John Toland, The Rising Sun

At Amazon, John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945.

Gordon Prange, At Dawn We Slept

At Amazon, Gordon Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor.

Local Pearl Harbor Veteran Will Be the Last Interred on Battleship Arizona

Great story.

Only three survivors left.

At LAT, "End of an era: Last Pearl Harbor veteran to be interred at USS Arizona Memorial":

Lauren Bruner was the second-to-last man to escape the explosion at the USS Arizona during the Pearl Harbor attack that killed thousands, including his best friend.

Tonight at sunset, his ashes will be returned to the sea that cradled his fallen comrades https://t.co/DTOy6Io5Uw

— Colleen Shalby (@CShalby) December 7, 2019

Just before 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning 78 years ago, Lauren Bruner was preparing for church services and a date that would follow with a girl he’d met outside his Navy base.

The 21-year-old sailor was stationed as a fire controlman aboard the U.S. battleship Arizona, overseeing the vessel’s .50-caliber guns.

Then alarms rang out. A Japanese plane had bombed the ship in a surprise attack.

It took only nine minutes for the Arizona to sink after the first bomb hit. Bruner was struck by gunfire while trying to flee the inferno that consumed the ship, the second-to-last man to escape the explosion that killed 1,177, including his best friend; 335 survived.

More than 70% of Bruner’s body was burned. He was hospitalized for weeks.

Now, nearly eight decades after that fateful day, Bruner’s ashes will be delivered to the sea that cradled his fallen comrades, stored in an urn inside the battleship’s wreckage.

Bruner, who died in his sleep Sept. 10 at age 98, will be the 44th and final crew member to be interred at the site, a decision he made nearly 30 years ago. The last three surviving members of the Arizona’s crew have all chosen to be laid to rest with their families.

A moment of silence will be observed at 7:55 a.m. Hawaii Standard Time on Saturday (9:55 PST), the exact moment the bombings began so many years ago, followed by an annual public ceremony at Pearl Harbor to remember those killed in the attack.

Lou Conter, 98, one of the last three surviving crew members, will be at the interment, coordinated by the U.S. Navy and the National Park Service and attended by about 160 loved ones of Bruner.

In Colorado Springs, Colo., fellow survivors Donald Stratton, 97, and Ken Potts, 98, will watch a livestream of the event alongside the daughter of Joe George, the man who saved Stratton and Bruner when he tossed them a rope from the repair ship Vestal 100 feet away, which the men used to pull themselves to safety.

“I was there when he was strafed by a passing Japanese plane — wounded in his leg. He watched me climb across the burning water to relative safety aboard the Vestal, and I encouraged him to keep going when it was his turn to cross,” Stratton said of Bruner.

“The bonds of brotherhood are forged working side by side, but nothing connects men more than going through something like that. We were lucky, blessed, to make it out of there.”

In 2017, Stratton and Bruner presented the Bronze Star for valor posthumously to George by way of his daughter, Joe Ann Taylor, at the Pearl Harbor memorial in Hawaii. Stratton said it was a defining moment for both of them.

“We were the lucky ones to escape, thanks to Joe. If I could ask one thing, it would be for people to remember the ones who died, the ones who never really got a chance to live. Remember their stories,” he said. “Remember our story and never let something like this happen again.”

Bruner was an easygoing man who enjoyed a slice of pizza and a cold beer. He regaled people with stories, hesitant only when it came to discussing the events of Dec. 7, 1941. He outlived two wives and a longtime girlfriend whose family considers him their own..

More.

Sebastian Gorka, The War for America's Soul

*BUMPED."

Sebastian Gorka, The War for American's Soul: Donald Trump, the Left's Assault on America, and How We Take Back Our Country.

Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland.

C. Bradley Thompson, America's Revolutionary Mind

At Amazon, C. Bradley Thompson, America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It.

Lee Smith, The Plot Against the President

*BUMPED.*

At Amazon, Lee Smith, The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History.

Katie Bell Make a Wish

Who'd you rather?

