Academic

The Recent Change In The Name Of Our Country.

Posted on November 13, 2009
November 13, 2009Re: The Recent Change In The Name Of Our Country. My writing having been taken up entirely by l?affaire Madoff for almost a year, it is a pleasure to turn to a very short posting on another matter. Here it is: We now live in the United States of Goldman, Sachs...

The Briefs Of The Trustee And SIPC On The Net Equity Question.

Posted on October 23, 2009
October 23, 2009Re: The Briefs Of The Trustee And SIPC On The Net Equity Question. Having read the opening briefs filed by the Trustee and by SIPC on the net equity question, I thought to set down a few of what I believe are my most important impressions...

More On Net Equity. Plus Picower.

Posted on October 09, 2009
October 9, 2009Re: More On Net Equity. Plus Picower. In accordance with the briefing schedule set by the Bankruptcy Court, the Trustee?s brief on the question of net equity will be submitted shortly. A month later briefs opposing him will be filed...

The Report of SEC Inspector General Kotz.

Posted on October 02, 2009
October 2, 2009Re: The Report of SEC Inspector General Kotz. As Ron Stein may have intimated in his excellent recent piece about the Kotz report, you cannot really get the full flavor of the SEC?s staggering malperformance in the Madoff situation unless you read the entire report...

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Request For Production Of Documents

Posted on September 29, 2009
UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURTSOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK )In re: ) SIPA LIQUIDATION ) no. 08-01789 (BRL)BERNARD L. MADOFF INVESTMENT )SECURITIES LLC, ) ) Debtor. ) )NOTIFICATION TO THE COURT OF REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS Objector Lawrence R...

The Government?s Motion Of September 21, 2009 in the Criminal Case Against Madoff.

Posted on September 24, 2009
TO: All Recipients Of This EmailFROM: Lawrence R. VelvelDATE: September 24, 2009RE: The Government?s Motion Of September 21, 2009 in the Criminal Case Against Madoff.On September 21st, the Government made a motion for forfeiture and remission proceedings in the criminal case against Madoff...

Greater And Lesser Potpourri Regarding Madoff, Starting With The IRS And Then Moving To Other Matters.Part II.

Posted on September 02, 2009
September 2, 2009Re: Greater And Lesser Potpourri Regarding Madoff, Starting With The IRS And Then Moving To Other Matters.PART II.* * * * * The SEC -- though it ironically is one of the governmental or quasigovernmental bodies most responsible for allowing Madoff to succeed -- has put together what one thinks the best description to date of the methods used by Madoff to fool victims, agencies, feeder funds, and huge organizations or immensely wealthy individuals who sought to do due diligence, and others...

Greater And Lesser Potpourri Regarding Madoff, Starting With The IRS And Then Moving To Other Matters. Part 1.

Posted on September 01, 2009
September 1, 2009Re: Greater And Lesser Potpourri Regarding Madoff, Starting With The IRS And Then Moving To Other Matters.PART 1. Because of the press of other business -- running a law school, creating a new college of history that will open next year, sometimes dealing with the war crimes problem (although Madoff has deeply impinged on that, has virtually eliminated it for the time being) -- there are times when I simply can?t write on Madoff matters...

Irving Picard?s Motion To Dismiss The Complaint Filed By Helen Chaitman.

Posted on July 28, 2009
July 28, 2009Re: Irving Picard?s Motion To Dismiss The Complaint Filed By Helen Chaitman. My last, four part post said I had been informed that Judge Lifland, who is presiding over the Madoff matter in the Bankruptcy Court, had rejected Helen Chaitman?s requested briefing schedule...

Letter to Diana Henriques

Posted on July 27, 2009
July 27, 2009Ms. Diana HenriquesNew York Times229 W. 43rd StreetNew York, NY 10036-3959Dear Ms. Henriques: I congratulate you on your excellent article on custodians on Saturday, July 25th. I do have one problem, however. When I wrote to you on April 21st to extensively explain that the IRS had improperly approved Madoff as a nonbank custodian in 2004 though he was in violation of several of the IRS?s own regulations, you replied on April 23rd that you wished to ?pursue a number of topics, and this [the IRS? approval of Madoff] is a good one...

The Never Discussed Impact Of Net Equity Question, Impact of Discovery on SIPC's Position. Part IV

Posted on July 24, 2009
July 25, 2009Re: The Full And Never Discussed Impact Of The Net Equity Question, The Potentially Devastating Impact Of Discovery On SIPC?s Position, And Matters Of Argumentation And Morality.PART IV.In this fourth segment, let me discuss an argument made by Harbeck and Picard in support of their cash in/cash out position...

Re: The Never Discussed Impact Of The Net Equity Question, The Impact of Discovery on SIPC's Position, Argumentation And Morality. Part III

Posted on July 23, 2009
July 23, 2009 at 3:00 p.m.Re: The Full And Never Discussed Impact Of The Net Equity Question, The Potentially Devastating Impact Of Discovery On SIPC?s Position, And Matters Of Argumentation And Morality. PART III.When David Sheehan attacked Helen Chaitman by a letter of June 12th, he accused her of making statements for which she could have no evidence...

The Never Discussed Impact Of The Net Equity Question, The Devastating Impact Of Discovery On SIPC's Position, And Argumentation And Morality. Part II

Posted on July 23, 2009
July 23, 2009 at 9:00 a.m.Re: The Full And Never Discussed Impact Of The Net Equity Question, The Potentially Devastating Impact Of Discovery On SIPC?s Position, And Matters Of Argumentation And Morality.PART II. If readers remember not one other thing of what is written in this four-part posting, I urge them to remember -- and therefore am repeating yet again -- the possibility that Picard?s definition of net equity may deprive them not just of $500,000, but also of any share in the estate...

