Growing up Hachecristo, WGN Channel 9 in Chicago was a HUGE part of my life.  The best of many regional interpretations of Bozo the Clown was Chicago’s Bozo’s Circus, running at noon every weekday.  The “Grand March” ending the show was toddler Primo’s cue to march off to my nap. A troop of Hachecristos was in the Bozo studio audience for two magical birthdays of mine, the only times I saw the show in color.

I treasured my Bozo Souvenir Postcard

Grade school Primo would catch cartoons in the morning on The Ray Rayner Show or Garfield Goose & Friends, then rush home to watch reruns of The Flintstones or Gilligan’s Island. On Sunday afternoons, Family Classics with Frazier Thomas would play old movies. High school Primo would rush home to catch the end of the Cubs’ games on WGN. Grown-up Primo would have the WGN Morning News on while getting ready for work.  Phil Donahue and Oprah both launched on WGN.

So, Marla Maples, you married a clown?

WGN Radio was a big part of my life, as well.  Back in the days before Ronald Reagan, you could hear all sides on the 50,000-watt news and talk station, as well as every Cub game.  It was always on in my Uncle Jimmy Bartsool Grobnik’s car – I think it was the only station he got.  But Reagan murderlized the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine of honest, equitable, and balanced presentation of issues, and then we got Rush Limbaugh, and now we have Trump.

WGN’s call letters stand for “World’s Greatest Newspaper” aka the Chicago Tribune, the flagship and fountainhead of Tribune Media.  Consistently conservative in its approach, nevertheless the Trib became the paper of record for la familia Hachecristo after a certain Aussie named Rupert Murdoch acquired the previously liberal Sun-Times, a harbinger of my next paragraph.

My literary godfather  switched, so I switched.

Now the post-Reagan FCC is currently reviewing the application for Sinclair Broadcast Group to obtain Tribune Media. Sinclair is one of those quiet media conglomerates that goes along snapping up local stations and turning them into GOP-TV. You may have seen John Oliver’s takedown of this idea, because Sinclair has exhumed the FCC’s late Fairness Doctrine, driven a stake through its heart, cut off its head, burned its corpse and trampled on its ashes.  Their news anchors are contractually forced to push the Trump Party Line. Sure, FOX has been doing that for decades, but that was voluntary-ish. Even if you HATE Trump, as a Sinclair anchor you MUST read the nice things their propagandists write about him, or else…

or else…what?

Sinclair’s acquisition of Tribune Media would not just ruin my childhood.  It represents a danger to the public airwaves, as Sinclair would have a television station in 72% of our households.  Trump’s FCC is exploiting the UHF broadcast (look it up, kids) loophole to do this (the currently allowed reach is 39%) and with the added reach of WGN America, the cable behemoth, Trump State TV will run virtually nationwide.

But there’s something YOU can still do.  The FCC docket is still open on this acquisition, and the movement against it is gathering steam, even among other conservative media.  You can publicly comment on how bad this idea is on their website, www.fcc.gov.  Scroll down and click on “File a Public Comment” then scroll down on that screen until you find 17-179, then click on “Express Reply.”   A form will come up for you to tell Trump’s FCC EXACTLY what you think about this bozo’s media circus.

Who needs a pie in da face?  DIS CLOWN!

That’s just what American needs right now: a corporate war machine.

The White House is actively considering a bold plan to turn over a big chunk of the U.S. war in Afghanistan to private contractors in an effort to turn the tide in a stalemated war, according to the former head of a security firm pushing the project.

Under the proposal, 5,500 private contractors, primarily former Special Operations troops, would advise Afghan combat forces. The plan also includes a 90-plane private air force that would provide air support in the nearly 16-year-old war against Taliban insurgents, Erik Prince, founder of the Blackwater security firm, told USA TODAY.

Well, damn, I didn’t see that coming: a military junta.

Can you even come close to imagining how much this would cost?  Hell, probably more than a beautiful diamond encrusted and gold dusted wall at Mexico.

Hell, we turned over our health care to private insurance companies and that worked out real well, right?  Now imagine insurance companies with guns and tanks.

(By the way, don’t you just love how USA Today calls it a “bold” plan instead of an UnAmerican fascist idiot plan?)

… this is the guy in charge of our nuclear arsenal.

And he’s so dumb that you can pull a slow one on him.

Okay, I do not like to be happy when bad things happen to other people. Unless, of course, they damn well deserved it.

EAGLE GROVE, Iowa—On a cloud-swept landscape dotted with grain elevators, a meat producer called Prestage Farms is building a 700,000-square-foot processing plant. The gleaming new factory is both the great hope of Wright County, which voted by a 2-1 margin for Donald Trump, and the victim of one of Trump’s first policy moves, his decision to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

For his part, Trump once promised a slew of “beautiful” deals to replace the TPP, but his administration has yet to lay out a detailed strategy.

I guess it was kinda like repeal and replace except they haven’t decided how to replace it, letting China take America’s place as the leading trade negotiator.

“I’m scared to death,” said Ron Prestage, whose North Carolina-based family pork and poultry business made its huge investment in the plant near Eagle Grove in part to reap expected gains from the TPP.

I do not know where the beautiful deals are and neither does Trump.

But the people who voted for him are getting hurt.  Maybe they’ll learn something.

Probably not, though.

Donald Trump announced today —

“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” warned Mr. Trump from his golf club in Bedminster.

“They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” he told reporters. “He has been very threatening — beyond a normal statement,” Mr. Trump said of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. “As I said, they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”

First of all, here’s how he looked while he announced it.

Either he’s getting into the cufflink business or he’s a 5 year old refusing to eat his broccoli.

Then, add a new CBS News poll that says “a majority remains uneasy about President Donald Trump’s ability to handle the situation with North Korea’s nuclear program. Only a third are confident in his ability.”

That means that 1/3 of America is drunk, delusional, and think North Korea is just above Utah on the map.

Y’all, the two craziest small handed leaders on earth are spoiling for a fight.

Oh yeah.  Here ya go.

President Donald Trump’s retweet of a Fox News story claiming US satellites detected North Korea moving anti-ship cruise missiles to a patrol boat is raising eyebrows on Tuesday after US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley indicated that the information in the report is classified and was leaked.

So I’m wondering who leaked to Fox News?  Yes, I’m looking at you, Donald Trump.

You know, I’d put the leak right here but I don’t want to be impeached.