- Ssup you beautiful bastards,
hope you having a fantastic Wednesday.
Welcome back to "The Philip DeFranco Show",
buckle up, hit that like button and let's just jump into it.
And the first thing we're gonna talk about today
is actually an update to a story we covered a while ago.
Do you remember a chair girl?
Marcella Zoia, she was that woman
out of Canada that was filmed doing this,
just chucking a chair off a balcony,
seemingly with no regard for human life
that might be down below.
There was also another angle of that incident
that ended up coming out where you can just hear the impact.
(chair crashes)
I mean, so the video of her throwing
that chair off the high rise, it's uploaded to Facebook,
it goes viral, there's outrage, she's publicly shamed.
She also ends up getting charged
with mischief related offenses.
She ends up pleading guilty back in November of last year,
and the news now is that while prosecutors
were asking for and recommending
she serve six months in jail,
she ended up only receiving probation,
community service and a fine.
And specifically, that's two years of probation,
150 hours of community service,
and about 1500 U.S. dollars.
And I will say, honestly,
I am kind of surprised that the judge was so lenient.
Looking into this,
and it's a little bit of an oversimplification,
her defense was,
"I was young, dumb, drunk, and peer pressured."
Okay, sure.
But still she could have easily killed someone.
According to reports,
there were numerous people walking below,
including a small child.
And with this story,
you hear the word remorseful connected to her,
but almost all the videos I see she's smiling,
you look to her social media, seemingly unfazed.
If anything, it looks like she's enjoying
the cameras, enjoying the attention.
If I ever drunkenly do something stupid,
I wanna do it in Canada and get judge Mara Greene.
I mean, obviously this is just my opinion,
but this is a ridiculously light sentence.
But yeah, ultimately that's where we are with this story,
we'll see if she messes up in the next two years,
and then could actually face a punishment.
But also that's a story, some of my personal opinion,
and now I do pass the question off to you.
Do you think she should have got a harsher sentence?
Or, no, do you think the judge got it right?
She's young, no one ended up actually getting hurt.
Yeah, let me know
what you're thinking in those comments down below.
And then let's talk about the first of two stories
we have today that have to do with mental health.
You know, in case you missed it,
last night there was a continuation
of the Kanye West situation.
It seemed like things were calming down,
but the Kanye went on a tweeting spree.
Among other things, he claimed that
Kim Kardashian and her mother tried
to get two doctors to 5150 him, right?
That being an involuntary psychiatric hold.
Also saying,
"I've been trying to get divorced
from Kim ever since she met with
Meek Mill to talk about prison reform."
Who go on to say that,
"Kris Jenner and Kim put out
a statement without my approval,
that's not what a wife should do."
Calling it,
"White supremacy."
Now, Kanye ended up deleting most of those tweets,
and kind of what we were left with,
was many people wondering,
"What is Kim Kardashian's response going to be?"
And this morning we learned, with Kim Kardashian releasing
a statement on Instagram and Twitter.
Starting with,
"As many of you know, Kanye has bipolar disorder."
Noting,
"Anyone who has this or has a loved one in their life
who does knows how incredibly complicated,
and painful it is to understand."
Saying she's never publicly talked about this,
because she's very protective of her children,
and Kanye's right to privacy.
But saying today she feels she should comment on it,
because of the stigma and misconceptions
about mental health.
Noting that,
"The families in these situations are powerless,
unless the member is a minor."
Saying,
"People far removed from this experience
can be judgemental and not understand
that the individual themselves
have to engage in the process of getting help,
no matter how hard family and friends try."
Adding,
"I understand Kanye is subject to criticism
because he is a public figure and his actions
at times cause strong opinions and emotions."
Calling him a brilliant but complicated person.
Going on to talk about the pressures
and the trauma he's experienced,
as well as the isolation that
is heightened by his bipolar disorder.
Going on to say,
"Living with bipolar disorder does not diminish
or invalidate his dreams and his creative ideas,
no matter how big or unobtainable they may feel to some."
And among other things saying,
"We as a society talk about giving grace
to the issue of mental health as a whole.
However, we should also give it
to the individuals who are living with it
in times when they need it the most.
I kindly ask that the media and public,
give us the compassion and empathy
that is needed so that we can get through this."
You know, here we saw a number of reactions.
We saw some praising Kim Kardashian for continuing
the conversation around mental health,
trying to take away the stigma.
Some calling it eyeopening, some dignified, classy,
but also at the same time,
you have people on the other side saying,
"Yes, it's fine to try and remove the stigma
from these conversations about mental health,
but accountability for your actions
and your words should still be a thing."
With responses like this one
from Cameron Kasky, who tweeted,
"I'm severely bipolar too,
and I hope nobody on this planet
lets me get away with the bullshit
they let Kanye West get away with."
