The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn’t agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq. Tariq al Hashimi, Iraq’s Sunni vice president said that many Iraqi politicians “view the move as akin to political blackmail.”
President Bush “has remained almost invisible as the Republican figurehead, primarily attending smallish and closed fundraisers in safe GOP areas.” He has raised just over $80 million raised for his party, “about 35 percent less than he raised in 2006.”
The securities industry still has $20 billion to pay in bonuses, Bloomberg reports. “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, both still on track for profitable years, have set aside about $13 billion for bonuses after three quarters.” Some at Lehman Brothers “will get the same bonus they received a year ago.”
New job data show “the labor market is now the worst it’s been since the two prior recessions in 2001 and the early 1990s.” “One of the starkest indicators is that the number of people who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more reached two million in September. That’s 21% of the total unemployed, and approaching the prior peaks of about 23% in 2003 and 1992.”
8 days to go: John McCain will be holding rallies in Dayton, OH, and Pottsville, PA, while Sarah Palin campaigns in Fredericksburg and Roanoke, VA. Barack Obama will be giving a “closing argument speech” in Canton, OH, and will then head to a rally in Pittsburgh, PA. Joe Biden will be holding three rallies, in Greenville, NC; Greensboro, NC; and New Port Richey, FL.
“At least 64,000 people from all 50 states and more than 20 other countries have given money to support or oppose a ban on same-sex marriage in California,” the AP reports. Contributions for and against Proposition 8 have surpassed $60 million, which is “a record nationally for a ballot initiative based on a social rather than economic issue.”
More than 50,000 registered Georgia voters have been “flagged” because of a computer mismatch in their personal identification information. Situations like Georgia’s are “raising fears of potential vote suppression in crucial swing states” because “lists of people with mismatches are often systematically cut, or ‘purged,’ from voter rolls.”
The Falluja wastewater treatment plant — meant “to be the centerpiece of an effort to rebuild Iraq” — has now cost $100 million and run three years late, according to an Inspector General report. “The project was so poorly conceived that there is no reliable electricity to run pumps and purification tanks, and no money left to connect homes to the main sewer lines, which now run uselessly beneath Falluja’s streets.
And finally: Gather round, Californians. “Project Runway” star Tim Gunn has cut a new ad opposing the marriage equality ban in California. “Over the years, I’ve seen some questionable fashion choices on the runway,” says Gunn. “But I’ve never seen anything as unattractive as the content of Proposition 8.” Watch the ad here.
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