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"The lightning took him pretty quickly."

The Kansas City Chiefs player poses with his pooch in The Plaza Hotel.

The Kansas City Chiefs player poses with his pooch in The Plaza Hotel.

Bernie Sanders claims Democratic donors and party leaders are undermining Abdul El-Sayed's Michigan Senate bid over progressive threats to oligarchy.

Le Pen Would Beat Every Rival In 2027, Major French Poll Finds

Marine Le Pen would win France's 2027 presidential election against every major rival now being measured, according to a major survey by Elabe published on August 29 for BFMTV and La Tribune Dimanche.

Marine Le Pen, 2022. Albert Gea / Reuters

France elects its president in two rounds: a crowded first round on April 18 cuts the field to the top two - no one will win outright - and the survivors meet again on May 2. Elabe has Le Pen at 34% to 35.5% in round one depending on who else runs, far clear of the pack, then beating every potential runoff opponent it tested. The new poll comes on the heels of a Nomura report which showed Le Pen with a commanding first-round lead. 

The rest of the field is fighting over second place. Édouard Philippe, the former prime minister and the most plausible face of the post-Macron center, leads that pack at about 17% when he stands alone. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is on 14% to 14.5%, having lost his summer lift. Raphaël Glucksmann, now in the race, is between 11.5% and 14%. Gabriel Attal's presence mainly splits the moderate vote.

According to the poll, here's Le Pen:

• versus Philippe: 52.5% to 47.5%
• versus Attal or Glucksmann: 57% to 43%
• versus Mélenchon: 69.5% to 30.5%

For a generation, French presidential politics assumed a front républicain: a cross-party second-round squeeze that would keep the National Rally out of the Élysée. It elected Chirac 82-18 over her father in 2002 and Macron twice over her; yet the margin has narrowed every time. According to the Elabe poll, that squeeze is no longer automatic. Le Pen is not only first in April. She is ahead in May against every opponent Elabe put up. Even against Philippe, the closest of them, she leads by five points.

Le Pen's popularity has perhaps been boosted by her status as a martyr - created by what some might consider establishment efforts to throw her off track. On July 7 the Paris court of appeal upheld her embezzlement conviction in the European Parliament assistants case. It shortened the ban on holding office enough for her to stand and imposed a year of house arrest with an electronic tag. Her appeal to the Cour de Cassation freezes that sentence while she campaigns. The court has said it aims to rule before the first round. A confirmed tag would not take her off the April ballot. It would frame the May runoff. Le Pen herself has said she could not campaign tagged - though sentence remission could free her by early 2027 either way. Jordan Bardella remains the party's designated stand-in.

At the summer gathering of MEDEF (France's main employers' federation) at Roland-Garros on August 27 she set out a €125 billion savings path and a plan to let long-tenure workers retire at 60 to 62, costed at about €9 billion and described as a "societal choice." French banks are still wary of financing National Rally campaigns. On these numbers, voters are less so.

Bond markets are pricing the wider strain - as French 10-year yields have been near 4.1%, their highest since late 2008. The extra yield over German Bunds is about 80 basis points, the wide end of a 59-to-85 range over the past year. That premium reflects a hung Assembly, a government that has already stumbled on the budget, a 2027 finance bill due in October that may not pass in ordinary form, a deficit still near 5% of GDP, and IMF debt figures already around 118.5% this year and through 120% in 2027. 

The working rule of French politics was that Le Pen could reach the steps of the Élysée and not the door - but rules were made to be broken. 

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 02:45

"It's just -- it's just heartbreaking, like really heartbreaking."

Is Germany Preparing To Unveil A Wealth Tax?

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Will 2027 be the year the wealth register is introduced? Labor Minister Bärbel Bas confirmed this week on Bild that her ministry plans a representative survey of citizens next year on their assets and their views on distributive justice. A classic about-face by this government: just three weeks earlier, Bas had categorically ruled out any such plans.

