iftttwall

For the fourth time this year and the second time in seven days, one of Turkey’s major cities has been hit with a deadly suicide bombing.

Just six days after an explosion ripped through a transit hub in Ankara’s Kizilay neighborhood killing 34 people and wounding more than 100, a bustling shopping street in Istanbul was shaken by a powerful blast on Saturday.

The death toll now stands at 5 and frankly, it probably would have been much, much worse had the blast come later in the day. “The attack took place on Istiklal Caddesi, a pedestrian street that was relatively quiet Saturday morning but is usually thronged with shoppers, strollers and buskers later in the day,” AFP reports. “The street, which adjoins Taksim Square in the European part of the city, was evacuated after the attack.”

The area is extremely popular with tourists. The TAK – the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons – have warned foreigners about supporting the country’s tourism industry which the group says feeds the Erdogan regime. 

“Tourism is one of the important sources feeding the dirty and special war, so it is a major target we aim to destroy,” the group said flatly, after last weekend’s bombing which was carried out by a 24-year-old female student and apparent TAK sympathizer named by the group as Seher Cagla Demir. “We warn the foreign and native tourists not to go to the tourist … areas in Turkey.

It wasn’t just the TAK warning tourists. The US embassy in Ankara cautioned American citizens that more attacks could be forthcoming ahead of Kurdish Nevruz.

CCTV caught the moment of Saturday’s blast:

Istanbul terror attack http://pic.twitter.com/APC3uSnLyt

— Malcolmite (@Malcolmite) March 19, 2016

Authorities say at least three dozen people were injured, seven of which are in critical condition. 

Source via @ValkryV http://pic.twitter.com/EZtjbf5mY7

— Michael Horowitz (@michaelh992) March 19, 2016

The Kurdish New Year (March 21) is expected to be a dangerous time in Turkey. Erdogan has stepped up the military siege on Kurdish enclaves in the southeast and the PKK and TAK have responded in kind. Cities like Cizre have been reduced nearly to rubble and look more like Aleppo than they do like Turkish urban centers. Erdogan is also irate about Syrian Kurds’ move to declare federalism on Turkey’s southern border. Here are images from the aftermath of today’s attack:

And here’s a Google street view, which should give you an idea of what kind of targets are being hit in Turkey. 

Expect either the PKK or the TAK to be blamed/claim the attack in fairly short order. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy and it was set in motion intentionally by Erdogan in the wake of last June’s elections. The more Kurdish-linked attacks there are, the more excuses Ankara has to crack down on the Kurds. 

The President will use this as still more evidence of why the definition of “terrorist” needs to be expanded, why Kurdish strongholds in the southeast must be kept under curfew, why HDP lawmakers should be stripped of their immunity, and, ultimately, why the powers of the presidency need to be expanded. 

It’s all very simple, you see. Don’t you get it now?…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Piv83E Tyler Durden

A Boeing 737-800 operated by Dubai-based budget carrier Flydubai, flying from Dubai to Russia, crashed yesterday at 0340 local time (0040 GMT) on its second attempt to land at Rostov-on-Don airport on Saturday, Russian officials said. All 62 people on board, most of whom were Russian. were killed.

“The aircraft hit the ground and broke into pieces,” the Investigative Committee of Russia said in a statement on its website. “There were 55 passengers aboard and seven crew members. They all died.” Six of the crew were non-Russians, with LifeNews reporting citizens of Cyprus (captain), Colombia, Kirgizia, Russia, Spain (2) and the Seychelles were among the crew members.

“During the landing approach a Boeing-737 crashed. It had 55 passengers on board. All of them died,” a regional spokesman told TASS. “The plane, according to preliminary data, crashed during the second approach,” the source told Interfax.

Flydubai said in a statement that there were 44 Russians among the 55 passengers, eight Ukrainians, two Indians and one Uzbek. Four children were among the dead.

According to Reuters, both of the plane’s flight recorders have been recovered undamaged, the committee said in a statement. “Different versions of what happened are being looked into, including crew error, a technical failure and bad weather conditions,” the committee said. RT adds that according to the spokesman for the southern bureau of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Oksana Kovrizhnaya, there have been put forward two versions of the crash: “Pilot error in deteriorating weather conditions or a technical failure,” she said.