With other people who said they struggle
with mental health issues themselves chiming in,
and saying,
"He should still be held accountable for his actions."
But you know,
this is just a complicated thing to talk about,
because a lot of the times the people
who need the help aren't at a place
where they can hold themselves accountable,
or reason with others.
And so with this story, the situation,
I'd love to know your thoughts.
And I mean, regarding the whole situation,
as well as Kim Kardashian's reaction.
But from that, I wanna share some stuff I love today,
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And the first bit of "Awesome Today" is,
you know, every now and then
I recommend a TV show, a movie, a game.
And today the game is also something
that probably doesn't need even more praise,
but it is "Ghost of Tsushima".
I'm only like seven hours in, so this is not a full review,
but I am absolutely loving it so far.
And also for TV show, I'm very late to this,
but "Search Party".
It's three seasons,
I'm almost to the end of the first one,
but loving it so far.
And we got the news of "The Legend of Korra"
is coming to Netflix in August,
and we got how "Spider-Man 2" should have ended.
Then "First We Feast" gave us an ice cream sundae battle,
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If you wanna see the full versions
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the secret link of the day, honestly, anything at all,
links as always are in the description down below.
And then as promised, the other mental health story
I wanted to talk about today was around
Britney Spears and the #FreeBritney Movement.
So if you haven't been keeping up
with Britney Spears outside of her, very random,
but also viral Tik Tok's,
you might not know that she actually
has very little control of her own life.
And in fact, that has been the case for about 12 years,
because she was placed under a conservatorship in 2008,
after she was put on an involuntary psychiatric home.
Conservatorships are court orders,
that are actually mainly used when someone's in a coma,
suffering from dementia, or has some serious illness
that makes them incapable of making judgments.
And at that time back in 2008,
a court placed her under the conservatorship of her dad,
Jamie, and an attorney by the name of Andrew Waller.
Meaning that they had control over her estate,
and needed to sign off on every decision in her life.
From business, to health, finances, and even marriage.
But also it's not just the big decisions,
reportedly, this conservatorship impacts her daily routine.
Back in 2016,
there was a New York Times article that reported,
"Her most mundane purchases from a drink at Starbucks,
to a song on iTunes are tracked in court documents,
as part of the plan to safeguard the great fortune
she has earned, but does not ultimately control."
And for years now, fans have had a huge issue with this,
because they think it gives her father
and Waller too much control over her life,
and it gives them the ability to abuse her finances.
With some saying she is mentally fit enough
to be in control herself.
Others saying she's not getting
the right care that she needs, that she's being exploited.
In general, the specific thoughts vary,
but overall most wanna see her removed
from this conservatorship.
Though, it is important to note,
there is not a lot that we know
about the inner workings of her situation or her health,
and she has continued to live this way for years.
But, you know, with this story,
we then flash-forward to 2019,
and that's when we see the
#FreeBritney Movement really take off.
In January of that year,
you had fan surprised when Britney canceled
her second Vegas residency, saying,
"She needed to spend time with her father,
and help him recover from surgery."
You had fans suspicious because it appeared,
she kind of went off the grid,
there were no public sightings of her,
she stopped posting on Instagram.
Then in March of 2019,
we saw Waller resigning as co-conservator,
handing sole control off to her father.
Then reports come out in early April that say,
"Britney checked into a mental health facility."
A few days later,
she post a quote to Instagram and captioned it,
"We all need to take time for a little me time."
There you had fans saying
it didn't match her typical posting style.
Then we saw a speculation that something wasn't right,
that concern then grew when later that month,
the podcast "Britney's Gram",
said that it received a voicemail from a paralegal source,
that claimed it worked for an attorney at Britney's case.
With that source claiming that Britney
was actually placed in a facility against her will by Jamie.
Also claiming that during her biggest residency rehearsals,
he learned that she was refusing to take her medications,
and told her she either take them,
meet with a doctor for a new type of medication,
or cancel her Vegas shows.
However, at the same time you also saw reports
that there was a source saying the singer
would be dead had she not checked in?
But still we saw this movement picking up steam,
you even had fans holding a protest outside
of West Hollywood City Hall back in April of 2019.
All of that then prompted Britney to make
a post telling fans she was doing well,
she would return soon.
Eventually she does finish treatment,
she returns to a regular type of Instagram content.
And ever since, we've seen people kind of looking
through all of our posts for any
kind of secret signals that she's in distress.
And as many have noted with this whole situation,
there seems to be a range of people expressing concerns
that do feel based in reality,
as well as people jumping to huge speculations,
based on what feels like little or selective information.
We've actually seen
Britney's camp hitting back at some people.
In fact, her conservatorship even won
a defamation lawsuit against a blogger back in 2019,
who they said was making false accusations, right?