Concretely, a tax-funded data collection effort involving roughly 5,000 citizens is planned. The rollout will run through an external research institute as part of an EU-wide tender, whose bidding deadline closes September 1.

"Survey experiment on wealth inequality in the population" is the innocuous-sounding name for this study — likely nothing more than a first step toward a comprehensive wealth register.

Cloaked in the mantle of scientific inquiry, politics is edging, step by step, toward the sensitive issue that has hung over the political debate for years like a sword of Damocles: the wealth register. This register — one of numerous European Union projects — is ultimately meant to enable seamless, individualized wealth assessments: the perfect tax base for the perfectly transparent citizen.

What's new here isn't really the format: similar wealth surveys have already been conducted every four years by institutes like Berlin's DIW. What's truly new is the explicit political framing and normative interpretation of the results.

Of course wealth distribution in Germany is unequal — a natural outcome of a free-market order, and an integral part of a system rooted in the principle that reward should follow performance.

The survey design and the interpretation of its results dock directly onto this inequality, and are meant to legitimize policy options such as introducing a wealth tax, raising inheritance taxes, or other redistributive measures. At least Berlin still bothers to maintain a veneer of scientific reasoning before executing its brazen raid on the middle class's savings.

That the German government has done more than merely glance at citizens' wealth became apparent, at the latest, this past Monday. The Federal Statistical Office reported a nationwide deficit of €71.3 billion for the first half of the year — an increase of €36.6 billion over the same period last year. The need is dire. The damage that Berlin's and Brussels' ideological policies have inflicted on the economy in recent years threatens to melt down the tax coffers.

Just a week earlier, the ifo Institute had warned of a fiscal tipping point. Economists concluded that tax revenue could actually shrink going forward, putting an end to Berlin's cornucopia politics. As possible countermeasures, Berlin is now clearly planning tax hikes as well as an expansion of the tax base to include citizens' wealth.

The situation is dire: cyclically sensitive taxes such as corporate and trade tax have shown a negative trend for several quarters now, and the wave of insolvencies sweeping the country, the growing number of business closures, and rising unemployment give no indication that this trend will reverse anytime soon.

From the citizen's perspective, the situation looks like this: given the towering fiscal burdens an ever-expanding state apparatus imposes on him, a sovereign risks becoming a tax vassal — if he hasn't already become one.

A state that cannot get its own budget under control tends toward fiscal highway robbery — and will not hesitate to slap heavy levies on the already multiply-taxed wealth of families and businesses.

You know the drill: it's all done in the name of social justice. Reasons can always be found — but under this kind of policy, what erodes is the remaining sovereignty of civil society itself, the very engine of prosperity, social stability, and republicanism.

Friedrich August von Hayek would likely have judged: Germany is on the road to serfdom — and has already traveled a good stretch of it.

And anyone who still believes the reach for wealth, inheritances, and land will stop at the supposedly rich is in for a rude awakening: the truly wealthy escape the fiscal raid precisely because of their high geographic mobility.

No - the state has its sights set on those who cannot get out of its way: the classic middle class, the Mittelstand, those bound to the land, so to speak - to put it in neo-feudal terms.

The opposite of feudal would be an unrestricted right to private property — one that, naturally, also includes wealth accumulation, entirely without political debate. People are not sovereign when the sword of Damocles of arbitrary taxation hangs over them: once the state can seize assets at will, private property becomes borrowed possession — and the citizen becomes a tax serf. This is precisely why envy-fueled debates over wealth taxes and distributive justice are so dangerous: they shift power from the citizen to the state apparatus, which by its very nature knows no limits — and by now no longer even bothers to hide it.

In the end, only one bitter realization remains: a state that shamelessly lays its citizens bare, and strips away the sanctity of private property along with the last refuges of the once-sovereign citizen using a cheap, resentment-laden argument, has already broken the bond of trust between state and citizen. Wealth as the citizen's last line of defense simply evaporates.

