Hello, and welcome to the weekend! It’s Saturday, May 2, 2026. Today is National Play Outside Day, National Truffle Day, and National Scrapbook Day. Also, the Kentucky Derby is today. Two minutes of the race that some in the stands are paying really big money to watch. Infield access is $130 each. Reports vary, but the upper ranges for tickets seem to be in the area of $16,000 to $280,000. And I though the NBA and MLB were expensive!
1670 King Charles II gives a royal charter to the Hudson's Bay Company.
1783 Architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant is given a brevet promotion to Major of Engineers, in recognition of his service to American liberty.
1887 Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film (used in Thomas Edison's kinetoscope).
1918 General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
1932 American comedian Jack Benny's first radio show premieres on NBC's Blue network.
1936 Sergei Prokofiev's musical Peter and the Wolf premieres in Moscow.
1938 American singer Ella Fitzgerald records "A-Tisket, A-Tasket" with Chick Webb and His Orchestra. (Oddly, it’s also the songwriter, Van Alexander’s, birthday.)
1949 Arthur Miller wins a Pulitzer Prize for his play Death of a Salesman.
1955 The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is awarded to Tennessee Williams for his play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
1966 The Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography awarded to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. for A Thousand Days, about JFK's presidency.
1974 Former U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew is disbarred.
Birthdays Today include Owen Roberts, American associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1930-45) and leader of two Roberts Commissions (Pearl Harbor, World War II); Hedda Hopper (Elda Furry), gossip columnist; Manfred von Richtofen, the Red Baron, German World War I flying ace; Lorenz Hart, lyricist ("I Could Write A Book"; "My Funny Valentine") and half of the Broadway musical team Rodgers and Hart; Doctor Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and writer (Common Sense Book of Baby Care); Bernard Slade, Canadian screenwriter (The Flying Nun; The Partridge Family); Engelbert Humperdinck, pop singer ("Release Me"; "After The Loving); Randy Cain, American soul singer (Delfonics — "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time”); Lesley Gore, pop singer ("It's My Party"; "You Don't Own Me"); James Dyson, inventor, industrial designer, and entrepreneur (bagless vacuum cleaner; bladeless fan); Larry Gatlin, country star, (Gatlin Brothers — "Broken Lady"); Lou Gramm, singer-songwriter (Foreigner — "Hot Blooded"; "Cold As Ice"); John "Jo" Callis, songwriter and musician (Human League); and Dwayne Johnson, pro wrestler as "The Rock," actor, and producer (Baywatch, Jumanji).
If today is your day, too… have a great one!
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I've kept my mouth shut about Candace Owens, not writing much, if anything, on the subject — mostly because I couldn't make sense of whatever passes for logic in her head.
Besides, as busy as the news cycles have been, and her not being much of a priority, I didn't bother spending much thought on that whole mess. Recent events have changed that, and I find myself forced from the shadows.
Anyway, I usually like to wait to comment on such things until there's there's a ceasefire of some sort, and let the dust settle a bit until my comment has something, some set of facts to launch from. It doesn't do to have my readers confused by my attempts to hit a target that's moving so fast that I can't get a bead on it.
To get some some background on all of this, I’m going to suggest you look at Scott Pinsker’s column of last month. I’d also look at the Hollywood Reporter piece of March 5.
Candace Owens has never been subtle. The pundit and podcaster has spun dozens of unfounded conspiracy theories since her rise from communications director at Charlie Kirk’s conservative youth group, Turning Point USA, to become a far-right digital force with a podcast audience of some 6 million. But this week, with the launch of her multipart video series Bride of Charlie, Owens has found what may be her most relentlessly destructive and, by the metrics, most popular campaign yet: a serialized takedown of Erika Kirk, the widow of the man who first gave her a national platform.
[…]
For Owens, all of it carried a particular sting. During the formative years of the first Trump administration, she was one of the most visible faces of Turning Point USA — traveling extensively with Charlie Kirk, helping build the TPUSA brand. Her public identity was tightly intertwined with the organization’s rise. She served as communications director from 2017 to 2019, until, according to multiple reports, she was asked to leave following positive remarks she made about Adolf Hitler. Watching the institution pivot swiftly and decisively to a new steward — and one receiving presidential embrace — underscored how completely Owens had been cast aside.
All that said, this went out on Ben Shapiro’s podcast just yesterday, and it explains quite a bit:
It should be pointed out that Owens was shown the door at The Daily Wire as well, over the Israeli war against Hamas, and the conspiracy theories and antisemitism she was floating.
The Daily Mail posted, on March 22, this little gem:
Owens has made the shocking false claims that these groups could be behind the death of Michael Jackson. She has also liked posts that claim Jews drink Christian blood ritualistically.
Nov. 2023 saw this story at the New York Post:
Candace Owens blasted Ben Shapiro as “emotionally unhinged” and “unprofessional” — the latest escalation in the feud between the two Daily Wire stars over Israel.
Owens on Wednesday took to social media to respond to Shapiro, the co-founder of The Daily Wire who urged her to quit the right-leaning news outlet.
“Candace, if you feel that taking money from The Daily Wire somehow comes between you and God, by all means quit,” the rabidly pro-Israel Shapiro wrote on his X social media account.
In the course of that tussle, she tried quoting Jesus in the Beatitudes, in an effort to convince all of us how we should be peaceful with Hamas.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God,” Owens wrote, quoting the biblical verse.
She's apparently never understood the quote I offered from Archbishop Fulton Sheen last Easter:
Our Blessed Lord never said, ‘Blessed are the peaceful.’ But he did say, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ Peace must be made. It must be won in a battle. Good Friday was not the day of appeasement. Therefore, Easter was not a day of false peace.
Or perhaps she simply believes Hamas' terrorism is justified, and worth defending on her platforms.
So what do we have here?
Wounded pride. A quick profit off a scandal she manufactured herself, gift-wrapped as a some kind of righteous crusade. The moment her sniper shots at Erika Kirk drew blood, she was hooked. That dopamine hit works like any other addictive drug: it doesn't just own her now, it drives her. So does the podcast money. I refuse to be polite at this point, and pretend that what we are seeing is anything else.
Make no mistake: Owens built the corner she's standing in, brick by brick, and now she can't find the door — assuming she ever wanted to find it. Scott nails it in his piece: "As long as accusing Erika of being a murdering, unloving, uncaring, evil widow drives clicks and views, the more it'll happen."
That playbook Owens is running now should sound familiar — Democrats have run it since the day Trump declared his candidacy for the presidency in 2015. Same tactics, same cynicism. The question is whether Owens even sees the parallel.
Or if she even cares.
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