Women walk past a banner depicting the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28, in northern Tehran, Iran, April 12, 2026
TEHRAN threatened all ports in the Gulf today in retaliation for the US military blockade on Iran’s ports as negotiation talks failed.
…
The US’s restrictions, which include “the entirety of the Iranian coastline, including ports and energy infrastructure,” were expected to begin today.
It was not immediately clear if they had kicked off.
The US military’s Central Command announced that the blockade would be enforced “against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas.”
It said that it would include all of Iran’s ports on the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
…
Iran issued threats of its own, broadcasting today: “Security in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman is either for everyone or for no-one.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Donald Trump warns against following the Onaquietday.org blog, says that he’s heard that she’s a which with a black cat and a dangerous kitchen.
Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun attends a luncheon in Kuala Lumpur on October 31, 2025. (Photo by Hasnoor Hussain/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
“We have trade and energy agreements with Iran. We will respect and honor them and expect others not to meddle in our affairs.”
Although President Donald Trump has ordered the US military to enforce a blockade around the Strait of Hormuz, Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun warned on Monday against any effort to obstruct Chinese vessels.
As reported by Business Today, the Chinese defense minister emphasized that his country and Iran have reached an arrangement allowing the safe transportation of Chinese ships through the strait, and he said the US should not subject them to its blockade.
“Our ships are moving in and out of the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” the defense minister said. “We have trade and energy agreements with Iran. We will respect and honor them and expect others not to meddle in our affairs. Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, and it is open for us.”
Chinese Defense Minister Admiral Dong Jun:
"We have trade and energy agreements with Iran; we expect others not to interfere in our affairs. The Strait of Hormuz is open to us."
Trump announced a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, saying the US would not allow any ships that had cut deals with Iran for safe passage to be let through.
The blockade announcement came after US negotiators, led by Vice President JD Vance, failed to reach a peace agreement with their Iranian counterparts to bring an end to the conflict, which Trump launched illegally without any congressional approval six weeks ago.
The failure to reach a peace deal sent the price of oil upward yet again, as the price of Brent crude oil futures and WTI crude oil futures approached $100 per barrel.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Pope Leo XIV gestures during a visit at the Maqam Echahid Martyrs’ Monument in El Madania, near Algiers on April 13, 2026. (Photo by Alberto Pizzoli / Pool / AFP via Getty Images)
“The message of the Gospel is very clear: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’
Pope Leo XIV on Monday said he would not back off his criticism of President Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran after the president targeted him with an unhinged late-night social media rant.
In a Sunday Truth Social post, Trump accused Pope Leo of being “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” even though dealing with crime and running US foreign policy are not part of the pope’s job description.
“Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician,” Trump wrote at the conclusion of his long tirade. “It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!”
A short time later, Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated image that depicted him as a Christ-like figure.
Pope Leo in recent weeks has been openly critical of the US war in Iran, taking particular issue with US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claiming that the conflict was being waged in the name of Jesus Christ.
“This is our God: Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war,” the pope said during a Palm Sunday sermon last month. “He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them.”
According to a Monday report from the Associated Press, the pope remained defiant in the face of criticism from the president.
“The message of the Gospel is very clear: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’” he said. “I will not shy away from announcing the message of the Gospel and inviting all people to look for ways of building bridges of peace and reconciliation, and looking for ways to avoid war any time that’s possible.”
Leo added that he is “not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel,” and insisted that “I will continue to speak out strongly against war, seeking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateralism among states to find solutions to problems.”
Trump’s attack on the pope drew a rebuke from Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who said it was reflective of a presidency circling the drain.
“ Donald Trump is flailing,” Kelly wrote in a social media post. “His war in Iran has led to the death and injury of American servicemembers and the death of Iranian children. He will attack anyone or anything to try to protect himself, even the Church that millions of Americans find faith and comfort in every day.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal suggested that Trump’s anti-pope rant was more evidence that he is mentally unwell and should be removed from office.
“The deranged and disgusting post from Trump attacking Pope Leo should certainly help him appeal to the more than 50 million Americans who identify as Catholics,” she wrote. “Perhaps this will convince JD Vance to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office?”
Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said he was “disheartened” that Trump “chose to write such disparaging words about the Holy Father.”
“Pope Leo is not his rival; nor is the pope a politician,” Coakley added. “He is the vicar of Christ who speaks from the truth of the Gospel and for the care of souls.”
