Protect Our Parents

Elder financial exploitation steals $28.3 BILLION yearly and 90% of the time it’s by someone known and trusted - often family. 😔 Swipe through for eye-opening insights: 1️⃣ Family dynamics & predatory roots 2️⃣ Coercive control & undue influence tactics 3️⃣ Ideas on safeguards to help prevent POA abuse. Share to protect loved ones. Always consult experts! 💙 #ElderAbuse #ProtectOurParents #FinancialExploitation

Interesting discussions happening on X regarding use of AI in judicial decision making - also appears to be a bypass of our democratic process as is occuring in elder abuse guardianship reforms…see #AmplificationHubs NCEA and NRC-SDM. Please note: NRC draft infographic is still under review. It’s content heavy so still working on. A high level simpler overview including both coming soon. Main point: this Amplification Bypass process is fast-tracking changes quickly without proper public knowledge/scrutiny. Apparently happening within our court systems as well. California is often a pilot state for change. #NewUndueInfluence law from CA (2015) review shows burden flips, predator skips but everyone shares a cut through settlements (generally speaking). Is #CourtDiversion really “progress” or justice?

@SurpriseWitnes Can you tell us more?

Many “schizophrenia” diagnoses are FAKE and nefarious. This happens with people of all ages, especially HIGH NET WORTH individuals and celebrities.

Seattle Times: Older Washingtonians drowning in debt, nearing bankruptcy. Key drivers: No savings buffer for shocks (job loss, health crisis, spouse death) Medical costs + living expenses outpacing Social Security 65+ now 20% of all bankruptcies (up from 12% pre-2019) 80% of senior households can't survive one big financial hit without debt. This is why 55+ planning must include emergency reserves + income floors. Retirement isn't "set it and forget it." #RetirementPlanning #SeniorDebt seattletimes.com/business/more-…

Also, why a estate plans need to be continuously reviewed

@GhostofGladysK @equalityAlec Always nice to hear of the good guys - in my work I hear mostly the horror stories.

@equalityAlec Proof please. I have read the exact opposite. Judges are calling out lawyers for using ai to write their cases.

There has been an alarming development in our legal system. Judges are starting to contract with a private corporation started by an ex-Palantir employee--whose bio says he is also a former speechwriter for Israel's UN ambassador--to have **secretive proprietary AI help decide cases for them.**

@SurpriseWitnes concerning also is the process in which govt programs and initiatives are being fast-tracked by bypassing our legislative process : public hearings, debate, RCTs, etc. This is already occurring with elder abuse and guardianship reforms that focus on autonomy solutions with UN ideology and controlled pilots…see my infographics for further explain.

@equalityAlec judges should NOT be using AI AT ALL to decide cases. if they need that, they should simply retire.

@equalityAlec Anyone else notice they're punishing regular people for using AI to defend and litigate for themselves, but have no issue using it to do their jobs.

@equalityAlec Hence UK Government removing juries from trials.

@fervidtruth @equalityAlec Or weed out the less lucrative cases…

@equalityAlec Sounds like they’re contracting to design an end to the ability to have a career as a judge.

@saffronandsky @SurpriseWitnes @equalityAlec Reforms/programs/initiatives Bypassing our democratic process via use of “pilot” trials vs gold-standard Randomized ControlTrials, legislative hearings, public debate…. Can’t agree more on the risks associated with this fast-track push often label l”progresss”

@SurpriseWitnes @equalityAlec This should be legislated to prohibit its use in these settings.

@equalityAlec @AMandoSch

A few weeks ago, we won a case in the California Supreme Court in which it appears that prosecutors filed briefs laced with AI hallucinations. We sounded the alarm then, but this story is much more profound. latimes.com/california/sto…

Watch this video featuring our work @CivRightsCorps to learn about how our case will free almost 20,000 people from jail every year in Houston, Texas.

