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Thank you for this question, Hazel -and sorry, long post!To be sure the social media focus is on the Sussexes at the moment - it is a point of contention whether or not this is how the architects of this tireless promotion prefer it to be - but as a consequence, it has allowed another problem - Andrew - to slip under the radar to a large extent. However it could be considered that the Sussexes have inadvertently opened a wider debate on how the Windsors are, or are not, upholding the dignity of the Crown to the satisfaction of the people they purportedly represent and accept generous payments for housing, security, travel and upkeep from in exchange for performing their public duties.Whilst I am not pro-monarchy, I appreciate that my views are not of the majority. Yet the minority is growing - not as a result of any Republican propaganda - but as a corollary to the questionable actions of some of the Windsors themselves. I cannot for for the life of me understand why monarchists appear happy to sleepwalk towards the destruction of the very thing they claim to hold dear, choosing to attack instead the views of those ‘others’ (like me), whilst remaining oblivious to the fact the current representatives appear to be blithely fiddling while Rome burns. With the exception of Elizabeth and Anne - who have totally grasped the concept of Monarchy - it seems to me that now is the time to grasp the nettle and expect more from the r/f as a whole before it self-destructs. Elizabeth is currently the glue that binds - can anyone say the same of the existential angst-ridden Charles?So, with that said, onto one of the most rotten timbers in the House of Windsor - Andrew - who is rather benignly - and wrongly - viewed as being just a bit of an arse with dodgy mates, but who has done nothing wrong. Andrew is a public figure, who was in public office, representing the nation and someone whose actions have long been called to question, the least problematic of which - in light of his current problems - suggest strongly to amount to malfeasance in public office. The Epstein affair - which remains hanging over his head is also something that he is viewed as being ‘persecuted’ over wrongly…a view he himself is happy to promote and appears to be readily taken up by some.Andrew had known Epstein, a proven close associate of Donald Trump, since the 1990s. In 2005, the Palm Beach police collected around forty statements from women alleging molestation by Epstein after allegations he had molested a 14 year old girl, accounts that appeared to corroborate each other. Despite this evidence, the US government - represented by Anthony Acosta, reached a secret agreement with Epstein allowing him to plead guilty to just one count of soliciting prostitution from a minor. He also agreed not to contest the other forty civil claims for which it had been thought he would get a life sentence. It was described by the then Palm Beach police chief, Michael Reiter as ‘very unusual’. Acosta was later appointed Labour Secretary by Trump in 2017.In April of 1999 Andrew attended a party held in his honour by Epstein at Mar-a-Largo - Trump’s Palm Beach Club in Florida where Epstein was a member. Trump, as a close friend of Epstein, was there. The papers described Andrew at the time as being a friend of Trump. Trump said of Epstein in 2002 ‘ I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years…he’s a lot of fun to be with…he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are in the younger side.’ He was to deny this later. At this time, Mar-a-Lago employed the 16 yo Virginia Roberts as a locker room attendant. In 2015 she filed a court submission that she had been recruited at fifteen years of age - a full year before Andrews party - as a sex slave for Jeffrey Epstein and that she was used to satisfy the needs of important people - and that Prince Andrew was one of them. Her affidavit stated that she had sex with Andrew three times when she was legally a minor as far as the State of Florida was concerned. One time in London, once in New York and once at an orgy on Epstein's private island. She was expected to report back details to Epstein of these encounters where she was ordered to ‘give the Prince whatever he wanted,’ probably for blackmail purposes - there were also hidden cameras across his property.The palace has always denied the allegations sex took place. They have never explained why Andrew was in the company of a 17 year old with his arm around her bare waist. They have not provided any counter-claim to the evidence that shows flight logs placing Andrew and Virginia at the times and locations she says the sex sessions took place. The Palace has also refused to answer questions about Andrew’s friendship with Epstein or address the fact that logs for Epstein’s private plane place Andrew with Epstein on a regular basis. Nor have they given any explanation for Andrew’s 2010 walk in the park with the by then convicted and registered sex offender, Epstein. Andrew denies meeting Virginia and denies ever having sex with her.Epstein’s little black book of contacts contained 14 contact numbers for Trump, 16 numbers for Andrew including a palace number, a number for Balmoral, his personal mobile number, and one for Sandringham. He had 18 numbers for Sarah Ferguson and numbers for other well known figures including Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair. There were numbers of a lot of women and girls under the heading ‘massage’ - including Virginia. Like it or not, it was the Mail on Sunday in 2011 who broke the story with the photo of the walk in the park and later the revelation that Epstein had given £15,000 to Fergie. The Queen’s response to this was to very publicly invest Andrew with a special honour at a private ceremony at Windsor Castle - the Insignia of a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order for ‘personal services to the Queen’. However Andrew was eventually shoe-horned out of his job as special representative for the British government. His role as special representative cost the tax payer £4 million in travel, plus another £10 million in police protection for the ten years he held the role. It has not been possible to establish with any clarity the value for money for the country of the overseas trips he made. Andrew denies any allegations that he used publicly funded travel for official duties improperly even though many trips have been linked to ‘private’ meetings with foreign contacts.In 2015 Virginia’s deposition became public - although it was ruled that her allegation that she had been forced to have sex with Andrew was immaterial to the wider case surrounding Epstein. Virginia’s legal team tried twice to serve papers on Andrew once via the British Embassy and once by recorded delivery to Buckingham Palace. The receipt of the papers was refused both times. In 2019 Epstein was re-arrested and charged with sex-trafficking between 2002 and 2005. Virginia’s was one of the statements read out in court and another was Joanna Sjoberg. Andrew remained a person of interest after Epstein hung himself. In 2001, pictures of Andrew appeared surrounded by topless women on Epstein’s yacht, in Phuket. Epstein’s former Butler, Juan Alessi, in a sworn deposition in 2011, said that Andrew attended pool parties with naked women at the mansion where Andrew allegedly enjoyed massages from adolescent girls. Three of these girls were questioned under oath as to whether Andrew had had any sexual contact with them or other masseuses. They pleaded the 5th Amendment. More recently a witness has come forward who claims that Epstein arranged for three women to visit Andrew in a room in nicknamed ‘Room Britannia’ which was reserved for Andrew’s use when he stayed at Epstein’s mansion in New York. Andrew denied being at any pool parties. He has denied any sexual impropriety. It is said that he has refused to co-operate with the US legals who want to speak to him. He has denied refusing to co-operate stating that no-one has contacted him. He has currently been stepped down, but his appointment of a pr who previously rehabilitated the reputation of men accused under Operation Yewtree suggests this is only a temporary arrangement. The case remains ongoing. A spokesperson for the Duke stated that these ‘stories’ are made up to ‘traduce’ the Duke.There is also the matter of Kelly Associates. Andrew launched this in 1993 to collect payments for the use of his photographs and was listed as a director. He stated that whatever money came in would be given to charity. Private Eye found in 2004 no money had been given to charity ‘at least for the previous two years.’ The company was dissolved in 2008.There is also the matter of how he managed to sell his marital home, which had been languishing on the market for some years for over £3million over the asking price to a Kazakh contact.There is also the matter of the ski chalet in Verbier, purchased for £ 13 million in 2014. It was disclosed yesterday that Andrew and his ex wife are being sued for the sum of £6.7 million by the original owner of the chalet, who has instructed a law firm, Etude du Ritz to begin proceedings. It is not known how either the financially challenged Fergie or Andrew who received around £275,000 from the Sovereign Grant, plus a navy pension of £20,000 per year could have either afforded this purchase or hoped to pay the outstanding balance. But it is interesting that the money has failed to materialise since he stepped down from Pitch at the Palace - where he hosted his usual cabal of dodgy business contacts and often reciprocated their visits with a state funded ‘business’ trip of his own. He paid only £1 million for a 75 year lease for the prime location Royal Lodge - paying the equivalent of £1,110 per month - well under the market value even at today’s estimates and another £7.5 million in bringing it up to his exacting standards. It is not known either how he finances his opulent lifestyle. The taxpayer is entitled to be told where Andrew’s hidden wealth comes from and what he has given in return.It is to the above matters, monarchists should be looking to and ask the questions that needed to be asked. The scandals surrounding Andrew listed above are not a definitive list, but they are destructive. Harry and Meghan haven’t even got out of the gate in the race to the bottom, compared to Andrew.

