Iran Says Opening Strait of Hormuz Impossible,
Claims to Reject Talks
Posted By: Mercedes44, 4/23/2026 2:40:32 PM
Iranian leaders insisted on Thursday that they could not allow the free flow of commercial transit in the Strait of Hormuz because the United States has continued to enforce a blockade on Iranian ships using the maritime byway, indicating continued Iranian intransigence hampering attempts at peace talks. The commentary followed the initial conclusion, and then extension of, a two-week ceasefire initiated by the United States against Iran to create space for talks to end the current conflict. The conflict began on February 28,
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Mercedes44"
Athletes betting for or against themselves and their teammates is something that's been going on for decades. We regularly see insider trading in the finance, corporate, and political worlds. But active duty military members betting via prediction markets on matters of national security is kind of new. In 2025, the prediction marketplace Polymarket began allowing people to enter "binary event contracts related to whether certain events involving Venezuela and/or [Nicolás] Maduro would, or would not, occur," according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
A 38-year-old from Fayetteville, N.C. named Gannon Ken Van Dyke won almost $410,000 on all of these Maduro- and Venezuela-related bets. The problem?
My deep-seated loathing of the United States Department of Education and all that it has wrought is well known to people who have been reading my stuff for a long time. I've been writing about school choice for a couple of decades now. On the most recent episode of "Faith All Over the Place," I told my friends Chris Queen and Ashley McCully something to the effect of, "I can blame most of the societal ills that plague America on federal involvement in public education." (Side note: for the precise quote, please listen to the podcast! It's always all-access.)
Big-name donors to the Southern Poverty Law Center, including George Clooney and George Soros, have stayed silent amid allegations that the nonprofit funneled more than $3 million to the hate groups it claimed to fight.
The SPLC was charged with wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering on Wednesday for allegedly bankrolling at least eight leaders and members of extremist groups — all behind the backs of their deep-pocketed benefactors.
The foundations of Clooney and Soros, along with MGM Resorts and other high-profile backers, haven’t spoken up about the Justice Department indictment.
Iran Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei hasn’t released an audio or video message since assuming power because his face was badly burned in Israeli airstrikes on Feb, 28, according to a report — as President Trump says peace talks are inhibited by a lack of clear leadership in Tehran.
Khamenei, 56, “does not want to appear vulnerable or sound weak,” four Iranian officials told the New York Times, adding that one of the ayatollah’s legs has been “operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic,” while he also has had surgery on one of his hands.
“His face and lips have been burned severely,
Billionaire Ken Griffin is appalled after Mayor Zohran Mamdani spotlighted his Manhattan penthouse in a viral video announcing a new pied-à-terre tax – and the hedge fund titan signaled he might even yank a $6 billion development project in the city.
In a video last week, Mamdani beamed as he stood in front of the Citadel founder’s 24,000-square-foot property at 220 Central Park South – which he scooped up for $238 million in 2019, the most expensive home sale in the country.
“We’ve secured a pied-à-terre tax,” the 34-year-old Democratic socialist rejoiced in the April 15 video.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which makes its money by exaggerating “hate” to scare donors and by comparing conservatives to the Ku Klux Klan, was itself funding Klan members—and now major Democrats are beclowning themselves by defending it.
Like a dog returns to its vomit, so Democrats return to the ridiculous claim that the SPLC is some sort of noble civil rights group and that to attack it is to attack America’s soul.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., claimed that the Justice Department’s indictment against the SPLC is “turning what America’s all about inside out.”
US forces have seized a Guyana-flagged tanker transporting Iranian oil in the Indian Ocean, the War Department confirmed Thursday.
The Pentagon released footage of the seizure of the Majestic X on social media, with photos showing American troops on the deck of the vessel.
The Majestic X, formerly known as Phonix, had been sanctioned by the Treasury Department in 2024 for smuggling Iranian crude oil in violaiton of American sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Ship-tracking data showed the Majestic X in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, roughly the same location as the oil tanker Tifani, seized by the US earlier this week.
Iranian leaders insisted on Thursday that they could not allow the free flow of commercial transit in the Strait of Hormuz because the United States has continued to enforce a blockade on Iranian ships using the maritime byway, indicating continued Iranian intransigence hampering attempts at peace talks.
