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She said she wanted the conservatorship to end immediately but not if it required going through any more “stupid” evaluations. She said she did not want another opportunity for “people to question my intelligence for the millionth time.”
Proceeds to posts videos of herself doing cartwheels, and riding a horse.
Well, that's only two lapses in reading. She didn't scream at the reporter in this incident (it was a young shopper). Maybe you confused it with the time mama bear locked herself in a bathroom with her young son (keepin' cool by wearing only panties -- not sure if she had a shaved head) and argued with police officers for several hours. She reportedly wanted her "vitamins." Maybe she's all better now. It's not like the mouth-breathing public encourages tiger-blooded celebrities. Deep State expert and Florida Man Matt Gaetz has rallied to her cause.
She said she wanted the conservatorship to end immediately but not if it required going through any more “stupid” evaluations. She said she did not want another opportunity for “people to question my intelligence for the millionth time.”
Proceeds to posts videos of herself doing cartwheels, and riding a horse.
If she won't allow herself to be evaluated at all, instead of just objecting to being evaluated by conservator-approved docs, then I doubt she will be successful in ending the conservatorship altogether. However, as long as her father is removed from the whole arrangement, things are bound to start moving in the right direction.
As for the videos, I don't really understand what the problem is supposed to be. You should see her Tik-Tok. I finally checked it out after hearing people say it was odd. Ya, it's odd. REAL odd.
Oddness =/= incapacity, though. She doesn't have to be perfectly sane in order to not need a conservatorship, lol. Not even close.
Check out what Kanye West gets up to online, for example. (He is another sufferer of bipolar disorder, so I'm not making fun of him. But he posts some outlandish, wild ****.)
Disclaimer - I don't use any of these dumb sites. I looked up Britney's Tik-Tok because of all the Free Britney chatter, and I sampled some of Kanye's social postings after his Joe Rogan appearance.
She said she wanted the conservatorship to end immediately but not if it required going through any more “stupid” evaluations. She said she did not want another opportunity for “people to question my intelligence for the millionth time.”
Proceeds to posts videos of herself doing cartwheels, and riding a horse.
DON'T EXPECT IMMEDIATE CHANGES TO PREVENT OTHER CASES OF CONSERVATORSHIP/GUARDIANSHIP ABUSE
It's horrific, sickening, and criminal that Britney Spears is subjected to an abusive conservatorship.
I think Britney will be free of her conservatorship soon, and it's highly likely in Britney's case, that people with be held accountable for wrong-doing.
However, I wouldn't get lulled into a false sense of security for cases other than Britney's that conservatorships and guardianships will change for the better, even though details of the inner workings (the breadth and depth of) conservatorship abuse in Britney Spears's case will become public.
For decades, there's been little-to-no accountability; little-to-no effect changes made on a government/legal/criminal justice, level; to stop the abuse, exploitation, and fraud of broken laws and systems that make conservatorships and guardianships, so lucrative. Abusive power over the vulnerable continues, while perpetrators operate with impunity.
Look at Brooke Astor elder abuse and financial exploitation
Brooke Astor was a philanthropist, author, and socialite. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, and had signed control of herself medical and her estate to Anthony "Tony" D. Marshall, her son from her first marriage. She trusted him to take care of her.
Brooke Astor's son, Anthony "Tony" D. Marshall, and an attorney took advantage of Brooke Astor's diminished mental capacity.
(I'm not implying, nor should you infer, that Britney Spears has diminished mental capacity. I believe she was portrayed in a false light as being crazy for certain behavior like using electric clipper to shave her head bald, or using an umbrella to strike a paparazzi's vehicle or seen crying after paparazzi invaded her private moments after psychological counseling).
Anthony D. Marshall sold off some of his mom's art and jewelry that she had planned for donation after her death. He convinced his mom they needed money, even though her estate was valued at around $200 million. Anthony Marshall pocketed some of the money from the sales.
One painting in particular, ‘Flags, Fifth Avenue’ by Childe Hassam, was supposed to be donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Marshall told his mom they needed the money, and sold it for $10 million, of which he got $2 million commission. Apparently the painting is missing to this day, and the Met was compensated for the intended donation of ‘Flags, Fifth Avenue’ painting.