The Never Discussed Impact Of The Net Equity Question, The Devastating Impact Of Discovery On SIPC's Position, And Argumentation And Morality.

Posted on July 22, 2009
July 22, 2009Re: The Full And Never Discussed Impact Of The Net Equity Question, The Potentially Devastating Impact Of Discovery On SIPC?s Position, And Matters Of Argumentation And Morality.PART I. This post is being published in four parts. Let me start it with some comments that will surprise a lot of people...

Re: The Vast Amount That We Don?t Know About The Madoff Matter.

Posted on July 08, 2009
July 8, 2009Re: The Vast Amount That We Don?t Know About The Madoff Matter. My memory may be faulty, but I do not remember a major crime in which, at the times of plea and sentencing of the lead culprit, the details of what happened, of what was done, were as little known publicly (and perhaps to investigators) as in Madoff...

June 19, 2009Re: SIPC?s Objections

Posted on June 19, 2009
June 19, 2009Re: SIPC?s Objections To The Posting Called ?Irving Picard?s Three Percent Commission In The Madoff Case.? To put it mildly, it is clear that SIPC has been the object of extensive criticism in the Madoff victims community. The criticism is, I suppose, only the stronger among those victims who are middle aged or elderly, were retired, were wiped out and have little or no money to live on, who have had to wait many months and may still be waiting for a recovery from SIPC, and who fear they may never receive a recovery...

A Forthcoming Article Regarding A SIPC Objection To The Posting Entitled "Irving Picard's Three Percent Commission In The Madoff Case."

Posted on June 16, 2009
June 16, 2009Re: A Forthcoming Article Regarding A SIPC Objection To The Posting Entitled ?Irving Picard?s Three Percent Commission In The Madoff Case.? SIPC has objected to a point contained in my posting entitled Irving Picard?s Three Percent Commission In The Madoff Case...

Irving Picard's Three Percent Commission In The Madoff Case.

Posted on June 11, 2009
June 11, 2009Re: Irving Picard?s Three Percent Commission In The Madoff Case. On May 30th Time Magazine posted an online article about Irving Picard, the SIPC Trustee in the Madoff case. Time said that ?Picard is considered the superstar of SIP[C] trustees, having handled the largest cases SIPC has managed?...

The Infestation of Government Values In Industry.

Posted on June 02, 2009
June 2, 2009Re: The Infestation of Government Values In Industry. On Monday, May 18th, David Brooks had a column in the Times that seems to have attracted a lot of attention: three days later, on Thursday, May 21st, the Times ran no less than seven letters addressing Brooks? points...

Letter to Douglas Shulman

Posted on May 22, 2009
May 22, 2009Via Telecopier and Federal ExpressThe Honorable Douglas ShulmanCommissioner, Internal Revenue Service1111 Constitution Avenue, N.W.Department of TreasuryWashington, DC 20224Dear Commissioner Shulman: I do not know whether you are aware that in July of 2004, in the midst of Harry Markopolos? revelations to the SEC that Bernard Madoff was operating a Ponzi scheme, the Internal Revenue Service placed its imprimatur on Madoff by approving his company as a non-bank custodian for IRAs...

The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration. Part III

Posted on May 18, 2009
May 18, 2009Re: The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration. This post has been written and posted in three installments that were significantly separated in time. The first, consisting of an invented Nazi legal opinion, was posted on April 23rd, the second, dealing with the new book ?Hunting Eichmann,? was posted on May 7th, and the third is being posted on May 18th...

The Concept of Net Equity Being Used by the Trustee and SIPC

Posted on May 15, 2009
May 15, 2009Re: The Concept Of Net Equity Being Used By The Trustee And SIPC. I have read the descriptions by Helen Chaitman and Richard Shapiro of their meeting with Thomas McGowan of the SEC, Picard?s written statement published in Dealbook, and various comments by members of the Google groups about the oral statements by Picard and Harbeck (which I did not hear but which, one gathers, pretty much tracked the written statement in Dealbook)...

Re: The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration. Part II.

Posted on May 07, 2009
May 7, 2009Re: The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration. Part II. On April 23rd I posted the first part of a three part essay that deals with the torture practiced by the American government. Since then I have been preoccupied with other matters; thus Part II was not written until now...

Justice Jackson's (pre-justiceship) Speech of December 1936.

Posted on May 01, 2009
May 1, 2009Re: Justice Jackson?s (pre-justiceship) Speech of December 1936. Law Professor John Q. Barrett of St. John?s (barrett@stjohns.edu) is writing a biography of Justice Robert Jackson, perhaps the greatest writer ever to sit on the Supreme Court and the first American Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg...

The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration.

Posted on April 23, 2009
April 23, 2009Re: The Four Torture Memos, Eichmann, And The Obama Administration.PART I I have read the four memoranda that were recently released by the DOJ and authorized torture. Permit me to invent a similar but short memo that will allow the reader, without reading the approximately 120 densely packed pages of the four memos, to grasp their style, their character, their techniques, their aims, and, inherently and avoidably, the nature of the people who wrote or signed off on them: John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury...

Re: Feeder Funds And The SIPC.

Posted on April 21, 2009
April 21, 2009 Re: Feeder Funds And The SIPC. I?m probably missing something, in fact I?m probably missing a lot, but as far as I know there has been little in the way of official release of certain crucial numbers related to the Madoff scam...

Was The IRS As Culpable As The SEC In The Madoff Scam?

Posted on April 17, 2009
April 17, 2009Re: Was The IRS As Culpable As The SEC In The Madoff Scam? This posting raises the question whether the IRS may be as culpable as the SEC and FINRA for the continued success of Madoff?s Ponzi scheme. If the possibility raised here turns out to be true, as I suspect will be the case, this would be a disaster for the country...

