Category: Conservative Review
DC Government Rakes In Millions From Fortress Of Speed Cameras In High-Traffic Areas
‘The lowest number of roadway fatalities’
Graham Platner Solicits Donations for Maine Anti-ICE Group Led By Accused Somali Fraudsters
Senate candidate Graham Platner (D., Maine) urged supporters to donate to an anti-ICE group led by several Somalis tied to a nonprofit under congressional investigation for allegedly defrauding the state of millions of dollars in Medicaid payments. The day after ICE launched a statewide operation targeting illegal aliens in Maine, Platner promoted the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coalition (MIRC), a taxpayer-funded nonprofit that touted its “ICE Watch Hotline” earlier this month. Its board has included Deqa Dhalac and Nathan Davis, who have been named persons of interest in a congressional probe over their leadership roles at Gateway Community Services Maine.
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‘Fraud … for abortion’? Vance announces probe into Planned Parenthood’s $88M taxpayer-funded loans at March for Life
Vice President JD Vance attended the 2026 March for Life in Washington, D.C., on Friday, during which he announced that the Trump administration had launched an investigation into Planned Parenthood affiliates.
The crowd began to chant “JD” as Vance stepped onto the stage. He recalled that his first speech as vice president was at last year’s March for Life.
‘You should not be able to commit fraud and use taxpayer money for abortion.’
“Some of you may remember that in my remarks last year, I told you all, one of the things I most wanted in the United States of America was more families and more babies. So, let the record show, you have a vice president who practices what he preaches,” Vance said, referring to the recent announcement that he and second lady Usha Vance are expecting their fourth child.
Vance credited Trump for selecting Supreme Court justices who delivered “the most important Supreme Court decision in my lifetime,” Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Vance argued that Trump “shattered a 50-year culture of disposability … that treated human life as expendable the moment that it became inconvenient.”
“He empowered our nation and our movement to build a culture of life from the grassroots up. … Our vision is simple: We want life to thrive in the United States of America,” the vice president continued.
“We’re not trying to argue to the Supreme Court anymore. We are trying to argue to our fellow citizens that we must build up that culture of life,” he added.
RELATED: Nash Keen’s life proves the unborn deserve the law’s protection
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Vance pledged that pro-life supporters have an ally in the Trump administration.
The vice president announced that the administration on Thursday launched a fraud investigation into Planned Parenthood affiliates for “millions of dollars” in Paycheck Protection Program loans that were “unlawfully received and unlawfully forgiven by the Biden administration.”
“You should not be able to commit fraud and use taxpayer money for abortion,” Vance remarked.
He also mentioned a “historic” expansion of the Mexico City Policy to block international organizations that promote or perform abortion abroad from receiving taxpayer money.
Ahead of Vance’s speech, the March for Life played recorded remarks from President Donald Trump.
“For 53 years, students, families, patriots, and believers have come to Washington from every corner of the country to defend the infinite worth and God-given dignity of every human life,” Trump told attendees. “Six years ago, I was proud to be the first president in history to attend this march in person. Since then, we have made unprecedented strides to protect innocent life and support the institution of the family like never before — there’s never been anything like it.”
“Under the Trump administration, we’re strongly defending religious liberty. We’re bringing back faith in America. We’re bringing back God,” Trump added.
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
A Thursday press release from the Small Business Administration stated that the agency is reviewing more than $88 million in PPP loans provided to Planned Parenthood affiliates. The agency noted that it sent letters to 38 Planned Parenthood organizations requiring documentation proving their eligibility to receive the relief funds.
Melanie Newman, Planned Parenthood’s chief external affairs officer, issued a statement responding to the SBA’s action.
“Planned Parenthood member organizations follow the law — and previous investigations prove it,” Newman stated. “These latest politically motivated intimidation tactics are about the Trump administration finding every possible avenue to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers and make it harder for people to get high-quality health care from their trusted Planned Parenthood provider. That’s it.”
“And that’s what the Trump administration and its allies are focusing on today: shutting down Planned Parenthood health centers. Meanwhile, all across the country, people can’t afford to see a doctor; the hospitals they rely on are closing; even basic groceries are too expensive,” Newman said. “That’s what the Small Business Administration should be working on: making people’s lives better. Instead, they’re hellbent on making them worse.”
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‘Sparkle Beach Ken’ Is Too Kind To Gavin Newsom
The California governor correctly figures that if he stays on offense, his own dismal record will be ignored — even if that offense is odd.
