Tom Petty Dead: Today's News for October 3rd

(hat tip to Davidwbaker at Wikimedia for the pic)

Rolling Stone:

Tom Petty, Rock Iconoclast Who Led the Heartbreakers, Dead at 66

Tom Petty, the dynamic and iconoclastic frontman who led the band the Heartbreakers, died Monday. He was 66...

On Sunday, Petty was found unconscious, not breathing and in full cardiac arrest at his Malibu home, according to TMZ, where he was rushed to the hospital and placed on life support. EMTs were able to find a pulse when they found him, but TMZ reported that the hospital found no brain activity when he arrived. A decision was made to pull life support.

...In the late 1970s, Petty's romanticized tales of rebels, outcasts and refugees started climbing the pop charts. When he sang, his voice was filled with a heartfelt drama that perfectly complemented the Heartbreakers' ragged rock & roll. Songs like "The Waiting," "You Got Lucky," "I Won't Back Down," "Learning to Fly" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance" all dominated Billboard's rock chart, and the majority of Petty's albums have been certified either gold or platinum. His most recent release, Hypnotic Eye, debuted at Number One in 2014. Petty, who also recorded as a solo artist and as a member of the Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

In other news...

Washington Post:

Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock was a high-stakes gambler 

who 'kept to himself' before massacre

He liked to bet big, wagering tens of thousands of dollars in a sitting. He owned homes in four states but preferred staying in casino hotels, sometimes for weeks at a time, as he worked the gambling machines.

He grew up the son of a convicted bank robber who was constantly running from the law. But in his own life, Stephen Paddock, 64, had stayed out of trouble until Sunday night, when he suddenly unleashed a firestorm of bullets from his casino hotel room, killing at least 59 people and injuring more than 500 more on the Las Vegas Strip.

“If you told me an asteroid fell into Earth, it would mean the same to me. There’s absolutely no sense, no reason he did this,” his brother Eric Paddock said in an interview outside his home in Orlando. “He’s just a guy who played video poker and took cruises and ate burritos at Taco Bell. There’s no political affiliation that we know of. There’s no religious affiliation that we know of.” 

The Las Vegas shooting wasn't an act of terrorism. If it had been, Paddock would have left some kind of statement to that affect. This was just a guy who snapped.

This is contrary to other reports:

Reuters:

Islamic state claims Las Vegas shooting, says attacker recent convert to Islam

Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed at least 50 people and wounded over 400 in Las Vegas early on Monday, and said the attacker had converted to Islam a few months ago.

"The Las Vegas attack was carried out by a soldier of the Islamic State and he carried it out in response to calls to target states of the coalition," the group's news agency Amaq said in reference to the U.S.-led coalition fighting the group in the Middle East. 

Sorry ISIS, but every terrible act in the world doesn't belong to you. This is actually kind of pathetic.

As for the response to this senseless act...

Huffington Post:

Trevor Noah: After Mass Shootings, Americans Try To Blame Everything But Guns

There are some comedians who try to take on serious topics, and then fail. Trevor Noah of "The Daily Show" is one such comedian:

Trevor Noah has lived in America for only two years but he’s witnessed news coverage of so many mass shootings that he can now predict the country’s response.

“We’re shocked; we’re sad; thoughts and prayers; and then almost on cue people are going to come out and say, ‘Whatever you do, when speaking about the shootings, don’t talk about guns,’” the “Daily Show” host said on Monday’s broadcast.

Inevitably, Americans try to blame everything but guns for mass shootings.

“Is it Muslims? Is it blacks? Is it mentally ill people? Is it white nationalists?” Noah said, mimicking Americans’ responses. 

Somebody needs to tell Trevor the guns aren't shooting themselves.

If you need to understand why Americans don't like to discuss the gun issue immediately after shootings like this one, it is idiotic Leftist knee-jerk responses like this one. This response overlooks (conveniently) the need for an armed populace to protect us from big totalitarian governments like the Leftists want to create.

In other news...

The Seattle Times:

Trump plan aims new foreign tax at Apple, Microsoft, other multinationals

On the last page of a nine-page tax plan that calls for slashing business rates, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans proposed a little-noticed, brand-new tax that may hit companies like Apple, Pfizer and Microsoft.

It’s contained in one sentence: “To prevent companies from shifting profits to tax havens, the framework includes rules to protect the U.S. tax base by taxing at a reduced rate and on a global basis the foreign profits of U.S. multinational corporations.”

The rate and formula aren’t specified, but that lone sentence carries multibillion-dollar implications for multinationals. Their lobbyists are noticing.

Proposing a new tax on U.S. companies’ foreign profits “is appalling,” said Ken Kies of Federal Policy Group, whose clients include General Electric and Microsoft. “The whole point of this tax reform was to make U.S. corporations more competitive. It’s going to do the opposite.”

Did they honestly think the politicians would simply give up tax money?

The government giveth, and the government taketh away.

On the other hand:

It’s not all bad news for multinationals. On the positive side, the framework would allow them to bring back to the U.S., or repatriate, years’ worth of foreign earnings after paying a low tax rate — perhaps 10 percent — on them.

So in exchange for an overall lower tax rate, this tax plan hopes to gain access to multinationals' money kept overseas. Cha-ching!