Mort Report is a labor of love by old-style correspondents with lifetimes on the road and young ones with fresh eyes. Our philosophy is simple: we report at first hand with analysis based on non-alternative fact, not opinion. If we get something wrong, we fix it.
ES ARCS, France — Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, a mad monarch with a parental problem, poked out his own eyes. Donald Trump, a power-obsessed wannabe, is trying to blind everyone else. And he is getting way too much help.
One despotic or despicable act follows another so rapidly that no one can possibly keep track. Far too many Americans simply tune out, which is his plan. But now he has made things dead clear.
A tax-funded "public service announcement" about to blanket airwaves shows him walking up a dark hallway. "This is the final battle," he says. “We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all."
By villains, he means Democrats, independents and all left-wing "communists" not in step with his own insanity. His over-armed zealots are ready to "fight like hell."
More than a dog whistle, that is a blaring siren no one with a heart, brain or family to protect can ignore. Yet on a CNN newscast last night, it was mentioned briefly after 35 minutes of small-bore stories and two four-minute commercial breaks.
Nothing is more urgent for Americans than sustained support for national reporters and foreign correspondents who are committed to hard facts. Without them, voters are not only blind but also deaf and dumb in a smoldering world.
Trump's drumbeat mantra of "FAKE NEWS!" undercuts faith in even trustworthy news organizations. Eligible voters turn to social media opinionators, clueless "influencers" and blatant propaganda. Reality is blurred beyond all recognition.
Democrats are likely to dominate the Nov. 3 midterms as Trump's Iran folly hits hard. But Republicans keep the White House, with billionaire donors bent on mangling truth and defying the courts.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat who had past high-level jobs at the CIA and the Defense Department, recently warned a Republican majority could rig the 2028 presidential elections or even create an excuse to suspend them.
Stopping him depends on the remnants of an American press corps that used to be the world's standard. News organizations are uniting to defend the First Amendment. But he is doubling down with help from faux journalists who echo his lunacies.
Averting what looms ahead — climate collapse, AI, authoritarian rule, widening conflicts, rising migrant tides, runaway pathogens — demands intrepid young reporters at home and abroad along with old ones to pass on vital skills learned the hard way.
A month remains before the Nov. 3 midterms, which may be the last free and fair elections in the United States. As always, the apathetic and ignorant won't bother to vote. Given what is at stake, no election in history has mattered more.
PARIS —America's November midterm elections, the most crucial in human history, come down to a simple question: will enough voters step up to thwart a deranged self-obsessed president plotting a military coup de grace to solidify his creeping coup d'etat?
After six decades of covering democratic collapse around the world from apathy and ignorance, I am banging alarms as loudly as I can.
Only 73.6 percent of the electorate registered to vote for president in 2024, and 65.3 percent bothered to cast a ballot. In the 2022 midterms, turnout was 46 per cent. Look what emerged.
Donald Trump has defied Congress and the courts to demolish the White House East Wing, intent on a fool's gold Versailles topped with an airborne attack force, with an underground command center that smacks of Hitler's Führerbunker in Berlin.
My first draft of this was on folly abroad. Trump's senseless Iran war throws global order into turmoil. Slashed foreign aid is killing millions. A jihad on climate action to please fossil fuel executives who bankroll him is shortening the life span of billions.
But on Sunday America's commander-in-cheat said his 250-foot-high Arc de Trump will be a "desperately needed" fortress with drones, snipers and ammunition stores for national security purposes at the "strong request" of the U.S. military.
Since Independence, Washington has faced only two invasions: by Britain in 1812 and by Trump's own armed zealots in 2021. He pardoned convicted insurrectionists as patriots. Some now hold key positions in his administration.
Only Canada is close enough to launch a ground attack. Not likely. The sole purpose for such "defense" would be to quash citizen protests, which the Constitution allows, using the military within American borders, which the Posse Comitatus Act forbids.
On Tuesday, Trump told the U.N. General Assembly he faced a dilemma. He might continue negotiating with Iran on his terms, he said.
"Or," he added, "Do I annihilate the Islamic Republic, and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness?"
Iran's population is 93.4 million, not counting visiting foreigners and diplomats. Surveys estimate up to 88 per cent oppose the hardline regime. The war has already taken about 2,000 civilian lives, nearly as many Americans as terrorists killed on 9/11.
It no longer matters whether Trump is a demented lunatic or acting like one to divert attention from his grand plan. He is going for broke to be a cruel, racist monarch who rules the world along with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. He is no match for either one.
