Tuesday, 23 March 2021

Daily Digest

Daily Digest

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Woke Insurance

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 04:50 PM PDT

(John Hinderaker)

The Washington Examiner has a chilling story of corporate leftism at Cigna, the giant insurance company. It is evidently based on inside information from disgusted Cigna employees:

Employees at one of the nation’s largest health insurance providers are routinely subjected to far-left critical race theory lessons and asked not to consider white men in hiring decisions, according to leaked documents and chat logs obtained by the Washington Examiner.
***
Those who work at Cigna told the Washington Examiner that they are expected to undergo sensitivity training they consider racist and discriminatory. Lessons include reviews of concepts such as “white privilege,” “gender privilege,” and something called “religious privilege,” which is described as “a set of advantages that benefits believers of a certain religion but not people who practice other religions or no religions at all.”

I assume the “privileged” religion is Christianity.

It looks like Cigna engages in blatant, and presumably illegal, race discrimination:

Chat logs between an employee and a hiring manager viewed by the Washington Examiner detail an incident where a minority candidate with strong credentials performed exceptionally well in an interview. When that employee suggested to the hiring manager that the company wave the candidate through to the next step in the process, the hiring manager dismissed the candidate under the assumption he was white.

After learning that the candidate belonged to a minority group, the manager said she was excited to hire him, despite learning virtually nothing else about his background.
***
Another time, an employee suggested a candidate with years of industry experience. That employee was informed by the hiring manager that the candidate, a white man, could not be interviewed because he didn’t meet the diversity criteria.

Cigna has a recommended reading list for its employees. To the extent that I am familiar with them, these books are all terrible:

We have come to quite a pass in corporate America when a formerly-stodgy insurance company recommends books by Angela Davis, a murderer (to be fair, she got off despite overwhelming evidence of guilt) and a Communist.

My personal vision of Hell is a world run by a cosmic HR Department. I assume Cigna’s HR harridans are the main source of Cigna’s horror, which as usual descends to laughable trivia, as in this list of discouraged figures of speech:

No more “brown bag lunch!” No more “going into this blind!” No more “quiet in the peanut gallery!” That one, I totally fail to get. Peanut equity? Beats me. The ban on “hip, hip, hooray!” is also a mystery. This one, on the other hand, is overdetermined: no “China virus!” For that, there is no acceptable substitute, so perhaps covid-19 is a forbidden topic at Cigna.

Cigna proudly declares its support for “equality and equity for communities of color,” perhaps not understanding that equality and equity are contradictory concepts, as the Left defines equity. You have to choose one or the other.

Nowadays, everyone must have his own personal story of racism. Thus:

During one of these meetings in June 2020, Cigna CEO David Cordani spoke about racism in the United States and told a story of how he, a white man, felt discrimination in his own life as a child when he wasn’t allowed to play basketball with black players.

Mr. Cordani is a successful businessman. Cigna boasts that under his leadership, the company has seen “compound annual growth rates of 23% for revenues and 15% for earnings per share, as well as Total Shareholder Return of 483% through 2019.” Thus, Cordani earned more than $19 million in 2019. For that kind of dough, I suppose a little humiliation is a small price to pay.

Still, it would be fun to know more about young Mr. Cordani’s basketball experience. Born in 1966, he would have been 10 years old in 1976, well into the affirmative action era. Either his parents were bizarre outliers–as he rather churlishly implies–or he is a fabulist. I’m betting on the latter. My guess is that, if anything, the black kids weren’t enthusiastic about playing ball with young Mr. Cordani.

It has been shown, I believe, that during the Jim Crow era, racial discrimination was most acute in government and in less-competitive industries like regulated utilities. Absent other imperatives, competitive pressures lead companies to hire and promote the best people they can. They do this not out of altruism, but in self-defense. Chalk it up as one of many benefits of free enterprise.

If Cigna feels free to discriminate against whites, especially white men, it means one of two things: either it does not see itself as functioning in a competitive environment, perhaps because its nominal competitors can be trusted to do the same thing, or it thinks that going “woke” will curry enough favor with government, and perhaps others, to outweigh the inefficiency of hiring and promoting less-qualified employees. Either alternative is depressing.

