Jack Fowler
Jack Fowler is the vice president of National Review.
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Dear Jolt Friends, As the first half of 2017 hurtles to a finish, NRO fills the web this Humpday with beaucoup wisdom for you. Embrace it! Today you will find two new editorials very worth your while. The first is titled “... -
Breaking Down the Senate Health-Care Bill, Supreme Court Rulings & More
Dear Jolters, Lots going on today on NRO. You don’t need to read any tomfoolery from me, pinch-hitting for the vacationing Jim G, so let’s get right to the links. Okay, here are five NRO pieces you should ... -
Health-Care Reform: Looking at the Good and the Bad
Dear Jolters, Jim’s away having fun with the clan, so we wish him a week of true R & R, during which Yours Truly will pinch hit and do his best not to embarrass the Morning Jolt brand. I am ... -
Dan Hannan and Conservatives International
Our pal, the Conservative MEP and Brexit champion, is determined to engineer an honest-to-goodness global right-wing conspiracy. Minus the conspiracy. And he has done it with the free-market Conservatives International, which launched last month in Miami. Dan’s keynote speech ... -
Oceans of Enjoyment
From the WFB vaults are 4 hardcover and 8 paperback editions of Bill’s sailing classic, Atlantic High: A Celebration, documenting his month-long 1980 passage, with a crew of hearty friends, on the Sealestial, departing the Caribbean for Bermuda and then Spain. It ... -
Help Us Reach the Goal – Do It for Dad
The National Review Spring Webathon approaches its end. Our goal is to raise $264,000. As of 8 p.m. on Wednesday, June 14, we have raised $218,000. I shouldn’t say “we have raised.” The fact is, some thousands of you have donated. You ... -
Tag! You’re It!
This is a special appeal to those who are regular denizens of NRO, who know of this Spring Webathon, (nicely explained by Rich Lowry) who feel that twinge of guilt or conscience or even harbor a sincere intention, merely delayed, ... -
Time to Get Around to It
If you’re reading this, there’s an excellent chance you spend a heck of a lot of time on NRO. Hundreds of thousands qualify for that status, deriving endless enjoyment for months, years . . . all at no cost. But being ... -
See You Soon
Conrad Black will be taking a brief sabbatical from his weekly column duties, and will return at the end of July. In the meanwhile, you might consider delving into his NRO author archive, here. Or maybe consider picking up one ... -
More Moving, More WFB Books to Be Had
Back in 1970, Bill Buckley edited a very popular collection: Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? — American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century. Then in 1988, along Charles Kesler as his wingman, that collection was revised and republished as Keeping the ... -
Webathon Update, and Mann Stuff
We have a goal for our Spring Webathon to raise $264,000 — one thousandth of what old moneybags George Soros gave to lefty groups (make that just some lefty groups) from 2010–2014. We think matching his largesse, with a few zeroes after the ... -
Gratitude
We thank those who kindly contributed this Memorial Day Weekend to the National Review Spring Webathon (which I try to explain here). As is typical, many donors shared their thoughts along with their generosity. Here are a few examples that ... -
Can We Count on You this Weekend?
Before any update about our Spring Webathon, a word about our honored dead, remembered this weekend, who died for the very freedoms — none so dramatic as free speech — that many on the American Left (such as the U.S. Senate ... -
Webathon Update: Going Well, But Planet Soros Still Distant Target
We are on Day Nine of NRO’s Spring Webathon and thrilled that some 639 of you have seen fit to send a contribution. Raised so far: just over $97,000. That ain’t hay. But we still have a long way to ... -
There Is a Spook in Their Midst
It’s 1954, Stalin has finally kicked the bucket, and a US-British plot to liberate a Soviet satellite country comes to a disastrous end. It’s been jinxed. Because of a mole. The hero of Bill Buckley’s famous novels – Blackford ... -
We Few, We Happy One-Thousandth
NR’s Spring webathon is sweating it out today in NYC, where global warming or climate change or something and everything this side of a solar-flare storm has the NR crew perspiring. But it’s a happy perspiration, thanks to ... -
The 28th of Iyar
In a little more than two weeks, we will mark the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War, in which a surrounded and threatened Israel battled and defeated its Arab neighboring states of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria, and in the process ... -
Webathon Day 3: Belly Up!
