The British Sun is running a story with the photo of the former intern who allegedly claims she had an affair with John Kerry. Her name is Alex Polier and the paper says she is not keeping it a secret and that she says it occurred in 2001.

Now that Kerry has categorically denied the affair, it better turn out to be a tall tale--otherwise, we think he's in trouble. On the other hand, Kerry knows far more about this than we do--and we think he's smart enough not to lie and think he wouldn't be found out--so we're believing Kerry at this juncture that it didn't happen.

[link via Counterspin.]

Update: Alex Polier's former classmate writes this article saying it is most improbable that Alex and Kerry had an affair. [link via Unfair Witness]

Update: Wait a minute. Wasn't John Kerry battling prostate cancer in 2001? How was he having this hot 2 year affair?

Kerry's father died of prostate cancer. From an August 1, 2002 AP article (available on lexis.com):

The legal team that stepped in weeks before Kevin Cooper's scheduled execution and won him a reprieve is made up of an unlikely group:

Condemned murderer Kevin Cooper might be dead today if it weren't for an unorthodox dream team of lawyers -- a commercial litigator, a former White House special counsel and a corporate trial lawyer -- who stepped in just weeks before his scheduled execution and won him a rare stay.

"Maybe that's our strength as a team," said attorney Gregory Evans, whose usual clients are Fortune 100 CEOs. "Maybe because we're not criminal lawyers day to day, when we took a look at this case we could see very quickly that Mr. Cooper did not receive a fair trial and might be an innocent man."

Evans, along with former White House special counsel Lanny Davis and litigator David Alexander, took over Cooper's defense in December after their San Francisco-based firm Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe -- one of the nation's top corporate legal law firms -- agreed to provide the legal services pro bono.

The ABA's Death Penalty Representation Project is always looking for litigators in big firms to pitch in and represent those on death row. So many death row inmates have no counsel for their final appeals. If you're in a big firm, or know someone who is, think about it. The rewards are tremendous. You may save a life.

President Bush is making progress. He's gone from not reading newspapers to reading the sports section:

I was just as surprised as the Yankee fans and the Boston Red Sox fans when I opened up my paper today," President Bush, the Rangers' former owner, told NBC at the Daytona 500. "It, obviously, is a big deal. ... A-Rod's a great player and the Yanks are going to be a heck of a team with him in the infield."

Thanks to Rooftop Report for the heads-up.

Quite a few readers have written us tonight to say they are unable to post comments. We've been banning IPs of spammers, and may have banned too broad a group so we'll try to fix it. If you didn't post an ad for a diet pill or other medication, you haven't been banned. We haven't banned anyone for content in weeks. Thanks for your patience.

[Looks like we banned a blank number--which blocked everyone. If you are still having problems, send us an email.]

Several months ago, we wrote of a terrible practice in Minnesota in which indigent clients were forced to pay between $50 and $200 for a public defender. More details are here. We're glad to report that the Minnesota Supreme Court this week struck down the mandatory fees which had been passed by the Legislature.

In a unanimous ruling, the seven-justice court said the fees violate the U.S. Constitution's Sixth Amendment protections. Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz wrote that the law imposing the fees was clearly written to require their imposition. The court refused to build in discretion, as the state's lawyers requested during oral arguments.

"The co-payment statute clearly and unambiguously provides that a defendant shall pay a co-payment fee, which may be collected under the provisions of the Revenue Recapture Act. This construction does not give rise to ambiguity, much less discretion," Blatz wrote.

Mary Beth, of Wampum Blog, is running for the Maine State Legislature.

I am now officially running for the legislative seat in this new district, renumbered as 116.

The challenges we Mainers face, underfunded schools, cuts in critical services, devastating job losses, an exodus of our young people, unsupported small business and skyrocketing health care costs, have led me to conclude my experience and energy is better served AS the candidate at this time, rather than my managing the candidate, as I've done for the past twenty years.

In addition, Portland is represented in Augusta by eight House and two Senate seats. Currently, these are held by nine Democrats and one Green Independent. All ten legislators are male. I'm the only woman, and only person of color, running from the largest, most ethnically diverse city in Maine. Sadly, in a city with the first openly lesbian mayor, we haven't sent a female representative to Augusta since 1998. I hope to start a new trend.

There's a paypal donation link over at Wampum. Good Luck, Mary Beth!

Looks like the Right will stop at nothing. Remember the photo splashed all over tv last week of Kerry standing next to Jane Fonda? It was doctored. She wasn't even at the event.

Check out this column on the Iraq Intelligence Commission - this country needs and deserves an investigation--not a cover-up.

Say hello to our newest adverstiser--Democrat Doug Haines, runnng for Congress in Georgia--the 12th Congressional District (home of Savannah, Augusta and Athens). Also advertising on TalkLeft is John Barrow, running for the same seat.

On the Senate side, Tony Knowles is running in Alaska.

Please go give these folks some contributions. We can take back Congress in '04, but they need some help from us.

We heard a lot this morning about many of the cases we've been writing about on TalkLeft--one item that really stood out was how much the Government spent to prosecute Tommy Chong: $12 million. What an outrage.

Update: Drug War Rant tells us what $12 million could provide:

• $12 million would pay for treatment for 3,500 drug addicts for an entire year.
• $12 million would pay for enough needle exchange programs to prevent 1,258 HIV infections.
• $12 million as a direct grant to me would stimulate spending in my household and help the economy.

Max Potter's story in 5280 on the Air Force Academy rape scandal will be the focus of a special segment tonight on ABC's 20/20.

President Bush released hundreds of pages of his military records, including medical records today, to put to rest allegations that he didn't completely fulfill his National Guard service.

We just got to Scottsdale, AZ where we will be at a legal conference all weekend. We haven't read enough yet to comment, and we've got a function to attend in a little while, but we'll be back later tonight and throughout the weekend--the hotel has high speed internet access and we feel like blogging.