Perpetuating claims that the conservatorship
was controlling Britney and manipulating
her social media accounts as a coverup.
As far as big changes to Britney situation,
we saw a huge announcement come in September of last year.
There we see her father, Jamie, filing a temporary request
to relieve himself of the role for personal health reasons.
At this point Britney's care manager,
Jodi Montgomery, took over the role.
And because of the Coronavirus pandemic,
that temporary conservatorship was extended
in April of this year until August 22nd.
Now all of this brings us to,
why are we talking about this today?
I mean, we've seen a recent resurgence
of the #FreeBritney Movement.
In recent weeks, fans have been pushing
around a petition asking Congress
to intervene on her behalf,
which already has over 100,000 signatures.
And also it appears that there's
a lot of attention on this again,
because Britney is reportedly scheduled
to have a court hearing today,
where many hope that her conservatorship
is going to end, right?
And for now we have to wait and see what happens there,
what information comes out next.
But also very notably during this new wave of concern,
many have turned to Britney's younger sister,
Jamie Lynn Spears for answers.
And earlier this week,
we saw Jamie Lynn sharing tweets
from celebrities in an Instagram post.
Those tweets were from celebrities discussing mental illness
and condemning those who were joking about it,
including ones we talked about yesterday from Halsey,
those tweets in general at the time,
appear to be in relation to jokes about Kanye West.
And then in a post caption, Jamie Lynn wrote,
"If you deal with mental illness,
or care for someone dealing with mental illness,
then you know how important it is
to respect the situation with privacy,
for the person and the family trying
to protect their loved ones.
No matter how it may appear to the public,
and as the public, we must learn to do the same."
And there we saw one user commenting back,
"How about your sisters OBVIOUS mental illness?
Why don't you speak on that?"
And to that Jamie Lynn responded,
"You have no right to assume anything about my sister,
and I have no right to speak about
her health and personal matter.
She is a strong badass unstoppable woman,
and that's the only thing that is obvious."
Also, according to people magazine,
another follower,
"Demanded that Jamie Lynn
and her family clarifying all these assumption."
And she allegedly responded,
"I would never speak out just to clarify things
to the public, when the person it pertains to
does not want that to happen.
I'd rather take all the hate than speak
about someone else's personal matter
that they want to keep private."
Which is why we also saw a number
of people speaking out saying that
we have to have compassion when talking
about concerns for Britney.
But ultimately that is where we are with this story,
and it's also hard for me with
this one to figure out where to end it.
And the reason for that is obviously
you wanna try to be respectful when talking
about something as sensitive as mental health.
And it appears in this situation that everyone is saying,
or showcasing that what they're doing
is in the best interest of Britney Spears, right?
"Respect her privacy, she's fine."
"No, we have to ask questions because she's not okay."
And so we're in this situation where I wanna ask you,
what are your thoughts here?
Right?
Based off the information that's out there,
which by the way, there's more stuff out there,
this is kind of the surface level of this story.
You know, do you think that
Britney Spears is being exploited?
That if she had the mental capacity
to go on numerous world tours since 2008,
doesn't she have the ability to control her life?
But at the same time,
by covering the concerns and the accusations,
am I inadvertently doing something negative?
According to Jamie Lynn,
her sister wants this to be a private situation.
Does it lead to more unnecessary unjustified anxiety
and stress for these people?
I don't know, as more of these stories have been popping up,
I've been kind of struggling with that.
So, you know what, if there is a question
I wanna pass off to you, it's more about that last part.
What are your thoughts?
I really wanna hear from you on this one.
And then let's talk about what's happening
with China and the United States.
Nothing, everything's great.
(upbeat music)
No, obviously not.
If we're talking about it on this show,
it's probably escalated.
And then most recently we've seen this escalate
is that last night the United States ordered
China to close its consulate office in Houston.
So the situation appears to have begun last night,
when people at the Chinese Consulate building
were spotted burning documents
in what appeared to be trash cans.
Soon after you had police and firefighters responding
to the scene after calls from residents in the area,
however, they didn't actually enter the grounds,
because they weren't granted access,
which notably is in accordance with diplomatic rule.
Then a few hours later,
we see a local news outlet capturing more footage,
this time of people inside the consulate grounds,
hosing down what appear to be flaming containers.
This of course raising a lot of questions,
one of them being,
"What do they know?"
I mean, it's really no secret
that the United States and China,
that the situation has been escalating,
tensions have been high.
I mean, you have the trade war,
both countries slapping sanctions on one another,
expelling journalists.
You've had the United States passing
the Uyghur Human Right Act, right?
We've talked about that situation
on the show numerous times,
how it is not front page news every day blows my mind.