Madoff And The Mafia: A Mere Speculation Or Almost A Sure Thing?

Posted on April 02, 2009
April 2, 2009Re: Madoff And The Mafia: A Mere Speculation Or Almost A Sure Thing? I recently received a communication from a sophisticated, savvy individual who has much experience with how the world works. This person seems to be of the view that the Madoff scam may have been an organized crime operation, with Mafia corruption in Madoff and the SEC...

Letter To Judge Chin Regarding Madoff's Guilty Plea, And A Response To A Madoff Victim Regarding The Clear, Simple, Curative Bond Proposal.

Posted on April 02, 2009
April 2, 2009Re: Letter To Judge Chin Regarding Madoff?s Guilty Plea, And A Response To A Madoff Victim Regarding The Clear, Simple, Curative Bond Proposal. Appended below are two documents that were not initially posted on my site (Velvelonnationallaffairs...

Madoff: The Simple, Clean, Curative Bond Proposal That Has Been Completely Forgotten.

Posted on March 31, 2009
March 30, 2009Madoff: The Simple, Clean, Curative Bond ProposalThat Has Been Completely Forgotten.Permit me an observation about life. It is sometimes, perhaps even frequently, the case, when an unusual but reasonably complex situation arises, that people ignore the immediately obvious but rather simple solution in favor of complex possibilities that ultimately are recognized as either unlikely of success or overly difficult of accomplishment...

Is This Country Robert Welch Or Joe McCarthy?

Posted on March 25, 2009
March 24, 2009Re: Is This Country Robert Welch Or Joe McCarthy??Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.? ?I like to think I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me...

Is This Country Joseph Welch Or Joe McCarthy?

Posted on March 25, 2009
March 25, 2009Re: Is This Country Joseph Welch Or Joe McCarthy? ?Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness.? ?I like to think I am a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me...

The Tax Views Of Deadeye, The SEC's Customary Action, And Losses of Non Madoff Investors.

Posted on March 24, 2009
March 24, 2009Re: The Tax Views of Deadeye, The SEC's Customary Action, And Losses Of Non Madoff Investors. Last Friday I received a phone call from a friend of 45 years standing. I'll call him Deadeye. Deadeye is a brilliant fellow. He is a crackerjack bridge player, finished first in his class in a significant eastern law school, and has spent 47 years as a tax lawyer...

The Serious Shortcomings Of The Guidance Issued On Tuesday By The IRS.

Posted on March 20, 2009
March 20, 2009Re: The Serious Shortcomings Of The GuidanceIssued On Tuesday By The IRS. Not being a tax lawyer, I am not sure that I understand all of the ins and outs of the revenue ruling and safe harbor procedure announced on Tuesday by Commissioner Shulman...

No Siree Nocera[h]. You Are Dead Wrong.

Posted on March 17, 2009
March 17, 2009Re: No Siree Nocera[h]. You Are Dead Wrong. On the weekend of March 7th and 8th, a conference on the ineptitude, inaccuracies, problems of and possible solutions for, the mass media was held at our law school, the Massachusetts School of Law...

Madoff Did Not Exactly Take It On The Chin Last Thursday.

Posted on March 16, 2009
March 16, 2009Re: Madoff Did Not Exactly Take It On The Chin Last Thursday. A few comments about last Thursday?s hearing before Judge Chin on the Madoff matter may be warranted. Reading the transcript with a lawyer?s eye, it seems evident that Judge Chin had made up his mind as to what he was going to do before he walked into the courtroom...

Re: Aspects Of The General Economic Disaster; More On The SEC's Culpability In Madoff.

Posted on February 26, 2009
February 26, 2009Re: Aspects Of The General Economic Disaster;More On The SEC?s Culpability In Madoff. Just as an orthodox blogger might, I am writing this post on an airplane. Several points will be made, each with relative brevity -- at least for me...

Re: Of Markopolos And Madoff, New Times And Conventional Wisdom, SIPC And Clawbacks, Equitable Estoppel And Declaratory Judgments.

Posted on February 23, 2009
February 23, 2009Re: Of Markopolos And Madoff, New Times And Conventional Wisdom, SIPC And Clawbacks, Equitable Estoppel And Declaratory Judgments. The hearings before Congress on the Madoff scandal on February 4th put one in mind of some pertinent, hopefully salient, ideas...

More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part III.

Posted on February 05, 2009
February 5, 2009Re: More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part III. I wish to conclude by discussing possible legislative action in Congress. Some of what I shall say has been discussed in my prior six-installment posting that ran from January 19th through January 24th...

February 4, 2009Re: More On The

Posted on February 04, 2009
February 4, 2009Re: More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part II. At this point in time, there still has not been much talk about lawsuits against the government or FINRA. I think the relative silence on these subjects to date arises from people?s shocked focus on more immediate questions: what can they recover quickly and how do they go about this; will the bankruptcy trustee try to ?claw back? from the innocent -- from people who were financially hurt or wiped out -- money they took out of their Madoff accounts in order to live; can they quickly sell their homes to raise money to live on; can they successfully get back into the work force, often by seeking entry level jobs though they are in their late 50s or their 60s or 70s...

More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part I.

Posted on February 03, 2009
February 3, 2009Re: More On The Madoff Mess: A Post In Three Installments. Part I.For the last six weeks or so, I have been dealing with a large number of people whom I never previously knew and who did not previously know me. They are victims of Madoff...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part VI.

Posted on January 24, 2009
January 24, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part VI. The courses of action discussed here previously all have major shortcomings: they leave people very short of money to live on, they harm the innocent, they take way too long, they are uncertain...

