by John Walters

Starting Five

La La Palooza*

*The judges will also accept “A Rivers Runs To It” and “(Die)Go Now!”

Finally, an NFL team moving to Los Angeles that originated in Los Angeles. The Rams were originally the Cleveland Rams and the Raiders, who spent a decade or so in L.A. during the ’80s and early ’90s, were originally from Oakland.

But the San Diego Chargers, who will announce today that they are moving to Los Angeles, actually began there. In 1960 the Los Angeles Chargers opened play in the NFL. Owned by Barron Hilton, whose dad was hotel magnate (and frequent mentor to Donald Draper) Conrad Hilton, the Chargers were coached by Sid Gillman (HOF’er) and had a general manager named Frank Leahy (yes, the same dude who won two national championships as a Notre Dame player, won four more as a Fighting Irish coach, and still owns the second-best winning percentage in college football history; behind his own coach, Knute Rockne).

Those 1960 L.A. Chargers finished 10-4 and you may have heard of Gillman’s two assistant coaches: Al Davis and Chuck Noll.

The L.A. Chargers were a very good team, they just couldn’t seem to attract a crowd (That’s cuz everyone had gone surfin’, surfin’ U.S.A.). Their last two home games at the L.A. Coliseum drew 9,000-plus and 11,000-plus. Can you imagine the photos Charger beat writers would have uploaded to Twitter back then with “20 minutes before Titans-Chargers kickoff” attached?

Chargers to L.A. Yet another franchise missing the opportunity to become the Billings Bighorns…

2. The (Holy) Trinity Sessions

So this is a disturbing little bit of video from the Senator Jeff Sessions “I Wanna Be Your Attorney General and Latex Salesmen” hearings…

Sessions: “I think we should respect people’s views and, and, not demand any kind of religious test for holding office.”

What’s wrong with that, you ask? Read on.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: “And a secular person has just as good a claim to understanding the truth as a religious person, correct?”

Sessions: “Well, I’m not sure…”

See, if you don’t 100% believe that a virgin gave birth to God’s son, who then became the first and only person in history to rise from the dead, how can you be expected to understand what truth is?

(p.s. Why doesn’t Sheldon run for president? I’d never tire of saying, “We need to put a Whitehouse in the White House.”)

3. There Will Be Blood Exxon*

*The judges really believe we should’ve gone “Backing The U.S.S.R” or “Tillerson: The U.S.S.Czar” or “Comradicalization”

Do you remember what Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) did to Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) after the memorable “I Drink Your Milkshake” soliloquy, which was just a giant metaphor for having drilling rights to someone else’s land? That’s right, he murdered him.

To lead off her excellent eponymous MSNBC show last night, Rachel Maddow explained how almost all of the world’s largest oil companies are government-run. Then she noted that the world’s largest oil company not overseen by a government is Exxon. Then she noted that Exxon has 14 MILLION ACRES of land with drilling rights in the USA, which is far more than it has in any other country save one….Russia. Where it has 64 MILLION ACRES of land with drilling rights.

So, EXXON has more land to drill for oil in the USA than anywhere else, except for Russia, where it has FOUR TIMES-plus as much land.

Except for one problem. Exxon has only like one well or two in Russia that operate, because Russia makes money off that well, and the U.S. GOVERNMENT has imposed sanctions on Russia.

To recap: 1) Russia would love Exxon to be able to drill more in Russia and 2) Exxon would love to be able to drill more in Russia.

If it weren’t for those pesky sanctions. And then you remember which American is the only American to have received Russia’s Order of Friendship medal. Oh yeah, Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon. Isn’t he also Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of State?

Sanctions lifted. Exxon drills. More big oil money. More money for Russia. And if you don’t think a certain Fifth Avenue Billionaire is going to find a way to profit off that, you’re naive enough to have voted for him in the first place.

4. Break Up The Korverliers

The Korvs lose 106-92 in Portland, their second defeat in 28 hours. The Korvs trailed by 21 in the fourth quarter, almost inciting LeBron to shave.

Kyle Korver, a career .428 shooter from beyond the arc, is 0-5 in two games from that distance. He’s been diagnosed with KevinLove Sickness.

The Korvs are in the midst of a bizarre six-game road trip that began in Brooklyn, then went directly to Phoenix (Did they catch the A train from the Atlantic Ave. terminal to JFK? That’s what I do), then to Salt Lake City and Portland on a back-to-back. Now they’ve got Sac-Town and finally the Dubs on Monday. Yes, Monday. Don’t ask. Susie B. is already flummoxed and perplexed.

5. Seth Vs. Kellyanne

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_dv5qAsJMU

A terrific sparring bout between Seth Meyers and Kellyanne Conway, whom I admire for her sheer stamina (and she’s quite proud of those arms, isn’t she?) and willingness to go toe-to-toe with anyone on CNN, MSNBC or CBS. She’s a gamer.

This was from Tuesday night, and I really liked the way Seth called her on her “pivot” while also giving her and the Trump team props where they’ve earned it. Well done. She seemed to enjoy herself, too, though at the end KAC got a little defensive and the fangs were exposed. Which is why Trump loves her.

By the way, notice that this took place on Tuesday night and Conway said that Trump had not been briefed by U.S. intelligence—Seth repeated the question for clarity. But he had. And she knew it. She simply casually lied because who watches late-night TV, anyway?

Reserves

Donald Trump: Life Hack*

*The overworked judges will concede to “Blind Trust Me”

I really am loathe to go all in on yesterday’s circus other than to mention that Trump noted that “Hacking is bad” and then in the next breath said, “But look what we learned from it.” This happened shortly before or after he said something to the effect that “Leaking is bad” but for some reason was unable to find the silver lining in it as he did with hacking. Hmm.

Also, read this to better understand the truth about the Russian spying, the M16 dossier, and how the news was leaked. It almost certainly was not an intelligence leak, as Trump claimed.

Finally, here’s Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub spelling it out fairly plainly on Trump’s conflict of interest problems and his “Blind Trust Me” stratagem:

Music 101

Nashville

I got off the Indigo Girls train in the mid-Nineties (after the first listen of “Chicken Man”), but I loved their first four albums and would still happily schlep over to Central Park Summerstage (or the Beacon Theater) to see them. This song off Amy’s and Emily’s 1992 album, Rites of Passage, is one of their gems that never received enough radio play.

Remote Patrol

The Imitation Game

Netflix

also TMC (NOT TCM) 8 p.m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CjKEFb-sM

I finally saw this 2014 film about the life of Alan Turing and how he cracked Enigma, the Nazis’ literal war machine, and I quite fancied it as compared to that year’s Best Picture winner, Birdman. Benedict Cumberbatch is extremely Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley does her thing, too. I love that some day she’ll be made a Dame and we’ll refer to her as Dame Knightley. It also stars Charles “A Lannister Always Pays His Debts” Dance, Mark Strong (like Cumberbatch, a Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy alum) and Charles Goode, who is very…How this film got made without Colin Firth being in it is beyond me.

Was nominated for eight Oscars. MH highly recommends.