The Chinese government has literally
put at least 1 million Uyghurs in interment camps,
that they call re-education centers, right?
We've seen reports of Muslims saying
they've been detained, interrogated, beaten,
because of their religion.
But also in addition to that and more recently,
you have the Hong Kong and China
National Security Law situation.
With the U.S. recently declaring that it no longer views
Hong Kong as separate and autonomous from China.
But all that said,
what we ended up seeing later last night,
is that we got an answer as to why this was happening.
You had U.S. State Department spokesperson, Morgan Ortega,
saying in a brief statement that the
Trump administration had ordered the consulate
to close "to protect American intellectual property,
and American's private information."
And adding,
"The United States will not tolerate
the PRCS violations of our sovereignty
and intimidation of our people,
just as we have not tolerated
the PRC's unfair trade practices,
theft of American jobs and other egregious behavior.
Ortega is also suggesting that China had violated
the Vienna Convention,
which governs diplomatic relations between states.
And notably here,
"Under that convention, diplomats must respect the laws
and regulations of the receiving state,
and have a duty not to interfere
in the internal affairs of that state."
They've also seen scene Houston police confirming
that employees at the consulate,
as well as at a building where many of them live
will be evicted on Friday."
But as far as what China specifically did
to cause this move from the United States,
I mean, that's all we've really seen thus far.
I mean, you have secretary of state, Mike Pompeo,
saying that,
"The U.S. has long complained
about alleged Chinese intellectual property theft.
Pompeo saying,
"President Trump has said enough,
we're not going to allow this."
But definitively that's all we know,
I mean, we don't even know why
this specific consulate was singled out.
However, with all of that said,
there is a reason that suggests that this move
is tied to something else that happened yesterday.
This, kind of when the United States accused
China of sponsoring criminal hackers,
who we're targeting Coronavirus vaccine research."
And there the Justice Department going on
to charge two former engineering students
with hacking companies engaged
in high tech manufacturing, pharmaceuticals,
and gaming software development.
As well as with targeting dissidents,
clergy and human rights activists
in the United States, China and Hong Kong."
And potentially the big key here,
the justice department also alleged
that they were aided by the
Chinese ministry of state security.
With FBI, deputy director, David Bowdich,
making very similar statements to that of Ortega, saying,
"China steals intellectual property and research,
which bolsters its economy and then they use
that illicit gain as a weapon to silence any country
that would dare challenge their illegal action.
This type of economic coercion is not
what we expect from a trusted world leader.
It is what we expect from an organized criminal syndicate."
Though, to be clear while it does appear
that these situations go hand in hand,
it hasn't been officially confirmed
if the situations are linked.
Now, as far as the reaction from China,
they're actually pretty chill about it.
President Xi releasing a statement saying,
"Yeah, that's fair."
Obviously I'm getting kidding,
President Xi doesn't like when people fuck with his honey.
You had a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry,
calling this move outrageous and unjustifying.
Saying this was an unprecedented escalation
that violates international law.
Also threatening to retaliate, saying,
"The U.S. has far more diplomatic missions
and staff working in China.
So if the U.S. has bent on going down this wrong path,
we will resolutely respond."
And as far as who could be targeted there,
who could be impacted there,
not only do you have the U.S. Embassy in Beijing,
but there's also five consulates scattered throughout China,
with media outlets speculating that the consulate office
in Wuhan might actually be the most likely candidate
to be shut down.
And this in part because it would be easy back in January,
when the Coronavirus first started breaking out in Wuhan,
the United States evacuated that consulate office.
It's a move that angered Beijing,
also, that that office has not reopened.
Though as of right now,
the only move that we've seen from China,
is China's foreign ministry renewing
its travel warning for Chinese students
in the United States.
Warning them that they might be subject
to arbitrary interrogations,
the confiscation of personal belongings,
and possible detention.
This likely alluding to the charges
against those two engineering students.
You know, looking at this situation,
it's just a small part of a very, very big deal.
I mean, you have analysts saying that,
this is the worst that relations have been
since before 1979, which is saying something,
because that's when the United States formally recognized
the People's Republic of China.
And so for now, this is where we are with this story,
this is where this story ends,
but as far as the much bigger picture,
we're gonna have to keep our eye on this.
And it's still developing and there's no reason
for us to think that we're anywhere near the end of this.
And that is where I'm going to end today's show,
as always to you beautiful bastards,
thank you for being a part of
this daily dives into the news.
Having this community makes me feel less crazy
about the crazy state of the world right now.
Also, if you're new here and you wanna join the family,
hit that Subscribe button, definitely tap the bell,
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so it looks like this and you get updates hopefully.
Also, if you're looking for more to watch right now,
you've got two options right there,
but with that's said of course as always,
my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in,
I love yo faces and I'll see you tomorrow.
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