 A view shows the crash site of Flight FZ981

Flydubai’s CEO Ghaith al-Ghaith told a press conference in the Gulf Arab emirate that it was “too early” to determine the cause of the crash. “We will have information about the circumstances of the incident and the black box in the future, and an investigation is being conducted in cooperation with the Russian authorities and we are waiting to see the results,” Ghaith said.

The CEO added that he had no information to indicate that the pilot had issued a distress call and said both the pilot and co-pilot, a Cypriot and a Spaniard respectively, each had over 5,000 hours of flight experience.

As can be seen in the flight map below, the plane was in a mid-air holding pattern for about two hours and the crash occurred more than two hours after the plane, flight number FZ981, was scheduled to land.

Flight radar route of #FZ981 that crashed on landing https://t.co/bfeuoVdREn http://pic.twitter.com/QFVm3WKyX6

— RT (@RT_com) March 19, 2016

The plane came down inside the airport’s perimeter, about 250 meters (yards) short of the start of the runway. ITs wing hit the ground on its second attempt to land and burst into flames, the Rostov region’s emergency ministry said in a statement.

Dramatic, if grainy, footage from a security camera pointing towards the airport, which were broadcast on Russian television, showed a large explosion at ground level, with flames and sparks leaping high into the air.

 

According to the Flight Safety Foundation, there was strong wind with a speed of 12 meters per second, with gusts up to 19 meters, but visibility was reasonable. According to RT, flight FZ981 arrived in Rostov-on-Don at about 1:30am, but due to harsh weather conditions, strong side winds gusting at 25-30 meters per second, it spent the next two hours in the air, picking its moment to land. As FZ981 was cruising near Rostov-on-Don (ROV), several other flights opted for alternative airports, but the captain of FZ981 decided to wait for a chance to land at ROV.

The crash is the budget airline’s first since it started flying in May 2009. It last suffered a major safety incident when one of its planes was shot at while landing at Baghdad airport on Jan. 27, 2015.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered for assistance to be given to the relatives of those killed.

“The head of state said that now the main thing is to work with the families and the loved ones of those who had died,” the Kremlin said in a statement on its website. “The Russian president feels deeply for all those who lost their loved ones in the Boeing 737 crash in Rostov-on-Don,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced on Saturday, stressing that the president has made it a priority to provide all possible assistance to the relatives of the victims.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a probe into the incident with preliminary data indicating that the plane disintegrated and caught fire upon touching the ground. The head of the Emergency Ministry Vladimir Puchkov has held a special meeting, with all the ministry’s efforts, and resources of the local response teams and authorities, directed to the crash site.

There are over 700 response team specialists and about 100 special vehicles operating at the Rostov-on-Don Airport right now. Relatives of the victims are gathering at the airport, Vasily Golubev, governor of Rostov region, told media. He stressed that everyone will get sympathetic and personal attention.

Golubev said most of the Russian passengers were tourists. The governor said the weather conditions at the crash site are better than they were at nighttime, and though it is still raining, the wind has weakened and the well-equipped response teams will continue to work while there is light.

The last recorded conversation of the pilots of the crashed Boeing with Rostov airport dispatch is captured in the following recording.

 

More dramatic footage from the site of the crash below:

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Mh9VN0 Tyler Durden

By EconMatters

Valeant Pharmaceuticals – need a ‘fix it” third party to come in stop the bleeding. Moreover, the current management team is stuck in the deer in headlights mode, and needs to start taking proactive steps to resolve the overhangs that our weighing down investor confidence on the street.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Vmr3mg EconMatters

Submitted by Jake Anderson via TheAntiMedia.org,

A few years ago, the Center for Disease Control launched a zombie preparedness initiative that drew significant attention. The Department of Defense followed suit and developed an entire training course intended for the Joint Operational Planning and Execution System (JOPES). The complete response plan, called CONPLAN888, was recently declassified, and it’s just as weird and creepy as you might imagine.

