May 3 was World Press Freedom Day. The annual observance usually focuses on the World Press Freedom Index published each year by Reporters without Borders. Break out the champagne! The United States ranked 48th of 179 countries this year, falling three places from 2018.

A day earlier, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appeared in court in London (the United Kingdom ranked 33rd on the Index this year) to contest his proposed extradition to the United States. He faces spurious US “hacking” charges framed to avoid taking official notice of the indisputable fact that his actual “crimes” consist entirely of engaging in journalism.

Not a good World Press Freedom Day look for the UK or the US. But the plodding pace of the UK’s judicial system — his next hearing comes at the end of May, a second one is scheduled for mid-June, and the matter may drag on for months — offers an opportunity to turn things around and get them moving in the right direction.

Reporters Without Borders postures as politically neutral, but their current ranking of the US is largely based not on a deterioration in actual press freedom, but rather on US president Donald Trump’s big mouth. He says mean things — some true, some false, some downright stupid — about the media.

Trump could redeem himself on the press freedom front, essentially wiping the slate clean, by pardoning Assange for all alleged “crimes” committed prior to May 1st, 2019.

Even better, he could publicly justify the pardon, pointing out that this is solely and entirely a political prosecution premised in the notion that it’s a “crime” to embarrass politicians by revealing verifiably true information about their actions.

Alternatively, US Justice Department prosecutors could save him the trouble by just dropping the charges and withdrawing the extradition request.

A pardon and public statement from Trump would be better, though, both for press freedom and as red meat for his own political base. After all, the American politician most frequently and badly embarrassed by Assange’s work is Trump’s own bete noire, Hillary Clinton. The WikiLeaks “Cablegate” dump exposed her plan to have US diplomats bug the offices of their UN counterparts. Then WikiLeaks doubled down and outed her for the DNC’s rigging of the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Failing both of those perfectly reasonable courses of action on the US government’s part, the UK courts could find a reason to free Assange (currently serving 50 weeks for jumping bail on charges that were non-existent rather than merely spurious) instead of handing him over.

Whatever — just pick one and make it happen, guys. The most important outcome here is a free Julian Assange. The bonus material would be explaining why: He’s a political prisoner and journalism is not a crime.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “Changing Direction on Press Freedom,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Dhaka, Bangladesh New Nation, 05/08/19
• “Assange: a chance for change on press freedoms,” by Thomas L. Knapp, The Royal Gazette[Bermuda], 05/07/19
• “Julian Assange: An Opportunity for the US and the UK to Change Direction on Press Freedom,” by Thomas L. Knapp, CounterPunch, 05/06/19
• “Julian Assange: An Opportunity for the US and the UK to Change Direction on Press Freedom,” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 05/05/19
• “Julian Assange: An Opportunity for the US and the UK to Change Direction on Press Freedom,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Antiwar.com, 05/06/19
• “Assange: a chance for change on press freedoms,” by Thomas L. Knapp, The Royal Gazette (Bermuda), 05/07/19
• “Julian Assange: An Opportunity for the US and the UK to Change Direction on Press Freedom,” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader (Iowa), 05/06/19

At the end of April, President Trump met with Democratic congressional leaders at the White House. Instead of the backbiting that usually precedes and follows such meetings, what emerged was  tentative agreement on cooperation toward “a $2 trillion infrastructure plan to upgrade the nation’s highways, railroads, bridges and broadband.”

Responses on the Republican side range from tepid (acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney objects on both fiscal and political grounds, not seeing a “win” for Trump before the end of a second term) to enthusiastic (US Representative Chris Collins, R-NY, calls for doubling federal gas taxes and airline passenger fees to cover the cost).

But there’s a huge blind spot in this infrastructure vision that comes before, and heavily impacts, calculating the costs. The plan is a 20th century solution to problems that the 21st century market is already solving.

It’s true, as Collins points out, that the federal gas tax hasn’t been raised in more than 25 years — and that, contrary to popular perception, its revenues come nowhere close to covering highway construction and maintenance costs.

But it’s also true that gasoline is on its way out. Timeline estimates vary, but it’s reasonable to predict that by 2030 the vast majority of vehicles on American roads will be electric. Gasoline will become a minor player, then a novelty, then a rarity, all while politicians are counting on it to pay for their big plans.

The good news is that their plans don’t need to be nearly as big, because in the future we’re going to see a lot less traffic.

More people are working from home (the number more than doubled between 2005 and 2015; it’s going to keep growing).

