Bid Call -- Not An Order: Fill & Download for Free

Mortgage foreclosure, representing the plaintiff. The night before the auction, I assembled a special file, because the defendant was a serial bankruptcy-filer. On his go-around preceding the foreclosure, the Bankruptcy Court decreed that as a sanction for his repeated bogus filings, there would be no automatic stay in the future; he would need to get an order of the Bankruptcy Court imposing a stay. Armed with certified copies of the sanction order, I arrived at the courthouse. The referee announced that we were stayed and handed me a copy of the Bankruptcy Petition that had been filed at 9:00 that morning. I handed the referee a copy of the Bankruptcy Court sanction order and a copy of a Court of Appeals decision that he, as referee, was immune from suit. So the referee asked what I wanted to do and I said I wanted him to proceed with the sale. Before the auction, I announced to the people who were assembled to bid what was going on. This was a property on the upper East Side of Manhattan, 20,000 squaqre feet, and the mortgage lien was “only” $4 million. There were more than fifty vultures ready to bid. My client was the tenant who had leased the property from the serial filer and who moved into the mansion a week before the lis pendens was filed. He really really wanted to buy. I really really wanted to do the foreclosure sale. Nobody but the plaintiff put in a bid. One week later, I get served with an order to show cause out of the Bankruptcy Court on a motion to punish for contempt because, it was said, I had violated the automatic stay in bankruptcy. The fool also cited the referee. It took six months and half a dozen hearings, but in the end, Judge Blackshear dismissed the motion. On the record, the Judge said, “Mr. Connolly, you play VERY high-stakes poker. Remind me never to call your bluff: you have ice water instead of blood in your veins.” Memorable indeed.

It's just not an exchange.This isn't something to argue about. You can call a hammer a saw, but it's not. You can play word games to convince people that a dog is a cat, but it's not.In an exchange, you'd have an order book with bid and ask prices. With coinbase, you are a price taker, and as a user you don't have the ability to bargain for prices.

I think it does.The President of the United States is arguably the most powerful person on the planet. Literally hundreds of thousands of people are required to obey his lawful orders, and even more are expected to do his bidding under most circumstances.In the military, everyone learns that a request from a superior officer is tantamount to an order. If your commanding officer starts a sentence with “I would like you to…”, or, “If you wouldn’t mind, please…,” the subordinate should regard it as an order, just the same as if he had said, “Do this now.” The FBI Director is not as obligated as a member of the military (for example, he can quit his job any time he likes, where people in the military have to be discharged), but the request of the president still carries considerable weight.The “checks and balances” built into the constitution provide for the president to remove charges and/or penalties from someone through a pardon or commutation of sentence. President Trump could issue a blanket pardon for Michael Flynn tomorrow, and it wouldn’t matter what any FBI investigation revealed. Flynn would be untouchable for any crimes covered by the pardon. President Ford did this for Richard Nixon when Nixon resigned the office, forestalling any criminal investigations or prosecutions that could have arisen out of the Watergate scandal. Ford said he did this so the country could move past the “long national nightmare,” and in retrospect, it was probably the right call.However, issuing a pardon forever ties that president’s name and record to the case, and makes the president’s alliances clear. Presidents inclined to cut a lot of slack to their friends issue a bunch of pardons as they leave office, when political consequences are less of a consideration. President Clinton issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations of sentence on his last day in office, many of them to acquaintances and campaign contributors.Had President Trump simply pardoned Michael Flynn, it would have been a completely lawful exercise of the power of his office. However, trying to subvert an investigation by asking the FBI Director to call a halt to it is a misuse of power. I doubt he will be impeached for it, given the Republicans’ control of Congress. If President Obama had done this with a Republican congress, he would have almost certainly been impeached.