Owens is hardly alone. There’s an entire ecosystem of right-wing “influencers” who peddle conspiracy theories brimming with racism, antisemitism, demonology, pseudoscience and general crackpottery in regular installments. There’s an even larger constellation of media outlets and personalities who feed on controversy without ever quite condemning the outrages that cause it.

It’s appalling and reprehensible. But this isn’t really a column about all of that.

A foundational small-c conservative insight is, “there’s nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). In a time of relentless technological change, it’s understandable to think the utility of biblical wisdom has expired. But the point wasn’t about new things. It’s that human nature doesn’t change.

In 1909, the Philadelphia Inquirer helped launch a regional panic with a “news” series on the New Jersey Devil. The Jan. 21 front-page headline blared, “WHAT-IS-IT VISITS ALL SOUTH JERSEY” alongside a photo of “actual proof-prints of the strange creature.” The Inquirer and competing papers hyped the bogus story relentlessly, with reports of sightings, animal mutilations, etc. Decades later, former newspaperman Norman Jeffries admitted to being the mastermind of the hoax.

In a sense, Tucker Carlson — demon attack survivor and journalistic sleuth of cattle mutilations — is part of a long American tradition.

In 1910, newspapers floated the theory that the tail of the then-returning Halley’s Comet might release a kind of cyanide that, as French sci-fi writer and astronomer Camille Flammarion told the New York Times, could “impregnate the atmosphere and possibly snuff out all life on the planet.”

The ensuing Comet Panic of 1910 sold a lot of newspapers, snake oil “comet pills” and even “comet insurance.”

The parallels with pandemic era cure-alls, phobias about “chemtrails” — which may destroy the cloud-seeding industry — and even the Y2K panic a quarter century ago should be fairly obvious.

In 1920, Henry Ford’s newspaper (nationally distributed through his car dealerships), the Dearborn Independent, launched its series on “the International Jew.” Ford adapted “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” forgeries first published in 1903 in a Russian newspaper. In 1936, Father Charles Coughlin launched his magazine Social Justice, picking up where Ford left off. It rehashed “The Protocols” and other bogus propaganda, including the work of deranged Jew-hater August Rohling, the intellectual lodestar for Julius Streicher, the first Nazi to be hanged at Nuremberg for inciting genocide.

Owens, like Streicher, considers Rohling a primary scholarly source.

This stuff seems unprecedented thanks to a cocktail of historical ignorance, recency bias and widespread distrust of elite media. But it’s also a function of technological change.

Monster sightings, baseless gossip, silly or sinister speculation and, of course, antisemitism never disappeared. The more harmless versions of this fare could be found in the checkout aisles of supermarkets for generations. The nastier stuff was relegated to obscure newsletters, AM radio and hard-to-find magazines.

The internet and social media changed all that.

In the 19th century, when newspapers and mass literacy converged, the “media” was an anything goes Wild West, with even respectable publications feeding readers sheer nonsense and literal fake news. (The Rest is History podcast has a wonderful series partly dedicated to how the British press helped fuel the panic over, and the legend of, “Jack the Ripper.”)

It took decades for professional standards and consumer expectations to reach a consensus about what was respectable and legitimate and what wasn’t. The new media landscape is a new Wild West.

A century ago, a primary journalistic-marketing technique was to seduce readers by releasing information — and baseless allegations — piecemeal, in installments. Come back tomorrow for the next shocking development.

This is the modern podcasters’ M.O. Sometimes it’s straightforward and episodic “true crime” style stuff. Other times it’s deranged hogwash, promising the real evidence (about Kirk, Jeffrey Epstein, Mrs. Macron, etc.) is coming — if the Deep State or the Jews don’t get to them first.

They feed the audience just enough to get hooked in pursuit of the big reveal that is never quite revealed. Mixed in is relentless gossip about how other personalities are responding to the allegation d’jour or each other. It’s equal parts soap opera, conspiracy, gossip, taboo violation and fearmongering.

