The Root Cause of our Collective Woes is Not Money

Without money, there would be no civilization. It is the only way to reduce entirely different things, pigs, horses, picking blueberries, making blankets, babysitting, etc. into a common denominator. Who would not love the invention which made civilization possible? 

Our Laws Are Not the Root Cause of Our Woes 

While there are always some laws which are unjust, the existence of laws is not the cause of our woes. Without laws to protect our bodies and our money, life would be short, brutish and nasty. 

Nor are isolated law breakers the root cause of our sorry state of affairs. While murderers wreak havoc on the lives of a victim’s family and friends, their foul deeds do not threatened civilization until they reach the level of worldwide terrorism so that a society cannot function. 

The Root Causes of Our Deterioration are Amorphous 

The fact that the root causes are amorphous should cause everyone great concern. That means we cannot easily agree on what is wrong or how to fix it. Certain traits have gained control of our institutions: 

(1) A grandiose sense of entitlement in which politicians, judges, city councilmembers, presidents, believe that their power entitles them to do whatever they wish. 

(2) Lack of integrity – integrity means that one’s moral code is whole and undivided. A person does not tell their children not to lie and then go to work designing airplanes and telling horrible lies about their safety. When hundreds of people die in needless plane crashes, the culprits cover-up their wrongdoing and attempt to put their flying death machines back in the air as soon as possible. In today’s America, lack of integrity generally results in huge rewards and outstandingly high bonuses for CEO’s. 

(3) Cowardice: Take the courts for example. There are judges who know that other judges are corrupt and use their position to destroy people’s lives for the judges’ fun and profit. Yet, these witnessing judges remain silent. Why? Because they are amoral cowards not willing to risk their careers to save the judicial system. 

We see outrageous cowardice in Congress where the Dems are silent about Pelosi’s sabotage of the impeachment process. No doubt many members of Congress know so little about the Constitution that they are clueless as to Pelosi’s treachery in stopping the fact gathering in Rep. Adam Schiff’s committee. Where was Schiff’s public defiance of Pelosi’s betrayal? Would Adam Schiff have helped Benedict Arnold turn over West Point to the British? Protecting the political party is not a constitutional duty but protecting the impeachment process is. Schiff made his ignoble choice. 

Then Rep. Jerry Nadler also succumbed to Pelosi. Cowardice! Unforgivable cowards. They knew that the tide of public opinion was just beginning to turn against Trump. Timing, as Jack Benny knew, is everything. No honest person stops the fact gathering after Vindman, Holmes, Hill, and Ambassador Yovanovitch testified and provided a rock-solid basis for more facts. Even GOP members were signaling what additional facts and witnesses to call so that they could turn against Trump the way the GOP turned against Nixon. 

Back to the Widow M 

Previously we mentioned the plight of the Widow M in Los Angeles Probate-Conservatorship court. Brief summary: The Widow M was subject to elder abuse by her adult daughter and had been isolated from her adult son while the daughter looted and squandered the Widow M’s assets. The only legal approach open to the son was to file for a conservatorship in Probate Court which would order that the Widow M be physically brought to court. The son did not want to be a conservator but there was no other legal way to have his mom pried lose form the clutches of her daughter. So far so good. 

What the son, the daughter and the Widow M did not know is that the court is set up to loot the Widow M’s estate more completely than the daughter had been doing. 

Enter Judge Elizabeth Lippitt and ex Judge Reva Goetz 

People need to understand how the probate court judicial scam works as it is more or less similar to how the Los Angeles County Courts generally operates, judging from the letters that this writer receives. 

Judge Lippitt appoints Attorney Audre Delahoussaye Quantrell (Delahoussaye-Turner) to be the Widow M’s court appointed attorney [CAC]. According to other judges, Lippitt always appoints a CAC under Probate Code § 1470. This is contrary to Probate Code 1470 which states: “The court may appoint private legal counsel for a proposed conservatee . . . if the court determines the person is not otherwise represented by legal counsel.” The Widow M had a private attorney. When one discerns the real objective to appoint the CAC is not to protect the Widow M’s rights, one then sees that the CAC’s true function is to review the proposed conservatee’s assets to see whether she has enough to merit looting her estate. The Widow M had plenty of wealth to steal. 

Next Judge Lippitt appoints ex Judge Reva Goetz to be the mediator. Surprise, surprise, no one tells the Widow M or her family about Goetz’s track record. If the abysmally low 1.0 to 1.7 rating by The Robing Room were not enough, there is the case of Mozer v Augustine  to see how Goetz uses the mediation confidentiality to do-in the unsuspecting. Here is what the appellate court said about Goetz’s conduct as a mediator: 

“Each of Mozer's allegations of the mediator's [Goetz] fraud, duress or undue influence is premised on statements the mediator made during the mediation. Those communications are statutorily protected as confidential and inadmissible.” 

That’s right. In Los Angeles Probate Court, if you mediate a case and you are subjected to fraud by the mediator herself, you are screwed. What this scam allows the judge, the mediator and the faithless court appointed attorney to do is lie and cheat to steal the Widow M’s property. 

Lippitt, Goetz, Delahoussaye, and the other attorneys at the mediation knew that the Widow M was being scammed out of her property. The people who were kept in the dark were the Widow M, her son and her daughter, who did not know that the coven of evil was stealing the daughter’s inheritance. Let’s review the rule in the Mozer Case; the mediators like Goetz may tell the most outrageous lies and do the most horrible things and no one may complain. 

Integrity is a lonely virtue in the Los Angeles County Courts because the other judges are cowards. That is the same reason Pelosi can sabotage the impeachment and Trump’s own party does not Nixonize him. The absence of integrity and the preponderance of cowardice on high reflects the values of We the People down here at the bottom. 

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Photo: Doug Mills/New York Times. Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.