Reading archive 2024-02-09

Biden responds angrily to special counsel report questioning his memory: President declares his memory is ‘fine’ and blasts counsel for suggesting he does not know when his son died

Proposed Caps, Wizards arena collides with transit plans for Amazon HQ2: Virginia officials wooed Amazon to Arlington by vowing to try to ‘urbanize’ a major highway. Now they want to build a sports arena farther down that road.

Service fees are roiling D.C. restaurants. Here’s what you need to know.

Election officials go on offense to prevent disruptions of 2024 vote: The efforts reflect the challenges facing American elections as Trump and his supporters continue to falsely dispute the results from 2020

Opinion  The Biden special counsel’s egregious abuse of power - "Of particular note, Ronald Reagan 'left the White House in 1989 with eight years’ worth of handwritten diaries, which he appears to have kept at his California home even though they contained Top Secret information.'

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"As alleged in the indictment, Trump 'not only refused to return the documents for many months, but he also obstructed justice by enlisting others to destroy evidence and then to lie about it,' the report notes. 'In contrast, Mr. Biden turned in classified documents to the National Archives and the Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his homes, sat for a voluntary interview and in other ways cooperated with the investigation.'"

Putin, in rambling interview, barely lets Tucker Carlson get a word in

The big problem with Tucker Carlson’s hyped Putin interview: It was none other than Putin himself, whom the erstwhile cable-news star somehow let ramble to the point of tedium

Luckily for Tucker Carlson, his Putin interview didn’t need to be good - "What was remarkable about the interview, really, was how clearly blinkered Carlson is. He’s not a dumb guy, but his blind spot on Putin and Russia was made very obvious over the course of the discussion. He insisted in that post-interview video snippet, for example, that he had been struck at how 'wounded' Putin seemed to have been by Russia’s treatment by the West. 

"'He’s angry because he feels like, 'Whoa, why — I thought we were going to be friends,'' Carlson said. The idea that this was a well-practiced affect from a former KGB agent, one meant to cast the West as the bad actors, does not seem to have occurred to Carlson. It’s reminiscent of George W. Bush’s declaration that he once saw into Putin’s earnest soul."

How a ghostwriter was ensnared in the Biden classified documents probe

‘Hair on fire’: Democratic worries grow over Biden memory claims: The broad conclusion among Democrats is that a dangerous and misleading caricature of the president’s performance is at risk of setting in - "'I am well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man, and I know what the hell I’m doing,' declared Biden, who was, by turns, feisty, funny and sharp. 'I’ve been president. I put this country back on its feet.'"

Famed climate scientist wins million-dollar verdict against right-wing bloggers: The verdict comes amid heightened attacks on scientists working on climate change, vaccines and other issues