was asked to take it trans- rectally. imagine a male survivor being asked to have a male doctor insert something in your rectum and push a nerve in your areprostrate -- prostate to relieve pain.and that power should not have been needed to be exercised by me. that should have been my psychologist stepping up and saying no, this is contraindicated. sometimes this power is used in both ways. and you are right, congressman. you know who was there for me? it was not the va. it was not the doctor who gave me the injection. it was my partner who got me out of that building.

and he gets no recognition from the va for that effort. and they need it badly. thank you, congressman. >> thank you. >> i thank the entire panel for being here today. i go back, as a young military medical officer during the vietnam era, and i was thinking as i was listening to the testimony, what training i had had -- and i am an ob/gyn doctor what training i had going into the military and what training i received in the military to deal with this. and i can tell you, as for what i received in the military, it was nothing. military sexual trauma has been

going on -- just logically thinking about it, we knew it was happening outside the military. why wouldn't it occur inside the military? why would it be occurring in the civilian world, and i get drafted, and the next day it is not an issue? today, there are a lot more women serving. it is amazing how many women now are doing a phenomenal job in the military. there is that issue there. i think what we have to do, as a scientist, you identify the problem. you identify and try to determine what the incidence of the problem is. and then you try to find a solution to the problem. i think, ms. sanders, you brought up something -- and i do

not think the va is ever equipped to do that. i look at the va in my hometown, it is woefully unprepared for this. it does not mean that folks are not willing to do it. it just means that they are not prepared adequately right now. i think ms. sanders, as a nurse, brought this a very eloquently in your testimony -- or your answer, i should say. you only get that care close to home when you feel as safe as you possibly can. it is intimidating enough to go to a doctor's office or a large medical center. i mean, i am going to have a physical next week, and i already have sweaty palms about it, and i have done thousands of them. i understand exactly what you are saying. we take the treatment to the patient, but as dr. reyes said, you cannot take the wrong treatment to the patient. you will do more harm than good. i think we identify the problem and then look for victims like

yourself who have suffered military sexual trauma, and come up with a plan of how to better treat these patients. right now, we don't have it. whether it is outside the va, if that is where the best therapy is, that is where the patient should be able to go to get the best treatment. i guess, ms. johnson, i was looking at your testimony. you said that the treatment you received in the madison, wisconsin, va was extremely limited. what did you mean by that? >> i was not yet service- connected so i was repeatedly told i could not receive treatment until my service connection came through. the problem with that was that the nst was never addressed, not through my primary care

physician, not mental health, and as i said in my oral testimony, i was not a combat veteran. to have all of these symptoms going on and still not be screened for mst so that i could receive treatment and therapy while waitingm --mst while waiting for my military service connection, it was traumatic. every time i would build myself up and say this time i am going to tell my story. i am going to do it. and then i would be deflated. it was different providers every time i went. the most times i ever saw the same provider was twice. >> i think you hit the main point. i was in the same spot for 30 years before i was elected to congress.

i had patients for 20-25 five years that finally told me something. it was like a brick being lifted off their back. and i did not see that one time. i saw it multiple times. and as i pointed out to you all, i did numerous sexual trauma evaluations on patients that had been assaulted in the private sector. as i think back to the time i spent in the military, i did not do a single one. you know it was there, but it was so under the carpet, nobody talked about it. i think what you all have done here has been really helpful, maybe the most helpful thing. i think the other thing you can do is give us ideas about how we can can be better. we found out how to doing it not right for you individually helps us.

i suspect your stories are not that different. everyone is an individual, but there is a common theme here. i yield back to you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. ms. kirkpatrick. >> thank you mr. chairman for holding this hearing. thank you for the opportunity to hear from you, and thank you for the courage to testify before congress. i am so sorry for what has happened to you. i am a former prosecutor. i have prosecuted rape cases, and i just want to know with any of your perpetrators were ever charged. >> my perpetrator was charged and went through the article 32 hearing, which is the equivalent of a rancheria hearing, and he was charged with five charges. -- equivalent of a grand jury hearing, and he was charged with five charges. he was given other than honorable discharge.

the night before we were headed to trial the next morning, he called me in for an initial -- another meeting, and sat me down and explained that, lisa, i can prove that he raped you, but the rape was not violent enough for him to get any real jail time. and what this gentleman was doing was giving me a message of what i was in for the next day. he knew what i had been through through the investigation and the article 32 hearing. that was his compassionate way of letting me know that we could go forward with this, and we could prosecute him, but what they are going to do to you in the meantime is not at all going to compare to what they do to him. that he would not agree to giving him and other than honorable discharge unless i agreed to it. i was 22 years old at the time with no victim advocate, because they did not allow them on the

base at the time, and i agree because i knew what i was in for, and if it was not going to result in him getting any jail time, there was no reason to put myself through that. so they had him processed and out of the united states air force and off base within one week. and then i found out that he had attempted to do the same thing at his previous base, so they put a repeat offender out into the civilian world with no criminal history. so, it is important that you are having this hearing today so that victims have an opportunity to realize people are listening now, and hopefully we can make a change so that someone other than -- younger than myself does not have to make the same mistakes that i have made over the years trying to deal with ptsd. >> thank you for sharing that. to add to the list of traumas, i think there is a fourth trauma here, and that is that the perpetrators got away with it. there is no sense of justice.

i would suggest that is a topic we can have a future hearing on. they got away with it, and that is not right. and again, i am so sorry. >> you being a former prosecutor, the decision of which cases get prosecuted right now is in the chain of command. that is something that this congress is going to hopefully continue to take up. the whistleblower act is a wonderful thing that is out there so that victims can feel confident that if they do decide to report that they will not be retaliated against, but common sense, again, tells us that if you cannot get a commander to prosecute rape, a crime of violence, why would a victim have any confidence that that commander is going to protect them when they come forward? so, thank you for bringing that topic up. it is important. >> that is exactly my concern. >> if i may, ms. wilkin is very

i hate to use the wrong word here, but she has seen some measure of justice. a lot of survivors really do not see justice at all. i know in my case, i was threatened under the don't ask- don't tell policy, and that is a huge concern in the veteran male survivor community, is that we were told, if you go forward with this, you will be outed as a gay man, regardless of if you are or not, and pushed out of the military, or you will be given a diagnosis like weapon eyes personality disorder or borderline adjustment, or whatever. another option is, if this person is dissatisfied with their discharge, tell them to go to the board.

that is a joke and deserving of attention. less than 10% of all upgrade petitions are adjudicated favorably. imagine the psychological damage that does to a veteran when they get -- first off, they are traumatized in the military. then they have to go back to the military and say, we were hurt, we deserve our ptsd, because these people rated us 100% and these people gave us a general discharge, and the military says, oh no, we were completely right in doing it. that is all a good reason to pass the hr 53 act as quickly as possible, to stop some of those actions and to really enforce the whistleblower levels. if you go ahead, especially in the military, you're going to be pushed out, and then you're going to be told you cannot get

your discharge changed, and that has implications in the va for receiving care. thank you. >> thank you very much. i yield back. >> the gentleman from new york is here. california, sorry. >> the other coast. mr. chairman, thank you. thank you to all of the members for showing such a deep and committed interest in this issue. to you survivors, you are american heroes. and we owe you a great debt of gratitude because you're speaking on behalf of 500,000 veterans who have been sexually assaulted, raped, in the military. i want to ask you a series of questions so that we can get a sense -- i think i know the answers, but i think it will be important for all of us to go beyond the numbers. 87% of victims don't report, and they don't report for a very

obvious reason, because they don't get justice. so, let me ask this. how many of you were raped early in your military careers? how many of you were under the age of 25? how many of you were under the age of 20? >> i was 20. >> how many of you were raped multiple times? >> how many of you were sick m's multiple times of rape -- victims multiple times of rape? how many of you were sexually harassed? how many of you endured an article 32 hearing? an article 32 hearing allows the defendant's attorney to question the victim about their prior sexual history. now, we have rape shield laws in this country that prevents that from going on in civilian

society, but in article 32 hearings, they are able to raise that. how many of your assailants were in the chain of command? this is really important, because this makes the case that if we keep it in the chain of command, the likelihood of any victim getting any kind of fair evaluation is just not going to happen. how many of you were -- your assailants were friends of, associated with, or known by somebody in your chain of command? so in your case, ms. wilkins, you were the only person raped outside of your chain of command, it looks like. how many of you were treated only by medication? how many of you were overly- treated by medication?