“Guardians from Hell” is a term coined by Tablet Magazine regarding “The completely legal, utterly grotesque system for undermining the rights of the elderly.”Tablet Magazine caters to stories about Jewish life. For Jews, predatory guardianship, in which a person loses all of his or her civil rights, bank accounts, properties, and is placed in a nursing home against his or her will, is particularly scary — a reminder of what transpired in Nazi Germany.The latest Guardianship Nightmare story was published in The Tablet on June 21, 2018. Here it is: (I have written extensively about the guardianship nightmare. Please read my other posts about this topic.)******By Gretchen Rachel HammondAt 92-years-old,Virginia Jean Wahab hadn’t lost any of the vitality and health she maintained throughout her life. She raised two daughters as a single mom and made a home for them in the Detroit, Michigan suburb of Oak Park. Wahab worked on her feet and didn’t retire from her job at a local family restaurant until she was 88.Fiercely independent, Wahab was quite happy living at home after retirement. She had a healthy social life. She did her own grocery shopping and chores. She so rarely needed to pay a visit to a hospital that her health insurance was barely touched.Her eldest daughter Mimi Brun converted to Judaism at the age of 18. She went on to become a prolific Jewish artist, who sold her work all over the world. In 2010, she began to establish art schools for children under 12 in France and then Chicago. Although Brun was estranged from her younger sister, she and her mother were extremely close. Wahab was Catholic, but Brun noted that she had the fastidious nature of a Jewish mother.Wahab’s legal affairs were in order including a durable power of attorney she had signed in January, 2016 which named Brun as a patient advocate (the handler of her medical needs) as well as giving her daughter charge of her financial affairs should she ever become incapacitated. Wahab’s home was also registered in Brun’s name in a quit claim deed signed by Wahab on December 29, 2014.The two talked on the phone every day. Brun particularly relished visits with her mother during which she would gift her a piece of art. Wahab was an eager collector of Brun’s work.That was two years ago. Everything has changed since then.In 2016, after a fall at her home, Wahab was diagnosed with a slight cognitive problem but otherwise deemed healthy. Wahab’s doctor recommended that Brun find her a short-term rehab facility.“I looked for a Jewish one,” Brun said. “They were all full. I found Lourdes because it had a five-star reputation.”On February 23, that year, with the approval of her HMO, Wahab was admitted for short-term rehabilitation at Lourdes Senior Community in Waterford, Michigan—a nonprofit elder care facility founded by Dominican nuns in 1948. According to the organization’s 2016 I-990s, Lourdes listed end of year assets of $22,096,166.00. Expenses totaled $14,476,851.00Brun said she made her mother’s meals and went to each of her physical and occupational therapy sessions.“The insurance granted her up to 120 days,” Brun remembered. “She was excelling like a champ but the therapist at Lourdes started telling me she suspected Mom should not live alone. Mom and I decided that I was going to go back to France and Chicago, put my businesses on hold, rent out my homes and move my work and studio to Mom’s. It was what she had dreamed about—to spend the end of her life living with me.”Brun left for France, placing her aunt and sister in charge of caring for Wahab while she was in rehab.“I called Lourdes every day,” Brun said. “Then the insurance cut off.”Brun asserted that she spoke to Lourdes social worker Sara Van Acker and pledged that she would enter into a payment plan. Shortly thereafter, however, she received an email from a Lourdes administrator which stated “Your payment plan with Sara Van Acker was not approved by me. I cannot receive partial payment nor be patient for your payment plan time frame.”On June 6, Lourdes filed a petition for guardianship on the grounds of a $31,416.65 past-due bill. Brun said that the petition notice was sent to an address that was not hers. The petition shows that the address used to serve Brun belongs to an apartment complex in Harper Woods Michigan—one hour’s drive from Lourdes and 30 minutes from Oak Park. On the address, no apartment number is listed. It is also not the address listed on the Power of Attorney paperwork Brun says she provided to Lourdes.Brun rushed back to Michigan. On the morning of June 29, 2016, she attended a hearing presided over by Oakland County Probate Judge Linda Hallmark, one of four judges serving there. Hallmark vacated Wahab’s power of attorney and appointed a local attorney Jon Munger as Wahab’s guardian. According to Brun, neither she nor her mother ever requested Munger’s services.Also appointed by the court was a man named Matthew Jason Brown, another local lawyer. Brown was named as Wahab’s guardian ad litem (GAL)—a person entrusted with investigating what course of action is in the best interest of a person unable to care for themselves. The June 29 hearing was also attended by two representatives from Lourdes: Van Acker and Lisa Hibbert from the organization’s accounts receivable department.According to court transcripts from that morning, Van Acker stated that she had filed the petition for guardianship because “there’s a concern about the nursing home being paid.”Brown wanted to know if an application for Medicare benefits for Wahab had been made.“Not to my knowledge,” Van Acker replied.“Are you familiar with [Wahab’s] medical condition?” Brown wondered, to which Van Acker answered “slightly.”When Brown asked Brun if she had any objection to the petition, Brun replied “I am contesting this hearing because I was not served. I’ve had no time to get a lawyer.”“Well, you’re here Ma’am,” Hallmark replied, “and it’s a guardianship so there is some urgency about it, so we’re going to proceed.”When Brun protested that she had been appointed as Wahab’s guardian through a power of attorney, Hallmark quickly rebuked her.“That’s different than an appointment by the court,” Hallmark said. “Has any court appointed you guardian?”“No, but I haven’t applied for it yet,” Brun replied. “I’d like to petition for it, but I need time.”Hallmark did not respond to this request.In delivering his report to the court, Brown went on to state that he had visited Wahab at Lourdes only two days earlier. During that visit, he said, he “explained to Wahab her rights and gave her a copy of [the petition].”“She didn’t have any objection to the appointment of a public administrator at that time,” he added. “But I would note that she was not oriented to date, time, and place.”Brown also stated that he “went over [Wahab’s] medical condition with Ms. Van Acker and she went over with me sheets that said she was suffering from dementia, unspecified lack of coordination, osteoarthritis, two…type two diabetes, muscle weakness and hypertension.”Transcripts from that day indicate that Hallmark never asked for medical reports to prove Brown’s assertions.Brun told Hallmark that she had witnesses who would speak on her and Wahab’s behalf. Those witnesses, however, were never called.“My Mom needs love,” Brun went on to tell Hallmark. “No one loves my Mom more than me. When I asked my mom ‘what’s your greatest desire?’ she said ‘I want to go home. I want to go home with you.’”“I want to take her home,” Brun begged Hallmark.“I’m going to grant the petition,” Hallmark said. “I would like to appoint Mr. Munger [as guardian]. If he thinks that an independent medical or some other action is required that’s fine. I’m also going to appoint [Munger] as special fiduciary to make sure we have the Medicaid application on track. I’ll revoke the power of attorney today. If it’s appropriate that [Brun] should serve, if you want to get counsel and bring the matter in, we’ll consider that.”“She hasn’t lost any of her rights…” Hallmark added, speaking of Wahab. “She has a guardian and it’s Mr. Munger…”Brun made one last desperate plea. “Is there a reason why?”