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☆ Elizabeth Warren Has an ObamaCare Epiphany
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-25 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyIt took 13 years, but Elizabeth Warren is at long last acknowledging that ObamaCare has increased healthcare prices and industry consolidation. Government price controls and profit caps have resulted in unintended consequences. The Massachusetts Senator and Republican Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana this week wrote a letter to the Health and Human Services Department inspector general complaining that the nation’s largest health insurers are dodging Obama Care’s medical loss ratio (MLR). The result, they say, is higher costs for patients.

Persons: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady, Dan Henninger, Mark Kelly, Elizabeth Warren, ObamaCare, Republican Sen, Mike Braun, Obama Organizations: Getty, Zuma, Republican, Health, Human Services Department Locations: Massachusetts, Indiana

☆ Germany Faces the Green Fiscal Truth
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-24 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyThings have gone from bad to worse in Germany this week after a court ruling that’s forcing the government to do something truly shocking: level with voters about how much the net-zero energy transition will cost. Please pass the smelling salts. The country’s highest constitutional court ruled this month that one of the coalition government’s main gimmicks for funding green projects violates Germany’s version of a balanced-budged amendment. That amendment, known as the debt brake, caps the government’s fiscal deficit at 0.35% of gross domestic product per year except in emergencies (as defined by special legislation passed with a majority in the Bundestag).

Persons: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady, Dan Henninger, Kelly Organizations: Getty, Zuma, Bundestag Locations: Germany

☆ The Wilders Message From the Netherlands
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-24 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyDutch elections rarely stir much excitement abroad, but the voting in the Netherlands Wednesday marks an exception. The big winner was Geert Wilders , a veteran right-wing campaigner, and the freakout his victory has triggered across Europe is something to behold. His next nearest competitor, a Labor-Green coalition led by Frans Timmermans , won 25 seats. Politicians will now negotiate to form a governing coalition, a process that often takes months in the Netherlands’ highly fragmented electoral system, and Mr. Wilders may not emerge as prime minister.

Persons: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady, Dan Henninger, Mark Kelly Dutch, Geert Wilders, Frans Timmermans, Wilders Organizations: Getty, Zuma, Freedom Party, Labor, Green Locations: Netherlands, Europe

☆ The IRS’s Act of $600 Mercy
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyWhile rarely a bearer of good news, the Internal Revenue Service on Tuesday postponed a $600 reporting threshold for payments received via online platforms such as Venmo, eBay and Airbnb . The IRS is doing a favor for itself and President Biden as much as it is for Americans. Readers may recall that the American Rescue Plan Act in March 2021 lowered the threshold for third parties reporting transactions on Form 1099-K to $600 annually from $20,000. Democrats’ goal was to nab Americans who allegedly dodge taxes by failing to report income earned from, say, driving for Uber or renting out second homes on Airbnb.

Persons: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady, Dan Henninger, Mark Kelly, Biden, ’ Organizations: Getty, Zuma, Internal Revenue Service, eBay, IRS, American, nab Locations: Airbnb

☆ OpenAI’s Ineffective Altruists vs. Sam Altman
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyCorporate power struggles aren’t rare, and most companies survive them. But the OpenAI board’s sudden ouster of CEO Sam Altman last week looks increasingly like a misguided kamikaze run. Mr. Altman helped launch OpenAI in 2015 with the mission of responsibly developing artificial intelligence to benefit humanity. He has since become the technology’s public face, with media appearances and testimony to Congress.

Persons: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady, Dan Henninger, Kelly, Sam Altman, Altman Organizations: Getty, Zuma Locations: Silicon

☆ Argentina Gambles on Milei
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyWhen there’s no real alternative, there’s no problem, as the saying goes. And that may be the logic of Argentina voters on Sunday who rejected the catastrophe of Peronist rule in favor of impulsive and charismatic outsider Javier Milei , who promised what for Argentina is the radical change of free-market economics. Mr. Milei, a Congressman and self-described libertarian, won the Presidency in a rout with 56% of the vote to 44%. He defeated Sergio Massa , the incumbent economic minister and architect of the policies that have produced runaway inflation, declining living standards, a government shedding foreign reserves, and the worst economic crisis in decades.

Persons: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady, Dan Henninger, Mark Kelly, Javier Milei, Milei, Sergio Massa Organizations: Getty, Zuma, Sunday Locations: Argentina

☆ Major Mea Culpa From MLB
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-20 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyWill Rob Manfred apologize to the state of Georgia and its citizens? The commissioner of Major League Baseball announced Thursday that the annual All-Star Game will be held in Atlanta in 2025, two years after he moved the game from the city because of a controversial election law. Not the bulk of the law, the Election Integrity Act of 2021, which tightened up vote-by-mail and voter ID rules. Brian Kemp in 2018 but had refused in Donald Trump fashion to accept the result, also played the race card.

Persons: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady, Dan Henninger, Mark Kelly Will Rob Manfred, What’s, Manfred, Biden, Jim Crow, ” Stacey Abrams, Brian Kemp, Donald Trump Organizations: Getty, Zuma, Major League Baseball, Democratic Party, Gov Locations: Georgia, Atlanta

☆ The Covid Vaccine Windfall Turns for Pfizer and Moderna
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-19 | by ( Allysia Finley | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Journal Editorial Report: The week’s best and worst from Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady and Dan Henninger. Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyThe U.S. was in a fit of Covid panic during Thanksgiving week two years ago. Share prices in Pfizer and Moderna surged. By month’s end, Pfizer’s stock-market value had surpassed $300 billion, up 50% from the start of the pandemic. In 2022 Pfizer became the first pharmaceutical company to book more than $100 billion in annual sales owing to government purchases of its vaccines and antiviral pill.

Persons: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady, Dan Henninger, Mark Kelly The Organizations: Getty, Zuma, Pfizer, Moderna Locations: Mark Kelly The U.S

☆ How to Botch an Assassination Investigation
▼ + stars: | 1963-11-22 | by ( Thomas J. Baker | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Images: AP/AFP/Getty Images/Reuters/Zuma Press Composite: Mark KellyThe assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, shocked the nation. It brought justifiable scrutiny on the law enforcement agencies that should have prevented it as well as those that investigated it. One lesson law enforcement learned from Dallas and its aftermath is how not to investigate an assassination. The Kennedy investigation devolved into a fiasco. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service, the Dallas police and sheriff offices all argued with each other.

Persons: Kim Strassel, Kyle Peterson, Mary O'Grady, Dan Henninger, Mark Kelly The, John F, Kennedy, Warren Commission’s, Lee Harvey Oswald, Oswald Organizations: Getty, Zuma, Texas, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Service, Dallas Locations: Dallas

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