The family of a student in a viral video of a disturbing high school wrestling match with a transgender-identifying opponent has filed a lawsuit to end the policies at the school.

The alarming video showed the female student suddenly appear distressed during the match and yell to her mother for help.

‘Despite mandatory reporter laws, officials ignored the incident until it became a national news story weeks later. Even now, they refuse to take it seriously.’

She later said that the opponent had sexually assaulted her during the match.

According to the lawsuit, the student did not know she was competing with a transgender-identifying athlete during the Dec. 2025 match at Rogers High School in Puyallup, Washington.

Pierce County prosecutors declined to prosecute the student on the basis that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The principal and athletic director of the school are facing separate charges because they failed to report the allegation for two months to law enforcement officials.

The school has claimed the two acted in accordance with the information known at the time and that the district launched an investigation immediately upon learning about the incident.

The mother said that the school did nothing about the allegation despite her presenting them with the video of the incident. They only responded, according to her, after the issue gained national attention.

“Despite mandatory reporter laws, officials ignored the incident until it became a national news story weeks later,” read the lawsuit. “Even now, they refuse to take it seriously — to deal with the assault, to reserve girls sports for girls, or even to give parents the necessary notice so they can keep their daughters safe.”

The family is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom.

On Tuesday the family’s attorneys appeared in court asking for an injunction to stop the school from making females compete with biological males.

RELATED: LA Times hit with vicious online backlash for bizarre headline about trans-identifying athlete

“The most important thing is that parents have a right to know if their child is going to be put in an unsafe situation, like being on a wrestling mat with a male athlete,” said Hal Frampton of the ADF. “They deserve notice and the right to opt out of that situation.”

While some reports describe the alleged assault as “groping,” the lawsuit asserts that the victim’s vagina was digitally penetrated.

Attorneys for the district say the incident is being investigated, but they dispute that the student’s Title IX protections were violated.

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​Alliance defending freedom, Title ix, Sexual assault, Transgender-identifying athlete, Politics 

A Chinese national was arrested Wednesday in Massachusetts for orchestrating a bizarre scheme involving the alleged framing of another national for voter fraud.

33-year-old Yupeng Sun impersonated another Chinese person who had legal permanent status and tried to frame the victim for voting in the 2024 election, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office press release.

He then submitted numerous anonymous tips to Homeland Security Investigations and US Citizenship and Immigration Services accusing the victim of illegally voting.

Sun also allegedly submitted two fraudulent immigration forms in the name of the victim and his wife, which led to their green cards being confiscated. They were also entered into removal proceedings.

Prosecutors said Sun impersonated the victim in order to register online to vote and then submitted an early voting ballot at Malden City Hall.

He then submitted numerous anonymous tips to Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services accusing the victim of illegally voting in the presidential election.

Sun went on to impersonate the couple in order to request the abandonment of their legal permanent status.

The couple discovered the scheme when they returned to the U.S. from an international trip in June 2024 and their green cards were confiscated during secondary inspection at the airport in Boston.

The DOJ said the Lexington Police Department and the Andover Police Department were instrumental in the investigation to unravel Sun’s alleged scheme.

Sun was charged with one count of fraudulent voter registration and one count of fraudulent voting.

RELATED: Convicted scammer and former aide to Minneapolis mayor arrested… AGAIN

United States Attorney General charging documents online

The charging documents indicated that the victims told police Sun was their tenant but had been evicted and retaliated by harassing them and ultimately trying to get them deported. Sun had been arrested for allegedly attacking the victims’ daughter, but the charges were dropped.

Sun admitted that he was “very, very” angry at both the victim and his daughter in an interview with police and appeared to confess to signing some of the documents.

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​Chinese national, Voter fraud, Immigration, Deportations, Politics 

Rosie O’Donnell had never been a guest on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” before she accepted an offer to host the show.

Replacing Jimmy Kimmel during his summer vacation, O’Donnell was brought on for a week with one simple goal: to upset President Trump.

‘I don’t know how she can live with herself.’

I see Nazis

Kimmel said himself O’Donnell was being used as a “special treat” for the president, perpetuating the unlikely notion that, of course, the president is a nightly viewer.

O’Donnell told Variety that while she and Kimmel had never spoken in person, while saying they have an “adversarial relationship,” she was happy to take the opportunity to stick it to Trump.