Article: Madoff tops charts; skeptics ask how. By Michael Ocrant

Posted on January 23, 2009
MAR/Hedge (RIP)No. 89 May 2001Madoff tops charts; skeptics asks howMadoff tops charts;skeptics ask howBy Michael OcrantMention Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities to anyone working on Wall Street at any time over the last 40 years and you?re likely to get a look of immediate recognition...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part V.

Posted on January 23, 2009
January 23, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part V. I turn now from preliminary comments to specific courses of action. As you will see, each course of action being generally discussed in the media today will be insufficient, will be too little, too late, especially because the law is not designed to handle a disaster of this magnitude...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part IV.

Posted on January 22, 2009
January 22, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part IV.In the final three installment of the posts on the Madoff mess, I will discuss how much was stolen, where did it go, and what can be done for victims...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part III.

Posted on January 21, 2009
January 21, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part III. The SEC?s failure to investigate and put an end to Madoff?s crime, its announcing in 1992 that there was no problem with Madoff and its failure ever to correct that statement, its consequent sabotaging of thousands of investors with the literal impoverishing of countless numbers and the crippling of many charities, medical research organizations and injury to pension funds, must be one of the greatest regulatory failures in American history, if not the single greatest failure...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part II.

Posted on January 20, 2009
January 20, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part II. Over the years since 1995, Madoff, as often said in the media these days, made steady annual returns -- on which one paid ordinary income taxes, not capital gains taxes...

Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happeneed, What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part I.

Posted on January 19, 2009
January 19, 2009Re: Investing With Bernie Madoff: How It Happened,What Happened, And What Might Be Done. Part I. As readers of this blog know because it previously was adverted to briefly, this writer has been caught in the Madoff mess. ?Victim? is, I guess, the word that accurately applies to thousands of us, even if the word is distasteful or, to some, whiney...

Preliminary Memorandum Of The Justice Robert H. Jackson Conference On Federal Prosecutions Of War Criminals.

Posted on January 09, 2009
January 9, 2009 PRELIMINARY MEMORANDUM OF THE JUSTICE ROBERT H. JACKSON CONFERENCE ON FEDERAL PROSECUTIONS OF WAR CRIMINALS I. INTRODUCTION. An extensive complaint seeking federal prosecution of American officials who ordered, authorized, approved or committed war crimes is currently being prepared...

Goodbye And Good Riddance To 2008.

Posted on December 22, 2008
December 22, 2008br / br / Re: Goodbye And Good Riddance To 2008.br / br / br / br / On December 11th, commenting that I had been ?off the air? for awhile because this had been the busiest fall in 45 years as a lawyer, this writer said he nonetheless could not resist publishing a blog on Blagojevich...

Re: Fitzgerald and Blagojevich.

Posted on December 11, 2008
December 11, 2008 Re: Fitzgerald and Blagojevich. This blogger has been ?off the air? for some time now, basically because the last couple of months have been perhaps the most intense work-siege I have experienced in the 45 years since graduation from law school...

A Practical, Defensible One-Off Solution To The Problem Of True Terrorists At Gitmo.

Posted on November 07, 2008
November 7, 2008 Re: A Practical, Defensible One-Off Solution To The Problem Of True Terrorists At Gitmo. Early on it was made plain here, on five occasions from May through July of 2004, that the reason the Bush administration wanted to use military tribunals to try prisoners was that evidence against them had been obtained by torture and therefore could not be used against them in federal courts...

Obama And Afghanistan; Obama And The Second Coming Of Clintonia.

Posted on November 06, 2008
November 6, 2008 Re: Obama And Afghanistan; Obama And The Second Coming Of Clintonia. We hope for Barack Obama to have all the success in the world. And given his smarts -- he seems far and away the smartest president-elect in the last 45 years -- he should although, as one person put it to me, people hope for so much from him that there conceivably could be no way he will not disappoint and begin to catch tremendous flak, even early on...

Bring Back Bump Elliott.

Posted on November 03, 2008
November 3, 2008 Re: Bring Back Bump Elliott. Bring back Bump. Only readers who followed Michigan football under Coach Bump Elliott from 1958 through 1968, which probably was the worst single stretch in Michigan football history, can understand in their guts the depth of disappointment, frustration and even anger in that sarcastic remark...

If you Want Economic Recovery, Eliminate The Capital Gains Tax On Profits From Monies Used To Purchase New Plant And Equipment And To Create New Jobs.

Posted on October 27, 2008
October 27, 2008 Re: If you Want Economic Recovery, Eliminate The Capital Gains Tax On Profits From Monies Used To Purchase New Plant And Equipment And To Create New Jobs. Having spent the last two weeks in Prague, Germany and Luxembourg, this writer can attest that one is never really out of touch if one doesn?t wish to be...

Re: Creating And Sustaining The Unsustainable.

Posted on October 10, 2008
October 10, 2008 Re: Creating And Sustaining The Unsustainable. With the stock market tanking and the economic system worsening on a daily basis, there are some thoughts I would like to get off my mind. They may be wrong, but they are the product of years, sometimes decades, of observation and experience...

Re: A New Modest Proposal: The Questions At The So-Called Debates Should Reflect The Answers, Since The Answers Will Not Reflect The Questions.

Posted on October 09, 2008
October 9, 2008 Re: A New Modest Proposal: The Questions At The So-Called Debates Should Reflect The Answers, Since The Answers Will Not Reflect The Questions. I would like to make, in Swiftian words, a modest proposal. This one is half in jest, but also half meant...

Re: Alan Dershowitz On Whether To Prosecute Executive Branch Criminals.

Posted on October 07, 2008
October 7, 2008 Re: Alan Dershowitz On Whether To Prosecute Executive Branch Criminals. Over the years this writer has occasionally made comments relating to Alan Dershowitz. As said before, one?s first conception of him was encapsulated in the joke that the most dangerous place to be in the entire world was between Dershowitz and a television camera...

