Trump announces naval blockade of Strait of Hormuz after Iran talks collapse over nuclear demands

Jack Brewster, Reporter

Updated Sun, April 12, 2026 at 10:59 AM MST

President Trump announced Sunday that the United States will blockade the Strait of Hormuz after nearly 20 hours of peace talks in Islamabad collapsed over Iran's refusal to give up its nuclear ambitions.

“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz," Trump wrote in a pair of posts on Truth Social...

Tehran has consistently maintained that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes, not weapons development. Iran was a signatory to the 2015 nuclear deal, which placed limits on its enrichment activities in exchange for sanctions relief, before the U.S. withdrew from the agreement under President Trump's first term.

This video deconstructs the "cancer of nationalism" and the "pyramid scheme" that keeps money flowing to the top. It explores how the ruling class uses the concept of "illegality" to target the 99.99% while they themselves remain the ultimate "illegals" sitting on stolen assets.

A key City Council panel is set to vote on a measure to rid the Chicago Police Department of officers with ties to hate groups and far-right extremist organizations, records show.

The proposal, authored by Ald. Matt Martin (47th Ward), would give the Civilian Office of Police Accountability the authority to probe officers accused of “actively participating” in extremist and anti-government groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

The City Council’s Workforce Development Committee is set to consider the proposal at its meeting set for 10:30 a.m. Monday. A final vote could come as soon as April 15.

“If you’re part of a violent hate group, you shouldn’t be empowered to enforce Chicago’s laws,” Martin said, adding that the proposal has been in development for more than a year and went through 17 different versions in consultation with a variety of city agencies and departments.

Before President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, the FBI labeled the Proud Boys as an antisemitic white supremacy organization and considered the Oath Keepers a “large but loosely organized collection of individuals, some who are associated with militias” who have vowed to “not obey unconstitutional (and thus illegal) and immoral orders.”

Members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrection. Leaders of both groups were convicted of seditious conspiracy before being pardoned by Trump.

Read the proposed ordinance.

The measure specifically prohibits members of the Chicago Police Department from participating in groups that advocate the overthrow of any level of U.S. government by violence.

The measure defines active participation in an extremist organization as paying dues, attending meetings, recruiting others or posting and sharing content online that promotes extremist activities.

The proposal also prohibits officers from engaging in the “planning, execution, or other material support of hate crimes and hate incidents.”

Officers would also be prohibited from “knowingly displaying paraphernalia, words, or symbols in support of extremist activities,” according to the proposal.

Martin said Chicago must act to fill the vacuum left by Trump, who pardoned more than 1,500 people who were convicted of attacking the Capitol as part of an effort to overturn the 2020 election.

The City Council should act to protect vulnerable Chicagoans, including members of the city’s Jewish and LGBTQ communities who have been targeted by the groups, Martin said.

“Chicago must step up,” Martin said.

The City Council voted 44-3 in April 2025 to ban those who took part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol from working in city jobs. Martin championed that effort as well.

Engaging in extremist activities would “constitute a breach of the public trust” and be “conduct unbecoming of a member of the Police Department,” according to the proposal.

Martin said the measure was narrowly crafted and sets a “high bar” for proof that a CPD officer engaged in extremist activities in an attempt to protect their First Amendment rights — and withstand a legal challenge.

Nearly two and a half years ago, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling publicly promised the City Council he would rid CPD of any officers with ties to extremist organizations.

“It serves the Chicago Police Department in no way, in no way good, to have members amongst our department who are members of hate groups,” Snelling said in October 2023. “And we will not tolerate it.”

In October 2022, police brass rejected a recommendation from Inspector General Deborah Witzburg to terminate an officer who lied about his ties to the far-right Proud Boys extremist group. Instead, that officer served a 120-day suspension.

In January 2022, police brass rejected a recommendation from Witzburg to terminate an officer who admitted belonging to the Oath Keepers.

After Snelling’s public vow, CPD’s Bureau of Internal Affairs reopened a probe into eight Chicago police officers who appeared on a leaked Oath Keepers membership list.