“Yes,” Hallmark replied. “Because she’s in need of a guardian and I’m appointing Mr. Munger. That’s why.”Hallmark never mentioned the grounds by which she was revoking the power of attorney.The court adjourned.Brun’s fight to have her mom released from Lourdes would eventually result in Hallmark issuing an injunction restraining her from entering Lourdes premises, denial of her visitation rights (even when chaperoned by a nun and a locally renowned, retired judge) and a bench warrant from Hallmark’s court for Brun’s arrest.Two days after Munger had been assigned, Brun received an email from his office which stated “It will be necessary to close [Wahab’s] bank accounts and locate all assets in order to apply for Medicaid. I understand that there is at least one account at ****** Bank with both of your names on it. It would be more efficient if you cooperate with the closing of the account(s). I will need proof of closure for the Medicaid application. I will then open a guardianship account at ******** for your mother, pay her bills, and apply for Medicaid.”Even though Wahab was originally admitted for a short-term rehab at Lourdes, on July 1, 2016, according to his own accounting, Munger completed a long-term medical assistance application that entitled Lourdes to three months of retroactive disbursement, faxing the application to Michigan State’s Department of Human Services. Five days later, Munger completed and mailed another admissions packet to Lourdes for Wahab.A July 17, 2016 affidavit, signed by Wahab and filed in court, read “I want to go home with my daughter Mimi.”On August 15, 2016 Brun’s then-attorney sent a letter to Lourdes CEO Sr. Maureen Comer stating “Ms. Brun has not and has never been opposed to negotiating the payment of the outstanding bill. Ms. Brun has made arrangements to take Ms. Wahab home and Ms. Wahab has even signed an affidavit stating she wants to return home.”Two days later, Brun, her attorney and Lourdes received an email from Munger which stated that he was clarifying “for both Lourdes and for yourself, that I am not authorizing either Mimi Brun or yourself to discuss, negotiate or otherwise become involved in any potential discharge plan nor payment.”Munger also went on to say “there have already been repeated complaints about your client’s behavior while at Lourdes facility. I have not yet taken full steps to curtail your client’s visitation, but we may need to revisit that issue.”In a subsequent series of emails Brun’s then-attorney called Munger’s actions “highly inappropriate. You are needlessly dragging on this litigation so you can keep billing and billing.”Munger replied “You and your client will cease any communication with Lourdes administration or management. Your failure to abide by this requirement will simply force me to place the matter before Judge Hallmark, where I will ask that both you and your client be sanctioned for this grossly unprofessional, abusive and threatening behavior. I simply will not allow either of you to interfere with Virginia’s care.”On August 18, 2016, Munger billed Wahab $245 for his drafting “of a petition to limit visitation.”An email that day from Munger to Brun’s attorney stated that it was “due to your attempts to pay Lourdes.” It makes no mention of any complaints about Brun’s behavior.Because he was Wahab’s guardian, Munger was legally permitted to bill his ward for any work on her behalf. A 2017 statement of other fees and services billed to Wahab by Munger and Associates shows that in little over a three-month span, Munger billed Wahab a total of $6,097.00 in fees and services.Brun filed an emergency petition to have Wahab released from Lourdes. In an October 5 hearing in Hallmark’s courtroom, Munger was represented by attorney Joseph Ehrlich.Munger billed Wahab $450 to “attend hearing on court motions and “[a] conference with judicial staff attorney.”Following the hearing, Ehrlich secured an order from Hallmark compelling Brun to pay $25,000 to Lourdes and gave her 25 days to come up with the cash.Brun told me that, because it did not include the provision for her mother to be released, she refused to pay it.A subsequent motion Brun filed to vacate the order stated that “upon review of the transcript of this hearing, at no point did Brun ever agree to pay $25,000 to Lourdes. It does not comport with the settlement placed on record.”Lourdes retained attorney Mary Lyneis to represent them.A November 2016 letter from Lyneis to Brun accused her of violating “Court Orders entered into the Probate Court.”While it did not mention which of those orders Brun was supposed to have violated, it went on to accuse her of “Threatening conduct toward the staff at Lourdes. In addition, you upset your mother with unfounded allegations the staff at Lourdes. As a result, you are hereby notified that you are no longer permitted on the premises. Should you attempt to enter the premises, appropriate law enforcement will be contacted.”The letter offered no evidence of any court order sanctioning a decision to bar Brun from the premises.In a February 2, 2017 email, Lyneis told Brun “We want to be paid. You cannot expect to show up to see your mother when you have not paid for the privilege and you have disappeared since November.”A subsequent email from Munger to Brun stated “If you want to visit your mother and or even remain in contact with her, you would be better served by complying with the existing court order than by continuing to harass everyone trying to see your mother. In particular, pay the $25,000.”Concerned about being able to pay her legal fees, Brun sold her and her mother’s home to Michigan banker Bradley Silverstein on the proviso that he draft a lease for her and Wahab to live there. A lease with that condition was drafted on February 28, 2017.Two days later on March 1, 2017, Ehrlich, Lyneis, and Munger appeared before Hallmark and asked for a series of ex parte orders against Brun.Ex parte orders are issued without the presence of or even notification of the parties it affects. Since due process is Constitutionally guaranteed, these orders are supposed to be temporary while allowing ample room for them to be contested.Brun was not present at the hearing when the ex parte orders were issued. At the time, with the support of her doctor and with his medical order in the court file, she had requested a two-month medical leave from the court.Hallmark also issued a permanent injunction against Brun restraining her from entering Lourdes premises, and a bench warrant for arrest alleging that her refusal to pay the $25,000.00 was in contempt of court.Regardless, Munger and Ehrlich requested that the house be transferred back to Wahab’s name “and then [to] permit Jon Munger to sell the house in order to pay for her care, so that [Wahab] would then qualify for needs-based benefits.” The court issued this order on June 28, 2016.Brun told me that, in the months that followed, Munger attempted to force his way into the house. On August 8, 2017, she filed a police report, complaining that Munger had attempted to enter the house on three separate occasions.When Brun replied that she had never received such an order, Munger wrote “A hearing was held on June 21 in front of Judge Linda Hallmark, and you received notice of that. I have every legal right to enter your mother’s home, and I have done so.”A June 30 email from Munger to Brun read “As you are aware, Judge Hallmark entered an order in the eviction case requiring you to vacate your mother’s home by Wednesday, June 28th 2017. I went to the home with several others on the following day, June 29th, and it was apparent that no one was residing in the home. Accordingly, we had the locks changed and the home secured. Upon our entry into the home, it was apparent that you had left a great deal of valuable personal property behind, including artwork. We deem this to be abandoned property under the law. For the time being, we are holding that personal property and artwork as security for repayment of the $25,000 you were ordered to pay on October 5.”Brun has filed criminal police reports for larceny home invasion and theft against Munger with the Oak Park Police. The police took no subsequent action.On August 30, Munger billed Wahab $245 for “a hearing to set aside deed” and $119 for calls to the real estate agent and the locksmith.Brun said she was not present at any such hearing.Brun’s attorney Phillip Strehle would later tell Hallmark “In October ’16 [Munger] filed a forwarding address card with the post office which has Mimi’s name on top and Munger’s address on it. So, he already knew, as of October ’16, that whatever mail he sent to the house, she would never get, because he sent it to himself. Mr. Ehrlich told me out in the hall that the order of August 30 was entered because it was uncontested. There’s a reason why it was uncontested; because Ms. Brun was not properly served.”Brun finally got a break in October 2017 when attorney Lisa Orlando became Wahab’s new Guardian ad Litem.In two reports Orlando submitted to Hallmark in 2018, she wrote “I visited [Wahab] at Lourdes Senior Community first on November 16, 2017 and then again more recently, on February 28, 2018, at which time I again served her a copy of the petition, notice of hearing and the order appointing a Guardian ad Litem. I don’t believe that Virginia was able to understand the information being presented, however she did clearly say that she did not want to go to court. I then asked her if she wanted Mimi to be her guardian and she said ‘of course!’”