The Onion wins Alex Jones' Infowars in bankruptcy auction

[Scholar4Truth]

The Onion wins Alex Jones' Infowars in bankruptcy auction The Onion, the satirical news company that repeatedly spoofed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, has won the bankruptcy auction for control over his media empire 

[+OverSword]

Perfect.

[Trelane]

"Wins" 🤣

[Opus Magnus]

Another great win against the freedom of speech.  I don't know what kind of crazy fool would take Alex Jones's show seriously and harass the victims of Sandy Hook.  $1.5 billion might be considered a cruel and unusual punishment.  Based on this judgement, many MSM companies could be considered doing something similar when they skew population data, inspire fear and violence.

[Gromdor]

3 minutes ago, Opus Magnus said:

Another great win against the freedom of speech.  I don't know what kind of crazy fool would take Alex Jones's show seriously and harass the victims of Sandy Hook.  $1.5 billion might be considered a cruel and unusual punishment.  Based on this judgement, many MSM companies could be considered doing something similar when they skew population data, inspire fear and violence.

Freedom of Speech is not Freedom from Consequence.

 

[Opus Magnus]

1 minute ago, Gromdor said:

Freedom of Speech is not Freedom from Consequence.

 

No, but it is cruel and unusual.  He could have been sued in the millions, and slapped with it again if he didn't quit.

[Gromdor]

1 minute ago, Opus Magnus said:

No, but it is cruel and unusual.  He could have been sued in the millions, and slapped with it again if he didn't quit.

A fine is neither cruel nor unusual.

There was a Supreme Court ruling that defined it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual_punishment

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

39 minutes ago, Opus Magnus said:

No, but it is cruel and unusual.  He could have been sued in the millions, and slapped with it again if he didn't quit.

Isn’t that actually what happened? 
he did it, copped a warning, didn’t stop. Copped a fine, didn’t stop, copped a law suit … didn’t stop. …

[Opus Magnus]

59 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

A fine is neither cruel nor unusual.

There was a Supreme Court ruling that defined it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual_punishment

Looking into this, a fine is not classified under cruel and unusual punishment if it is a civil case where all the money goes to civilians instead of the government.  In these cases is is classified under the 4th Amendment clause of Due Process of Law.  A Supreme Court case ruled that when going over 4 times the amount of punitive damages it is approaching excessiveness, and it should be under 10 times the amount¹.  So, Jones has to pay the families of 8 victims, but this raises the question of how the monetary value of the emotional distress Alex Jones had caused. 

Something in this case does not make sense.  According to Tovia Smith at NPR news, Jones is paying $200,000 to each plaintiff².  If 1.5 billion is divided by 200,000 = 7500, then he is paying 7,500 people...  Even if using the 10 to 1 rule, and he is paying each person $2 million, then he is paying 750 plaintiffs. I don't see how there are 750 people in 8 families of victims, or how this makes sense.

1.  State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/538/408/

2.  Tovia Smith, "A judge orders Alex Jones to sell personal assets, but Infowars can continue for now," NPR news, June 14, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/06/14/nx-s1-4991095/alex-jones-bankruptcy-sandy-hook-judge-liquidate-chapter7

Edited November 14 by Opus Magnus

[Gromdor]

9 minutes ago, Opus Magnus said:

Looking into this, a fine is not classified under cruel and unusual punishment if it is a civil case where all the money goes to civilians instead of the government.  In these cases is is classified under the 4th Amendment clause of Due Process of Law.  A Supreme Court case ruled that when going over 4 times the amount of punitive damages it is approaching excessiveness, and it should be under 10 times the amount¹.  So, Jones has to pay the families of 8 victims, but this raises the question of how the monetary value of the emotional distress Alex Jones had caused. 

Something in this case does not make sense.  According to Tovia Smith at NPR news, Jones is paying $200,000 to each plaintiff².  If 1.5 billion is divided by 200,000 = 7500, then he is paying 7,500 people...  Even if using the 10 to 1 rule, and he is paying each person $2 million, then he is paying 750 plaintiffs. I don't see how there are 750 people in 8 families of victims, or how this makes sense.

