical trials expert at McMaster University in Ontario, said that the prudent approach is to use drugs — often inexpensive generics — that have been well tested and shown to treat conditions that often accompany obesity, like high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels, arthritis and sleep apnea.

Obesity drugs, he said, are to treat obesity.

Yet, many physicians, like Dr. Deeds, are struck by stories like Ms. Walton’s, which they say they often see in their practices. There is reason to believe that the drugs’ effects on medical problems other than obesity may be independent of weight loss, they contend.

[JT7] Business is Booming

Skynews: A lucky bet and unlimited coffee: How Nvidia become the world’s most valuable company

The company’s journey to the king of the stock market has not been without its stumbles.

In 2010 it made an unsuccessful attempt to muscle in on the smartphone market – with Mr Huang admitting that he has made “a lot” of mistakes over the years.

But by the time of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, firms began increasingly turning to AI – and Nvidia’s bet started to pay off.

Among the firms using its technology was ChatGPT, which was soon followed by a rush of imitators.

A Wall Street analyst told the New Yorker last year: “There’s a war going on out there in AI, and Nvidia is the only arms dealer.”

Today, seemingly every major company in Silicon Valley, including Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft, has made use of its chips, and it is estimated to control more than 80% of the market for the tech used in AI systems.

Nvidia’s success has only accelerated in recent months. It hit a market valuation of $2tn in February and then overtook Apple for the number two spot earlier this month.

It finally climbed to the summit of the stock market on Tuesday after adding more than $100bn (£79bn) to its market value in just one day.

[JT8] Ordinary Times regulars talking space

OT’s own Andrew Donaldson and Dr. Michael Siegel talk all the headlines in space like Space X & Starship, NASA & Boening Starliner, rockets, the moon, mars, engineering, and more.