how long after your assaults or rapes were you discharged? >> one year. >> two years. >> nine months. >> 10 years. >> how many of you have a dd214, which indicates that you have a personality disorder, adjustment disorder, or something like that? how many of you believe that in order for this issue to be dealt with appropriately in the military, we have to take it out of the chain of command? how many of you, when you entered the va system, were asked specifically if you had been raped or sexually assaulted in the military? how many of you received one on one counseling?

one-on-one mental health counseling in the military? how many of you were in an mst program that was reflective of your gender? >> it was a rape survivor and incest survivors group. they put us together. >> very briefly, if you could, speak about the violence in the rapes. we tend to overlook that, because we focus on the numbers. most of these rapes are -- have a level of violence that we have no conception of. >> i was pushed into a room by three men. one of the men got inside with

me, pushed me down, tore my pants. there was evidence that they could have collected, but he was given nonjudicial punishment. >> and you were locked in that room. >> there were two padlocks on the outside door, and his two friends were not to open it until he said so. >> ms. wilkins. >> some people might say that i am a quote lucky victim. i was asleep when the assault started, so i woke up to it happening. there were parts of the assault that i was not awake for, but that were evident. a lot of people think if you are not aware of the assault, it is not as bad. but rape itself is a kind of violence. to have someone put their hands on you or to put themselves

inside your body without your or mission is in itself violent. -- permission is in itself violent. a lot of people think it's not as bad if you don't know exactly what happened to you, but not knowing sometimes makes it worse. to bring up the point that you talked about about using your sexual history against you, in my case, during the investigation, i was interviewed by the office of special investigation that does things in the united states air force. i was interviewed for four hours in an eight by eight room with two male osi officers, and i had to go through my entire sexual history from the time i lost my virginity until the night i was assaulted, and i had to answer questions about that at the article 32 hearing. it re-victimize as you.

>> my time is expired. mr. chairman, is it all right if the last two witnesses -- >> there is a little time for more. >> my perpetrator used a weapon to obtain my compliance. he used a knife. had i resisted, i would not be here. i would be six feet under. i knew that looking in his eyes. there is a lot that goes on physically and mentally when senior members of your chain of command come down and a you will not file an official report with naval criminal investigation service. that is a victimization almost as bad as the 1 -- i don't remember a whole lot because my perpetrator hit me over the head and knocked me unconscious.

i have been trying to get screened for head issues ever since, and va has never done it. there was physical violence and the violence that comes after when you're command says you are not going to do this, and then the doctors in the military say you are fine, let me push you a boatload of pills and send you back out to sea, or the dr. that we go to in the military that says oh, you are lying about what happened, and by the way, here is your personality disorder and a bag of pills to last you 90 days on your way out. it took enough pills -- i took enough pills in san diego to float a ship. i did not feel my feet could touch the floor. that is violence as well, and i know you meant the physical

kind, but that violence needs to be addressed as well. there is no gender sensitive care for male veterans anywhere. that is why me and a few other survivors are standing up and recovering from military sexual trauma because men do not have anywhere to go. we are emasculated when we have to talk about this, and we don't deserve that in this culture. men deserve the right to be supported too. >> my situation was as a young officer candidate. it was in a social situation that it started. for many years, i did not disclose it because it was more of a date rape situation and i was told afterward that i deserved it and brought it on myself. for whatever reason, i sincerely believe that i was given something so that i would not remember or so that i would he be compliant.

growing up in new jersey, i am not a very compliant person anyway. i do not remember most of it, but if someone comes too close to me or i smell a curtain kind of smell -- certain kind of smell, i become agitated and feel i am going to throw up. i can happen anywhere. while i did not come out with bruises, i came out with pain and i came out with physical wounds. it happened years later with somebody else. it was sort of this same situation and i was told it was not rape. but i said no. no, it is not rape. while neither incident was outright violent, i was not physically harmed in such a way as the other witnesses, the violence in it for me was

questioning my judgment and questioning who i was as a person, and believing for so long that it was my fault and that i could not tell anybody. how you think a 22 and how you think a 40 when you are trying to raise two young men really impacts the way you look at things. when i knew that i would not want my sons to treat a woman like that or ever let that happen, at that point i knew that what i had experienced, i was still traumatized from it and it was wrong. completely different situation, the long-lasting effects. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your indulgence. >> i want to thank you all so very much for coming to washington and telling your stories.

you have been very helpful in trying to correct this problem. it is particularly frustrating to hear these stories one after the other. while your particular stories are unique, the barriers and challenges you spoke of in facing the va and the dod are very similar. i hope that administration officials in the audience were listening as closely as i was to your testimony. thank you very much and you are and you will set comparable. does dr. michael shepherd. -- it is dr. michael shepherd. dr. shepherd is accompanied by

the associate director. office of health care inspections. higgins,r. jonathan the chief of the stress disorder lebron at the va eastern health care system. chief al o'brien, the program at bay pines. welcome. who is talking first? five minutes for your testimony. members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss our recent ig report on residential treatment for female ptsd mentalp --

health conditions. i'm company that i am a company by our director. i will like to thank four veterans for their courage in sharing their experiences and insights. i want to briefly mention why we did interview and offer a few observations. this patient was undertaken in response to a request from the senate veteran affairs committee. of femalee the fear survivors discharge during the six-month time from programs listed by va as having the ability to treat mental health conditions related to ntsb. reports a tripst of fema veterans, i do want to discuss the impact on both the male and female survivors. in terms of the agent range of , somewhatrticipants

surprising is the average age was 44 with 46-50 the most common. under the patients were 25. were veterans. this demographic highlights the thect and also highlights system to plan for and serve the growing mental health needs of recentthat's -- in veterans and aging veterans i want to comment on the patients served by these programs. 96% of the patients in our review had two or more mental health diagnoses. at multiple physical diagnosis. eight percent had common eating disorders. ,reatment and these programs patients tended to return to the clinic or facility.

22 patients were readmitted to acute mental health or another residential program. for me, the real take away for these patients effective treatment is not a linear, one- stop and the intensive program and done solution. it rather requires a coordinated effort to build the foundation in the outpatient setting and have adequate coronation to optimize treatment and to --egrate german -- into to integrate treatment. largely all but three programs treated patients from all over the country. there was national draw. we found that difficult to me obtaining authorization was a concern. policy dictates care for veterans even those not otherwise coachable for va services. residential mst should be

available. the a trouble beneficiary policies are restricted to veterans meeting certain eligibility. and favors trim at the nearest facility. we found the two policies do not online. for some patients, the lack of alignment made a line axis. alignment may delay access. we recommended that the undersecretary review the policy relating to veterans seeking treatment in these programs. established a workgroup to provide recommendations. as of the last quarterly update the group was continuing to review. coordinators consistently reported their given direct when patient care responsibilities, they did not have time to perform lateral duties including

outreach. in conclusion, programs reviewed do share patients who would come from across the program. ideally these women and men would be engaged in creating comprehensive and longitudinal treatment efforts. thank you for this opportunity to testify. i would be pleased to answer any questions you or members of the subcommittee may have. you, commander shepard, for your testimony. commander higgins. you may proceed. >> good morning, members of the committee. the eastern kansas health system is comprised of two mental help tertiarynd a psychiatric facility. i'm the cheap of the stress disorder treatment program a seven-week -- i'm the chief of

the stress disorder treatment program, a seven-week program. tos 24-bed unit is designed help veterans deal more effectively with dramatic experiences that occur during military service. it is located within the military veteran center. i'm pleased to share my reflections from the field concerning mst treatment. our topeka program is thus described as a mixed trauma model for mixed gender. we provide services for male and female veterans from all branches, and all active-duty personnel. trauma addressed a related to mst, nonsexual assaults. the program's overarching treatment goal is to help

maximize posttraumatic recovery with integration back into families, workplace, and immunity. treated to date we have 24% of patients identifying a referral as mst referrals. 100% of a dent of five mst admissions had a ptsd primary diagnosis. are scheduled for mission in the third quarter. 20%he fy 13 mst referrals have been men and 14% had been women. they include those who served in iraq, but -- iraqi, vietnam, and other the cows.

