- Iraq is urging over 1 Million pilgrims to leave the shiite holy city of Karbala and police have imposed a curfew after two days of violence including raging gunbattles between rival militias that claimed at least 35 lives during a religious festival.

Security officials told The Associated Press that Mahdi Army gunmen, loyalists of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, attacked guards around the two Karbala shrines that were under the protection of the Badr Brigade, the armed wing of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

In telephone calls to reporters in Karbala, gunfire and exploding mortar shells could be heard.

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The Hill reports that is how the Obama camp sees it.

A top adviser for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said Friday that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), the front-runner for her party’s presidential nomination, is obsessed “with what she calls the Republican attack machine.”

“I think we need a candidate who is obsessed with unifying this country again,” said Obama adviser David Axelrod. He added that Obama could break “the sort of decades-long battle we’ve had over this jagged divide — red state, blue state, American against American — and try to bring people together and attract disaffected Republicans and attract independent voters so that we could build not just a victory, but a governing coalition in this country.”

If I were an advisor to the Obama campaign, which I am not and I doubt they would want me, but if I were this is something that would really worry me. I understand the Senator is attempting to create this ‘new kind’ of politics. However this ‘new kind of politics’ sounds exactly the same the ‘new kind of politics’ Al Gore & John Kerry ran their campaigns on. The ‘we are above this’ mentality that had Gore demolished and Kerry, a Vietnam Vet, basically called a traitor who lied about his war record.

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Factcheck.org is reporting that while Senator Hillary Clinton was speaking at a presidential forum hosted by the Lance Armstrong Foundation she slipped saying 500,000 women die from the disease worldwide each year. Only 250,000 do. The 500,000 number is the institute’s estimate of how many new cases are diagnosed each year around the world.

Roll Call is reporting Senator Larry Craig, who is up for re-election next year, pleaded guilty today to lewd conduct charges in a Minnesota airport. From the article:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men’s public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon.

Craig’s arrest occurred just after noon on June 11 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8.

A spokesman for Craig described the incident as a “he said/he said misunderstanding,” and said the office would release a fuller statement later Monday afternoon.

After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, “What do you think about that?” the report states.

Craig was detained for approximately 45 minutes, interviewed, photographed, fingerprinted and released, and police prepared a formal complaint for interference with privacy and disorderly conduct.

According to the incident report, Sgt. Dave Karsnia was working as a plainclothes officer on June 11 investigating civilian complaints regarding sexual activity in the men’s public restroom in which Craig was arrested.

Airport police previously had made numerous arrests in the men’s restroom of the Northstar Crossing in the Lindbergh Terminal in connection with sexual activity.

It it is “he said/he said” and Craig plead guilty, aren’t they both saying the same thing?

All before he has officially announced:

da Rozett, a longtime U.S. Chamber of Commerce official, is gone from the former Tennessee senator’s committee to “test the waters” of a presidential bid after spending the last several weeks as communications director.

“I don’t know what the story is,” said Thompson, who was asked about the departure while campaigning at the Minnesota state fair. “I don’t know what to say about it except that she’s a wonderful lady.”

From the Associated Press

See also Thompson Taps Third Campaign Manager, & NY Times Reports on Thompson Campaign, & Another One Bites the Dust in Thompson’s Crew.