IS MERKEL SAFE?: That’s now a QTWTAIN, according to John O’Sullivan. He concludes:

Not only is Merkel seriously wounded today, therefore, but the sense that Germany is the solid reliable rock on which European unity can rest securely is shaken, too. As Cas Mudde pointed out yesterday in a superb analysis of the results in the Guardian, the election has reversed the impact of Macron’s presidential success. Where Macron’s victory was hailed (by, among others, Jean-Claude Junker) as the defeat of populism, the German results show that populism has now spread to regions thought immune to the virus. Though the populist parties in both countries are very far from winning office, they are still around and their rise is shaping (or reflecting) massive changes in political structures and party loyalties. And it’s not over.

Read the whole thing.

REGULATORY DARK MATTER: My colleague Wayne Crews has a new video out explaining just how the administrative state has become so dominant – through the use of guidance, memos, interpretations and so on that have the effect of law without any of the approval process the law supposedly demands. More here, with links to Wayne’s longer-form work.

I WONDER WHERE THEY GOT THAT IDEA FROM: Democrat pollster Stanley Greenberg notes in the American Prospect that the Clinton campaign relied on computer models rather than data. As climate skeptic Pat Michaels puts it, data are the modeler’s burden.

ALTERNATIVE PARTIES WIN BIG IN GERMANY: The German election results are yet another example of voters around the world deserting legacy parties. Angela Merkel’s party got the most votes again, but lost 8% support, while her “grand coalition” social democrat allies lost about 5%. Two parties that weren’t in the last Parliament gained close to 25% of the vote – the Alternative for Deutschland, the economic nationalist party, won 13.3%, and the classical liberal Free Democrats won 11.3%. The regional maps (free registration required) are extremely interesting, with The Left (the neo-communists) losing big to AfD in the old East Germany.

As the Telegraph notes, with the social democrats nixing the idea of another grand coalition, “A three-way “Jamaica” coalition, whereby the CDU is propped up by the the FDP and the Greens – is therefore the only possible majority government for Merkel.” That should be entertaining.

LONDON JUST BECAME A FAR WORSE PLACE TO VISIT: Transport for London bans Uber on spurious “elfnsafety” grounds. To paraphrase Pitt the Younger, “health and safety” is the plea for every infringement of human freedom in Britain today – it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. The Freedom Association responds here. International visitors to London who use Uber regularly, like I do, might want to speak up too.

AN ACTRESS WHO LOVES THE CONSTITUTION: Yes, you read that right. Janine Turner, famous for Northern Exposure, talks regularly to students about the Constitution, and she’s not complaining about it.

UNCONSTITUTIONAL, UNACCOUNTABLE, UNAMERICAN: I have a new paper out today, The Case against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Unconstitutionally Structured and Harmful to Consumers. If you need arguments why Senator Warren’s favorite agency needs to be killed by the courts or Congress as matter of political hygiene (as a great man once said about Obamacare) I hope you’ll find them there.

HAVING A KEY MAY BE, ERM, KEY: BMW is looking at the potential for a car without any sort of key or fob, just a smartphone app. Before they go any further, perhaps they should consult Golden Krishna, who suggests that the best interface is no interface, with special attention to cars and smartphones.

THAT “PROPRIETARY” THING MIGHT MAKE SENSE: It’s now becoming apparent that the Equifax security breach was made possible by the use of open-source code, and while the company knew about the vulnerability, it might not have patched it properly. This is a bug, not a feature of open-source:

There are a number of reasons why companies don’t move quickly to install fixes for their open-source vulnerabilities, said [Lou] Shipley [of Black Duck Software]. There is the pressure developers feel to get products to market quickly, and he said that pressure intensifies as more of the world’s business relies on software to be transacted.

Another reason is, unlike software from companies such as Microsoft, Oracle or SAP SE that send notices of when new patches and fixes are available, there are no notices sent with open-source software updates, he said. Companies go through an evolution of whether to retire some apps and when to do so, and some do a better job than others of staying on top of this task, he said.

One of the people who is hopping mad over the Equifax breach is Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who wants to hold Equifax executives accountable, which is all well and good. Corporate executives who mess up should be punished by the market and by the law if they were negligent to the extent that people are harmed. But there’s currently a provision in the NDAA to force the DOD to use open-source software in all new technology.

Who is the author of this provision? Step forward, Senator Elizabeth Warren.

SOUNDS LIKE CLICKBAIT BUT ISN’T: The First Web Apps: 5 Apps That Shaped the Internet as We Know It. A fascinating dive into the early history of the web and how its early developers changed everything.

VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR: My latest column at the Foundation for Economic Education – People Are Grumbling about the iPhone X Because That’s How Innovation Works. Well, that and the massive prestige premium Apple has added to the price.

THE CFPB IS A CONSTITUTIONAL ‘EXCRESCENCE’: Oklahoma Attorney AG Mike Hunter takes the CFPB to task for its excesses – and Congress for allowing them to continue. He’s right on both counts (although the House has done its job and passed a bill that would constrain the Bureau), and I shall endeavor to use the word “excrescence” more when talking about the CFPB.

