WNBA To Hold 'Listening Sessions' After Second Former NBA Star Says He's A Woman, Declares For Draft

Update (1800ET): WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent a memo to teams that addresses ongoing discussions around transgender athletes in women's basketball.

"I know many of you have received questions in recent weeks regarding transgender athlete participation in women's basketball, and I expect this topic will continue to receive significant attention," Engelbert wrote in the memo, which was sent Friday afternoon and obtained by The Associated Press and ESPN.

"I wanted to reach out to share how we are approaching these conversations at the league office and to thank those of you who have responded to questions from the media with thoughtfulness and professionalism."

The memo said the topic will be discussed further by a task force of team presidents and general managers at a previously scheduled meeting next week.

The league's collective bargaining agreement states that "only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA," but it does not include any more specific language about gender identity or sex assigned at birth. 

"We recognize that this is a complex and nuanced topic, and we will continue to have important conversations with all of you and the Players Association in the weeks and months ahead," Engelbert said in the memo.

"We also plan to convene additional discussions and offer listening sessions for any team leaders who would like to participate. Your perspectives and feedback are invaluable, and I appreciate those who have already reached out to share their thoughts."

The Women's National Basketball Players Association released a statement on social media Friday that emphasized diversity and inclusion while saying the group "will not be used as political pawns."

"We embrace justice equity, diversity, and inclusion," the players' union said.

Inclusion?

Perhaps the WNBA will finally be the first group to actually define "what is a woman?"

*  *  *

As Robert Spencer reported earlier for PJMedia.com, every person who is tired of the left forcing its delusions and fantasies on the rest of us, and shaming, deplatforming, and silencing us if we refuse to go along, ought to be applauding Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom for standing up to the madness, and showing the world just how absurd it really is.

White and Freedom have declared that they’re women, at least for the purposes of professional basketball, and so they’re declaring for the 2027 WNBA draft. This is hilarious, but it’s no joke. It’s an unanswerable response to the left’s fashionable gender delusions, which have recently become a source of controversy within the WNBA, which ought to be called the WWNBA, the Woke Women’s National Basketball Association.

It all started when WNBA star Sophie Cunningham stated that she was not in favor of men pretending to be women playing women’s sports.

This sparked the usual spittle-flecked fury from the left. The WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, among others, came out in favor of delusional men competing against women. 

The WNBA players’ union issued a weaselly statement denouncing “Hate, abuse, and demonization of any person or group of people, including transgender people.”

Nobody had engaged in any of that, but that’s how leftists always characterize disagreement with the views they want everyone to hold.

Meanwhile, there has been talk of a WNBA team signing French basketball player Julie Tétart, who is a dude.

And so if Julie Tétart can do it, why can’t Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom? They are just as female as Tétart is. Fox News reported Friday that White said: "I'm transgender. I'm a woman. I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purpose of basketball, professional basketball, so I'll be declaring for the WNBA draft in 2027 as well," that is, in addition to Enes Kanter Freedom.

White added a correct assessment of how well a male professional would do in the WNBA: "I think I’d be unstoppable. But I’m a team-first guy. I’m a pass-first kind of player. I do the little things. I led my team in all five major stat categories at Iowa State University, so I do a little bit of everything. I’ll do whatever the coach needs me to do. I’ll do whatever the girls need me to do... I think it’s only fair."

White noted that the WNBA, for all its declarations of how much it rejects “hatred” of men who claim to be women, hasn’t said explicitly that men could play in the WNBA. Maybe WNBA top dogs hope that the whole thing will just go away, but it won’t.

"I think the WNBA could come out,” White said, “and make a definitive statement about guys with a pair of balls playing in the Women’s Association."

Asked if he would declare for the WNBA draft unless the league said that men could not play in the league, White responded: "Oh, no, I’m declaring. And I don’t want to be discriminated against. I want fair treatment. I’m a young, black, hopefully United States Senator that would like a fair chance to participate as a sometimes-identifying-as-a-transgender-woman athlete." White is on the ballot for the senate in Minnesota in the Republican primary; the election is coming up next Tuesday.

What if the WNBA calls White’s bluff and no team opts to sign him?