How pro-life groups are misleading you on abortion numbers
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned nearly four years ago, countless pro-life organizations have pushed new regulations on abortion. Many of those same groups have rushed to declare victory, claiming that conservative states are now “abortion-free.”
But when pro-life organizations declare any state “abortion-free,” they celebrate a victory that does not exist — and drastically overstate the impact of pro-life laws.
The preborn babies murdered under the cover of our laws deserve more than semantic victories. They deserve equal protection.
These claims don’t just mislead. They undermine the cause these organizations claim to champion.
Exaggerating victories
The claim that some states are “abortion-free” isn’t rare. It has become standard messaging.
Students for Life published a map three years ago declaring that 14 states are now “abortion-free.” Frank Pavone, who leads Priests for Life, has made the same claim about Mississippi. National Right to Life called Kentucky “abortion-free” as recently as last summer. LifeNews has become notorious for amplifying inflated or misleading abortion claims from pro-life groups at the state level.
These declarations suggest abortion has been eliminated in these states. The reality says otherwise.
Pro-life leaders do not make clear that in every state labeled “abortion-free,” abortions remain legal for women who want to kill their preborn babies.
Many conservative states shut down abortion clinics and imposed penalties on providers. At the same time, those states wrote explicit exemptions into law protecting women from prosecution for willfully obtaining abortions.
That wasn’t a mistake. Pro-life organizations crafted and promoted that policy.
Self-induced abortions
Legal immunity for women who murder their preborn babies created a massive loophole. It also opened the door to a surge in self-induced abortions.
Women in “abortion-free” states can order abortion pills online from telehealth providers operating under shield laws in blue states or from overseas providers.
In many cases, it remains perfectly legal to order these pills, possess them, and use them at home. The scale of this practice — even in conservative states — is staggering.
Consider Kentucky, which National Right to Life called “abortion-free.”
In Kentucky, more than 2,800 women in 2024 received mail-order abortion pills through telehealth providers alone, according to data from the Society of Family Planning.
That does not include the more than 4,300 Kentucky women who traveled to other states for abortions in 2024, according to the Guttmacher Institute. It also does not capture self-induced abortions outside the formal medical system.
Kentucky is not an outlier.
RELATED: How a pro-life law in Kentucky lets mothers get away with murder
Carl Lokko via iStock/Getty Images
When all available data is considered, the 14 conservative states that have banned or mostly banned abortion — the same states pro-life groups often call “abortion-free” — saw at least 250,000 preborn babies murdered in 2024.
That number represents a sharp increase from the 181,000 abortions recorded in those states in 2019.
In other words, pro-life laws have not created states with fewer abortions. They have created states where abortion has shifted away from clinics and toward self-induced abortions at home — abortions that remain legal for the mother who commits them.
How can abortion increase while pro-life organizations claim success? Because many have misrepresented what they mean by “abortion-free.”
When these groups say “abortion-free,” they mean abortion clinics have closed. They do not mean abortions have stopped. It’s like calling a city “crime-free” because the district attorney refuses to prosecute criminals. The semantics conceal the reality.
Opposing abolition
Even more troubling, major pro-life organizations often oppose the bills that would actually abolish abortion.
When lawmakers introduce equal protection bills — proposals that would make abortion illegal for everyone, including pregnant mothers — pro-life organizations often mobilize against them.
This has happened dozens of times across the country. The reasoning stays consistent: Pro-life groups insist women are victims of abortion and should not face legal consequences, even when they deliberately order abortion pills and self-induce abortions at home.
When pro-life groups oppose equal protection bills and then claim their states are “abortion-free,” they don’t merely exaggerate. They sabotage.
Everyday anti-abortion Americans hear “abortion-free” and assume the fight is over. Activism slows. Political pressure fades. Donations and support shift elsewhere. Meanwhile organizations that should be pressing for equal protection instead suppress the only laws that would actually end abortion.
In the meantime, abortion continues unabated — simply moved from clinics to living rooms.
The pro-life establishment has redefined victory to fit what it has achieved, not what it claims to seek. It has declared victory over a substitute target — abortion clinics — while the killing of preborn children continues through abortion pills and interstate travel.
RELATED: Why the pro-life movement fails without a Christian worldview
wildpixel via iStock/Getty Images
Demanding honesty
Americans who oppose abortion deserve honesty from the organizations claiming to represent them.
