I told them that was going to be a bridge too far.

The valuation is essentially what someone is willing to pay for it, and in this case, there are only 2 bidders to value it.

Nitpick: This is probably the case 99% of the time, but there is the outside possibility that there were some restrictions on the auction that we do not know about that caused potential bidders to shy away, therefore lowering the perceived value of the assets artificially.

You are correct. It’s just that because the details of the bids are sealed, it appears on the surface that the Onion bid was too low relative to the value of the asset and the competitive bid. The hearing is to clear that misconception up; The onion bid + incentives thrown in (debt relief + benefits to other creditors) actually brings the overall value of the bid to above the value of the competing bid, and possibly of Infowars itself. This means that not only is the Onion bid the actual winning bid, the bid is of greater financial benefit to not only the sandy hook families, but to Jones’ creditors and ultimately Jones himself.

This is normally routine, but given all of the players involved, it just opens the door to a lot of fuckery. Under normal circumstances, a hearing like this wouldn’t even be noteworthy, much less newsworthy.

I’ll let people who know legalese say it better than I do, but the gist of the answer is:

A judge cannot seize a piece of property to settle a debt, then dramatically undervalue it in order to say that the seizure satisfies only a smaller portion of the debt instead.

So in a case like this, if Infowars was valued at $10 million for example. The judge can’t just arbitrarily say it’s only worth $1 million, and therefore the seizure only satisfies $1 million of the debt instead of $10 million. Further, you can’t take something valued at $10 million, put it up for sale for $1 million, then say that the defendant still owes another $9 million, because you’re effectively increasing the judgement against him by that $9 million. I’m probably not saying this perfectly right, but I’m sure you get the idea.

Judges can allow sales like this to go through, but the winning bidder has to show why the other incentives being offered should be accepted over just straight up cash. If a judge just looks at the bottom line and sees (for example), the Onion bid $1 million but Jones’ associate bid $6 million. A judge is absolutely going to hold a hearing and want to ask about 75 million questions about why the “winning bid” was so low. If the Onion and the families go in and say “We want Onion to get the bid. We are willing to waive $5 million off of the total debt owed to us, along with waiving $X million so Infowars’ creditors can get paid. Therefore, our bid is actually higher than the competitive bid after other incentives have been considered.”, a judge should sign off on it with no issues from there.

Again, I hope I’ve explained this correctly. I don’t know any of the specifics of the auction so the numbers I used were pulled out of my ass for discussion purposes.

The biggest concern I have is that the Trump administration could very well meddle in this case and use whatever quazi-legal bullshit they can come up with to essentially hand the company back to Jones through the back door, if not just invalidate the judgement against him entirely on the basis of because fuck you that’s why. Doing so would be a great way for Trump to advertise the rewards that his cronies can expect for those who are deemed loyal enough while costing him no political capital at all.

I do not like this. I do not like this at all.

The whole auction was basically a continuation of the war between Alex Jones and the families he defamed, as the only two bidders were someone bidding on Jones’ behalf and the Onion, with the backing of the families. There seems to be concerns over if this is in the best interest of Jones, the desires of the Sandy Hook families seems to be being ignored, and there is a very real possibility that this judge could rule (legally or otherwise) that the Onion’s bid is disqualified and since Jones’ associate is the only other bidder, he wins. Jones essentially keeps Infowars, continues on with business as usual, and probably takes a giant shit on the Sandy Hook families as his victory lap.

Nope. That’s the voting results from Springfield, Ohio’s district. That’s the district with 20,000 Hatian immigrants in it that they said were welcomed and beloved members of the community that revitalized business in the city…and then voted 2:1 to have them kicked out.

Every single pick he has made so far has made our nation less safe. Like outright, not even trying to hide it.

Look at it this way. Outside of long-term cocksuckers like Gaetz, do you honestly think Trump even knows who 95% of these people are? Or for that matter cares? Do you think that the crayon-eaters Trump has advising him has a clue who 95% of these people are?

Trump has his orders. Get these people into these positions, come hell or high water. And Trump is passing those orders down the chain of command. The only “question” is who’s giving Trump the orders. And if you want the answer, give it a few months and then follow the money. It’s not like the trail of breadcrumbs is hard to follow. The crumbs they throw down are the size of a loaf.

I completely understand that weak cybersecurity is a threat, but we already have the Department of Defense, Department of National Intelligence and Department of State covering it, so there is already built in redundancy, why do we need DHHS doing it too?

Given the fact that Trump is going out of his way to install the worst candidates for every possible government position in existence, I’m actually glad for all the redundancy. With any luck, Trump won’t notice that at least one of these departments exists, leaves someone with more than 3 functioning brain cells in charge, and gives us at least some semblance of cybersecurity.

Can someone please remind me exactly why Republicans are trying to speedrun the collapse of, well, everything?