"I have to file a discrimination lawsuit, right?,” White said.

“I mean, that's, that's ridiculous. We're gonna have to have a huge legal battle about discrimination if I can't play." White says he would like to play for Cheryl Reeve: "It’s got to be the Minnesota Lynx, and I hear the coach loves a good transgender, so we’ll all be in perfect harmony.”

White expressed confidence that he would be drafted:

“How you gonna pass up on a 6-foot-8, 270-pound point forward? That’s ridiculous. I’m 260 pounds, 265 pounds, 6-foot-8, can palm a basketball — can palm a men’s basketball probably as easily as any player in history. I think I had the third-biggest hands in the modern NBA Draft Combine. So, yeah, I’m sure the women’s basketball is going to fare even easier to palm, which is a huge advantage. They’re going to have nightmares, and they should. I really feel like I’m going to be dominant."

He’s right.

If a WNBA team signs Julie Tétart or any other delusional man, the Minnesota Lynx or any other WNBA team would be foolish to pass on Royce White.

And then other teams will follow suit, until there are no women players left at all, and the WNBA is entirely filled with men and becomes a junior NBA. That will be true gender justice, won’t it, Ms. Reeve?

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 21:00

'Busted': Female Bicyclists 'Bulk Up'

Authored by Mike McDaniel via AmericanThinker.com,

I’ve been a bicyclist all my life, but because I came to serious road racing late in life, I never had the opportunity to be competitive. Oh, I had a few good bikes and wore the required attire, but I was never going to make the medal stand.

I did ride with enough serious riders to understand their compulsions. Among them was doing whatever was necessary to shave every gram of weight possible off their trusty steeds and to make them, and themselves, more aerodynamic. Shaving the legs was mandatory, but I never participated in that ritual. The seconds that might save weren’t going to make any difference for me, nor would drilling holes in this or that component.

If you know the jargon, those were the days when shifters were mounted on downtubes, and carbon fiber was in its infancy. It consisted of round frame tubes glued into metal fittings. Ten-gear cassettes and single chainrings were the hot setup. That dates me, doesn’t it?

Much has changed since those years. Frames can now be entirely made of carbon fiber and tuned for specific kinds of races.

Everything is lighter and stronger, and computer technology has made it possible to fine-tune bike and rider to an amazing degree—particularly female riders’ breasts. Breasts?! Breasts:

Something strange is happening at the Tour de France Femmes this year.

Several women’s WorldTeams have come forward claiming that some riders are padding their bras during time trials to gain an aerodynamic edge.

The Dutch website Wielerflits broke the story after hearing from multiple teams. The complaint is that certain cyclists are using extra padding to make their chests appear larger. In the low, aggressive position of a time trial, a rounder chest can act like a “fairing,” smoothing the air and reducing drag.

Oh, come on. This has to be The Babylon Bee, right? Nope. It, and the breasts, are the real thing:

Graphic: X Post

… aerodynamics expert Bert Blocken has studied the idea. (Uh-huh. I’m sure he did). 

Hey!  You don’t want to be a science denier, do you?

His research found that a proper chest fairing can cut air resistance by as much as 3.6 percent. In a race that often comes down to seconds, that kind of gain is not nothing. Over 20 or 30 kilometers, it could easily decide a stage.

That’s exactly why riders strain to do whatever they can to get that kind of advantage. Races are often won by fractions of a second, and a 3.6% aero advantage translates to double-digit seconds over longer races. That’s a substantial win, particularly in a time trial.

Due to a law enforcement neck injury, my bike racing days are over. I can’t get on the drops (the lower portion of road bike handlebars)—it’s a pain in the neck--so I ride recumbents. You never see them in sanctioned bike races because while they’re heavier than the lightest road bikes, they also have a 10-15% aerodynamic advantage, so they’re banned.

The timing of the accusations is pretty interesting. They surfaced just as the race produced one of its most memorable moments — the longest solo breakaway victory in the history of the Tour de France Femmes on Stage 3. Officials have been quick to note there is no evidence a padded bra had anything to do with that result.

