Hodgkinson

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
Hodgkinson letters: ‘I have never said life sucks, only the policies of the Republicans’

James Hodgkinson, the Belleville man who was killed after police say he shot at congressmen and aides during practice for a congressional baseball game Wednesday, wrote a number of letters to the editor of the Belleville News-Democrat.

In them, he often railed against Republicans and tax policies, and at least once advocated for legalizing marijuana.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/news/local/article156092134.html#storylink=cpy


The gunman who opened fire this morning on Republican congressmen and staffers recently declared in a Facebook post that, “It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”

The accused shooter, James T. Hodgkinson, 66, posted a link to a Change.org petition in late-March that included the notation that, “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”

Hodgkinson’s Facebook page includes numerous photos of Senator Bernie Sanders, whom Hodgkinson appears to have strongly supported during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. In posts last August, Hodgkinson wrote, “I want Bernie to Win the White House” and “Bernie is a Progressive, while Hillary is Republican Lite.”

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/james-t-hodgkinson/congressional-baseball-shooter-729035



“He did not come off as a radical,” Ms. Brennan said. “He did not come off as an unstable individual. He wasn’t belligerent. He was just kind of a normal guy.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/politics/virginia-shooting-suspect-james-hodgkinson.html?_r=0

and there in lies the problem - Hodgkinson seem like a 'normal guy'


WATCH: Tape Of Congressional Shooter Emerges Ranting About 'The 1%'


Hodgkinson had made numerous references to income inequality before, in his letters to the editor. Among his statements were:

I just want to let everyone know that income inequality was a factor in the causes of the Great Depression as well as the greed of Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon under the Republican Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover … This is what the Republican Party wants to do today.

I don’t want a president who won’t even keep his money in American banks. I don’t want a president who will lower taxes on the rich and raise them on the other 99 percent.

If the rich paid their fair share of taxes today, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. We need to vote all Republicans out of Congress.

I would wish all people under an annual income of $1 million to get behind the 99 percent, and back the push for tax reform. My motto is: “Tax em like 1938.” God bless the 99 percent.
 
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Lurk

Happy Creepy Ass Cracka
There is not doubt this guy was a spook like Midnight, HNBoy and "Blue Crab" especially.
 

mAlice

professional daydreamer
Each day, the libs become more and more emboldened by the acts committed, and comments made by libs today and yesterday. This is going to get worse and worse every day, until it becomes a serious problem. These people are going to cause, at minimum, martial law, at worse, another civil war.
 

Hijinx

Well-Known Member
Each day, the libs become more and more emboldened by the acts committed, and comments made by libs today and yesterday. This is going to get worse and worse every day, until it becomes a serious problem. These people are going to cause, at minimum, martial law, at worse, another civil war.

They are screwing around with grass root republicans.
Republican politicians are pussies so they think the rest of us are too,


Big mistake.
 

mAlice

professional daydreamer
They are screwing around with grass root republicans.
Republican politicians are pussies so they think the rest of us are too,


Big mistake.

I don't think they're thinking at all. They're all just falling in line with the agenda that they've baited with-hook, line and sinker.
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
I realize this only touches on a small part of the OP - but what the hell does anyone think is a "fair share" for the rich to pay, in taxes?

When I was a kid, the common thought was that neither the rich nor the poor ever pay taxes - the rich avoid it, and the poor don't owe it.
I don't know if people STILL think this - I don't see how they CAN if they think the rich are getting breaks they didn't pay into -

But the rich pay an obscene amount of our collective taxes. If we didn't have the rich, we would be monumentally *screwed*.
 

Toxick

Splat
“He did not come off as a radical,” Ms. Brennan said. “He did not come off as an unstable individual. He wasn’t belligerent. He was just kind of a normal guy.”

Sounds like "common-sense gun control" would not have prevented this ####### from getting a gun.




Frankly, I don't think any "common-sense gun control" will prevent anyone who wants a gun from getting one.
 

Wishbone

New Member
Sounds like "common-sense gun control" would not have prevented this ####### from getting a gun.




Frankly, I don't think any "common-sense gun control" will prevent anyone who wants a gun from getting one.

Hasn't prevented them from getting Cocaine, Marijuana or Meth.
 

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Sounds like "common-sense gun control" would not have prevented this ####### from getting a gun.




Frankly, I don't think any "common-sense gun control" will prevent anyone who wants a gun from getting one.

