this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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[–] [email protected] 281 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez is from Texas and first got an MA in Theology before going into law -- if that gives you any useful context.

[–] [email protected] 158 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Jesus would want the Onion to buy Infowars

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 week ago

Jesus was always saying punchy one liners. He'd be a brilliant satirist.

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[–] [email protected] 245 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (9 children)

A rival bidder associated with Jones, First United American Cos., offered $3.5 million in cash, or twice as much cash as The Onion’s parent company. First United American is a limited liability company affiliated with Jones’ dietary supplements business, and its bid had Jones’ blessing.

How the fuck can that company possibly win a bid when it ought to be getting auctioned off to pay the Sandy Hook families too‽

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 week ago (3 children)

They are business partners with Jones, they aren't actually owned by Jones.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So Alex Jones is transferring Infowars to his pals so he can continue running the show under them?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (4 children)

He is trying to. I don't think he will succeed.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Pretty sure this is the first step to that succeeding, so I wouldn't be so sure.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (4 children)

This is the first step to failing twice.

FUAC might get another chance to bid, but so will the Onion. And the Onion will outbid FUAC, because they have up to $965 million available if necessary.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Please explain why you don't think he will succeed. This seems like exactly what the fascists would do.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago

Sounds like a bullshit asset-hiding scam to me.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I really buy that. About as much as him saying he had nothing to do with AEJ holdings, or had no stake in the companies that his parents owned with him.

If he's not got a direct financial stake in this, he's got an under the table one. No one affiliated with Jones should be able to buy InfoWars.

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[–] [email protected] 229 points 1 week ago (3 children)

“I don’t even think the $3.5 million is enough,” [the judge] said.

Cool judge, so you gonna put up the cash? Because last I checked there were only two bidders and the victims wanted the Onion out of the two.

[–] [email protected] 111 points 1 week ago

Not only did they want them, the onion agreed to pay more to another lawsuit filed by a different group of parents than would have been given by the second bidder. This wasn't the highest amount bid, but the highest payout to families.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 week ago

I've been following this closely.

The normal way bankruptcy auctions go is basically some version of this:

  1. Everyone who wants to bid has to sign an NDA about the assets.
  2. Everyone who signs the NDA can perform their due diligence, look at financial statements and other confidential information about the assets in the auction, to figuratively kick the tires. If there's actual physical property involved, bidders are generally allowed to physically inspect it (if it's a tractor, for example, you can bring a mechanic to help sort out the tractor's condition).
  3. Before the deadline, every bidder submits a secret bid to the trustee.
  4. The trustee evaluates the bids, looks to see which is best, and decides whether the top bids are close enough to hold a live public auction or allow topping bids for the bidders to say "hey you're only $1 million short from the current top bid, you want to throw more money at this?," and going around and around until the trustee is sure they've gotten the best and final bid from everyone.

The judge is upset that the trustee didn't really do step 4, which in the bankruptcy process is designed to squeeze out the highest possible price for the sale. The losing bidder says they submitted a lower bid than their absolute top "best and final" they would have, because they thought they'd have an opportunity to improve the bid in a step that never happened.

So they're going back to do it again. Presumably the trustee will propose a new auction process that explicitly puts out well defined rules on how creditors (like the Sandy Hook families) can credit bid with credit against their own claims, instead of actual cash. They'll need to calculate exactly how much each dollar of credit bid brings to the non-participating creditors (like Sandy Hook families who don't want to credit bid), and make sure that for each creditor who isn't credit bidding gets the most money out of the sale.

I don't think it's over. The judge specifically said that he believes the trustee tried to do the right thing, but ultimately didn't follow a process that was designed to raise the most money.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

He thinks they didn't do enough to get more from the bidding. The point of this bankruptcy option is not to punish Jones, it's to liquidate his assets to pay creditors. The job of the person selling those assets is to get as much money as they can for those creditors.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago (17 children)

So if the creditors stated they want the desk with the onion... Why not?

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[–] [email protected] 149 points 1 week ago (10 children)
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[–] [email protected] 113 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Imma be honest, between this and the CEO killing we've only really had two pieces of good news all fucking year and the same dipshits ruining everything are ruining this too. This plus being nonstop sick since August with several colds is really making 2024 the shittiest year (so far).

Can someone at least give us a piece of good news before the end of the year? Maybe something that tops both?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

No matter what, that CEO is still dead.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

They will just promote the claims denial Ai or a human that can out-perform it.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not holding my breath until all appeals get denied

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Unions are getting completely overwhelmed with the number of active organizing efforts going on in the country.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

Interesting the press missed that one.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Not your main point but for the past few years I've spent half of the months sick. I got a cold 3 weeks ago, everyone else in the house is better, my throat is still halfway swollen shut, my nose is a broken faucet, my heads still filled with helium. I'll start feeling better just in time for the Christmas party where I'm almost certain to get sick again.

I went to a doctor to see if there was something wrong with me and got a bunch of test done, got a nice ~$800 bill and haven't been able to get in touch with the doctor since. I missed 2 calls from them about a week after my tests and since has been calling in a couple times a month to find out if there's something up but I keep getting "the doctor will call you back later".

I would like to assume the fact that no one is calling me back means I'm don't have anything seriously wrong, but I still would like to know for certain.

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think evil has always had the upper hand in history, in some way or another. We didn’t get to this point on the backs of our best people.

What makes this new era so weird is that the bad guys have won so hard that it’s begun to trickle down to the stupidest, least creative, most inept evils in our society. They used to be the fodder we chewed through as a society to distract from the worse stuff higher up the chain.

Evil used to be clever.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago (15 children)

Been wandering if greed/power is actually the Great Filter of the Fermi paradox looking at the world we live in. The "evils" just keep getting worse...

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 1 week ago

deep down i had a feeling it was too good to be true

[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 week ago

Now that's some serious bullshit...

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago (3 children)
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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago

God fucking dammit

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago

dammit. fucking windows 98!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The good timeline peeked into this one for a second there. Can't have that threat to Traditional Family Values Brand ™️ dystopia

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago

What total shit!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago

Booooooooooo the justice system is corrupt AF in the US.

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