After years of negotiating with human rights groups and the Red Cross, the U.S. this week allowed five detainees at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan to receive a family visit. There are 600 detainees in Bagram, some of whom have been held for years.

The decision to allow the visits followed years of discussions between American officers and the Red Cross, which says face-to-face visits between prisoners and relatives are a guaranteed right under international humanitarian law.

...The U.S. military in Iraq already allows visits to detainees by family members. Two detention centers, one in Baghdad and one on the Kuwait border, receive an average of 13,000 visitors a month, said Maj. Neal V. Fisher II, a U.S. spokesman in Iraq. Video conference visits are also available, he said.

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This is what you get when you work the refs the way the McCain camp has - Jay Carney capitulates (probably the first of many):

Summary: In a Swampland blog post headlined "McCain's Legitimate Attack," Jay Carney wrote that unlike previous McCain campaign ads that included "false and distorted assaults" on Sen. Barack Obama, McCain's "new ad ... attacking Obama 'and his liberal allies' for failing to lead in the midst of the current financial markets crisis" is "entirely within bounds." In fact, the new McCain ad contains falsehoods about Obama's response to the current economic situation and his tax proposals.

Carney could not take the heat from the McCain campaign and folded. What a hack.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

David Talbot in Salon today explores Gov. Sarah Palin's style of politics in Alaska.

According to some political observers in Alaska, this pattern -- exploiting "old-boy" mentors and then turning against them for her own advantage -- defines Sarah Palin's rise to power. Again and again, Palin has charmed powerful political patrons, and then rejected them when it suited her purposes. She has crafted a public image as a clean politics reformer, but in truth, she has only blown the whistle on political corruption when it was expedient for her to do so. Above all, Palin is a dynamo of ambition, shrewdly maneuvering her way through the notoriously compromised world of Alaska politics, making and breaking alliances along the way.

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Sen. Barack Obama has released a new Spanish language ad on the economy in Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico. You can view it below the fold. The photo is a screen shot from it.

A companion radio ad (click here for audio) plays the same McCain "fundamentals" clip and later asserts, in the Florida version of the spot: "John McCain and the Republicans have no clue about the struggles of the middle class and working people. We have the highest unemployment in Florida in 13 years. Forty-five million people are without health insurance. Nine thousand five hundred homes are being foreclosed every day. In Florida, 1,400 families lose their homes on a daily basis. But John McCain and Republicans want to continue George Bush's same failed policies that led us to this collapse. How can McCain and the Republicans fix our economy if they don't know it's broken?"

Now that everyone agrees that lobbyists are bad, shouldn't we do exactly what they are arguing against? dday points to this Hill article reporting that the bank lobbyists are in a panic over the Dodd bill:

Krugman:

The premise of the Paulson plan– though never stated bluntly — is that these assets are hugely underpriced, so that Uncle Sam can buy them at prices that help the financial industry a lot, without big losses for taxpayers. Are you prepared to bet $700 billion on that premise? But how can we help the financial situation without making that bet? By taking an equity stake. That way, if it turns out that the feds are pumping money in at above-fair prices, at least they get ownership, just as a private white knight would have.

There is no, repeat no justification for refusing to grant equity warrants that provide some taxpayer protection. This is, for me, an absolute deal or no-deal point.

(Emphasis mine.) Why is Paulson resistent on this point? It makes perfect sense.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Quinnipiac released new poll results today:

By 19 - 24 point margins, voters in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin say Democrat Barack Obama, not Republican John McCain, is the candidate of change, helping lift Sen. Obama into the lead in these battleground states, according to four simultaneous Quinnipiac University polls of likely voters in these battleground states, conducted in partnership with The Wall Street Journal and washingtonpost.com and released today.

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As Gov. Sarah Palin meets with foreign leaders today and bans the press from attending (Added: and then changes her mind after protests, but only sort-of), here's former US Army Brigadier General (retired) Janis L. Karpinski's op-ed at TruthOut today on how Palin would turn back time:

I know enough about Palin's character to assess her as ill-equipped, clueless and unprepared to take control of our nation in the event of McCain's early demise or incapacitation, much less qualified to serve as the commander in chief of all military forces. Unfortunately for Palin, leadership is not derived by a process of osmosis.

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Earlier I wrote about the Levine/Wyeth preemption case and it was discussed today among many other cases, in the PFAW/SCOTUSBlog conference call on the upcoming Supreme Court term.

Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSBlog and a Partner at Akin, Gump, stated that he believes this case could have far reaching implications. Goldstein stated that while the SCOTUS has read a broad concept of preemption in FDA approval of medical devices (as it did in Reigel, where the legislation at issue included an express preemption clause. By contrast, it has not in the pharmaceutical drugs area. In the Levine case, the legislation in question does not contain an express preemption clause (indeed it seems to contain an express disavowal of preemption.) In fact, Wyeth is arguing conflict preemption (as opposed to implied preemption) - that it can not comply with federal regulation while avoiding potential state law liability. The twist in this case is that the FDA issued an agency comment that supported Wyeth's position, thus bringing the Chevron deference issue into play.

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Since John McCain and Republicans like Elizabeth Dole and Mel Martinez now claim to have great concerns about lobbyists for Fannie Mac and Freddie Mae, perhaps they can explain why John McCain is expected to choose a Freddie Mac lobbyist to head his transition team:

The lobbying firm of the man Republicans say John McCain has chosen to begin planning a presidential transition earned more than a quarter of a million dollars this year representing Freddie Mac, one of the companies McCain blames for the nation's financial crisis. Timmons & Co., whose founder and chairman emeritus is William Timmons Sr., was registered to lobby for Freddie Mac from 2000 through this month, when the federal government took over both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

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The Senate Banking Committee (Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman) hearing on the proposed Wall Street Bailout begins around 9:30 am ET this morning. I believe all the cable news channels will be broadcasting the hearing. C-Span certainly will have them. You can find the C-Span Live stream here. Here is Fed Chair Bernanke's opening statement.

Below the fold, I will point out issues that catch my interest. Please provide your own thoughts in the comments.

This is an Open Thread.

VastLeft at Corrente has two You Tube videos of Bill Clinton on The View. The video below includes an interesting discussion of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which I discussed here. I think Clinton gets it right. An interesting discussion and kudos to Bill for not patronizing the audience of The View. He treated them like adults.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only