1.  State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/538/408/

2.  Tovia Smith, "A judge orders Alex Jones to sell personal assets, but Infowars can continue for now," NPR news, June 14, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2024/06/14/nx-s1-4991095/alex-jones-bankruptcy-sandy-hook-judge-liquidate-chapter7

The $200,000 to each plantiff number is based on how much money he had left after he blew the rest by spending $100,000.00 a month.  When they originally sued, he had $135-270 million but he drained it down to just around $10 million.

It's all in the article you linked.

Him screwing around and trying to cheat the plaintiffs out of money is probably one of the reasons why it exploded to 1.5 billion and is coming from any future income.

[Opus Magnus]

2 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

The $200,000 to each plantiff number is based on how much money he had left after he blew the rest by spending $100,000.00 a month.  When they originally sued, he had $135-270 million but he drained it down to just around $10 million.

It's all in the article you linked.

Him screwing around and trying to cheat the plaintiffs out of money is probably one of the reasons why it exploded to 1.5 billion and is coming from any future income.

According to what the justices stated in the State Farm v. Campbell case, this case is bending on the edges of the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause, and is very questionable.  In a civil suit the defendant does not have the same rights as in a criminal case, so it is easy to approach arbitrary judgements.  This case looks excessive, because the judgement looks only like a means of punishment, Alex Jones did not actually physically hurt anyone or cause anyone actual physical harm.  This case also puts the victims in an even worse position before, because now the whole country knows about it instead of only followers of Jones's show.

[Gromdor]

2 minutes ago, Opus Magnus said:

According to what the justices stated in the State Farm v. Campbell case, this case is bending on the edges of the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause, and is very questionable.  In a civil suit the defendant does not have the same rights as in a criminal case, so it is easy to approach arbitrary judgements.  This case looks excessive, because the judgement looks only like a means of punishment, Alex Jones did not actually physically hurt anyone or cause anyone actual physical harm.  This case also puts the victims in an even worse position before, because now the whole country knows about it instead of only followers of Jones's show.

This sounds like you arguing for the $1.5 billion amount...  Only means of punishment and continuing to put the victims in even worse position than before...  

Alex Jones himself is the one that made everything this way, and it's only money.  People go bankrupt every day due to accidents or their own mis-steps.  Nothing unusual about that.  And if it was cruel, then we would be doing something about for all those poor people.  But we don't because they can just get up, brush themselves off, and try and get their finances in order.  

[Opus Magnus]

3 minutes ago, Gromdor said:

This sounds like you arguing for the $1.5 billion amount...  Only means of punishment and continuing to put the victims in even worse position than before...  

Alex Jones himself is the one that made everything this way, and it's only money.  People go bankrupt every day due to accidents or their own mis-steps.  Nothing unusual about that.  And if it was cruel, then we would be doing something about for all those poor people.  But we don't because they can just get up, brush themselves off, and try and get their finances in order.  

Some people think this might not be about Sandy Hook, but a crackdown on right-wing news sources that happened at the start of the last presidential term.

[Gromdor]

2 hours ago, Opus Magnus said:

Some people think this might not be about Sandy Hook, but a crackdown on right-wing news sources that happened at the start of the last presidential term.

Might think?  Some people absolutely think that.  But then again, some people think the Earth is flat and our politicians have been replaced with reptillians.  

[HandsomeGorilla]

This is epic.

"As for the vitamins and supplements, we are halting their sale immediately. Utilitarian logic dictates that if we can extend even one CEO’s life by 10 minutes, diluting these miracle elixirs for public consumption is an unethical waste. Instead, we plan to collect the entire stock of the InfoWars warehouses into a large vat and boil the contents down into a single candy bar–sized omnivitamin that one executive (I will not name names) may eat in order to increase his power and perhaps become immortal."

[Golden Duck]

3 hours ago, Opus Magnus said:

Some people think this might not be about Sandy Hook, but a crackdown on right-wing news sources that happened at the start of the last presidential term.

