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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