The market for such titillation and tripe never went away. What vanished were the post-WWII technological and institutional roadblocks to providing it at scale. Also vanished: the willingness of enough responsible people to condemn it.

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Melanie Harris, 59, hurled antisemitic slurs, vowed violence, including beheadings, and used “vile and inflammatory language,” according to a Miami-based FBI agent.

Harris, who pleaded guilty in March, was sentenced by a Miami judge to 32 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for intentionally transmitting a threatening communication in interstate commerce. The Federal Bureau of Prisons will determine where Harris will serve her sentence.

A call and email to the attorney representing Harris were not returned.

Markenzy Lapointe, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said Harris’ ”antisemitic threats terrorized a Jewish family.”

“Her hate-filled telephone calls and voicemails were abhorrent,” Lapointe said in a statement. “No one should live in fear of threats, harassment and hate-fueled violence.”

The calls began in February 2019, according to court documents — just months after Robert Bowers shot and killed 11 worshipers at the Pittsburgh synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018. Bowers, who has since been convicted and sentenced to death, espoused white supremacist views and ranted about his hatred of Jews online prior to the shooting.

Harris cloaked her identity using the *67 feature, which blocks caller identification, and left voicemails laden “with antisemitic and harassing language,” according to court documents.

She initially placed three calls in a span of three minutes, first to Tree of Life and then twice calling a person identified in court documents as Victim No. 1, the former executive director of Tree of Life who was then living in the Pittsburgh area.

Between February 2019 and March 2022, Harris called Victim No. 1 an additional 53 times, according to court records. An analysis presented in court demonstrated that Harris attempted 190 calls between October 2022 and February 2023, including 129 in November. Many of those calls, however, were unanswered or immediately hung up on, according to court documents.

All calls to Victim No. 1 were made from Harris’ Riverside home, authorities said.

Harris left 15 voicemails for Victim No. 1 on Oct. 3, 2022, including four threatening and antisemitic messages. In one, court documents say, Harris twice threatened to decapitate Victim No. 1’s stepchild, whom she referred to using an antisemitic slur, according to court documents.

That same day, Harris made three additional calls to Victim No. 1, all advocating similar violence against him and his family, according to court documents.

On Nov. 22, Harris threatened in another voicemail to stab Victim No. 1, according to court documents. There was an additional call and threat on Dec. 6.

In voicemails left at Tree of Life, she gloated about the shooting of Jewish grandmas, using a slur, according to court documents. Harris also lobbed antisemitic slurs at the adult child and stepchild of Victim No. 1 and his wife, court documents say.

Neither the victims nor Harris knew each other, court documents and prosecutors said. Harris was not believed to have any ties to Tree of Life.

Victim No. 1 and his wife eventually left Pennsylvania and moved to Broward County, Fla. Victim No. 1, however, did not change his cell number, wishing to keep ties with the Pittsburgh community, according to court documents.

Authorities say Harris also made references to Anne Frank’s death at the hands of the Nazis, and Jews being sent back to Auschwitz. In one call played in court, Harris repeatedly screamed, “Sieg Heil, [Jew] killers,” using a slur, before hanging up, according to court documents.

She was arrested on March 4, 2023.

“The nature of her threats of violence towards the victims and their faith were clearly meant to evoke a climate of fear and intimidation,” Jeffrey B. Veltri, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office, said in a statement. “Such conduct cannot be tolerated.”

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“I am pleased to share that we have reached an agreement that will result in the peaceful conclusion of the encampment by no later than midnight tonight,” Wilcox said in the May 3 letter addressed to the campus community.

Wilcox released a copy of what he called the “full agreement,” and said it would be carried out consistent with state and federal law.

Student protesters at UCR established a campus encampment Monday to speak out against Israel’s actions in Gaza. The students called for the school to end “all investments and endowments” benefiting the Jewish state.

“We are not leaving this encampment day and night until the university complies and meets with us to discuss our demands,” a spokesperson for Students for Justice in Palestine, UCR chapter, told City News Service.

