BRiyadh's airport is reopening Sunday. That's the headline. But the reason it was closed for two weeks tells you everything about how this war keeps spilling over borders.
BThe Houthis hit it, airlines had to get Saudi approval to fly... and half of them just stopped coming. A major international hub, out of commission.
BThat's the part people don't grasp. It's not just missiles. It's that companies look at the risk map and quietly pull out. That's economic warfare by proxy.
BAnd remember, the Houthis are Iran-aligned. This is the same Iran whose foreign minister says the offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz in seven days is still on the table.
BWhich is a nice way of saying: we can choke off a fifth of the world's oil whenever we want. That's not diplomacy. That's a shakedown.
BTrump says the Iran war will end very quickly. I've heard that phrase before. It usually costs more than anyone admits.
BNo, no, wait. That's exactly the kind of thinking that let Iran build this whole network in the first place. Fear of a quick, ugly response is the only thing they hear.
BYou think a war with Iran ends quickly? Nobody who's looked at the map says that. That's how you get a decade of quagmire.
BI'd rather risk a short, sharp conflict than watch them keep strangling shipping lanes and bombing airports for another ten years.
BExcept it's never short. Ask anyone who served. Anyway, Russia's foreign minister is in Tehran today. That's the other thing.
BThe axis of convenience checks in. They sell drones, they coordinate in Syria, and now they're talking about oil, Ukraine, hostages... and diesel.
BDiesel. The least glamorous item in a war. But if that's genuinely on the table, it means sanctions are biting somewhere.
BMeanwhile, there's a very specific rumor floating around about what Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff brought to Putin. A whole dossier, supposedly assembled by the entire European world—Zelensky, the Norwegian prime minister, the Finnish president, France, Britain, Germany, the EU, NATO.
BThat's a lot of people sharing one folder. I checked. No independent reporting confirms any of that. It's one account on X with a lot of reposts.
BIt would be a big deal if true. A unified European position handed to Moscow. But without a second source, it's just a very confident rumor.
BRight. And the whole 'diesel' thing comes from Trump himself saying he's talking to Russia about Iran, Ukraine, hostages, and diesel. Four topics, one reality.
BWhich one do we actually believe? Because if you're talking to Russia about Iran and Ukraine at the same time, you're either running the biggest deal of the decade or getting played on two fronts.
BThe man's a dealmaker. He thinks every problem is a negotiation. Sometimes that works. Sometimes you're giving away leverage to a guy who's been playing this game for thirty years.
BSo what's the alternative? Keep arming one side, sanctioning the other, and hope it all just... works out? That's been the strategy for years and it's failing.
BI'm not saying don't negotiate. I'm saying don't announce the negotiation before you've got anything. You hand Putin the headlines for free.
BFine. But he's at least forcing the conversation to move. The rest of the world has been frozen in place.
BAnd while they're talking, the Houthis are still firing. The airport reopens Sunday. We'll see how long it stays open.
BDifferent world entirely. Marc Elias is crowing on Bluesky about a big legal streak.
BHe says the Trump administration has now lost its 27th consecutive district court fight over getting states' unredacted voter rolls. And this time, the judge was appointed by Trump himself.
BEven a broken clock wins twice a day. This is a pattern.
BAlmost like the legal theory is weak, and judges of all stripes keep saying so.
BLook, I get the impulse. If you genuinely believe there's fraud, you want the data. But the courts keep saying: no, that's not how voting records work. And these are Trump's own judges.
BThe administration has another lawsuit trying to block certification of Alaska's Senate race unless the Republican incumbent wins. The DOJ is in court on that one.
BThat's a sham, according to Elias's firm. They're defending Mary Peltola's campaign and the DSCC.
BA lawsuit to preemptively block a race depending on who wins it. That's a big, ugly argument.
BIt's a dangerous road. You can't go to court saying, 'If the wrong person wins, we're going to have a problem.' That's not election law, that's bullying.
BAnd there's more: a Ninth Circuit motions panel scheduled oral argument for tomorrow afternoon in one of these cases. Two Trump appointees, one Biden appointee.
BSo the fight is moving up the chain. This is the stuff that actually decides whether elections get certified on time.
BOne Bluesky user wrote, 'I hope next week there will be less breaking news about sexual assault.' That stopped me.
BIt's a simple sentence, but it says a lot about the news cycle we've been in. People are exhausted. And that's not a small thing.
BNo, it's not. We'll keep an eye on that Ninth Circuit argument tomorrow. It could get loud.