as is common in residential programs we experience a higher percentage of mst no-shows and cancellations than for other problems. this speaks to multiple issues including high comorbidities and travel issues. has aaff multidisciplinary treatment team. they progress evidence-based treatment, diverse psychological training, complementary yoga,ative medicine -- meditation, exercise, and medication management. at the national resource for graham, admissions are nationwide. mini-cohorttted in groups. have not encountered any upward admissions due to safety

concerns. program's core value works. is less stigmatized by virtue of side-by-side trauma treatments. second, the program achieves a powerful sense of community and acceptance of all individuals with ptsd, regardless of gender and trauma demographics. the in vivo aspect of the treatments environment is normalizing, essential to veteran recovery efforts, and facilitates reintegration into the real world. third, evidence supports the mixed trauma model. patientsata for mst are similar to patients with the gst and depression systems. -- symptoms. active-duty personnel -- the program is one hour per to military installations and we received referrals for combat

trauma treatment. however, referrals for mst are infrequent. patients report fear of stigma and lack of career advancement. these are worthy goals to be addressed. non-visn veteran female who could not afford transportation to our program was eventually flown to and from our site i of -- by ar veteran volunteer veteran system. capacity -- greater understanding is needed of the multiple factors that can interview to unfilled mst beds. best practices. multi-program research is needed programsddress the

that generate the most robust treatment outcomes. i am pleased to be part of the growing national efforts to toat mst, and i am glad appear before you today. i'm prepared to answer any questions you may have. >> thank you. dr. brian, you may proceed. >> thank you for allowing me to toress the va's efforts provide the very best care to our nations heroes, particularly those affected by military sexual trauma. the bay pines va healthcare southwest florida. it includes a large medical center and eight outpatient clinics located in communities within our area. dedicated00 employees to the more than 100,000 men and

women who come through our doors every year. i am the section chief of the posttraumatic stress disorder program, which include residential and outpatient services to treat ptsd related from trauma and military sexual trauma. traumater for sexual services is the section of the ptsd program that specifically treats ptsd resulting from sexual assault that occurred during military service. i began treating veterans with problems related to mst in 1993, shortly after the passage of law 8005.ut to - received anand i innovative programs grant to establish the bay pines military sexual trauma treatment program in the year 2000. femaleially had eight

veterans and expanded the program to treat an equal number of male veterans and provide a wide range of outpatient services. at present, we treat approximately 100 veterans with military sexual trauma each year through our residential program and our outpatient services provide care to approximately 400 veterans annually. our team for but evidence of aschotherapy of ptsd as well specific treatment interventions and other therapeutic modalities to treat the unique aspects of ptsd.lated because the overarching goal is treatments, our program has a focus on interpersonal skill development and recovery that is defined by the veteran's goals and values. we integrate concepts from therapeutic community models of care.

the center for sexual trauma -ervices was the first mst specific residential ptsd program to be established within the aj. in it -- within vha. in addition to providing excellent care to veterans from across the nation, we established a clinical training program that has been attended i hundreds of mst clinicians from other va facilities and vet centers. our program has included ambitious research initiative since its inception and provides training for interns and residents from many disciplines. our residential treatment community includes equal numbers of men and women. linked of state varies based on treatment goals -- length of stay varies based on treatment goals. veterans mentor and coach each

other, identify shared community behavioral goals, and focus on independent problem- solving and management of difficult emotions. we also focus on the gender specific issues related to military sexual trauma. our male and female patients meet separately to process the sexual traumatary on important aspects of life including sexuality, perceptions of others, and interpersonal relationships, and come together to recognize sexual assault affects both men and women and is not a problem of gender. through their relationships of each other, they begin to trust again and develop an eagerness to move forward with their lives. to work tonue advance the understanding of the and developt increasingly effective treatment models, i respectfully make the following suggestion. we made huge progress in the

evidence available for treatment of ptsd. treatment forated ptsd, but we need programs to specifically address the complex family problems, behavioral issues, and disorders typically seen in this group of veterans. we need to provide treatment earlier. most of our patients receive treatment years and even decades after the sexual assault. many of our veterans tell us that the mst resulted in their loss of a hope for military career. va and dod need to prioritize effective early treatment interventions to preserve the quality of life and the potential contributions of military service members who experienced military sexual trauma. we need more treatment options for men. we know that for men who are rate, the reporting rates are lower, the incidence of ptsd is

higher, functioning and relationships is more impaired, and treatment is less effective. we need to understand more about the causes and the predict there's of military sexual trauma. va-dod additional collaborative research to understand from the perspective of both the victims and the changeators so we can the military environment to ameliorate this so there are no more victims. thank you for the opportunity of testifying. you, dr. o'brien. i will yield myself five minutes. dr. shepherd, were you here at the first panel? >> yes, sir. correct that his dramatic testimony.

you with the inspector general -- is the inspector general's office doing anything? are they reviewing what the va is doing? this is pretty dramatic. i would think you would be on this in some way. >> we did do a review in the last year of residential treatment for patients with mst- related conditions. we did a review about two years ago, looking at treatment for -- n with combat stress >> it does not sound like you are answering me. you reviewed what the va was doing. this is the testimony we had before. this. ask you are you aware of the number of inpatient beds and the va system for inpatient treatment for

military sexual trauma? or maybe for ptsd which would have availability appropriate for mst victims? how many patient beds are there and the country? >> i don't know the exact number. you know that number? let me ask the doctors involved with clinics themselves -- are your clinics always full then? is your clinic always full? question,ou for the mr. chairperson. i mentioned in my remarks we do experience some people who do not show up for treatment who are scheduled and are on the admitted list. the advantage of having the admissions format, we are able forward and fill positions fairly quickly. >> you mentioned you have people scheduled for the fourth quarter, i think you said?

>> we do. we are in that territory. we are waiting to admit. folks have to get their personal affairs lined up and prepare to come into a program. they have to deal with family and work and so forth. >> how long does this typically take? >> i would say we are running one month to 40 days right now. your capacity in the facility for now today? >> i would say -- >> today? 85% to 90%.ay >> dr. o'brien? >> the bay pines program is considered be premier program in the country. we get probably more referrals than other programs too. a couple weeks ago we admitted a female veteran directly to our

program from the inpatient psychiatry units with absolutely no weight. of -- absolutely no wait. >> we have not heard from you mcgough. do you want to add to that? >> enqueue, mr. chairman. we had to estimate the capacity of some of the programs that are women only and some that are asked gender. for the purpose of our review, we only looked at those .vailable for women we did obtain data on our site visits and we also looked at data that had to do with capacity. we were told when we were on site that these rogue rims were somewhat underutilized. -- that these programs were somewhat underutilized.

timeframe,, the data provided by the aj -- ring this time frame, the data provided by vha reflected an occupancy rate 51%.ng from 42% through the programs that had a higher occupancy rate included bay pines, new jersey, and sheridan, wyoming. as far as your question about how long it takes to access the programs, we can get you that information. we reviewed 166 medical records as part of our review. in a report we do have the data stratified by facility as far as how long it took before the patient was referred to the program until the patient entered one of the residential programs and it did vary considerably. dr. shepherd, in view of the testimony we have today, do you think you would interchange of plan to inspect how the va is

doing things with the traumatic -- shouldn't he inspector general be involved in that? >> i appreciate the testimony. when i returned to the office i will begin dialogue with my superiors about possible inspections we might do and this area. >> i would appreciate follow- ups. thank you. >> we chose to look at the residential programs because the programs are identified by vha as being resources for a diverse population. one of the things we did consider was looking at outpatient services, because it is a little more challenging because it is so broad. figure outallenge to how to objectively measure what they were doing. not be so much variability from site to site.

one of the things we consider, currently vha facilities have a screening program. it is an electronic screening called a clinical reminder. stop toy it consists questions to determine -- it consists of two questions to determine if the patient meets the criteria. at which point they are supposed to be verbally prompted to ask if they would like to speak to someone further. we are told that the aj is in the process of adding a third question. is in the process of adding a third question. once the reminder is in place, there would be an objective way for us to measure how many veterans requested help, and then we could see how long it took. we are keeping an eye on whether the reminder might be rolled

out. we were told in fy 12 it was under process. as far as we know today, it has not been rolled out nationally. >> enqueue for your testimony. ms.eld to ms. rowling -- to brownley. >> thank you, mr. chairman. hearing the first panel was devastating. and your response to the testimony -- it does not seem to me that sense of urgency is really bear. i mean, we heard about big gaps in care, long wait times, uncaring providers, employees who did not seem to know what the policies were, issues around family support, ginger -- gender sensitive care. the fact that ptsd and mst their peas were combined, the need for

getting access outside of the va , the victims not being screened. so, and it seems to me with the data that we know in terms of there,tims who are out 87%, i think, who actually work do not --but victimized but don't come yourrd, i think -- testimony and the data that we know about are really aligned here. and somehow i think we have got to find those nexus points so we are doing a better job. i feel like this hearing is just beginning to scratch the surface , and we still need to drill down further on so many of these issues to figure out how we can

provide immediate service, caring service, the right surface, the right services and best practices. i am sort of struggling with that. i appreciate your testimony. i feel like it was prepared in advance, which i understand one has to do, but it did not feel like it was really responding to what we heard. i would just like to hear from you, from all of you, really, what some of your responses are, and i know in the case of mr. and dr.o testified he cut services from your facility -- if we could hear more about his testimony.

