Iran Rejects Ceasefire Deal Despite Trump’s Threats of War Crimes

Iran will not accept anything short of a complete end to the war.

The country’s leadership rejected a ceasefire Monday by way of Pakistani mediators, despite Donald Trump’s imminent threats to raze the nation to the ground.

Iran’s ideal proposal consists of 10 clauses, which include ending regional conflicts, lifting sanctions, reconstruction of the nation, and securing protocols for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, reported Reuters.

The rejection follows efforts by Vice President JD Vance and special envoy Steve Witkoff, who were reportedly on the phone “all night” with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and Pakistan’s army chief Asim Munir, a source told Reuters.

Trump set a Tuesday night deadline for Iran to agree to a deal with regard to reopening the Strait of Hormuz to international oil trade, promising practically every form of violent retaliation should the country’s leadership refuse to do so.

“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” Trump posted to Truth Social on Sunday.

Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he added.

In another post to his social media platform, Trump wrote: “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time.”

Situated between Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the strait funnels approximately one-fifth of all crude oil shipments. Most of that oil is moved toward China or India. In 2024, the U.S. imported roughly 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day through the strait, accounting for about 7 percent of total U.S. crude imports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The price per barrel has exploded due to the strait’s closure, pushing gas over $4 per gallon in most states (in California, gas in some counties has leapt past $7 a gallon). Diesel shot up by 20 cents over the last week alone.

But beyond the dollars and cents, the war has cost the lives of more than 2,000 people in Iran, including dozens of political leaders, according to Al Jazeera. At least 13 U.S. soldiers have also been killed in the war, and more than 300 have been wounded.

President Trump used his Easter Monday speech to boast about his deadly war on Iran while flanked by the first lady and the Easter Bunny.

“So today is a very special day. It’s a day where we celebrate Jesus. It’s a day where we celebrate religion,” Trump said Monday morning at the White House Easter Egg Roll, his voice devoid of enthusiasm. He then went on his usual spiel about how the U.S. is doing better than ever, before pivoting to the war on Iran and the rescue of two downed American fighter jet pilots.

“I just wanna say we have a great military. We have the greatest military, the most powerful military in any place in the world. You saw what happened with Venezuela,” Trump continued, referring to the illegal kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The crowd cheered. “Our warriors are the greatest fighters on earth,” he added.

Then more rambling about eggs, fake news, the Easter decorations, and how we’re “the hottest country in the world.”

Only Trump could turn what’s meant to be a short, sweet speech about Jesus Christ and the meaning of rebirth and resurrection into a speech about himself and the destruction he’s imposing across the globe. Especially while someone in an Easter Bunny costume is standing there like JD Vance at the State of the Union.

Donald Trump is asking for more money to hunt so-called “domestic terrorists” on the left—and it seems like they’re talking about you.

Buried in the FBI’s 2027 budget request to Congress was a request for funding efforts to implement the National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-7), a national security strategy targeting supposed anti-American activity on the left that Trump signed in September, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported Sunday. The FBI requested funding for the recently created NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center, which brings together personnel from across 10 agencies working “to proactively identify networks and prosecute domestic terrorist and related criminal actors.”

What exactly are they looking for? Well, anything they disagree with.

“Commonly, this violent conduct relates to views associated with anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the U.S. Government (USG); extremism on migration, race, and gender. And hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality,” the budget stated.

According to the FBI, publicly expressing beliefs as banal as a critique of capitalism are now considered precursors for domestic terrorist activity.

Under NSPM-7, the Trump administration aims to target community organizers and protesters on the left. “Domestic terrorists exploit a variety of popular social media platforms, smaller websites with targeted audiences, and encrypted chat applications,” the budget stated. “They use these platforms to recruit new adherents, plan and rally support for in-person actions, and disseminate materials encouraging radicalization and mobilization to violence.”

The FBI requested $166.1 million and 328 positions, including five attorneys and 130 special agents, for its counterterrorism activities in the coming fiscal year, including plans to “implement National Security Presidential Memorandum / NSPM-7 requirements.”

ICE agents entered a military base in Louisiana last week and detained the newlywed spouse of a U.S. Army staff sergeant.

Annie Ramos, 22, came to the U.S. from Honduras when she was a toddler, and did not have a criminal record. She became engaged to Matthew Blank on New Year’s Day, and the two were married only weeks ago, in late March. Last week, the pair checked in at the Fort Polk, Louisiana, base where Blank works, planning to begin the process that would allow her to move in with him on the base and receive military benefits.

Instead, after they presented Ramos’s Honduran passport, her birth certificate, their marriage license, and Blank’s military identification, base personnel called a supervisor. Then, someone from the base’s criminal investigation division was contacted, who said he would call Homeland Security and ICE. That officer told the couple that Ramos would be detained.

“Our plan was to drive over, bring her to the office to get her military ID and activate her military spouse benefits,” Blank told The New York Times. “She was going to move in after the Easter weekend. Instead, she got ripped away from me.”

When undocumented immigrants marry U.S. citizens, they are supposed to become eligible for permanent residency, and then they can apply for citizenship three years later, even if they were issued a prior deportation order, as Ramos was when she was 22 months old. Ramos and Blank had hired an immigration lawyer before they were married to take care of the situation.

“I knew she didn’t have status,” Blank said. “We were doing everything the right way.”

Ramos was handcuffed, separated from her husband and new parents-in-law, who drove the couple to the base, and taken to a building that Blank said “looked like an interrogation room.” Three Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived and told Blank’s mother, Jen Rickling, that they didn’t have a choice before taking Ramos away.

In Donald Trump’s second term as president, the government hasn’t hesitated to detain a father trying to visit his baby in the NICU, Afghan refugees who worked with the U.S. military for more than a decade, and even journalists covering ICE. Detaining a military spouse is an egregious step in the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.

ICE has already been deployed to military bases to target the family members of military recruits on graduation and visiting days, but coming specifically to arrest a military spouse who was preparing a green card application, as Ramos was, is something else.

It appears that federal immigration authorities have once again lied about an ICE shooting in Minneapolis.

New footage obtained by The New York Times exposes how Immigration and Customs Enforcement lied about one of its agents being beaten with a shovel and broom—and reveals why the agency likely dropped charges against the immigrant they shot.

In January, rideshare delivery driver Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna realized he was being followed by ICE agents. The agents claimed he “recklessly zigzagged through traffic,” while Aljorna claimed the agents were purposefully trying to ram his car. When he arrived home, his roommate and fellow Venezuelan immigrant Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis was standing outside shoveling snow. When Sosa-Celis dropped the shovel and turned around to run inside he was shot in the leg by the ICE agents. The bullet that hit Sosa-Celis ended up stuck in the house near a children’s playset.

ICE’s version of events? That Aljorna and Sosa-Celis were assaulting them with a broom and a shovel for nearly three minutes, justifying their use of force. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem even called it an “attempted murder of federal law enforcement,” and the men were charged with assault. Now it’s abundantly clear that was a complete lie.

New footage of the incident captured by a city camera at a nearby intersection shows Sosa-Celis throwing the shovel aside as he flees, directly contradicting the agents’ claims. Instead of three minutes, like ICE claimed, the episode lasted about 12 seconds. And yet both Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were jailed for weeks afterward.

“There is a snow shovel there, but it doesn’t appear it ever gets used as a weapon,” Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara said after reviewing the video. “There is no bludgeoning or anything.… It sounds like an unarmed person got shot running away.”

It’s hard to describe just how despicable this is. Two men were virtually randomly accosted by ICE agents. They shot one in the leg. Then the federal government called them murderers and hit them with heavy charges, all for video footage to invalidate it all.