Jeffrey Toobin tells us in the latest New Yorker, which these days is stirring up as much national news muck as it has in its long liberal history, how the House Democratic leadership is not talking about impeaching President Trump.
For now, lawmakers on the left including Nancy Pelosi seem to be aware that the move would likely give Republicans a cause to rally around heading into midterm elections.
Toobin choose to back into the juicy part of the story when he mentions toward the end that Democratic House Judiciary leader Jerry Nadler would be leading impeachment efforts. Nadler, an Upper West Side party fixture, made himself an effective obstacle of sorts when Trump sought permission to build his Riverside South development.
By the same token, a Talk of the Town piece on the Museum of Modern Art buying Chris Ofili’s dung-covered Madonna painting looks timely, as Rudy Giuliani is lately back in the headlines. Giuliani, in 1999, called the judge who allowed the Brooklyn Museum to show the painting “biased.” If Giuliani is still working for Trump when the Mueller probe wraps up, we’re bracing ourselves for similar arguments.
For those keen on staying on top of what is seen as the next must-get politics book, Time is worth a look. The onetime mag leader gives us a digest of Steven Brill’s new book “Tailspin,” which argues that America has become a place for the protected rich and an unprotected everybody else.
Brill seeks to bolster his claims with data, like how the average worker’s salary has only risen from $46,000 in 1975 to $53,000 today. Oddly, he also says inequality is “not about villains” and declines to name names, despite his gripe that a monied few have “pulled up the ladder” on the masses.
Elsewhere, reporting on our new Israeli embassy in Jerusalem, Time focuses on desperate Palestinians in Gaza, and not on the opening itself. That, of course, speaks volumes about where its sympathies lie.