Well, welcome to the Kim Iverson show. Um, thank you guys so much for being here. It is obviously a very sad day, scary day for our nation, for all of us, I think, um, with the assassination of Charlie Kirk that happened really just mere moments ago. um really hard to process. I think we're all in shock. Um and there's, you know, there's actually a lot to say about this. Um political violence is on the rise in the country and we are entering the early stages of a failed state and this is one of those symptoms. One of the symptoms is the rise of political violence of political targeting of trying to silence disscent through guns. And we're seeing an increase and it's a pretty stark increase that has been going on since really 2016. The country's just become more and more divided. But let's talk about Charlie Kirk for a moment here. 31 years old, about to turn 32 here in about a month. He would have turned 32. He's got a wife and two kids. um and just taken from the world way too early. Whe you know, uh certainly there were many who didn't agree with Charlie Kirk. Um there were many who did agree with Charlie Kirk and the whole beauty of being an American is we're supposed to be able to disagree with each other. And Charlie Kirk was one that he's been taking a lot of heat from all sides lately. Um, so this could have been anybody. In fact, the shooter is still at large. That is the latest. They thought they had caught the guy. I think we've got the image of the guy that was um that they claimed was the guy. For a while, people were claiming that this older man was the one that was, you know, you see him being carted away there. I mean, that looks like, you know, but they they they claim that this guy was the shooter, but it's actually come out that this is not the shooter. That that guy is not. The old whitehaired boomer that you might see images of is not the shooter. Uh we do not know who the shooter is because the shooter is still at large at this moment. Hopefully, while I'm talking, they get the guy or woman, whoever, whoever, whoever did it. But that's who this guy here is not the shooter. Just to be very clear to everybody, this is not the shooter. We don't know who did it. Um, this happened at Utah Valley University. It's a school in Oram, Utah. ORM, Utah. Utah is a Republican state. Uh, ORM is particularly Mormon. He was rushed to the hospital to Utah Valley Hospital. I think it's um uh real close to Orm. I think it's in Provo. about 10 15 minutes away. And um we did blur this. We blurred the video. The video is just so graphic of him being shot. It was just obvious from the imagery from the video that he clearly was not likely to survive. the fact they haven't been able to get the shooter and the shooter was clearly, you know, I mean, it looks like uh I mean, how do you hit how do you hit that artery? How do you hit that artery if you're not, you know, do you think it was by chance or do you think it was a really great shooter? You know, somebody who's skilled, very skilled shooter, I should say. It's really scary that we're living in this time right now where uh somebody like Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump, I mean, we've had numerous assassination attempts and even successful assassinations over the last um just really short period of time. Really things are escalating. I would say even in this last in these in this past year, things have been escalating. And you know these are this is state failure is not a single moment but it's a process and that process you know these are these are some of the early stages of the process. Um you know just the increased polarization the politicization of the civil institutions erosion of um just erosion of everything. I mean this is just the increased polarization is really quite alarming in this country at this point. Charlie Kirk is the first political commentator to be killed in the history of the country. I think I don't think this has ever happened. Certainly we receive threats. Um we receive even you know maybe you know there targeting and and um violence. Journalists are targeted all the time. Journalists are killed all the time. And we see that happening in Gaza and other places, but this is the first time that a US political commentator has been killed specifically for being a political commentator that I'm aware of. I could be wrong on that, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think he's the first to have ever been killed here in the US for being a US political commentator. And they don't know who did it. They don't have the person. We don't know the political motivation. Of course, you know, the first initial reports that came out was that white-haired boomer guy, but and then people were saying, "Well, he's a registered liberal Democrat." And of course, you know, going in that direction, but we don't know who shot Charlie Kirk and um might not ever know. I mean, if they haven't caught the person at this point, it's hard to imagine. And if if this person was very skilled, it's hard to imagine that they would have ever that they'll ever catch them, which is going to lead