Feds investigate Marilyn and Nick Mosby

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 03:38 PM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

Marilyn and Nick Mosby are Baltimore’s leading power couple. She is the State’s Attorney in Baltimore — the one who indicted but failed to convict half a dozen police officers in the Freddy Gray matter. He’s the City Council President.

Together, they are now the subject of a federal grand jury investigation. The Washington Post reports:

The U.S. attorney's office and the FBI requested a range of financial records related to the power couple: tax returns, bank statements, credit card statements, loan documents and canceled checks. They subpoenaed Mosby's campaign treasurer and requested records tracing back to 2014, some related to the Mosbys' private travel and consulting businesses.

In addition, Union Baptist Church received a federal grand jury subpoena seeking information about whether Nick Mosby had made contributions there, the church's attorney, Robert Dashiell, confirmed. The pastor of another major church, Bethel AME, also said he received a subpoena, though the Rev. Patrick Clayborn said he did not know details of what it was seeking. . . .

Of the subpoena sent to Union Baptist Church, Dashiell said he reviewed its records and found that Nick Mosby had made a negligible donation. "I spend more at Starbucks," Dashiell said.

As I discussed here, last year the IRS found that the Mosby couple failed for three years to pay a significant amount of the federal income tax they owe. After multiple attempts to obtain payment, the IRS placed a tax lien for nearly $50,000 against them.

In addition, Marilyn Mosby has been embroiled in a dispute with the city’s inspector general. According to the Post:

Mosby faced growing questions last summer about her trips abroad to criminal justice conferences and her private travel businesses. . .Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming [found that] Mosby spent 144 days away in 2018 and 2019. . .Cumming faulted Mosby for not requesting approval from the city's spending panel for more than a dozen trips in 2018 and 2019.

Kenya, Scotland and Portugal were among her destination. Considering Marilyn Mosby’s record, the city is probably better off when she’s far away.

Attorneys for the couple responded to news of the investigation with this:

My clients are progressive change agents, making them unfair targets of unnecessary scrutiny by federal investigators. Nevertheless, I can assure you and the people of Baltimore, they have done nothing illegal, inappropriate or unlawful.

It may be worth noting that the Inspector General with whom Marilyn Mosby has been “embroiled” is the first woman and first Latina to serve in that role. She may consider herself a “progressive change agent.” So too, I suspect, does the minister who found scant evidence of contributions by Nick Mosby to his church.

I would also note that the “progressive” changes Marilyn and Nick Mosby promote have helped turn Baltimore into a much more violent, much less safe city.

This doesn’t mean they are crooks. But they aren’t exempt from scrutiny just because they are leftists.

It seems beyond dispute that the couple hasn’t paid taxes they owe. And it’s clear they can afford to. Marilyn Mosby has purchased nearly $1 million in Florida property.

As for any other violations of the law, we should withhold judgment until the criminal law process runs its course.

Kids In Cages [Updated]

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 01:54 PM PDT

(John Hinderaker)

The crisis at the southern border continues, denied by no one, at this point, other than the Biden administration. This ABC video includes, I believe, footage shot and released by the administration. So this apparently is as good a face as can be put on conditions at the border:

It is hard to understand the Biden administration’s actions here. The influx of illegal immigrants, bringing children whenever possible since everyone knows that is the golden ticket, was 100% predictable. Was Joe Biden really surprised? If not, why was the administration apparently so unprepared? It is a bit of a mystery.

Notwithstanding the kid glove treatment to which Democrats are accustomed, the administration has blocked reporters from the border:

For the past four presidential administrations, I have accompanied U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and photographed their encounters with migrants as they enforced immigration policy. No longer. Last week, when I documented migrant detentions in El Paso, I had to do so from the Mexican side of the border, taking long-range shots. Until now, journalists haven't had to stand in another country to cover what is happening in the United States.

Most asylum seekers cross the Rio Grande into South Texas on land controlled by federal agents. For decades, the U.S. government has let journalists accompany Border Patrol agents and other officials as they surveil the land. But since the change in administration, those agents have been physically blocking journalists from the riverbank. For example, after being turned down for official access on a trip in February, I followed a Border Patrol transport bus in my own vehicle to where agents were detaining migrants. They stopped me before I got close enough to take pictures. They called a supervisor, and ordered me to leave immediately.

