In 2011, James Hodgkinson, the alleged shooter who targeted Congresspeople Wednesday morning, made his way to St. Louis for an Occupy Wall Street event. He was interviewed there, where he stated that the 99% were getting “pushed around” while the 1% didn’t give “a damn.”
Hodgkinson stated, (The) “99% are getting pushed around, and the 1% are just not givin’ a damn. So we gotta speak up for the whole country.”
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.