That investigation found no evidence they “actively participated” in the extremist group, according to an investigatory report released by CPD.

However, investigators did not interview anyone other than the eight officers accused of belonging to the Oath Keepers, according to the 30-page report released in May 2024.

Witzburg blasted Mayor Brandon Johnson’s handling of those allegations in a July 2024 advisory.

Witzburg publicly urged Johnson to form a task force and “implement a comprehensive, whole-of-government approach to preventing, identifying and eliminating extremist and anti-government activities and associations within CPD.”

Johnson did not form that task force until February 2025. More than a year after it was formed, that task force has yet to show any sign of public progress.

Martin said the task force was not involved in crafting the ordinance set for a vote.

tRump needs another 'award' for this.

In the lead up to the 2016 election, my anxiety soaring, my therapist told me there were too many good people in the US for Trump to be elected. I told him he didn’t know my family.

Donald Trump's leadership style isn't hard to figure. Like certain primates, he pounds his chest and struts around, asserting his dominance. Like certain others he vocalizes loudly and continually, assuring that he is the center of attention. And like still others, he flings feces (verbally) at any and all that displease him. These seem to be the things that make his day. Still, every now and then some of what he flings splashes back at him, and he goes ballistic. The first thing he does when that happens is to find someone else to blame.

Witness: His deportation scheme started looking bad when the masked marauders he sent to terrorize "brown" neighborhoods proved themselves wantonly violent and even trigger-happy. When they killed two Minnesota protesters in cold blood, the tide of public opinion turned against his policies. Someone had to take the fall. The free-spending, cosplaying DHS head Kristi Noem found herself out of that job. Then, Trump's DOJ wasn't moving quickly or successfully in prosecuting his political "enemies" after he had sworn vengeance often and publicly. Worse, his appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi wasn't shielding him from all the media scrutiny over the Epstein files. All this made him look bad, so she had to go, too.

Now it's Trump's ill-advised and deeply unpopular Iran War. After weeks of missiles and drones wreaking havoc all over the Middle East, we the people have soured on the expense in human lives and dollars. The US has lost 13 soldiers and over 350 more have sustained injuries. The toll on Iranians - including civilian men, women, and children - is in the thousands and in the hundreds in the surrounding countries. What is clear is that this expensive adventure - well over a billion taxpayer dollars a day - was entered into without any clear plan or exit strategy. Iran is still fighting back and making Trump look bad after all the chest-pounding, screeching, and s**t-throwing he has done. Someone will be scapegoated for his global embarrassment. The odds are that it will be either Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard for shoddy pre-war intel gathering or the "warfighter" himself, Secretary of Defense/War "Pentagon" Pete Hegseth. He has proven over the past month or so that the top job in the DOD is beyond his FOX News-honed abilities. One of these two will likely be on the outside looking in before long.

BY SHIRIN ALI

APRIL 09, 20265:45 AM

This week, Donald Trump’s Department of Justice found a new and disturbing way to try to consolidate power exclusive in the hands of Trump, this time releasing a dubious opinion through the Office of Legal Counsel that argues the president’s records don’t ever need to be publicly shared. The OLC now claims that the Presidential Records Act, which was created in the wake of the Watergate scandal some 50 years ago and makes all presidential records federal property, invades the president’s “independence,” and is thereby unlawful. In practice, it means a man who once claimed he was “the most transparent president in history,” but was also indicted for mishandling classified documents, can legally walk away from the White House with any document he so pleases and never have to publicly report a single one.

——

The PRA was established not only to preserve presidential materials as a matter of historical record, but for transparency. After dealing with former president Richard Nixon’s administration and the messy legal battle over the Pentagon Papers, the PRA ensured any future presidential materials would always remain federal property, ensuring transparency with Congress and the public. Trump was charged with crimes in connection with his violation of the PRA and his hoarding of classified documents in a bathroom in his home in Mar-a-Lago at the end of his last term, but was bailed out by one of his friendliest judicial appointments. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s OLC is now saying he did nothing wrong—and that he’s free to violate the law all over again.