“In the opinion of this GAL, it is Virginia Wahab a 94-year-old woman, who is paying the price of these ongoing legal disputes and suffering harm by not being able to see her daughter for more than 17 months,” Orlando added. “To isolate and prohibit an aging Mother from seeing her daughter is heartbreaking to this GAL. Mimi Brun has priority under the statute and is Virginia’s choice to be her Guardian.”An affidavit signed by Wahab’s sister Sr. Helen Essa reads “Mimi is a devoted daughter and attended to every detail of her mother’s care not ever putting her own needs first. I know how desperate my sister is to go home with Mimi and have Mimi care for her. I pray, as we all do, that my sister will not die in a nursing home.”In concluding her report, Orlando cited Michigan statutes.“Under MCL 700.5313(3)(b), [Brun] has priority over a professional guardian,” she wrote. “’If suitable and willing to serve as guardian, the court shall appoint, an adult child of the legally incapacitated individual.’” Under MCL 700.5313(2)(b), [Brun] is Virginia’s choice to serve as her guardian. I discovered no clear and convincing evidence why the Petition should not be granted.”Yet, Munger still remains as the sole guardian for Wahab who is still at Lourdes. Despite her best hopes, Brun has yet to see her and bring her homeThe question remains as to why the Oakland County Probate Court effectively became a debt collector for a nursing facility and why the now 95-year-old Wahab is still held there despite her own Guardian ad Litem opinion that Brun replace Munger as guardian and family members’ pleas to Hallmark that Wahab be allowed to go home with her daughter.On May 25, 2018 Hallmark vacated the order to pay $25,000.00. Hallmark also found Brun not guilty of contempt of court.Brun does not believe the petitions she filed in October to have Munger removed as guardian will even be heard until July.“I have been offering to pay Lourdes the money to let my mother go but Munger refuses to accept my working with the facility,” she said. “I promised Mom that her last chapter would be her best. But I think my mom will die before Munger ever lets her go.”Strehle, who has been Brun’s attorney since October, 2017, told me that he felt the entire case against Brun was “bizarre.”“The transcript of June 29, 2016 does not comply with the statute or the court rules,” he said. “There’s not a single bit of evidence to support even the creation of a guardianship; not one iota of evidence.”He added that for a nursing home to present a petition for guardianship based on a past-due bill is something “I’ve never seen in all my years of doing probate. Ever.”In the [June 29, 2016] transcript, the guardian ad litem [Brown] is the one that’s asking the questions,” he added. “Not Munger. Not an attorney for Lourdes. That’s even more bizarre. Usually, the person asking the questions is the petitioner not the guardian at litem. The court grated it because of an overdue bill. That’s not a basis for getting even a limited guardianship.”Strehle also addressed the March 1, 2017 subsequent bench warrant and injunction issued against Brun.“In my view, the bench warrant against Mimi was entered improperly because of the $25,000 provision which the court recently vacated,” he said in an interview with me. “In her petition Lyneis was seeking a restraining order against Mimi. A restraining order lapses on its own in 14 days. That’s not what she got. The court granted her a broad injunction. Lyneis had a huge burden of proof to get the restraining order. After that, she was supposed to notify us of a hearing within 14 days. She didn’t do that. It was based on no evidence whatsoever.”“After all this time, I still have not seen any evidence to support [Munger’s] guardianship,” he concluded. “I have emails from Lourdes saying ‘we don’t want [Wahab] here.’”“Twice on the record now in open court Ehrlich has said he wants to get the house to pay fees,” [referring to both his and Munger’s legal fees]. “I don’t see how that’s a basis for keeping this poor woman in this location, isolated, with no visitation. I’ve never seen it before in 31 years of doing this.”I reached out to both Lourdes CEO Sr. Maureen Comer and Lyneis. In a series of email responses, Lyneis requested my “credentials” in the form of a “CV”. When I refused to provide her with a resume, Lyneis declined to confirm or deny any of the emails or statements on court transcripts made by her or Lourdes staff members. She also refused to answer a long list of questions pertaining to everything from Wahab’s initial medical diagnosis to why a petition for guardianship was filed over a past-due bill.I also reached out to Hallmark via email and telephone and was told by a staff member in her office that, since she had not responded to my email, it was an indication that she had no comment.An Oakland County Probate Court Administrator later replied, “In the interest of fairness to those involved, it is this court’s policy not to comment on pending litigation.”Wahab’s first GAL, Brown, however, did respond. “As I stated in my report, Ms. Wahab consented to the guardianship,” he wrote. “I also felt, after interviewing Ms. Wahab, that she needed a guardian to be appointed. The information regarding the medicals was given to me by the nursing home regarding Ms. Wahab’s medical condition and are consistent with my report and testimony.”This is not a story drawn from a dystopian fantasy. It is happening today all over America, where Probate Courts employ an exponentially growing network of professional, for-profit guardians.I talked at length to six other families—in Michigan, Arizona, New York and Illinois respectively about their experiences with predatory guardians; some are court appointed professionals, others are family members granted leave by Probate Courts to cut their siblings out of a ward’s life.The tapestry of each story was as complicated as it was heartbreaking. Each narrator pulled on the memory of each thread of that tapestry and found tears, despair, rage and frustration behind it.In October, 2017 WXYZ television in Lansing, Michigan launched an investigation into the Oakland County Probate Court and its court appointed guardians Barbara Andruccioli and Thomas Brennan Frasier whom a family member accused of neglecting and financially exploiting her parents Lorrie and Sandy Kapp.Andruccioli and Brennan have yet to respond to these allegations.The Oakland County Probate Court judge in the case, Daniel A. O’Brien, issued an ex parte order denying WXYZ the ability to show the Kapp’s faces.Andruccioli was subsequently fired as a public administrator and has become part of a still ongoing criminal investigation by both the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office and the Sherriff’s office yet she still remains conservator and guardian for cases at the Oakland County Probate Court.According to court documents from the Michigan Court of Appeals, in 2011, Hallmark appointed Munger as guardian to Angela M. Robinson who had been declared legally incapacitated. In 2012, her parents Remo and Marie Marzella petitioned Hallmark to remove Munger as guardian and transfer her to their care. They claimed Munger “had not investigated Angela’s best interests or made proper decisions regarding her future care.”Following an evidentiary hearing, Hallmark denied the petition.“I am not going to remove Mr. Munger at this point,” she said. “I don’t find that Mr. Munger did anything wrong.”In a subsequent 2014 lawsuit, the Marzellas accused Munger of committing legal malpractice. Among the complaint’s allegations, Munger “failed to investigate and ascertain Angela’s best interests with respect to her living arrangements, advocated for Angela to live in an institution instead of with her family” and “failed to foster Angela’s family relationships and family involvement in her care and life.”