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Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

nytimes.com

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Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#781

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

alwa wrote: post #10
pclmulqdq wrote: post #6

This is probably the correct decision. Alex Jones's vitamin company offered 2x more cash, and in the case of a bankruptcy, cash completely trumps any notion of "giving up debt." Especially when the debt being settled is astronomically large and you are giving up a very small portion of it ($7 million out of $1.5 billion). The other creditors are far better off getting more cash, and those $7 million of claims are wor…

Isn't it a little strange, though, that the system notionally decided that the families are owed an enormous amount of economic power as compensation for the nasty behavior of Alex Jones' media company, but at the same time it's obliging them not to use that economic power to prevent the sale of the media company to a "new owner" still affiliated with an unrepentant Alex Jones, who will undoubtedly continue the nasty…

>Isn't it a little strange, though, that the system notionally decided that the families are owed an enormous amount of economic power as compensation for the nasty behavior of Alex Jones' media company, but at the same time it's obliging them not to use that economic power to prevent the sale of the media company to a "new owner" still affiliated with an unrepentant Alex Jones, who will undoubtedly continue the nasty behavior? Just in order to get cash to compensate them at pennies on the dollar for his previous round of nasty behavior?

This is regrettable, but I don't think the court system offers a remedy sufficient for the grief Jones caused. This is why the court awarded what is frankly an absurd sum... truly, what is the point of awarding numbers that large? They're never paid out.

There this a strict defamation case, where the plaintiff's reputations were actually damaged in a way that harmed their income/worth, then we'd likely have seen a more rational award. Whatever it was that Jones did to these people, it's not the same tort as defamation. In that, he calls them embezzlers or pedos or something, they lose their jobs... and we can put a number to the damage he inflicted. Instead, he claimed they were actors, they never had any children, and this was some sort of hoax. Had crazy people coming out of the woodwork to harass them and stalk them. But the only sort of court order that could remediate that would be one that muzzles Jones from saying this shit... prior restraint. Something the Constitution wouldn't allow for.

I actually wonder if what he did shouldn't be characterized as a crime instead of a tort. Were he prosecuted and imprisoned (or even just put on probation), then the government would have the authority/leverage to (temporarily) prohibit this speech. Even then, he'd be made a martyr by his fans and it would continue as soon as the sentence was served.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#782

Post by stevage »

WhatsTheBigIdea wrote: post #740
NoGravitas wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the legal pretext, which appears about 2/3 of the way through the article: > Judge Lopez said that the bankruptcy auction failed to maximize the amount of money that the sale of Infowars should provide to Mr. Jones’s creditors, including the Sandy Hook families, in part because the bids were submitted in secret.

[dead]

> The Sealed-Bid auction should generate a price that is greater than or equal to the English Open Cry in all situations.

That is a very large claim to make that ignores psychology. If it were true, you would never see open cry auctions used anywhere.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#783

Post by pclmulqdq »

Retric wrote: post #52
ipaddr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a debt judgement not economic power. They can sell that debit judgement to a company who collects. They can take the money from the result of the court process and try to buy infowars after this is all over. They don't have a judgement of ownership in infowars they have a debt and the court is forcing Alex to sell all assets to cover the debt. Then the rest is written off and he gets a black mark on his cre…

> So they put it up for an auction to get the real value. Except Onion’s bid minimized Alex Jones debt and was the preferred outcome by his creditors. Offering more cash isn’t the same as making a larger bid here.

It was the preferred outcome by the majority of his creditors, not by all his creditors (note that preferred != economically best). If the creditors were unanimous in their preferences, there would be no issue before the court.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#784

Post by RobotToaster »

WhatsTheBigIdea wrote: post #740
NoGravitas wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the legal pretext, which appears about 2/3 of the way through the article: > Judge Lopez said that the bankruptcy auction failed to maximize the amount of money that the sale of Infowars should provide to Mr. Jones’s creditors, including the Sandy Hook families, in part because the bids were submitted in secret.

[dead]

> The Sealed-Bid auction should generate a price that is greater than or equal to the English Open Cry in all situations.

Do you have a source for this? I find it hard to believe standard "English" auctions would be so popular if it was true.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#785

Post by devops99 »

stuaxo wrote: post #518
devops99 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in such a way that he caused threats In such a way that somebody else decided on their own do something...

I don't know about the US, but incitement to violence is a crime in other countries.

Nothing he said could be construed as a call to violence by any sane and sober person. So it's moot anyway.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#786

Post by [deleted] »

m10i wrote: post #780
DrillShopper wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

(To put this in a less inflammatory way) if it is indeed true that this judge was appointed by Trump (I haven't looked into it), it is reasonable to believe that it probably wasn't based on merit or understanding of law. This is because he has a long history of promoting/installing people that he believes (whether or not it turns out to be the case) will obey him above all else. Being "fit for the task" is an afterth…

[deleted]

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#787

Post by pclmulqdq »

logifail wrote: post #701
alwa wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what they did, and that's what was rejected here, right? Although it sounds like maybe this was more of a procedural rejection than a dispositive one...

> That's what they did, and that's what was rejected here, right? Except they weren't the highest bidder?

Their bid was essentially "something that economically feels like $100k more than the next highest bidder to people who aren't us" which is a clever contractual construction but not an auction bid.

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#788

Post by nocman »

WhatsTheBigIdea wrote: post #740
NoGravitas wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the legal pretext, which appears about 2/3 of the way through the article: > Judge Lopez said that the bankruptcy auction failed to maximize the amount of money that the sale of Infowars should provide to Mr. Jones’s creditors, including the Sandy Hook families, in part because the bids were submitted in secret.

[dead]

> The Sealed-Bid auction should generate a price that is greater than or equal to the English Open Cry in all situations.

Not necessarily. In many sealed-bid auctions, bidders hope to win with a lower bid (often much lower) than they would if they were bidding against others in the same room. This is especially true if you have no idea whether anyone else is bidding on the item at all. I have placed very low bids on items in sealed-bid auctions for things I had no immediate need for, but would happily pay for if the cost was very low (and I have won many such items, sometimes because no one else even bid on them).

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#789

Post by [deleted] »

RobotToaster wrote: post #784
WhatsTheBigIdea wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

> The Sealed-Bid auction should generate a price that is greater than or equal to the English Open Cry in all situations. Do you have a source for this? I find it hard to believe standard "English" auctions would be so popular if it was true.

[deleted]

Re: Bankruptcy judge rejects sale of Infowars to The Onion

#790

Post by llamaimperative »

Eextra953 wrote: post #544
_zgx0 wrote: post #506

The amount of folks here supporting Alex Jones is completely shocking to me. He built a business out of attacking and re-victimizing parents whose children were murdered. He's scum of the earth. That business was taken away from him, and folks think that's too much? What the actual fuck.

It shocking to me too. I can't understand how people are 'both sides-ing' this or just supporting him under some free speech argument. Free speech has limits and a court found Jones went too far and that cost him his business.

Reflexive contrarianism runs amok in these parts. It’s pretty pathetic.
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