>> thank you. i, like you, reacted with a great deal of concern and compassion for the testimony, not only of the mail but them, but the entire panel. -- not butof the male victim, the entire panel. part of what we need to do within the va is to talk with the victims to work with them to improve our rogue rims to meet every single individual veteran's means. what of the things that we can do that i think will be especially helpful is we are hiring a large number of technicians, peer counselors to work with our program. we will have one coming to our program at bay pines as well. again, hearing that allows us to perspective.erans' i think the closer we get to the words of the veteran, the more

we will be able to improve our treatment program. have a comment, ranking member brownley. >> we looked at women and we specifically at residential treatment programs. we have a safe sample. we looked at the patience to made it into a very specialized program, whereas i think they spoke courageously about their experiences and the first panel. what we gathered from the testimony, it sounded like only one of the four made it into one of the specialized rogue rams. well we can discuss the characteristics and the pattern from what we saw in our sample of women, in our view it may not be reflective of the women making it into these residential treatment programs. indid find evidence, both the medical records and also

through interviews, we did hear about barriers. any of the barriers we heard from staff or similar themes to what we heard from the veterans who spoke earlier today. we consistently heard that the mst coordinators -- there is one in each facility. that is what he found in our review. that is what is required. however the directive does not mandate the amount of the time dedicated to the role it needs to have. coordinators said 10% of their time is mst coordination. at the bay pines facility, their coordinator is a very busy lady. she is a full-time clinician of. she is the point of contact for mst. this is one person. them said 10%. as few as two hours a week, they do the outreach they need to do.

you heard from the entire panel. there was a lot more focusing on coronation and reaching out for patients coming into the system that perhaps has ameliorated some of the issues related to coordination of care. >> thank you, ms. brownley. . yield five minutes >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you all for being here today. is difficult but always necessary to self critique ourselves. how you would describe the rates on the national level of customer , andce for those with mst what is not provided to you today to improve upon that?

anyone can take that. question,ou for the grossman. i believe in topeka our service is outstanding. the feedback that we get from veterans who come into the program is that they are very pleased with the care they have received from us. i think we can always do better. we have brought support specialist this past year to help us out. this will be a strong move for us. we are continuing to work out how we can link in local resources to help become more linkedin with ink such as recreational activities. staff can always help with that, but i think we can do some improvement there. >> anyone else care to comment? sense both ofmmon the panels from vha mentioned the peer counselors and this is being rolled out in vha.

that is something we notice when we look at these records of women in the residential program. we find that there is peer counseling available or pure support -- or a peer support technician was there. from what we can see from medical record documentation and we were looking at veterans who were women, we only saw one technician support who was working in these particular programs and i believe that was in the program in cincinnati. i know that va has mandated that the residents of the programs need to get ready to have 50% of their population be female. setver they have no threshold for what percentage of the peer technicians need to be female. >> thank you. >> five minutes. >> thank you very much, mr.

chairman. if you will remind me of my time, thank you. thank you for coming in today and the work that you do. i understand you are very committed. dr. o'brien, i know you have been up art of this for a long, long time and dr. feral pagans, i am impressed by the work you described. higgins, i amrell impressed by the work you described. i want to ask about the comment you made -- you used the phrase "once-in-a-lifetime screening." thes very clear to me from first panel that the once-in-a- lifetime screening would not be adequate. verynk dr. rhodes spoke eloquently about this. it takes 25 years to have this conversation. what would you recommend that could be done across the board,

be moreut the va to mindful of the challenge of ringing this situation forward? it is not just saying, i broke my arm, can you fix it? >> i think part of this issue has to do with the mst coordinators and the time they are afforded to follow up on screenings. and when a patient does disclose in whatever venue it is, the sure the coordinator is aware -- and the training is back to being in the medical record. we were told that currently this is something that occurs once. person, male or female, veteran comes in to the va medical center for a moment, they are screened for many different conditions. mst is one of them. there are two questions of the

screening. we were told they are in the process of adding a third question. we probably would need to refer -- wefor more on probably would need to refer vha for more on the program. we did find in our particular sample all of the veterans have been screened. we did find out of 156 patients, 160 one were actually veterans. three were active-duty. two were reservists. of the 161 for whom the reminder would have been turned on in the medical records, there were seven for which it would be negative. >> wow. >> if the clinical reminder is marked negative, some of the data they collect would be lost.

>> great. can i add also -- although in the va we have the requirements to ask wants to do the reminder, but that is not the only way we each out to our veterans to let them know about the availability of treatment. we have brochures. we have posters. we have events for sexual assault awareness week. we have multiple modalities. we reach out to our veterans, to let them know the care is available and encourage them to seek care. i had a veterans speak to me the other day, that he had said no to the clinical reminder. and then he saw a poster at our facility that we have hanging right inside the door. it said "it takes the strength of a warrior to seek help." that gave him the courage to "i was us and say

sexually assaulted in the military and i hear i can get some care from you." >> great. my time is short, but i want to introduce an expert from my region in new hampshire who is here with us to a at the hearing. -- today at the hearing. i will be submitting her statement for the record. , dr.regard to your comment higgins, i think the connection to the services available in the community including in academia, and programming, the issue of sexual assault and rape is not new in our society. and one of the biggest concerns across the board, both with , thereto dod and the va is the effect of a total vacuum of the military and the veterans

administration seemingly dealing with these issues in a vacuum. i would encourage all of you -- and certainly we will encourage the veterans administration and thedod -- to work with ovulation. because it is a very unique, both with regards to coming forward with the story and all the way throughout. our concern is with this multiple trauma, that we learn best practices from people. working for 20 years in this field. i'm very honored to have her with us today. >> thank you. i will yield five minutes to the gentlewoman from indiana. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i have to agree with ranking member brownley.

i feel like we are into several worlds. we just heard absolutely gut wrenching testimony from extremely courageous people whose lives have been ruined. and i'm frustrated sitting on this committee. i have been asking questions the va sincesue to i've been here with no answers. with all due respect, dr. higgins, the customer service is going great, with all due respect for those who access the programs. but for tens of thousands of people it is not working and i'm just frustrated. i want to direct my question to dr. shepherd. it was recommended "the undersecretary for help review existing vha policies related to -ravel for veterans seeking mst related treatment outside the facilities where they are and rolled. beis recommended that this

completed for the undersecretary of health no later than april 30, 2013." have they provided that status update? >> and may they work to working on it. >> that is exactly what i expected to hear, because the question we have been asking be seven months i have been here is still there is no response, no reports. when we are dealing with this that of mst, the reason these reports are so gut wrenching, i think, is we have thousands of people falling through a crack in the system and we cannot get answers in the congressional committee in charge of watchdogging, making sure these people get treatment. days with ast few lot of pressing, we got a response that we had recently developed recommendations the undersecretary would be reviewing in the last few weeks. i agree with the congresswoman's comments.

i very much understand the frustration. give her reason for data dish -- give a reason for failing to provide it? >> no, ma'am. >> does this represent a failure to provide these services? works we would like to see what they propose getting implemented, because we think that will help improve access for veterans meeting these programs. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i yield back my time. >> ms. kirkpatrick? >> [indiscernible] excuse me. thank you, mr. chairman. theo'brien, how many of 3500 in your facility our psychiatrist? click thank you for the

question. i would need to take that for the record and get back to you on the exact number. >> can you give me a ballpark number? itself weptsd program 2's and psychiatric a full-time psychiatrist with a position open for yet another psychiatrist. not have your written testimony, but i recall from your testimony you treat 100,000 andents in your facility 400,000 outpatients? is that correct? haveindicated that we 100,000 male and female patients who come to our facility each year. >> how many are seeking mental health care?