More people are ordering more of what they buy online.  That’s fewer people on the road for shopping — one van delivering stuff to ten households instead of ten cars heading for the supermarket or mall. That trend isn’t going to suddenly reverse itself.

More people are  seeking entertainment at home instead of out. Movie ticket sales peaked in 2002; they’re now back to 1995 levels.

Ridesharing means fewer cars filling downtown garages. As it combines with self-driving cars,  many urban and suburban households will decide they don’t need car and insurance payments. They’ll summon rideshares or rent cars when really necessary.  They’ll walk, bike, or take mass transit when their destinations are conveniently nearby.

On the cargo side, major players are already working on self-driving, electric “18-wheelers.” Fewer will be needed since they can run 24/7 (human drivers work limited hours). Fewer trucks overall and more even time distribution means less congestion.

Aerial drones are taking their first steps into home delivery right now. Amazon may never achieve its dream of blimp warehouses with line of sight drone delivery to every home for 100 miles around, but we’ll certainly see SOME reductions in road traffic.

It’s time to start thinking about fewer roads and bridges, not more.  And about having government hand those roads and bridges over to the same market that’s making them less necessary.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “The Government Should Start Planning to Spend Less, Not More, on ‘Infrastructure,'” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader, 05/02/19
• “Spend less, not more, on ‘infrastructure’ work,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Knoxville, Iowa Journal Express, 05/03/19
• “Spend less, not more, on ‘infrastructure’ work,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Hendricks County, Indiana Flyer, 05/03/19
• “The Government Should Start Planning to Spend Less, Not More, on ‘Infrastructure,'” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 05/03/19
• “The government should spend less on infrastructure, not more,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Claremont, New Hampshire Eagle Times, 05/08/19

The headline on Hans Bader’s piece at the Foundation for Economic Education is true as far as it goes: “Lifting the Ban on Kidney Sales Would Save 30,000 American Lives Annually.” Bader draws on an earlier essay by Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy, who in turn riffs on findings published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

The TL;DR: “Many Americans die every year because they need kidney transplants, in large part due to federal laws banning organ sales. … [A]n average of over 30,000 Americans have died each year, because the ban prevented them from getting transplants in time.”

My preferred version of the headline: “The US government, as a matter of policy, kills 30,000 Americans annually.”

That’s 2,500 Americans every month.

And that body count consists only of Americans who die while awaiting kidney transplants.

It doesn’t include those who die waiting for hearts, livers, or lungs that never arrive because patients — or their insurers — are forbidden to pay live donors, or the survivors of those who die with intact, transplantable organs, for those kidneys, livers, and lungs. Adding those deaths would almost certainly push the number above 2,977 every month.

What’s special about 2,977? It’s the number of people killed by terrorist attackers (excluding the attackers themselves) on September 11, 2001.

As you may remember, Americans got pretty exercised about 9/11. Heck, we still DO get pretty exercised about it (for a recent example, note the reaction to US Representative Ilhan Omar’s “some people did some things” comment).

But every month, month in and month out, year after year, the US government kills that many or more with its policies. The public response? Crickets.

The federal ban on paying donors or their survivors for organs is premised in a weird claim that paying donors or survivors for organs would be “unethical.”

It’s OK — it’s “ethical” — to pay the surgeons. And the nurses. And the anesthesiologists. And the providers of anti-rejection drugs. And of course — of course! — the “medical ethicists” whose opinions underlie the ban.

Only the people who physically provide the indispensable elements of organ transplants, the organs, get empty envelopes come transplant payday.

Where’s the outrage? The US has been at war for 18 years straight now, with 9/11 as the excuse. But 9/11 every month barely raises eyebrows. The politicians and the “ethicists” they’ve listened to remain at large. And, yes, they are well-paid.

Scary stories about homeless people with drug problems selling kidneys for crack, or being denied transplants for lack of money are just that: Scary stories.

If the purchase of organs was made legal, insurers (presumably including Medicare and Medicaid) would leap at the opportunity to save the money now wasted on expensive care for patients slowly dying as hope fades. A market price would emerge and people with good organs would respond to the incentive — probably mostly in the form of prospective post-mortem donors looking to ease their families’ losses.

Of course, there would be a place for ethical considerations in that process. Hopefully better considerations than the currently prevailing ones.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

• “9/11 Every Month — Where’s the Outrage?” by Thomas L. Knapp, River Cities’ Reader [Iowa], 04/29/19
• “9/11 Every Month — Where’s the Outrage?” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 04/30/19
• “Banning kidney sales costs lives,” by Thomas L. Knapp, Wilson, North Carolina Times, 05/02/19