The Rev. James Martin said he doubted Pope Leo “will lose any sleep over” Trump’s rant, but added “the rest of us should” because “it is unhinged, uncharitable, and unchristian.”
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
A person holds a sign reading “impeach, convict, remove” as they rally at Grant Park during the “No Kings” national day of protest in Chicago on March 28, 2026. (Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images)
“He’s a clear and present danger to America and the world,” wrote one critic. “We’ve got to do whatever we legally can to remove him from office.”
US President Donald Trump’s flurry of increasingly deranged late-night social media posts over the weekend—combined with his continued violent belligerence overseas—prompted fresh calls on Monday for congressional Democrats to immediately force an impeachment vote.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) introduced 13 articles of impeachment against Trump last week, accusing the president of usurping congressional war powers by waging unauthorized assaults on Iran and other nations, illegally deploying National Guard troops in US cities, unlawfully detaining and deporting citizens and immigrants on the basis of their political views, lawlessly dismantling worker- and consumer-protection agencies, and other offenses.
In a statement on Monday, constitutional attorney John Bonifaz applauded Larson for introducing the impeachment articles but said that “we need the congressman to now take the next step and force an immediate floor vote on these articles at this critical hour for our nation.”
“And, Democratic leaders in the Congress should stop standing in the way of such a vote,” said Bonifaz, co-founder and president of Free Speech for People (FSFP). The group’s petition urging the US House to impeach Trump a third time has received more than a million signatures, but the Democratic leadership has so far shown no willingness to push ahead with another impeachment process—which would require some Republican support to be successful.
“Momentum is on the side of action,” FSFP said Monday, warning that “further delay only emboldens the president.”
Bruce Fein, a constitutional scholar who served in the Reagan Justice Department, said Monday that the “impeachment of President Donald Trump is urgent.”
“How can any decent person indulge Mr. Trump’s Hitler-like declaration that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ with our tax dollars-paid weapons?” asked Fein, referring to the US president’s genocidal threat against Iran last week.
By one count, more than 85 Democrats in the Republican-controlled US House have called for Trump’s removal via the impeachment process or the 25th Amendment in recent days. Last week, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said he would introduce legislation to establish a commission tasked with removing the president if he is deemed unfit to serve.
“This is plainly out of the realm of normal politics,” said Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, urging the White House physician to immediately evaluate Trump’s cognitive fitness. “When the president of the United States threatens to extinguish a civilization on social media, rants about combat missions with children at the Easter Egg Roll, and drops profane tirades on Easter morning, we have indisputably entered the realm of profound medical difficulty and concern.”
Growing calls for Trump’s impeachment and removal came after the president launched into an unhinged social media tirade late Sunday, hours after high-level talks with Iran ended without an agreement to halt the war that the US president and his Israeli counterpart started in late February.
Trump is having a mental health episode right now. He’s been posting on social media all night. He posted at:
Trump said Sunday that he would impose a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz—an illegal act of war—and is reportedly considering a resumption of aerial strikes on Iran.
After the talks concluded, Trump posted a lengthy attack on Pope Leo XIV, a vocal critic of the war on Iran. The president then posted an artificial intelligence-generated image depicting himself as a Jesus-like figure.
“Beyond mentally unstable,” Rep. Yassamin Ansar (D-Ariz.) wrote in response to Trump’s post.
Robert Reich, the former US labor secretary, wrote in a blog post on Monday that “the president of the United States is stark-raving mad.”
“He’s a clear and present danger to America and the world. The American public is beginning to see it,” Reich continued. “We’ve got to do whatever we legally can to remove him from office. The 25th Amendment would be useful if Trump’s Cabinet and key advisers had any integrity, but they don’t. They’re ambitious, unprincipled traitors. Which leaves impeachment.”
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
US Vice President JD Vance, exhausted after fruitless marathon negotiations with Iran, prepares to board Air Force Two on April 12, 2026 in Islamabad, Pakistan. (Photo by Jacquelyn Martin/Pool/Getty Images)
“Blocking the Strait of Hormuz to unblock the Strait of Hormuz is peak Trump foreign policy,” said one observer.
US President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a military blockade of the Strait of Hormuz as Vice President JD Vance’s negotiating team failed to gain the trust of their Iranian counterparts, who have been burned by the United States before and are loath to surrender sovereignty over their nuclear program.