Of course, if we don’t approach or meet our goal, yeah, “belly up” might be the right phrase, in an unfortunate way. But for the time being, we’ll consider it in the sense of “. . . to the bar.” If ... -
Overdrive Now Available. Odyssey Too (Not Homer’s).
You know, Bill Buckley’s life was jam-packed. Overdrive was his acclaimed 1981 “Personal Documentary” of a week in the life of NR’s whirlwind editor. We have 21 copies that once lived in Bill’s old office, but some were kept ... -
Let Me Persuade You.
And if I can’t, I bet my late NR pals, Linda Bridges and Bill Rickenbacker, can. As part of our moving effort, we’ve uncovered a box containing 20 copies of their acclaimed 1993 classic, The Art of Persuasion: A National ... -
We’re Going to Knock Down a Wall, and the Germans Are Going to Pay for It
As mentioned here sporadically, National Review will move its offices this Fall, so the commenced weeding-out process has uncovered hidden boxes. One, from what was Bill Buckley’s private stash, contains 20 copies of his acclaimed 2004 book, The Fall of the ... -
The New Buckley Bio Is Out
Yale University Press has formally released Professor Alvin Felzenberg’s long-awaited biography — A Man and His Presidents: The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr., which you can order directly from Amazon if you’d rather not swing by the ... -
Your Turn, Delta
Looks like there is another airline fracas in the making, courtesy of oversold flights, this time dinging a couple and their two kids, caught up in the seemingly selective policy of . . . forbidden baby seats: This specific incident aside, how stupid ... -
WFB Memorial Issue
We’ve come across 20 pristine-condition copies of the March 24, 2008 edition of National Review — a special tribute issue for William F. Buckley Jr., who had passed away days before the magazine went to press. It contains essays, reflections, and remembrances from (... -
It Only Took 81 Days
Dear Jolters, Pesach Sameach! To my brothers and sisters in Abraham. Happy Passover. All people of good will can cherish the celebration of freedom from enslavement. Finally Edition of “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” It usually is, and without question ... -
A Jack Fowler Morning Jolt: NR Podcasts and Remembering Linda Bridges
Ear Friend, I am accused, rightly, by my colleagues – including surely the vacationing Jim Geraghty, whose colossal shoes my tiny feet will try to fill this week – of trading in lousy puns, such as the salutation. Groan if you must, ... -
Some Cruises . . .
. . . will make you feel as if you’re knocking about on the SS Andalusia, piloted by Captain Peter Wrongway Peachfuzz. Remember him? Well, he may seem like a cartoon, but his spirit is for real. Let’s face it: There ... -
Speaking French in Madison
Or, French (David) will be speaking in Madison — Wisconsin, that is. About? About the “Trends that Are Tearing America Apart,” and you should hear him discuss it with Mike Nichols in a joint event sponsored by the National Review Institute ... -
Linda Bridges, RIP
Our colleague, who worked at National Review for over four decades, including as Managing Editor, Senior Editor, and Editor-at-Large, and as a personal assistant to William F. Buckley Jr., passed away this evening at Calvary Hospital in The Bronx, after ... -
C-SPAN at the National Review Institute Summit
On Friday, C-SPAN brought its cameras to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington to broadcast some of the primo events featured at NRI’s 2017 Ideas Summit. If you watched it live, great. If you missed it, well, following are some ... -
It’s NOT a Cruise!
Cruises take place on cruise ships, and this ain’t that. This is the renowned and remastered Queen Mary 2, the pride of Cunard Line, and she is an ocean liner, and a luxurious one at that. And if you are ... -
What You’re Doing March 16
Let me give you but one highlight: You’ll be in Washington, D.C., attending the National Review Institute “2017 Ideas Summit,” and after an afternoon of panels featuring and presentation by wise conservatives — so far those who will be on ... -
Hey Cupid!
If you are looking for that special, unique, once-in-a-lifetime (Saint!) Valentine’s Day gift that is going to wow the socks off your spouse, why not consider a beautiful stateroom on the National Review 2017 Trans-Atlantic Crossing on the stunning and ... -
(N)O Canada!
