Thu: Breaking News! Voters Want Gov't to Do It's Job

It Doesn't Look Like MyPillow is in for a Soft Landing

The bank is playing "hardball" with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

The businessman and pitchman turned election denier claims he's trying to ward off the poorhouse by chatting with his bank "almost all afternoon."

"This was part of my big cancellation they did on me over the last three months and one piece where we deal with, our overseas vendors, we're trying to get that lined up and they're really playing — I don't know what the word would be — hardball."

The MAGA-devotee who confided that he is too cash-strapped to pay his lawyers fighting a defamation lawsuit discussed the dire state of his fledging home and attire company during an appearance on the "War Room" podcast with Stephen Bannon.

Lindell appeared lost as to why his bankers are expressing concerns with MyPillow's stability.

"I'm going, 'You guys have no risk here,'" he said. "I don't know why you're doing this to me."

CarbonMonoxidebnb

In February 2014, Airbnb made a commitment: The company would require hosts to confirm that carbon monoxide detectors were installed in every listing by the end of the year.

Months earlier, the short-term rental company faced one of its first reported deaths involving carbon monoxide: a Canadian citizen staying in an Airbnb in Taiwan. The company wanted to do more, it said in a now-deleted blog post.

“By the end of 2014, we’ll require all Airbnb hosts to confirm that they have these devices installed in their listing,” the blog post said of carbon monoxide detectors.

Nearly a decade later, the company has not made any such mandate — and more lives have been lost along the way.

NBC News has identified 19 deaths since 2013 that occurred at Airbnb properties and are alleged to have involved carbon monoxide poisoning, according to interviews with family members of victims and a review of news articles, autopsy reports, police records, and court and government documents. The company is currently facing at least three lawsuits pertaining to carbon monoxide deaths or poisonings.

Airbnb has issued statements in seven of the cases, which accounted for 17 of the deaths. In five of the statements, Airbnb said it would pay for costs associated with the deaths or that it had removed Airbnb listings associated with the incidents. None of the statements contested details of the reports surrounding the deaths, and none addressed carbon monoxide’s role in the incidents. Other statements expressed condolences. In the two cases in which the company has not commented, Airbnb was the target of lawsuits. One of those suits was settled and the other was dismissed.

Remarkable News!  Voters Want Government to Do Something That Helps Them.

As House Republicans weigh launching an impeachment proceeding against President Joe Biden for who the hell knows what, new polling shows nearly 7 in 10 voters (68%) in battleground congressional districts across the country believe House Republicans have prioritized “the wrong things," while just 20% say they have prioritized the right things.

The findings come from a Navigator Research survey of 61 battleground districts in late October. And the poll suggests that sentiment is shared at roughly the same rate among voters represented by Democratic and Republican incumbents alike.

Bar graph showing 68% of battleground district voters say Republicans have prioritized the wrong things.
Voters' assessments of House Republican priorities have also plummeted since July, when Republicans were just 16 percentage points underwater on the question versus being 48 points underwater now—a net shift of -32 points in only three months.

Republican incumbents in Biden-won districts also have a net -10 favorability rating among their constituents (34% favorable, 44% unfavorable).

But wait, there's more: Republican incumbents in Trump-won districts are also underwater in terms of both favorability (-4 points on net, 41% favorable to 45% unfavorable) and job approval (-6 points, 37% favorable to 43% unfavorable).

Navigator says these are House Republicans' lowest ratings since the group's first battleground survey in April.

Maybe They Got the Message, But I'll Believe It When I See It.

A really strange thing happened to House Republicans Wednesday: The Freedom Caucus apparently conceded their favorite weapon—government shutdowns. Just like that. Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who chairs the far-right caucus, announced at a press conference that they would accept the top-line budget of $1.59 trillion as agreed to by President Joe Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in May.

“It's still too much for many of us but was agreed to around Memorial Day was this [Fiscal Responsibility Act] number of $1.59 trillion,” Perry said. “Most of the House voted for it. Most of the Senate voted for it. That's where we have to be, don't be adding stuff on to it.”