The Black Vault posted two documents retrieved from the NSA using the Freedom of Information Act.

The purpose of the plan, according to the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), was to use a fictitious scenario to prepare for real-world emergencies.

“[The training focused on how to] undertake military operations to preserve ‘non-zombie’ humans from the threats posed by a zombie horde. Because zombies pose a threat to all ‘non-zombie’ human life (hereafter referred to as ‘humans’), USSTRATCOM will be prepared to preserve the sanctity of human life and conduct operations in support of any human population-including traditional adversaries.”

The objective of the three-fold plan includes the neutralization of zombies through “denial, deception, disruption, degradation or destruction,” though with the exception of ‘destruction,’ it is unclear what is meant by these terms with regard to fighting zombies.

Reading at times like the treatment to a campy science fiction script, CONPLAN888 categorizes eight classes of zombies:

1. Pathogenic zombies — Zombie life forms created after infection by a viral or bacterial contagion.
2. Radiation zombies — Zombie life forms created after infection from electromagnetic or particle radiation.
3. Evil Magic Zombies — Zombie life forms created by occult experimentation, or “evil magic.”
4. Space Zombies — Zombies that come from space or are created by extraterrestrial toxins (this also includes Zombie Satellites that could pose a threat to SATCOM services like DirecTV)
5. Weaponized Zombies — Zombie life forms engineered through bio-mechanical technology for the purposes of attacking another nation.
6. Symbiant-Induced Zombies — Zombie life forms created after the “introduction of a symbiant life form into an otherwise healthy host.”
7. Vegetarian Zombies — Zombie life forms that cause no threat to humans because they only eat plant life (could nevertheless “cause massive de-forestation or elimination of basic food crops essential to humans [rice, corn, soybeans])”
8. Chicken Zombies (yes, this is real)— Zombies that are essentially old hens that can no longer lay eggs. Farmers euthanize them with carbon monoxide and stack them in piles; however, some of the hens are still alive and crawl out. Though they ultimately die of organ failure, chicken zombies are “simply terrifying to behold” and are likely only to make people become vegetarians in protest of animal cruelty.

CONPLAN888 consists of multiple striking passages, given this is a government agency assessing a fictitious zombie uprising. More practical factors concern environmental issues such as groundwater contaminated with zombie pathogens.

Other, more ominous notes, include references to the government declaring martial law within the United States. There is also a reference to epidemiologic surveillance for the purposes of watching changes in disease vectors.

The government response to a zombie uprising unleashed by a nation-state, large corporation, or terrorist group includes the following additional measures: HAND SANITIZER, which, marketing materials say, kills 99% of germs (they note that hand sanitizer has never been tested on biohazard level 4 pathogens like ebola); and FIREPOWER TO THE HEAD (“the human brain will still be functioning in the zombie state, but it is universally agreed that the only part actually active will be the brain stem”).

The document’s assessment of zombies states that they are “undead and thus feel no pain or fear of death, (therefore) riot control counter-measures would be completely ineffective.”

CONPLAN888 references the books and articles The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z; An Oral History of the Zombie War, and “Zombie Chickens Taking Over California,” among others.

CONPLAN 8888 by JDStuster

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1RUFIzE Tyler Durden

Earlier this month, a reader noticed something rather disturbing. Piraeus Bank seemed to have added a new line item in one of its reports and that new line item appeared to suggest that the bank was set to charge customers for exchanging €500 notes for smaller bills.

And it wasn’t just Piraeus. Other Greek banks looked to be doing something similar.

Now it would be bad enough if this was just another example of banks making up for lost margins by passing ZIRP and NIRP onto customers via fees or if this were simply Greek banks being forced to squeeze a little extra out of their retail business because they are still wholly insolvent. But it’s the timing of these new exchange taxes that raises eyebrows.

Remember, reports began to circulate earlier this year that the ECB was considering doing away with the €500 note. That was distressing news for many Greeks who last year, fearing the troika may one day threaten to essentially confiscate their savings (again), eschewed the bank in favor of the mattress. Obviously, much of that mattress money is denominated in €500 notes – notes which Draghi is now set to phase out.