* * * 
About the author: Thomas Kolbe, a German graduate economist, has worked for over 25 years, he has worked as a journalist and media producer for clients from various industries and business associations. As a publicist, he focuses on economic processes and observes geopolitical events from the perspective of the capital markets. His publications follow a philosophy that focuses on the individual and their right to self-determination.

Tyler Durden Tue, 09/01/2026 - 02:00

Frances Tiafoe’s U.S. Open run nearly was cut short by his countryman.

Coming off a high-stakes series win over the Red Sox, with four games in three days and then a cross-country flight Sunday night, the Yankees (78-60) were not sharp in any area Monday.

Wolf Blitzer issued a 'quick note of clarification' following an exchange he had with Dem Virginia Gov Abigail Spanberger.

Osaka’s serve maxed out at 122 mph, but her hardest serve of the day undoubtedly was her match look.

The 13-year-old pulled the coveted card from a T-Mobile Park giveaway, with proceeds reportedly going toward her college fund.

The Yankees began a week-long trip on the west coast Monday with Aaron Judge in tow – and not just so he could be back in his home state.

Mary Sorenson, who lives just north of Atlanta, had completed a bucket-list spiritual pilgrimage to Mount Kailash when disaster struck on Wednesday.

"It all started with severe headaches. I never imagined that something like this could be so serious," Moises Ponce Mendoza's heartbroken mother wrote in a fundraiser statement.

The beginning of Ben Shelton’s U.S. Open run was more like a false start.

Ketel Marte drew boos from Diamondbacks fans in his return after a restricted list absence.

The attacker hopped into a black BMW and disappeared into the wind after stabbing the victim.

After Rodman helped her Washington Spirit pick up a win in a match against Bay FC in the NWSL yesterday, she made her way courtside on Monday.

Chinese Scientists Flagged Glacial Flood Danger One Year Before Nepal Catastrophe

Authored by Sophia Lam via The Epoch Times,

More than a year before the catastrophic flash flood devastated the China-Nepal border crossing at Gyirong last week, Chinese geologists had raised concerns about the impending danger.

CCTV footage shows people running away as wall of mud and water destroys buildings in a valley at the Nepal-China border, in Gyirong, Tibet region, China, on Aug. 26, 2026. Social Media/via Reuters

On August 26, a glacial-related collapse tore through Gyirong Port, one of the principal land crossings between Tibet and Nepal, destroying roads and bridges and leaving entire communities isolated and struggling to reach survivors. Villages and communities along the border have been left in ruins, with homes, roads, and infrastructure swept away.

At least 789 people have died, and more than 3,000 people are still missing.

More than a year ago, on July 8, 2025, a glacial lake outburst flood struck Gyirong County, in Shigatse, Tibet - the same area hit by the recent flash flood - destroying the Friendship Bridge on the China-Nepal border and leaving 17 people missing, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Chinese scientists at the State Key Laboratory of Geohazard Prevention and Geoenvironment Protection at Chengdu University of Technology published a study three days after the 2025 flood, warning that the area could experience another glacial lake outburst flood in the wake of the July 8 disaster.

They called for stronger upstream flood warnings and recommended conducting detailed assessments of the susceptibility and risks of all glacial lakes in the basin "as soon as possible" to support "post-disaster reconstruction and long-term stability."

A Warning Ignored

Drawing on their Qinghai-Tibet Plateau glacial lake database and risk assessments, these scientists identified 55 glacial lakes covering about 3.39 square kilometers [36 million square feet] in the watershed upstream basin of the Friendship Bridge.

Based on satellite imagery from July 8, the researchers determined that the flood was triggered by the outburst of a supraglacial lake upstream of the Purepu Zangbu River. The report found that the lake had also experienced an outburst in mid-July 2023.

According to the study, the lake began forming in 2018 and is a typical seasonal supraglacial lake rather than a permanent one.

Researchers said rising temperatures across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have intensified meltwater runoff and accelerated glacier melt, causing the lake to reach its largest recorded area.

Meltwater carrying large amounts of glacial debris may also have blocked subglacial drainage channels, preventing the lake from draining effectively. The water level eventually rose beyond historical extremes, triggering the July 8, 2025, outburst.