Alex Jones will probably be appointed as Donald Trump's Press Secretary

[Katniss]

1 hour ago, Golden Duck said:

Alex Jones will probably be appointed as Donald Trump's Press Secretary

Now that you mention it, oh good lord, he probably will!  

[psyche101]

7 hours ago, Opus Magnus said:

Some people think this might not be about Sandy Hook, but a crackdown on right-wing news sources that happened at the start of the last presidential term.

LoL how is the entire world not a better place without Breitbart, rebel news and OAN? 

They are just right wing tabloids. Utter garbage.

[+Link of Hyrule]

6 minutes ago, psyche101 said:

LoL how is the entire world not a better place without Breitbart, rebel news and OAN? 

They are just right wing tabloids. Utter garbage.

So keep the left wing tabloids, but crack down on the right wing ones. Yay equality  

[psyche101]

1 hour ago, Link of Hyrule said:

So keep the left wing tabloids, but crack down on the right wing ones. Yay equality  

Not how the left wing actually works. I can cite tabloids as tabloids, not current news sources and understand the information from such a tabloid requires a grain of salt the size of Gibraltar. Obvious tabloids like The National Enquirer aren't taken seriously by the left or right. Breitbart or Rebel news however is often posted as gospel. 

Like many of the people labelled here as left, I say fact check any source. There should be random fact checks to keep all news outlets in their toes. Subject everyone to the same standard.

[+Link of Hyrule]

4 hours ago, psyche101 said:

Not how the left wing actually works. I can cite tabloids as tabloids, not current news sources and understand the information from such a tabloid requires a grain of salt the size of Gibraltar. Obvious tabloids like The National Enquirer aren't taken seriously by the left or right. Breitbart or Rebel news however is often posted as gospel. 

Like many of the people labelled here as left, I say fact check any source. There should be random fact checks to keep all news outlets in their toes. Subject everyone to the same standard.

I'm all for fact checking, as long as we can agree on who the fact checkers are. 

Left wing tabloids tend to get passed on with far less scepticism than the right wing ones. They also hide their bias, while organisations like Rebel News announce their bias ahead of time ago you know what you're getting. 

I'm also not entirely sure what you're defining as a tabloid. I'm assuming the lefty rags that I would call  "left wing tabloids" you might call legitimate news, things like Raw Story, Slate magazine and the like. 

Edited November 15 by Link of Hyrule

[Gromdor]

9 hours ago, Link of Hyrule said:

I'm all for fact checking, as long as we can agree on who the fact checkers are. 

Left wing tabloids tend to get passed on with far less scepticism than the right wing ones. They also hide their bias, while organisations like Rebel News announce their bias ahead of time ago you know what you're getting. 

I'm also not entirely sure what you're defining as a tabloid. I'm assuming the lefty rags that I would call  "left wing tabloids" you might call legitimate news, things like Raw Story, Slate magazine and the like. 

Honestly, the fact checker should be the individual.  "Trust but verify".  

[Trelane]

Yeah yeah yeah, but was it ever proven that the some of the folks involved at Sandy Hook weren't paid actors? 

[superman73]

Next onion acquisition will be Fox News!! Nevermind,too late

[Opus Magnus]

Infowars and its websites are back up, and running this morning.  Alex Jones and his lawyers have complained about corruption in the auction proceedings.  The claim is that The Onion was not the highest bidder, and they want to know why a lower bidder won the auction.  Representatives of creditors of Jones's bankruptcy claim that The Onion offered incentives that outweigh the other auctioneer, but the monetary value of these incentives have not actually been assessed.  So, Infowars is back in possession of Jones today, and another auction may be conducted to determine who the next owner is¹.

1. Dave Collins, "What happens next in The Onion's effort to buy Alex Jones' Infowars," NBC News 10: Boston, November 15, 2024, https://www.nbcboston.com/news/national-international/what-happens-next-the-onions-effort-buy-alex-jones-infowars/3552831/