Upon hearing the news, “many in Greece – especially older people – rushed to deposit the money in their accounts,” eKathimerini wrote last month, adding that “bank officials say depositing the 500-euro notes at a bank is the only way for people to rid themselves of them without losing the money, as it is not possible to exchange them for smaller notes.”

Or at least it wouldn’t be once they’re taken out of circulation, but in the meantime it is possible, and as it turns out, Greek banks are indeed doing precisely what we suspected they were doing: they’re charging to exchange the €500 notes for smaller denominations.

Here’s eKathemirini again:

Banks collect a commission of 1.5 percent on average when changing 500-euro bills for notes of lower denominations, citing the administrative costs of keeping their branches stocked with notes of smaller value.

 

When exchanging one 500-euro note for smaller bills, the charge is 3-5 euros (depending on the bank), while the maximum charge comes to 200-250 euros regardless of the amount a customer wishes to exchange.

Right. Greek banks need to offset “the administrative costs of keeping their branches stocked with notes of smaller value.” Normally that would translate roughly to this: “we need to offset the administrative costs of being a bank,” but because this is Greece, the banks get to blame the ECB and Brussels: 

In response to criticism about the commission they charge, banks counter that the administrative cost of supplying their branches around the country with smaller banknotes is unusually high at present with the capital controls still in place and a 420-euro cap on the weekly amount that can be withdrawn in cash.

It’s not immediately clear why that makes sense, but we’re sure they’d have an answer should anyone care to ask.

As eKathimerini continues, “people started going to banks to exchange top-denomination euro bills after it was reported that the European Central Bank intends to withdraw them as a measure against money laundering.” So if you are Greek and you were effectively forced to take your money out of the bank because after last summer you feared a depositor bail-in might be right around the corner, you now have the distinct pleasure of having to pay a fee to exchange your large bills for smaller ones at the very same banks where you withdrew the money in the first place. But that’s all part of living in a debt colony of Germany we suppose.

The question now is how long before banks in countries that aren’t Greece adopt the very same fees? And what will their excuse be? Does the ECB really intend to to allow banks to make a profit off of the gradual phasing out of physical bank notes?

There’s no fee in Greece, of course, if you simply deposit the €500 notes in your account. Just like they’ll be no fee when the final push to a cashless society begins and everyone is forced to turn in all their physical money in exchange for 0s and 1s on a computer screen. Or at least they’ll be no initial fee. But trust us, you’ll pay later when the economy starts to slow down and, without the option of resorting the physical cash, you’ll be forced to choose between swiping your debit card or seeing the bank confiscate a portion of your deposits once central banks cut rates to -20%.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1S98Tl6 Tyler Durden

Submitted by Robert Gehl via DownTrend.com,

An Illinois college has reversed its position and will allow students to pass out copies of the U.S Constitution on campus.

It’s a good move, since the Alliance Defending Freedom threatened to sue them if they didn’t.

Under the old policies, students were threatened with arrest if they passed out the founding documents on the campus of the College of DuPage.

The exchange between a police officer and student Joseph Enders, captured on video, shows the officer telling Enders that, under campus policies, he needs a permit to offer the Constitution to passing students.

The revised policies respect the constitutional freedoms of students by allowing them to pass out literature in outdoor areas of campus without prior permission, as the old policies required.

“It makes no sense for a public college to censor distribution of the very document that ensures free speech for all Americans,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer. “The college has done the right thing in revising its policies so that the school can once again function as the marketplace of ideas that an institution of higher education is supposed to be.”

 

Enders, a political science major, has been working to start a Turning Point USA chapter at the college. TPUSA is a non-partisan student organization dedicated to promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government. He was standing on a campus sidewalk, handing out copies of the Constitution and asking fellow students if they would be interested in joining the group, when he was approached by the officer, who stated that his actions were against school policy and that he would have to go to the Student Life office to acquire a permit for his activities.