to many conspiracy theories, maybe even just conspiracies, not even theories, but actual conspiracies. I mean, we could go down the rabbit hole a million different directions to figure out, you know, if there if they never catch the shooter, what the motivation of of the shooter was. But that would be the point. I mean, um, if if we never figure out who the shooter is and if we don't know their political motivation or even personal motivation for all we know, you know, they could be somebody he knows that was pissed off about something and who knows, right? But if we never know, then this could be used and weaponized quite frankly for a bunch of different agendas to silence us, to control us. As if this event itself wasn't silencing in its own way. I mean, that's the point of something like this is to scare all of us, you know, to scare to scare us into um silence, to be afraid. And they could use they could use this, oh, they could say, well, Charlie, you know, was pro- Israel and so some, you know, pro Palestine person got him, but we got to silence the pro Palestine. and see whether they're terrorists. They're terrorists. We got to we got to monitor them. We got to follow them. We got to do what we can. Or they could say, "No, it was actually the the pro-Israel crowd, not the pro Palestine crowd that did it because they were mad that he platformed Dave Smith and Tucker Carlson. They were pissed off." And so, you know, they they got him. Or they're going to say it's the liberals because the liberals are insane. Democrats are dangerous and insane and they can't take it when somebody has a different opinion, so they had to kill him just like they tried to shoot Donald Trump. Although we have our theories on on that one, right? Um or they'll say it was a trans shooter because he was talking about trans right at the moment. Trans shootings right at the moment he was shot. That's what he was talking about at the event. So somebody was asking about that and then he got shot. So clearly it was a trans person who did it. We got to silence the trans people. Or they'll say religious anti-religious, you know, anti-Christian. Didn't Donald Trump just yesterday uh sign a or speak or sign maybe another executive order to protect Christians? It was an instead of anti-semitism, it was for anti-Christian. think he was getting too much heat for, you know, so much anti-semitism protection, but what about the Christians? And so he kind of did something for the Christians. So somebody could say, well, it was Charlie Kirk was being targeted because he's, you know, a god-fearing man and religious and so it was some atheist zealot or Islamic terror, right? They'll go in that direction. I mean, how many directions will they go in if we if they don't catch the person and will that and and then we ask the question because here we are already going down conspiracy theories. Is that by design? So that they could then utilize this to, you know, really serve any of their agendas. That's what we have to worry about. So, not only do we have to worry for our lives, especially those of us that do this type of thing for a living, those of us that are outspoken, um, not only do we have to worry for our lives, but now we have to also worry about how they're going to weaponize this to censor us. So, it's just um it's very concerning. It's concerning because there have been an increase in threats against those of us doing this line of work. I've had an increase in threats in my own life at the moment. Um, and to see something like this happen, I mean, and his wife and children. I mean, just 31 years old. I mean, it's just devastating. It's totally devastating. I don't want this for anybody. I don't care what their opinions are. We could disagree on absolutely everything. I still don't want them to be shot and killed or harmed in any way. I mean, this is just tragic. Um, but threats have increased. Let's talk about this increase. The increase has really started, I think you could all guess, 2016, right? That's that I think is when we had a real shift in the country in general. we we saw this major just a shift and I'm sure if you know when the historians look back many years from now and they look at this time period and you know the failing of the United States what led to it and they kind of do this dissection of a 100red years of US policies that led us to the demise of the nation it'll probably of course go back further than 2016 but I think 2016 is when we really saw the shift happened. That is when we really um noticed that there was real political division. I mean, we all got we all I think we all got sucked into it in one way, shape or form. I mean, I embarrassingly got sucked into it in 2016 where you I was mean to my own mother at Thanksgiving because she was more supportive of Donald Trump and I was shocked that Donald Trump won. I was one of those people. I was a bit brainwashed and um you know, I was brainwashed by the mainstream news because I wasn't in the news business at that time. I was doing entertainment, radio, living my normal life, like thinking about other things and and um and so