Particularly, O’Donnell took shots at Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison — due to his apparent closeness with the president — for the pending takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, which would give him control of CBS and CNN.

“It would be like Fox taking over all news channels. Imagine if Fox was not one outlier and Fox was the mainstay? That’s what’s happening with Hollywood now and the Ellisons, and it’s tragic,” O’Donnell claimed.

“Look at what’s happened to CBS News and ’60 Minutes,’ which was the gold star of their entire network, and they blew it up,” O’Donnell declared.

Seemingly with no room for upward trajectory left on her insults, O’Donnell then alluded to the idea that CBS News editor Bari Weiss, who is Jewish, is siding with “Nazis.”

“This Bari Weiss person, I don’t know how she can live with herself. There are people who are sidling up to him and history will record all of their names, what they did, and who they stood next to,” O’Donnell continued.

She added, “If you’re in a room with 10 Nazis at a table and you’re the only one who’s not, there’s a pretty good chance you’re a Nazi.”

RELATED: ‘I wasn’t invited to those parties’: Kelsey Grammer mocks woke Hollywood hypocrisy

Spite night

Fellow television host Piers Morgan was one of the most vocal opponents of O’Donnell’s Nazi comparisons.

Morgan said a day later, “Calling Jewish people ‘Nazis’ is so disgusting.”

Morgan labeled the comments “such a pathetic line of attack that it makes me want [Bari Weiss] and David Ellison to succeed in shaking up TV News as all the hateful trolls like O’Donnell will them to fail.”

The spite-based (temporary) return to hosting comes after O’Donnell revealed on a recent podcast that she got a tattoo to remind herself of her daughter’s pronouns. O’Donnell said that her 13-year-old, who believes she is “nonbinary,” became annoyed with her mother’s inability to remember how to address her.

“They first told me that it was ‘they/them,’ I tried my best, but I kept saying ‘she,'” O’Donnell said.

“And so they wrote on a cardboard paper ‘they,’ and then they would hold it up above their head every time I said ‘she,'” O’Donnell laughed.

This led to a tattoo that says “they” on O’Donnell’s wrist, so that she will “never forget.”

RELATED: Rosie O’Donnell takes drastic measure to stop herself from ‘misgendering’ her ‘nonbinary’ teenager

Hoda Davaine/Getty Images/SXSW London

Irish goodbye

O’Donnell also revealed that while she thought her tattoo was a loving gesture, her daughter was completely numb to the idea.

“I thought she’d be very touched, and she didn’t give two s**ts. She could not care less.”

O’Donnell has lived in Ireland since Trump took office in 2025, where she has pursued citizenship on grounds of her ancestry. It is unclear whether or not it has been awarded. On the other hand, Trump threatened to revoke O’Donnell’s U.S. citizenship last summer.

As a talk show host, O’Donnell’s “The Rosie Show” had one season in 2011-2012, while “The Rosie O’Donnell Show” had six seasons from 1996 to 2002.

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​Donald trump, Jimmy kimmel, Piers morgan, Rosie o’donnell, Nazis, Entertainment, Bari weiss 

Republican Nancy Mace shocked the internet this week when she decided to debut her heavily tattooed arms for the first time — after keeping them under wraps for months.

Mace revealed that she got the tattoos in order to experience “the pain that I need to feel.”

“When you say something like ‘I need to feel pain’ or ‘I deserve to feel pain,’ there are just warning-sign alarms going off all over the place for me,” BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere comments, disturbed.

“Yes, that’s something I expect to hear from a cashier at Hot Topic, not a congresswoman,” co-host Dave Landau agrees.

“Also, ‘pain I need to feel’ sounds like a Nine Inch Nails song or like a Clive Barker movie. It doesn’t sound like a reason you get tattoos. I have tattoos. They’re hidden. I mean, I suppose are emotional pain, due to who I got them for, which is also why they’re hidden,” he says.

Dave notes that it reminds him of an acquaintance he has who got an “end racism” tattoo on his lower back.

“He came over on his motorcycle, and this was maybe 2000. And he showed me, and half my friends there were black, half were white. And he showed us his ‘end racism’ tattoo. And if you ever want to see black people laugh harder … show them your almost-a-tramp-stamp ‘end racism’ lower back tattoo,” he says.