The commentary followed the initial conclusion, and then extension of, a two-week ceasefire initiated by the United States against Iran to create space for talks to end the current conflict. The conflict began on February 28,
CBP officers arrested a 41‑year‑old woman traveling with three minors at the Nogales Port of Entry after finding an RPG launcher tube, rifles, and weapons parts concealed in a void beneath the back seat of her Lexus. Officials say the cache was discovered during outbound inspections aimed at stopping weapons from reaching criminal groups in Mexico. CBP officials reported that on April 19, a 41-year-old U.S. citizen, female, approached the DeConcini Crossing in Nogales, Arizona, to cross the border into Mexico. The woman, driving a 2016 Lexus IS200t was referred to a secondary inspection station where officers carried out a non-intrusive inspection of the vehicle.
Far-left Rep. Ilhan Omar blew up at a reporter this week for asking questions about accounting “discrepancies” the Democrat blamed for overstating her net worth by millions of dollars on financial disclosure forms.
In May last year, Omar (D-Minn.) claimed she and her husband, Tim Mynett, held assets worth between $6 million and $30 million. However, an amended filing reported by the Wall Street Journal last week put the couple’s wealth at between $18,004 and $95,000.
The lawmaker claimed the initial filing was riddled with accounting errors.
An O'Keefe Media undercover investigation has unmasked a chief of chemical nuclear surety for the U.S. government spilling sensitive information and military tactics to a complete stranger. The undercover reporter the chief was speaking with filmed the entire exchange. The 14-minute video is embedded below. O'Keefe summarized the exchange in an X post. He wrote: Hugg also revealed that the airstrikes conducted under Operation Epic Fury had killed children in Iran. O'Keefe further stated that Hugg leaked intelligence surrounding plans in the works to take out Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
Apparently, it’s everyone else’s fault that no one quite knew what to make of Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy’s characteristically attention-grabbing remark on Tuesday morning:
https://x.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/2046345472915206646?s=20
There is some ambiguity in Murphy’s remark. Was the senator cheering on the ships that supposedly evaded the American blockade? Was he going for sarcasm, mourning the U.S. Navy’s inefficacy with a melancholy hint of self-satisfaction over having his skepticism of this war confirmed by events?
As political observers wrestled over these competing interpretations of Murphy’s remark, we at least learned that the senator was dead wrong about the facts:
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Fires, floods and extreme weather will
imperil a third of all life on land in
the next 60 years 28 replies
imperil a third of all life on land in
the next 60 years 28 replies
This forecast does not look good. Archaeologists might need to locate Noah’s lost ark sooner than we think. By 2085, over a third of all land animals’ habitats could be adversely impacted by extreme weather events such as fires and floods, should temperatures continue to surge worldwide, per an alarming study in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. If we don’t reverse course, this “Day After Tomorrow”-esque confluence of events could potentially expedite extinctions.
Virginia Senator Says He Can Relate To
Rural Americans Because He Watched ‘The
Dukes Of Hazzard’ 25 replies
Rural Americans Because He Watched ‘The
Dukes Of Hazzard’ 25 replies
A Virginia state senator told colleagues he understands rural America because he grew up watching “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
Democratic state Sen. Lamont Bagby made the claim during a floor debate on the state’s gerrymandering amendment, according to video posted by WJLA reporter Nick Minock. Bagby pushed back on Republicans who argued Democrats have no grasp of rural life.
“I grew up watching the Waltons. I grew up with Opie. I even watched the Dukes of Hazzard. I think I know a little bit about rural America,” Bagby said, apparently referencing “The Waltons” and “The Andy Griffith Show” alongside the hit CBS series. He then rattled off characters from
The Department of Justice on Friday directed the Bureau of Prisons to expand death penalty protocols to include pentobarbital injections and firing squads as part of broader actions to strengthen the federal death penalty. "Today, the Department of Justice acted to restore its solemn duty to seek, obtain, and implement lawful capital sentences — clearing the way for the Department to carry out executions once death-sentenced inmates have exhausted their appeals," the DOJ memo obtained by Fox News read.
"Among the actions taken are readopting the lethal injection protocol utilized during the first Trump Administration, expanding the protocol to include additional manners of execution such as the firing squad, and streamlining
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Millions more Americans might qualify for dual Canadian citizenship under a recent change to Canada’s requirements that has led to a surge in applications from its southern neighbor.
For people like Zack Loud of Farmington, Minnesota, it was a surprise to learn that under a new law, Canada already considered him and his siblings citizens because their grandmother is Canadian.