 

“The First Amendment does not tolerate this blatant suppression of speech,” ADF wrote in its letter to the college on behalf of Enders in October of last year. “The College’s…policy is unconstitutional because it requires prior permission before students are allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights, and it grants unfettered discretion to College officials in determining whether to grant permission to speak. To its credit, it is my understanding that the Board indicated that it would be reviewing and revising the College’s policies to ensure that they no longer restrict the First Amendment rights of students on campus.”

 

In response to the ADF letter, the college invited Langhofer to attend a meeting of the Board of Governance “to make a presentation concerning free speech policies at public universities.”

 

“With these changes, the college has taken a big step towards truly being a marketplace of ideas, where students of all different backgrounds and beliefs will be free to communicate their opinions and ideas without fear of censorship or punishment,” said ADF Senior Counsel David Hacker. “We hope that other colleges will follow DuPage’s example and ensure that the constitutionally protected freedoms of their students are thoroughly protected.”

Still…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1RUzEqZ Tyler Durden

One of the things that seems to have never sunk in for Donald Trump’s GOP rivals (or at least until they were either sitting back at home on the couch reflecting on why they were beaten so badly or else talking sheepishly to reporters on Capitol Hill about their plans to retire from politics after being trounced in their home state) is that he feeds off of controversy and publicity. The more you talk about him – good or bad – the larger he looms in voters’ minds.

Although certainly adept at whipping crowds into a frenzy and clearly a much more savvy politician than probably even he suspected going into the campaign, the Trump juggernaut is to some extent a monster of the GOP field’s own making. The more they focused on Trump, the more voters did too, and before you knew it, he was the frontrunner. At that point, it became self-fulfilling – they had to focus on him because he was at the top of the polls.

But alas, they never learned. He was best left alone from the start to fizzle out or, more likely, to self-destruct of his own accord. Instead, by creating an “us versus him” dynamic, the other Republicans made an anti-establishment candidate out of a billionaire who probably didn’t even know what “anti-establishment” meant when he entered the race. Before you knew it, Trump was Mr. Anti-Washington and from that point forward he could do no wrong.

So oblivious to this are Republicans that they’re about to make the very same mistake with the GOP convention. If you were to have gathered an arena full of Trump voters in January and asked them to raise their hands if they could explain what a “contested convention” was, our guess is that you would have come up with a stadium full of full pockets.

But that’s not the case now. The media, the Republicans, the Democrats, indeed damn near everyone is talking about what strategies the GOP can employ in Cleveland to steal the nomination away from Trump. Well guess what? Just like that, everyone has virtually guaranteed that they’ll never be able to get away with it.

Now, Trump will make absolutely sure that his millions of rabid supporters know there’s a chance they may be effectively disenfranchised in July and thanks to the fact that America’s political establishment still hasn’t learned anything about why they’re losing to Trump, those same supporters will be able to turn on the nightly news and hear all about how the Republican party plans to screw them.

Indeed, CNN was gullible enough to actually ask Trump what he thought would happen if the nomination were stolen from him, effectively affording him an “inception” opportunity which he jumped on immediately by saying in as innocent a voice as he could muster, “I think there’d be riots.”

If there was any chance of pulling the wool over Trump’s eyes and duping his followers with backroom, old school politics in Cleveland, there sure as hell isn’t now. Just the same as if there was any chance of shutting down Trump’s campaign in the first GOP debate by effectively ignoring him and treating him as though he didn’t belong on stage, that chance was lost immediately when Fox’s Megyn Kelly made him a political star by asking him if he thought it was befitting of a President to call women “disgusting animals.”

It’s been a comedy of errors on everyone’s part but Trump’s and now, by alerting the billionaire to just how real the threat of a convention coup truly is, he may actually end up turning the tables on them and stealing their delegates.

With that as the backdrop, we bring you the following excerpts from a Reuters piece out today entitled “Meet The Man Who Will Help Determine Trump’s Fate In 2016 Race.”

*  *  *

From Reuters

Mark Strang spends his days delivering farm equipment, listening to politics on the radio during cross-country drives. But in July, the 63-year-old could have an outsized voice in choosing the Republican nominee for president of the United States.