Reasons Why

Posted on October 03, 2008
Misfits in America Chapter 4 Did the materialism and anti-intellectualism of post war America discourage a generation from pursuing public service?  For Bronze and Wolfe, college in post-war America was dominated by a  male group mentality that created a fraternity class full of boys intent upon verbally putting one another down while competing mightily in intra-fraternity games in pursuit of athletic glory rather than intellectual growth...

Uncaring Harvard of the Midwest

Posted on October 01, 2008
Misfits in America Chapter 3 The finest state University in the Country? In 1960?s Ann Arbor cheating, drinking and gut courses were the administratively accepted norm, from simply procured exam exemption letters from the University Psychiatrist, to stuffed student government ballot boxes to failed attempts to scale walls in pursuit of copies of upcoming exams...

Ann Arbor College Years

Posted on September 26, 2008
Misfits in America Chapter 2  To the Jewish brothers of the unnamed University of Michigan fraternity, academics took a stiff back seat to the wondrous goal of winning the intra-fraternity athletic championship.  Their personal identities as jews in America in constant conflict with the hopes and dreams of these smart ambitious young men, Bronze and his friends struggle through their years in Ann Arbor, never keeping their eyes off the prize, Christian friends and acknowledged athletic prowess...

The Misfit Genius from East Europe, Illinois

Posted on September 23, 2008
Misfits in America Chapter 1  In some ways Harry Brohnz was the smartest man I ever met. We lived together in an apartment during the second semester of or junior year in Ann Arbor. that was the semester that he got a 4.2 grade point average - on a 4 point system, you might jokingly say...

Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam, available in print, and now as a free podcast

Posted on September 19, 2008
Dear Colleagues,As many of you know, I have recently published a Quartet entitled Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam: A Slightly Fictionalized Memoir of a Career in the Last Half of the Twentieth Century. The book is now additionally available for free as an audio podcast...

Re: A Crisis Of American Capitalism.

Posted on September 19, 2008
September 19, 2008 Re: A Crisis Of American Capitalism. You don?t have to be a socialist (and I certainly am not) to understand that this capitalistic country is confronting a crisis of capitalism. This is not merely a matter of the huge losses and meltdowns that have taken place and have threatened to bring down the whole system with them...

Re: The Bigger The Company, The More Disastrous The Mistake.

Posted on September 17, 2008
September 17, 2008 Re: The Bigger The Company, The More Disastrous The Mistake. In younger days I was an antitrust lawyer for a considerable number of years. Most of my work, and my cast of mind, was on the plaintiff?s side. This mentality meant, and means to this day, that I favor views expressed by Justices Brandeis and Douglas: Antitrust is not simply about claimed efficiency that supposedly makes things better for consumers...

Attempted Statutory Immunity For The Executive's War Crimes.

Posted on September 04, 2008
September 4, 2008Re: Attempted Statutory Immunity For The Executive?s War Crimes. By now it seems beyond serious doubt that George Bush and company committed numerous war crimes. There has now been book after book detailing their actions; some of the books are legal in character, even when directed at a much broader audience than lawyers, while others are not legal in nature (e...

Re: The Momentary And The More Permanent.

Posted on August 26, 2008
August 25, 2008Re: The Momentary And The More Permanent. If you had to choose, for an important position requiring brains, between a person who was among the best in his class at the Harvard Law School and a person who was near the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, you would obviously choose, since the position does require brains, the person who was among the best at Harvard Law, right? Well, maybe wrong, if the position is President of the U...

Mukasey -- The Orthodox Jew Who Is A Disgrace To Our Religion -- Again Protects Evil.

Posted on July 31, 2008
July 31, 2008Re: Mukasey -- The Orthodox Jew Who Is A Disgrace To Our Religion -- Again Protects Evil. On December 14, 2007 I wrote a post that assailed Michael Mukasey for a statement -- that he doesn?t know if waterboarding is torture -- which was a sheer disgrace for someone born into his religion, the same one I was born into, and whose parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who fled evil, as were mine...

More MSM Malfeasance -- The Conyers Hearing And Tom Brokaw's So-Called "Interview" Of Obama.

Posted on July 28, 2008
July 28, 2008Re: More MSM Malfeasance -- The Conyers Hearing And Tom Brokaw?s So-Called ?Interview? Of Obama. Here are two recent impressions. They will be stated in conclusory fashion, without the usual supporting elaboration and details. Last Friday John Conyers held a hearing where several witnesses (e...

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lawrence Wilkerson, And Barack Obama On Afghanistan.

Posted on July 23, 2008
July 23, 2008Re: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lawrence Wilkerson, And Barack Obama On Afghanistan. As known by readers of these posts, I consider it rare for my views to meet approbation when first expressed. It usually takes months or years for agreement to arise, if then...

Forgetting The Fundamentals In Regard To Oil And Afghanistan.

Posted on July 21, 2008
July 21, 2008Re: Forgetting The Fundamentals In Regard To Oil And Afghanistan. Forty plus years ago, when friends and I were young, recently graduated government lawyers doing tax or antitrust work in Washington, D.C., five of us used to carpool to and from work every day...

Evil Judges And Dumb Politicians

Posted on June 25, 2008
June 25, 2008Re: Evil Judges And Dumb Politicians. This space, as the media columnists call it, frequently rails against the stupidity of politicians and the evil done by judges. In recent days two events have added to these views. To start with the one that will be more quickly dispatched, there is the comment made by Antonin Scalia at the very end of his dissenting opinion, which was the final opinion appearing, in the recent Guantanamo case...

Prosecuting For War Crimes: As Lincoln Said, The Battle Of Today Is Not For Today Alone, But For A Vast Future.