If abortion can still be performed legally in a state through mail-order pills, that state is not “abortion-free.” If abortion numbers rise rather than fall, victory has not arrived. If pro-life groups oppose laws that would make abortion illegal for everyone, they owe the public an explanation.
Abolishing abortion requires equal protection under the law: making the killing of any human being illegal for everyone, without exception or compromise.
Until major pro-life organizations support that principle, their claims of creating “abortion-free” states remain not just premature but dishonest.
The preborn babies murdered under the cover of our laws deserve more than semantic victories. They deserve equal protection — and Americans who oppose abortion deserve leaders honest enough to admit when that goal remains unmet.
Trump’s primary endorsements are sabotaging his own agenda
Imagine what the Republican Party would have looked like had President Trump been endorsing conservative reformers down-ballot rather than milquetoast RINOs backed by special interests for five consecutive cycles.
In 2016, President Trump stormed the corporatist castle of the country-club GOP. But over the next five election cycles, he pulled up the rope ladder behind him. He left the reinforcements outside the gates, which crushed his ability to deliver on his promises in his first term. It also allowed generic Republicans to ride his brand while drifting away from his original America First message.
Conservatives understand that competition improves a product. When Trump protects incumbents from primary pressure, he guarantees that the party never improves.
Now he is making the same mistake in his second term by backing status-quo, corporatist Republicans in key races.
2026 is do or die
The opening months of 2026 should be the Super Bowl of primaries for the right. Vulnerable establishment Republicans and open seats sit on the board across solid red states — for Senate and governor.
Even if Republicans struggle in swing states, Trump could still lock in a generation of red-state power by backing grassroots conservatives in open seats and insurgents challenging weak incumbents.
Instead, he keeps yanking the rug out from under his own base.
Louisiana bait and switch
Over the weekend, the president endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) for U.S. Senate in Louisiana. Until now, Trump has refused to back conservatives against incumbents — except when he endorsed against Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Bob Good of Virginia in 2024.
So yes, Trump finally moved against Sen. Bill Cassidy, a pro-COVID-vaccine liberal wasting a conservative seat. But he waited until more conservative candidates — state Treasurer John Fleming, state Sen. Blake Miguez, and state Rep. Julie Emerson — softened Cassidy up. Then Trump picked a challenger who matches Cassidy’s worldview in a prettier package.
Letlow sides with Cassidy on government-run health care and the COVID vaccines. She also voted against penalizing FDA officials for unlawfully expanding access to mifepristone. Trump carried Louisiana by 22 points and won 57 of 64 parishes. He could have used his clout to elect a conservative stalwart like Miguez. Instead, he chose another version of the same problem.
RELATED: Voters won’t buy ‘freedom in Iran’ while Minneapolis goes lawless
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Governors matter now
If Democrats regain Washington, governors become the last real barrier against federal abuse. Red-state governors will matter more than ever, especially if Democrats install a weaponized Gavin Newsom-style agenda at the national level.
After Ron DeSantis turned Florida from swing state into the red-state model, Republicans should be building an entire bench of governors who make even DeSantis look tame. But Trump’s endorsement habits keep locking in mediocrity. In Florida, he is backing Byron Donalds — a favorite of the legislative RINOs who fought DeSantis for years.
Fourteen governorships are up in states Republicans should win even in a rough year: Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. Trump hasn’t made one bold, movement-building endorsement as he did with DeSantis in 2018. Instead, he has already pre-emptively endorsed Idaho Gov. Brad Little for a third term and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for a fourth.
Texas betrayal rewarded
Trump has started interfering even in state legislative races. In Texas, Republicans cut a deal with Democrats and installed Dustin Burrows as speaker against the will of most of the party. Burrows rewarded them by handing committees to Democrats and killing conservative priorities.
When conservatives moved to defeat the traitors, Trump carpet-bombed the effort by endorsing Burrows and his lieutenants for re-election.
Conservatives understand that competition improves a product. Trump keeps canceling that competition. When he protects incumbents from primary pressure, he guarantees that the party never improves.
’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ brings new life to horror franchise
Like the post-apocalyptic Britain of the “28 Days Later” franchise, Hollywood has become a wasteland, teeming with the stripped-down, lethally efficient shells of once-vital creations. Nostalgia-driven reboots swarm the multiplex, satisfying audience cravings for familiarity and studio appetites for certainty — even as they leave the surrounding creative landscape increasingly barren.
