Tom Paine reports that Congresspersons Dennis Kucinich, Carolyn Maloney and Bernie Sanders sent this letter with Ten Questions to Vice President Dick Cheney on July 21, 2003.

Jameika Williams, a former girlfriend of Kobe Bryant, has thrown her support behind him. She and Kobe dated in 1997, when she was 19 and he was 18. He was already playing for the Lakers, but not a big star. Here are some of her comments on Larry King Live last night [Transcript available at Lexis.com ]:

KING: How did you hear about what happened to him?

WILLIAMS: Well, just watching the news coverage. And it basically shocked me. I couldn't believe that he could be possibly charged with sexual assault.

KING: In other words, your first reaction was this was not possible.

WILLIAMS: My first reaction was this was not responsible. That's not the Kobe Bryant that I knew.

KING: He never was rough with you or in any way...

WILLIAMS: Never rough.

KING: ... other than non-gentlemanly.

WILLIAMS: Not -- never rough, never aggressive.

KING: Would it be -- since you're going to be a lawyer, would you -- since you're learning about courts and the like, would you be a character witness?

WILLIAMS: Possibly. I wouldn't mind testifying as to his good character.

KING: In other words, if they asked you, you would go.

WILLIAMS: Yes. Definitely.

Kudos to the Dixie Chicks who have joined the Rock the Vote campaign to get the youth vote out.

The group's involvement with Rock the Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization founded in 1990, is an indirect result of the Bush uproar. "We never had intentions to become a political band but like it or not we have been placed on a unique political platform in the past months," Maines said Monday. "We feel it would be irresponsible not to make something positive come out of that."

Besides lending their images and music to a Rock the Vote Web site that will guide people through the voter registration process, bandmates Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison said they would urge people at their concerts to become politically active.

This is turning into a big story. Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the man who debunked the Iraq-Niger Uranium connection, has been outed as a CIA operative, jeopardizing all of the projects she worked on during her career. Wilson was on the Today show today, blaming Administration officials for the leak. The Bush Wars has all the details and pertinent links.

Here's the Bob Novak column in the Chicago Sun Times that started it all. [link updated 9/30]

Update: This is our first post on Valerie Plame. For all of TalkLeft's Valerie Plame coverage, go here.

A new USA Today/ CNN / Gallup poll shows that President Bush's approval rating has dropped to its lowest level since March.

The president's approval rating fell to 59%, its lowest level since March, in the poll of 1,003 adults over the weekend.

Bush's lowest marks came on his handling of the economy: 45% approved, 51% disapproved. That weakness extended to the Republican Party, which controls Congress. Democrats had a 17-point advantage, 53%-36%, when poll respondents were asked which party would do a better job handling the economy. In January, the GOP had a 43%-42% edge.

We can win. We just need a candidate and a platform.

Attorney General John Ashcroft was in Alaska Monday, addressing the state's terrorism task force. He called the civil liberties invasion by the Patriot Act "non-existent.

"But when the so-called invasion is one that's falsely reported and nonexistent, and they don't hear about the fact that it's falsely reported and nonexistent, it's not helpful."

....Provisions that allowed law-enforcement agents to monitor a person's reading habits or purchases, for example, were similar to the traditional subpoena powers used in murder or drug-trafficking investigations, he said.

A new 900 page report by a Senate panel is about to be released that blasts the CIA and FBI for lapses in intelligence, while maintaining that nothing could have stopped the 9/11 attacks. What's in the report?

Bq. ...examples of missed signals, communication breakdowns and investigative failures, which several government officials said is a blistering critique of U.S. intelligence efforts in the months before the attacks.

Carlton Dotson, the former roommate of Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy has been charged with murder.

According to press reports, Dotson called the police the other night and asked for help. The police came and picked him up and took him to a hospital, where he underwent a psychiatric evaluation. He called the FBI from the hospital and arranged to make a statement. The FBI says it was a voluntary, non-custodial interrogation.

It sounds to us like the FBI wants people to believe that Dotson voluntarily confessed. But Dotson denies it:

As he left the court commissioner's office Monday night, Dotson told a reporter: ''I didn't confess to anything. Call the FBI.'' Shortly after his arrest, Dotson had referred all questions to his lawyer.

Dotson's lawyer says he doesn't even know why they think Dennehy has been murdered. No body has been found.

Just goes to show, if you're under investigation for a crime, don't think you can talk your way out of it with the police. Anything you say can and will be used against you. Keep your mouth shut and get a lawyer.

Here's the Third Report to Congress on Implementation of Section 1001 of the USA PATRIOT Act, July 17, 2003. For a summary, here's a New York Times article.

In Leave No Millionaire Behind, Arthur I. Blaustein writes for Mother Jones today that "Driven by hollow political priorities, the Bush administration's disastrous economic policies are undermining our national ideals."

A professor of economic and social policy at the University of California, Berkeley, Blaustein served as chair of the President's National Advisory Council on Economic Opportunity during the Carter Administration.

Petty crimes, high stakes. One Seattle defender is on a mission to change that.

Anti-war groups have opened a peace office in Iraq to monitor human rights abuses.

A coalition of anti-war groups has opened an “Occupation Watch Center” in Baghdad to monitor alleged human rights violations by U.S. troops and the actions of corporations such as Halliburton in rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure. The coalition is also exploring the idea of advising U.S. soldiers in Iraq on how they can claim conscientious objector status so that they could be discharged and shipped home.