Anthony dismissed long-time staff members and a lawyer of 50 years.
Nov 2007 Tony Marshall was indicted on 16 counts relating to his mom's (Brooke Astor) will and financial affairs.
2009 trial resulted in guilty charges on 14 of the 16 counts; including first-degree grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, scheming to defraud, falsifying business records, offering a false instrument for filing, and conspiracy. [1]
Brooke Astor's grandson, Philip C. Marshall (Anthony Marshall's son) went to court to protect his grandmother, and Philip Marshall continually speaks out against elder abuse.
"to tell his grandmother's story and to help the greater cause of elder justice. Since 2010, Mr. Marshall has been border to border, coast to coast, face to face with elder-justice practitioners nationwide." [2]
Philip C. Marshall fights against elder abuse. I consider Philip Marshall a prominent man that people should listen to so they can understand how they might protect their family, and how the government can make changes to prevent abuse.
But what has the government, local/state/federal, done to curb elder abuse, conservatorship abuse, guardianship abuse, power of attorney abuse? What has government really done to protect the victims? What has the government done to hold the perpetrators of abuse, exploitation, and fraud, accountable?
For decades, local, state, and federal government has done little-to-nothing to curb elder abuse, conservatorship abuse, guardianship abuse, and power of attorney abuse. The same holds true for government's lack of effective reporting on the transparency, traceability, and accountability for the abusers and the (broken) systems that are supposed to protect the vulnerable.
And look at the movie, The Guardians, directed by Billie Mintz. The film highlights elder abuse and professional guardian April Parks who was investigated, arrested, and convicted of abuse issues.
Rick Black, in The Guardians, sums up how difficult it is to hold abusers accountable.
1:06:22
Rick Black The priorities for the attorneys in Family Court Elder Law is, Number One: Make money. And that environment allowed them to make very, very, very good money. Secondly, protect your network, protect the institution. That means you don’t go against Commissioner (Jon) Norheim, or Judge Hoskin. And don’t go against your attorneys, your peers, in the Bar. And thirdly, if we’re lucky, satisfy a client.
But the clients would come and go. Guardianship is a one-and-done, for the families that are brought before that court.
The guardians are there every week.
The judge is there every week.
And their friends in the bar are there, every week.
And you could see in all these court records, the consistency by which there was a dedication to support the institution and the network, far outweighed any interest to protect the victims or their families. [4]
In one case before then-Court Commissioner (similar to probate judge), a woman asks for an accounting of a missing $400,000 under Jared Shafer care; but there's no record of the money or documentation of where the money went.
Guardian Jared Shafer (falsely) said there was a "complete accounting" and that the woman has it. But the woman said no, she does not. She said there's never been an accounting. Norheim realized that according to the woman asking for the financial accounting Shafer refused to give, that no accounting had been done for 12 years.
Jared Shafer said there are no gaps, "No matter what this lady says. Give it a break."
Norheim said,
then-County Commissioner Nordeim
1:10:18
...the bottom line is that Mr. Shafer’s been doing this for a long time. [5]
The woman (attorney?) asks Nordheim that an order needs to be issued to compel Shafer to produce the financial records.
The ward has fallen off the grid, I paraphrase.
Shafer, the guardian, asks Nordheim to close the court room and Nordeim says "Ok," and the room is cleared of everybody but Jared Shaffer (guardian) and the two parties.
Here's a YouTube video posted by Steve Miller, former Las Vegas City Councilman showing how easy it was for a guardian to get their way: [6]
So my take from that scenario was that a guardian tells a compliant court-commissioner Jon Norheim (similar to a probate judge) what to do, and the then-County Commissioner does as requested. That way there are no third parties, which could in effect be someone from the press, from observing what happened to the wards' missing $400,000, and why there wasn't a financial accounting, and no records of where the-missing- money went.
Rick Black and his wife Terri, are Directors of CEAR, Center for Estate Administration Reform. They advocate for seniors and dependent adults and those exploited by the legal community in equity court proceedings. [7]
Britney Spears has a long road ahead of her. Hopefully Britney will be free of the abusive conservatorship with the help of attorney Mathew Rosengart, his law firm, and everyone else who is helping, including the Free Britney Movement.
