OK, now we all understand that the Strait of Hormuz is a single point of global trade crisis.

Can we make a list of all places that global trade is relying to much on?

Maybe make it a bingo game?

#straitofhormuz
#GlobalTrade
#crisis

#Iran has allowed "friendly" countries passage through the #StraitofHormuz

The only counties NOT allowed is
#America
#Israel
Certain Gulf Nations

#gasprices #oilandgas #NoKings
#TrumpDidThis #cdnpoli #NetanyahuISAWarCriminal
#trumpisawarcriminal

Houthi attack on Israel raises fears for Red Sea shipping

CAIRO (AP) — A missile attack on Israel by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen on …
#NewsBeep #News #BreakingNews #AhmedNagi #breakingnews #Business #DonaldTrump #Dronesurveillanceandwarfare #Energyindustry #Generalnews #Houthis #Internationaltrade #Iran #iranwar #Israel #Militaryanddefense #Militarytechnology #Oceans #Oilandgasindustry #RedSea #StraitofHormuz #Warandunrest #Worldnews #YahyaSaree #Yemen
https://www.newsbeep.com/456880/

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Will #Trump Risk Ground Troops in #Iran? (Scott Lucas w Maddie Hale on Trump Report)

#IranWar #Israel #StraitOfHormuz

https://eaworldview.com/2026/03/trump-iran-ground-troops/

Lazy Caturday Reads: No Kings!!

Good Afternoon!!

By Roxanne Driedger

Today is the third international “No Kings” protest, and it is expected to be the largest one yet.

NBC News: Third round of ‘No Kings’ protests is expected to be the largest so far, organizers say.

Millions are expected to gather across the country and around the world on Saturday for a third round of “No Kings” protests against President Donald Trump. Organizers predict that it will be the “single largest non-violent day of action” in American history.

Saturday’s “No Kings” marches, of which there are more than 3,200 planned across all 50 states and several continents, come as Trump faces increasing scrutiny over the war with Iran, the rising cost of gas and how his administration has executed its mass deportation agenda.

“Since the last No Kings [protests], we’re seeing higher gas prices and groceries, all while there’s an illegal war in Iran,” Sarah Parker, a national coordinator for the group 50501, told reporters Thursday on a national press call previewing Saturday’s events.

“We’ve also seen our neighbors executed, American citizens executed, and our children carrying the burden of owning their own power and walking out of school in defiance,” Parker added. “The people of America are pissed. They are the ones demanding for no kings.”

A national NBC News poll from earlier this month found that majorities of registered voters in the U.S. disapprove of the president’s handling of immigration, Iran and inflation and the cost of living.

Saturday’s nationwide demonstration was planned in the wake of the deaths of two Americans — Alex Pretti and Renee Good — in January in Minnesota at the hands of federal agents. Immigration officers were deployed to the state to carry out mass deportations and faced scrutiny over their brutal tactics toward immigrants and protesters.

Organizers, who hail from left-leaning groups including Indivisible, Public Citizen, MoveOn, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Action Network, expect the third No Kings day of protest to be far larger than the first two. More than 7 million people rallied across the country and around the world during October’s No Kings day of action.

California Representative Ro Khanna writes at MSNOW: The Epstein class thinks it runs America. Today, No Kings protesters send their response.

Thousands of Americans plan to gather on Saturday for No Kings protests across the country. They have a simple message: People are tired of a government that protects the powerful and abandons ordinary Americans.

They are tired of fighting costly and illegal overseas wars while we face an affordability crisis at home. They are horrified by the Trump administration’s cover-up of the Epstein files and the lack of accountability for the rich and powerful who crossed lines. And they are sick of Immigration and Customs Enforcement terrorizing our communities.

By Rebecca Aldernet

As more Americans are sent to fight abroad and the survivors of abuse are silenced at home, people increasingly feel dispensable….

For too long, Americans have seen our leaders fight harder for the Epstein class than for the working class. They have watched our system shield elites instead of delivering fundamentals such as affordable health care, housing and education.

The fight to release the Epstein files exposed not only a broken justice system, but also a deep economic and moral divide.

