News @lemmy.world 🃏Joker @sh.itjust.works 1w ago

Judge rejects sale of Alex Jones' Infowars to The Onion in dispute over bankruptcy auction

apnews.com Judge rejects sale of Alex Jones' Infowars to The Onion in dispute over bankruptcy auction

A federal judge has rejected the sale after Jones claimed that a recent bankruptcy auction was fraught with illegal collusion.

34 comments

You know what would make the auction process more transparent? Don't make it a blind auction.

On a different note, is there a Gofundme up for The Onion to make sure they win the next auction yet?
- I'm willing to bet that fucking Elon musk is going to buy it in the next round..
  
  While that's a horrible thought, but pushing the price tag up only helps the Sandy Hook victims. Adding the InfoWars brand to his catalogue doesn't really expand his reach any further than X.
  
  It's kind of a nice thought that he would effectively be paying some of the remuneration.
  
  Lopez cited problems — but no wrongdoing — with the auction process. He said he did not want another auction and left it up to the trustee who oversaw the auction to determine the next steps.
  
  I would be surprised if the auction was restarted. The "problems" cited seem to be that the judge just wanted the families to get more money and to minimize the chance of a lawsuit from the losers messing with them. Even though this is the bid that would get the families more money, I think everyone was surprised at how low the bids were. And the more complicated nature of the bid makes it more likely that a lawsuit could hold things up. If The Onion's side can add a couple million more so that it's the highest bid outright as well as getting the families a little more, I think the judge would approve it.
- Maybe they could do it Cards Against Humanity style, and let millions of us each own a tiny slice of it.
  
  You just described a publicly traded company.
- Too late now that this got media awareness, if you believe a GoFundMe is going to raise more than some right-wing media outlet I have a bridge to sell
  
  Well that might be true, but the silver lining is that the larger the price tag, the more the Sandy Hook victims actually get. It's almost like duping the crooked billionaires to pay their taxes.
- It's not that simple. The judge rejected the bid because it included the Sandy Hook families forgoing $750,000.
  
  I don't understand why this matters. The families knowingly accepted the lower bid so The Onion could try and do some good with the brand. It seems like, at the point where it's being auctioned off with all proceeds going to the families, InfoWars should effectively be theirs to do with as they please.
  
  Well my assumption is that the next auction will be won by the highest bidder, so your point isn't really contradictory.
  
  Read further. There are two judgements against Jones: one for ~$50M and one for ~$1B. In a normal bankruptcy resolution, the 8 families of the $1B judgement will get 95% of the proceeds, while the 2 families of $50M get 5%. "Sandy Hook families forgoing $750,000" means that those 8 families are effectively giving $750k of their millions to the 2 families, resulting in a more even distribution of compensation across the whole group.
“We can celebrate the judge doing the right thing with the most ridiculous, fraudulent auction known in human history,” he said.

They used to literally auction human beings, you utter waste of carbon.
- Next year we make slave auctions great again
- The pattern of speech among conservatives always seems to be "most $negativeAdjective $noun in human history".
Lopez cited problems — but no wrongdoing — with the auction process

“You got to scratch and claw and get everything you can for them,” Lopez said.

The victims gave up 750K because they wanted The Onion to have it. Lopez has had some good rulings in the past, this is not one of them.

If there were problems with the auction, fine, but don't pretend this decision was to benefit the victims.
- Did Lopez get a little promise from the new oligarchy overlords as to his legal career?
  
  SpinfoWars says YES
god damnit
- Everything sucks
  
  You really don't know why
  
  Edit: this was an attempt at a "break stuff" by limp bizkit. Obviously failed. Leaving it for the butthurt.
Good rundown of why the judge is a dick for this ruling.

https://youtu.be/GmDNz7irGgw?si
I find this weird that the judge would say they should've been told they can improve their offer, because in a bid process you generally will give a BAFO. If your bid wasn't the highest, there's no "further negotiations". The trustee specifically chose a model where there wouldn't be back and forth (which may or not have been best, I'm not sure).

34 comments