{"id":58945,"date":"2026-03-13T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=58945"},"modified":"2026-03-12T20:31:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T03:31:42","slug":"open-thread-march-13-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2026\/03\/13\/open-thread-march-13-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread March 13 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, another mass shooting, this one at a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan. The only casualties were the shooter (killed) and a guard (wounded, not too seriously.) And we have a president who apparently would rather confess to a war crime than be credibly accused of a crime of pedophilia. Think bout that. i desperately hope that, wherever he is, TomCat is having a better birthday than our day. Happy Birthday, TC. We still miss you.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/trump-defense-department-iran-hegseth-civilian-casualties\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ProPublica<\/a> discusses the school bombing (which I trust no one here attributes to anyone other than us) in the context of a program initiated during the Biden administration which, if it hadn&#8217;t been cut into smithereens, might have prevented it. (On the other hand, Kegsbreath might have ignored it.)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/news\/trump-iran-ship-sunk-for-fun\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Common Dreams<\/a> addresses a different atrocity. This one involving a ship, is clearly an atrocity (the school bombing might have been an error &#8211; not that I believe that for an instant.) But a ship cannot possibly have been mistaken for a military base.<\/p>\n<p>From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ukrinform.net\/rubric-ato\/4100927-zelensky-first-shaheds-in-ukraine-launched-by-iranian-operators-training-russians.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ukrinform<\/a>. Someone joked this week that the Saffron Sauron &#8220;has started World War Two and a Quarter.&#8221; I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s that funny really &#8211; but it does make a point.<\/p>\n<p>Belle War<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ZBm13XcDsxU?si=jm9l3KyzSizeaxEQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Dog<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dqYSHQrteE8?si=tkB-NhDYfBwjN25A\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-58947\" src=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/distract.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"915\" height=\"727\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/distract.jpg 915w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/distract-300x238.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/distract-150x119.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/distract-768x610.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 915px) 100vw, 915px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday, another mass shooting, this one at a synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Michigan. The only casualties were the shooter (killed) and a guard (wounded, not too seriously.) And we have a president who apparently would rather confess to a war crime than be credibly accused of a crime of pedophilia. Think bout that. i <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2026\/03\/13\/open-thread-march-13-2026\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":43881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[4355,4917,7210,4531,6565,7211,3826,3811,4686,3805,3777],"class_list":["post-58945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","tag-animals","tag-atrocities","tag-distractions","tag-dogs","tag-epstein","tag-failed-mass-shooting","tag-iran","tag-personal","tag-treachery","tag-ukraine","tag-war","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}