Keep in mind there was the possibility that Britney Spears could have ended up dead–as a victim of an abusive conservatorship–at the hands of many people who would have known they were abusing, exploiting, (likely) defrauding her, and ultimately could have played a part of Britney's (potential) accelerated (hastened) death.
Sources:
[1] Thompson | VonTungeln, A.P.C (California). "Avoiding Elder Abuse-The Story of Brooke Astor" 03 June 2016.
https[colon]//www.estateplanningspecialists[dot]com/blog/2016/june/avoiding-elder-abuse-the-story-of-brooke-astor/
[2] U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. "The Brooke Astor Story: Hard-Learned Lessons that Address Elder Abuse and Financial Exploitation (Webinar)" U.S. Department of Justice. ojp.com. 18 January 2018. https[colon]//www.ojp[dot]gov/events/brooke-astor-story-hard-learned-lessons-address-elder-abuse-and-financial-exploitation
[4] [5] The Guardians. Directed by Billie Mintz. 2019. Available free on Amazon Prime
[6] SteveMiller4LV. "Private Guardian Jared E.Shafer orders Judge to Close Court to Public" Uploaded 18 Mar 2014. YouTube. https[colon]//www[dot]youtube.com/watch?v=Ee8XnR56gow
[7] Rick and Terri Black. CEAR (Center for Estate Administration Reform). Established in 2018.
Of course we can object to both, but the FreeBritney moral panic suggests virtually anything is better than the conservatorship, conveniently forgetting life before the conservatorship. We have people in this thread almost resigned to saying that if a Free Britney turns miserable and dies, well, c'est la vie.
You're a broken, scratchy record. I reject this false dichotomy because of the insistence on prisoner/slave-like "total" control, which is clownish. What a relief that Britney was authorized to perform cartwheels.
The issue is that a questionable legal procedure was used to make her a legal child without rights in perpetuity, and that the people who benefit most from her conservatorship have every reason to perpetuate it. Her daddy gets $16,000 a month, office expenses, fat lawyer fees and a percentage of her concert revenue. Her court-appointed lawyer collected over $3 million before he quit.
This was also discussed up-thread; you're repeating the same old talking points. "Daddy" makes less than 200 grand a year in court-ordered salary. Her lawyer worked the case for over a decade. Are his billings unusually high? I suppose if one starts from the premise that he got paid a lot of money for doing a whole of nothing -- FreeBritney! -- it's bad. I suspect that if Spears' new lawyer were to end the conservatorship but ended up charging $4m, the #FreeBritney crowd would valorize him for getting results. Can't put a price on freedom.
What's wrong is that people who should be caring for her and supporting her and ultimately helping her to become independent and self-reliant are milking her for millions.
This possibility is and should always be a concern.
Britney: Why do I have to do three sessions of therapy a week?
Doc: Because I'm remodeling my beach house.
Hume said the wise man proportions his belief to the evidence. #FreeBritney is so certain of its cause that it never feels obligated to demonstrate such things in this specific case. A possibility is not an actuality.
Again, grammar. I know THAT some people do a lot worse and don't get legally turned into permanent children. (I'm fairly sure you knew exactly what I meant, but I have no problem owning and clarifying my grammar errors.)
The only two possibilities here are that you're doing your stupid act, or you're siding with the father because you're one of those dudes who thinks mentally ill people aren't full-fledged people. Taking digs at me and my imagined "crowd" makes me think it's the latter. Either way, talking to you is pointless, so I will stop pouring my brainpower down the drain now. You can have the last word.
Your bon mots are super cute, though, by the way! *chef's kiss* Just devastating. People are really getting some food for thought from your participation in this thread.
Of course we can object to both, but the FreeBritney moral panic suggests virtually anything is better than the conservatorship, conveniently forgetting life before the conservatorship. We have people in this thread almost resigned to saying that if a Free Britney turns miserable and dies, well, c'est la vie.
You're a broken, scratchy record. I reject this false dichotomy because of the insistence on prisoner/slave-like "total" control, which is clownish. What a relief that Britney was authorized to perform cartwheels.
