AGs from Iowa and Montana Petition Supreme Court to End California's Left-Wing Extortion of Skydance, as the Left Conspire to Force Them to Sell CNN and HBO So That the Left Can Keep Their Propganda Outlets

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Paramount Skydance is considering a potential sale of CNN as part of an effort to resolve an antitrust lawsuit led by California and 11 other states against its proposed $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

See, the left-wing AGs are suing to stop the Skydance (Paramount) purchase of Warner Discovery, because if they get their hands on a "news" cable channel, this would consolidate too much media power in the hands of an... apolitical media company, which is just slightly less left-wing than the left-wing demands.

See, if CNN were in the hands of a slightly less liberal media company, that would result in a loss of "diversity" in "news." One single left-wing channel in a sea of left-wing channels would result in less "diversity" in "news," rather than more diversity in news, as it would appear to anyone who's not insane.

So Skydance is offering to sell CNN.

Why isn't California satisfied?

Because no one would buy CNN. It's a money pit. It loses millions every year.

What Skydance would like to to do is make CNN more centrist and less of a ratings-disaster basket-case so that they could sell it to someone, but California and the leftiest don't want that. They want CNN to stay the same left-wing Animal House it has been for 20 years, and they want another leftwing company to buy it.

For what? What could Skydance charge for it, in its current form? A $10 nominal payment?

So really the lefties don't want Skydance to sell it to NBC, Disney, or MSNOW. They want Skydance to give it away to them, as the extortion payment demanded to bless the purchase of Warner Discovery.

CNN Sale and Antitrust Battle

The Proposal: Paramount's chief legal officer, Makan Delrahim, stated that selling CNN is "on the table" to help appease antitrust regulators.

The Lawsuit: A coalition of 12 state attorneys general, spearheaded by California's Rob Bonta, sued to block the massive media consolidation over concerns it would reduce competition in theatrical distribution and cable TV licensing.

They had no such concerns when left-wing Netflix attempted to purchase Warner Discovery.

And Netflix is now the biggest player in Hollywood, bigger than any individual studio.

Except maybe the Disney behemoth -- who, by the way, these left-wing AGs did not seek to block when they purchased the second-biggest studio, Twentieth Century Fox.

And before that, they'd also purchased Pixel, Marvel Studios, and LucasFilm -- again, with no concerns about a diminishment of "competition."

I think that Skydance would be willing to give away the basket-case propaganda channel CNN, if that's the cost of the extortion.

But I think the left-wing AGs have their eyes fixed on a bigger prize: HBO. Because the cable channel is an even bigger -- and definitely more profitable -- propaganda outlet than CNN.

And Skydance will definitely not give away HBO. Most of the value of Warner Discovery is in its streaming and cable channels.

Tensions with California: Tensions escalated after AG Bonta canceled a settlement meeting, accusing Paramount of breaching confidentiality and acting in bad faith, which Paramount denied.

Relocation Threats: Paramount CEO David Ellison warned that if the state keeps stalling the merger, operations could potentially move out of California to states like Texas, Georgia, or Tennessee, drawing accusations of "blackmail" from state officials.

Yes, and they've set an October deadline for that. I think they will end up abandoning California -- and then the rush of all other media companies to leave California will be one. The first one to go will start an avalanche.

But California socialists keep saying what they've been saying, insanely and wrongly, for ten years: No business or citizen will ever, ever leave California, no matter how onerous we make it or how much we punish anyone making an honest living in the state.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

That is the background for this story; Iowa and Montana have petitioned the Supreme Court to declare that the supremacy clause should preclude California and the other communist states from blocking this purchase, because federal regulators have already cleared it as not a violation of anti-trust and not likely to cause a loss of competition.

As has the EU, by the way.

Iowa and Montana Ask Supreme Court to Block 'Politicized' Paramount-Warner Bros. Antitrust Suit Filed by California and 11 Other States

In a long-shot move, two Republican attorneys general are hoping the Supreme Court will intervene to stop the antitrust lawsuit brought by 12 Democratic state AGs seeking to block Paramount's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and Montana AG Austin Knudsen filed a motion with the Supreme Court seeking to have the antitrust suit thrown out, naming California and the 11 other states party to the Paramount lawsuit as defendants. The suit was filed with the court on Tuesday, Aug. 25, according to Bird's office. "Plaintiffs, the State of Iowa and State of Montana, respectfully move this Court for leave to file the attached Bill of Complaint to stop a politicized enforcement action that seeks to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger," the filing says.

The development will test the Supreme Court's interpretation of its authority to settle inter-state disputes. The U.S. Supreme Court is the court of original jurisdiction for issues that arise among states for things like boundary disputes and water rights, and it's not clear the court will agree to hear the motion filed by Iowa and Montana regarding litigation that those states are not a party to.

This is the standing barrier, and I don't think they'll be able to overcome it. They have no particular direct interest in this case

Experts say the Iowa-Montana appeal is unlikely to go anywhere. "The Supreme Court is more likely to declare Donald Trump 'litigator of the year' than it is to block the states from enforcing their own antitrust rules," said Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. He called the Iowa-Montana action "political grandstanding."

"There's no valid legal basis to do this," said Norm Eisen, an attorney who has helped lead the #BlocktheMerger campaign opposing the Paramount-WBD merger. "This new filing by Iowa turns the entire American legal system on its head. That's why the Supreme Court is going to reject it."

Oh, Norm Eisen, the architect of ten years of unethical lawfare against Trump. I'm glad the media looks for a "diversity" of "experts" when writing their propganda.

Can state AGs acquire standing to sue?

I think they could: If Skydance/Paramount names the city it will move to. Either Austin or Nashville, most think would be the likely places.

Then the states involved, Texas and Tennessee, would, I think, have standing to sue.

But I think the best move is just to leave California entirely. Doing so would save Skydance $500 million per year in taxes, experts estimate.

It's worth doing even without taking account of California's communist gangster extortion ploy.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:14 PM

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