A mere four days remain in NR’s Fall 2019 Webathon, which hopes to raise $325,000 for general support of this heralded and vital institution, and in part to help finance the expensive legal challenge – to our First Amendment right, and to your First Amendment right – now in its seventh year. We speak of course of National Review v. Mann, now at a critical juncture, as the United States Supreme Court considers our formal petition to take up the case (the alternative being, a lengthy, expensive, risky jury trial in the very liberal District of Columbia of Appeals, where the right of free speech seems to be held with something less than awe and reverence).


As we head into the home stretch, a number of NRO readers have conquered their I’ll-get-to-it desire to chip in, and chip away at the remaining amount. Over 2,300 people have provided true material help that keeps NR invigorated and in the fight. Here are four kindly folks who, just yesterday, stepped up alongside us on the barricades:

Lance from Marblehead, Mass. tossed in $100 and regaled us with a story and some advice: “I had the pleasure of meeting your founder my freshman year at Princeton when he debated Dr. Arthur Schlessinger off his feet at Dillon gymnasium. What a gracious gentleman he was and generous to spend a few minutes with us before the event. Keep standing up for the principles of liberty, (but keep the anti-Trumpism under control). Blessings to all!” You have provided them, good friend. We are quite appreciative.

Susan in Santa Rosa, Calif. doubles with a $200 contribution and doubles down on our fight: “Free Speech is the absolute and essential foundation of our constitution. All is lost if the 1st Amendment is weakened in any way.” We’re fighting for it thanks to you, good friend.

From up in Moncton, New Brunswick, comes Patrick’s 50 smackers (USD!) and slaps a label on NR: “The sane and responsible, thoughtful and insightful voice in the din of political and cultural opinions. From a concerned and not ‘pseudo-woke’ Canadian! God bless you in your undeserved travails against Michael Mann the hyperthin-skinned.”

Brian from Vienna, Va., plunks a C-Note in the plate and offers an act of contrition: “This contribution is long overdue. No more freeloading like a Socialist! Keep up the excellent work. It is needed more than ever.” No one owes us a penny Brian, which makes the generosity all the sweeter when it does happen. Thanks so much.

Now about the attending above picture that gives some of us (well, me) an opportunity to exploit a fetish for stamps: The press is not everyone’s best friend. The “fake news” brush broadly applies the paint. All get coated. But let’s face this too: The concept and consequences of a “free press” applies to NR intimately also apply to you – and very much intimately too. Because the stamp is right in its boast: Liberty Depends on Freedom of the Press.

In National Review v. Mann, it’s your liberty, your assumed free-speech right, that is indeed under threat. Since this action commenced in 2012, NR has been engaged in legal hand-to-hand combat: Why? Because . . . imagine if a liberal jury is empowered to rule on what can and can’t be said as regards a pressing or controversial policy issue. What do you think the ramifications would be, not only for a press institutions such as NR, but for people? People such as . . . you? Good people who might at some point express a “wrong” opinion (or fact) that some busybody multiculturalist will want adjudicated?


Your donation to the webathon will help NR broadly, help it specifically in this vital legal battle, and help it – as well as every press institution, as well as every American with an opinion to share –defend liberty. Here’s how we see it on this 7th of November: If today some 200 people see fit to donate between $50 to $100, we will reduce our remaining objective to $25,000, getting us all the closer to our $325,000 objective. Would you be part of that group? If you want to give, but can’t meet this suggestion, be assured that every dollar matters, and every dollar is appreciated. So give. If you can do more than what has been suggested (one super dude yesterday made a $2,000 donation) then please consider an extra umph of kindness.

Where to donate? Right here. And if those stamps have you a-wanting to contribute by mail, just make a check payable to “National Review” and send it to National Review, ATTN: 2019 Fall Webathon, 19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, NY 10036.