The Mormon Church has recently come under scrutiny, not by individuals, but rather by the Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC documents released last week accused church leaders of approving 13 shell companies to file legally required public disclosures of the church's investments to avoid any filings that would reveal its full holdings.
The church's former investment adviser David Nielsen described on "60 Minutes" the religious organization’s investment portfolio as "a clandestine hedge fund." Not an ideal description. In 2019, Nielsen filed a whistleblower complaint with federal regulators claiming that the church's investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, abused its tax-exempt status by collecting billions of dollars without spending any of it on charity. Instead, the church spent a combined $2 billion on for-profit businesses owned by the church.
Nielsen worked for Ensign Peak for about 10 years starting in 2009, and provided legitimate accounting documents showing the church had $100 billion in investments as of 2018, the Washington Post reported in 2019. In response, representatives of the church said, “We don’t feel it’s being secret; we feel it’s being confidential.” Which sounds like the kind of thing a child might say when they’re caught red handed stealing from the cookie jar.
Side Items
Dammit Ja: For the second time in 2023, Memphis Grizzlies superstar Ja Morant was caught on Instagram Live waving around a firearm. The Grizzlies were quick to suspend the two-time All-Star for an undetermined amount of time for the latest in a series of concerning incidents involving the young standout. We were all rooting for you Ja! Come on man, all you had to do was avoid being caught on camera being cavalier with a deadly weapon and things would be peachy, how is this so difficult? In my entire adult life I’ve probably featured in three or four Instagram Live videos, and I’ve managed to avoid any featuring of any guns. Let me teach you my ways Ja, it’s not too late little brother
Tech Executive Murder: Bob Lee, the well-known tech executive who co-founded Cash App, was stabbed to death last month, and many within San Francisco’s tech community leapt to conclusions. Of course the blame was immediately thrown at the city’s underserved homeless population. In reality, Lee was part of an underground party scene in San Francisco known among participants as “The Lifestyle,” where recreational drugs and casual sex were common, according to participants and those who knew Bob Lee. One of the people Lee allegedly overlapped with within “The Lifestyle” was Khazar Momeni, the married sister of Nima Momeni, the man arrested for Lee’s murder. The plot thickens
That’s So Feinstein: The obvious cognitive decline of the representative from California dates back farther than the public has known, according to a new Rolling Stone article. Apparently, in recent years Feinstein’s office has put in place an on-call system, unbeknownst to the dinosaur herself, to prevent the senator from ever walking around the Capitol unsupervised. At any given moment there’s a staff member ready to jump up and stroll alongside the senator if she left her office, worried about what she might say to reporters if left unattended. This is a system that has been in place for years. Think about the kind of precedent this sets for other powerful figures in public office