So while I go out and celebrate my patriotism this weekend, my thoughts will be with the soldiers returning home safely to their loved ones, as we wind at least one of our wars down. And with the ones who didn't make it home, and with the ones who haven't made it home yet. But no matter how you feel about America's involvement in Iraq or Afghanistan, I think everyone can agree that seeing soldiers coming home is good news indeed.

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A Supreme Court ruling just out may serve to blunt Republican criticism of Elena Kagan, who started her confirmation hearings today in the Senate. So far, Republicans haven't come up with much of any substance to attack Kagan on (although I admit, I haven't watched any of today's confirmation hearings yet), but they all pretty much agree upon one issue -- the fact that Kagan, as dean of the Harvard law school, upheld a school policy of barring military recruiters from campus due to the fact that the military discriminates against gays. But the ruling in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez seems to give the high court's imprimatur to universities not allowing groups that practice such discrimination on campus -- which Kagan can now point to in defense of her position.

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We're going to begin today with the news that a popular New Jersey beach is considering allowing women to sunbathe topless. And then move right on to the financial reform bill, by way of a neck-snapping segue. Just to warn you up front.

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The Supreme Court recently ruled that the post-9/11 laws against "materially supporting" terrorist groups should be very broadly interpreted. Even counseling any group on the official list of terrorist organizations about peaceful topics is now to be considered "supporting terrorism." Which leads me to wonder what they'd say about actually paying a terrorist organization tens of millions of dollars.

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Most Americans know U2's song "Sunday Bloody Sunday." It's a highly recognizable piece of music, and the song's been popular ever since they wrote it. But most people in this country who at least can sing along with the chorus simply have no idea what the song's about. If they've seen a live performance of the anthem, they may be dimly aware that frontman Bono is adamant that "this is not a rebel song," without truly grasping what he's talking about. Not a rebel song? Um, OK, Bono, sure, just sing it for us, OK?

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President Barack Obama's administration was supposed to follow a basic premise: never let a crisis go to waste. That was according to one of his own advisors, shortly after Obama took office. But so far, their track record on doing so has been decidedly mixed.

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Memorial Day is the time to memorialize all the brave individuals who served our country throughout its history, and sometimes paid the ultimate price for doing so. But, in particular, this year I'd like to focus on all those who did their duty for their country, and fought for the American ideal of equality for all citizens -- even while they did not enjoy such rights themselves, either in the military or in American life at the time. These second-class citizens, one would think, would have even less reason than citizens accorded full rights under the law to risk death on a foreign battlefield, and therefore would not have volunteered to do so. One would be wrong in thinking this, however.

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Our headline today quite obviously references the legislative progress this week on banning the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy (of not allowing gay people to openly serve their country)... but we've got another asking-and-telling issue which we simply must deal with first, before we get to any of that.

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President Barack Obama, as expected, was asked at today's press conference about the assertation by Representative Joe Sestak, who is running for the Senate from Pennsylvania, that the White House offered him a job in order to sideline him from the primary race against Arlen Specter (which Sestak then won). Obama's answer was to kick the can down the road a bit. This is not too surprising, since this is what his White House has been doing with the issue for three months now. Here is Obama's response to the question:

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Optimism is growing this week that Congress will repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy of not allowing gays to serve openly in the United States military. To be more accurate, what Congress is proposing is a watered-down version of a full repeal. Which is ironic, because the purpose of their "compromise" is to fix DADT -- which itself was the original compromise on the issue that President Clinton signed.

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