Posted on June 23, 2008
June 24, 2008Re Prosecuting For War Crimes: As Lincoln Said, The Battle Of Today Is Not For Today Alone, But For A Vast Future. In the last essay he wrote before his death, Arthur Schlesinger spoke of ?national stupidity.? Here is what he said:Sometimes, when I am particularly depressed, I ascribe our behavior to stupidity -- the stupidity of our leadership, the stupidity of our culture...

June 2, 2008Re: Alexander Pekelis

Posted on June 02, 2008
June 2, 2008Re: Alexander Pekelis And Drug Company Cases In Which Consumers Have Been Killed Or Injured. On March 12th, a posting here discussed Alexander Pekelis, a great scholar killed in a plane crash at Shannon Airport in 1946, 62 years ago...

Re: Eric Lichtblau?s Unpersuasive Defense Of The New York Times? Failure To Print His Story On The NSA?s Illegal Electronic Spying In October 2004

Posted on May 20, 2008
May 20, 2008Re: Eric Lichtblau?s Unpersuasive Defense Of The New York Times? Failure To Print His Story On The NSA?s Illegal Electronic Spying In October 2004 - -A Time When The Story Could And Probably Would Have Resulted In Bush Losing The Election And Could Have Spared The Country Immense Disasters And Grief...

Re: The Other Lesson Of Munich.

Posted on May 09, 2008
May 9, 2008Re: The Other Lesson Of Munich. It is perhaps ironic that last week, while I was in Germany, and spent a day in Munich, I read a book showing that there are other lessons to be drawn from Munich than the one favoring military action that has been drawn -- often wrongly -- for the last 60 or 70 years...

Dear Professor Goldman:

Posted on May 08, 2008
Dear Professor Goldman: Thanks much for the very thoughtful email. I appreciate it greatly. I of course agree with much that you wrote, in particular both the point that, and your examples showing that, the nature of the judges is the most fundamental problem...

Re: Courts Should Insist That The Political Branches Do Their Jobs

Posted on April 16, 2008
April 16, 2008Re: Courts Should Insist That The Political Branches Do Their JobsCarefully And Thoroughly, Instead of Shoddily. As the last posting said would be the case, this essay is about an idea which, as far as I know, is quite novel...

Re: Two Relatively New Or Novel Ideas: Starting Today With The Question Of Prosecuting Guilty American Leaders For Torture.

Posted on April 14, 2008
April 14, 2008Re: Two Relatively New Or Novel Ideas: Starting Today With The Question Of Prosecuting Guilty American Leaders For Torture.Those who are not big deals know that ordinary folk often are not given credit for being the authors of ideas they either created or pushed early on...

Re: There Is Little Charity In Wealthy Charitable Hospitals.

Posted on April 09, 2008
April 9, 2008Re: There Is Little Charity In Wealthy Charitable Hospitals. Last Sunday Ben Stein wrote on how and why executive pay has skyrocketed in the last 15 years. Among other things he pointed out that last year Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs made $54 million, though the firm?s stock is now down from $250 per share to $175 per share (or 37 percent)...

Of Mamet And Chicago. Of Obamas And Elections

Posted on March 25, 2008
March 25, 2008Re: Of Mamet And Chicago. Of Obamas And Elections. For someone who strongly disliked the place, and who wanted to and did leave it, I spend a lot of time writing about Chicago. (Even a little may be a lot, considering my dislike of it...

Re: Hypocrisy Holds High Carnival, And Other Recent Travesties Of The Political/Media Complex.

Posted on March 14, 2008
March 14, 2008Re: Hypocrisy Holds High Carnival, And Other Recent Travesties Of The Political/Media Complex. I gather it is common to become less tolerant of nonsense, stupidity and their like as one gets older. Never having had a high threshold for these things to begin with, I find myself getting even shorter with political bullroar (a 1950s Chicago word), and with political stupidity, in my late 60s...

Re: Alexander Pekelis, Arthur S. Miller, And Today?s Supreme Court

Posted on March 12, 2008
March 12, 2008Re: Alexander Pekelis, Arthur S. Miller, And Today?s Supreme Court. In recent months I read a book which mentioned the name ?Alexander Pekalis.? It was a name I had not seen referred to in print in over 40 years. The author, whether because of a mistaken impression or a typographical error, spelled the name wrong...

Sun 3/2/2008 10:47 PMAnonymous

Posted on March 04, 2008
Sun 3/2/2008 10:47 PMAnonymous has left a new comment on your post "RE: The Needed Mental Attributes Of A President; T...":I've never thought that either Clinton was anywhere near as smart as many writers have proclaimed them to be.I've never understood why so many people think that Bill Clinton is a brilliant speaker...

RE: The Needed Mental Attributes Of A President; The Presidential Campaign And Forthcoming Appointments To The Supreme Court; A Bail Out For Homeowner

Posted on February 29, 2008
February 29, 2008RE: The Needed Mental Attributes Of A President; The Presidential Campaign And Forthcoming Appointments To The Supreme Court; A Bail Out For Homeowners; And Bloomberg?s Game. Yesterday, at our faculty lunch table, I was marveling at the fact that a person as stupid and incompetent as George Bush has regularly shown himself to be, could appear so personable, charming and even intelligent as he was when speaking about (and to) the Boston Red Sox before the White House news media...

Re: The Names Of The Washington Professional Sports Teams.

Posted on February 26, 2008
February 26, 2008Re: The Names Of The Washington Professional Sports Teams. I am reading an advance copy of a book that will be published in May called The Cult of the Presidency. It is a Cato Institute book authored by Cato?s senior editor, Gene Healy...