“That must have gone over really well,” Stu says.

“Oh yeah, he ended up getting it removed,” Dave adds.

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​Congresswoman, Nancy mace, Republican, Tattoos, Stu burguiere, Dave landau, Blazetv show 

A special education teacher at a California elementary school is being investigated after concerned members of the community sent the district disturbing social media posts attributed to her.

Kenisha Daily of Fresno said she was “starting a black militia” and wanted to go “rob some white people” in the posts on Instagram, according to video shared by KFSN-TV.

‘I viewed the post as entertainment and never meant to threaten, harm, or alarm anyone.’

“Starting today I’m starting a black militia, so if you’re black and you wanna shoot some guns, come find me! We gonna rob some white people,” she said in one video. She also posted video of herself handling a long gun as well as a handgun, KFSN reported.

The controversial videos appear to have been removed from her account.

The Madera Unified School District put Daily on administrative leave from teaching at Lincoln Elementary School, though as of Wednesday afternoon, she is still listed among the staff on the school’s website. A temporary restraining order has also been ordered against Daily, according to KFSN.

Law enforcement officials told KFSN that they are investigating the videos.

In a statement to KFSN, Daily apologized for posting the videos.

“I viewed the post as entertainment and never meant to threaten, harm, or alarm anyone,” she said in the statement.

“I am genuinely heartbroken that a careless post has caused people to question my character and the trust they have in me,” she added. “For anyone who has been impacted or made to feel uncomfortable, I am truly sorry.”

RELATED: VIDEO: Cop turns in her badge and gun after posting racist rant against black people online

KFSN noted that Daily had been featured in a few news stories, including one from 2024 in which she received free braces as a part of the “Smiles for Teachers” program.

“I realize that I am an avenue for my students to be able to integrate into the classrooms, into the community,” she said on a newscast at the time. “And so, I’m reflective of them. And I have to make sure that I’m reflecting the best parts of them.”

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​Social media, Anti-white racism, Teacher, California, Politics 

Sophie Cunningham responded with style, grace, and domination after fans in Canada booed her relentlessly during the Indiana Fever game against the Toronto Temper Tuesday.

The star guard has come under fire after she made a powerful statement in support of women’s sports and against biological males competing against females.

‘I think that’s what sports is all about. You’re going to get boos. You’re going to get cheers.’

That may have been the impetus for the Canadian fans booing passionately whenever Cunningham got the ball during the WNBA matchup. Several viewers posted videos of the booing on social media.

Cunningham hit all three of her three-point attempts and helped the Fever defeat the Tempo, 101 to 95.

After the game, she was gracious in a postgame press conference and complimented the fans in the arena.

“I want to shout out the Tempo crowd and the city. I think we’ve had so much fun. It’s my first time being in Canada. It’s a lot of our first times being in Canada,” Cunningham said unprompted.

“But the crowd was absolutely amazing, and, you know, I think that’s what sports is all about. You’re going to get boos. You’re going to get cheers,” she added. “But just the fact that they’re so passionate, they’re loud, and they’re putting on for the city, I think it’s amazing.”

In an on-court interview after the game, she also appeared to reference the controversy over transgender-identifying athletes.

“What a great environment for women’s basketball. It was a hell of a crowd. It was a lot of fun to play in front of,” she said.

When asked about her role among the “big three” scorers, she referenced girls playing sports again.

“I’m just here. I’m just here. Whatever the team needs of me, I’m going to do,” she insisted.

“Like I said, I’m just going to come, have some fun. Maybe inspire some young girls to come beat me one day!”

RELATED: Black WNBA player blames ‘white privilege’ after ejection for hitting Sophie Cunningham

Cunningham’s support for women athletes has led to some fans appearing at her games with signs thanking her for standing up against unfair competition.

This in turn has led to some angry responses from many, including the co-owner of the Seattle Storm, who cursed out two teenage girls at a game. She was later suspended and fined by the league.

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​Sophie cunningham, Wnba, Womens sports, Transgender athletes, Sports 

The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced that it is turning old federal land — including Cold War uranium sites, closed military facilities, and other public parcels — into part of the physical backbone of America’s artificial intelligence buildout, pairing new data centers with the power generation needed to run them. The projects could also create new domestic jobs.