We have gone from the Trump-era "zero tolerance" policy toward immigrants to a Biden-era "zero access" policy for journalists covering immigration. This development is unprecedented in modern history.

Thank goodness our president isn’t a Republican, or it would be a scandal. But still, a serious question: why is the administration so nervous about allowing an always-friendly press access to what is going on? Not because of the stories reporters would write, I suspect. Rather, because journalists and film crews take pictures and shoot video. And there is no way that the most sympathetic reporter can spin visual images of Biden’s border disaster.

UPDATE: See also these photos, which I take it were sent to Project Veritas by someone inside the facility:

Remembering Elgin Baylor [UPDATED]

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 11:40 AM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

Before there was Michael Jordan, there was Julius Erving. Before “Dr. J,” there was Elgin Baylor, who died yesterday at the age of 86.

When you watch highlights of Baylor, you probably won’t see anything that looks extraordinary. The moves in the old tapes are ones that top players in the NBA and even some in college regularly pull off.

But when Baylor entered the NBA in 1958 (for the Minneapolis Lakers), his game was revolutionary. Remember, this was an era in which some players were still using the two-hand set shot and tossing up free throws underhanded.

The NBA of that era had no answer to Baylor’s aerial show and assorted acrobatics. That’s why, as a rookie, he made the all-NBA first team and finished third in the MVP voting (behind Bob Petit and Bill Russell).

In his rookie year, Baylor led the Lakers to the NBA Finals, where, in a preview of things to come, they lost to the Boston Celtics. The year before Baylor arrived, the Lakers had finished in last place with a record of 19-53.

Baylor was even better after the Lakers moved to Los Angeles. In 1960-61, his first season in LA, Baylor averaged 34.8 points per game, along with 19.8 rebounds (Baylor was six feet, five inches tall). The following season, he averaged 38.3 points and 18.6 rebounds.

Baylor also set the single-game scoring record in 1960, becoming the first NBA player to crack the 70-point mark, with 71 against the Knicks. Wilt Chamberlain smashed that record with 100 against the Knicks a year later, but Baylor’s output remained the Lakers’ single-game record for 45 years, until Kobe Bryant broke it.

It’s no wonder that Knicks star Richie Guerin complained: “Elgin Baylor has either got three hands or two basketballs out there. It's like guarding a flood.” The great Oscar Robertson said this:

As a shooter, as a dribbler, Elgin Baylor had no match. The greatest game I ever saw was a Los Angeles playoff game in Boston when the Celtics double-teamed Elgin and Jerry West, and Elgin still scored about 60 points.

He scored 61 points, still an NBA Finals record, to go with 22 rebounds (in 1962).

The name “Elgin Baylor” is magic for basketball fans of a certain age — mine. Chamberlain was better. Petit, Russell, Robertson, and Jerry West were about as good. But none of them, not even the Big O, was as much fun to watch as Baylor. None soared into our imagination in anything like the same way.

That’s why stars like Dave Bing (who followed Baylor at Spingarn High School in Washington, D.C.), Bill Bradley, Rick Barry, Julius Erving, George McGinnis, and Lou Hudson all say they grew up trying to imitate Baylor’s moves.

Baylor continued to excel during the second half of the 1960s, but by the end of the decade he was nowhere near the same player. I started to hear younger fans declare Baylor overrated. Some wanted to make him the scapegoat for the Lakers’ inability to win an NBA title.

Yet, Baylor was still averaging at least 24 points per game and double-digit rebounds as the decade closed. And in his final post-season — at age 35 — he averaged 18.7 points and 9.6 rebounds per game.

The Lakers finally won the NBA title in their first season without Baylor. His replacement, a mobile young Ivy Leaguer out of Columbia named Jim McMillian, was a better fit than Baylor and his aching knees. It also helped that the Celtics dynasty was finished.

But with Baylor in anything like his prime, the 71-72 Lakers would have been virtually unbeatable. And the 72-73 Lakers likely would have won the title again, instead of losing to the Knicks in a rematch of the previous year’s Finals.

Baylor’s college career deserves recognition. He starred for Seattle University, where he averaged 31.3 points a game during his two seasons there. He still holds that school’s record for points in a game — 60.

In 1958, Baylor led Seattle to the NCAA final game, in which powerhouse Kentucky defeated Seattle. Baylor was named Most Outstanding Player of that Final Four.