This year’s “28 Years Later” could just as easily have been another of these living-dead productions. While previous installment “28 Weeks Later” (2007) — made with nominal participation from the original creative team — delivered competent scares, it hardly cried out for a follow-up.
The movie is littered with British cultural references — decontextualized and repurposed by survivors struggling to find meaning in a world they no longer understand.
But the return of director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland proved worth the wait. “28 Years Later” demonstrated that this universe could still surprise, ending with a tantalizingly bizarre coda in which our hero Spike is rescued by Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and his blonde-wigged, track-suited minions. Clearly the infected are not the only menace stalking the British countryside.
Charity cases
“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” picks up right after this moment, confirming our suspicions that Spike’s troubles have just begun. After a gruesome kind of initiation, Spike is forcibly enlisted as one the “Jimmys,” who turn out to be a gang of satanic killers. Led by Jimmy Crystal, who believes himself to be the son of “Old Nick,” they prowl the land inflicting gruesome ritualized violence — which they call “charity” — on those unfortunate enough to meet them.
While Garland returns as screenwriter, Boyle (who stays on as producer) cedes the director’s chair to Nia DaCosta, whose striking use of lingering close-ups and tightly framed compositions inject the film with a raw, anarchic energy. The result is a legacy sequel that both pays homage to its origins and reimagines them — one that weaves graphic violence together with incisive observations on culture, faith, and survival in a world irreversibly altered by catastrophe.
Doctor Sleep
Many of those observations come straight from the kindly and philosophical Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), an eccentric recluse who provided shelter for runaway Spike and his dying mother in “28 Years Later.” In this grisly sequel, the iodine-covered, blowdart-wielding former physician is searching for a cure to the rage virus, using an infected “alpha” zombie — whom he names Samson — as his pet project.
He also continues work on the titular bone temple, a memorial to the outbreak’s victims, until his optimism and ingenuity is tested by the new and horrifying human adversary we met in the beginning.
While Boyle’s 2002 film focused on urban chaos, this installment widens its lens, exploring the virus’ impact across the countryside while delving into deeper philosophical terrain. Beneath the skin-flaying, stabbings, “Mortal Kombat”-style spine removals, and Iron Maiden needle drops lies a poignant meditation on a once-beautiful country sliding into social and spiritual decay.
This is England
DaCosta, an American director, deftly preserves the distinctly English identity of the original films. The movie is littered with British cultural references — decontextualized and repurposed by survivors struggling to find meaning in a world they no longer understand.
The Jimmys, with their blonde wigs, tracksuits, and gold jewelry, are intentionally modeled after Jimmy Savile, one of Britain’s most notorious sex offenders. In this universe — where society collapsed in 2002, years before Savile’s real-world crimes were exposed — the cult reveres him as a benevolent, almost mythical figure. Their so-called acts of “charity” grotesquely invert Savile’s public image of philanthropy, turning it into a rationale for cruelty and sadism.
The dynamic between Sir Jimmy and Kelson is magnetic. O’Connell and Fiennes deliver outstanding performances, moving seamlessly between surrealism and melancholy. Some of the film’s most compelling moments occur when these two simply share the screen in conversation.
Sir Jimmy and Kelson represent competing philosophies of survival. In desperate times, humanity creates belief systems — sometimes as tools of power, sometimes as mechanisms of self-preservation. Through these two figures, Garland weaves a thoughtful exploration of evil, faith, and meaning.
RELATED: ‘28 Years Later’: Brutal, bewildering, and unabashedly British
Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images
Feral faith
Religious symbolism runs throughout the film. The Jimmys repurpose Savile’s catchphrase “Howzat!” as a ritual chant — stripped of its original meaning and reconstituted as a signifier of violence. Kelson, meanwhile, assumes the role of a secular creator. His humanist liturgy centers on music and literature, which function as sacred texts connecting him to the past and preserving his sanity.
Samson’s transformation becomes an allegory for rebirth: emerging from the hell of infection into renewal. Where the biblical Adam becomes aware of his nakedness after eating from the tree of knowledge, Samson’s recovery inspires modesty as he clothes himself with memories of his return. It is the Fall in reverse — self-awareness as ascension, rebirth without grace.
“The Bone Temple” manages to inject genuine life into a franchise nearly 25 years old. I may regret saying this, but I am genuinely curious to see where the story goes next — especially with Boyle returning to direct the third and final installment. The film’s closing scene teases the return of a familiar face, and John Murphy’s fuzzed-out guitar theme suggests that hope remains, for both the survivors and the fans.
