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.
PARIS — At 5 a.m., pastel hues reflect off the Seine. Stately stone buildings emerge against an Eiffel Tower backdrop. Just upriver, Notre Dame stands tall again, ready for 1,000 more years. All things considered, Paris is a jewel in a world worth protecting,
Yet today will be hotter than hell, even more than Baja Arizona, baking the paint on my floating home. Our port's mama ducks and their ducklings have moved elsewhere for breakfast. They take some explaining, so I'll start with the big picture.
Donald Trump belongs in a padded cell, if not behind bars. Certainly not the White House. The problem is as much who he is as what he does. Everyone with a half-open mind ought to know this. And yet.
The Mort Report began in 2016 when I recognized the same sort of coup-plotting malignant narcissists I've reported on since Mobutu in the Congo during the 1960s. Trump has excelled at it in ways I never imagined were possible in America.
He seems unfathomably ignorant, but we underestimate him at our peril. He masters any despot's basic skill: savaging truth while hammering away at easily debunked lies. Steve Bannon, America's Rasputin, puts it simply: he floods the zone with shit.
Most people react to each outrage only until the next ones. Nothing stirs up a critical mass — not even nearly a million needless Covid deaths, insurrection at the Capitol, blatant graft climbing fast into the billions or jury rulings of sexual abuse.
For the outside world, his senseless assault on Iran was the last straw. It broke that figurative camel's back with a sound that echoes to every part of the planet. Headlines focus on America's humiliation, but it is far more than that.
A nuclear attack on America would be murder-suicide for any country that tried it. Yet if the world's richest country remains addicted to fossil fuels, climate collapse is certain.
Because of a pathological obsession with Barack Obama, Trump trashed not only the 2015 agreement to curb Iran's nuclear designs but also the 2015 U.N. climate accords, which 195 countries signed here in Paris. That is why we are sweltering today.
As for those ducks, a grand plan to clean up the Seine for the Olympics altered its ecological balance. Much less natural organic matter in the water ruptured the food chain. A small part of a very big problem.
We need to understand the overall threat and what decent people with families and friends they cherish can do about it. Starting now. November is four months away.
PARIS — Across Europe and beyond, old friends once smitten with America now view it with despairing contempt — an immigrant nation of warring "liberals" and "conservatives" that exceeds any théâtre de l'absurde playwright's imagination.
After a long look around in what was the United States, I found those catchall political labels so yesterday. Americans fall into two main categories: those who know about Shmoos and those who don't.
I'll get to them in a second. The top line here is that not nearly enough eligible voters realize the looming threat. If November elections go wrong, all the planned 250th anniversary hoopla will be for a country that no longer exists.
An unhinged madman backed by entrenched plutocrats could muzzle dissent, repress protesters with deadly force and paint "Fuck Off!" in big red letters on the Statue of Liberty that a once-admiring France gave to a different America.
Much of that is already happening fast.
Cartoonist Al Capp came up with Shmoos in 1948 — small, smiley blobs shaped like bowling pins that laid grade A eggs and gave milk. When anyone looked hungry, they happily expired to be fried like chicken or grilled like steak.
Their antics were so amusing that no one needed movies or other entertainment. But they bred quickly and consumed nothing, making them bad for business. Authorities hunted them into extinction.
Today, mutant Shmoos with human attributes vote uncritically for politicians in thrall of a malevolent Supreme Leader, who hammers away at whatever upbeat bald lies they want to hear. Others don't bother to vote at all.
Capp, a rapier-sharp political observer, explained why he came up with them:
"I was driving from New York City to my farm in New Hampshire. The top of my car was down, and on either side of me I could see the lush and lovely New England countryside... It was the good earth at its generous summertime best, offering gifts to all.
"And the thought that came to me was this: Here we have this great and good and generous thing—the Earth. It's eager to give us everything we need. All we have to do is just let it alone, just be happy with it."
I remembered Capp on Memorial Day, driving around from my Provence olive grove. The top of my old Peugeot was down. On either side I could see the lush and lovely French countryside. The good earth at its generous springtime best, offering gifts to all.
People are people. Borders are only lines on a map. We can still save what is left of a bounteous planet if we can just stop screwing it up.