For the first time in 40 years, Republicans could arrive at their national convention in Cleveland without a nominee. If front-runner Donald Trump fails to lock up the nomination before then, as some pollsters are predicting, Strang will have a chance to make history.

Strang, from Illinois, is one of 2,472 delegates to the convention who will ultimately determine the party’s choice for the White House this November. In recent elections, the delegates have simply rubberstamped the presumptive nominee. But this year the convention could become a brutal fight in which every delegate vote will count.

If the convention becomes a fight because no candidate has the needed 1,237 delegates on the first round of voting, most of the delegates would eventually be released. States are still sorting through some rules governing how long delegates are bound to candidates. Strang said if he found himself a free agent, he would be open to switching his vote.

Interviews with Republican state party officials and some delegates who have already been selected reveal widespread soul-searching in anticipation of a potential fight. Officials and delegates described weighing their personal preference with the need to rally around a candidate going into the general election.

Party faithful are steeling themselves for a battle, not just for the nomination, but also for the party’s core values.

A contested convention would pose a major test for Trump’s campaign, which thus far has eschewed a traditional grassroots organization. His rivals, Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, are already trying to lobby delegates who might be open to changing sides once they are allowed to become free agents in the convention.

In every state, the party chair and two national committee members, a man and a woman, are automatically selected to be delegates. But from there, state parties use a wide variety of procedures to pick delegates, most of whom won’t be named until late spring or summer.

“These are the base of the party,” said Michigan Republican Party chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel. “The delegates are not the establishment. They are the base. And I think that’s a great misunderstanding.”

Often sporting outfits with homemade decorated hats or jackets weighed down with dozens of buttons, delegates who show up every four years include everyone from lawmakers to homemakers, and from those who write million dollar checks to retirees who make phone calls.

Many states use small conventions to pick delegates, many of whom are long-time party activists and elected office holders. Not all of them personally back the candidate they are pledged to support in the first round of convention voting, said Virginia Republican Party chairman John Whitbeck. 

Jim Carns, a state representative from Alabama, where delegates are selected in the primaries, signed up to represent Trump last fall — when many still viewed the rise of the New York real estate mogul as a temporary phenomenon.

He sees no circumstance in which he would switch candidates. 

*  *  *

Right. Jim Carns, who pledged himself to Trump last year wouldn’t drop his support “under any circumstances.” 

And how about Mark Strang, the Cruz delegate? Well, let’s go to Mark himself for the answer: “I am going to be loyal to Ted Cruz, and I will stick with him until I see if there’s no hope. And if there’s no hope for Ted getting in, as I understand it I can pledge my votes to somebody else, and I would hope Ted would understand.“

We’re sure he will Mark. We’re sure he will.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1SZHlBc Tyler Durden

In a closely watched trial by the media community, shortly after 7pm on Friday night, and less than six hours after starting deliberations, the jury sided with ex-pro wrestler Hulk Hogan and awarded him $115 million in his sex tape lawsuit against Gawker Media. The trial lasted two weeks. The award consists of $55 million for economic injuries, and $60 million for emotional distress.

According to CBS, Hogan, dressed all in black including a black bandana, cried when the verdict was announced, CBS affiliate WTSP said while members of Gawker’s team listened in shocked silence as the verdict was read.

The trial, which has been years in the making, has major implications not only with its potential “chilling effect” on the freedom of speech, but also focuses on the grey space of “what is public news”, and finally has potentially terminal implications for the future of Gawker which will likely be forced to go out of business unless it miraculously lowers the damages on appeal.

For those who are unfamiliar, Hogan, whose given name is Terry Bollea, had sued Gawker for $100 million for publishing an edited video of the wrestler having sex with the then-wife of a radio shock jock named Bubba the Love Sponge. Hogan contended the 2012 post violated his privacy.

In spirited closing arguments on Friday, lawyers for Hogan and Gawker discussed themes of personal life versus celebrity, and freedom of speech versus the right to privacy.  Hogan’s attorneys told jurors this is the core of the case: “Gawker took a secretly recorded sex tape and put it on the Internet.”

