Media Hit

A lot has been written about the financial cost of leaks since the advent of sites such as Napster. One report by the Institute for Policy Innovation, an American thinktank, estimated that internet users have downloaded $12.5bn worth of pirated music every year since 1999.

Plans for a privately financed, high-speed rail line between Houston and Dallas are being challenged by members of the Texas State Legislature, landowners along the proposed route, and some transportation researchers.

“A lot of these licensing programs exist for no other reason than to protect a professional cartel and keep out competition," said IPI president Tom Giovanetti.

“From a political standpoint, it is foolish to push importation. If deaths occur, the politician who promoted it will take the blame,” said Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation.

Bartlett D. Cleland, research fellow with the Institute for Policy Innovation, said the FCC “needs to establish a continuous supply of spectrum via auctions, on a schedule that will provide a regular flow of low, mid and high bands of spectrum. They must keep unlicensed bands open and available as well.”

"Planned Parenthood reportedly received about $1.5 billion in taxpayer dollars between 2013-15, most of it from the Medicaid program,” said Dr. Merrill Matthews. “While federal law prohibits that money from being used to provide abortion services, money is fungible. It can be used to pay many of the fixed expenses, freeing up other monies to provide abortion services. Attorney General Paxton's effort to defund Planned Parenthood simply recognizes that financial relationship,” Matthews said.

Eight states are asking a court to strike an Obamacare rule they say violates their authority to protect the judgment and conscience rights of medical professionals.

"Medicare for All, I think, is going to be one of the key issues for Democrats going forward into the 2020 presidential campaign, [and] I suspect it'll be part of the Democratic Party platform."

In 2015, Giovanetti proposed that every new law or regulation should contain a sunset clause after five years and after 10 years for any and all new agencies. If that commonsense guideline were actually in place, the Education Department would have probably been on the chopping block 30 years ago.