1/ Born on this day in 1911, Ronald Reagan was the most admirable, successful, and visionary president of my lifetime. I have mentioned more than once that he was the first president I was old enough to vote for, and the only one I have ever voted for with enthusiasm. 2/ "The American sound," Reagan once said, "is hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent, and fair." The same could be said of Reagan himself. What made him a great man were great values — optimism, patriotism, moral clarity, and a willingness to call evil by its name.

1/ On this day in 1944, the Nazis came for my father and his family. The seven members of the Jakubovic household were sent from their tiny Czechoslovak village of Legenye to the nearest large town, where Jews from all over the region were being herded into a ghetto. 2/ It was the day after Passover, the ancient Jewish festival celebrating freedom and redemption. The walls were still going up around the ghetto as the Jakubovic family arrived.

1/ It has become common in recent years to quote Frederick Douglass's great 1852 speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Douglass was scathing in denouncing white Americans of his day who were complicit in slavery while celebrating liberty.
teachingamericanhistory.org/library/docume… 2/ Yet Douglass insisted that while the Founders may have been flawed, they were also heroic: "The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men," he said. "It does not often happen to a nation to raise at one time such a number of truly great men."

Each #PresidentsDay I write a column about a 19th-century president most Americans never learn about in school. This year's topic: Zachary Taylor, a war-hero-turned-president. His death just 16 months into his term may have made the Civil War inevitable.
bit.ly/2vxdFrW For #PresidentsDay 2019, I wrote about Benjamin Harrison.
He had perhaps the noblest political lineage in US history and was a highly gifted speaker. Yet in person he was highly off-putting — even supporters called him "the human iceberg."
bit.ly/2BFhag9

World War II began 80 years ago this month, when Nazi Germany & the Soviet Union collaborated in the invasion of Poland. The two totalitarian powers were allies for nearly two years. In that time the Nazis conquered Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland & France, and bombed much of London into rubble.

Just 10 days shy of his 104th birthday, the great American novelist Herman Wouk — and my former shul-mate — has died.
bit.ly/2w5KM32 Herman Wouk "indelibly & wonderfully changed my life," I wrote in my newsletter, Arguable—and not just by writing such brilliant works as "The Caine Mutiny" and "The Winds of War." I am blessed every day because of the impact of this great American Jew.
bit.ly/2tlQKuz

No, @RashidaTlaib, Palestinian Arabs did not provide "save haven" for Jews. They assaulted & murdered Jews, urged on by their leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini, an admirer and ally of Adolf Hitler.

bit.ly/2VT7x8U In 1929, Palestinian Arabs broke into the yeshiva in Hebron, murdering every student they found there. Then they lynched Jews in the streets. When the town's rabbi tried to shelter frightened Jews in his home, the Arab mob attacked and killed him and his family.

For #PresidentsDay, how about some presidential history? Each year I devote a column to a 19th-century chief executive you probably never learned about in high school.

My subject this year: Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States.

bit.ly/2BFhag9 Last year, I wrote about Chester Alan Arthur, a sleazy pol who became president by accident — and turned, against all expectations, into a conscientious and honest reformer.

bit.ly/2ttgm9r

Like all federal judges, #RBG has a lifetime appointment and can't be compelled to retire. But she's 85. She's had three occurrences of cancer. Should she really be clinging to a seat on the most powerful court in the land? We badly need an amendment to limit SCOTUS terms.

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1083781348798746626

The problem of life tenure on the Supreme Court has been growing more and more apparent.

In July 2005, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, issued a statement denying "rumors of my imminent retirement." Two months later, he was dead of thyroid cancer.