In bike racing, the tiniest technical detail and rule is usually rigorously observed. Obviously, they’re taking breasts seriously, which is always wise.

Still, the story has put the entire field on notice. Extra clothing inspections are now expected ahead of the next time trial. Bra inspections. Unbelievable.

Graphic: X Post

It should be pretty easy to spot padding.

Female riders tend to be among the leanest female athletes in the world with very low body fat percentages, which means less - ahem - prominent breasts.

I also suspect the line to volunteer for that duty will be long indeed. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it for the purity of sport and the sanctity of science.

Being male and having decades of experience with observing and judging breasts, I’m uniquely qualified. Where do I apply?

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 19:50

Jeftovic: The "Bitcoin Only" Era Is Over...

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower .com,

(From The Sovereign Capitalist Letter #65. I was traveling at the time of the Coinkite vulnerability, surfacing a recurring theme around how to safely balance cold storage and emergency access when on the road).

Just when I thought the sentiment couldn’t get any worse, on July 29-30 reports began to emerge of “certain” Coldcards (which were supposed to be the industry standard of self-custody cold wallets), being drained of their funds.

The reports are true, and this has enormous implications, not just for Coinkite, the Canadian company who manufactures the Coldcard, but for the entire worldview of self-custody and perhaps even for Bitcoin itself.

“Not your keys = not your coins” has been the mantra of Bitcoin since the Genesis Block. Self-custody was The Way. Anything else was for “shitcoiners”, “suitcoiners” and general retards.

It is impossible to overstate how strongly the Bitcoin in-club feels about this. If you don’t self-custody – and until this happened, on a Coldcard by Coinkite – then you were not really a “true” Bitcoiner, you were just LARPing as one. A spectator in the land of the pureblood anarcho-capitalist cyberpunks.

(Admission: my BTC wasn’t on a Coldcard – but I had recently bought new one that I was planning to migrate to after the BIP-110 and eCash forks).

When Utopia arrives… only the self-custody maxis would be admitted – all else would be chattel and serfs under various permutations of slavecoins, CBDCs and (the worst of all) paper Bitcoin.

It all sounds very eschatological and in the earlier days of my journey, I would openly admit “Bitcoin is my religion” and only be half-kidding about it.

While this bear market has been a “mild winter” in terms of price action (only about ~ 50% off the all-time high), this has been one of the more self-destructive bear cycles in terms of Bitcoin culture and the movement in general.

None of it helped by the fact that the Coldcard flaw turned out to be real.

People who had done everything right, took their BTC off of the exchange, put it into an air-gapped Coldcard powered by a 9V-battery and thought they were safe, found their life-savings irrevocably drained away in an instant…

Via r/bitcoinOver the years I’ve recommended Coldcard to my readers a few times. We were traveling when the news broke but as soon as I corroborated the vulnerability, I put out an emergency bulletin to the mailing list.

At first it appeared as though the flaw was limited to older Mk2 and Mk3 models, but over the next couple of days Mk4 and Q1 series were also being drained – it just takes more computing power, and thus time, to crack the entropy on the later models.

What Happened – The Coldcard Firmware Flaw

As everyone here knows, a Bitcoin wallet address is a very long cryptographic private key that can be transmitted or stored in a human readable form via a 12- or 24-word seed phrase, consisting of words pulled from a word list (BIP-39) of possible values.

The words themselves are actually unimportant – they’re just there for humans to be able to read the values. The discrete value they comprise is what matters.

And because a given wallet address is secured by a private key derived from a seed-phrase, those words must be in order.

That makes the universe of possible values enormous:

• 12 words gives 2¹²⁸ possible valid phrases

• 24 words gives 2²⁵⁶ possible valid phrases

A 12-word seed space is a vastly larger number than every grain of sand on Earth or every star we can see in the observable universe.

A 24-word seed space is larger than the number of atoms in the entire galaxy, and approaches (but is generally a bit smaller than) the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe.

But that’s only if those words are generated from a truly random seed (entropy source).

Take an extreme example: simply picking the first 12 or 24 words from the BIP-39 word list isn’t random, and a wallet protected by such a seed phrase would be cracked in short order by a brute force computer.

