A violent repeat offender brutally beat up elderly whites and Mexicans in a racially motivated attack in Arizona earlier this week, officials said.

In fact, 62-year-old Derek Kirven admitted to police he was targeting white and Mexican victims at the Escalante Multi-Generational Center in Tempe, KPNX-TV reported, citing newly filed court documents.

‘At that point, he essentially lost control. … He started to assault these people by punching them, throwing them to the ground.’

The station said Wednesday’s assault left several victims with serious injuries, including broken bones.

Tempe police said Kirven walked into a members-only area around 9 a.m. and was asked to leave because he was not a member, KPNX reported.

“He tried to come in, and he was told to leave because he was not a member, and then around 11:30 a.m., he came back,” Officer Jessica Ells told the station.

Police said that’s when Kirven snapped and began attacking people, many of whom were seated and waiting for lunch, KPNX said.

“At that point, he essentially lost control and began attacking all the members who were inside the center,” Ells added to the station.

“He started to assault these people by punching them, throwing them to the ground.”

You can view video of the attack here. A city of Tempe security guard eventually detained Kirven until police arrived, the station said.

One victim suffered a broken wrist, and another was left with a broken nose, KPNX said, citing court documents. A third victim — who has autism and suffers from seizures — was punched and knocked to the ground, the station noted.

What’s more, some victims were using walkers and had no way to defend themselves, police added to KPNX.

RELATED: Video: Female bully towers over and beats up elderly woman on Florida bus. Victim is left ‘battered and bruised’: Sheriff.

A fourth victim’s hearing aid, valued at $4,000, was damaged, the station said, adding that the victim was concerned the attack may have aggravated a previous open-heart surgery.

More from KPNX:

During an interview with police, Kirven said he felt staff asked him to leave because he is black, according to court documents.

He told detectives he intentionally targeted white and Mexican people and said he hoped more than one of them would die from their injuries, court documents show.

Court documents also state Kirven told police he would assault people again if given the chance.

Court papers indicate Kirven used racial slurs when referring to the victims and toward a Hispanic detective during the interview, KTVK-TV reported, adding that investigators said he called another detective names like “confederate,” “hillbilly” and “white trash.”

According to police reports, staff at the center offered Kirven a membership earlier Wednesday morning, but he did not have identification, the station said.

Kirven has an extensive criminal history in Arizona and New Mexico, KPNX said, citing court documents. The station added that he served time in New Mexico’s prison system for aggravated battery several years ago.

KPNX also said records show Kirven is a transient with felony convictions across multiple states, including kidnapping and aggravated battery, and he had two outstanding warrants at the time of his arrest.

Kirven was booked on multiple counts of aggravated assault, disorderly conduct, trespassing, and criminal damage, KTVK reported.

Kirven is now in the custody of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and is being held on $500,000 bond, KPNX said.

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​Physical attack, Elderly victims, Racism, Racially motivated attack, Arizona, Arrest, Jailed, Race, Repeat offender, Crime 

Anyone who’s been paying attention knows that Western civilization is on the brink of collapse. The values that built it have been ripped up and condemned as antiquated, imperialist, or white supremacist.

But instead of despairing, Westerners ought to take heart in one trait the West has exemplified time and again: resilience.

Historian Allen Guelzo, co-author of “The Golden Thread” book series, tells BlazeTV host Steve Deace that “unlike other civilizations, which have risen, reached a certain peak, and then gone rapidly into decline, the Western tradition … has shown a remarkable resilience to rise, to falter, to look like it’s about to slide downwards maybe into the abyss of forgetfulness, but yet somehow finding the way to recover itself.”

This bouncing back has happened over and over again, Guelzo says.

“We had a moment like that at the end of the Roman Empire when it appeared that we were about to disappear into what is commonly called the Dark Ages,” he recaps.