11:11 make a wish pic.twitter.com/MsEW6V0AQ8

— Katie Bell🦋 (@katieeeeebell) November 11, 2019

Big Bear's Heaviest November Snowstorm in 50 Years

At ABC 7 Los Angeles:

Big Bear's heaviest November snow storm in 50 years leads to road closures, power outages https://t.co/lAEA0ABZHu

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) November 30, 2019

Dancing Christmas Globes

At Drunken Stepfather, "RINGING IN THE CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN WITH A DANCE OF THE DAY."

Shop Black Friday Weekend Sales

Well, how was your Black Friday shopping?

I watched football all day yesterday, and ate leftovers, lol.

At Amazon, Black Friday Shopping in Camera and Photo.

And, Shop Grocery and Gourmet Food.

More, Kindle Store Savings.

Plus, Mountain House Essential Bucket.

Also, Signature by Levi Strauss & Co. Gold Label Men's Relaxed Fit Jeans.

Here's more, Samsung UN65RU8000FXZA Flat 65-Inch 4K 8 Series Ultra HD Smart TV with HDR and Alexa Compatibility (2019 Model).

BONUS: Gordon Wood, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States.

Hey, Hands Off the Hallmark Channel!

My wife loves the Hallmark Channel, and I've watched numerous weepy holiday dramas with her.

Leave the network alone.

It's one of the last television outlets that consistently promotes traditional conservative courting rituals and family values.

At Instapundit, "EVERYTHING IS PROBLEMATICAL: Hallmark Channel Under Assault by Race Hustlers and LGBTQ Cult, ‘Too White’."

Holiday Gift Ideas

At Amazon.

Also, Sebastian Gorka, The War for America's Soul: Donald Trump, the Left's Assault on America, and How We Take Back Our Country.

Shop Desktops

At Amazon, Desktops Under $500.00.

And shop books.

Black Friday Tool Girls

At Drunken Stepfather, "TOP 10 GIRLS WITH TOOLS WHO SHOULD HAVE USED A GEEK KEY FOR BLACK FRIDAY OF THE DAY."

That's a promotional post, but folks gotta make some money. (*Shrugs.*)

Tessa Fowler

She's a good lady.

A hard man is. Good to find pic.twitter.com/iiP6t0Copr

— Tessa Fowler (@tessafowler01) November 21, 2019

Troubling New Era in Mexico

At World Policy Review, "It’s a New and Troubling Era in Mexico Under AMLO":

The concern for many is less AMLO’s ability to follow through with his promises than his disregard for the very real progress Mexico has made in recent decades. https://t.co/wI9SQdCl5e

— WorldPoliticsReview (@WPReview) November 27, 2019

MEXICO CITY—Some welcomed the return of the left to the height of political power in Mexico nearly a year ago as a promising new chapter in the country’s history. Yet 12 months into Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s presidency, drug violence and attacks on freedom of speech have spiraled and the economy has stagnated, adding to the sense that Mexico is floundering. While all these challenges existed before AMLO—as he is better known in Mexico—took office, the bigger concern now is the way his government is seeking to address them.

There is no mistaking that this is a new era for Mexican politics. Gone are the globally minded, centrist administrations that swapped power in the years following Mexico’s transition from one-party rule to free elections in the 1990s. In their place is a self-styled champion of the people whose inward-looking economic vision harkens back to the country’s statist past. AMLO openly dismisses a role for experts and civil society in policymaking, calling them “neoliberal nostalgics,” while lacing his public rhetoric with an almost religious call of devotion to his presidency—all with the passionate approval of his unwavering political base.

“There is much about AMLO that is reminiscent of the populists that came through the Institutional Revolutionary Party in the latter half of the 20th century,” says Alberto Fernandez, a political analyst and columnist for the magazine Letras Libres in Mexico City, referring to Mexico’s former ruling party, the PRI. “But he’s also more individualistic than they were—he expects the public to believe in his personal moral vision rather than in the democratic institutions Mexico has been trying to build over the past two decades.”

Amid widespread dissatisfaction among voters heading into last year’s presidential election, AMLO won a landslide victory, vowing to reduce inequality, fight corruption and put an end to years of deadly drug violence. Like many Latin American populists, he put neoliberalism and corrupt, privileged elites at the center of his critique of the policy path Mexico has followed over the past two decades. He promised nothing less than the country’s “fourth transformation”—a brash reference to the seminal events in Mexican history, from its independence from Spain in 1810, to the War of Reform that led to separation of church and state in the mid-19th century, to the revolution of 1910 that ended decades of dictatorship and established a constitutional republic.