the exactt know number. i can get that information to you. can't you give me those figures for your facility? >> i find myself in the same position as dr. o'brien. we have a full-time pa and a psychiatrist who supervises that work. i will have to get back to you with respect to the total number of psychiatrist in the facility. ballpark? give me a >> i have to get back to you about that. >> do you think we have a sufficient number of psychiatrists in the system to treat these issues? our review we look at staffing particularly, specifically residential programs. i could not comment on the 140 .ther va facilities

we found there was adequate staffing for the programs we reviewed which were residential in nature. >> i am concerned about the testimony we heard from the first panel that they're being seen by medical students, untrained professionals. i would really like an answer back about whether we have adequate professionals in the va system to deal with military sexual trauma. also one of the first panel is says "some women are not going to come to the ba because of the lack of treatment or a bad experience with the va." and we have heard of other incidents of women being hesitant to go to the ba. i would just like to hear from the panel, what is the va doing to address that and make it a pleasant experience for women? >> thank you. i think one of the things that

va has done over the years is the creation of women's health centers. every va facility has a women's row gram manager whose job -- women's program manager whose job it is to advocate or women in the facility. i'm talking about the bay pines women's clinic. it is a separate clinic dedicated to the health care of women veterans. there are mental health providers. comes to ourteran facility and feels uncomfortable getting care and a general health clinic or another setting, they can get virtually all of their care in the women's clinic. shepherd, are you aware of anything going on in the va to make it user friendly for women? is aeally, i think that question best answered by the

two panelists from va. going back four or five years on these residential programs, there was really concerned about physical safety. that was more of an issue. they were adding keypad type devices to bolster security. i really think that is best answered by the va panelists. comment onave any that, ideas about what can be done better? >> just to augment what was said by dr. shepherd, we have scheduled site visits at approximately 50 va medical centers each year. at treatmenting programs. specifically with standards for safety and security of women veterans as far as required

alarms, door locks, back doors tvs andle to lock, whatnot. i know the oig is always looking at targets relevant to women's health. something they are keeping an eye on. i cannot pursue a comment on the efficacy of their efforts overall as far as welcoming women. you describe what is happening for women at your facility, dr. higgins? >> i would be happy to. with respect to our unit, we do have doors that can be locked at night and so on. we maintain the physical security of those rooms. i think that the message is best delivered every time we interact with a female who comes into the ba. into the va. individual contact makes a

difference. my staff is well trained and committed to that. gravity ofstand the that as we work with these women and men who have been sexually traumatized. >> thank you. mr. chairman, thank you for indulging me to exceed my time. thank you. >> thank you very much. i would like to yield a couple ownleyinutes to ms. br from california. she has an inquiry. >> thank you. this is really for dr. shepherd. we have heard testimony a lot, but one area i want to focus on is the transition area from dod to the va for the military sexual assault victims. understanding -- way

back in 2009, there was a dod-va mental health summit, and from that summit there was an agreed- upon strategy coming out from the dod and the va, but we do not really know anything about it and really what has happened with that. we do not know what the strategy is, as cetera -- etc.. i think the chairman agrees with me. i would certainly like the inspector general to look into this issue around transition and how the dod at the va are going ourork together to service military men and women who have been sexually assaulted and report back to us in the official capacity as the office of inspector general. and we would like that to happen and to have a reports come back to us.

concernseartfelt expressed and shared by the first panel -- i personally would be willing to work on that. >> thank you. for testifyingl before us today. you are hereby excused from the panel. i would like to call the third panel. we have the department of veterans affairs, dr. james, the va assistant deputy undersecretary for patient services. dr. james is accompanied by dr. carol from the office of patient care services and the national mental health director of program policy implementation for mental health services. that is a long title. are joined by the

principal deputy undersecretary for defense for health care. i want to thank you all for being here today. we have your complete written statements as part of our hearing records. given the gravity of the testimony and personal experiences that we have heard in the previous panel, i would like to go straight to questions, if you don't mind. you are all here -- you all heard the testimony from the first panel, i take it, right? me, it is very frustrating to hear that and to know there are many out there we have not heard today that have the same complaints. have constituent how people have been sexually assaulted from the vietnam war, but still have not

,eported to their va person because they are just afraid. and, you know, they did not reveal it until they wrote me the letter. testimony is so devastating. i know you have a statement there, but maybe -- can you tell me what is your reaction? what do you think is the first thing you're going to do after this hearing to fix this? >> thank you, mr. chairman for the question. there is no question that the testimony is somewhat dated raised on the testimonies that have been provided by the four veterans on the first panel. i think they really present a very powerful story and i think that they point out that we in

the va have done a lot for the the last of mst over two years. we also feel there are significant gaps that have been panel, and we the need to take a careful look and address how best we can meet the needs of all of our veterans and is sensitive manner. >> wouldn't you agree this is an emergency >> there should not be -- thereion taken >> should not be rapid action taken? >> i certainly agree that we should look back to address some of the gaps. frankly, they made a lot of wonderful suggestions we also would want to consider. who would be in charge of -- is someone in charge of the va?

i always get confused, the principal deputy assistant director. those kinds of terms. nameere someone you can who was in charge of fixing this? is that you? patientin charge of the care services. i certainly would be willing to take that responsibility on behalf of the vha because all of the mental health services and themst services are part of patient care services. i would personally be willing to take that responsibility to do a careful assessment, working with our leadership on the operations side to make sure that we have all of the appropriate staffing that we need to make sure that we provide services in a sensitive manner. >> there are a lot of caveats and there. i understand, dr. jain.

i appreciate that. i worked at the va as a for a long time. i know a straightforward answer like you gave does not happen, even with a caveat. brownleyg to allow ms. the floor. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i share your sense of urgency today. earlier in the hearing there was some discussion about the chain of command. i certainly think this issue, we need to go up the chain of command within the va and the dod to make sure we are addressing some of these issues and that we are really providing the very best practices to our men and women who have served us so bravely and have so bravely

testified in today's hearing. to some of go back the specifics from panel one that were suggestions. outside of the va servicesces to access that may be closer to home, to access or haps services that are -- perhaps services that are best practices. if we do have these gaps in care and so forth and we want to address this, with that sense of urgency, that be tos one solution could look at the utilization of

outside services for our men and women within their areas in which they reside? it seems to me those practices are out there and being provided , that they could be a way in which to provide those services in a very efficient and expeditious way. i just wanted to hear any comments from you with that. >> thank you, congresswoman, for that question. let me start on that particular topic. i think, as you say, our va medical center leadership have a range of options available to them in terms of how to provide services in a timely manner. clearly, the veterans on the keyl have pointed out that bases care is one of the

options. i would also submit to you that services.le-health that was pointed out. as you know, we have a lot of community based outpatient clinics. over the last few years, mental health does become a component of the primary care services oc.t is provided at our cb we have provided the tele- medical help services to expand the reach of our medical centers to make sure sure that the higher level of experts services is available in our clinic. listening to the testimony of one of the veterans, it is clear that there are areas of gaps. there are some areas where haveps we are not able to a community-based outpatient clinic, where there is also a condemnation of mental health services and other types of

services for survivors of mst. c bases services is certainly there and clearly as basis the issue of the services is certainly there and clearly as you mentioned. you have to look at whether they are to maket professionals sure that services available in a timely manner. i think the veterans pointed out the challenge of the exchange of medical record information. when the services are provided within the va or when we partner or partner with indian health services, we have done several projects with the va working with those types of agencies to make sure that we share resources and provide the care in a timely manner to where the veterans are. i think there are a range of

options and clearly one of those would have to be -- >> i would love to go on further with another question, if you don't mind. the other issue is around screening. to me, that seems like it would be a simple fix to make sure that across the country we are doing the screening. it was very concerning to hear ms. johnson, who is our most veteranervicemember and , who clearly was not screened. we are screening, and yet from the testimony i think we can conclude it is not a failsafe program, that every single man and woman are not being screened, and i think that that would -- it is just something that is not complicated. it is just a matter of making sure we are doing it. and i also

think these of the screening, it is not just a one-time thing. we have to continue to follow-up . there probably needs to be other places in the process where they are screened again, so it is not just a one-time thing. it is more of a check and balance and more of a failsafe system. the other thing that comes to mind listening to the first panel is, you know, having advocates for these men and systemhat can access the to prioritize their needs within the system, to get the services that they need when they need it and can help in the coordination also. and making sure that in every place, wherever it may be, that they are getting what they need

and i just would ask if you can comment on any of those. >> congresswoman, thank you very much for those comments. i fully agree with you. there are many points our veterans made that we would take to heart and we would go back and review our current policies and procedures. ms. trenton, for example, screening. i think there are things that we need to look at. i was surprised that none of the possiblerans -- one explanation could be that may be the screening was conducted a few earlier when the screening was not fully and lace, but that -- fully in place, but that is not a reason not to do that again. the veterans have indicated we need to look at procedures for screening to see if there is a some kind ofoffer

another chance to have the screening done in a simpler way. so, i would fully agree to that. i take your other point. of havingnse in terms options available, i.e., some coordinator. or i think we are toying with these ideas and our primary care clinic, and our pac as you know the coordinators help in the transition of the service members coming into our system. but they also assist in coordinating care whether it's with other specialty clinics or between the va and community. teams have pac

post deployment counselors that also provide a similar kind of a role. what we begin to do now is to add some more coach that is can help to further strengthen this element of coordination of services because a lot of the dual care that happens in our system. >> thank you. and if the chair would allow me a little bit more time i would like to ask the dod to respond to some of these issues as well. i think there is a lot that we have done recently. we have a new dodi instruction which kind of talks about the roles and responsibilities of everyone in the department of defense to specifically address sexual assault provention and response. that was just issued in april. the services are in the process of fully implementing it. we know they are compliant with the healthcare provisions in there. so we know that providers are trained.