It happened again after the Black Plague of the 1300s wiped out “two-thirds of the European population” and again after the Thirty Years’ War left so much death and chaos in its wake, it appeared that “violence and power were about to stamp out any notion of law and inquiry.”

In more recent years, the West faced two World Wars and the greatest genocide in Western history.

And yet, in all of these cases, “there was something which bounced back in this Western tradition,” Guelzo remarks optimistically.

Today, we stand at yet another “civilizational moment” where destruction is knocking at our door.

Guelzo is hopeful our future will mirror our resilient past, but for that to happen, people — especially younger generations — must cultivate an interest in history.

“History itself tells us who we have been. What we are today is what we were in the past,” he says. “The great Marcus Tullius Cicero … once said that anyone who remained ignorant of their history was condemned perpetually to live as a child, and I think that’s true.”

“The Golden Thread” series, which Guelzo co-authored with former Harvard history professor James Hankins, are exactly the kind of books that will spark an interest in Western history.

“It is a good deal more than just long lists of names, dates, places — which is the kind of thing that most people tell me they dread about history,” Guelzo laughs. “These books are also full of ideas; they are full of philosophy; they are full of art; they are full of great paintings; they are full of music.”

“It’s full of color. It’s full of life. It’s full of acknowledgments that the Western tradition has sometimes put its foot down wrongly. It’s made mistakes. People have suffered for that, and yet, even with that, the vitality of that tradition has been one of recovery; it has been one of uplift; it has been one that promotes human flourishing,” he adds.

It is this knowledge that can save Western civilization from collapse, Guelzo tells Deace.

“We can save it because it has been saved before.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

Want more from Steve Deace?

To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

​Steve deace show, Steve deace, The golden thread, Allen guelzo, History, Western civilization, Fall of the west, Blazetv, Blaze media, Western history 

Let’s face it: $20 trillion is a lot of money.

One would expect a big bang to follow the spending of 20,000 billion dollars. It’s a lot of money! In fact, it’s pretty much the total present value of America’s GDP.

The American economy sent trillions to our south and east — putting America second, hollowing out the American middle class, and neutralizing the American dream.

This is the total amount spent globally — largely by Europe and the United States — in a coordinated effort by the developed world to decarbonize the global economy. China, in contrast, sold windmills and solar panels worldwide while opening a new coal-fired power plant every month.

What was the net effect of this “Green” Marshall Plan? Hydrocarbon consumption continued to increase anyway. All that was achieved was a tiny reduction, just 2%, in the share of overall energy supplied by hydrocarbons. Put simply, as the energy pie got bigger and all forms of energy supply increased, hydrocarbons ended up with a slightly smaller share of a larger pie.

We also saw the deindustrialization of the European and American economies — not just with higher prices at the gas pump and on electric bills, but a stealth green tax that was passed on to consumers on everything. This is the culprit of our American and global affordability crisis. So much treasure and pain for a 2% reduction in the share of hydrocarbons.

Ironically, a byproduct of this Green Hunger Games was political populism.

What a waste. The worst bang for the public and private buck ever. Yet the Chicken Little believers of the Church of Settled Science and the grifters who profited from it will still sing in unison that it failed because they did not go far enough. If only the global community spent and regulated more!

In contrast, the Marshall Plan (1948-1951) rebuilt a decimated Europe into an industrial, interconnected, and peaceful powerhouse. It was a great success by any measure. At the time, its price tag was huge: $13.3 billion in nominal 1948-1951 dollars, equivalent to approximately $150 billion in today’s dollars.

Since a trillion is such a large number, let’s divide $20 trillion by an inflation-adjusted Marshall Plan of $150 billion, and we have 133 Marshall opportunities. Money was not the problem. To give a sense of the comparative bang for buck, by the Marshall program’s end, the aggregated gross national product of the participating nations rose by more than 32% and industrial output increased by a remarkable 40%.

