Why Kamala Harris Won’t Be Asked About the Suicide of a Newspaperman She Persecuted

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2 years ago

August 10, 2023

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The sitting vice president, shortly before moving to Washington, D.C., successfully scapegoated through heavily publicized if legally unsuccessful pimping prosecutions a career newspaperman who last week shot himself to death at age 74 rather than sit through yet another prostitution-facilitation trial that he insisted to his dying days was an attack on free speech.

Yet the chances of Kamala Harris being asked this weekor any weekabout the late James Larkin, or her starring role in the demonization of his and Michael Lacey’s online classified advertising company Backpage as “the world’s top online brothel,” are vanishingly small. That’s because people have a natural revulsion toward anything associatedhowever falselywith child prostitution or sex trafficking, true. But it also stems from something far less excusable: When it comes to conflicts between the feds and those from the professionally unpopular corners of the free speech industry, journalists have been increasingly taking the side of The Man.

You could see this dynamic in stark relief last month in the elite-media response to U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty’s Independence Day injunction against the federal government from pressuring social media companies to censor individuals for allegedly spreading “misinformation.” As catalogued at Reason by Robby Soave, J.D. Tuccille, Jacob Sullum, and Robert Corn-Revere, and as I experienced during a bizarre panel discussion on CNN, the default journalistic reaction was anxiety that the ruling (in the words of theNew York Times news department) “could curtail efforts to combat false and misleading narratives about the coronavirus pandemic and other issues.” Sure, there may be First Amendment implications, but, well, have you seen that dangerous whackaloon Alex Berenson?

Far too often, journalists reserve their free speech defenses for people they actually like. And man, did they not like Jim Larkin and Mike Lacey.

This antipathy for Larkin/Lacey and the New Times alt-weekly chain the duo launched in Phoenix was obvious long before politicians began moving on from Craigslist to Backpage in their morally panicked crusade against technology companies that allegedly promote “sex trafficking.” (I use quotation marks here not to intimate that sex trafficking does not exist, but rather that, as Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown has documented better than any living reporter, the term is overwhelmingly deployed by politicians and law enforcement to describe and punish conduct that has nothing whatsoever to do with forcing unwitting adults, let alone minors, into the sex business.)

The New Times honchosespecially Lacey, who was always the more public and pugilistic face of the franchisewere resented because they threw sharp elbows at both the graybeard alternative weeklies to their left and at the big-city dailies that were originally to their right but then tacked over time to the kind of bloodless lefty respectability space inhabited by NPR. The New Times papers hurled buckets of snark onto anyone perceived as Establishment, which pissed off boomer lefty journalists almost as much as elected Republican officials such as Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Arizona Sen. John McCain.

The New Times “view of who was the establishment and who [was] the outsider,” sniffed LA Weekly windbag Harold Meyerson in 2003, “was classically neocon.” (The game of pin-the-inaccurate-political-insult on the New Times never did fall out of fashion.)

Having mocked, then beaten, then eventually subsumed a Village Voice Media chain revered for its foundational role in postwar alternative journalism, Lacey and Larkin and co. found themselves relatively friendless during various scrapes with the legal system. When the independent hippie alt-weekly San Francisco Bay Guardian won a lawsuit in 2008 against the New Timesowned SF Weekly for “predatory pricing” of advertising (yes, one free paper sued another free paper over charging lower ad rates), and when that $21 million settlement (after having been tripled by the presiding judge) was upheld in 2010, I noted that “the journalistic thumbsucker community outside of the Bay Area has been almost completely silent about this potentially momentous precedent.”

You can almost hear the journalistic eyerolls at Backpage’s frequently successful series of legal defenses that the third-party speech and commerce that the now-defunct company facilitated were protected under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act of 1996, i.e., “the Internet’s First Amendment.”

“As Trial for Backpage’s Founders Begins,” snarked a September 2021 Gizmodo headline, “Their Free Speech Defense Is Flailing.” (The case was declared a mistrial less than a weeklater due to prosecutorial misbehavior.) The Washington Post in 2022 published a laudatory review of prosecutor Maggy Krell’s book Taking Down Backpage: Fighting the World’s Largest Sex Trafficker, with Section 230 treated as a deviously exploited loophole. “Krell and her fellow crusaders,” concluded E.J. Graff, thenmanaging editor of the Post’s Monkey Cage blog,”are rightly proud of the strides they’ve made in cracking down on this scourge.”