Jeffrey Epstein built a network of elite and powerful individuals, some of whom believed they could abuse young girls and women — many from working-class backgrounds — without consequences. Many survivors of Epstein’s abuses have courageously spoken out, and over the past year, sparked a moral reckoning in our country. They have exposed a two-tier system of justice that protects the wealthy and powerful and fails those who have been abused.

The administration’s failure to hold accountable those involved in Epstein’s abuses has fueled deep distrust in our government and its ability to deliver for the public good.

Will the protests change anything? Former mainstream journalist and novelist Alissa Valdez-Rodriguez did some historical research on the effects of peaceful protests and reports the results at her Substack Alisa Writes:

Let me start by saying I, like the great Karl Pilkington, hate anything that reeks of “forced fun.” I’m not a joiner. I never had school spirit. I don’t enjoy parades. My idea of hell is karaoke night with coworkers. Come to think of it, my idea of hell might just be coworkers, period. The farther I am from people and, worse, crowds of people united in their quest to All Be Doing Something The Same Way, the happier I am.

But today, like tens of thousands of other cerebral introverts who’d rather be reading in a hammock, I’m lacing up my sneakers, picking up a handmade sign, and throwing myself into a throng of People Who Are Just Fucking Done With This Shit, as I attend one of the 29 No Kings protests scheduled here in New Mexico. I will need days and days in the forest to recover.

I’m going because it’s important. I didn’t used to think it was. I was one of those cynics who’d ask: Does protest actually do anything? But rather than just assume the worst, I decided to do what I always do, and research the answer before spewing an opinion. Imagine my surprise when I was proven wrong by, you know, facts.

Massive nonviolent protest works.

It works a lot better than armed protest.

Really?

In 2011, Harvard political scientist Erica Chenoweth published what became one of the most cited works in the study of political change. She had started her research expecting to prove the opposite — that armed resistance was more effective than nonviolent campaigns. The results upended everything she thought she knew. According to Chenoweth and her co-author Maria Stephan, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. Their dataset of 323 major campaigns showed that 53 percent of nonviolent campaigns succeeded — against just 26 percent of violent revolutions.

Chenoweth also found a threshold, what she called the 3.5 percent rule: every movement that mobilized at least 3.5 percent of a country’s population was uniformly successful. In the United States today, that number is roughly 11.5 million people. The No Kings movement is moving in that direction, faster than most movements in American history.

The question isn’t whether protest works. The question is whether we have the patience and the creativity to see it through. And as we’re facing what amounts to a rising fascist dictatorship backed by American intelligence operations, it might make sense to see how some of our hemispheric neighbors have handled something similar in the past.

Read details about the research at the link above. There’s no paywall.

Here’s a little humorous protest someone pulled off yesterday:

The Washington Post: Post reporters called the White House. Their phones showed ‘Epstein Island.’

On Wednesday, the first lady kicked off a “Fostering the Future Together” summit at the White House with a humanoid robot called Figure 03 that greeted the assembled spouses of world leaders in 11 languages. As the robot loped awkwardly, the first lady walked beside it with a deliberate, poised foot-over-foot gait that brought to mind her past as a model.

By Suzanne Stewart

The Style section wanted tofind out what designers one wears when hosting the “first American-made humanoid guest in the White House.” So we called the White House.

But as the phone rang, the name on thescreen attached to the number read “Epstein Island.”

It was not a wrong number. That’s what the phone displayed when some Washington Post journalists called the White House switchboard.

Those who saw “Epstein Island” were using Android phones from Google’s Pixel brand. Calling the White House from iPhones did not show a name on the screen.

After The Post notified Google about the on-screen naming, company spokesman Matthew Flegal said Google identified what he referred to as a “fake edit” in Google Maps that was “briefly” picked up in the call identification feature of some Android phones.

Flegal said that the company reversed the edit. He said it violated Google’s policies, and that the user responsible was blocked from making further edits.

Hahaha!

Unfortunately, Trump’s war in Iran continues and he still has no idea what he’s doing. He’s also bored with the war, according to White House insiders. Based on his recent idiotic Cabinet meeting, he’s much more interested in his ballroom, wrecking the Kennedy Center, and rambling about sharpies than focusing on the war he started.

Common Dreams: ‘Beyond Despicable,’ Says Democrat After White House Official Says Trump ‘Bored’ With Iran War.