The New York Times, Cable TV, And McCain

Posted on February 21, 2008
February 21, 2008Re: The New York Times, Cable TV, And McCain. This is probably my shortest posting ever. It relates to The New York Times? story about John McCain and the lobbyist. The disgrace called cable news is trying to pretend that this story is really about a possible illicit romantic relationship...

Re: Clarence Thomas, His Autobiography, And Related Matters Pertaining To America And The Supreme Court.

Posted on February 20, 2008
February 20, 2008Re: Clarence Thomas, His Autobiography, And Related Matters Pertaining To America And The Supreme Court. Recently, I read Clarence Thomas? autobiography, My Grandfather?s Son, which covers his life up to the time he joined the Supreme Court...

The Great Louis Terkel. (You know him as Studs.)

Posted on January 30, 2008
January 30, 2008Re: The Great Louis Terkel. (You know him as Studs.)Dear Colleagues: I recently read a memoir by Studs Terkel, who is now 94 years old, I believe. Though I grew up in his city, Chicago, in the 1940s and 1950s, when he already was pretty well known there, I can?t remember having known much about him then...

Re: Two Matters: The Environmental Crisis As An Economic Opportunity, And John Edwards As An Angry Populist

Posted on January 18, 2008
January 18, 2008Re: Two Matters: The Environmental Crisis As An Economic Opportunity, And John Edwards As An Angry Populist.Dear Colleagues: I?m going to break a record and send out two postings in one day. This one is short. It consists of brief comments on two matters that have been on my mind for awhile...

Richard Levin: President of Yale And King Of Comedy

Posted on January 18, 2008
January 18, 2008Re: Richard Levin: President of Yale And King Of Comedy.Dear Colleagues:You might never know it, but comedy is one of my favorite kinds of reading. There?s nothing like a good laugh. So I thank Richard Levin, the President of Yale, for providing one...

Horse Race Rot, Cosmetic Crapola, And The Possible Need For Bloomberg.

Posted on January 11, 2008
January 11, 2008Re: Horse Race Rot, Cosmetic Crapola, And The Possible Need For Bloomberg.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues:Is it just me, or is this the worst presidential campaign yet in terms of the pols and the MSM focusing on the cosmetic and horse race aspects and talking so little about important substance? One hears such a continuing din about this poll and that one, about who is ahead and by how much, who will or should drop out, which candidates will do well in what state, how candidates look, and so forth...

Re: Halberstam and History

Posted on January 07, 2008
January 4, 2008 Dean Velvel, a grand essay, with broad perspective. I will not laud its many good points but I have a few quibbles and a funny. First, you say the truth about Chiang's army was "kept from the American public by secrecy." Actually, the whole world knew it cracked like a crate of rotten eggs under Mao's attack...

Re: Halberstam And History.

Posted on January 07, 2008
Lawrence -- While I can't exactly disagree with your assessment of David Halberstam's opus on the Korean War, I can point out a few things regarding written histories of it that you might want to pass along to your recipient list. Some 17 years before Halberstam completed writing THE COLDEST WINTER, in 1990 Orion Books published THE COLDEST WAR by James Brady, a memoir of that journalist's experiences as a very young Marine lieutenant in Korea during 1951-52...

Re: Halberstam And History

Posted on January 04, 2008
January 4, 2008Re: Halberstam And History.Dear Colleagues: It is often remarked that Korea is a war about which most of us know little or nothing. It is called a black hole by the late David Halberstam in his recent book about it, The Coldest Winter...

Re: Michael Mukasey And Jewish Conservatism.

Posted on December 14, 2007
December 14, 2007Re: Michael Mukasey And Jewish Conservatism.Dear Colleagues: I shall write relatively briefly today on a matter which touches a subject I?ve long, but perhaps wrongly, considered sensitive. The sensitive subject is the turn of American Jews toward conservatism...

Re: Robert Novak?s ?Prince of Darkness.?

Posted on December 12, 2007
December 12, 2007Re: Robert Novak?s ?Prince of Darkness.?Dear Colleagues: About thirty-five years ago or so, I stopped reading Evans? and Novak?s? columns. They were just too reactionary for me. Reading their stuff was like forcing oneself to read the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal...

Re: Arthur Sulzberger And Bill Keller On Bended Knee, Serf-Like.

Posted on December 03, 2007
December 3, 2007Re: Arthur Sulzberger And Bill Keller On Bended Knee, Serf-Like.Dear Colleagues: From time to time The New York Times (how ?alliterative,? so to speak, is that?) has been strongly criticized here for failing to report very important stories that it knew about, often that it knew a lot about...

Read 'Em And Weep For Harvard

Posted on November 29, 2007
November 29, 2007Re: Read ?Em And Weep For Harvard. In 2004-2005, and on a few occasions again in 2006-2007, I wrote about ghostwriting done for leading academics, leading doctors and others who commit moral fraud by claiming the work as their own. Ghostwriting done for famous Harvard law professors was the original impetus for this work...

Gee, Gordon, That's Great

Posted on November 20, 2007
November 20, 2007Re: Gee, Gordon, That?s Great.Dear Colleagues: Ya gotta love it, baby. It shows once again that money talks and bovine defecation walks. It shows once again that Milton Friedman, he of the huge (if distorted) mind and pygmy moral sense, was right, and so was Ronald Reagan, the sainted gipper of minimal mind and tiny moral sense: in America, it?s money uber alles, in fact, its money ist alles...

Re: The Longitudinal Lesson Of Paul Krugman?s ?The Conscience Of A Liberal.?

Posted on November 06, 2007
November 6, 2007Re: The Longitudinal Lesson Of Paul Krugman?s ?The Conscience Of A Liberal.?Dear Colleagues: I spent about ten days out of the country in mid and late October, after having read Paul Krugman?s The Conscience Of A Liberal. (There was no cause and effect relationship...