Yes, finally the public will have a say as to what gets taught in these private schools

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I stopped caring about the opinions of the people of Ohio when they went on the news for months talking about how the Hatian immigrants were a welcome part of the community and revived local business, then turned around and voted by 2:1 in favor of throwing them all out because they eat dogs.

He’s sending the same message to military commanders that he just sent to the US senate: “I am in charge. Get on board, or get run over.” Success here will ensure his control of the US military. The “hearings” will be a bunch of generals either being thrown in jail, or telling Trump what he wants to hear and throwing Biden under the bus. These hearings will be used to purge non-MAGA commanders from the military and give Trump complete control.

Trump is just carrying on the military tradition of sexually assaulting women and then using your position of power over them and their careers to keep them quiet. He’s perfect for the job. He’ll fit right in Trump’s inner circle. There’s Trump, Gaetz, Hegseth…they’ll cozy up together on the weekends and talk about how to be more rapey and stuff. Locker room talk and all that, don’t ya know…

It’s not even consequences any more. That ship has sailed.

People simply are not grasping the fact that (assuming they even care) if it’s not legal, Congress can just make it legal. And if it’s unconstitutional, the Supreme Court is there to declare it constitutional. The guardrails are off. Anybody not fully aboard the Trump train has been purged. He has control of every branch of government, and over half of the state governments. He can literally do what he wants because not only did the Supreme Court explicitly tell him so, but also because everybody with any kind of power, influence, or resources to stand in his way have been successfully removed. The only people left are people that will gladly allow him to step all over them so he doesn’t get his shoes dirty while walking. Remember, the Supreme Court explicitly gave Trump the right to Seal-Team-Six somebody with absolute impunity. They literally asked Trump’s team if immunity meant that he could Seal-Team-Six someone and not be prosecuted for it, Trump’s lawyer explicitly said yes, and the Supreme Court voted in his favor. So even on the off chance you do stand up to Trump and become enough of a nuisance, he can legally just have you killed because fuck you that’s why.

There is absolutely nothing, nothing that stops Trump from invalidating freedom of the press, on the absurdly flimsy premise of “fake news is not protected by the First Amendment”. And since he gets to decide what is and isn’t “fake news”, this means he would literally get to decide what media outlets continue operating, and which ones see their CEOs jailed for “first amendment violations.”

If Trump says that, and Congress passes a bill that says he can do that, and the Supreme Court says that banning “fake news” is “constitutional”, and incoming AG puppet Matt Gaetz is willing to pursue charges against CNN and MSNBC on Trump’s orders, there goes freedom of the press. Full stop. Sure, it’ll still technically exist. But freedom of religion is also enshrined in North Korea’s constitution. Go over there with a Bible and let me know how that works out for you. The same thing would apply here. Laws and protections that the government is no longer willing to uphold or enforce may as well not exist.

The Supreme Court has already invalidated parts of the 14th amendment for being “too vague” and therefore unenforceable. The second the Supreme Court did that, the Constitution immediately stopped being the Sacred Law of the land and became simply a really old piece of paper with some guidelines that can be ignored when they become politically inconvenient. They are already talking about doing the same with the 22nd amendment. What’s to stop them from doing it to the 19th? Or the 13th? Or just all of them? What’s to stop them from just saying “The Constitution as a whole was written over 200 years ago and is no longer suitable for use as the basis of our legal framework in modern times” and just suspend the whole thing? They already invalidated parts of it because they felt like it, and the citizens did nothing. They’re talking about invalidating another part of it, and citizens are doing nothing. What’s to stop them from just saying “fuck it” and invalidating the whole damn thing? It seems to be the endgame anyway.

The chances of this happening are significantly above zero. We will be coronating a king in every way possible without actually using the word “king.”

Until they bring it up again after Trump is inaugurated and gives the order to fall in line.

This is literally why I’ve come to call them mierdas touch and have specifically never clicked on a video of theirs. The trend of all these asshats to do this with EVERY story is just infuriating, pakman and all.

I scroll through YouTube and it’s just “Trump WRECKED by new BOMBSHELL!” “New polling DESTROYED Trump!” “Trump FEARS this koala!” “The left DOMINATED a sandwich” I never click on anything like that and the shit they say is never true to the emotion they put behind the title. No that poll didn’t WRECK anyone. No Jack Smith didn’t DESTROY anyone. No the left didn’t DOMINATE that sandwich…

Exactly.

If someone is looking for objective, independent media and they see your video titled “Trump WRECKED by NEW BOMBSHELL!!” and the ad that precedes your video is actually you just hocking some random kitchen appliance that you’ve clearly never heard of and have no interest in, you’ve already lost credibility with them before you’ve actually uttered out a single sentence. You just told that potential subscriber that you’re just as willing to shill garbage and lie to your subscribers to generate revenue as whatever echo chamber they just left, begging the question of if the information you’re giving is objective and accurate, or skewed to maximize outrage and therefore profits from your subscriber base.

