Word: legerdemain
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...exemption objection can, according to our authors, be overcome with a bit of legerdemain no more complicated than reading the two sections of the Internal Revenue Code that impose political prohibitions on universities and other charitable organizations. Section 501(c)(3) provides that...
...last week, in a classic display of legislative legerdemain, the Administration and the House Republican leadership succeeded in resurrecting the SST, at least temporarily, and reopening the debate on whether the U.S. needs or wants the aircraft on which it has already spent $864 million in Government funds. By a vote of 201 to 197, the House appropriated another $85 million to allow continuation of the project...
With the kind of cast whose savvy spans a half-century of show business, Prince could do enough of what David Merrick calls "flimflam and legerdemain to cover an awful and gloomy book about nothing at all." Fortunately, the Prince and his Follies have that other talent: Stephen Sondheim. For the musical, he has written some of the glossiest, wittiest lyrics in Broadway history. His melodies gracefully genuflect to Kern and Gershwin, Berlin and Arlen. His words bow to no one. With Follies he has established himself, beyond doubt, as the theater's supreme lyricist...
Chalk's problems stem from what Senator George Murphy terms "some new type of financial legerdemain," but what might more accurately be attributed to, as Senator John J. Williams puts it, "a case of having milked the company dry of its assets." Chalk started out well enough. He replaced old streetcars with spiffy new air-conditioned buses, and demanded prompt, courteous service from his drivers. Longstanding union grievances were eased by increasing drivers' wages to the point that they were the fourth best in the country for city transport workers. Within two years, however, Chalk began paying dividends...
Even after the legerdemain was uncovered, the Israeli government continued to insist to all questioners that the speedy, 45-knot boats would be used to service and defend Mediterranean oil rigs. No one took that insistence particularly seriously. "Using these boats to look for oil is like using a Ferrari to haul potatoes," said a French radio commentator...