It’s been less than a month, and President Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran has unleashed a cascade of consequences for countless human lives and the global economy that are far from resolved—but he is reportedly getting tired of the illegal war he started.

MS NOW reported on Friday that White House sources believe that Trump is “getting a little bored” with the Iran war and “wants to move on” to other initiatives.

MS NOW’s report on Trump’s feelings about the war was echoed by The Wall Street Journal, which on Thursday reported that the president has told associates that he wants to wrap up the war in the coming weeks and avoid a protracted conflict.

The problem, sources told both MS NOW and the Journal, is that there is no simple way to wrap up the conflict given that Iran is continuing to block passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which is sending global energy costs spiking.

And while Trump has shown the ability to simply lie about his achievements in the past and have his supporters believe them, one former Trump official told MS NOW that just won’t work if Americans keep paying $4 per gallon of gas.

Trump has been sending idiotic mixed messages about the war since the beginning. Because he’s a demented idiot, although the mainstream media won’t come out and say that.

Erica L. Green at The New York Times writes (gift link): Wild Ultimatums and ‘Bombing Our Little Hearts Out’: A Portrait of Trump at War.

President Trump was fresh off the golf course, and his fury was building.

It was March 21, and as he settled back into his Mar-a-Lago estate for the evening, he was reading another news account about how, for all the military success the United States had in Iran, he had yet to achieve his political objectives.

Otar Imerlishvili, The Girl with the Book

At 7:44 p.m., the president made his frustration known with an extraordinary ultimatum: If Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours and allow much of the world’s oil and gas to flow through, he would bomb Iran’s civilian electric power plants. It was the kind of attack that could constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

But just hours before the Monday deadline expired, Mr. Trump delayed his threat by five days, easing fears of an imminent escalation with profound military, diplomatic and economic implications.

Still, he warned that “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out” if Iran would not make a deal, and as the week progressed he made new threats that left allies off balance and spooked the markets. So on Thursday afternoon, after stocks on Wall Street suffered their largest daily decline since the start of the war, he added another 10 days to the clock, again seeking to ease the fears ignited by his own hard-line positions.

“Bombing our little hearts out.” Can you imagine FDR saying that?

It is too soon to know whether the extra time will result in productive diplomacy. But it is already clear that Mr. Trump’s wild swings — from optimism to frustration and anger, from de-escalation to escalation — have combined to give his management of the war an erratic, make-it-up-as-it goes feel.

Ever since the United States, alongside Israel, launched the war on Feb. 28, Mr. Trump has vacillated between chest-thumping about U.S. military superiority and deep frustration that the tactical achievements on the battlefield did not seem to be producing the strategic outcome he predicted.

Although the supreme leader and many top military and intelligence leaders have been killed, the regime in Tehran remains in control. Iran’s leaders have all but sealed off the Strait of Hormuz, sending gas prices skyrocketing and rattling investors. And Iran retains control of the material it would need to produce a nuclear weapon, the main threat cited by Mr. Trump in taking the nation into the war in the first place.

Mr. Trump has said he understands there will be short-term pain from the war, which he accepts as a necessary price to ensure that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And the president’s allies have always said that his unpredictability is his superpower, and that it keeps his enemies guessing.

Really? I don’t think it’s working.

Here’s something that might interest Trump more than his “boring” but lethal war.

The New York Post: Trump considers renaming Strait of Hormuz after either America or himself — once he evicts Iran.

President Trump is prioritizing taking control of the Strait of Hormuz as he grows frustrated with the lack of help from allies to force open the crucial waterway. And once Trump ends Iran’s reign of terror over the shipping route, he’s considering rechristening it the “Strait of America” or even naming it after himself, sources told The Post.

“We are taking the Strait back. It’s guaranteed, and they will never blackmail us on that strait,” one senior administration official said. “You can take it to the bank.”

By Olga Samarina

While Trump said Iran is virtually decimated and wants to make a deal, he wants to finish the job in the Middle East — including ensuring Iran can no longer stop shipping and claim authority over the Strait of Hormuz.

“He does believe that if we’re going to guard it, if we’re going to take care of it, if we’re going to police it, if we’re going to ensure free safety through it that, why should we call it that [Hormuz]?” the senior official said.