This is not to say that there haven’t been good (and appropriately skeptical) examinations of the Backpage side of the story, though it’s interesting to note that they often come from people who used to work for the New Times chain. And there has been a smattering of free-speecher support and outrage over the years, including last week from TechDirt’s Mike Masnick.

But the overarching journalism-industry response to the past seven years of Backpage founders being hounded by ambitious politicians and prosecutors and thrown into courtroom cages; their family members being pulled out of the shower; their bank accounts seized; their ankle bracelets affixed; and now one of the defendants offing himself has been studious indifference and silence. You will see 100 times more ink spilled this year on chimerical right-wing book bans than you will on the vice president’s scapegoat blowing his brains out.

Journalists tend to be pretty good about looking backward through the decades and recognizing that, Oh shit, we kind of went overboard during that whole Satanic Panic thing. While better late than never, such correctives should lend urgency to the quest of finding injustices that are depriving people’s liberty right the hell now.

Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht is still serving two life sentences in federal prison. President Joe Biden is sitting on a backlog of approximately 19,000 clemency petitions, most for nonviolent crimes and/or violations of laws that no longer exist. And Mike Lacey still faces trial, scheduled for later this month. It’s too late for Jim Larkin’s kids to get their dad back, but it’s never too late for people in the free speech business to recognize that one of their own is getting railroaded. I just wouldn’t bet on it.

World

Hamas names three Israeli hostages it says it will release today

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2 hours ago

February 8, 2025

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Hamas names three Israeli hostages it says it will release today

Hamas has released the names of three Israeli hostages it says it will release today in the fifth such swap of a fragile ceasefire in Gaza.

The hostages are Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy, Hamas armed wing spokesperson Abu Obeida said in a Telegram post.

An Israeli official confirmed Israel had received the three names from Hamas.

In return for the captives’ release, Hamas said it expects 183 Palestinian prisoners to be released.

Both Mr Ami, 56, and Mr Sharabi, 52, were taken from Kibbutz Be’eri during the 7 October attack. The cross-border attack saw around 1,200 Israelis killed and around 250 people taken hostage.

Mr Levy, 34, was abducted from the Nova music festival.

Of the Palestinian prisoners being freed, 18 have been serving life sentences, 54 were serving long sentences and the vast majority, 111, were detained in Gaza during the war.

Eli Sharabi

Mr Sharabi’s wife Lianne Sharabi was born in Bristol.

She, along with their children, 16-year-old Noiya and 13-year-old Yahel, were killed in the 7 October attack.

His brother Yossi was also killed after being taken hostage.

In a statement after news he would be released was announced, Mr Sharabi’s lawyers said the “family has already lost too much… [they] are pleased and relieved that Eli Sharabi is reportedly on the list for release by Hamas”.

It added: “It is long past time to bring Eli home.”

Or Levy

Mr Levy was captured by militants from a bomb shelter near the Nova music festival.

His wife Einav was killed during the 7 October attack. Their son Almog, a toddler, is staying with his grandparents.

Mr Levy is from the city of Rishon Lezion, where he worked as a computer programmer.

Some of Mr Levy’s family previously spoke about his kidnapping and the death of his wife.

Speaking around Hanukkah last year, his brother Michael Levy told Sky News’s Yousra Elbagir: “I have three little girls but it won’t be the same. Hanukkah is a happy holiday – you light candles, you sing and eat all sorts of things but for us it is not a real holiday without Or.”

Ohad Ben Ami

Mr Ben Ami, a father of three, was taken hostage with his wife Raz, who was released during the brief ceasefire period in November.

His daughter Ella Ben Ami previously spoke to Sky News about missing her dad Mr Ami, as she pleaded for his release.

“On the eve of Christmas, on the 24 December, it will be his birthday, and I don’t want to celebrate it without him,” she told Sky News in 2023.

Ms Ami was previously one of the first to tell the world what happened on 7 October, calling an Israeli TV channel while hiding.

Row over aid access

Earlier on Friday, Hamas accused Israel of breaching the ceasefire accord and held off announcing the names of the Israeli hostages until the deadline had passed.

The militant group claimed Israel delayed the entry of hundreds of trucks carrying food and other humanitarian supplies agreed under the truce deal and held back all but a fraction of the tents and mobile homes needed to provide people shelter in the devastated enclave.

“This demonstrates clear manipulation of relief and shelter priorities,” Hamas said in a statement.

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COGAT, the Israeli military agency that is overseeing the aid deliveries into Gaza, denied the accusation.

