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.

Asbury Park, New Jersey, will soon address a request from a woman who owns a yoga studio to change the rules for their beach by allowing gender equality in their blue laws -- specifically, allowing women the same freedom men have, to remove their tops while on the beach. Believe it or not, men had to fight for the right to appear topless in public long ago. It wasn't until 1937 that men won the right to appear bare-chested on beaches, helped along by Johnny Weissmuller (of swimming and Tarzan fame). Now women are fighting for the same rights, at least in Asbury Park. After all, it's a simple question of equality, right?

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Is Texas about to reach a tipping point from a solid red Republican state to a bright blue Democratic one? Well, probably not, but it's an interesting concept to kick around on a Thursday (when I am, admittedly, behind schedule), so here goes.

I've toyed with this concept before, which a quick search of my site sadly does not easily identify (this is my explanation for not posting a link in this sentence; see previous "I am... behind schedule" comment). Texas is, demographically, an interesting place (to say the least). Following the "everything's bigger in Texas" theory, Texas conservatives are really, really conservative. This was before the Tea Partiers made it hip among wider conservatism to be so, it should be pointed out. After all, Ron Paul himself (pause for really, really conservative folks to genuflect...) is from Texas. Conservative politicians in Texas flirt with such radical notions as secession from the Union (in this day and age), and it actually does not hurt them among their base, it instead gains them support. In other words, the red parts of Texas are truly red-blooded-red (if that's not too much redundancy for you).

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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.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Because to understand the conclusion, first we have to take a look at what is happening in Afghanistan. While the Washington world is all a-twitter (and even all a-Twitter) over today's ouster of General Stanley McChrystal from his job of overseeing the American war effort in Afghanistan, I'd like to instead take a step back to look at the bigger picture of our war effort, and what it realistically hopes to achieve. Because at this point, even the best-case scenario isn't looking very rosy.

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Sorry, folks, too sick to type today, and likely Tuesday as well. Got some sort of flu or something. Again, my apologies...

-CW

Christmas has come in June for the Democratic Party. Republican Joe Barton just delivered a huge, nicely wrapped present to Democrats. The only question is whether they'll open it and make use of it, or halfheartedly play with it once and then throw it in a corner (since the Democratic Party is kind of fickle about using such free gifts from Republicans, for no explicable reason whatsoever). But more on the flailing Joe Barton in a bit.

First, I have to say something. Earlier this week, President Obama united the nation. Just not how he wanted to, that's all. Obama gave his first primetime Oval Office speech Tuesday, and pretty much everybody agreed that they hated his speech. The Left hated it, the Right hated it, the media hated it (albeit all for different reasons). So here we are, not a "red" America or a "blue" America, but a United States of America, panning the president's speech.

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This is really nothing more than a glorified "Program Note," just to warn everyone. The wife's car, which she totally depends on, had its own blowout two days ago. Yesterday, many hours were spent diagnosing the leak. Today, many hours were spent beneath the engine of the car, actually fixing the leak.

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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?

Bono is adamant about the song he wrote, because, as he put it during a performance in 1982: "For a long time I have been... frightened... frightened about writing a song about where I live... the place I live... Ireland and its problems... this is called: 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'... this is not a rebel song...." Bono was frightened that his song would become a rallying cry, and lead to more death. Because, while "bloody" is inexplicably a "bad word" in British English, the song's title is in no way metaphorical. It describes an event which took place in 1972. A bloody event. And Bono's fears were that singing about it would just lead to more of the same -- which is why he cries "I'm so sick of it!" during most live performances of the song. Because the song is a plea for peace, and decidedly not a rallying cry to arms.

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President Obama, in his first-ever primetime address from the Oval Office, did not mince words. He didn't have time to -- the speech was one of the shortest I think I've ever seen from Barack Obama, clocking in at 17 or 18 minutes. But although he didn't take a lot of time, he covered a lot. Of particular note was the directness of his language, which at times could even be described as "forceful."

Since I'm writing this almost immediately after Obama's speech, I am not going to address much in the way of substance in what Obama said. I personally think that today is merely the first part of this substance, which will be bookended tomorrow by filling in some details after the president meets with BP executives. I think the president specifically left those details to be addressed tomorrow on purpose, so I'm going to wait until then to address the White House's plan for the cleanup and beyond after the results of the meeting are announced tomorrow.

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The White House has apparently realized that they have something of a perception problem when it comes to President Obama and the federal government's response to the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. So this week will be devoted to attempting to redeem Obama's image as being "in charge" of what is going on down there. Today, the president flew down to the Gulf, where he will be visiting all the states that have so far been affected. He'll spend the night in the region, then fly back to Washington to give his first-ever Oval Office address to the nation on primetime television. Wednesday, the bigwigs of BP will come to the White House for a meeting.

All this activity is welcome, because up until now the White House has seemed a bit adrift in their response to the tragedy. They may have been on top of the entire situation from Day One, as they claim, but it wasn't readily apparent to the public, meaning they either were actually adrift, or they have been having a communication and press relations problem. This must be frustrating to the White House, since the press has been somewhat lacking in their own response and coverage. Case in point, after obsessing for a solid week that the president needed to "show some rage" over the situation, the press immediately pounced when Obama did show a bit of annoyance, immediately proclaiming that he was "too angry," or the press just giggled in true Beavis and Butthead fashion: "heh heh heh... the president said ass... heh heh."

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