The Coldcard ships with an onboard RNG (Random Number Generator) to generate your seed phrase, however their own documentation states that to achieve maximum entropy (randomness), you should also add some “external entropy” such as dice rolls – real, actual physical dice, rolled, 50 or 100 times – combined with the onboard RNG for maximal security.

Many people did not roll the dice, assuming that the onboard RNG would provide more than enough entropy for a secure seed phrase (remember those numbers above).

The problem was in Coldcard’s firmware itself, where the RNG generator turned out to be bypassed – resulting in extremely weak entropy – and thus, weak seed phrases.

This bug has been sitting there since November 2021 (the Coldcard firmware is open source/viewable),

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

The follow-up tweet lays out what went wrong in the Mk4 and Q series:

“Mk4, Q, and Mk5 attempt to compensate at boot with secure-element input, but the reseed truncates it to 32 bits, sharply limiting the secret entropy it contributes – far below what wallets should have.”

It later came out that it looks like a developer simply disabled the RNG to workaround some compiler errors:

A new technical analysis by Core-Lightning dev ddustin suggests the 2021 COLDCARD vulnerability may have started while a developer was trying to connect three layers of the firmware: the wallet’s Python code, MicroPython’s C code, and the STM32 hardware random number generator.

The custom code appears to have conflicted with MicroPython’s existing implementation, likely triggering a compiler error.

The evidence suggests the developer then disabled the hardware RNG by setting MICROPY_HW_ENABLE_RNG to 0, allowing the firmware to compile.

That change had an unintended consequence. When users created new wallets, the firmware no longer used the hardware random number generator. Instead, it fell back to MicroPython’s much weaker Yasmarang software random number generator.

There are people out there implying that any wallets drained are somehow on the Coldcard owners, because they didn’t add enough external entropy (read: they didn’t do enough dice rolls, or any dice rolls).

This is a fucking retarded take. It actually makes my blood boil.

No other Bitcoin hardware wallet requires the user to provide external entropy as a condition of the fucking thing working.

People buy these wallets because they purport to be an ultra-secure, self-contained Swiss-Bank-in-your-pocket solution for escaping the fiat treadmill and putting your life savings beyond the reach of The State. Full stop.

There is no asterisk beside those claims that “you have to jiggle your body and roll a bunch of dice dozens of times while waving a dead chicken over your head to add entropy or it won’t work”.

Except, on a Coldcard

go on... say it pic.twitter.com/JZS22uznfF

— Mark E. Jeftovic (@jeftovic) August 2, 2026

Actions to take: If you have a Coldcard, regardless of how you set it up – I would move all of my funds out of it.

What Does this mean for Self-Custody and for Bitcoin?

Indeed. That is the question.

I have been thinking long and hard about this, not to mention conducting a deep dive into the entropy generation on other wallets.

The gist is this:

Every other wallet I came across uses well-known methods for generating entropy that come off of the device itself (such as the the o/s level Cryptographically Secure Pseudorandom Number Generator – CSPRNG) and many of them combine that with several other sources of entropy – any given computing environment offers a few of those (clock speed jitter, etc), and in some cases, dedicated chips just for entropy generation.

But this still had me rattled: why bother worrying about a quantum attack on SHA-256 in 5 or 50 years, when you can just crack the entropy using Fable or Opus 5.6-sol today?

Fortunately, it turns out that is not the case. The Coldcard vulnerability was entirely exploitable, and discoverable, because of a series of bad decisions and programming bugs. It was not a case that entropy had been cracked, it was that insufficient entropy was generated in the first place.

This X post from another wallet provider lays out the reasons why, years ago, Coinkite switched their open-source licensing scheme as well as their own code in the Coldcard firmware – and how by doing so they set the stage for the disaster unfolding in front of our eyes today.

Also noting that @nvk (Coinkite’s CEO) deleted the tweets referenced above and has been dutifully scrubbing his timeline since all this broke out. Absolutely abysmal leadership.

All this to say – (because it bears repeating): the issue is not that AI could crack the entropy used to generate seed phrases. That would be game-over for Bitcoin.