Just to be clear, Perry is referring to the same agreement that ostensibly kicked off the whole movement to oust McCarthy from the speaker’s chair. It was supposedly all about spending and his refusal to rein it in. When McCarthy passed a continuing resolution with Democrats’ help in September, one that didn’t cut programs by nearly one-third, as Republicans had demanded, that was supposedly the last straw. Now they’re just giving in?

Reporters had a hard time believing it, too. In follow-up questioning, Perry reiterated it: “$1.59 trillion is too expensive for many of us, but we realize $1.47 [trillion] is not going to happen. … The House overwhelmingly supported $1.59 and so did the Senate.” That’s a Freedom Caucus leader accepting reality—a minor miracle.

It’s also an about-face for a Freedom Caucus that, pre-Thanksgiving, was still demanding major cuts and shutting down the House in protest when they didn’t get them, by blocking procedural votes.

As if that weren’t enough, House Speaker Mike Johnson—who swore to Fox News a few weeks ago that he wouldn’t go along with another short-term funding bill—told Senate Republicans Wednesday that if the House and Senate can’t come to an agreement on their appropriations bills, the House would agree to extending current funding until next September.

West Virginia has $4 Million for a Football Coach and Another $4 Million for a Basketball Coach, but Math?  No Money.

This past August, W.V.U. announced plans to cut thirty-two programs and lay off a hundred and sixty-nine faculty members. Among the undergraduate majors set to be purged or restructured were music performance, environmental and community planning, art history, German, Russian, Chinese, French, and Spanish. Masters programs in acting, landscape architecture, energy environments, linguistics, and creative writing would go, too. The plans made national headlines, with much of the coverage focussing on what the changes suggested about the state of the humanities. But it wasn’t only humanities courses that were being jettisoned. Also on the way out were doctoral programs in management, higher education, occupational- and environmental-health sciences, and math. (The university was quick to note that fewer than five hundred students would lose their intended program of study.)

The administration held an appeals period, during which faculty could lobby for their programs. Ela became the most outspoken advocate for mathematics. In meetings and on social media, she explained that advanced math is essential for fields including engineering, medicine, and computer science, and also that math teachers in West Virginia often get their master’s or doctorate degrees from W.V.U. She noted that Katherine Johnson, who made critical contributions to the Apollo 11 mission (she was played by Taraji P. Henson in the movie “Hidden Figures”), had been a math graduate student at W.V.U. She pointed out that, if the cuts were made, it would no longer be possible to get a Ph.D. in math in the state of West Virginia.

The administration was receptive to some entreaties—the plan to drop the M.F.A. in creative writing was quickly abandoned, for instance, as was the proposed elimination of majors in Spanish and Chinese. The math faculty prepared an official appeal, arguing that the graduate programs could be preserved but restructured, with an emphasis on math’s connection to other sciences. The university was unmoved. In September, the school’s board of governors voted on the final recommendations: the master’s and Ph.D. programs in math would be discontinued, and sixteen of the department’s forty-eight faculty positions would be eliminated. The undergraduate curriculum would be revised, both to emphasize applied math and also to be more “efficient.”

Speaking of People Who Need to STFU, ...

Elon Musk told companies that have paused ad buys on X to “go fuck” yourselves, saying an ongoing boycott would likely “kill the company” but the world would judge who was at fault.

“If somebody’s going to try and blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself,” Musk said during the New York Times’ DealBook Summit on Wednesday. “Go. Fuck. Yourself.”

Someone Should Explain to Elon What Blackmail Is.  

2.7 Degrees. That's Not How Many Fewer Programs West Virginia Is Offering.

Consider that 3 degrees Fahrenheit is the difference between a raging fever and a healthy toddler. Between a hockey rink and a swimming pool. Between food going bad or staying at a safe temperature.

Now consider that Earth is about 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter on average than it was in the 1800s. It's little wonder that has already led to measurable shifts in the climate: The last eight years have been the hottest in recorded history and 2023 is expected to be the hottest yet.

But there's a looming threshold that will dictate the future of planet Earth. It could have cascading effects on how hot the planet gets, how much seas rise and how significantly normal daily life as we now know it will change.

Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

The number is 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.