In related news, the House Financial Services Committee has just released a report that finds that the Bureau rushed to settle with Wells Fargo when it finally realized what was going on at the bank.

THIS SHOULDN’T SURPRISE ANYONE BUT…: Thousands of government contractors may have been hired illegally. A new paper from my think tank finds that many of the consultants who have replaced full-time government employees may have been hired contrary to the dictates of the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA):

“In trying to reduce bureaucracy, the president and Congress focus on things like hiring freezes at agencies, but agencies simply turn to contractors instead, growing the bureaucracy with neither approval nor oversight from Congress,” said Robert Hanrahan, author of Bureaucratic Dark Energy. “Without specific authorization from Congress, hiring contractors for their specific skills to fill ongoing federal jobs is a felony. But many agencies do it nonetheless, as these laws are nearly never enforced. The bureaucracy grows ever larger thanks to this bureaucratic ‘dark energy’—an invisible force that allows government to expand at the discretion of the bureaucracy alone.”

Bureaucratic Dark Energy suggests two solutions for the lack of accountability that has lead federal agencies to misinterpret the “personal services” language in the Anti-Deficiency Act (ADA), a series of laws prohibiting agencies from hiring contractors except as appropriated and authorized by Congress. First, Congress must insist on enforcement of the Anti-Deficiency Act and punish civil servants who outsource their own jobs. Secondly, Congress should establish a private civil cause of action for ADA violations. There may be hundreds of cases at dozens of agencies amounting to billions of dollars in misappropriation. A small fraction of these sums awarded to successful plaintiffs should be a powerful incentive for agencies to rein in their spending on contractors.

If the President is looking for a way to drain the swamp, enforcing the ADA may be a good start.

WELL I NEVER: Global warming may be occurring more slowly than previously thought, study suggests. In other words, they’re admitting that their models of a decade ago didn’t reflect reality, which is exactly what we skeptics were saying then and vilified for. As Pat Michaels puts it, data is the modeler’s burden.

TO PARAPHRASE THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON: The trouble with public transport is it allows the upper classes to move about the country. High earners are now more likely to use public transport than any other class. Sure it’s only a few percent of any of them, but it’s a strange turnaround from the days when automobility was an aspiration.

QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES: Governments have taken to suing people who make open records requests. That’s one way to hide the decline.

(Classical allusion, etc.)

PETA’S MONKEY BUSINESS: The animal rights group has moved to moved to vacate the district court’s ruling that only humans can own copyright in the infamous Naruto “monkey selfie” case. The poor photographer whose rights PETA contested settled with them earlier this week. As part of the settlement, PETA demanded the court ruling be thrown out. My colleague Ted Frank, no fan of idiotic law suits, has filed a brief with the court demonstrating conclusively that the demand should not be met as a matter of law. There’s some nice commentary on the brief for non-lawyers at Techdirt.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH: Canada’s Competition Bureau investigated climate science groups for “making false and misleading claims.” The investigation has now been dropped, but ties into the failed attempt here by leftist Attorneys General to use law enforcement investigations to advance their policy agenda and silence debate.

LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF DONORS: UVA President takes credit for removal of “shroud” from Jefferson statue. Video evidence suggests otherwise.

GOD’S IN HIS HEAVEN AND ALL’S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD: Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback is back – now at The Weekly Standard, because apparently writing entertainingly about football is verboten at sports sites. And Gregg’s back to hiding op/eds within the text, something for the policy wonk fan to enjoy. He’s also right that Kirk Cousins should have taken the money.

THEY FAILED, SO THEY DESERVE MORE POWER: The Equifax security breach happened on the CFPB’s watch, which has been regulating credit reporting bureaus since 2012. Yet despite this failure, progressives are arguing that the breach proves that the Senate should allow the Bureau to go ahead with a power grab aimed at enabling more trial lawyer shakedowns. Will GOP Senators grab this opportunity to vote for more bureaucracy and more money for their political opponents? I don’t even know why I bother to ask the question…

FIRST, DEFINE YOUR TERMS: My colleague Wayne Crews asks, “What’s the Difference between “Major,” “Significant,” and all those other Federal Rule Categories?” That’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Wayne makes the case that if we want real, deep, lasting regulatory reform we need first of all to streamline those definitions.

FASTER, PLEASE: Robots and machine learning can save lives. If the regulators allow it, of course.

WAIT, WHAT?: Legendary Washington socialite Sally Quinn believes she killed three people with magic. You’ll have to dig quite some way into the story to find that out, though – and she jokes that she’s been asked to cast a curse on the President.

IF THEY CAN’T TAKE YOUR GUNS, THEY’LL TAKE YOUR AMMO – AND YOUR TRUCK: CCP gun owner has truck confiscated over a clip of ammo in the glove box. On telling the CBP officer to get a warrant to search his phone, the officer responded, “I’m sick of hearing about your rights. You have no rights here.” Civil asset forfeiture in action, ladies and gents.