Media Hit

Trump insists that the convention will have to pick him if he has more delegates than any other hopeful but short of the 1,237 majority needed to win on the first ballot. “The notion that you go in with a plurality, therefore you deserve the nomination is just flat wrong,” said Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at the Dallas-based think tank Institute for Policy Innovation.

The outline of his health plan is so thin that you can't really make any assessments of what it would do, because it wouldn't do much at all, said IPI's Merrill Matthews. 

Featured this week is a report by the Institute for Policy Innovation titled “Civil Asset Forfeiture and the Constitution.” The report explains what civil asset forfeiture is, why its dangerous, and what specific parts of the Constitution it infringes upon.

"I'm a content guy, " said IPI president Tom Giovanetti on Twitter. "Content of Romney speech excellent. Wrong messenger? Possibly. Will it work? Probably not."

In true Trump fashion, this isn't exactly a magnum opus of policy wonkery. "The outline of his health plan is nothing more than an outline that is so thin that you can't really make any assessments of what it would do, because from the outline, it wouldn't do much at all," said Merrill Matthews, IPI resident scholar.

The leaders of major health insurer Aetna show one example of the type of questioning that remains with the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges.

Despite the rise in healthcare spending among consumers around the nation, health payers and providers are partnering to create solutions that emphasize quality performance and lower costs.

The Institute for Policy Innovation also took Apple's side. "It's a sad state of affairs when Americans have to rely on private companies to protect our constitutional rights against the government, but apparently that's where we are," said President Tom Giovanetti in a Thursday blog post. "That's why I commend Tim Cook of Apple for his strong statement opposing the FBI's overly broad demand for the creation of a tool that would allow them to break encryption on any iPhone in the world," Giovanetti said of the Apple CEO.

Congress has voted to permanently bar state and local governments from taxing access to the Internet. For 17 years, the ban on Internet taxes has benefited millions of Americans by empowering them to conduct transactions on the Internet free from the fear of additional tax burdens. "This is a tremendous victory for America's Internet economy, and for all of us who participate in this economy", said Institute for Policy Innovation president Tom Giovanetti.

Passage of PITFA as part of HR-644 now "intensifies" S-698 opponents' push to "stave off the attempt" to pass that bill, said IPI president Tom Giovanetti in a statement. S-698 "has never had committee scrutiny on the Senate side and [has] never been subject to amendment on the floor." Senate Republican leaders "must commit to first submitting this legislation to the same procedures, hearings and scrutiny appropriate to any and all legislation, especially since this proposal has serious Constitutional questions," Giovanetti said.