they are meeting the standard tr providing 24/7 coverage. there are safe kits in all of the the mtf. we have responded in a thoughtful way to what we also heard from survivors in our focus groups to fix some of the problems that were arctic cue lated. we are seeing if we have solved me of the problems that were articulated. i know there are some more that you all have art lated here. i want to art late my thanks for the first panel. it is only through their eyes we see us as we are and that's how we fix things. i'm grateful to their willing tons help us understand and that's how we get better. >> thank you for that. i think we all walk away today,

hopefully the congress, dod and the va walk away with a sense of urgency today that we have a lot of work ahead of us. >> thank you mr. chair. i yield back. >> our committee has heard a stigma exists in the military that deterse active service members from getting mental healthcare. one of our veteran panelists suggest there be a mental health day where professionals are brought together so that service members can seek mental healthcare that day and see professionals. has that recommendation been exploird before? >> i've not heard of that particular recommendation. we have done a lot in the past several years to provide embedded mental health providers both in the deployed environment. we have them embedded in our care teams for the patients in a medical home. i think we are doing a pretty good job of trying to penetrate

and provide our specialists where they need to be and so they are not seen as something different but they are just part of your group. and i think that that is going to go a long way. we have seen in the department an increase in people accessing services for mental health which i think is a good news story. i think that means we are addressing stigma. have we totally fixed it? probably not but i think some of the choices we've made are making some end roads to it. i'll take back the idea of a mental health day and see how people respond to that. >> i represent a large district in arizona and we are using more and more tell medicine and i'm finding patients are open to that and it's a positive experience. tell medicine may be a way for some of our veterans to seek medical treatment in the privacy of their home without

having to go to a facility. would you address that idea? >> thank you for that question. i think the potential for tell alth is still i would say in it's infancy so we can take this to many different levels. i think the point that you are making and the veterans have made providing care where the veterans live in that community is a message that we have taken to heart. we have done a lot but we need to do a lot more. i think the days of asking the veterans to drive 00 miles or 150 miles to come to the mother ship and be able to receive care i think has to be a past and we need to move on to the point where we are able to provide more services in our community based out patient clinics or in their homes. that is an area we are looking at very actively and will continue to expand on.

>> thank you and thank you for the panelists for being here and i yield back. >> looking at this gao report from january of this year says we found that military healthcare providers do not have a consistent understanding of their responsibilities in are of sexual assault victims. did the testimony of the first panel, did that affect you in your thoughts of how things are going in the system? >> i think the testimony of the first panel was compelling and heart wrenching. think that the things that we addressed many the new guidance to the field will go a long way to remedy some of the things they have art lated. all healthcare providers who have responsibility for sexual assault and treating those patients are required to have

an initial treatment and an annual refresher course. those that actually perform the safe exam which is the forensic examination are required to have very specific training to a national standard which is the department of justice. >> let me ask a quick question here. there has been concern about people that have survived mst and their ability to stay on active duty because there is not the treatment protocol to allow them to do that. is there some way that we're addressing that in the d.o.d.? >> i would have to actually go back and talk to people about that to make sure we've got something in place that is directly addressing that particular question, sir. >> i'd appreciate you getting back to me about that. >> i want to thank you all for joining us this afternoon. i truly appreciate it and i

hope that as i said earlier that the testimony of the first anel affects you all in your zeal to make things better from every aspect of the va and the d.o.d. i know it certainly affecting us here on the committee and we're going to work on improving it from our end. but i would hope that this would inspire you to work harder in making it happen. so with that, you're excused. thank you. >> all members have five legislative days to revise their remarks. without objection so ordered i would like to thank all the witnesses and the audience members for joining us here today for these important conversations. nd this hearing is here by

adjourned. >> tonight an c-span president obama comments on the trayvon martin case.

house leaders discuss the congressional agenda and ted cruz talks to republicans in iowa. >> on the next "washington journal" we'll is it down with the more guns less crime author to discuss stand your ground laws in states around the country. then bob from bloomberg news talks about the case against the goldman sachs trader and the meltdown. plus your calls and tweets on "washington journal" beginning live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> in 2003 in an article you recommended a historical

reckoning with crimes committed by the united states. which crimes were you refering to and which decisions taken by the current administration would you recommend for such a reckoning? >> thank you senator and thank you for giving me occasion to respond to that. i as an immigrant to this country think this country is the greatest country on earth as i know do you. i would never apologize for america. america is the light today world. we have freedoms and opportunities here that people dream about abroad. i certainly did. and with regard to that quote, one of the things that had very e, i had written critically about the clinton's response to the genocide in 1994, written in great detail about that. and president clinton came

forward and expressed regret the united states didn't do more. when i travelled to ro wanda i was stunned to see the degree to which clinton's visit to ra wanda, his apoll ji -- >> this weekend on c-span the senate foreign relations committee takes up the ambassador to the u.n. nomination. live full day coverage of the harlem book fair including author panels and your calls, tweets and facebook comments 11:45. saturday at >> jackie was raised as her mother was raised. she was the same kind of wife

and hostess. the entertaining with style. that was her heritage and she did it again in the white house. right after her administration, during the johnson years, the whole world erupted like volcanoes. we had the women who went to work and got divorces and demanded equal rights. we had flower children and free love and free sex. boy was it great for the young. i missed all of that. but the whole world changed and it became a whole new concept of women. and i think ms. clinton today represent it is new woman. >> as we continue our conversation on first ladies, social secretary to jacqueline kennedy and others talk about the role of the first lady and how it's changed along with the nation monday night at k9 eastern on c-span.

>> today the president made his rst public comments on the trayvon martin trial after a jury found george zimmerman not guilty. the president spoke to eporters in the briefing room. >> jay, is this the kind of respect that you get? on television it usually looks like you're addressing a full oom. sorry about that. do you think anybody else is showing up? >> i wanted to come out here first of all to tell you that jay is prepared for all of your

questions and is very much looking forward to the session. second thing is i want to let you know that over the next couple of weeks there are going to be a whole range of issues, immigration, economics, etc., we'll try to arrange a fuller press conference to address your questions. the reason i wanted to come out today is not to take questions but to speak to an issue that obviously has gotten a lot of attention over the course of the last week, the issue of the trayvon martin ruling. i gave a preliminary statement right after the ruling on sunday. but watching the debate over the course of the last week i thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a little bit. first of all, i want to make sure that once again i send my thoughts and prayers as well as michelle's to the family of

trayvon martin and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity with which they've dealt with the entire situation . i can only imagine what they are going through and it remarkable how they've handle it. the second thing i want to say is to reiterate what i said on sunday which is there are going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case. i'll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address those issues. the judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. the prosecution and the defense made their arguments. the jurors were properly a case such t in as this reasonable doubt was relevant and they rendered a verdict. and once the jury has spoken,

that's how our system works. but i did want to talk about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling. when trayvon martin was first shot, i said this could have been my son. another way of saying that is trayvon martin could have been me 35 years ago. and when you think about why in the african-american community at least there is a lot of pain around what happened here, i think it's important to recognize that the african-american scommuent looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a istory that doesn't go away.

there are very few african-american men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store, that includes me. there are very few african-american men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. that happens to me, at least before i was a senator. there are very few african-americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. hat happens often. and i don't want to exaggerate this but those sets of experiences inform how the african-american community interprets what happened one

night in florida. and it's inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear. the african-american community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws. everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. and that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case. now this is not to say that the african-american community is naive about the fact that african-american young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they are disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence.

