What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. I’m sure they have the same restrictions in mind for all religions….. not. 

From Politico  “A U.S. attorney in Tennessee is reportedly vowing to use federal civil rights statutes to clamp down on offensive and inflammatory speech about Islam.

Bill Killian, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, was quoted by the Tullahoma News this week suggesting that some inflammatory material on Islam might run afoul of federal civil rights laws.

“We need to educate people about Muslims and their civil rights, and as long as we’re here, they’re going to be protected,” Killian told the newspaper.”

“Killian, along with the FBI special agent that runs the Knoxville office, are set to speak next week to a special meeting with the local Muslim community, informing them about their rights under federal law.

“This is an educational effort with civil rights laws as they play into freedom of religion and exercising freedom of religion,” Killian said about the meeting. “This is also to inform the public what federal laws are in effect and what the consequences are.””

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2. Child sex abuse claims continue to hit the UN. While they act shocked, the rest of us are wondering what took so long to address it. 

From TheAP/MSN  “United Nations investigators heard such stories of sexual abuse from several boys in May and June 2014 in Central African Republic, where French soldiers were protecting a sprawling displaced persons camp in the conflict-torn capital, Bangui.

One year later, revelations about how the U.N. handled the boys’ accounts have horrified people both inside and outside the world body. Statements marked “strictly confidential” have shown that its top human rights officials failed to follow up for several months on the allegations their own office had collected.

No arrests have been announced, and it’s not clear where the accused soldiers, who were supporting a U.N. peacekeeping force, are now. The U.N. seems unable to say when the abuses stopped, or how long it continued to investigate.

On Friday, more documents were released by a non-governmental organization run by two former U.N. staffers that’s calling for an independent investigation into the case. The documents show U.N. officials scrambling not so much to help a French inquiry into the allegations but to investigate the human rights staffer who told French authorities in the first place.

A separate report with the children’s allegations, obtained by The Associated Press, says the first account was heard May 19 by a human rights staffer and a UNICEF child protection officer. The interviews continued through June 24. A Geneva-based human rights staffer shared the report with French authorities in July.”

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3. It’s a family tradition. 

From NationalReview  “New records reviewed by National Review show Sharpton’s daughter and her boyfriend, Marcus Bright, together run a shadowy nonprofit that shares corporate donors, board members, and office space with Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, and they won’t answer any questions about it.

In tax filings, Education for a Better America (EBA) states that its mission is “to build a bridge between policy makers and the classroom by supporting innovations in the delivery of education and disseminating information and findings that impact our schools.” The nonprofit’s publications show the group hosting or participating in education-focused assemblies, speeches, summits, and events in New York City, Miami, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., among other cities.

“It’s all a scam,” says one source close to the Sharpton family. “It’s a cover for money, basically, to subsidize [Dominique] Sharpton and Bright to do what they do. . . . They put it all on their Instagram and their Facebook. Most of the time, it’s like they’re on vacation. . . . One could argue, being totally objective, that some of what [Al] Sharpton has done in terms of advocacy has helped black people and civil rights. Tell me one thing that Education for a Better America has done to help education.””

“EBA’s precise origins remain murky. The entity was incorporated in Delaware in June 2011, registered to the Corporation Trust Company at 1209 Orange Street in Wilmington — the listed legal address of at least 285,000 other companies. The New York Times focused on that address in a 2012 report on how some “big corporations, small-time businesses, rogues, scoundrels and worse” had flocked to Delaware “in hopes of minimizing taxes, skirting regulations, plying friendly courts or, when in need, covering their tracks.”

But the nonprofit’s tax records show that instead of calling an obscure Delaware shell office home, EBA operates on the 14th floor of 561 Seventh Avenue in New York City. That just so happens to be the same address as the corporate offices of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.”

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4. It looks like the Clinton’s are starting some similar traditions too. 

From FoxNews  “The newly released financial files on Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s growing fortune omit a company with no apparent employees or assets that the former president has legally used to provide consulting and other services, but which demonstrates the complexity of the family’s finances. 

Because the company, WJC, LLC, has no financial assets, Hillary Clinton’s campaign was not obligated to report its existence in her recent financial disclosure report, officials with Bill Clinton’s private office and the Clinton campaign said. They were responding to questions by The Associated Press, which reviewed corporate documents. 

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide private details of the former president’s finances on the record, said the entity was a “pass-through” company designed to channel payments to the former president. 

Under federal ethics disclosure rules, declared candidates do not have to report assets worth less than $1,000. But the company’s existence demonstrates the complexity of tracking the Clintons’ finances as Hillary Clinton ramps up her presidential bid. 

While Bill Clinton’s lucrative speeches have provided the bulk of the couple’s income, earning as much as $50 million during his wife’s four-year term as secretary of state in the Obama administration, the former president has also sought to branch out into other business activities in recent years. Little is known about the exact nature and financial worth of Bill Clinton’s non-speech business interests.”

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