How this works: 1) families now put tremendous pressure on their children not to report (“do you want your dad to die?”) 2) kids won’t 3) Florida claims success from lower child abuse numbers even though it’s just that abusers have new protections. I don’t know if you’ve

@equalityAlec This same bypass of our democratic process utilizing federal funds and non profit public/private networks is also being used to quickly push through elder abuse/guardianship reforms.

#AmplificationHub #NCEA #NRCSupportedDecisionMaking #ProtectOurParents

It’s also occurs when govt grants are provided to universities to fund research/technical centers that promote govt projects/initiatives bypassing our democratic process -congressional hearings, debates, rigorous trials and reviews etc. it’s a fast track approach to new legislation as well.

These developments are happening with almost no democratic public debate, and almost no meaningful public oversight. Most lawyers even are totally in the dark about how the cases they are working on are being decided--and by whom.

RE: Lawyerly Thoughts I have retired from the law and placed myself in “inactive status” in my two licensed jurisdictions. This finally gives me the freedom to share my unvarnished thoughts on the law and lawyers in a way I have been unable to do so before. I’m thinking of writing a series of lawyerly musings posts that I can later combine into a full length article. This is the first one. I believe I have a unique perspective on the law, having completed a successful military career before I stepped into law school. This meant that I was not wide-eyed and bushy-tailed in law school like most of my full time program (much younger) peers, and my earlier perspectives as a military decision maker made me cautious about some principles that I questioned as potentially being flawed or dangerous. So let’s talk about one: “EVERY CLIENT IS ENTITLED TO ZEALOUS LEGAL REPRESENTATION.” This is a bedrock concept of the practice of law, and one that lawyers are justifiably proud of as it is an essential component of equal justice under the law. But it has its flaws in the modern era. I remember one summer in law school I was an intern in a public defender’s office. One of our cases was a mass rapist who had been terrorizing women in local parks. This guy had blackish eyes that glowed with a sort of deep evil that seemed to come straight from the pits of Hell—it was like out of a horror film. He was as guilty as guilty could be, but we were trying to get him off on a claim of a bad search and seizure of some critical evidence. We were zealously representing a deranged rapist. The guy needed to be locked away for eternity, but we were trying to get him off. I know most lawyers are comfortable with that and consider it righteous, but for me it was the event that convinced me that I wanted nothing to do with criminal law. But that’s small potatoes to what I think is the bigger, profession-wide problem of “zealous representation.” Whether you are a litigator or a corporate lawyer (like I was), “zealous representation” means taking the facts at hand and interpreting them in the way most favorable to your client. I have found that “most favorable” means taking facts and pushing them in a client-favorable way right up to the edge of the line of lying, but not crossing it. You’re not lying, but are you really telling the objective truth? Over time that thought process of twisting facts away from what most reasonable laymen would consider as “true” changes a lawyer’s brain patterns. If you do this enough, you might stop being able to do anything else. Your brain changes, and not in a good way. I often found myself lapsing into this, but thankfully there remained a little portion of my brain that was still an Army colonel, and I think that little voice held me back. What ends up happening to too many lawyers is that every moment of their lives starts to consist of looking for angles to twist whatever facts are at hand into the manner most favorable to them. That’s a slippery slope. That’s why words like “oily” and “sleazy” are so popular when describing lawyers, and why jokes that involve lawyers at the bottom of the ocean as shark food are so popular. The problem is that as long as you never step right over the line into lying, none of this is against legal ethics. I’m not sure how to fix this exactly. Perhaps continuing legal education needs to focus on the limits of “zealous representation.” Or perhaps every lawyer needs to be on watch to not lose their soul. There are so many excellent lawyers that none of this applies to, but there are just as many who have no problem going into total sleaze-mode to win for their client. But then everything they do in life becomes sleaze-mode, and they harm themselves, their families and society as a result. It’s a large-scale problem. Think of this: “It depends of what the meaning of “is” is.” -Slick Willard

@CynicalPublius Nice musing! I believe the mind can be rewired in the way you describe. An interesting post. I look forward to your next one.