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.

Check out these costs of medical care in prison. For states looking to cut costs, medical reprieves are the way to go.

Georgia: The state Board of Pardons and Paroles has the authority to release seriously ill prison inmates under the medical reprieve program. Some key facts about the program:

Number of inmates out on medical reprieve: 54

Crimes committed by those on reprieve:

• Drug violations: 16
• Murder: 6
• Armed Robbery: 5
• Burglary: 5
• Robbery: 4
• Voluntary manslaughter: 3
• Aggravated assault: 3
• Arson: 2
• Child Molestation: 2
• Theft by Taking: 2
• Other: 6

The following costs and medical conditions reflect the 10 most expensive in 2002 among individual inmates in the Georgia prison system. The inmates' names were withheld.

• $450,839: Respiratory failure
• $340,423: Lupus, diabetes, renal failure
• $259,450: AIDS, pneumonia
• $172,470: Stroke
• $159,989: Rectal prolapse, surgery
• $153,342: Peritonitis, acute renal failure
• $149,679: Bladder cancer
• $130,529: Cirrhosis of liver
• $131,844: Lung cancer
• $118,888: Aortic aneurysm

Source: State Department of Corrections, state Board of Pardons and Paroles

Did you know that it's the Republicans who are leading the charge for the reform of drug laws?

The reason Republicans are taking the lead on drug policy reform is not just because it saves money, although it does. It is because putting appropriate, carefully selected offenders into treatment instead of incarceration gets both tough and smart on crime. If they can do it in Texas, we can do it in Maryland.

And we should be able to do it in the rest of the country. Where are the Democrats, other than Sharpton and Kucinich on this?

Don't miss William Raspberry today on Bush's Homeland Security Sales Pitch .

Here's an example of anti-terrorism and Patriot Act-style powers spreading to non-terrorist crimes: Prosecutors in North Carolina have used the state's "weapons of mass destruction" statute to charge a suspected crystal meth lab owner. Monkey Media Report has the details, including this quote from the District Attorney:

"Not only is the drug methamphetamine in itself a threat to both society and those using it, but the toxic compounds and deadly gases created as side products are also real threats. I feel that, as a prosecutor, I have to address this. Something has to be done to protect society." Another North Carolina district attorney already is following suit.

This is nothing but a desperate attempt by frustrated law enforcement officials to fit a square peg in a round hole. No one supports meth labs, but if the North Carolina drug laws aren't sufficiently punitive for prosecutors and cops, they should take it to the legislature and pass a stricter law, rather than stretching an existing law past its common meaning and intended use.

The law defines nuclear, biological or chemical weapons of mass destruction as, in part, 'any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury and ... is or contains toxic or poisonous chemicals or their immediate precursors.'

'It seems to me to be a real stretch of the imagination, that this would be covered under the antiterrorism law,' said Wallace Harrelson, the public defender in Guilford County. 'It seems to me that the antiterrorism law was designed with a specific purpose in mind, to prosecute people who are threatening to hurt the safety of the general public.'

Harrelson and others also said that they doubted whether a judge would allow prosecution under the law for drug-related activity that does not terrorize the public.

While we have no knowledge of the composition of the North Carolina legislature, we found this excuse for the legislature's failure to act pretty unbelievable:

'I've probably got eight or 10 bills before the legislature,' Keith said. 'It is extremely difficult, with all the defense attorneys in the General Assembly, to get tougher bills passed when they also have to vote on prisons.' (emphasis supplied.)

If criminal defense attorneys had that much clout in North Carolina, surely there wouldn't be a prison overcrowding problem.