This was also discussed up-thread; you're repeating the same old talking points. "Daddy" makes less than 200 grand a year in court-ordered salary. Her lawyer worked the case for over a decade. Are his billings unusually high? I suppose if one starts from the premise that he got paid a lot of money for doing a whole of nothing -- FreeBritney! -- it's bad. I suspect that if Spears' new lawyer were to end the conservatorship but ended up charging $4m, the #FreeBritney crowd would valorize him for getting results. Can't put a price on freedom.
....
When Spears can be forced to perform against her will, even when she says she is sick, that's pretty close to slavery, especially when Daddy gets a percentage of her concert revenue.
You refuse to understand that if Spears was in trouble 13 years ago, there were ways to treat her that didn't include permanent loss of her rights. You also refuse to see the obvious conflict of interest when the people who make millions from her conservatorship are the ones insisting that it's still necessary.
~200K is a lot of money. Apparently he gets "office expenses" on top of that (which includes his own legal fees), as well as actually a percentage of his daughter's revenues. Which translates to a ******** of money.
What qualifies this man to hold down a job with this kind of remuneration? Apart, that is, from having struck lucky in his daughter, and having ruthlessly milked that luck to the fullest, and beyond? Kick him out into the world, and would he be able to make even a tenth of that on his own steam? If not, then why on earth has he been latching on to his daughter's estate like some foul parasite for years and years, against her express wishes?
If ever there was a scheming worthless piece of **** lowlife that deserved to have every cent to their name sued off of them and to be locked away in jail for a long, long time, then this is that scheming worthless piece of **** lowlife.
(Disclaimer: I'm basing my opinion mostly on what I've read here in this thread and in the links presented in this thread, plus some very cursory looking up on my own, done after having read this thread. Those are the facts my opinion is based on, and should those facts be challenged successfully, then I'm entirely willing to change my opinion, obviously.)
I don’t know them personally so I don’t see any point in rendering judgement on them. All I know is that there are hundreds of famous people who can’t handle their business, are eccentric and probably could be diagnosed with a mental illness. Of all of them, it seems weird that Britney Spears is the one stuck in a conservatorship.
I’m trying to figure out why this happened. The only thing that makes any sense to me is that Britney is female and our court systems have a weird relationship with femininity. Seriously…why was Michael Jackson never in a conservatorship? That guy was far more whacked out than Britney ever was. Look at Kanye. Look at Johnny Depp. Go back a while and look at Howard Hughes. You could find many examples of men who are even more eccentric and unstable than Britney. But women like Britney and Amanda Bynes get stuck in conservatorships. What the actual ****? There’s something wrong here and it starts with a paternalistic and misogynistic court system.
I don’t know them personally so I don’t see any point in rendering judgement on them. All I know is that there are hundreds of famous people who can’t handle their business, are eccentric and probably could be diagnosed with a mental illness. Of all of them, it seems weird that Britney Spears is the one stuck in a conservatorship.
I’m trying to figure out why this happened. The only thing that makes any sense to me is that Britney is female and our court systems have a weird relationship with femininity. Seriously…why was Michael Jackson never in a conservatorship? That guy was far more whacked out than Britney ever was. Look at Kanye. Look at Johnny Depp. Go back a while and look at Howard Hughes. You could find many examples of men who are even more eccentric and unstable than Britney. But women like Britney and Amanda Bynes get stuck in conservatorships. What the actual ****? There’s something wrong here and it starts with a paternalistic and misogynistic court system.
General misogyny, maybe, I don't know, possible I guess. But the most likely explanation --- unless somehow our collective assessment is entirely mistaken as far as the facts of the case --- would seem to be a scheming father who's carried through a spectacularly audacious scheme of ensuring a comfortable life for himself by latching on to his daughter's wealth, with the connivance of some dishonest officials, and by taking advantage of said daughter's naivety and trust. Throw in some pretty nifty psychological games and gaslighting (witness how Britney, who's a fully grown adult and in fact not even young any more, is actually afraid of her father, and how she apparently did not know until recently that she could challenge this conservatorship arrangement in court), and what you end up with is a cool script for a psychological thriller, but in real life a shocking case of exploitation that does cry out for judgment, in every sense of that word.