What happened instead was that AI was used (at least once it became known that there was an exploit to be found) to uncover a flaw in entropy generation.

Very different.

That means the industry-standard wallets (Trezor, Bitkey, and software ones like Sparrow or Electrum) are fine – and I still feel OK typing that – in fact more so, after the rabbit hole I’ve been down these last 48 hours.

But there are some practical takeaways now, and some possibly unpleasant ramifications, at least for me, and I’ll lay them out frankly here, in no particular order:

1. Multi-sig self-custody is now the bare minimum.

   Wallets that require multiple signatures to spend – if you are handling it all yourself, you can still do solo multi-sig, where you require two-of-three signatures to originate an outbound transaction.What I will probably end up doing is prepping some docs or tutorials on getting that set up.

2. Institutional custody is a serious option, which should be considered.

   But it comes with trade-offs, one of which is that it’s very difficult to create a multi-generational custodial entity in a nascent space. You almost by definition need to fuse some venerable old tradfi institutions with cypherpunks.The reality is the institutions best equipped or positioned to do this, are not “Bitcoin-only”, which seems to matter to the hardcore maxis.But there’s another problem with that:

3. Most Bitcoin-only businesses are on their way to bankruptcy.

   If not this bear cycle, then the next one.This is because in the overall scheme of things, not enough people actually give a shit about Bitcoin to make a “Bitcoin-only” business viable over the long haul. This includes as many as 90% of the people (total guesstimate) who are actually allocated to Bitcoin.Most of them couldn’t care less about self-custody, retiring their bloodline, “everything divided by 21 million”, escaping the state, or any of the long string of maximalist purity tests.

   They want a double-digit CAGR, and to catch the next bull market updraft. That’s it. That’s the majority of people invested into Bitcoin. Reality check.

4. ETFs are fine.

   This needs to be said. Again, there are trade-offs (surprise!):You’ll miss out on the proceeds of any forks (the ETF sponsor will pocket those) and you’re very much inside the financial system. But they are a way to capture the upside of Bitcoin, hold for the long term, with total liquidity.

5. The right exchanges are also fine.

   Another blasphemy but it’s true. One thing I’ve been saying for years is that most people don’t want the hassles associated with self-custody. It’s a high bar and what most people really want is “PayPal for crypto”. And notice I didn’t say “Bitcoin”, I said “crypto” – another no-no word for “True Bitcoiners”, but the reality is that the mass adoption underway is of crypto.

   Bitcoin just happens to be a subset of that.I can envision setups where of the total allocation in a portfolio to Bitcoin, the majority is held via ETFs, while self-custody BTC is akin to our “Bug-out bag” component, along with a lightning wallet loaded up with some “walking around money”.

6. Bitcoin is not the apex asset.

    I have been wrong about this. It’s still a category-of-one in the digital asset space, it’s still digital sound money and a store of value, but it’s just another asset class across the possible choices one can allocate into.The maxi proposition that allocating to anything other than Bitcoin in one’s investments or savings is “retarded” is itself retarded. I remember seeing a tweet some time ago that just broke my heart, where some pleb took his daughter to Burger King for her fifth or sixth birthday and was thrilled that she understood why instead of buying her a birthday present he bought some Bitcoin.Horrible parenting. Buy your five-year-old a birthday present. Pay them for chores in Bitcoin. Don’t take them to Burger King, ever. Grow the fuck up. You’re supposed to be the adult here.

   The apex asset is business ownership. We can talk more about this, and we will.

7. Being 100% invested in Bitcoin or having all your life savings in Bitcoin is a mistake.

   Another mistake of mine, in the sense where I proudly declared that easyDNS holds 100% of its retained earnings in BTC. Others hold the sum total of their life savings in Bitcoin.This is a big mistake – which anybody who just had their life savings drained in under 20 seconds in this episode understands all too viscerally.

   Speaking for myself, I will be adjusting my allocation. Probably gradually, because I do think we’re “at bottom” in this cycle, so as we climb out of this bear market, I will be diversifying – likely more aggressively into cashflow-producing businesses.