Critics will focus on the benefits to big technology companies. The larger issue is harder to dismiss: Energy security is national security. The country that can build and power the next generation of AI infrastructure will hold an enormous economic and strategic advantage.

Whatever disagreements Americans have over individual energy sources, China is not waiting for us to resolve them.

That means the United States cannot afford an ideological energy policy. Whether the resource is natural gas, nuclear power, solar, battery storage, or the critical minerals needed to build advanced technologies, domestic supply should be treated as a strategic asset.

AI is already changing the scale of America’s power needs. Data centers alone could soon consume as much electricity as the entire country of Malaysia. Advanced manufacturing is returning to American soil and will require still more reliable power.

The military is modernizing with increasingly energy-intensive technology as well. As retired U.S. Air Force Lt. General David Deptula argued in the Washington Post, data itself has become a strategic military asset. The countries that lead the next generation of AI will need more than talented engineers and sophisticated algorithms. They will need the infrastructure to power the entire ecosystem.

China understands this. Beijing has spent years pursuing an aggressive all-of-the-above energy strategy. It continues to build coal plants while investing heavily in solar, nuclear power, hydropower, and battery storage. Whatever disagreements Americans have over individual energy sources, China is not waiting for us to resolve them.

The Energy Department’s plan is therefore a timely step. It creates opportunities to pair new power generation with the infrastructure that will consume it. But if America intends to win the AI race, policymakers across the political spectrum will have to go further and remove unnecessary obstacles to new energy supply.

Solar power, for example, has been the fastest-growing source of new U.S. electricity generation for five years running. In 2025, the United States added 43 gigawatts of new solar capacity, enough to power over 32 million homes. Where permitting and regulatory barriers needlessly delay viable projects, Washington should remove them.

RELATED: Water, watts, and workers: 3 persistent myths about AI and data centers

Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

The same urgency should apply to critical minerals. The United States has spent years allowing dependence on foreign supply chains to deepen even as minerals became indispensable to batteries, electronics, defense systems, and energy infrastructure. Domestic mining and processing cannot expand at the speed national security demands if projects spend years trapped in permitting and regulatory limbo.

This is not an argument for replacing traditional energy with newer technologies. It is an argument for abundance. Oil and gas remain essential. Nuclear power can provide large amounts of reliable electricity. Solar and storage can add capacity quickly in the right places. Critical minerals underpin all of them. The strategic question is not which source wins an ideological contest. It is whether America can produce enough energy, reliably and affordably, to meet the demands ahead.

China is already acting on that logic. The United States should do the same. The next phase of economic and military competition will be shaped not only by who invents the best technology, but by who can build the plants, mines, transmission, data centers, and generation needed to deploy it at scale.

The Energy Department’s announcement is a good start. Now we need to make abundance the policy: build more, permit faster, secure domestic supply chains, and stop treating energy sources as political footballs.

America will need all the reliable energy it can produce, however we can produce it. The country that powers the future will have a much better chance of leading it.

​Artificial intelligence, National security, Natural gas, Opinion & analysis, Solar, Data centers, China, Rare earth minerals, Electricity, Department of energy, Big tech 

Skepticism over whether the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) is qualified to keep his seat was greatly compounded on Tuesday by a troubling admission she made during a debate with Ralph Norman, the Republican congressman who is also running to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate.

Darline Graham, a former commissioner with the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, was appointed last month by Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster to finish her brother’s term. Lindsey Graham died unexpectedly on July 11.

‘What are we doing here?’

Graham and Norman both advanced from the special GOP primary on Aug. 11 and are on the ballot in the primary runoff on Aug. 25.

Immediately after the candidates fielded some questions about the U.S.-Iran war and what to do about the apparent depletion of critical American munitions, debate moderator Greta Van Susteren asked Graham, “Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States?”

The Pentagon noted in its 2026 National Defense Strategy document that communist China’s historic military buildup affects America’s interests because “the Indo-Pacific will soon make up more than half of the global economy.”

“The American people’s security, freedom, and prosperity are therefore directly linked to our ability to trade and engage from a position of strength in the Indo-Pacific,” said the NSS document. “Were China — or anyone else, for that matter — to dominate this broad and crucial region, it would be able to effectively veto Americans’ access to the world’s economic center of gravity, with enduring implications for our nation’s economic prospects, including our ability to reindustrialize.”