Trump announced in an early morning post on his Truth Social network that, “effective immediately,” the Strait of Hormuz—which was open before the president launched his illegal war of choice—would be closed to all shipping. Around 20% of the world’s oil passed through the waterway before the war.
“At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them,” Trump wrote. “THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.”
Blocking the Strait of Hormuz to unblock the Strait of Hormuz is peak Trump foreign policy.
“I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran,” the president continued, referring to one of the concessions reportedly in the cease-fire agreement with Iran that he approved last week. “No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
“Iran will not be allowed to profit off this Illegal Act of EXTORTION,” Trump added. “They want money and, more importantly, they want Nuclear. Additionally and, at an appropriate moment, we are fully ‘LOCKED AND LOADED,’ and our Military will finish up the little that is left of Iran!”
Responding to Trump’s post, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CodePink, said: “So get this. Trump wants to open the Strait of Hormuz by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Blow up the world economy to punish Iran. Make sense?”
Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, also took to social media, writing that “a blockade is an act of war, so Trump is announcing he will reenter the US into a war has been illegal under domestic and international law and has been disastrous for US interests, regional security, and the people of Iran.”
In a social media post, journalist Séamus Malekafzali said: “I have legitimately never heard of a more insane, designed-to-backfire policy under this administration; maybe ever. Not only attempting to blockade Iranian ships, but ANY ship that goes through the Strait of Hormuz by paying the toll.”
While Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubioattended a UFC match in Miami, Vance was left with the task of marathon negotiations with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan. It was the first direct high-level talks between the two countries since 1979.
“We need to see an affirmative commitment that [Iran] will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vance told reporters after the talks. “That is the core goal of the president of the United States, and that’s what we’ve tried to achieve through these negotiations.”
Iran’s government was willing to make unprecedented concessions regarding its nuclear program up until the US and Israel began bombing the country on February 28. Every US administration since that of former President George W. Bush—including Trump’s—has concluded that Iran is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran gave its assurance that it would not build nukes in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action it signed in 2015 during the presidency of Barack Obama. Trump unilaterally scrapped the agreement, which was also called the Iran nuclear deal, during his first term despite—some say because of—Iran’s full compliance.
So the Trump administration’s two goals in peace talks with Iran are:1. A commitment by Iran not to develop a nuke (This was part of the Obama deal that Trump canceled)2. Opening the Strait of Hormuz. (Was open before war.)
Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf blamed the US for the breakdown in talks.
“My colleagues on the Iranian delegation Minaab168 raised forward-looking initiatives, but the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiations,” Ghalibaf said in a social media post. The Iranian delegation was named after the town where 168 children and staff at an elementary school were massacred in a US cruise missile strike on the first day of the war.
“Before the negotiations, I emphasized that we have the necessary good faith and will, but due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side,” Ghalibaf explained.
Just hours before Trump announced his decision to bomb Iran in February, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, the mediator of talks between the US and Iranian governments, said that a “peace deal is within our reach,” prompting Iranian officials and others to accuse the Americans of acting in bad faith. Similar accusations were leveled when the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran in the summer of 2025 amid ongoing nuclear negotiations.
“America has understood our logic and principles,” said Ghalibaf, “and now it’s time for it to decide whether it can earn our trust or not?”
Want to know why negotiations did not succeed?
JD Vance: "they have chosen not to accept our terms."
Bingo.
No negotiations – at least with Iran – will succeed based on "our/your terms."
The US must learn: you can't dictate terms to Iran.
The US and Israel have been bombing Iran for 43 days. They have bombed more than 13,000 targets, assassinated senior political and military figures—including the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—and, according to Iranian medical officials, killed more than 3,000 people, including hundreds of women and children. Israel’s concurrent bombing of Lebanon has also killed hundreds of civilians.
Iran, while weakened militarily, appears to be in a position of strategic strength. But to hear Trump say it, Iran is “LOSING, and LOSING BIG!”
“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” he wrote on Truth Social as Vance headed to Pakistan. “The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei advised patience, asserting that a diplomatic breakthrough was highly unlikely after just one round of talks.
“Naturally, from the beginning we should not have expected to reach an agreement in a single session,” Baghaei said. “No one had such an expectation.”
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Women walk past a banner depicting the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28, in northern Tehran, Iran, April 12, 2026