“My wife and I were already talking about potentially looking at jobs outside the country, but citizenship pushed Canada way up on our list,” he said. Since the new law took effect on Dec. 15, immigration lawyers in the United States and Canada say they have been overwhelmed
FLASHBACK: In 2014, the Southern Poverty
Law Center Put Dr. Ben Carson on an ‘Extremist’ List 14 replies
Law Center Put Dr. Ben Carson on an ‘Extremist’ List 14 replies
Now that the Southern Poverty Law Center is being exposed, it is important to look back at some of the outrageous claims made by this group in the past.
It is absolutely amazing to think that in 2015, they put Dr. Ben Carson on an ‘extremist’ list. Is ‘extremist’ one of the words that comes into your mind when you think of Carson?
Perhaps when they targeted one of the most renowned and highly respected pediatric brain surgeons in the entire country in this way, it was a clue that they were not operating in good faith.
They were eventually forced to take Carson off the list and then apologized…
Big-name donors to the Southern Poverty Law Center, including George Clooney and George Soros, have stayed silent amid allegations that the nonprofit funneled more than $3 million to the hate groups it claimed to fight.
The SPLC was charged with wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering on Wednesday for allegedly bankrolling at least eight leaders and members of extremist groups — all behind the backs of their deep-pocketed benefactors.
The foundations of Clooney and Soros, along with MGM Resorts and other high-profile backers, haven’t spoken up about the Justice Department indictment.
Why Do Democrats Hate America?
13 replies
Democrats and their ideological allies really do hate America.
Earlier this week, Democrat Senator Chris Murphy highlighted a disputed news story claiming that a shadow fleet of several dozen Iranian vessels had successfully eluded the U.S. Navy’s blockade near the Strait of Hormuz. Above what appears to have been Iranian propaganda, Murphy wrote one word: “Awesome.” How much does a Democrat senator have to hate the country he putatively represents to root for a foreign enemy presently engaged in battle with the United States?
Murphy’s choice to side with Iran’s Islamic terrorists over American servicemembers should surprise no-one.
Iran Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei hasn’t released an audio or video message since assuming power because his face was badly burned in Israeli airstrikes on Feb, 28, according to a report — as President Trump says peace talks are inhibited by a lack of clear leadership in Tehran.
Khamenei, 56, “does not want to appear vulnerable or sound weak,” four Iranian officials told the New York Times, adding that one of the ayatollah’s legs has been “operated on three times, and he is awaiting a prosthetic,” while he also has had surgery on one of his hands.
“His face and lips have been burned severely,
Billionaire Ken Griffin is appalled after Mayor Zohran Mamdani spotlighted his Manhattan penthouse in a viral video announcing a new pied-à-terre tax – and the hedge fund titan signaled he might even yank a $6 billion development project in the city.
In a video last week, Mamdani beamed as he stood in front of the Citadel founder’s 24,000-square-foot property at 220 Central Park South – which he scooped up for $238 million in 2019, the most expensive home sale in the country.
“We’ve secured a pied-à-terre tax,” the 34-year-old Democratic socialist rejoiced in the April 15 video.
Following direct remarks from both Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, a triggered Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says the U.S. will not be permitted to dictate terms of the USMCA renegotiation, now scheduled for formal talks with Mexico only beginning May 25th.According to the Canadian leadership they do not need the United States in order to maintain their economy. The unfortunate people of Canada are very close to finding out exactly what that level of arrogance delivers.
There Is Simply Too Much Schadenfreude
in This New York Times Profile of Former
USAID Workers 11 replies
in This New York Times Profile of Former
USAID Workers 11 replies
I am 100% for sure going to hell for enjoying this New York Times article as much as I am. There but for the grace of God go I, I remind myself. But then, I would never have put myself in that position, devoting my professional life to making six figures off the taxpayer to work on "nice-to-haves" rather than creating actual, useful products that must survive in the marketplace.
Anyhoo, the article that is bringing me so much guilty pleasure is entitled "A Year After U.S.A.I.D.’s Death, Fired Workers Find Few Jobs and Much Loss." The subtitle tells the tale:
RINO Senator John Cornyn’s team left up an old YouTube video on his official Senate channel where the Texas RINO openly pushes amnesty for illegal aliens, and it stayed there until conservatives unearthed it this week.
While Cornyn pretends to be a born-again border hawk in his desperate fight to survive a MAGA primary challenge, his own Senate YouTube page was still hosting a video that proves exactly where his heart lies: open borders, amnesty, and America Last.
The video, first highlighted by grassroots warrior Scott Presler, shows Cornyn advocating for policies that would reward lawbreakers with legal status.
His team “forgot” to scrub it from the official record… or maybe