Even in the more liberal climes of our northern neighbors do flop the bald-faced schemes and scams concocted and perpetrated by one Steven Donziger, litigant extraordinaire, foe of Chevron, repeat loser, legal masochist. Ahab had better luck with Moby. The ... -
See Clearly When You Climb the Summit
Indeed, things may be looking pretty from that perspective, and you’ll need no hiking boots. Join fellow conservatives this March 16-17 at National Review Institute’s 2017 Ideas Summit, to be held in Washington, D.C., at the Mandarin Hotel. ... -
Publisher Announcement
Central to publishing, and to the National Review mission of spreading conservatism to as many people as possible, is new media. Paper and ink still matter. But less so now than does your iPhone. Garrett Bewkes, a new-media expert most ... -
Barry’s Gone. So Let’s . . . Celebrate!
Here’s how you can do that, in style, and help you check off that item surely on your bucket list: Come on the National Review 2017 Trans-Atlantic Crossing, departing from Southampton, U.K., this August 31 aboard Cunard Line’s historic ... -
Remastered
That’s what happened to Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 last year. All I can say, visiting the acclaimed ship post-rehab this spring, is that she is stunning. Check out the QM2’s remastered page, and why not also watch ... -
Meryl Streep, Meet Cecil B. De Mille
Dead now 57 years, Cecil B. De Mille (he spelled it in various ways) remains one of Hollywood’s greatest-ever directors, with some its biggest, most lucrative, and most popular films — including The Ten Commandments and The Greatest Show on Earth, ... -
More on the Late Nat Hentoff
The good folks at The Human Life Review have put together a nice tribute page to this most unexpected and powerful of friends to unborn children. -
‘Thank You for Giving Such Eloquent Voice to the Conservative Ideals I Hold So Dear’
Maybe Nan expressed it best, along with her kind $50 contribution. We are wrapping up this (extended!) end-of-the-year webathon. It was initiated to help bankroll our forthcoming head-to-toe, guts-and-all rebuild of NRO (we hit that goal of $125,000) and to further underwrite ... -
Is the First Amendment at a Crisis Point?
It may be. Regardless of who first coined the phrase “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (it was Voltaire biographer Evelyn Hall), the phrase seems to have lost ... -
This Is Where the Battle for Free Speech Is Taking Place
It’s our fight, but it’s yours too. We find Mann v. National Review — a background on District of Columbia Court of Appeals hearing (in November 2014!) was written by Charlie Cooke and can be read here , while the court’... -
Here Comes Santa Claus
The big guy is coming, and I hope is kind to all. You Little Santas out there — all 1,400 of you who have given to NR in this end-of-the-year webathon, many thanks. We can still use more help — as you may ... -
‘German Authorities Are Dangerously Underestimating the Threat of Islam’
Over at the Gatestone Institute, Geert Wilders weighs in on the latest Islamofascist attack in Berlin and claims that “a political revolution is brewing in Europe.” -
Rounding the Turn . . .
We are finishing our third full week of NRO’s end-of-the-year webathon. It was a good weekend – there was one very generous gift of five figures, before the decimal point. The explanation given: “I am donating this amount because of ... -
Judy, Judy, Judy . . .
Or whatever your name is: Please contribute to our end-of-the-year webathon, which is hoping to raise $150,000 for two reasons. The smaller one – if we hit the goal, $25,000 of the donated funds will be used to bankroll our 2017 student intern program. ... -
WWBW?
What Would Bill Want? The conservative movement’s founder and the apostle of the keyboard (seen here at the old NR offices on 35th Street tapping away on a Kaypro, the very same machine which some 31 years ago I used ... -
Calling All Men of Goodwill
And women too. NRO is in the midst of an end-of-the-year webathon, seeking to raise $150,000 to bankroll a complete rebuild of the website (plus to cover our 2017 student-intern costs). We are hoping our fans — exasperated maybe by the site’s ... -
Job Opportunity
National Review Institute, NR’s non-profit sister educational organization, is seeking a New York City-based Executive Assistant who will be responsible for assisting with NR and NRI’s office operations and working directly with NRI’s President. This is an ...