“Angela and her special needs trust were subsequently shorted and she and her family suffered economic and non-economic damages,” the complaint added.Munger claimed that, because Hallmark had already ruled he “did nothing wrong” during the petition for his removal, the Marzellas were barred by “collateral estoppel” (preventing an issue from being relitigated.)In 2016, the Michigan Court of Appeals found that “no discovery was even conducted before [the evidentiary] hearing. Simply stated, the probate court’s decision not to remove Munger as Angela’s guardian was not tantamount to a finding that Munger did not commit legal malpractice or breach fiduciary duties owed to Angela.”It concluded that the Marzellas “never had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issues underlying their claims.”The same court dealt with the 2007 case of Brenda Cupp—who suffered head injuries after a car accident. According to court documents, her sister Dana Browning had been appointed as guardian. After Cupp’s attorney contested the case, Munger was appointed co-guardian and co-conservator of Cupp’s special needs trust.Five weeks later, Munger petitioned the probate court for Browning’s removal as co-conservator “on the basis that she acted erratically during Cupp’s independent medical examination [IME] and Munger heard second-hand that Browning intended that the money in Cupp’s estate would not be used to pay legal fees.”The petition was granted.In 2010, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled “the IME incident was not sufficient good cause to remove Browning from her co-conservatorship position a mere five weeks after her appointment” and that “the probate court abused its discretion in finding that good cause existed to remove Browning as co-conservator.”In 2002, Joseph Ehrlich, was sanctioned over $113,000 by a Michigan Court for “pursuing frivolous litigation” in a case disputing the estate of John J. Fannon, Jr.Ehrlich appealed in 2005 and, in denying that appeal, the court stated that “The record reflects that, when they joined the case, Ehrlich and his firm continued to file pleadings and documents that lacked factual and legal support. The record clearly reflects that Ehrlich failed to make reasonable inquiry into the factual and legal merit of the claims he asserted on behalf of plaintiff when he knew or should have known that they lacked such support.”On his website, Munger claims to be an Oakland County Public Administrator although an email from State Public Administrator Michael Moody reads “Mr. Munger’s appointment as an Oakland County Public Administrator was terminated on October 6, 2017.” Munger is also not among the Oakland County Probate Court’s list of Public Administrators.Between June 29, 2016 and September 19, 2017 Munger’s statement of fees and services billed for his guardianship of Wahab totaled $12,282.I reached out to Munger by email and telephone and was told by his office secretary that he had no comment.I reached out to Ehrlich via email and telephone. His office secretary responded that Ehrlich had never received the email. When I asked to speak to him in person, she concluded the conversation.There are also a number of cases involving Holocaust survivors.Al Katz barely escaped numerous Nazi camps, including Dachau, only to become the ward of guardians in Florida at the age of 89, as court documents show.“My father came to the United States in 1946,” his daughter, Dr. Beverly Newman, told me.“His mommy, daddy, little brother, older sister, her husband and their one-month-old baby had all been murdered. He was a walking skeleton with no money, no job and didn’t know the English language. He felt very alone.”Nevertheless, Newman remembered that her father never lost a wonderful sense of humor while he lived by the motto “Never forget, never forgive and never be bitter.”It was at a Purim ball in Indianapolis that Katz met Sophia Passo.“He was stricken with love,” Newman laughed. “He asked her over and over again to marry him. She just would not do it.”Katz started to work in bakery and then a packing house where he was injured twice. It was when Sophia was visiting him in the hospital that she relented.He and Sophia were married in 1947. Katz began a successful insurance career. The couple had two children, Newman and her younger brother, and were inseparable for over thirty years until Sophia passed away in 1977.The devastation Katz felt remained with him the rest of his life.After retirement, Newman said that her father became a snowbird, spending winters in Florida.In 2009, concerned for his health, one of Katz’s doctors contacted a public guardian.That individual was M. Ashley Butler who worked in the Office of Public Guardian for three Florida counties since 2006 together with a partner, Jo Eisch, under the business name Aging Safely, Inc.Newman maintained that the first she heard about it was when she was told by Katz’s Indianapolis attorney that “there are people poking around about putting your father into guardianship. That was August of 2009.Newman added that hospital records she obtained from the time include numerous orders made by the guardians not to inform her of any medical decisions or procedures.“On Rosh Hashanah, September 18, [Butler and Eisch] filed papers to put my dad into Emergency Temporary Guardianship,” Newman said, adding that neither guardian had ever met her father. “They didn’t even know him. I have the transcripts of the hearing. The judge knew that I had not been contacted and went ahead and approved it anyway. Things then moved very quickly.”A 2011 Florida Supreme Court complaint filed by Newman and her husband noted that Bradenton attorney Ernie Lisch was appointed by the court to act as Al’s counsel.“Despite many irregularities at the hearing, Lisch took no steps to advocate for or protect the rights of his client,” the complaint reads. Lisch contested these allegations, and the Florida Appellate Court ruled in his favor.Newman discovered that Katz had been placed in Casa Mora Nursing Home in Bradenton.In 2015, the Bradenton Herald reported that the facility was one of three on a Florida watch list “due to prior problems or deficiencies.”The Herald noted, among those deficiencies, “A 58-year-old Casa Mora resident and the resident’s representative had requested in a resuscitate order that the resident receive CPR if she was ever found unresponsive. This procedure was not followed when she fell unresponsive. She was pronounced deceased after not receiving CPR.”According to the article, these deficiencies have since been corrected.Casa Mora is no longer on the state’s watch list.Newman and her husband Larry immediately drove from their home in Indianapolis down to Florida.She asserted that, shortly before they arrived on September 20, Butler utilized the Florida Baker Act—which allows for involuntary commitment—in order to place Katz in Manatee Memorial Hospital.“They said that he had taken his walker and bumped it into someone at the nursing home,” Newman said. “But my Dad was barely able to use a walker. He was in very poor physical condition and not a danger to anyone else. They never told him anything. Not what was going on, nothing. We arrived while daddy was in the Manatee Hospital emergency room. It was horrifying. My dad just wanted to go home. A psychiatrist chosen by Butler and Eisch made a No-Contact order. The hospital kept my daddy in an underground unit, like a dungeon. There were armed guards and these huge electronic doors. A nurse told us he was pacing the halls like a caged animal. It was traumatizing.”She added that Katz was there for three weeks.Newman remembered Katz calling Butler and Eisch “Nazis” to their faces.Meanwhile, like the family members in Michigan, Newman launched a fight to have Butler’s guardianship removed and her father returned to her care, as court documents show.Opposed by Lisch, the case was heard on October 26, 28, and 30, 2009 in Florida’s Twelfth Judicial Circuit Court.“In the intervening three weeks, Katz was repeatedly hospitalized and near death,” the 2011 complaint noted.“Guardianship in Florida is a very lucrative industry,” Newman said. “People who go into guardianship lose every cent they ever had. Their families are wrecked.”She stated that the guardians even took control over her father’s Holocaust Survivor Compensation checks as part of their oversight of her father’s assets.I attempted to track down Butler. The telephone numbers for Aging Safely have been disconnected. Email addresses for Butler have been shut down. The last I-990 tax return filed by the organization in 2014 listed bet assets of $1,767.00.As of publication, Eisch had not returned phone calls or email requests for comment.In Newman’s case, Florida Circuit Court Judge Paul E. Logan (now retired) restricted visits to her father to only three hours-per-day. “He said I could never tell my daddy that I was fighting in court to get him home or that he was under guardianship,” Newman asserted. “If I did, I would lose visitation completely. Daddy was crying and saying, ‘Take me home!’ ‘Why do you have to leave me?’ ‘Why can’t I go home with you?’ and I was prohibited by court order from telling him the truth.”On November 23, 2009 Newman won her petition for guardianship of her father but not his property.“I didn’t care,” she said. “I just wanted to get daddy out of the nursing home and hospitals and give him a real life. It was such a relief that I couldn’t stop crying.”However, by then, Katz was extremely ill and in the hospital.“I spent Thanksgiving that year with my daddy and in the hospital,” Newman said. “In some ways, that as the best and worst Thanksgiving of my life. At least I could shower him with love and attention.”By the time Newman and her husband got Katz home, it was Hannukah.“He was finally smiling,” she said. “By New Year’s Eve, he was able to eat and talk. We took him to a restaurant that he liked. We got him all dressed up. He wanted us to take pictures of us celebrating New Year’s Eve. It was a happy time.”Their time was all too short. Katz passed away on July 11, 2010.“He had no catheters or feeding tubes in him,” Newman said. “He was just as normal as you could be at 90-years-old.”In January that same year, Lisch filed a petition for $24,354.15 in attorney’s fees and expenses.