yeah, you know, I think we all um many of us got sucked into the the kind of the brainworm and many are still sucked into it even on the other side, even on the Trump side, the people that then look at liberals and think liberals are evil demons that are trying to uh ruin the world, you know, with their agendas. does. And I think anytime you think that there's some sort of a conspiratorial agenda, then you're there is a risk of becoming more violent. There's a risk of there's a risk of this radicalization that happens. And that's um and I'm not saying that then what we do is we censor any of this or anything like that. Right. It's I think it's got to be a a cultural check that we as a society do on each other where we say we don't want to become radical. We want to be able to listen to everybody and we want to we want to take we need to get back to taking the the stance of well, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. Whatever happened to that phrase? Let's agree to disagree. or whatever happened to well, you know, that's okay. We have a difference in opinion, but that's what makes America great. I mean, whatever happened to that? And instead, it's agree with me or you're an evil demon. I mean, that's where we're at as a society, let's face it. And that's happening on both sides. That's liberals thinking Trump supporters are evil demons who are going to drive the country into a dystopian uh fascist future. And meanwhile, you've got now people on the right thinking liberals are driving the country into this dystopian fascist future. Both sides believing that the other side is evil. It's not just a difference in opinion. Well, we want the best for our country. We want the best for ourselves, the best for our families, the best for our communities. Instead, it's this thought that there's some plot. There's some plot, some evil plot that the people on the other side have against us, whatever that plot is, you know, and everybody's pointing a finger at each other, saying, "You're the one with the plot, and your plot, you're an evil, you're evil. You're an evil demon, and your plot is going to ruin our society, and you're doing it on purpose." You know, that's the thinking, right? It's that you are purposefully trying to ruin society. For what purpose? I don't know. But it's because you're just an evil demon. And we just don't we don't say, you know what, we're Americans. Let's just agree to disagree. I don't need to know who you voted for. And if I do know who you voted for, I could just respect it because we have a difference in opinion. And that's okay. We're allowed to go to the polls. We're allowed to vote for who we want. We're supposed to. It's America. That's the whole point of this great experiment, remember? And oh yeah, you're allowed to have a different opinion and we're allowed to debate about it and argue about it and support certain different causes, you know, whatever happened to that and now instead it's you're an evil demon and you're trying to ruin the world. So political violence has risen since 2016. Um, the Capitol Police since 2016 have found that they have about triple the number of political threats targeting lawmakers, their families, and staff. It's about triple at this point that they've been dealing with. And year-over-year, it's been increasing. In fact, just from last year 20 2024, I mean, we haven't finished 2025 yet, so we'll see what the threat numbers are for this year, but the threat numbers against US lawmakers in 2024 compared to 2023 has increased by 20% alone, just from 2023 to 2024. Now, you could say, well, but 2024 was an election year, and that could be true. So, we'll see how the 2025 numbers pan out. But year-over-year since 2016, the numbers have tripled. The threats against lawmakers, the investigations that Capitol police have to lob open because of threats to lawmakers, their family members, and staff has tripled since 2016. So, we have gotten way worse. from 20 uh from 2008 to 2016, we had really one targeted political shooting. If you remember, that was um Gfords, Kathy Gfords, sorry, Gabrielle Gfords. Uh Gabrielle Gfords was shot January 8th, 2011. She was hosting her Congress on your corner event in a supermarket parking lot in Tucson, Arizona when a 22-year-old man opened fire with a Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol with high-capacity magazines and shot Gfords point blank in the head. She survived, by the way, uh, amazingly, but she was shot point blank in the head before then indiscriminately firing into the crowd. and six people were killed, including a federal judge, Gford's aid, a 9-year-old little girl, uh, and and others and a dozen others, over a dozen others were wounded in that politically motivated attack. And really that was the only real there were other attacks in 2008 to 2016 but they were on you know like against Planned Parenthood or against um different like organizations like more more against political ideologies than they were against individuals. So, um, groups, uh, there were more symbolic like the Holocaust Museum. Um, who else was was shot? There was, um, well, Dr. George