RELATED: Drain the swamp? Meet the refill

As for Taiwan, the island nation sought by Beijing is a “semiconductor manufacturing powerhouse” that ranks among America’s top-five merchandise trading partners.

After having Van Susteren repeat the question, Graham responded, “I’m just going to be honest here. I’m not, on national security — I’m not that informed on national security.”

Graham paused for a moment, then added, “But I do support the military,” then referenced her brother’s and father’s military service.

‘This is not something you inherit.’

“I’m not a polished politician up here. National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise,” continued South Carolina’s first female senator, “but I do support the military.”

Norman didn’t immediately make hay of Graham’s admission but instead answered the moderator’s original question, stating, “Taiwan is a definite ally, and we have a trading relationship with them that is beneficial to the United States, chips being one of them and others.”

RELATED: ‘Birthright senatorship’ betrays America First

Peter Zay/Anadolu/Getty Images

Norman further emphasized the need for America to deter China from taking over Taiwan, in part by sustaining Trump’s “peace through strength” approach abroad.

While Norman didn’t pounce on Graham’s admission, others on the right did en masse.

Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation, noted, “I’m sorry, but respectfully, even accounting for her being new to the job, this is embarrassing and inexcusable. China’s threat toward Taiwan is a bit of a big deal, especially — it would seem — for a member of the U.S. Senate.”

BlazeTV host Steve Deace tweeted, “What are we doing here?”

“I did not think I had heard that right,” wrote South Carolina state Sen. Matt Leber (R). “This admittance should be the end of this race.”

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley tweeted, “Lindsey Graham was well informed on the United States’ national security. Darline Graham admits she’s not. This is not something you inherit. And it’s critical in the U.S. Senate.”

Graham faced far less ridicule over her suggestion during the debate that there were “50 million people in South Carolina.”

President Donald Trump has endorsed Graham and is scheduled to attend a rally with her in Myrtle Beach on Friday.

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​Donald trump, Darline graham, Steve deace, Ralph norman, South carolina, Senate, Taiwan, Foreign policy, National security, Lindsey graham, Politics 

When I first entered the public arena, the focus of my work was almost entirely on why the right needed to take power seriously. Conservatives had suffered a devastating string of political and cultural losses because they focused on argument and ideology while paying little attention to the way power actually worked. That criticism drew plenty of hostility from defenders of the status quo who did not appreciate some rookie pointing out why decades of conservative leadership had produced so little.

It turns out I was not alone. Popular voices including Matt Walsh and John Doyle now openly support conservatives taking and wielding power effectively. That disagreement has launched another round of public debate over the pursuit of power, but the argument is only a proxy for a larger battle over JD Vance, foreign policy, and the future of MAGA.

The arguments breaking out across the conservative commentariat are not separate fights. They are proxy battles over the same question.

Donald Trump represented a serious threat to the established political order. Initially dismissed as a brash reality television host, he quickly demonstrated that he was tapping into something deeper than celebrity and catchy insults. Trump was not a career politician. He did not enter politics with deep ideological commitments, and he did not know or care about the established rules.

He fused law and order, economic protectionism, foreign policy restraint, immigration enforcement, and culture-war issues in a way no Republican candidate had since Pat Buchanan. Trump saw an untapped political market and, like any good businessman, gave the customers what they wanted.

Many prominent establishment figures declared themselves “NeverTrump” and vowed to resist MAGA’s takeover of the conservative movement. That strategy failed. Trump became a political steamroller. Some NeverTrumpers migrated into the Democratic coalition or created opposition “conservative” outlets such as the Bulwark. Others decided to wait.

MAGA had the populist momentum, but the establishment still controlled institutions, personnel, and much of the donor class. The bet was that it could outlast MAGA and co-opt it, just as the Republican establishment had absorbed the Tea Party.

The next opportunity came with Ron DeSantis. Establishment conservatives hoped Trump’s legal troubles would make him vulnerable to a popular governor with a record of victories. DeSantis was supposed to offer Trumpism without Trump: populist energy packaged in a form more compatible with the old ideological agenda.

It did not work. Trump’s primary and general-election victories removed any illusion that a direct assault on him from inside the party could succeed.

