Behavior: Calculated, Eccentric
In his op-ed piece in today’s NY Post, Kyle Smith refutes those who use the term “unprecedented” to describe President Trump’s actions — outside of tweeting, of course. Here are examples of the abuse of power of other presidents that went way farther than anything Trump has done, edited by yours truly: John Adams’ Alien and Sedition Act was meant to punish political resistance, and he put a newspaper publisher critical of him in jail for nine months; Millard Fillmore’s Fugitive Slave Act allowed southern owners to pluck back people who had successfully made it to freedom; Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus (a writ requiring a person under arrest to be brought before a judge or into court, especially to secure the person’s release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention), and did nothing to stop his troops from shutting down certain newspapers; Woodrow Wilson’s administration threw people in jail for opposing his policy to join WWI one year after he campaigned to keep America out of the war; Andrew Jackson directed government contracts to newspaper publishers who gave him favorable coverage; FDR’s internment program rounded up 120,000 Japanese people during WWII, most of them American citizens; LBJ had the CIA spy on his 1964 presidential opponent, Barry Goldwater, and he also physically assaulted the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, pushing him against a wall and screaming at him; the administration of Barack Obama spied on journalists from the AP and The New York Times in order to trace the source of leaks, and barred Fox News reporters from briefings. Thank you, Mr. Smith.
Although I hadn’t been watching it as much lately, I’m sad to see MHZ programming has ended on channel 14–1, a PBS affiliate on over the air antennas in NYC. Each night in prime time it ran Euro dramas. My favorite was Beck, which was about an aging Stockholm detective. I also enjoyed Varg Veum, a Norwegian lone wolf PI saga, and Johan Falk, which had an intense story arc about the epic battle between Swedish cops and a crime syndicate that featured violent action that seemed influenced by American films. The French-produced Agatha Christie’s Little Murders was silly, charming fun thanks to the chemistry between the three leads. The last series I watched regularly was Captain Marleau, which features as unlikely a cop as any ever portrayed, a homely, wise ass even more eccentric than Columbo who solves murders in the French countryside. She is expertly played by Corinne Masiero. It’s one of those cases where an actor seems born to play a part. In scanning the other 84 titles under her name at IMDb, not one rang a bell. Here she is in character:
From Yahoo Sports, edited by yours truly: The Raiders, who will begin playing in Las Vegas this season, are selling their unfinished Henderson, Nevada, headquarters for $191 million — more than 30 times the purchase price — and leasing it back. The deal is for 29 years, and there are seven 10-year options that would extend it to 99 years. Companies do this to cash in on the real estate investment, pay down debt, buy a company or issue a dividend to shareholders. There have been recent casino buy-backs on the Las Vegas strip. The cost of the 65,000-seat Las Vegas Stadium is $1.9 billion. Taxpayers are funding $750 million of the project.
My thanks to the young man who donated a bunch of textbooks that must have weighed 25 pounds, and to 16-year-old Bek, who bought two of them, on Business Law and Investing; and to the woman who purchased a book in Russian; and to the gentleman who asked for something easy to help improve his understanding of English, and who went home with True Evil by Greg Iles.
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