“Why don’t we call it, you know, the Strait of America?”

Trump told a Saudi investor forum Friday evening in Miami that he might decide to call the Strait after himself, rather than America.

“They have to open up the Strait of Trump — I mean Hormuz,” Trump said….

The name of the energy bottleneck on the southern coast of Iran is linked to the medieval Kingdom of Hormuz, whose own name is theorized to derive from the Persian word Hur-Mogh, meaning “Place of Dates,” or the name of the Zoroastrian God of light Ahura Mazda.

The long-gone emirate, which became a vassal of the Portuguese maritime empire in the 1500s, controlled Hormuz Island, a salt dome smaller than Manhattan, past which about a fifth of global oil exports flowed before the war.

The renaming concept gained traction by unlikely means — after an image of an apparently phony Truth Social post purportedly authored by the president showed a map of the strait with the new name.

I’m making myself sick with this stuff.

Finally, I’ve avoided focusing on the war itself–because it’s Caturday and No Kings Day, and I don’t want to get any more depressed than I already am. But here is the latest from the war:

NPR: Over a dozen U.S. soldiers injured in attack on Saudi base as Iran-backed Houthis enter war.

At least 15 U.S. service members were wounded Friday in an Iranian strike on a Saudi air base that hosts American troops, according to the Associated Press, including at least five in serious condition. The missile and drone strikes targeted Saudi Arabia’s Prince Sultan Air base, located outside the capital Riyadh.

A U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told NPR that some aircraft were apparently damaged as well.

Iran released Chinese satellite photos of what they say are burning aircraft at the base. It said one of the tankers, which refuel fighter jets in the air, was destroyed and three others damaged.

Politico: Iran-backed Houthis join Mideast war in sharp escalation.

The Middle East conflict escalated sharply overnight, as the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launched their first missile toward Israel since the war began and Tehran attacked a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia.

The Israeli military said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen early Saturday, with Houthi forces claiming responsibility shortly afterward.

By Gilles Peyrache

The strike followed days of signaling from the Houthis that they were preparing to enter the conflict, raising renewed concerns about the security of the Red Sea shipping corridor, vital for global trade already disrupted by previous attacks….

In a video statement on Saturday, Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the rebels’ attacks targeted “sensitive Israeli military positions” and came after continued targeting of infrastructure in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.” He indicated that strikes would continue.

Elsewhere in the region, drones struck the airport in Kuwait damaging its radar. And Iran’s military said it targeted a U.S. logistics vessel near the Omani port of Salalah.

Authorities in Abu Dhabi said falling debris from a missile interception injured six people. The United Arab Emirates said its forces were intercepting missile and drone attacks from Iran.

Axios: Rubio tells allies Iran war will continue 2-4 more weeks.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told G7 foreign ministers on Friday that the war with Iran will continue for another two to four weeks, three sources with direct knowledge tell Axios.

Why it matters: This is the first time a senior U.S. official suggested the war would continue beyond the four to six-week timeframe President Trump has discussed since the war started.

• Rubio also claimed during Friday’s meeting in France that the U.S. was close to holding serious negotiations with Iran. At the same time, thousands more troops are heading to the region and the administration is considering escalatory options that would involve ground forces.
• Rubio stressed that the U.S. is determined to achieve all of its objectives in the war.

Inside the room: Rubio told his G7 counterparts that the U.S. is still communicating with Iran through mediators, rather than directly, the three sources said.

• He said there is uncertainty about who is actually making the decisions in Tehran at the moment.
• Rubio added that there are two Iranian officials who want to hold negotiations with the U.S., but they need approval from the top leadership.
• Rubio said it’s hard for the mediators to communicate with Iranian officials because they are staying away from their phones out of fear they will be located and assassinated. That has slowed the pace of communications, Rubio said, according to the sources.

Zoom in: One of the sources said Rubio stressed the U.S. doesn’t need G7 countries to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but wants its allies to join a maritime task force to police the strait after the war is over.

That’s it for me today. What’s on your mind?

Houthis Strike Israel, Expanding Trump’s Illegal War on Iran

https://murica.website/2026/03/houthis-strike-israel-expanding-trumps-illegal-war-on-iran/