If the establishment could not oust Trump, the remaining option was to derail his movement and prevent anyone from carrying MAGA into future elections. Despite Republican control of the House, Senate, presidency, and Supreme Court, congressional Republicans have repeatedly clashed with the administration. The Senate has stalled key personnel and has not passed the SAVE Act. Republican politicians know they must praise Trump rhetorically, but many continue to resist important parts of his agenda.

RELATED: The right has a blind spot about young women

Blaze Media Illustration

Add a deeply unpopular war with no obvious end, and the result is an effective containment mechanism: MAGA divided, distracted, and exhausted.

That is why the fight over JD Vance matters so much. When Trump sent the vice president to negotiate a peace deal, critics who had spent years presenting themselves as Trump’s loyal allies suddenly questioned Vance’s ideology, associations, and viability as a successor. Like Trump, Vance is not wedded to neoconservative foreign policy. His role in the negotiations made clear that he is being prepared as a possible heir to the movement.

At the same time, some critics began presenting Marco Rubio as an alternative while attacking any attempt to withdraw from the conflict.

The fights over power, foreign policy, affordability, and the dangers of the New Right are therefore part of the same proxy war for control of the GOP. It is no accident that many establishment figures who favor expansive military commitments abroad also recoil from using political power aggressively at home.

We can always find money for war, but when the cost of living becomes unbearable, suddenly government action is communism. The overlap is not accidental. It reflects the old conservative settlement: Republicans may fight wars abroad and protect big business at home. They may talk endlessly about social issues, but they are not supposed to spend serious political capital addressing them.

That is why it may seem strange to watch figures such as James Lindsay, Joel Berry, and Ben Shapiro portray Matt Walsh as a socialist or JD Vance as a crypto-Nazi. The rhetoric makes more sense when viewed through coalitional politics. Whatever they think personally of Walsh or Vance, they recognize that both threaten an order that has existed for decades.

The conservative movement became comfortable as beautiful losers: controlled opposition rewarded with money, status, and institutional access while the country moved steadily left. Trump disrupted that arrangement. Vance threatens to continue disrupting it.

RELATED: It’s the economy, stupid — again

Blaze Media Illustration

If conservatism is ever to become a real political movement, it must escape the ideological shackles that keep it from acting. As Russell Kirk argued in “The Conservative Mind,” conservatism should not be about preserving an abstract ideology but a particular people and their way of life.

MAGA represented that shift. It was willing to pursue policies that improved the lives of Americans even when those policies fell outside neoconservative economic or foreign-policy orthodoxy. Achieving those goals requires the right to think seriously about power and how to wield it. Even reducing the size of government requires acquiring and applying state power.

The NeverTrump project now is to poison the well around Vance, prevent him from inheriting the movement, and return the GOP to establishment politics as usual.

That is the argument underneath the latest round of conservative infighting. The personalities change, the immediate controversy changes, and the slogans change, but the stakes remain constant. Someone will define what MAGA becomes after Trump, and the establishment has no intention of surrendering that decision.

The arguments breaking out across the conservative commentariat are not separate fights. They are proxy battles over the same question: Who gets to rule the Republican Party after Trump?

​Jd vance, Donald trump, Gop, Republican party, Marco rubio, Joel berry, Ben shapiro, Economy, Affordability crisis, Opinion & analysis 

Carmen Lizet Puch, a 42-year-old mother, was found brutally stabbed to death at Great Falls Park in Virginia on Monday.

After police arrested a suspect, the Department of Homeland Security identified him as an illegal alien who had been released into the U.S. under the Biden administration.

Cedillos-Campos knew Puch because they both worked at the Bitez restaurant in Herndon.

Puch was found on the ground near a 2011 Honda Civic in the parking lot of the park in McLean at about 6:45 a.m., WUSA9 reported. She was later pronounced dead at the scene.

On Wednesday, the Fairfax County Police announced on social media they had arrested 19-year-old Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos in connection with the case.

The DHS claimed in a statement that Cedillos-Campos was a criminal illegal alien from El Salvador arrested by Customs and Border Protection in 2024 for illegally crossing into the U.S. near El Paso, Texas.

The Salvadoran was released into the U.S. by the Biden administration, according to the DHS.

“The Biden administration recklessly unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into American communities and abused the law to do so,” the statement continued. “President Trump and [DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin] are now enforcing the law, arresting illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country — and have reversed Biden’s deadly catch and release policy.”