They said Hogan didn’t consent to the video, that Gawker didn’t follow usual journalism procedures before posting it and that the video wasn’t newsworthy. Gawker did not try to contact Bollea or the woman in the video, and nor did the website contact the woman’s husband, DJ Bubba The Love Sponge Clem, who recorded the video.

It was never conclusively determined during trial who leaked the video to the media.

Hogan didn’t ask for any of this to happen, lawyer Kenneth Turkel said, adding that Bollea, the private man, expected privacy during an intimate moment. Much was made during the trial of Hogan’s celebrity persona versus Bollea’s privacy.

“I want you to imagine the fact that for 35 plus years he is essentially an actor, an entertainer, who has played the same role,” said Turkel. He said Hogan “has every right, every right, to keep whatever precious private moments in his life, which for this gentlemen are very few.”

Hogan’s lawyers also said Gawker’s value increased by $15 million due to the post, while Gawker contends it made $11,000 in ad revenue.

 

Hulk Hogan took the stand in court over a leaked sex tape of him, and some of the testimony got explicit.

 

Gawker’s attorneys told the jury that the video is “not like a real celebrity sex tape” and urged them to watch the video, which contains nine seconds of sexual content.  They pointed out that news of the sex tape first appeared on at least two websites: TMZ and The Dirty. Hogan went on TMZ’s TV program to talk about it, and later appeared on the Howard Stern show.

“He has consistently chosen to put his private life out there, for public consumption,” said attorney Michael Sullivan. He also criticized Hogan’s claim that he was in Hulk Hogan persona when he was doing interviews.

“An actor playing a character does that on set, but when they go on a talk show, they’re themselves,” Sullivan said. Sullivan called into question whether the tape was all a celebrity stunt to drum up publicity for Hogan’s career. He suggested that although the jurors might find the video, Gawker and Hogan’s sex life distasteful, they must protect the First Amendment right to free speech.

“We ask you to protect something that some of you may find unpleasant,” he said. “To write, to speak, to think about all topics, to hold public figures accountable. It is right in the long run for our freedoms.”

The jury disagreed.

Putting the $115 million award in context, according ro previously disclosed information, Gawker’s operating income for 2015 amounted to $6.5 million, 18 times less than the awarded damages. The website generated around $24 million in profit in the past 5 years. The company’s revenue in 2014 was $44.2 million.

Previously Nick Denton, Gawker’s CEO, had indicated that Gawker’s future hung in the balance if the jury ruled in Mr. Hogan’s favor for the full amount. “It’s a $100 million lawsuit,” Mr. Denton told The New York Times earlier this month. “We don’t keep $100 million in the bank, no.”

According to Gawker’s release, the company, which has never taken outside investment, has had five years of steady, if not eye-popping, growth. But for a media company, not losing money is good. Making some is even better. Many media companies would be very pleased with a profit growth of almost 10 percent. Gawker had also disclosed that its very expensive legal fees came out of its $6.53 million operating income but the company did take an $8 million loan from Silicon Valley Bank to pay for its new flatiron office, which the company is scheduled to move to later this month. That loan may now be impaired.

“With the possibility of an initial judgment against Gawker Media at the forthcoming trial in Florida, there’s been interest in the company’s underlying financial health,” Denton said in a statement. “Our journalists and I stand for open discussion of true and interesting stories, and our finances have become part of the story. So we intend to be open about them, both in the media and in the St. Petersburg courtroom. I am as proud of our business track record as I am of our writers’ reputation for journalistic boldness.”

He may now be regretting his writers’ journalistic boldness.

And while the implications of this trial will reverberate in online media and the interpretation of what content is and what isn’t subject to the First Amendment, some early media comments suggest that for the time being schadenfreude is winning over concerns over the trial’s chilling effects on the media.

Ordinarily I’d be very concerned about the effects of this Gawker verdict on chilling of press freedom, but it’s Gawker. Fuck em.

— Popehat (@Popehat) March 18, 2016

In retrospect it probably wasn’t a good idea for Gawker to sell ads on their live coverage of the trial, but then they wouldn’t be Gawker.

— Popehat (@Popehat) March 19, 2016

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1Rs2DSs Tyler Durden