President Trump has been on the global funding rounds and has secured more than $18 trillion in foreign investment. That’s roughly the equivalent of 120 Marshall Plans — just 13 shy of $20 trillion — to be invested here and nowhere else.

Unlike NAFTA, through which the rich got richer under the banner of free markets in exchange for cheaper consumer goods, Trump’s policy is a recipe for prosperity for all Americans.

RELATED: Trump administration saves billions in simple move globalists and climate activists alike will hate

Photo by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Making these investments a reality in America will require a growing army of blue- and white-collar workers. With the wealth that it creates, our debt could be paid down and, finally, retired. Social Security and Medicare would be placed on a solid footing for time immemorial. All our public obligations to one another would be met by ever-growing prosperity, not by borrowed money and suffocating debt service.

Nothing approaching this level of intentional investment in a single country has ever been done. Yes, a similar tranche of greenbacks was burned with no discernible environmental benefit and great economic hardship for all. And yes, the American economy, under the guise of comparative advantage, sent trillions to our south and east — putting America second, hollowing out the American middle class, and neutralizing the American dream.

Trump’s plan is the opposite of both failed experiments. Like the original Marshall Plan, Trump’s is a recipe for the reindustrialization of the American economy and military, and it is not going to be fueled by windmills and solar farms but with hydrocarbons and uranium. That’s the Trump plan. It has merit.

Yet if we look at the polls, Trump is under water, and his base is showing signs of stress fractures. You bring peace to the Middle East, stop six other wars, and bring in some $20 trillion in America First investments within your first year, and you come home to find yourself under water and called a “lame duck.” Democracies are known to be fickle and hard to please, but this is still rich — and it will result in poverty if it continues.

Without the use of Trump’s tariffs and dealmaking, there would not be $20 trillion looking to onshore in the United States. You can blame Trump for higher costs on bananas and coffee, but it is the cost of electricity and health care — not the cost of coffee and bananas — that is roiling kitchen-table economics.

Vice President JD Vance recently made the right call for popular and populist patience. Those who are impatient should look at the offsets already passed, such as no taxes on Social Security, tips, and overtime. That helps pay for bananas and coffee and then some.

The sovereign wealth funds that are presently lining up on our shores are coming here based on promises made by a can-do president speaking for a can-do nation. While Trump is a can-do guy, are “We the People” still a can-do people? Or do we at least want to return to becoming a can-do people again?

The “can’t-do” forces are legion, and they are the ones now championing the affordability crisis they caused. When America was a can-do nation, we built the Empire State Building in a year. Today, it would take years to get a permit.

RELATED: From Monroe to ‘Donroe’: America enforces its back yard again

Photo by Jim WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

Those willing to invest such money will require some certitude that the power they will need will be there to “build, baby, build.” If not, the money and the opportunity will pass before they have the possibility to take needed root.

And what about us, the American family, worker, and business continuing to struggle under the legacy of throttling energy privation? In short, we all have a common good — a shared interest — in righting the wrongs that control our grid and our nation’s future.

The good news is that a bill was introduced in the House during the government shutdown. It’s called the “Affordable, Reliable, Clean Energy Security Act.” Unlike Obamacare, which clocked in at 903 pages, this bill is a lean 763 words. If it becomes law — and it should — it would change everything for the better, unlike Obamacare, which is a recipe for unaffordability.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act was missing this one thing. His short- and long-term America First ambitions would be significantly strengthened by making this energy bill law before the midterms. Executive orders don’t provide the energy security these investors require or the American people deserve.

$20 trillion is a lot of money. Coming to our shores is a new lease on the American experiment as we enter our 250th birthday, hopelessly divided and broke. Let us come together to solve not just the affordability crisis but also set the conditions for greatness for the next 250 years.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

​Opinion & analysis, Green energy, $20 trillion, Boondoggle, Environmentalism, Climate change alarmism, Climate crisis, Global warming, Hysteria, United states, Gross domestic product, Economy, National debt, Interest, Affordability crisis