I’ll give the final word on Baylor to Jerry West, his longtime teammate and fellow superstar with the Lakers:

I will forever cherish my days spent with him as a teammate, he was one of the most gifted and special players that this game will ever see and he has never gotten his just due for what he accomplished on the court.

My first few years in the league he cared for me like a father would a son, he nurtured me and encouraged me like no one else had during that period of my life. We shared the joy of winning and the heartbreaking losses during the championship finals.

He was a prince both on and off of the court. There are no words to describe how I feel at this time. . .I loved him like a brother.

RIP

UPDATE: A reader notes that Baylor is third on the NBA’s all-time list of leaders in points per game. He trails only Chamberlain and Jordan.

Baylor is also 11th on the list of all-time leaders in rebounds per game. The ten players ahead of him were all centers for at least part of their career. Baylor was a 6-5 forward.

How Woke Media Becomes Broke Media

Posted: 23 Mar 2021 10:01 AM PDT

(Steven Hayward)

As we noted at some length around the time the 1619 Project debuted, some of the strongest criticism of it came from the World Socialist Web Site, which sees identity politics as a hindrance to old-fashioned, orthodox Marxist class-conscious revolution. And they might be on to something here. It really is tempting to see the whole domain of identity politics as a right-wing plot to get the left to commit ritual purity suicide. (Do I really mean this? To quote Francis Urquhart in the original—and best—House of Cards: “You might very well think so; I couldn’t possibly comment.” I know Steve Bannon was cheerleading for identity politics to take root in the Democratic Party.)

Well check out the latest from Freddie deBoer, who is a far-left writer most often for the uber-socialist magazine Jacobin. First, he provides these heart-warming statistics (from Pew) about what is happening to the news media:

  • U.S. newspaper circulation fell in 2018 to its lowest level since 1940, the first year with available data. Total daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) was an estimated 28.6 million for weekday and 30.8 million for Sunday in 2018. Those numbers were down 8% and 9%, respectively, from the previous year. Both figures are now below their lowest recorded levels, though weekday circulation first passed this threshold in 2013.
  • Newspaper revenues declined dramatically between 2008 and 2018. Advertising revenue fell from $37.8 billion in 2008 to $14.3 billion in 2018, a 62% decline.
  • Newsroom employment at U.S. newspapers dropped by nearly half (47%) between 2008 and 2018, from about 71,000 workers to 38,000. Newspapers drove a broader decline in overall U.S. newsroom employment during that span.
  • Layoffs continue to pummel U.S. newspapers. Roughly a quarter (27%) of papers with an average Sunday circulation of 50,000 or more experienced layoffs in 2018. The layoffs came on top of the roughly one-third (31%) of papers in the same circulation range that experienced layoffs in 2017. What's more, the number of jobs typically cut by newspapers in 2018 tended to be higher than in the year before.

As I say, who says there isn’t any good news these days?

Then deBoer—a leftist, remember—goes on to offer this explanation for a big reason the major media is collapsing:

In the span of a decade or so, essentially all professional media not explicitly branded as conservative has been taken over by a school of politics that emerged from humanities departments at elite universities and began colonizing the college educated through social media. Those politics are obscure, they are confusing, they are socially and culturally extreme, they are expressed in a bizarre vocabulary, they are deeply alienating to many, and they are very unpopular by any definition. The vast majority of the country is not woke, including the vast majority of women and people of color. How could it possibly be healthy for the entire media industry to be captured by any single niche political movement, let alone one that nobody likes? Why does no one in media seem willing to have an honest, uncomfortable conversation about the near-total takeover of their industry by a fringe ideology?

And the bizarre assumption of almost everyone in media seems to have been that they could adopt this brand of extreme niche politics, in mass, as an industry, and treat those politics as a crusade that trumps every other journalistic value, with no professional or economic consequences. They seem to have thought that Americans were just going to swallow it; they seem to have thought they could paint most of the country as vicious bigots and that their audiences would just come along for the ride.

DeBoer has followed a lot of writers to Substack, and most of his piece is pushing back against the mainstream media types who hate Substack because it is taking even more of their audience away.

Chaser, from the Washington Post—for the pure schadenfreude file:

Hat tip: JD.
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