Tiller. He was a prominent abortion provider and he was shot, point blank, at his church in Witchah, Kansas. Uh, the Knoxville Unitarian Church, which is a liberal congregation, was shot. they during a children's performance two were killed seven were wounded that happened in 2008 so there was a lot of the there was a few I shouldn't say a lot but there were these attacks against more general ideology and not against individual people the only individual targeted attack was against uh Gabrielle Gfords but now you fast forward from 2016 to 2025 and we've had a a number of increases in these political political attacks. Uh we've got, if you remember, in 2017, Steve Scaliz, Republican, uh gunman opened fire on Republicans practicing for congressional baseball. House Majority Whip Scaliz was critically wounded, several others injured. The gunman was James Hodkinson, a left-wing extremist with anti-Trump, anti-GOP uh sentiments. He was killed by police. But it isn't just, you know, Elon Musk po posted today after this happened, after Charlie Kirk was killed, assassinated. Uh Elon Musk posted, you know, something about liberals. It's the left. They're deadly. They're the ones that killed. But that's not that's not true. It's not true. Um, in fact, I should have looked this up, but you know, I bet it was a bit um a bit [sighs] sidetracked today, but Gabrielle Gfords, what side of the aisle was she on? She was a member of the Democratic Party and she was shot by believe the attacker was right-wing, I suppose. So, you know, left and right do this to each other. This isn't this isn't really a one-sided thing. And I think with Elon, you know, sometime I just wish he I just wish Elon would just shut up a lot of times. Just shut just shut up. And this is one of those things I just wish he would shut up about. You know, like now is not the time to be, oh, this is a leftwing left. It's the left that does this when it's the left and the right. Both side. This is the problem, Elon. And you're actually kind of helping the problem by, oh, it's that side. They're the evil demons. And what are you going to do about evil demons? You're going to eradicate them, right? What do you want to do, Elon? What do you want to do about the evil demons? Now is not the time. Um Obama, Biden, Clinton, some figures over at CNN, they were mailed pipe bombs. If you remember this, there were 16 different pipe bombs that were mailed to them. None of them detonated. Um, this was now, you know, you, by the way, I'm just giving you the list. You might say, well, that was a false flag or that person was set up and that's, you know, in some of these cases, I agree with you. I'm not going to, but I'm just pointing out that, you know, the and so some people might say, well, that one because that was Caesar Seok if you remember that. And some people would say, well, Caesar, that was a setup. you know, what do we know? He was this far-right extremist type person that they that sent these pipe bombs and um and then people say, "Well, no, but it wasn't really him or something." He ended up going to prison for 20 years. Got a 20-year sentence for this. But um you know, some people say, "Well, but he was really, you know, the left set him up because they wanted to have a far-right extremist because they kept yapping on about farright extremism." And it's true. I mean, the left was sitting I mean, for a long time, I mean, this is and still, but really worse, I think in Trump's first term. They've calmed down. I've noticed they have calmed down. You have to give them some credit, I suppose. But now they're not, you know, going absolutely insane thinking that Trump is Hitler. Even though now might be a little bit more appropriate considering, you know, him and Netanyahu are best buddies. But um you know they were going crazy for a long time there saying anybody who was the right was just taking us down this crazy dystopian path and they were all extremists and they kept talking about right-wing extremism right-wing extremism that's the biggest threat we have in our country which is just not true and uh kept going on and on and on about that and and then um and so then we had these kind of things happen like Obama Biden cla you know the pipe bombs being sent to them and also the Gretchen Whit Whitmer kidnapping campaign which happened in 2020 and they say see it was these right-wing extremists and so there's a thinking that they could have been a uh you know like a false flag type event or setup which may be true I may or may not believe that um a federal judge in 2020 was this this h there was an incident anti-feminist attorney Roy Dan Hollander disguised himself as a delivery man and shot into Judge Solless's home. Her son Daniel was killed. Her husband was critically wounded and Hollander, the guy that shot, died by suicide. And um the judge was nonpartisan. I don't know exactly what it was that that triggered this, but Roy Dan Hollander was said to be far-right anti-feminist. Okay. Lee Zeldon on July 21st in 2020 in Fairport, New York. He's a gubanatorial nominee. Zeldon was attacked on stage by David uh Jacobonis