Melissa Unfiltered

I thought I understood how the sex offender registry worked. Then I learned about a loophole in Illinois law that left me completely stunned.

Someone can be convicted of certain unauthorized recording offenses involving a child and, under current Illinois law, that conviction does not necessarily require them to register as a sex offender.

So how is a parent supposed to know?

In this episode, I'm digging into Illinois Senate Bill 2381...

What happens when a child trafficking survivor goes undercover online pretending to be a 12-year-old girl?

What Kim Kelley told me about what happened next is something I think every parent needs to hear.

Kim says she is a child trafficking survivor and child safety advocate who was born and raised inside the Children of God cult. She describes growing up in a world where trafficking, exploitation and coercive control were all she kn...

Do you REALLY know what's in the beef you're feeding your family?

Most of us walk into the grocery store, grab a package of ground beef or a steak, and never think twice about what happened to that meat before it reached the shelf.

But after this conversation, you might start asking a few more questions.

In this episode of Melissa Unfiltered, I'm sitting down with cattle farmer and meat processor Ben Gamble inside his USDA-inspected p...

Flock cameras, automatic license plate readers and police surveillance are facing massive backlash across America but I think we're blaming the wrong thing.

Yes, Flock cameras can make mistakes. In this episode, I break down disturbing cases where innocent people were stopped after license plate reader alerts went wrong...including a couple with their six-week-old baby whose SUV was mistakenly flagged as stolen and an officer approa...

I love sports. My kids play sports. But I cannot stand what adults have done to youth sports culture.

Somewhere along the way, playing a sport stopped being enough.

Now your kid needs the travel team. The private lessons. The expensive equipment. The tournament three states away. The required hotel. The matching gear. The trip to nationals. And, of course, the social media highlight reel showing everyone how “elite” your ...

I voted for Donald Trump. I’m still a conservative. My values haven’t changed, and I wouldn’t change my vote.

But I’m also not going to pretend that everything happening right now is good just because the person in office is someone I voted for.

At some point, we have to be willing to ask: What happened to America First?

In this episode of Melissa Unfiltered, I’m talking about something that has been both...

What happens when the government removes a child from an unsafe home to “protect” them...and then says there’s nowhere for them to go?

In this episode of Melissa Unfiltered, I examine reports of foster children being held in juvenile detention facilities because appropriate foster placements could not be found - including young people who remained confined even after they were eligible for release.

T...

Your child brings home a school-issued Chromebook, MacBook, or iPad. But do you actually know what that device can see, track, collect, or flag once it's inside your home?

I started digging into school-issued devices, and what I found left me with a lot of questions.

In this episode of Melissa Unfiltered, I'm looking at the Pennsylvania case involving a school-issued laptop that captured hundreds of webcam photos and screenshots, stu...

Our kids are falling behind in one of the most basic life skills imaginable: reading. According to the latest national data, millions of students are not reading at grade level. So why are schools spending so much time debating pronouns, gender identity, and classroom policies instead?

In this episode of Melissa Unfiltered, I take a fact-based look at one of the most polarizing issues in education today. I examine public school poli...

Why Did Fauci Take the Fifth?

Years after COVID changed our lives, millions of Americans are still asking the same question: Who is accountable?

In this episode of Melissa Unfiltered, I break down Anthony Fauci's recent Senate testimony, his decision to invoke the Fifth Amendment, and the controversy surrounding the release of his personal diary. I also share my own experiences during the pandemic...what it was like to question the o...

When I sat down with Mel Lambert, founder of Sunshine Farm Sanctuary in Massachusetts, I thought we would spend most of our time talking about horses and foster care. Instead, we uncovered much bigger questions about how America responds to childhood trauma.

Mel has spent more than a decade working directly with children in foster care. What she's witnessed is heartbreaking. Too often, children who've experienced unimaginable trauma...

When Illinois State Senator Darby Hills (R) introduced the Healing Through History Act, it seemed like common sense.

The bill simply required that adoptive families and adults who aged out of foster care receive copies of their own case records...records that already exist and were created about their own lives.

The Illinois Senate passed it unanimously.

Then it quietly died in the House Rules Committee without ever receiving a vote.

I...

Did we really hear the whole story?

After spending days watching the Charlie Kirk preliminary hearing, I walked away with more questions than answers.

In this episode of Melissa Unfiltered, I break down the testimony, evidence, witness statements, and courtroom moments that stood out to me and explain why I believe some parts of the case deserve a closer look.

If you've been following the Charlie Kirk case or you've only seen the head...

For years, I thought the biggest battles facing our country were political. Left versus right. Conservative versus liberal. But the more I stepped back, the more I realized we've been distracted from something much bigger.

In this episode, I share why I deleted almost everything from my personal social media, why I believe privacy has become one of our most valuable assets, and why our attention (not our money) has become the most v...

This episode is personal.

My grandparents lost $50,000. They weren't buying gift cards. They weren't responding to strange emails. They simply searched for their bank online because they needed a phone number during a home purchase.

Everything looked legitimate.

What happened next changed my family's life and raised questions I can't stop asking. How can fake bank websites appear so convincing? Why aren't these scams being stopped? Wh...

A father takes his young daughters into a women's restroom, someone calls the police, and suddenly millions of people are arguing online.

In this episode, I dive into the viral bathroom video that sparked outrage across social media and ask a bigger question: How did ordinary parenting situations become national controversies?

From my own childhood experiences to a personal encounter involving a family locker room, I explore the chal...

For years, I've been asking a question that should have a simple answer: Why can't adopted children have access to their own stories?

When my husband and I adopted our children through foster care, we were given medical records...but almost nothing else. No caseworker notes. No placement histories. No stories about their first steps, favorite toys, birthday parties, or the people who cared for them during the first years of their li...

For years, I wasn't sure if I would ever tell this story publicly.

In this episode of Melissa Unfiltered, I'm sharing one of the most difficult and personal experiences of my life. What started as fragmented memories eventually led me to uncover painful truths from my childhood and make a decision that would set off a years-long journey toward justice, healing, and finding my voice.

I talk openly about reporting sexual abuse, navigat...

Child predators are not always strangers hiding in dark alleys.

According to former Illinois Legislative Investigating Commission Chief Investigator Thomas Hampson, many are people parents already know, trust, and invite into their children’s lives.

In this episode of Melissa Unfiltered, Thomas Hampson shares what he learned during an 8-year investigation into child exploitation, grooming networks, online child ...