Trump’s election seems/feels like reoccurring issue with short term memory,

This is actually about all we have. If it happened more than 5 minutes ago, it didn’t happen.

long term planning,

Dems tend not to see more than about 5 minutes ahead, either.

critical thinking,

Nonexistent in the modern age. People have long since spoken and have said they prefer online echo chambers where critical thinking is actively discouraged.

and reading deficiencies amoung the American population.

When do you think the last time your average American voter read a book? Or for that matter consumed a piece of news media that wasn’t a social media clickbait video from their echo chamber of choice?

Respectfully, they found a niche and they rolled with it. I do mildly criticize the hyperbole but I accept its something that helps get clicks which id rather they get than basically all the alternatives.

This is true to some degree. But at the same time, these are all still a bunch of white guys who happened to be born into the wealth needed to create their channels in the first place, so it’s more of which group of rich white dudes is getting the clicks.

And if that’s the way they want to roll, it’s really none of my business nor concern. Go with it. But just don’t claim that you’re objective and independent when watching about three minutes of your coverage proves otherwise.

The products are whatever, sometimes I’m glad to hear about whats big and they tend to take on decent quality offerings that I may act on at some point, most of the podcasts and outlets I follow have to do some form of advertising but they all make it fun or minimally intrusive so again I accept that as a function of doing business and being able to continue their work.

I have no problems with advertising. They have to make money too. But there’s a difference between “Here’s a word from our sponsor” and letting the ad run vs. claiming to like and use a product they’ve clearly never heard of while they’re reading off a script with all of the acting talent of a first grader in a school play. And to some, it begs the question of if they’re willing to peddle this crap and lie to me about it in the process, what else are they lying about to generate revenue?

I’m sure we couldn’t disagree that the legal analysis and breakdowns are top-notch and quite deep. They’ve made me, a non-lawyer or law student utterly fascinated with the law and how it can all go wrong and where it upholds what it should where it matters

Oh, this I agree with. Once you dig through the clickbait and hyperbole, the information is quite good. But you’ve got to dig through more than you should have to to get there.

If everyone watched MeidasTouch for the political/legal news, America would be far saner and harder to dupe. Its the only media outlet I have any respect or hope for

I’m going to be honest, I watch a lot of very left-leaning independent media. MeidasTouch, BTC, David Pakman, Jesse Dollemore. I subscribe to BTC. But I’ve got a lot of issues with them, including MeidasTouch, myself.

• They all use extreme and misleading hyperbole and clickbait in their titles and thumbnails that have a strained-at-best relationship with objective facts and the subject at hand. Saying that Jack Smith is winding down his cases against Trump is not “BIG news on FEDERAL PROSECUTION of TRUMP before inauguration!!!”, for example. BTC is particularly noteworthy for this.

• They all focus their coverage almost entirely on Trump, to the point where it’s not unreasonable to question what these people would do if Trump really were to just ride off into the sunset, and cover him in such a way where they are clearly profiting off of the outrage.

• None of them promote new Democrat ideas or give coverage to Democrat politicians unless they are going on the air to speak against Trump. Little to no time is dedicated to left-leaning topics that aren’t somehow heavily tied to Trump and keeping Trump outrage high.

• With the exception of BTC, they all hock products that nobody has ever heard of, they have never heard of, and by the way they read the script, couldn’t care less about beyond the check they get from the sponsor. David Pakman is particularly egregious with his claims about how long he’s been using the product and is a fan of it, which you can tell is 100% grade-A bullshit by the way he reads the script.

Don’t get me wrong. At the end of the day, they are still at least giving factual and accurate information even if it’s clouded in hyperbole and clickbait, which is infinitely far more than I can say for Fox, Newsmax, Twitter, Trump Social, or OANN. The products they’re hocking are at least actual products and won’t actively harm consumers, unlike the crypto scams, ads for ivermectin, and whatever other money laundering schemes RAN is peddling this week.

But at the same time, they are all profiting heavily off of making sure outrage against Trump stays high. They all shy away from covering anything that could be construed as beneficial to Trump out of fear of losing subscribers. They all, with the exception of BTC, lie to their subscribers by claiming they use a product they clearly care nothing about. They all skew their coverage with an extreme left bent. They are far better than what we get from the right, but they are by no means objective, are not above and beyond skewing coverage in a way that they feel is most profitable for them, and would absolutely sell out to the very mainstream media they claim to despise if given the chance.

I just don’t like the non-zero chance that this somehow gets reversed once the Trump administration begins. Jones is a huge Trump supporter, and I could absolutely see him meddling in this case in whatever illegal-but-theyll-make-it-legal way he can. The outright bribery and corruption is on full display, and I absolutely could see Trump do this even if only to show everybody else the rewards they might receive if they get on board.