John Edwards 1: Bloggers Meet with John and Elizabeth

John Edwards 1: Bloggers Meet with John and Elizabeth

Half dozen of us, they’ll all get the link love later.

We’re talking about Edwards’ community service programs including the comedy even “Laugh your cans off.” Sounds like Dean Corps, but a good idea is still a good idea even if borrowed.

Political Fallout is here, Iowa for Edwards, and mostly people who blog on the Edwards site. So kind of softball today? We’ll see.

National day of action energy project – that’s next week. I biked here today so that’s good (if cold).

She’s here. He is too, and so’s Ed Fallon. That ought to help on the left edge of the People’s Republic…

Lots of insider virtual-Edwards jokes flying, I guess I’m missing out, huh.

Elizabeth has been sneaking peeks at source code, something about an Edwards link going to Hillary …

Kyoto treaty? Edwards says 1) we have to engage on the issue and if we had to sign to make changes, we should. CAFÉ Standards? JE doesn’t nail down a specific MPG but the numbers 38-42 slide out?

Military Commissions Act? “Every time I hear the name I get thrown off.” Eliz says “sounds like base closings. JE: We should meet Geneva accords, which we have not. There must be some method for anyone to challenge custody and get a hearing. Gitmo sends terrible signal to world. Heard it over and over in China.

Would you demilitarize space? JE: China a difficult question. China has no interest in letting us know what they’re doing. We have treaty obligations with Taiwan and how do we best deter a conflict. F22 should be kept, F35 could be cut in half. We’ve thrown enormous money away on Star Wars.

China is a very complicated relationship for the US – human rights, environment… they are entirely inward focused which drives their foreign policy. Thus difficult to get them to act on international issues. Would like to quietly build up military, but they need world to be relatively stable. Rocking the boat might cut off energy supply.

Mental health parity. JE says should be federal issue. We should have complete parity, mandated in health insurance contracts. I think we need universal health care with no distinction.

JE leaves.

Political Fallout and I raise gay marriage. EE says, “We don’t stand exactly same place. I don’t think he believes US constitution should be amended to limit state.” The light we see: next generation does not have same fear. JE completely against DOMA. A lot of analogies with 14 year old marriage – states can make good decisions as well as bad decisions.” Says we need to do all we can at fed level to eliminate discrimination.

EE says her health is good, some discussion of personal cancer issues. Blames fatigue not on cancer but on having a husband running for prez and two young kids, and some discussion of Kate and law school.

Getting really really softball here, chit chat about the “Home” book. Nice stories, but clearly an Edwards bunch here. Discussion of a Des Moines book signing.

First Lady cause? “Can’t do everything”, but she talks about after school programs, they started programs in memory of their late son. Actually mentions white flight. Second - She’s a Navy brat, I hadn’t heard that before. Military families can’t complain about living conditions for fear of hurting promotion chances. Finally – election reform. Against electronic voting. People turned off to voting to begin with, and even worse if people doubt the counting. (But no mention of e-day registration and campaign finance reform)

Education – what can we do to change focus to make a classroom enriching? EE says “teach critical thinking”. Creative and critical think are first things out the door when rote memorization for standardized testing is emphasized. Problem with No Child is less testing than penalties. NC program doesn’t penalize; sends in “SWAT Team” to look at all possible shortcomings. “Then they fund the fix.” Turned around 70-80% of failing schools. But not working now with No Child on top of it.

Wrapping up here. Hoping to catch Ed sometime today.