Nightwingdragon

A valid point, but remember that he's also trying to avoid having the sword involuntarily shoved into him, too.

Like it or not, he sees the writing on the wall. He knows that the best he can probably hope for under a Trump administration if he doesn't bend the knee is the end of his career. He is not the first who have bent the knee since the election, and he won't be the last. Every aspect of society is going to quickly become a lot more favorable to Trump, even if only to avoid his ire. Just check out how much media coverage is now significantly more Trump-friendly. Even the independent Youtube influencers on the left are already taking a much more subdued tone towards Trump.

Jeff Bezos bent the knee out of fear of Trump retaliation. Judges have been pausing Trump and J6 related cases since he won. And before that, our entire judicial system bent to Trump's will largely out of fear of violence if they don't. Senators have been saying for years that they will not speak out publicly against Trump out of fear of retribution. Prominent Republicans have seen the end of their careers, driven out of the party at Trump's hands. Much of social media have rescinded previous policies about banning disinformation. The two GA election workers that had to go into hiding after being targeted by the Trump Hate Machine. People openly marching in the streets promoting Nazi memorabilia and preaching white supremacy. Take a look up and down mainstream media over the past couple of weeks and see how much of the coverage has suddenly become infinitely more favorable towards Trump.

There's a reason for that. Because even the most powerful and well-connected people in the country do not have the power to stand up to him without being run over. Scarborough is just trying to stay out of jail, just like everybody else. The country is now Trump's, and most people are just trying to find where their place is in TrumpWorld, because the world they lived in before no longer exists, and there is a growing number of people that are saying that they want it this way.

I mean, you're still free to stand behind your Constitutional protections and speak out openly against Trump all you want. Feel free to do just that. But when people with infinitely more resources and influence than you or I could ever dream of are having second thoughts and opting to bed the knee instead, you may want to think about why. Constitutional protections don't mean jack shit if the people charged with enforcing those protections are the ones laughing in your face as they cuff you.

Fighting a battle you have no chance of winning isn't bravery. It's suicide. And for those who are going to rush to the downvote button, remember that youtube is a thing. There is exactly nothing stopping you from going on youtube, speaking against Trump, and trying to rally the troops. Go ahead. I'll wait.

At the end of the day, most people are just trying to keep their heads down, make it through the day, and make it through life. Celebrities are no exception. Very few people are going to be willing to sacrifice everything they've worked for, and possibly even their freedom, to fight a battle that they cannot win.

This is very true, but you'd think that in a district that voted nearly 70% to deport them, you'd also get at least one loud voice speaking against them. Either on the news, social media, Youtube, wherever. This is why I believe that at least some of them went on TV or talked to the pollsters preaching about how much they love the Haitians because it was the politically correct thing to say, then went right to the voting box and voted Trump.

This isn't the case.

If your assets are being seized, it's (normally) because you are unable to pay whatever judgement was levied against you with cash. If your fairy godfather magically appears and puts up the money necessary so your assets won't be seized, the judge isn't going to care. All his job is is to ensure the plaintiffs are made as whole as possible. He will (generally) not care how your debt is paid or by whom. If the debt is paid, the debt is paid and you get to keep your stuff.

Heck, Elon musk could have swooped in himself, offered to buy infowars for 1.5 billion (which, let's be real, wouldn't even count as a rounding error to Musk) to satisfy the entire Sandy Hook judgement with the plans of just handing the whole thing right back to Jones for $1. And the families wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. As far as the courts are concerned, the families were made whole. The families don't really get to decide how they are made whole.

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.