This thread ... Of course, I'd noticed the news items about Britney, as who wouldn't, but one doesn't really bother with these media circus things with these celebrity types, right? But the details that have come out in this thread, both as it concerns Britney, and as it applies more generally (and especially to the elderly) is actually hair-raising. It's simply outrageous that such a system of exploitation is allowed to continue, allowing so many helpless people to be exploited like this.
Free Britney, sure, absolutely; but I do hope this case has wider effects, on conservatorships generally, and specifically on those people who are actually being exploited at this time (if the news reports quoted here are to be believed). Nothing less than a full-on investigation of all of these cases is what is called for, as well as some kind of wide-ranging reform of this whole system of conservatorships.
This FreeBritney business is clearly not just one of those trivial celebrities-and-their-crazy-fans things, but something far more important.
I did quote it. I guess I'll quote it again: "I don't really care what she did. I was like 14 at the time."
The only two possibilities here are that you're doing your stupid act, or you're siding with the father because you're one of those dudes who thinks mentally ill people aren't full-fledged people.
Some top-notch thinking here. I'm not siding with the father; I'm predisposed to not liking him one bit, but the "daddy" villain stuff consistently fails to hit the mark. As for Spears, we do not know the extent of her mental illness, so people are reduced to saying that performing dance moves while pretending to sing is evidence enough of capacity. That certainly counts for something in my non-expert opinion, but there's an unknown medical history.
Taking digs at me and my imagined "crowd" makes me think it's the latter. Either way, talking to you is pointless, so I will stop pouring my brainpower down the drain now. You can have the last word.
Your bon mots are super cute, though, by the way! *chef's kiss* Just devastating. People are really getting some food for thought from your participation in this thread.
If it's any consolation, I don't believe you know "lots" of people who behaved like Spears -- but maybe your understanding of "lots" is not unlike your understanding of periods.
When Spears can be forced to perform against her will, even when she says she is sick, that's pretty close to slavery, especially when Daddy gets a percentage of her concert revenue.
While enslaved did she sing spirituals? Why isn't she still performing against her will? Was "Daddy's" negotiated take of concert revenue unusually high? I would guess you're relying upon Spears' unchallenged statement to the court, which was leaked to the media. Since her father's lawyers are not trying this in public, we don't know the other side.
You refuse to understand that if Spears was in trouble 13 years ago, there were ways to treat her that didn't include permanent loss of her rights. You also refuse to see the obvious conflict of interest when the people who make millions from her conservatorship are the ones insisting that it's still necessary.
This is just so rich. "If Spears was in trouble 13 years ago." If?? Lemme try again to put this in words you might understand: Homegrrrrrl went cray dis | | many times in a munf. And that's just what we know about. The conservatorship is also overseen by an independent body. Does that mean the system is perfect, or even barely competent, or non-corrupt? Of course not, but it's something, and the typical rebuttal is that there's a conspiracy afoot.
If he wanted to loot her, he would've been better off using the court to get rid of rival grifters, then end the conservatorship. He would have been in a much better position to steal without oversight and leave Spears to her own self-destructive devices. Instead, the estate doubled in value, and you consistently refuse to demonstrate how "daddy's" billings are unusually high by the standards involved. "Daddy's" motives also conflict with Spears' own claims that he "loves" having "control" over her, which is more plausible than what you've cobbled together, which is that the aging Mr. Spears wants to drain Spears in "perpetuity."
Still pathetically flailing. He's supposed to be plundering an estate worth $60m. Also, that 100K is for personal spending; I repeatedly added the reminder that it does not count towards housing, staffing, taxes et cetera precisely so that you could avoid this all too predictable faceplant, which you introduced to this thread stillborn, in the context of her "effectively" having "no money." Rest assured, Spears' material standard of living far exceeds a court-ordered salary of less than 200K -- as well as the vast majority of people on this planet, including the hundreds of millions of who not so effectively live on less than $2 a day. But hey, FreeBritney. She couldn't get her nails done during the pandemic.
I wondered what kind of floating castle money-hungry "Daddy" bought with Britney's millions. He reportedly lives in an RV. That raises a red flag: An RV is one of the dumbest investments a person can make, but maybe he needs to stay mobile to avoid the glitter mob. I wonder if he also has a time-share in Florida.
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