According to the terms of Friday’s agreement, UCR will post to its website all of the UC’s investments and portfolios. A task force that includes students will also be formed to explore separating UCR’s endowment from the UC Investments Office management.

UCR endowments/investments will be reviewed by the task force with an eye toward divesting companies that pose an ethical conflict for the university, such as those dealing in arms manufacturing and delivering, according to the agreement.

The agreement also states that UCR’s School of Business has discontinued global programs in Israel, among other countries, and the university will modify its study-abroad approval process to ensure it’s non-discriminatory.

The agreement also calls for an ongoing review of Sabra hummus, “consistent with existing product review processes … .”

In 2015, UCR stopped selling the Sabra hummus brand in the school’s dining areas due to objections from the on-campus group Students for Justice in Palestine, which has led the current UCR campus protests. Sabra is partially owned by an Israeli company.

UCR quickly reversed course, however, calling the hummus recall a “mistake.”

In addition to Wilcox and other campus officials, Friday’s agreement is signed by Students for Justice in Palestine President Hibah Nassar and lead negotiator Samia Alkam.

Wilcox acknowledged the agreement “does not change the realities of the war in Gaza, or the need to address antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bias and discrimination,” but said he was “grateful” for the “constructive and peaceful conversations” on how to address the complex issues.

UCR values students’ right to practice peaceful free speech, Wilcox said, adding, “these meetings have been productive, civil, and representative of multiple points of view on how to reach a resolution.”

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In a statement posted to social media Friday morning, Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing said the company and the pundit “have ended their relationship.”

“The rumors are true — I am finally free,” Owens said in her own post.

The details of Owens’s exit weren’t immediately clear, but it follows increased tension over antisemitic rhetoric that pitted Owens against Shapiro, who is Jewish, and the rest of the site’s more mainline conservative figures.

The Daily Wire didn’t respond to a request for further comment. Owens couldn’t be reached for an immediate comment.

In a Thursday appearance on “The Breakfast Club” radio show, Owens acknowledged her strained relationship with Shapiro but claimed that “Ben doesn’t have the power to fire me.”

Owens’s split with the Daily Wire represents the latest example of a high-profile conservative figure contending with the expectations of a more staid employer. Last year, Fox News fired star host Tucker Carlson for reasons that were never made public but which came after he promoted conspiracy theories and disparaged Ukrainian leaders.

 telegenic presence and pugnacious social media warrior, Owens, 34, first rose to prominence on the right for her commentary skeptical of women who had been harassed during the 2014 “GamerGate” controversy that consumed the video game world. An unabashed booster and defender of Donald Trump, she launched a campaign in 2018 known as “Blexit” to try to encourage Black voters to leave the Democratic Party.

In 2020, she joined the Daily Wire — a Nashville-based conservative entertainment conglomerate with a massive following and ambitions to become a conservative alternative to Hollywood — and immediately became one of its leading pundits.

Her profile grew when rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, praised the way she “thinks,” both appearing ata 2022 fashion show wearing matching “White Lives Matter” shirts. But Ye had already moved into his new role as an erratic provocateur, recently making antisemitic comments — if occasionally apologizing — and speaking admiringly about Adolf Hitler.

Meanwhile, Owens began to use her Daily Wire platform to promote antisemitism — claiming this month on her show that “secret Jewish gangs” terrorize Hollywood — and recently favorited a tweet repeating a lie about Jews drinking Christians’ blood.

She has also clashed publicly with the avowedly pro-Israel Shapiro by criticizing the nation in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks.

“I think she’s been absolutely disgraceful,” Shapiro said in a recording posted on X in November. “I think that her faux-sophistication on these particular issues has been ridiculous.”

Owens shot back on X that “you cannot serve both God and money,” in what appeared to be a jab at her employer.

Still, the November feud appeared to have been settled, with Boreing releasing a statement saying Owens’s “job is secured.”

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