   I’ll do this through a combination of collateralization in a (hopefully) up-trending market, and sales under the right circumstances.

   There are a couple of special situations I’m working on where it feels like the most sensible move is to create an investment partnership – so I will be cashing out some chips to seed that fund.

   I’m glad I still have gold and numerous investments outside of the Bitcoin and even crypto space. I’m also looking at more real estate. The market is in the toilet now so it’s a good time to buy – and this actually brings us to an important point:

   The Bitcoin maxi axiom that it’s always a good time to buy, never a good time to sell, and that Bitcoin is the only investable asset, forsaking all others, has to be abandoned by anybody who is serious about building wealth.

   I don’t care about passing the Bitcoin purity tests. Maybe I did in the past, which was also a mistake.

   Remember when Luke Gromen sold Bitcoin right near the top of the cycle and everybody in the Bitcoin space called him an idiot?

   Who are the idiots now?

   I’ll give you one guess.

   I’m not saying we should have sold when Luke Gromen sold, I’m observing that a professional investor applied his framework and made a determination on when he should sell – and that gave him optionality that none of us “pureblood Bitcoiners” have, as long as we’re trapped in this “never sell” / Bitcoin-only mentality.

Bitcoin maximalism is over. Bitcoin "culture" is over. Bitcoin influencers are over. Every popular hardcore Bitcoin figure has disgraced themself in some way.

Bitcoin will remain, beneficially stripped of the cult around it.

— nic carter (@nic_carter) August 2, 2026

If I could sum up the above list in one pithy tweet, it would be the opening image of this month’s edition, by way of Nic Carter, who also found himself excommunicated from The Bitcoin Cathedral for indulging in shitcoinery.

Sign up for the Bombthrower mailing list here and get an executive summary of my new book: The Blueprint Survive & Thrive In An Overclocked Timeline. Sovereign Capitalist members get early access to the full book here.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 18:40

Another Sign Of The Times: 'F**k ICE'

Authored by Thaddeus McCotter via American Greatness,

Strolling through a major American urban metropolis, I noticed that the tightly packed homes and squat tri-level apartments and condos had tiny, browning “natural gardens” pocked with the usual virtue-signaling lawn signs setting forth their progressive secular creed’s commandments: “kindness always,” “hate has no home here,” etc.

Yet amidst this self-proclaimed bastion of love and tolerance, I quickly spied an ostensibly contradictory placard in many residential windows and, in fact, on the bumpers of many cars, both rust buckets and some upscale, socially responsible electric ones. Indeed, this sentiment was so prevalent that the host of a YouTube video touring the city’s neighborhoods casually expressed it as an aside and apologized for not stating it in a prior video.

What was this urgent statement needing to be publicly proclaimed to one and all by any and all means fair and foul?

It was “F— ICE.”

Being literal, initially the prospect left me cold.

Then I wondered if the sign maker had misspelled “DEI.”

However, upon reflection, I realized that ICE was the acronym for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Despite the other lawn signs professing kindness, I immediately understood the f— in question was not to be construed as an act of love. Further, the people sticking these placards in their windows and onto their bumpers are clearly not an “ally” of ICE.

“F— ICE” did not have the ring of “Aux Armes!” or “¡No pasarán!” or even “земля мира и хлеб!” In fairness, though, I did notice the “F— ICE” sign. But I also would have noticed a dead skunk glued to a window or squished on a bumper.

In a sign of the times, once more, public profanity was conflated with sincerity and earnestness—and, of course, “hipness” and “edginess”; and, once again, the consequences of such selfish public virtue-signaling were ignored, if they were ever contemplated at all.

Did such virtue-signaling regressives understand their vehement, vulgar opposition could help foster dangerous and deadly attacks upon ICE agents whose only “crime” was enforcing the duly enacted laws of the United States? Or that it could help foment equally dangerous and deadly confrontations between ICE agents, illegal immigrants, and bystanders who deliberately interfere with agents in the course of their duties?

Did they understand that by abetting open borders they helped diminish and demean the hard work and sacrifices made by legal immigrants to the country? Or that in aiding illegal immigration (and usually opposing assimilation) they harm legal immigrants by diminishing their public safety, lowering wages and job opportunities, and straining the social safety net resources available to those who need them?