“For doing essentially nothing,” Newman asserted.She opposed it and took the case all the way to Florida’s and then the United States Supreme Court, the latter of which declined to hear the case. Ultimately, Lisch prevailed in his original petition.Even nine-years after her father’s death, Newman said she is still subjected to verbal abuse and numerous accusations from those with a vested interest in a system against which she has actively taken a stand. Meanwhile, she continues to fight in Indianapolis to settle her father’s estate and to remove liens on Katz’s properties.In 2006, in the case of Marshall v. Marshall, the USSC determined that issues dealing with Probate Courts are “reserved to state probate courts” and “also precludes federal courts from disposing of property that is in the custody of a state probate court.”In memory of her father, the Newmans founded the Al Katz Center for Holocaust Survivors and Jewish Learning in Bradenton.“We serve many hundreds of persons every year through advocacy and programming open to the entire community,” the Center’s website reads, “and we are life-sustaining and life-saving to elders in peril and trauma.”On the opposite side of the country, the probate and guardianship system created another activist and family advocate out of an individual who found herself opposing those who have successfully exploited it.The Bradenton police department wouldn’t help Newman. Brun said that the police in her case were similarly unable to act, unless it was to prevent her from entering Lourdes to see her mother.[T}here is an organization that advocates for those working in the profession.The National Guardianship Association (NGA) was formed during a national conference in Chicago in 1988—one year after the AP’s article was released.In the 30 years that followed, the NGA’s membership increased to over 1,000.Sally Hurme is an attorney and member of the NGAs Board of Directors. She said that, while she is not and has never been a guardian, she has been involved in developing guardianship policy for decades.“NGA does not have any mechanism by which to do anything other than to keep developing standards of practice and educating individuals who want to provide excellence in guardianship,” she said.According to the NGA’s website, those standards of practice have increased from the original seven to their present number of 25. In 1997, the NGA voted to create an entirely separate entity, the Center for Guardianship Certification (CGC) on whose board Hurme has also served.It states its vision as one in which “every professional guardian will obtain and maintain CGC certification.”“The CGC is the only national certifying body for guardians,” Hurme said. “Any guardian; professional, family, public or volunteer is welcome and encouraged to become certified.”Among the five pillars Hurme listed as necessary to obtain certification is an examination.To become a Nationally Certified Guardian (NCG), the $375 exam is scored on core competencies including professional practices, knowledge of person under guardianship, application of surrogate decision making, medical decision making and personal and financial management.The competencies listed in the $525 examination to be certified as a National Master Guardian (NMG) are basically the same with the addition of “professional practices of a master guardian” and knowledge of the guardianship planning process.Hurme stated that, at present, there are approximately 1,500 certified guardians.“There is an agreement to a disciplinary process which receives grievances, determines whether there is probable cause to go forward with a professional review board,” she stated.Ironically, according to Hurme, the professional review board is one in which “due process” is afforded to a certified guardian while a determination is made as to whether or not they have violated standards of practice.“The professional review board has a range of sanctions from a letter of concern, to suspension, dismissal to decertification,” Hurme said. “The one problem with the CGC process is that we can only hear grievances if the individual is certified. If we receive a complaint about a guardian that is not certified, our hands are tied. There’s nothing the CHC can do.”The CGC’s list of disciplined guardians posted on its website numbers 12 and includes April Parks alongside guardians from Oregon, Texas, Utah, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon and Michigan.The CGC lists 12 States that ask for mandatory CGC certification for its guardians or have their own State-specific licensing requirements. In the case of California, it’s a combination of the two. Michigan is not among them. Since 2016, Florida has employed The Office of Public and Professional Guardians (OPPG) to regulate “more than 550 professional guardians statewide, which includes investigating and, if deemed appropriate, the discipline of guardians in violation of the law.“NGA and many of the other organizations such as those that are members of the National Guardianship Network are continually striving to make guardianship work better for those individuals who will need it,” Hurme said.As an example of those efforts, Hurme noted the Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other Protective Arrangements Act (UGCOPAA). The over 150-page document was drafted, over the course of two years, by a committee consisting of multiple stakeholders including representatives from the American Bar Association (ABA) and was approved and recommended for enactment in all US States at a July, 2017 meeting of the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws.Hurme stated that members of the NGA, herself included acted as technical advisors to the commission “in making sure that the new model; law addresses many of the issues that are floating around in guardianship; perhaps that there are too many guardianships and that there needs to be more emphasis in limiting the authority of the guardian, better recognition of the due process rights of the individual and a more person-centered focus of the individual in the hearing process that limits the authority of the guardian.”American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Senior Legislative Representative Diana Noel was part of the drafting committee.“I felt as if it was a very thorough process that was very public,” she said. “There were a lot of people in the room. One of the things that is very important; that the drafting committee really wanted to come across, which is why the name is so long, is to recognize that guardianship was a system that was really not including the individual that it was about. One of the things the act did was to update terminology. Instead of using the term ‘ward’, it’s ‘individual’ so that the focus is on the individual and so that they have a say in their care.”A Uniform Law Commission document encouraging States to adopt the UGCPOAA, declares that, under the act, “Each guardianship and conservatorship will have an individualized plan that considers the person’s preferences and values. Courts will monitor guardians and conservators to ensure compliance and approve updates to the plan in response to changing circumstances.”It adds that “Without a court order, a guardian under UGCOPAA may not restrict a person under guardianship from receiving visits or communications from family and friends for more than seven days, or from anyone for more than sixty day” and that the act “prohibits courts from issuing guardianship or conservatorship orders when a less-restrictive alternative is available.”These provisions and others in the UGCOPAA could have protected Brun and her mother had the act been adopted in Michigan.It hasn’t.As of the time of publication only Maine has adopted it. The New Mexico State Legislature introduced it this year and opened it up for public comment.Hurme pledged that the NGA would direct its advocacy efforts to assisting States in understanding the importance of what she called “a forward-thinking law.”“This isn’t a partisan issue,” [Noel] asserted. “This isn’t a caregiving and an aging issue. I don’t want you to think that, because States haven’t adopted it, that means that they are not looking at it. They may be looking at it. These things take time. They look at their current laws, they see what’s working and what’s not working and how things like the Uniform Act could help fix what’s not working or enhance what is.”“As long as I’ve been here, I’ve been working on this issue,” she said. “States have been working on and updating their statutes because they are pretty outdated. They’ve been around for a very long time. It’s a very complicated system. What we’re doing and what states are doing is making sure that policy and practice meet and complement each other.”The Elder Abuse and Prevention Act passed by the senate and signed into law by President Trump in 2017, charged the Department of Justice with establishing “best practices for data collection on elder abuse” and “in coordination with the Elder Justice Coordinating Council, [to] provide information, training, and technical assistance to help states and local governments investigate, prosecute, prevent, and mitigate the impact of elder abuse, exploitation, and neglect.”