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The Redhunter Catches You
As Corner readers know, NR is moving, downsizing, and discovering in the process — we have come across 17 copies of the beautiful hardcover edition of Bill Buckley’s acclaimed 1999 novel, The Redhunter, a novel based on the life of WFB’s ... -
NR Institute Seeking Regional Fellows in Dallas and San Francisco
National Review Institute (NRI) is seeking applicants for its Fall 2017 Regional Fellows Programs in San Francisco and Dallas. The ideal applicant will be a mid-career professional, working in a non-policy professional setting. Past Fellows have represented diverse industries, and professions ... -
What Should Become of Steven Donziger?
Neither persistence nor determination are virtues. Yes, people value them: We all want to cheer for The Little Engine that Could and Rudy. But Steven Donziger, the environmental-activist lawyer, is no Rudy. Actually, he’s more of Bernie. As in ... -
$255,694
National Review’s Spring Webathon ends tomorrow, fittingly, it being the last day of Spring. Our goal is to raise $264,000. We’re close. Thousands of NRO denizens have given generously (you are just the very best readers anywhere — we are ... -
Consider Honoring Your Dad
Spring is about to expire, and so too will the National Review Spring Webathon, but not, I hope, before we reach our goal of $264,000. Yesterday we enjoyed a big surge of contributions (157 people hit the donate button), so we now ... -
Jay and the Medveds to Rock
Seattle . . . . . . and all Emerald City going to hang with them. Comrades, our pal Mr. Nordlinger will be in Seattle on Wednesday, June 21, from 5 to 7 p.m. to host an interview with bestselling author and radio show host Michael Medved (he’ll ... -
We Know Not the Hour, but Alex Did
This will be a day none here at National Review and NRI soon forget. This is the day Alex died. Long ago and far away: The previous mailroom guy having been let go (he permanently borrowed a VCR), NR was ... -
Help Us Reach Our . . .
. . . GOOOOOOOALLLL!!! The National Review Spring Webathon is three-quarters of the way to its goooooallll of $264,000. That’s terrific. If you’re part of the reason why we are doing so well, thanks. Have you yet to give? If so, we ... -
A Busy Weekend
Many of you found time this past weekend to contribute to the National Review Spring Webathon (which I attempt to explain here). Thanks to those who did, and we hope many of you are getting around to helping. Maybe Rich ... -
This Really Shouldn’t Fly
Last month, pinch-hitting for Jim Geraghty in the Morning Jolt (to which you really must subscribe), I wrote about the complaint by the Partnership for Open and Fair Skies that three Arab regimes are pumping billions of dollars into subsidizing ... -
Say It Ain’t So, Whittaker
How can you not love Al Felzenberg? He is a happy warrior, and a terrific writer. His new biography of our founder, A Man and His Presidents: The Political Odyssey of William F. Buckley Jr., has received deserved acclaim and ... -
The Meaning of Memorial Day
Dear Friends, More and more I consider Memorial Day the most meaningful federal holiday. Maybe that’s inspired by my love for old films: Every year, and once again this year, Turner Classic Movies presents a 72-Hour Memorial Day Marathon ... -
The Feminist Case against Abortion
Our good friends at The Human Life Review have one to make. -
If a Face Could Launch a Thousand Donations . . .
Week One of the NRO Spring Webathon is in the bag, and we are thrilled to report that some 600 people have contributed a total of $80,000. That’s an excellent fact. But then there’s this worrisome fact: We are seeking ... -
Well Seasoned Last Meal
From cubbyholes and far-flung bookcases, we’ve corralled 14 copies of this rare WFB hardcover – Execution Eve, and Other Contemporary Ballads. It’s the 1975 collection of his primo columns from the early 70s, when Bill was in his prime-o. They’re ... -
Well Seasoned Last Meal
From cubbyholes and far-flung bookcases, we’ve corralled 14 copies of this rare WFB hardcover – Execution Eve, and Other Contemporary Ballads. It’s the 1975 collection of his primo columns from the early 70s, when Bill was in his prime-o. They’re ... -
There Is a Spook in Their Midst
It’s 1954, Stalin has finally kicked the bucket, and a US-British plot to liberate a Soviet satellite country comes to a disastrous end. It’s been jinxed. Because of a mole. The hero of Bill Buckley’s famous novels – Blackford ... -
He’ll Need 2 Because . . . He’s Dad
He’d lose his head if it wasn’t stapled onto his neck, right? We love him, but . . . every night it’s a search for the remote, the glasses, the phone. The Big Lug, it’s one of the charming ... -
Help Us Raise a Thousandth of What George Soros Gave to Social-Justice Warriors
My pal Deroy Murdock called and we chit-chatted about this and that, and he told me a piece of news I had missed and find . . . staggering. Remember that nasty Women’s March on Washington and the associated “Day Without a ... -
Happy Days Were Here Again
We have ten copies, in excellent condition, of the hardcover copy of Bill Buckley’s 1993 collection of his best columns from the previous decade — Happy Days Were Here Again: Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist. Big and beautiful (498 pages), these are ... -
Tom Bolan, R.I.P.