wielding a pointed keychain. Zeldon fought him off unheard. Uh Jacobonis, I guess, is his name. An army vet with no proven political motive. Got probation in federal court. And Lee Zeldon's a Republican, but the motive was unclear. Remember Brett Kavanaaugh? Justice Brett Kavanaaugh. On June 8th, 2022 in Maryland, Nicholas John Rosski arrived at Kavanaaugh's home armed with a gun and zip ties, but he surrendered after calling 911, later pleading guilty to attempted assassination. He admitted anger over abortion and gun rulings. So, you know, Justice Kavanaaugh is supposedly they saying they list him here as nonpartisan justice, but I know I think we all think that he's even though these judges are technically nonpartisan, they do lean one way or the other. I'm not sure which one the other Esther Solace which way does she must have been a left because the attacker was right and justice Brett Kavanagh the attacker was left so we know he's Kavanagh's more right Paul Pelosi another one you know a little unclear but um he's a Democrat obviously a Pelosi and the attacker they claimed was far right but that didn't really match up because the attacker had all kinds of I think that one was just something else to be honest with you but that did happen and maybe it was politically motivated But it didn't really seem I mean that one was really weird. Wasn't that one weird? That was weird. Of course, Donald Trump the attempted assassination on him in Butler, Pennsylvania. Thomas Matthew Crooks, we don't you know which can you believe that there was never any further investigation into this really? I mean, here a president, a a almost sitting president, former sitting president, soon to be sitting president shot and bleeding and they don't really even I mean, that was that was they have we heard anything else about this one? I mean, this one was weird. And this one kind of reminds me of maybe what will happen if they don't apprehend Charlie Kirk's shooter, you know? It's just kind of this just forget about it, you know? Let's just move on and not ask any more questions. Which makes it even weirder. I mean, Thomas Matthew Crooks, like, how how did this kid go from not being able to make the high school rifle team to suddenly being able to shoot Trump in the air? You know, there's a lot of questions there. And the also big question is why haven't they further investigated this? They're just like, well, the kid was dead, so nothing else to investigate. That's it. Just recently, Minnesota State Speaker Melissa Hortman, Democrat, so Democrats um were just attacked. So, uh a bunch of Democrats were attacked. Melissa Hortman, Senator John Hoffman. Um this the act the the shooter actually went to three different homes in Minnesota. One of them happened to be on vacation. Thank goodness for her and her family. But the others, uh, Melissa Hortman was killed and her husband, her and her husband were killed. Senator Hoffman and his wife were critically injured in their homes. Um, they were all Democrats, but the investigation, you know, they're they do believe it to be politically motivated. I mean, they were all Democrats. They were all senators and uh so obviously something there. But um again, you know, so to to try to blame this on one side or the other, this is just we have be we've become politically extreme and the attacks are happening. The attacks are coming from both sides. And that's how you know it's we're really reaching this kind of failed nation. We're having those symptoms of a failed state, early symptoms of a failed state. And it's not just the political violence. It's a lot of other things going on in our political sphere. The people, we no longer have a voice. Everything is from the bought off politicians. It's whoever has the deepest pockets. And the ones with the deepest pockets by both sides. And that's what we've seen. It doesn't matter who's in office. It's a uni party. Both sides are controlled by the same deep pocketed people with their various deep pocketed motivations. And so that's another symptom of the failed state. And what does that leave us? It leaves us with the people squabbbling with each other because we can't be heard anymore by the politicians there. We've lost control over our political system completely. So all we have left is to turn on each other, I guess. Because if you can't control the political system, then you just start trying to control each other. And if you can't actually control each other, then you just start trying to kill each other. And that's where we're at. And now, you know, here we are. Um, Charlie Kirk, conservative commentator, shot in the neck while speaking at Utah Valley University. 