“We have a real long history in combatting abuse and exploitation and ensuring that State laws address and prevent abuse by a guardian or a neighbor or whoever,” Noel said. “We’ve really been engaged in working not just with State legislators but State courts.”Wondering about the laws in a State like Michigan and how far they extended in the protection of wards and their families from predatory guardians and the probate courts which employ them, I reached out to probate attorneys across the State.Nathan R. Piwowarski is a highly respected lawyer and share-holder at the firm of McCurdy Wotila & Porteous, PC in Cadillac. He has been practicing trust, estate and elder law for ten years.Ronald Dixon has practiced law since 1975 and served as a hearing panelist for Michigan’s Attorney Discipline Committee for approximately 25 years.Neither Dixon nor Piwowarski were asked to comment on or given the details about any case pending or decided in Michigan Probate Courts.“The problem is that when a person needs a guardian or conservator, frequently the family members are not worked with by the court or by the guardian appointed,” Dixon said. “The families are concerned, always, about the living conditions for the ward.”He added that a conflict between a conservator and the family can be easily avoided with a durable power of attorney that specifically names a family member and an alternative as guardian and conservator “and none other.”However, if judges arbitrarily strike down a durable power of attorney in favor of a court-appointed guardian, Dixon noted that “they should not do that. They should follow the family wishes. If that happens, it should be immediately appealed.”He added that a judge needs to demonstrate sufficient grounds as to why a power of attorney listing a family member can be discarded.“The record should be complete,” he said. “Showing the reasons why this person is not qualified or cannot maintain their position.”Piwowarski noted that the issue “can get a little bit complicated” depending on whether the power of attorney is generic and related to financial transactions or whether it concerns healthcare and placement issues (a patient advocate designation.)“In the case of the latter, unless the court specifically invalidates that document and removes the patient advocate, it remains in place,” he said. “The law presumes that the patient advocate would continue serving. That document should stay around unless there was some problem with it like there were not an adequate number of witnesses when it was signed. There are also situations where there is a valid document, but the patient advocate is not doing their job or honoring the person’s preferences.”In terms of the Constitutional rights a participant in Michigan’s Probate Courts can expect, Piwowarski cited Michigan Compiled Law (MCL) 700.5304 (4) through (6) which addresses the rights of the individual who is allegedly incapacitated.“They include the right to a jury trial [or] a closed hearing, if they request it, the right to be present at a hearing, the right to obtain an independent medical examination,” Piwowarski said. “There are other procedural rights and protections that are supposed to be afforded the individual who is the subject of a guardianship petition. For example, they’re entitled to personal notice in advance of the hearing. The minimum personal notice requirement is seven days. They are supposed to be given a visit by the Guardian ad Litem who is then supposed to report back to the court, in a timely manner, about whether that individual desires to contest any aspect of the petition or exercise any procedural rights such as the right to request something less intrusive than a full guardianship.”According to Piwowarski, different rights are afforded to those who have an interest in the subject’s welfare.“There are certain rights that they just don’t have,” he said. “They can’t demand a jury trial. But if there is a durable power of attorney, all of those individuals are entitled to notice and entitled to participate in the proceeding.”“In terms of who should be serving as a guardian, the nominated patient advocate is right near the top of the list,” he added. “So, the court should be looking to the patient advocate before almost anyone else. The way the statute should work and the way that it’s written is that the court can only intervene in a person’s affairs if that person is legally incapacitated and if there’s an actual need for the court to intervene. The court should evaluate, on the record, why a patient advocate is inadequate. There are express provisions in the Estates and Protected Individuals Code that tell the petitioner and the judge that they have to identify why the court has to actually intervene alternatives short of guardianship can’t be used.”The question of how much power a professional guardian in Michigan has Piwowarski noted both a statutory and political dynamic.“In terms of the statue, a guardian has the right to set appropriate access and limit access for a protected individual,” he acknowledged. “That said, the guardian is specifically required by statute to do everything they can to have as full of a life and as high of a level of function as possible. In terms of financial transactions, the court can issue protective orders to remediate situations where a vulnerable person made a property transfer when they didn’t understand it or were under inappropriate influence. A conservator is not able to do something like that without a court order and there should be pretty significant showing before a court would reverse a transaction like that.”“In my experience the court is typically appreciative of the willingness of a public fiduciary [guardian] to serve,” Piwowarski added. “There is such a need right now for a variety of reasons; families are smaller and more spread out. The public fiduciaries typically are overworked so I can certainly see a situation where a court adopts an overly deferential attitude because of the role that they serve in keeping the local legal system functioning.”“Oakland County is the wealthiest county in Michigan bar none,” Dixon said. “Frequently estates are incredibly large. Public administrators can err on the side of greediness for him or herself. Frequently, because the judge trusts them to carry out their tasks properly and in good order and rely on them for accurate information.”On a national level, the sheer power that has been extended by Probate Courts over wards and family members raises the question as to what the point is of making any kind of will when it can be rendered meaningless.******Gretchen Rachel Hammond is an award-winning journalist and a full-time writer for Tablet MagazineGuardians from Hell - Tablet Magazine

Question asked: What is QAnon, and why have they been banned from Facebook?Until this question, I had never heard of QAnon.It seems to be a right wing group who believe in a democratic deep state that is trying to take over, or has taken over, the US. While Wikipedia gives its date of birth in 2017, I was hearing bits and pieces of this long before that.Someone going by Q, perhaps John de Lancie (?), put all the ideas together into a single work of conspiracy.Basically, “Q has falsely accused many liberal Hollywood actors, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking officials of engaging in an international child sex trafficking ring, and has claimed that Donald Trump feigned collusion with Russians in order to enlist Robert Mueller to join him in exposing the ring and preventing a coup d'état by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros.”and“ According to Travis View, who has studied the QAnon phenomenon and written about it extensively for The Washington Post, the essence of the conspiracy theory is thatthere is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who rule the world, essentially, and they control everything. They control politicians, and they control the media. They control Hollywood, and they cover up their existence, essentially. And they would have continued ruling the world, were it not for the election of President Donald Trump,who was elected to put a stop to the cabal, and whose struggles behind the scenes are being revealed by "Q".Wouldn’t it be wild if Q was Donald Trump?I have problems with this on several issues.Anyone who has listened to Hollywood news, actors, and history knows that accusations against Hollywood and child sexual assault is anything but new. One can just look up the actors who have claimed to have been molested by producers, directors, and even stars. To say “falsely accused” is at least partially incorrect. I know of at least one who was convicted of molesting one young actor, on the set, and had the balls to even record it! About a year or so ago, someone openly accused Seth Green of being a Jewish Pedophile and claimed to have been shown a secret room in Green’s mansion where sexual abuse went on. What hurts this is that this individual died shortly after the accusation, either by his hand or not. This is juicy ground for conspiracy theories.On the same line, remember Pizza-gate?