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.
EAGLE PASS, Texas — A fresh-faced sergeant in U.S. camouflage stopped me at a gate flanked by razor-wire coils and armored Humvees. His "sir," tightly polite, was by the book. The message behind it was clear: "Beat it! I'm here to save the world."
I've seen that from Somalia to Afghanistan and parts in between. But never in America. A phony "border emergency" is savaging the Constitution, while making that world far more dangerous. That feeds deepening hatred abroad for a once-admired nation.
Donald Trump's dehumanizing, simplistic lies are starkly plain in this bilingual town of 28,000. Before a crush at the border in 2021 when his first term ended, people lived in relaxed symbiosis with Piedras Negras just across the Rio Grande.
That barred gate led into Shelby Park, 80 acres by the International Bridge where townsfolk used to gather for July 4 fireworks, concerts, family celebrations and kayaking on the river. The park is now a walled camp for idle photo-op troops.
Trump ordered a crackdown, then sealed the border under Title 42 of the federal public health code during the Covid-19 pandemic. Joe Biden's more humane policies unleashed a backed-up crush on the southern frontier from Tijuana to East Texas.
The human tide had ebbed to a trickle by the end of 2024. Yet Republican propagandists bang away at "Biden's Border Crisis." Greg Abbott, governor of a once-tolerant Texas, leads a jihad against impoverished migrants and families fleeing for their lives.
Rather than reopen Shelby Park, Abbott has fortified it as the base of his $11 billion Operation Lone Star, capable of housing 1,800 well-fed National Guardsmen. Billions more pay for private security forces, detention centers, floating pontoons and makeshift obstacles.
Texas taxpayers have sent at least 100,000 destitute, exhausted people as political pawns to New York, Chicago and other "blue" parts of America. Abbott's buses dumped one group off at Kamala Harris's vice-presidential residence in Washington.
Now Abbott wants federal funds to repay the costs of stopping a bogus invasion of people Trump slanders as vicious criminals and mental deviants.
Before heading to Eagle Pass, I asked long-time colleagues for trustworthy sources. They directed me to Amerika Garcia Grewal, at 48 an activist-researcher with a gift for fitting disparate detail into context.
"This is not about immigration," she told me. "It is the biggest heist the United States has ever seen." Hardline Republicans have figured out how to monetize misery and poverty, she said. "The United States is using the Texas model and expanding it."
TUCSON — It only takes a minority of heedless people who blindly follow a demagogue like dumb, fearful buffalo to trample democracy. Hitler and his Brown Shirts took control of the Reichstag to impose tyranny in 53 days.
Mussolini's Black Shirts only had to bully a king into ceding total power. Like Hitler, he was well-read with military seasoning. Both dictators had grand plans to rule an orderly world under fascist domination.
America's "strong man" is a barely literate self-obsessed draft dodger who seems more like Caligula every day. His unelected sidekick, Elon Musk, a Bozo the Clown with a chainsaw, shreds the U.S. government and tells people in other countries how to vote.
The Führer conquered Germany with a few newspapers and crackling radio signals. Donald Trump's big lies rile up his Red Hats with AI-enhanced anti-social media, high-tech computer chicanery and oligarchs' vast cash reserves.
Waiting until 2026 is too late. America is threatened with history's most ignominious capitulation of free people. Urgent action needs to scare the crap out of every faithless legislator and elected official, from Congress on down to local magistrates.
No one with half an eye on the news needs to see more of Trump's wrecking crew. A self-crowned king is moving to "flood the zone" at breakneck speed. If he is not stopped soon, there will likely be no do-over.