October 12, 2007Re: Although The

Posted on October 12, 2007
October 12, 2007Re: Although The Conventional Wisdom Of The Pols And The Mainstream Media Have Now Anointed Him A Hero, In Truth Jack Goldsmith Stands Convicted Out Of His Own Mouth As Well As By Recent Events.Dear Colleagues: By Thursday, October 4th, I had been doing preparatory work for roughly three weeks in order to write about Jack Goldsmith?s new book, The Terror Presidency (?TP?), which deals mainly with Goldsmith?s work as head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice...

Comment on Defeat by Applachian State

Posted on September 14, 2007
From: Joseph Burgess To: velvel@mslaw.edu Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 6:55 PMSubject: Re: With Its Defeat By Appalachian State, Michigan Finally Realizes Its Many, Many Decades Old Desire To Be The Harvard Of The West.Congratulations are due to Michigan for its achieving the long-held dream that you so well pointed out with your comparison of its loss in football to Appalachian State to Harvard's 1921 loss to Centre College...

More Garbage About Iraq From The Pols And The Media, Plus Stupid Is As Stupid Does.

Posted on September 13, 2007
September 13, 2007Re: More Garbage About Iraq From The Pols And The Media, Plus Stupid Is As Stupid Does.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues: Life unflaggingly beckons. So I shall turn now from something that is fun to write about, Michigan football, to something that is dreadful to write about, the war in Iraq...

For The Guys From The 1950s Who Were In Ann Arbor Last Saturday, It Was Deja Vu All Over Again.

Posted on September 11, 2007
September 11, 2007Re: For The Guys From The 1950s Who Were In Ann Arbor Last Saturday, It Was Déjà Vu All Over Again; Fraternity Reunion Dooms Michigan; University President Tells Septuagenarian Fraternity Alumni Never To Come Back To Ann Arbor Again...

From: Joseph BurgessSent:

Posted on September 11, 2007
From: Joseph BurgessSent: Fri 9/7/2007 11:15 AMSubject: With Its Defeat By Appalachian State, Michigan Finally Realizes Its Many, Many Decades Old Desire To Be The Harvard Of The West.don't know much -- just have good sources. The quarterback for UK in the 1951 Sugar Bowl was Blanda's successor, Vito "Babe" Parilli, who was a consensus all-American, along with UK tackle Bob Gain...

Re: With Its Defeat By Appalachian State, Michigan Finally Realizes Its Many, Many Decades Old Desire To Be The Harvard Of The West.

Posted on September 04, 2007
September 4, 2007From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues: Those (few) who have read Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam, or at least the first volume of the quartet, may remember that I described the University of Michigan of the 1950s as having an elitist mindset...

Tell Me About Michael Bloomberg

Posted on August 29, 2007
August 29, 2007Re: Tell Me About Michael Bloomberg.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues: I would be grateful if knowledgeable readers would let me know their views of Michael Bloomberg and the facts supporting those views...

We Desperately Need A New Electoral System, New Methods Of Campaigning, And New Types Of People Running For Office

Posted on August 28, 2007
August 28, 2007Re: We Desperately Need A New Electoral System, New Methods Of Campaigning, And New Types Of People Running For Office.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues: A couple of weeks ago, on Saturday, August 11th, The New York Times carried an article about a meeting of state Democratic Party officials ?from around the country...

The Federal Courts Bow Down, Abjectly, To The Secrecy Demands Of The National Security State

Posted on August 21, 2007
August 21, 2007Re: The Federal Courts Bow Down, Abjectly, To The Secrecy Demands Of The National Security State.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues: In case after case we see what little regard the federal judiciary has for truth, for honesty...

The Speech and Debate Clause and Honesty

Posted on August 16, 2007
August 16, 2007Re: The Speech And Debate Clause And Honesty.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues: This is the second in a series of postings about some recent federal court decisions that I find either highly objectionable or, at least, in some way deficient...

The Access To Experimental Drugs Case.

Posted on August 15, 2007
August 15, 2007Re: The Access To Experimental Drugs Case.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues: Whether deliberately or fortuitously, shortly after posting a piece on the case denying terminally ill patients access to experimental drugs that might save their lives, I received an email on the subject, with an a attached article on the case...

Comments on "The Federal Judiciary, Aping the German Judges, Allows the Government to Force you to Die When you are Sick

Posted on August 15, 2007
From: alan thompsonDate: Wed 8/15/2007 5:34 AMSubject: Your latest blog (Judiciary,etc.) excellentHi Dean Velvel-Your latest blog was excellent. The subject you chose was important, and the way you laid the case out as an example of how courts promulgate unreasonable decisions said a lot about how to interpret similar decisions...

Re: Comment on Blog

Posted on August 14, 2007
From: gwennmsDate: Mon 8/13/2007 5:40 PMRe: Joe BidenDear Dean Velvel, I was very surprised to read your post about Senator Joe Biden. There are several important points concerning him that I think you seem to pass over rather rapidly.One: he has been in the Senate since he was twenty-nine years old, that is since 1972, I looked it up...

The Federal Judiciary, Aping The German Judges, Allows The Government To Force You To Die When You Are Sick.

Posted on August 14, 2007
August 14, 2007Re: The Federal Judiciary, Aping The German Judges, Allows The Government ToForce You to Die When You Are Sick.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues: Only infrequently do I write about judicial opinions...

Re: Jean Edward Smith And Joe Biden

Posted on August 06, 2007
August 6, 2007Re: Jean Edward Smith And Joe Biden.From: Dean Lawrence R. VelvelVelvelOnNationalAffairs.comDear Colleagues: I shall use this post to do something I don?t believe I?ve done before: to comment ? relatively briefly ? on two things I saw on Book TV over the weekend...