Exactly. And obtaining a rifle like the one Hodgkinson apparently used is about as easy as obtaining any firearm ever gets, excepting, perhaps, black powder firearms. And always will be so.
 

This_person

Well-Known Member
I realize this only touches on a small part of the OP - but what the hell does anyone think is a "fair share" for the rich to pay, in taxes?

When I was a kid, the common thought was that neither the rich nor the poor ever pay taxes - the rich avoid it, and the poor don't owe it.
I don't know if people STILL think this - I don't see how they CAN if they think the rich are getting breaks they didn't pay into -

But the rich pay an obscene amount of our collective taxes. If we didn't have the rich, we would be monumentally *screwed*.
Good point (source)

Percentage (Ranked by AGI)AGI Share (%)Percent of Federal Income Tax Revenue
Top 1%20.58%39.48%
Top 10%47.21%70.88%
Top 50%88.73%97.25%
Bottom 50%11.27%2.75%
 

Wishbone

New Member
Something like this is their fantasy...

2014.05-Top-US-PIT-rate.png
 

PsyOps

Pixelated
I realize this only touches on a small part of the OP - but what the hell does anyone think is a "fair share" for the rich to pay, in taxes?

When I was a kid, the common thought was that neither the rich nor the poor ever pay taxes - the rich avoid it, and the poor don't owe it.
I don't know if people STILL think this - I don't see how they CAN if they think the rich are getting breaks they didn't pay into -

But the rich pay an obscene amount of our collective taxes. If we didn't have the rich, we would be monumentally *screwed*.

In its roots, I don't think it has anything to do with paying one's fair share; it has to do with stripping the wealth from the wealthy and giving it to the poor. If they take the top down, it will build the bottom up. No one should have any more money than anyone else; everyone is essentially poor. And here's the best part............... government is going to make that happen. What better way to establish absolute corruption and power over us than to allow the government strip away what we have rightfully earned.
 

hotbikermama40

New Member
I realize this only touches on a small part of the OP - but what the hell does anyone think is a "fair share" for the rich to pay, in taxes?

When I was a kid, the common thought was that neither the rich nor the poor ever pay taxes - the rich avoid it, and the poor don't owe it.
I don't know if people STILL think this - I don't see how they CAN if they think the rich are getting breaks they didn't pay into -

But the rich pay an obscene amount of our collective taxes. If we didn't have the rich, we would be monumentally *screwed*.

And what would be the point of encouraging our kids, or feeling emboldened ourselves for that matter, to work to attain wealth and comfort if we're going to get penalized for it in our taxes?
 

GURPS

INGSOC
PREMO Member
I realize this only touches on a small part of the OP - but what the hell does anyone think is a "fair share" for the rich to pay, in taxes?



dude made some reference on his Facebook page or letters to the editor about taxes in the 'Good Old Days'


I think when it was 75 to 90% tax rate on the rich ....
 

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
dude made some reference on his Facebook page or letters to the editor about taxes in the 'Good Old Days'


I think when it was 75 to 90% tax rate on the rich ....

And I remember some of those days. But it's important to remember a few things -

Try and take a look at the *median* pay for someone in say, the 40's and 50's and look again at those tax brackets, with the actual numbers in them.
THEN - do some digging and find out the population of the nation that actually MADE that money in the top few brackets.
THEN - look at how much revenue came from those brackets.

It wasn't a lot of money, and there weren't a lot of people making that money.
As a consequence, those ultra-high brackets didn't bring in a lot of tax revenue - it's what happens when you tax the crap out of maybe 10 people.
You take a lot of their money, but there ain't a lot of them to make a difference.

It's also mathematically dumb - try to imagine a graph where there's a massive spike to the right, but a slow ramp to the spike.
An exponential graph. That area on the right might be the rich. You see most of the curve is under the last little bit.
But what happens to that graph if you cut the last bit - OUT? You don't have much. What happens to your money if the whole nation's economy tumbles?
Or worse, a lot of those rich decide - to just *LEAVE*?

A smart thing to do would be to smooth it out more - and to find optimal tax rates for each part. Move the part of the graph more to the left and make the rate
a value where you get the most without losing it to inactivity.

There's this idea among those clearly not familiar with human behavior where it's assumed that things like taxation can be straight linear - you know, tax more, get more.
But it doesn't work that way. Tax enough, and they don't see the wisdom in working harder. It's like taxing gas - and people start carpooling.
Maybe that's what you want them to do - but it sucks as a means of getting money.
 
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