Good day . .
I had a little problem with Firefox this morning. So, the Morning Briefing did not post. Here it is again with some updates.
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a policy of segreating prisoners according to race was unconstitutional.
The 5-3 opinion wirtten by Justice Sandra Day O'Conner overturned the decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The policy that was struck down was used to limit gang-related volence in California prisons.
The Court ruled that segregation cannot be used except in the most extraordinary circumstances.
As a result, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals must now scrutinize the 25-year-old policy for hard evidence that it is necessary and works — a burden that will be hard to meet. The 9th Circuit is the most overturned federal court in the country.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist did not participate in the decision.
The case is Johnson v. California, 03-636. Yahoo! News - High Court Curbs State Prison Segregation
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The National Taxpayers Union has written a letter to the chairmen of Congressional Budget committees urging them to use President Bush's Budget as a "celing" not a "floor."
Recent sessions of Congress have used presidential budgets as a "minimum" for federal spending. Text of letter.
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Even after the investgative report was issued CBS is still not telling the whole story about Rathergate. The New York Observer reports that shortly after the airing of the "sgement" on '60 Minutes - Wednesday' the network hired a private investigator to look into the authenticity and source of the documents.
Erik Rigler, a former FBI agent, looked into the source of the documents, but his report stops at Bill Burkett who gave the documents to Mary Mapes the fired producer of the "segment."
According to insiders, Mapes provided Rigler with all of her memos and information on the documents. While not finding the source of the documnets, Rigler's report did concentrate on Mapes. Rigler provided the investigative panel with his report, but did not report on the unsuccessful search for the source of the documents.
A CBS spokesperson commenting on the newest wrinkle in Rathergate said, "To this day, the basic questions about the documents have not been answered, but we remain hopeful that, one day, they will be."
That day will come only when Dan Rather and Andrew Heyward come clean with what they knew and when they knew it. CBS News’ Boss Hired Private Eye To Source Memos
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More later in the Afternoon Update
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