Yet his actual policy positions were always vague. Corruption would be “eradicated,” AMLO insisted, but he has left the previous administration’s plans for an independent anticorruption commission in limbo. Next year, he will slash the budgets for the attorney general’s office, the National Electoral Institute and the Supreme Court, institutions that, while flawed, have been key building blocks in Mexico’s democracy. The drug cartels would be fought with “hugs, not bullets,” AMLO declared, yet they continue to wreak havoc, with the recent massacre of a Mormon family of nine, including six children, in the state of Sonora drawing international headlines. With nearly 26,000 homicides documented by federal authorities as of October, 2019 looks likely to end as Mexico’s most violent year in recent memory.

In March, AMLO announced that the era of neoliberalism, the great scourge of the Latin American left, was over. Yet his budgeting plans have been far from progressive. He has drastically reduced spending on health and education, among other areas, in favor of costly infrastructure projects, including a new international airport and what many economists view as a dubious attempt to revive Mexico’s debt-ridden and unproductive state energy giant, Pemex. A number of international organizations have subsequently downgraded their forecasts for Mexico’s growth this year to as low as 0.2 percent amid a decline in oil output and slumping construction and service sectors—its worst year since the global financial crisis.

“There are three major issues with AMLO’s diagnosis of the economic challenges Mexico faces,” says Macario Schettino, an economist at the Technological Institute of Monterrey in Mexico City. “The idea of regaining energy sovereignty is misplaced and has paralyzed the country’s landmark energy reform of 2013. Secondly, redirecting public funds to Pemex and poorly designed direct cash transfer programs has seen government ministries lose up to 30 percent of their budgets. Thirdly, the business community is losing confidence, and we are seeing a significant reduction in private investment.”

AMLO has attempted to compensate for the economic slump and spiraling crime rates with token gestures to his base: frequent popular referendums on everything from infrastructure projects to indigenous rights bills, the reduction of salaries for bureaucrats, and the controversial offer of political asylum to ousted Bolivian President Evo Morales. With a current approval rating at 58 percent, he clearly maintains a close bond to many of his supporters, a phenomenon Fernandez attributes to dissatisfaction with prior governments, notably the scandal-ridden term of AMLO’s predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto.

Pena Nieto and his party, the PRI, successfully pushed through a series of long-hoped-for institutional reforms early in his presidency, yet they ended up flailing because of political foot-dragging and poor implementation. His administration then became mired in a series of corruption and human rights scandals, which at least partly contributed to the desire for change that led AMLO to power.

“For many citizens, Pena Nieto’s term really destroyed any notion that the current political system was working for them,” Fernandez says. “AMLO came along with a very simplistic diagnosis of what was wrong with the country, and it appealed to many.”

Two decades after the formal end of one-party rule, Mexico’s democracy remains fragile, hamstrung by the weak rule of law. Slow but steady progress was being made in the form of increasingly competitive elections, newly independent institutions and a growing role for civil society in public policymaking. Perhaps the most concerning element of AMLO’s presidency so far is his disregard for these gains—and for democratic institutions as a whole.

AMLO says he plans to hold a popular referendum in 2022 to determine if he should continue as president through 2024, the official end of his term under the constitution. Yet his budget cuts to the National Electoral Institute, known as the INE, could also strip the body, which was founded in 1996, of its independence. The INE is responsible for both organizing and financing elections at all three levels of government, along with setting campaign funding limits and allocating public resources to political parties...

Keep reading.

Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe

At Amazon, Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine.

Evelyn Taft's Thanksgiving Forecast

Well, I've posted on the Thanksgiving snowmageddon already, but I can't resist Ms. Evelyn.




BONUS: Danielle Gersh's forecast this morning.

Shop Black Rifle Coffee

For Thanksgiving.

At Amazon, Black Rifle Coffee Company CAF Caffeinated AF Medium Roast Ground Coffee, 12 Ounce Bag.