“In March 2016, the personal email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, was hacked in a spear-phishing attack. WikiLeaks published his emails in November 2016. Proponents of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory falsely claimed the emails contained coded messages that connected several U.S. restaurants and high-ranking officials of the Democratic Party with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring. One of the establishments allegedly involved was the Comet Ping Pong restaurant and pizzeria in Washington, D.C.Members of the alt-right, conservative journalists, and others who had urged Clinton's prosecution over Clinton's emails, spread the conspiracy theory on social media outlets such as 4chan, 8chan, and Twitter.In response, a man from North Carolina traveled to Comet Ping Pong to investigate the conspiracy and fired a rifle inside the restaurant.The restaurant owner and staff also received death threats from conspiracy theorists.”I think Hillary Clinton classifies as high ranking and democratic. What hurt here is that Bill Clinton has a long history of sexual antics and was a friend of Jeffery Epstein. Remember him?“Jeffrey Edward Epstein (/ˈɛpstiːn/ EP-steen; January 20, 1953 – August 10, 2019) was an American financier and convicted sex offender.He began his professional life as a teacher but then switched to the banking and finance sector in various roles, working at Bear Stearns before forming his own firm. He developed an elite social circle and procured many women, including underage girls, who were then sexually abused by Epstein and some of his contacts.In 2005, police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Epstein after a parent complained that he had sexually abused her 14-year-old daughter.Epstein pleaded guilty and was convicted in 2008 by a Florida state court of procuring an underage girl for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute.He served almost 13 months in custody, but with extensive work release. He was convicted of only these two crimes as part of a plea deal; federal officials had in fact identified 36 girls, some as young as 14 years old, whom Epstein had allegedly sexually abused.Epstein was arrested again on July 6, 2019, on federal charges for the sex trafficking of minors in Florida and New York.He died in his jail cell on August 10, 2019.The medical examiner ruled the death a suicide, although Epstein's lawyers have disputed the ruling.”The important part here is “He developed an elite social circle and procured many women, including underage girls, who were then sexually abused by Epstein and some of his contacts.”This doesn’t helpSupposedly, this picture was hanging in Epstein’s mansion on “Pedophile Island.”And, of course, Epstein died in his cell. Now, who was it that had a history of being around dead bodies while in office?The Satanic Cult shit goes back even further. I remember hearing about it in the 1980s with the McMartin Preschool trial.“The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner.Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with numerous acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983, arrests and the pretrial investigation took place from 1984 to 1987, and trials ran from 1987 to 1990. The case lasted seven years but resulted in no convictions, and all charges were dropped in 1990. By the case's end, it had become the longest and most expensive in American history.The case was part of day-care sex-abuse hysteria, a moral panic over alleged Satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.”Believe it or not, the DA here, Ira Reiner, was a democrat. If this is true, then he intentionally dragged the case out knowing the whole time that they were innocent of the charges. This made a lot of people believe that cults were not active in the US, when police know otherwise. Christians often use the term Satanic for anyone not Christian, but to be “satanic” you almost have to be somewhat Christian. He is the opposition to Christ.This wasn’t the end of the panic, though.The Temple of Set, lead by Michael Aquino, was accused of pedophilia. They are often called Satanists.“In 1987, during the Satanic ritual abuse hysteria, the three-year-old daughter of a Christian clergyman accused Aquino of sexually abusing her during Satanic rites held at his Russian Hill home. Responding to the allegations, police raided Aquino's home, however—after no evidence was found to substantiate the allegation and it was revealed that Aquino was living in Washington D.C. at the time of the alleged abuse—the police decided not to charge him with any felony.”It should be noted, here, that Aquino was a high ranking military intelligence officer specializing in psychological warfare. Just the type of person to screw with a little girl’s mind or have a nice cleaning crew to cover up evidence, right?In one version I heard, the ToS had infected a lot of children with STDs and were in hot water over that. Of course, no convictions. Innocent or too powerful? You decide.And then there was this manTed Gunderson. In case you don’t recognize it, the shield on the wall is an FBI Badge.“Theodore L. Gunderson (7 November 1928 – 31 July 2011) was an American Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent In Charge and head of the Los Angeles FBI. According to his son, he worked the case of Marilyn Monroe and the John F. Kennedy cases.”“After retiring from the FBI, Gunderson set up a private investigation firm, Ted L. Gunderson and Associates, in Santa Monica. In 1980, he became a defense investigator for Green Beret doctor Jeffrey R. MacDonald, who had been convicted of the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters. Gunderson obtained affidavits from Helena Stoeckley confessing to her involvement in the murders which she claimed had in actuality been perpetrated by a Satanic cult of which she was a member.He also investigated a child molestation trial in Manhattan Beach, California. In a 1995 conference in Dallas, Gunderson warned about the supposed proliferation of secret occultist groups, and the danger posed by the New World Order, an alleged shadow government that would be controlling the United States government.He also claimed that a "slave auction" in which children were sold by Saudi Arabian agents to men had been held in Las Vegas, that four thousand ritual human sacrifices are performed in New York City every year, and that the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was carried out by the US government.Gunderson believed that in the United States there is a secret widespread network of groups who kidnap children and infants, and subject them to ritual abuse and subsequent human sacrifice.”Now, this was a very respected FBI Agent. While Stoeckley was a drug addict, you’ll have to admit that he seems to have been around a lot of interesting cases leading back to the matter at hand. QAnon.What happened to him?“In 2008, Gunderson stated that he had tested positive for arsenic and cyanide poisoning.Gunderson's associate, Dr. Edward Lucidi, treated Gunderson and stated that his fingers were turning black, a characteristic symptom of arsenic poisoning.On July 31, 2011 Gunderson's son reported that his father had died from cancer of the bladder.”Wouldn’t you think that an FBI agent would know the signs and symptoms of arsenic and cyanide poisoning? His son, probably not. He would, instead, listen to the doctor. Autopsy anyone?To me, QAnon has just rolled a lot of theories into one massive one, pulling in a lot of followers. The democrats are helping, too. Remember ANTIFA? A violent movement of democrats? How about all the sudden hatred and violence against Trump and anyone who even thinks about liking him? This further fuels the idea that there is a cabal of Satanic worshipers who want to take over the world. Don’t forget, the US isn’t seen too well in the eyes of the rest of the world. How many already call the US the “Great Satan?”It’s easy to say that this is fantasy or a conspiracy theory, but you do have to remember that until Snowden blew the lid off of the NSA spying on people, that was just a conspiracy theory. In fact, there have been a lot of “conspiracy theories” that have turned out to have truth in them, if not completely true. Poisoned alcohol and drugs, a woman running the White House, Project Sunshine, MKULTRA, Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, Operation Mockingbird, the Salk Polio Vaccine, Operation Northwoods (which is just too close to what happened with 9/11), Nayirah’s testimony in 1992, and more. We can’t blindly dismiss this just because we don’t want to believe it.IF Facebook is run by the government, or is like Quora and pro-democrat instead of neutral, it would be easy to see where they can see banning a group like QAnon. Especially with this Covid-19 virus and the “war on fake news.” What if it turns out that QAnon is telling the truth, on some level and we blow it off because we don’t want to believe it? I have to admit, I lost my trust in the government in the late 1980s and early 90s, with the last nail being driven in the coffin by a blue dress. How democrats have acted since, and their hatred of firearms, would fit in with this. If no one has the ability to protect their children from the powerful elite, when the police and government won’t protect them…Of course, democrats can only blame themselves by the way they have been acting for the last 30 odd years. They almost seem to be as insane as those they accuse of insanity. Even Trump doesn’t openly back the KKK and hate groups like democrats do Antifa.