It added Israel would “not tolerate violations by Hamas”.

The claims and counter-claims highlight the fragility and uncertainty of the ceasefire.

This has been heightened by US President Donald Trump recently saying the US could take over Gaza and move the Palestinian population out.

Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and displaced the majority of the strip’s population.

Fragile ceasefire deal

So far, 13 of the 33 female, older male and child hostages set to be released in the first phase of the multi-phase agreement have returned to Israel.

Five Thai hostages have also been released.

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been released in exchange, often returning to large crowds.

Work on the second stage of the agreement, aimed at the release of around 60 male hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, has begun.

An Israeli negotiating team was expected to fly to Doha today, according to media reports.

World

‘Let’s do a deal’: Zelenskyy touts Ukraine’s rare earth stores to Trump

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2 hours ago

February 8, 2025

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'Let's do a deal': Zelenskyy touts Ukraine's rare earth stores to Trump

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Donald Trump “let’s do a deal” as he offered the US a partnership over Ukraine’s stores of rare earth and minerals.

Earlier this week, Mr Trump said he wanted Ukraine to supply the US with critical resources in exchange for financial support in its war with Russia.

In an interview with Reuters on Friday, Mr Zelenskyy said: “If we are talking about a deal, then let’s do a deal, we are only for it.”

While emphasising that Kyiv was not proposing “giving away” its resources, he said he was open to a mutually beneficial partnership to develop them jointly.

Ukraine-Russia war latest: Ukrainian forces seize land inside Russia

Rare earths are a group of 17 metals that are vital in the production of high-performance magnets, electric motors and consumer electronics.

Mr Zelenskyy touted the country’s reserves of titanium and uranium as Europe’s largest.

According to the World Economic Forum, Ukraine also has the potential to become a key supplier of lithium, beryllium, manganese, gallium, zirconium, graphite, apatite, fluorite and nickel.

Showing a map of Ukraine’s mineral deposits, he then said Russia currently has control of less than 20% of the country’s mineral resources – but that includes about half its rare earth deposits.

“Putin is not just grabbing them [minerals] along with the land, he is already thinking about how to get other partners in his alliance – North Korea, Iran… and he will give them access,” Mr Zelenskyy said.

“This is very rich land. This does not mean that we are giving it away to anyone, even to strategic partners. We are talking about partnership…

“Let’s develop this together, make money, and most importantly, it’s about the security of the Western world.”

The Ukrainian president added that Kyiv and the White House were discussing the idea of using the country’s underground gas storage sites to store American liquefied natural gas, calling it “very interesting”.

He also said he would like to discuss the US having priority when it came to rebuilding Ukraine, saying it would amount to “a lot of money for business”.

‘Not accepting Russia’s ultimatums’

He also insisted that Mr Trump must meet with him before he meets with the Russian president, “otherwise it will look like a dialogue about Ukraine without Ukraine”.

He added: “I don’t know what compromises can be discussed at the negotiating table, we have not reached that point…

“It is important for people to understand that Ukraine is negotiating, not accepting ultimatums from Russia.”

He also stressed Ukraine’s need for security guarantees from its allies as part of any settlement.

It comes as Mr Trump said he may meet with Mr Zelenskyy in the White House as early as next week. The two last met in New York in September last year.

Mr Trump also repeated his interest in meeting the Russian president with whom he said he always had a “good relationship”.

Speaking to reporters while meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Mr Trump said: “I’d like to see it end, just on a human basis. I’d like to see that end. It’s a ridiculous war.”

Mr Zelenskyy also told Reuters in his interview that thousands of North Korean soldiers have now returned to fight Kyiv’s forces in the Kursk region of Russia.

A Ukrainian special forces commander told Sky News last month that it appeared that North Korean troops had been temporarily pulled back from the frontline after heavy losses.

The commander, who went by the codename “Puls,” claimed the forces had been seen blowing themselves up with grenades rather than risk capture.

World

Will Trump make space great again?

Published

2 hours ago

February 8, 2025

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The US is back in the race to the moon but this time, the competition is China. Determined not to lose, President Donald Trump is pushing for America to return to the moon, backed by billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. But as costs rise and delays mount, could the focus shift from the moon to Mars?

On the Sky News Daily podcast, Tom Cheshire speaks to Science and Technology editor Tom Clarke and space journalist Eric Berger about the escalating price of securing America’s place in the space race – and whether Mars could be the next “MAGA mission”.

Producer: Emma Rae Woodhouse
Editor: Paul Stanworth