Sources told WRC-TV that Cedillos-Campos knew Puch because they both worked at the Bitez restaurant in Herndon.

“I don’t know if you can process something like this. It’s not something you expect. It’s not something that anyone would ever want to happen,” said Abdul Anwari, the owner of the restaurant. “But you know, we’re still taking it [a] minute at a time.”

RELATED: ‘Monster’ suspected of brutally murdering DHS worker is a migrant naturalized by Biden: DHS

Anwari said they are setting up a GoFundMe to help Puch’s family with raising her daughter.

Puch is the mother of a young daughter and was jogging when she was brutally murdered.

“We are urging Governor [Abigail] Spanberger (D-Va.) to put her community first and turn over this criminal illegal alien to ICE,” the agency added.

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​Illegal alien, Department of homeland security, Murder, Virginia, Politics 

Median Strategies, which presented itself as an independent polling and research firm, recently shut down after the Los Angeles Times exposed it for fabricating a survey showing a large lead for Karen Bass in the Los Angeles mayoral race. Its other fabricated results, including one showing Francesca Hong with a large lead in Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, were also revealed as part of the same operation.

After repeated inquiries from the Times, Median Strategies admitted the numbers were completely made up as a “short-term social experiment examining how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification.”

Once exposed, it withdrew all its prior polling releases, claimed no political funding or financial motives were involved, and shut down without revealing the identities of those involved.

Even more disturbing, Steve Deace’s producer and co-host Aaron McIntire points out, is that Median Strategies’ polling numbers for Wisconsin’s Democratic gubernatorial primary “largely mirrored the results from established pollsters like Marquette and Public Policy Polling.”

The scandal begs the question: If fake numbers can so easily pass as legitimate and shape political reality, should public polling itself be banned?

On this episode of the “Steve Deace Show,” Deace reacts to the Median Strategies scandal; the panel also proposes ideas to to curb the influence of unreliable polling.

“We’ve created this entire society now where stuff is determined by polling that most of us can’t ever recall we’ve ever taken part in,” says Deace, likening political polling to a sports betting scenario where a gambler loses his money before the game is ever played because an obscure panel of analysts already determined the outcome.

“What have I been saying about we should prosecute these polling institutions for fraud? Exhibit 666 right here,” says co-host Todd Erzen.

Deace has a proposal to fix the issue: “The elections determine who wins and what policies we’re going to do — like when people actually go and vote.”

Then “when you’re in office and if you won the election, do what you got elected to do, and then let the people decide in the next election whether they like that or not rather than constantly reacting and responding to things we’re not even sure are true,” he adds.

“I think this is a great idea, and here’s how you prosecute it. … If you ban public polling, the first defense is going to be, ‘Well, that’s freedom of speech.’ No, you prosecute it as a violation of freedom of speech,” says McIntire.

He argues that Median Strategies allegedly created its fake poll numbers to “deceive people” in order to “squash their vote.”

“That would seem to be a violation of the First Amendment to me,” he says.

To hear more, watch the episode above.

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I was recently treated to a free screening of a new documentary called “Thank You for Sharing” (2026). This funny and engaging film is a much-needed investigation into the dubious intentions of the mental health industry.

It’s also the first foray into feature-length filmmaking by upstart conservative press Passage Publishing. And Passage chose a novel way to get people to watch it.

You can see the lack of money on the screen. But you can also feel a sense of rebellion and scrappiness. A kind of upstart energy.

I hadn’t heard of “Thank You” until it popped up on my X feed. It would be available for one week, for free.

If the strategy sounds familiar, it may be because another low-budget, right-leaning film recently stumbled onto something similar — with spectacular results.

‘Citizen Vigilante’

Last June, “Citizen Vigilante” was already making waves online, particularly in right-wing circles, when Elon Musk stepped in and dramatically expanded its audience.

The film had received a conventional release through independent distributor Quiver, including a very limited theatrical run in the United States. But the movie had little prospect of reaching much of the rest of the world. Germany had even refused to give it a rating, effectively “banning” it.

Then Musk contacted director Uwe Boll’s team and, with their permission, made the entire movie available free on X for 48 hours.