“Where did the cruise go?” came the question over the wall of his cluttered cubicle at NR’s offices, where Thomas A. Bolan spent the last decade of his wound-down career as a big-league, clued-in New York attorney (he was, ... -
Conservatives International
The Right-Wing Conspiracy is indeed vast. This May 26–27, our Brexit-leading amigo Daniel Hannan will be spearheading a Conservatives International conference in Miami, with a terrific array of from-around-the-globe conservative speakers and a most welcome agenda for its inaugural regional conference, ... -
A Meditation before Easter
Dear Morning Jolt Readers, The offices of National Review are closed in observance of Good Friday. Or, as it is now formally known in Bloomington, Indiana, thanks to Mayor John Hamilton’s determined leftism, “Spring Holiday.” Father, forgive him, even ... -
In Llama Land There’s a One-Man Band…
. . . who will toot his flute for you. Dear Jolter, Airlines, tickets, seats — these are just some of the Icarus-based topics that everyone seems to be talking about in the wake of United Airlines’ dragged-passenger fiasco. So much anger! Remember back ... -
The Threats to Free Speech Are More Cultural Than Legal
That’s the case National Review Institute senior fellow David French will be making in Chicago on Thursday, April 20, when he and Illinois Policy Institute CEO John Tillman discuss “The Sound of Silence” at the Union League (65 West Jackson Boulevard). ... -
About Kevin Hassett
I am thrilled that President Trump has announced his intention to nominate Kevin to be the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. National Review magazine readers know Kevin (long of title, he is the State Farm James Q. Wilson ... -
Jay Coming to L.A.
The Great Nordlinger will be heading West next week to discuss all things under the sun and his new acclaimed collection, Digging In, on Thursday, April 13, from 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel (11461 Sunset Boulevard ... -
Some Reflections on Linda Bridges
If you’ve been around NR a long time, if you’ve been an institutional groupie, you probably never met Linda Bridges, or ever saw her (something I try to offset below). But: You know the name. And its importance. ... -
7 Cabins Booked this Week
And we expect more of the same next week. And you can expect to be totally shut out if you don’t act quickly to do what you know you really want to do: Namely, to reserve a sweet cabin ... -
‘She Is Unique Among Ships’
Part of the allure of the National Review 2017 Trans-Atlantic Crossing is the vessel itself, the iconic Queen Mary 2. She is a truly remarkable ship, a truly remarkable . . . anything. A combination of innovative engineering and unrivaled seafaring luxury, a creation of ... -
Paul Ryan: GOP Bill Will Resemble Tom Price’s Empowering Patients First Act
Yesterday, our pal Ellen Carmichael interviewed Speaker Paul Ryan for the Opportunity Lives podcast at Ricochet. Listen up: He told OppLives that the Republican replacement to Obamacare will largely resemble the comprehensive Empowering Patients First ... -
RIP Michael Novak
Our dear friend and the former religion editor of National Review died today, aged 83, after a battle with cancer. There will be a symposium on this happy warrior and apostle of belief and faith and the morality of markets forthcoming ... -
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to Appear at NRI Ideas Summit
Since the early 1990s, at first National Review, and now the National Review Institute, has gathered leading conservatives — business leaders, policy makers, writers, officials, lawmakers, academics — to join with NR readers and supporters for an intense few days of assessing ... -
Symposium on Immigration and Conservatism
National Review has a long and friendly relationship with The University Bookman, founded by Russell Kirk in 1960 and now edited by occasional NRO writer Gerald Russello. Today the Bookman has published a smart and substantial symposium that we recommend: “Conservative ... -
Ads Hit Dems’ Price Gouging, DeVos Smearing
