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.
LA CROIX-VALMER, France — On a brief beach sanity break, I happened upon a Mediterranean landing spot where U.S. forces and allies invaded Hitler's southern flank as Operation Overlord stormed Normandy up north.
On D-Day, pilots of the newly formed 101st Airborne rained down hellfire. As their commander had said, their "Screaming Eagle" emblem defined a division "that will crush enemies by falling upon them like a thunderbolt from the skies."
The bald eagle, America's icon for 250 years, was saved from extinction by the 1973 Endangered Species Act. Congress made it the national bird at the end of 2024. Joe Biden said it symbolized freedom, strength and courage.
Six months later, an ostrich seems more fitting in a divided America.
Fearful ostriches lower their heads as if burying them in sand, vulnerable to a swift kick in the butt by any passerby. Yet their muscular legs and sharp claws can eviscerate a lion when their offspring are at risk. You can see where I'm going here.
Americans have only months left to look up, not down, and fight back. Feckless politicians are letting billionaires, ideologues, religious zealots and amoral "tech bros" pluck them down to pinfeathers. After 2026, it will likely be too late.
A mad would-be king whose mob-style extortions, greed, insatiable ego, depraved indifference to human life and reckless warmongering are turning a blindered, unreliable America into a global pariah.
In the Mediterranean, Donald Trump looms from the Pillars of Hercules at Gibraltar to hinterlands that include the ancient Persian empire, a monstrous chimera beyond anything Homer's Odysseus imagined. His dark shadow extends from China to Chile.
We are running short of time to protect a salvageable planet for the generations to come. Sensible citizens need to energize the apathetic, helping them see how, and why, so much has changed since those allied forces landed in Europe.
No democracy can be better than the people elected to govern it. Only a thundering landslide at the polls can rescue America and restore its historic global role of defending human values.
We need soaring eagles, not head-in-the-sand ostriches.
DRAGUIGNAN, France —For months now, a power-besotted buffoon who apes traits of Machiavelli, Mussolini and King Midas has been recasting the United States into his own image. Today, from the outside looking in, harsh reality is clear.
American democracy is dying in broad daylight. Millions turn out to protest Donald Trump's depredations. Yet at least a third of voters cheer him on. And a shocking number of those eligible to cast ballots neither notice nor care.
Now he has splashed kerosene onto smoldering embers in the Middle East, spiking geopolitical temperatures across a world on the boil. He had no accord from Congress as the law requires. Republicans were briefed; Democrats were not.
Among Western allies, only Britain was forewarned. As Trump said airily, it was America's show. The nation best equipped to defend human values and lead an imperiled planet toward a sustainable future is doing the opposite.
Responsible Americans turn out by the millions to wake the flock up. Yet during 60 years of reporting, I have never seen such a high percentage of free people willing to trade democracy for demagogy because of apathy or ignorance.
Trump's sudden strike on Iran during peace negotiations typifies his foreign non-policy. He jams a sharp stick into a hornet's nest, then retreats behind his massive ego, ready to blame someone else for the inevitable calamities that follow.
Reactions range from allies' seething contempt to adversaries' cork-popping glee.
My Belgian friend, Yves, who long ago gave up an executive job with Parker pens to make goat cheese in placid Provence, summed up judgment I hear from thoughtful people across what is left of the "free world." One recurrent word is monster.
Yves, once married to a woman from Ohio, knows America well. Like so many others elsewhere, he used to blame its faults and foibles on specific administrations, but he loved its spirit and sensibilities. Now he shudders at the mention of it.
"That man has affected the life of every human on Earth," he told me, with a sad shake of his head. "How can you live in a country that tolerates him?"
The answer is easy for anyone whose family found refuge in a different America and grew up knowing what it is supposed to be. This is no time to abandon it to the greedy and the gullible. Next year's elections could be the last chance to save it.