Chinese land on the left and Nepalese land on right after Friendship bridge, a key bridge over the Bhotekoshi River connecting Nepal with China, was swept away in monsoon rain at Rasuwagadi, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of the capital, Kathmandu, Nepal, on July, 9, 2025. AP Photo/Sujan Gurung

The researchers warned of "the possibility of another glacial lake outburst flood" due to the "many glacial lakes in this river basin."

They also called for "strengthened" upstream early flood warning systems and more detailed hazard and "susceptibility and risk" assessments for all 55 lakes "as soon as possible."

Xu Qiang, president of Chengdu University of Technology, repeated the findings from the 2025 report to explain the recent flood in an interview with the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) propaganda outlet People's Daily.

"Against the backdrop of climate warming, the risk of glacial lake outburst floods and debris flows triggered by ice and rock collapses along the Himalayas is continuing to rise. Glaciers across the region are retreating, and glacial lakes are expanding, increasing the likelihood of disasters such as glacial lake outbursts and ice avalanches," Xu said in the interview on Aug. 28.

Xu didn't mention the cross-border early warning system, and he didn't say explicitly whether China had taken any preventive measures or issued any warning before the flood.

China expert Li Linyi noted that Xu's remarks echoed recommendations the Chengdu research team had already laid out a year earlier, effectively amounting to an implicit admission that the preventive measures previously proposed to authorities were never implemented.

"This is not simply an unforeseeable natural disaster," he said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times, "but the inevitable result of absent early warning, delayed decision-making, and systematically underestimated risk."

On Aug. 27, the South China Morning Post reported that Chinese scientists have had a cross-border early warning system with counterparts in Nepal since 2017 to monitor Himalayan glacial lake outburst floods, and that the system had reportedly issued timely alerts in past years that helped prevent casualties.

Yet despite this track record, the report did not clarify whether the system detected any anomalies or issued any alerts ahead of the Aug. 26 disaster this year.

Independent verification of such claims is difficult because under CCP rule, Tibet remains largely closed to foreign journalists, researchers, and diplomats.

Natural Disaster, or Man-Made?

The Gyirong Port is built in unstable geological terrain, according to Chinese state-run media platform Sohu. The Chengdu research report lays out in more detail the risks and hazards in the upstream regions.

By 2024, trade through Gyirong Port had already hit 4.25 billion yuan (roughly $590 million) - nearly 30 percent of all China-Nepal trade.

The disaster has drawn accusations that the CCP's focus on the economy and disregard for known risks turned a natural hazard into a man-made tragedy.

Ethan Tu, founder of Taiwan AI Labs, wrote on Facebook on Aug. 28, "The greatest crime any of us can make is to call a man-made disaster a natural one."

He referred to the CCP's building of the port complex right in the middle of the river, blocking water flow and causing the disaster.

Lin Ting-hui, former deputy secretary-general of the Taiwan Society of International Law, criticized the CCP for building dams, roads, and tunnels that have destroyed local ecological conditions and geological stability in Tibet and neighboring areas.

"On top of that, accelerating glacial melt means meltwater keeps seeping into loosened mountainsides - so when heavy rain hits, the resulting mudslides can end up far bigger and more destructive than they'd otherwise be," Lin said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

He blamed the CCP for building the entire port complex right on top of a riverbed, calling it a move that "defies nature."

Lin said that Gyirong has served as a vital route since the seventh and eighth centuries, once used by Tang dynasty envoys and Buddhist monks, and holds deep significance in Tibetan Buddhist history.

"In all those centuries, the area had never suffered a disaster on this scale. However, in recent years, flooding began recurring," Lin said in a recent interview with The Epoch Times.

"The CCP's atheism has led it to believe man can conquer nature. But people must instead respect nature, or nature will strike back."

Tang Bing, Chang Chun, and Rex Widerstrom contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Mon, 08/31/2026 - 23:25