The conservative 501(c)(4) advocacy group 45Committee has unleashed two ads, backed by seven figures, to counterattack Senate Democrat efforts to thwart the confirmations of Trump nominees Representative Tom Price (HHS) and Betsy DeVos (described by a National Review editorial as ... -
Trouble in Beantown for Fauxcahontas
Colin Reed, writing today in the Boston Herald, reports that Massachusetts’s sanctimonious liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren has an emerging scandal — about a mysterious and unreported line of credit on her Cambridge home — that overlays some lousy new ... -
Mann v. National Review — Our Formal Legal Response to the Latest Ruling
On December 22, a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals issued a verdict in Penn State professor Michael Mann’s defamation case against NR, Mark Steyn, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Rand Simberg. Our editorial, published the ... -
I Know What You Did This Summer
You went on the National Review 2017 Trans-Atlantic Crossing, aboard Cunard Line’s prestigious Queen Mary 2, which will leave Southampton on August 31 and arrive in New York City on September 7. There: You’ve just figured out your summer plans, and that ... -
More on Hentoff
Our friends at The Human Life Review are making available — free through January 17 — the 172-page e-book collection of the late Nat Hentoff’s essays and columns (over two dozen) written for or published by the Review from 1984 until 2005. You can ... -
Nat Hentoff, RIP
He was originally of the Left, but really, of humanity. Hard truths could not be ignored by Nat Hentoff, the acclaimed civil libertarian and Village Voice columnist (and renowned jazz critic), who parted ways with many on his “side” in ... -
We Give Thee Thanks
Our friends, maybe that includes you, have risen to the occasion — of our seeking assistance. For some weeks now (fear not: This is wrapping up in a couple of days) we have asked NRO regular readers to pitch in and ... -
The Israel/Guam Nexus
Very interesting point at the Elder of Ziyon blog about how the new U.S. policy on lands attained by Israel in the process of defending itself conflicts with America’s own practice relating to Guam. -
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Website Rebuild
Here we are trying to raise funds to bankroll a vital rebuild of NRO — the reasons why are explained cogently by my friend Charlie Cooke — and then the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (some 25 months after a three-judge panel ... -
Kudlow Watch
The National Review contributing editor is being talked about as Donald Trump’s pick to head the Council of Economic Advisers — that has unleashed a barrage of attacks from big-government liberals. The Wall Street Journal entered the fray today with ... -
You Are Making Us Merry
Our end-of-the-year webathon to raise funds for the rebuild of NRO – on which my pal Charlie Cooke pontificates with authority – and to underwrite our summer student intern program is going quite well. We have raised over $120,000, towards our goal of $150,000. ... -
Think About Helping NRO
As we head into the weekend, try to find a little time, maybe even now, to match that little conscience-twinge that is telling you – make a contribution to the NRO webathon. As you may know, we are seeking to gather $150,000 ... -
‘Crashy McCrashface’
First, here’s a pre-sequiturial, seasonal vintage Santa image to put you in the giving mood. Hmmm. Santa seems a little lost in his thoughts. Perhaps he’s wondering . . . whether to stick it to you on the 25th. As mentioned ... -
Make the Nice List
Christmas approaches and one way to make sure that Santa leaves no coal in your stocking on the 25th is to do something good. Something nice. Let me suggest you doing something that will put a smile on the face ... -
Kirk Douglas Turns 100
His politics aren’t mine, but films being the premier American art, and he being one of cinema’s most respected actors, Douglas deserves a heartfelt happy birthday greeting on turning 100, and some recognition for a body of work that ... -
It’s Your Turn
That’s not an inspiring phrase, because from youth it was and is the lead to “ . . . to do the dishes” or “ . . . to change the baby’s diapers” or some other enchanting chore. Still, it’s a fact. And if you ...