Perhaps they were unaware Zeale reported that, in the aftermath of violence regarding the enforcement of American immigration laws, two Catholic bishops did, in fact, grapple with the issue and concluded:

Acts that diminish or disregard the dignity of any person or group of people should never be normalized in our society,” Bishop Daniel Garcia and Bishop Brendan Cahill wrote in a July 20 pastoral reflection published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). “The dehumanization of immigrants, regardless of their legal status, is one such example of this; the vilification of law enforcement officers is yet another.

As the reporter, Elizabeth Ervin, makes clear, the two bishops are certainly not ICE apologists. Acknowledging their “pastoral concerns are distinct from what the civil law itself may permit,” the pair of clerics expressed their opposition to racial profiling and called for reforming immigration enforcement to ensure “accountability, transparency, and justice.”

Nonetheless, the bishops’ support for migrants regardless of their status and for reforming immigration enforcement did not lead them to demonize ICE agents. On the contrary: “We continue to affirm the legitimate role of civil authorities to implement the law in a humane manner and with respect for fundamental human rights, including the rights to life and due process. The power of the state must always be exercised within the limits of the moral law.”

Whatever one’s view of immigration and border security, only the worst among us can fail to recognize the above is an example of “civility.” And engaging in civil discourse with those who disagree with you is a far more conducive way to achieve change and consensus than spouting profanity in public to preen for your allies and alienate everyone else.

As the bishops remind us, “We pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric, racial prejudice, and violence and for a renewed commitment to recognizing the inherent dignity of every person as a child of God.”

Sure, that might not fit on a windowsill or below a trunk, but that is no matter. Such truth is meant to be etched in the heart.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 17:30

Student Loan Payments Are Spiking: What Changed On July 1 And What Borrowers Over 50 Should Do

Authored by Adam H. Douglas via The Epoch Times,

If you carry federal student loans, July 1, 2026, redrew your map. With last year's tax law changes taking effect on that date, the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan was dismantled, and servicers began notifying millions of borrowers to pick a new repayment plan or have one picked for them.

The end of the SAVE plan could raise your student loan payments unless you act before your 90-day deadline. zimmytws/shutterstock

For borrowers over 50, and especially Parent Loans for Undergraduate Students (Parent PLUS) holders, the wrong move, or no move, can push payments up sharply at exactly the stage of life when income stops growing.

Here is what changed and what to do about it.

Quick Answer: The SAVE Plan Is Ending. What Should You Do?

Starting July 1, servicers began sending SAVE borrowers notices giving them 90 days to choose a different repayment plan. For most older borrowers, the realistic choices are Income-Based Repayment (IBR), which is staying available for loans taken before July 2026, or the new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP). If you do nothing inside your 90-day window, you will be placed automatically into a standard plan, which usually carries the highest monthly payment. Find your notice, date your deadline, and run your numbers at StudentAid.gov before the clock runs out.

The Details: What Changed on July 1

The new rules split borrowers into two tracks.

• If all your loans predate July 1, 2026, you keep most of your current options and gain access to RAP.
• If you take out any new loan or consolidate after that date, your entire balance is limited to just two plans: RAP or the new Tiered Standard Plan.

One point worth knowing: Borrowers who enroll in automatic debit can now receive a temporary 1 percent interest rate reduction.

Choosing Between IBR and RAP After Age 50

For a borrower near retirement, the comparison is monthly relief versus the finish line.

RAP can produce lower payments for some borrowers, includes an interest subsidy so on-time payers see their principal fall, and never exceeds 10 percent of adjusted gross income.

But its forgiveness horizon is 30 years; time in RAP does not count toward IBR forgiveness if you later switch, and its brackets are not indexed for inflation, so modest income bumps can raise payments.

IBR keeps the shorter 20-to-25-year forgiveness path, which matters if you already have a decade of qualifying payments banked. Run both through the Loan Simulator before deciding.