it's not to make excuses for that fact, although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. we understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighbors around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country. and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history. and so the fact that sometimes that is unacknowledged adds to the frustration. and the fact that a lot of african-american boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuses given that there are statistics given that show

that african-american boys are more violent. using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain. i think the african-american community is not naive in understanding that statistically someone like trayvon martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. so folks understand the challenges that exist for african-american boys. ut they get frustrated if they feel there is no context for it. and that context is being denied. and that all contributes i think to a sense that if a

hite male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario that from top to bottom both the utcome and the aftermath might have been different. now the question for me at least and i think for a lot of folks is why wr do we take this? how do we learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction? i think it's understandable there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests. and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through as long as it remains non-violent. if i see any violence then i will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to trayvon martin and his

family. but beyond protests or vigil it is question is are there some concrete things we might be able to do? i know that eric holder is reviewing what happened down there. but i think it's important for people to have some clear expectations here. traditionally these are issues of state and local government, the criminal code and law enforcement is traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels. that did you want mean though that as a nation we can't do some things that i think would be productive. so let me just give a couple of specifics that i'm still ouncing around with my staff so we're not rolling out some five point plan but some areas

where i think all of us could potentially focus. number one, precisely because law enforcement is often determined at the state and local level, i think it would be productive for the justice department, governors, marries to work with -- mayors to work with state and local government o reduce trust that cunchtly exist. hen i was in illinois i passed racial profiling legislation and it actually did two simple things. one it collected data on traffic stops and the race of the person who was stopped. but the other thing was it resourced us training police departments across the state on how to think about potential racial bias and ways to further profession lies what they were doing.

and initially the police departments across the state were resistant but they came to recognize if it was done in a fair straightforward way it would allow them to do their jobs better and communities would have more confidence in them and in turn be more helpful in applying the law. obviously law enforcement has a very tough job. that's one area where i think there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought to bear if state and local governments are receptive. and i think a lot of them would be and let's figure out ways for us to push out that training. along the same lines, i think it would be useful for to us examine some state and local laws to see if it is designed in such a way to cause potential at indications like we saw in the florida case rather than diffuse at

indications. he stand your ground laws in florida were not used as a defense in the case. if we are sending a message as a society in our community that is someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there is a way for them to exit from a situation. those who resist that idea that we should think about something like the stand your ground laws i'd like people to consider if rayvon martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?

and do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting mr. zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? and if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous then it seems we might want to examine those kind of laws. number three, and this is a long term project. we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our african-american boys. and this is something that michelle and i talk a lot about. there are a lot of kids out

here who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. is there more that we can do to give them a sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them? i'm not naive about the prospects of some federal program. i'm not sure that's what we're talking about here. i do really as president i have some convening power. and there are a lot of good programs across the country. there are a lot of celebrities and clergy and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young african-american men feel that they are a full part of this society and that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed. i think that would be a pretty

good outcome from what was a tragic situation. and we're going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that. and then finally, i think it's going to be important for all of us to do some soul searching. there has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race? i haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. they end up be politicized and folks or locked into the positions they already have. on the other hand, families and churches and workplaces, there is the possibility that people are a little bit more honest and at least you ask yourself

your own questions about am i bringing as much bias out of myself as i can? am i judging myself as much as i can based on not the color of their skin but the contents of their character? that would i think be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy. let me just leave you with a final thought that as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, i don't want us to lose sight that things are getting better. each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race. it doesn't mean we're in a post racial society. it doesn't mean that racism is eliminated.

but when i talk to malia and sosha and i listen to their friends an see them interact, they are better than we are, they are better than we were on these issues. that's true in every community that i've visited all across the country. and so we have to be vigilant and we have to work on these issues. and those of us in authority should be doing everything we an to encourage the better angels as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions. but we should also have confidence that kids these days i think have more sense that we did back then and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did. and that along this long

difficult journey we're becoming a more perfect union, not a perfect union but a more perfect union. thank you guys. > have you talked to the martin family? >> what we do teach on a typical tour is we start with how the music industry started with edison and the sell dar machine. and then we go forward with the invention of the flat disc machine which is called a gram phone. then we go throughout that story and tell about johnson's very important inventions to improve this machine. >> mr. johnson and his engineers went to work to try

to keep the customers very happy. what they did is come up with a yle referred to as a victrola. it was put in a concealed area within the cabinet itself. now they also decided which was a very clever idea to put doors on the front which allowed you to modify the sound. now you had volume control doors. you also could take the lid and close the lid which would give you the ability to soften the sounds but also sometimes if you had a very scratchny record it would hide that sound as ell.

>> founder of the talking machine as we look at the history of dover delaware aturday an c-span2 book tv >> today the u.s. house passed a major revision of the 2001 no child left behind act. after the vote majority leader eric cantor discussed the next items on the congressional agenda, the 2014 budget and the farm bill. this is 25 minutes.

mr. speaker the house will consider a few suspensions next week. in addition the house will consider hr-3498 the department of defense appropriations bill. this bill provide the resources necessary for our men and women in the armed services to carry out their vital mission. there are a number of bills the appropriations committee which have reported may come to the floor in the near future. further more they may consider two bills. authored bill hr-2218 by david mckenley would create enforceable minimum standard of cole ashby the states allowing their use in a safe manner that

protects jobs. the second bill, the energy consumers relief act sponsored by bill cassidy will require the e.p.a. before finalizing any energy related rule costing more than a billion dollars to report to congress on price and job impacts. both these bills foster economic growth and low energy cost for american families and businesses. finally, mr. speaker, the house acting to prevent the doubling of the student loan enter rate. i thank the gentleman and yield back. >> i thank the j for his information with respect to the legislation for next week. i note that there was not on the notice for next week the senate has now voted to go to conference on the farm bill. clearly that is a matter that i

think both sides or certainly your side, ours as well as feels is a priority item. does the gentleman have any plans to move to go to conference next week on the farm bill? i yield to my friend. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding. i'll respond by saying we are committed to acting with urgency to bring to the floor a bill under the nutrition title of what was formally the farm bill which that title married up with the agriculture provisions. it is our hope we can get anew transition bill to the floor because we believe strongly the programs under those titles providing a safety net to country's most vulnerable is something we maintain and implement retomorrow to those

programs that have long been called for so we can make sure for the efficient flow of dollars to those beneficiaries who most need it. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman for that comment. however, i'm somewhat perplexed, mr. leader. you and i had a relatively animated colqui some two or three weeks ago at which time you said we passed the farm bill that we didn't like and ne of us voted for that we passed the farm bill so we could follow regular order and go to conference. we passed that farm bill. the senate has now voted to go to conference. but what i hear the gentleman saying is like the budget bill, we're not going to go to conference unless something else happens. and in the case of the budget, until mr. ryan get ms. maury to agree on i don't want to

characterize it to heavily but to agreeing with him as opposed to compromising. i'm a little perplexed because three weeks ago you told me that the reason we passed that farm bill without the provision for nutrition which will h been in there for half a century was so that we could go to conference. well now we are there but there is no motion to go to conference. i'm perplexed and i would appreciate if the gentleman because we now have the opportunity to follow regular order. we now have the senate who has voted to go to conference acted on our bill that we sent there substituted their bill for ours and now have asked for a conference on the same. that is regular order. can the gentleman tell me are we now making a condition that something has to happen before we go to conference? because frankly, mr. leader, you and i both know that the

new transition bill is what -- nutrition bill is what made the farm bill fall on the rocks. which is why you dropped it. i yield to my friend. >> mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman for yielding and i know that the gentleman in his call for regular order also know that is the house has prerogatives as does the other body. we believe strongly that marriage of the two constituent sis of the old farm bill was a marriage that began some 40 the ago and frankly it is

majority of the house that that marriage makes sense. and instead if we could as a house ought to be transparent and look at the policies on the agriculture side the way that we did and then look at the policies under the nutrition title in the same deliberate fashion that we can actually make for better product. now the gentleman says that the farm bill that was passed was a partisan bill. certainly no member of the minority voted for the bill. but i would and not to rehash several weeks ago said that the same attitude was taken with the old farm bill by the 3450eu7bty saying it was too partisan. we tend to proceed looking at policies that make sense reforming these programs in the vain of trying to get to those most vulnerable the relief they

need at the same time paying cognizance to the fact that we have fiscal challenges we must deal with. we are trying to be about truth in legislating mr. speaker and that is smaking sure that the agriculture policies is adequately addressed as well as the nutrition title and providing relief to our country's most vulnerable. i yield back. >> the truth in legislating is that we are not legislating. we are putting forth the positions of your party in this house not shared by the senate or the president of the united states, also elected by the people of the states and absent agreement by those two entities co-equal brafrpbls of the congress and a co-equal branch of the government, the executive, absent their agreing with your party's perspective,