31-year-old wife and kids shot, assassinated. Not just shot, assassinated. This was an assassination. And if they don't catch the shooter today, I I just don't know, you know, in I mean, you know, there's always hope that they catch the shooter. If they don't catch him today, maybe they will tomorrow, maybe the day after that. I mean, who knows? But somebody that's clearly this skilled, it looks uh and hasn't been caught yet. I mean, hopefully this that hopefully that changes and hopefully the person gets caught any minute now. early symptoms of a failed nation. Guys, we have to stop demonizing each other. I don't believe that anybody has negative intentions. I don't think liberals with the trans agenda and their anti-Godless ways, I don't think that they have any desire whatsoever to ruin our nation, ruin our communities, and to just do it out of spite just because they're evil lizard people. I just don't think that. And I don't think that conservatives who want whatever it is they a a more Christian white nation maybe you know some of them want that or and even then even that crowd I don't think they want demise for the rest of us. I don't think that uh conservatives who are who who love Trump, who love Israel, who are total Zionists, I don't even think they want to ruin society and to just turn America into a hole country just for kicks and giggles. I I just don't believe that about anybody. I believe everybody wants a better world and everybody wants to make the the society better and to live happier and more free for what they believe and they could be wrong. They could be misguided. They might uh I mean they might be really wrong in their thinking, you know, thinking like there's definitely people out there who believe controlling you is giving you freedom. I mean, in their completely backwards brain, but I don't think they're doing it out of ill will. And I don't think that they want to ruin society. I don't think that's why they're doing it. I don't think the reason why Christians want to make sure that you, you know, live like a Christian on Sundays, for example, even if they mandate it, I don't think that they're doing mandates. I don't think people mandate things because they're trying to ruin society. They might be and they might not realize they are, but I don't think they're trying to. And that's the difference. I don't think anybody tried to ruin society when they wanted to mandate vaccines during the COVID pandemic. I don't think that was their intention. Were they doing it? In my opinion, yeah, they were. But I don't think they were trying to is my point. I think they had good intentions. And I think most people do. And we have to come at each other, give each other the benefit of the doubt. We're trying to make the world a better place. All of us. We might have different ideas. We might have different thinking about how we get to that point. But we all want to make the world a better place. And I we just have to remember this. We have to remember this. And we have to then remember that the answer to words is not violence or censorship. It's more words. Argue it out. Have a conversation. Debate. That is what we do as Americans. At least that's what we're supposed to do. And Charlie Kirk was a great American. He was a great American. and he did what he thought was best for his country. And I disagreed with Charlie Kirk on many things, but he was a great American doing things that he thought was great for his country and that makes him a great American, nothing else. The fact he was doing what he thought he needed to do to make America great. I give my absolute condolences to his family. This is tragic and horrible. Everybody's shocked. The whole Turning Point community, which is uh Charlie's organization, they're I'm sure absolutely shocked and devastated. But even outside of Turning Point, even outside of his family, even outside of the Republican party and those who agreed with Charlie Kirk on everything, all the rest of us are devastated. And I give the condolences to the country because we really are going to need it. All right, guys. Um, coming up, we do have an interview with Dr. Olga Ravasi. This interview was recorded in advance earlier today to accommodate her schedule. Um, so we did not at this point during this interview know about what had happened with Charlie. She has since emailed me um with her shock and condolences about Charlie. But during this interview, this was before a couple of hours prior to Charlie being shot and assassinated [clears throat] and killed. Uh so keep that in mind during the interview. However, it is a great interview to watch. Um and you know to try to maybe it's a good thing we don't talk about it just to try to you know uh we got plenty of other things to talk about. That's for sure in this country that Charlie would want us to keep talking about. That was what his whole thing was. his whole thing was discussion, discourse, talk it out and he would want us to keep talking and we have to remember that not to allow ourselves to be silenced but to keep talking. So uh thank you guys so much for watching and here is we're going to take a break for a commercial and then we have Dr. Olga Ravasi coming up here on the Kim Iverson show. Thank you for watching this clip from the full Kim Iverson show, which you can catch Monday through Friday, 2:00 p. p.m. Pacific, 5:00 p. p.m. Eastern, at kim Iversonshow.com. It is free for you to watch. Again, 2 p.m. Pacific, 5:00 p.m. Eastern. Kimsonshow.com. See you there.
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