What Default Actually Costs After 50

The reason to act is visible in the data.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports that roughly 1 million borrowers defaulted in the last quarter of 2025, and another 2.6 million did so in the first quarter of 2026. The average newly defaulted borrower is nearly 40 years old and was not behind on these loans before the pandemic.

Credit scores for defaulted borrowers dropped 91 points on average, from 567 to 476.

For a younger worker, default is a setback. After 50, it is a direct threat to retirement income, because the federal government collects in ways no private lender can:

• Wage garnishment of up to 15 percent of your disposable pay, without a court judgment.
• Tax refund seizure through the Treasury Offset Program.
• Social Security offset of up to 15 percent of your benefit. The law's protected floor of $750 per month has not been adjusted for inflation in decades, so it protects far less than it once did.

One nuance: Collections on defaulted loans are currently suspended, with no announced restart date, but defaults are still being reported to credit bureaus during the pause. Consider this a window to fix your situation.

If you are already in default, the two exits are rehabilitation, which requires nine on-time payments, and consolidation. Consider starting either now, while collections remain paused.

The Parent PLUS Problem

Parent PLUS borrowers face the hardest news. Under the new rules, the loans are largely shut out of income-driven repayment and Public Service Loan Forgiveness unless the parent's loans were consolidated into a Direct Consolidation Loan that disbursed on or before June 30, 2026. That window has closed.

If you consolidated in time, protect what you secured: Stay enrolled, recertify on schedule, and know that ICR sunsets in 2028, so a transition is coming.

If you did not, your realistic path is a standard, graduated, or extended plan, which means building the payment into your retirement budget rather than hoping it shrinks. Either way, call your servicer, confirm which plans your loans qualify for, and ask about hardship options before missing a payment.

Your Next Five Moves

• Log in to StudentAid.gov and confirm your servicer and contact information, since notices arrive by email or portal message.
• Find your transition notice and write down your 90-day deadline.
• Run your loans through the Loan Simulator and compare IBR and RAP side by side.
• Apply for your chosen plan well before the deadline, and keep confirmation of your application.
• If you are delinquent or in default, contact your servicer this week. The nine-month line between delinquency and default is the one that triggers everything above.

FAQs About Student Loan Changes July 2026 What Happens if I Ignore the Notice From My Servicer?

You will be placed automatically into a standard repayment plan once your 90-day window closes. Standard plans carry fixed payments that are typically the highest monthly amount charged, with no connection to your income and no path to forgiveness. For a borrower on a fixed retirement income, that payment shock is exactly what the notice period exists to prevent. Choosing a plan yourself, even imperfectly, almost always beats the default placement.

Can Social Security Really Be Garnished for Student Loans?

Yes. Federal law allows an offset of up to 15 percent of Social Security benefits for defaulted federal student loans, and the protected monthly floor of $750 was set decades ago and never adjusted for inflation. Offsets, along with other collections on defaulted loans, are currently suspended without an announced restart date. That pause is an opportunity to cure a default through rehabilitation or consolidation before collections resume, not a reason to wait.

Is RAP or IBR Better for Someone Near Retirement?

It depends on your history. If you have years of qualifying payments already banked, IBR's 20-to-25-year forgiveness timeline may be within reach, and switching to RAP would restart a 30-year clock that most borrowers over 50 will never, or barely, finish. If your payments under IBR would be unaffordable, RAP's income-based formula and interest subsidy may offer relief. Run both scenarios in the Loan Simulator and compare the monthly payment against the forgiveness date.

I Already Defaulted. Is It Too Late?

No. With collections suspended, this is the best window you will get. Loan rehabilitation requires nine on-time, income-based payments and removes the default from your credit report. Consolidation out of default can work faster but leaves the default notation in place. Contact the Education Department's Default Resolution Group to start either one, and act before collections restart, because garnishment and benefit offsets become possible once they do.

The Epoch Times copyright © 2026. The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors. They are meant for general informational purposes only and should not be construed or interpreted as a recommendation or solicitation. The Epoch Times does not provide investment, tax, legal, financial planning, estate planning, or any other personal finance advice. The Epoch Times holds no liability for the accuracy or timeliness of the information provided.

Tyler Durden Sat, 08/08/2026 - 16:20