The stunt worked. “Citizen Vigilante” climbed into the top 10 on video-on-demand platforms including Apple and Amazon, and Quiver subsequently acquired worldwide distribution rights, excluding a handful of territories.

“Citizen Vigilante” stars canceled Hollywood actor Armie Hammer as an American real estate heir living in Croatia who reinvents himself as a vigilante, hunting down rapists, bullies, and other criminals, many of them migrants.

From the start, the film generated huge amounts of controversy, its apparent anti-immigration politics constituting an almost unimaginable affront to the leftist entertainment industry.

Unfortunately, “Citizen Vigilante” is a terrible movie. The plot makes no sense, and the filmmaking is on par with Boll’s famously schlocky, gore-filled B-grade films.

But its release remained a major cultural event. Mainstream media felt obligated to comment on the film and denounce its politics. This, in turn, forced Western progressives to defend their widely unpopular open-border policies.

The rise of the right-wing film

I’ve seen a bunch of right-wing films over the last year. They tend to fall into a couple of different categories.

There are the Christian-influenced films, like “Sound of Freedom” (2023) or “Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist” (2023).

In these films, a high level of sincerity is immediately evident. There’s a minimum of snark. People profess their love of God or Jesus unabashedly.

It takes a while to get used to genuine people of faith as characters in a movie. Hollywood generally mocks or criticizes such people. But once the surprise wears off, it’s quite refreshing.

Matt Walsh in a wig

Then there are the satirical films. Matt Walsh has made several of these. His best two are “What Is a Woman?” (2022) and “Am I a Racist?” (2024). Both were made on limited budgets.

But they both work. In “Am I a Racist?” Walsh dresses up in ridiculous getups, impersonating leftoid weirdos of various types.

It’s quite funny and effective. Though making fun of people like Robin DiAngelo isn’t that hard. But that’s the point.

American movie

Then there are patriotic movies, like “Young Washington” (2026) and “Reagan” (2024), in which Dennis Quaid plays the 40th president. .

“Reagan” wasn’t a perfect film, but it was fun to review Ronald Reagan’s long and extraordinary life. I teared up at the end, remembering the grace and humility — even in his final days — of one of our greatest presidents.

Dinesh D’Souza’s docu-drama “Death of a Nation” (2018) was well intentioned and strongly pro-American, but suffered from a lack of funding.

D’Souza has made a whole series of these low-budget patriotic films. He began making them way back before the first Trump administration. So kudos to him for blazing a trail.

MAGA by mistake

Then there is “The Apprentice” (2024), which depicted President Trump’s youth and rise as a businessman. This was not intended as a right-wing film, but I suspect more Trump supporters saw it than detractors.

I found the film interesting, even as it shamelessly attempted to smear Trump in the most mean-spirited ways. Ultimately, it made Trump seem shrewd and sympathetic, despite the bad intentions of the filmmakers.

Rumors of war

A similar film was “Civil War” (2024), by mainstream director Alex Garland. The story seemed inspired by the heated election-fraud discourse after the 2020 election. People thought we might actually have a civil war!

Right-wing viewers appreciated the realism of the film. Garland created a “low-intensity” war scenario, where some people are actively fighting and other people are going about their lives.

In the end, Garland sold out to the left, revealing a blubbering, cowardly Trump-clone dictator to be the cause of the conflict.

Still, the movie was intelligently done and possibly prophetic and thus was a hit with young conservatives.

RELATED: ‘Civil War’ gives journos their dumb Trump dictator fantasy

A24

Grit > $

Most of the right-wing movies listed above were clearly made without Hollywood-level financing. You can see the lack of money on the screen.

But you can also feel a sense of rebellion and scrappiness. A kind of upstart energy. These are the underdog films of their time.

When I watched the opening scenes of “Sound of Freedom” — a great film by any measure — and I saw the lack of slickness, the lack of pampered movie stars, the lack of smarmy leftism, I got excited.

This is what I want from movies: passion, effort, resourcefulness, and most of all filmmakers who believe in what they are doing.

​Armie hammer, Citizen vigilante, Civil war, Conservative filmmaking, Controversy, Dennis quaid, Dinesh dsouza, Documentary, Elon musk, Mainstream media, Mental health, Passage publishing, Uwe boll, Matt walsh, Movies, Entertainment, Hollywood, Blake’s progress