we're not lelingting. that's the problem, mr. leader. , again, i express to you you said -- and i don't have the words in front of me but we can pull them out. but you said when we pass the farm bill without the nutrition bill in it which had been done for half a century by republican congresses and democratic congresses signed by republican and democratic presidents. it's only the last two years we've been able to come to agreement bipartisan on the farm bill. it only in the past two years we've been able to get a bill that was bipartisan on the floor and vote on passage. the bill that came out of the committee last congress and this congress were turned into -- the first one last congress didn't come to the floor as the

gentleman knows didn't bring it to the floor at all no withstandinged the bipartisan in the committee. and notwithstandinged the bipartisan support, notwithstanding he didn't agree with some portion that is were adopted for instance on milk. he was nevertheless prepared to adopt it until we thought very harmful amendments to people without means were adopted. you knew that was the case. i repeat and reiterate but the simple representation you made was that we did that and mr. sessions made that and said by the way that the nutrition part of the program getting support for people who needed food was extran use to the bill. that's not our perspective

here. but that was the perspective of the rules committee laid out when we considered the rule. but you then said the reason we did that was because you wanted to get a bill through and frankly that's the only way you could pick up the majority of the 62 republicans who voted against it. i can only conclude that because you got the majority to do it failing the first time because 62 republicans didn't like the nutrition part of the bill and they voted against it. when you dropped the nutrition part of the bill which had been in there for 50 years then you got the majority on your side. i'm perplexed that now that we have done what you said we were going to do, not about budgets. you and i agree we need to get a handle on that. that's not what this issue is about. this is about whether or not we're going to have a farm bill and in a timely way. we have 17 days left to go

between now and september 30. we think it's timely to move. and i don't know when your nutrition bill is not on the program here. we'll have one week after next week. we're not sure, we haven't seen anew transition bill that you have. we don't know what is going to be in that. but we have passed a farm bill. senate wants to go to conference. at least the democrats do on the budget and we're not doing it, mr. leader. and we need to do it. >> not to belab boar this point, mr. speaker. i appreciate the gentleman for yielding. just to correct the facts about what i said before and what i represented. i said it was our intention to bring to the floor a bill dealing with the snap program, that portion of which was traditionally the farm bill and we intend to be bringing that vehicle to the floor at some time in the near future.

i did not say what the gentleman indicated. we would like to say to all of our colleagues we want to work together on anew transition title. the gentleman heard what i said before. the marriage of those two bills and policies were done in an arbitrary fashion 50 years ago as he indicated. there is no policy reason for that to be done. and we're trying to get down to what policy works and the reform of making sure that we pay attention to the efficacy of the programs getting the dollars to the people who need it and doing so in an efficient manner takes some deliberative approach. that is why our members on the majority side of the aisle felt very strongly that we should act in the way we did. and we intend to bring anew transition title to the floor. we're working with the chairman of the agriculture committee to get that policy right. i hope the gentleman in the

spirit of bipartisan will work with us to do that. >> it takes two to be bipartisan, mr. leader. you know that and i know that. and i have a pretty long record of working in a bipartisan fashion. but i will tell you i disagree with the majority leader respect fully there aren't the votes on this floor to pass the snap program and the agriculture program. we agree on this side there is a relationship between those who produce food and those who eat food. we think there is a direct relationship which is why for half a century these have been related so that the folks in the city would understand those on the farm are very important people. we need to make sure we have a partnership with them. very frankly it's worked for half a century. unfortunately it didn't work this year. and i will say to you my

friend, i don't know that you're accurate in saying that there aren't a majority of people on this floor, not in your party, but a majority on this floor, including mr. lucas who twice reported out a bill with bipartisan support and argued for it on the floor. he argued for it and pleaded with your party to support the farm bill even though from both party's standpoint it wasn't a perfect bill. but 62 of your members rejected his plea. and then my view is mr. lucas is snill that position where he sees the rational of having those together. he's the chairman of the committee. i respect mr. lucas for his comments both times the bill was considered on the floor. i will move on but allowing the farm bill to languish is dangerous for this country, for the farm community and for

others. and it undermines our economy. and moving with dispatch is in the best interest of our country. let me ask you something. we have 17 days left to go until september 30. this congress has now passed an anti-appropriation bill. we passed three appropriation bills. the senate is going to consider one next week. inevitably it appears that we're going to be confronted with a necessity on september 30, we won't be here on september 30. we're only here two weeks in september. there are holidays and labor day so we're only going to be here two weeks. i want to ask my friend has he or the majority or the budget committee or the appropriations committee and the leadership in concert got a plan for what we might do to assure a stability in government and in our

country's competence ha the government will be operating on october 1? and i yield to my friend. >> i'd say to the gentleman, mr. speaker, that yes, we are looking forward to the legislative activity for the remainder of this month. as i said earlier, to include appropriations bills. we also look towards the prospects of the other body perhaps beginning to act, as the gentleman indicated, at all on appropriations bills. it does take two to be by cam ral and we need that body to act as well and we look forward to seeing how we resolve differences on spending levels, policy differences as we approach the end of the fiscal year. very well aware that we have challenges ahead and look to find resolution to those, yes, in a bipartisan way and necessarily in a by camera way.

>> there is a way to do that. it is called regular order as we discussed and the conference committee is where you do that. but not withstanding the fact that we have for over 100 days now seen languishing the senate passed budget and our budget an attempt by the leader in the senate, mr. reid to go to conference but no effort to go to conference to as you say in cam ral bipartisan way to resolve differences. everybody is sitting in their corner and patty murray wants to come to have a conference. i've talked to her. she's the chairman of the budget committee but we have not moved. unlike the senate, they haven't succeeded because of republican opposition. but they've tried to go to conference. we haven't made any effort to go to conference mr. leader,

ral u can't have a bicam compromise and bipartisan if you don't is it down and touk in conference. asking do it my way is not going to get us there. a conference may. i would hope we can go to conference and follow regular order on the budget. september 30 is when we should have adopted a budget of course five months ago -- four months ago. we need to adopt a funding resolution by september 30 in some form or fashion. the failure to go to conference is undermining our ability to do that. and i yield to my friend. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding. the gentleman knows he speaks of two different things when he speaks of spending and the budget blueprint. we have had this discussion several times about why it is that chairman ryan has taken the position he has as has our

speaker and leadership in that we don't want to go into a discussion if the prerequisite is you have to raise taxes. and that's the bottom line. it's not process, it's instance. -- one of those issues . 's substance if one thinks that washington spends tax dollars well, that we should go ahead and ask the hardworking taxpayers to pay more, our side doesn't believe in that approach. and until we get beyond that, i'm not so sure there is going to be resolution as to a budget conference. it does not mean that we cannot continue the work that we are doing on the appropriations bills, on the other policy measures that are coming to this floor in hopes of finding areas we can agree on.

but there is a strong one we disagree on and that is the issue of additional revenues in an environment where washington doesn't spend what it does spend well. we're trying to get to the bottom of that, affect good policy, act in a deliberative manner and work with the senate. the problem is the senate hasn't even begun their appropriations process on the floor there. that was my point about by cam ral hopefully in a bipartisan way. >> i'm surprised to hear the leader say it has no relationship to the appropriations process. surely -- >> i'll yield. >> i didn't say no relationship. i said the gentleman knows we are talking about two different things when we are talking about a budget blueprint and spending. that's two different things. >> i've been on the appropriations committee for 23

years. i'm not on it now. fact of the matter is the budget sets and you have adopted not because it passed but because you pretended it passed to get a number. why is that important? it's the spending number. ours is $960 billion. the senate is $1 trill. so there say substantial difference between the two houses. it has to be resolved. now maybe the gentleman can tell me if we don't have a resolution of what the number is going to be which is what a budget conference does and what i hear the gentleman saying unless the senate agrees with your perception of revenues and i know you repeat that all the time. i get it. i know the position of you and your party. my position of course is we need to pay for what we buy. if we don't buy it we don't have to pay for it and we have to make that judgment on behalf of the american people.

that's what they sent us here to do. if your position is unless they agree with your perception, if they have a different point of view, they were elected by the american people. by the way, this side was elected by the american people, 1.4 million more voted for us than voted for your side of the aisle. you have the majority. redistricting did that. but the fact of the matter is american people more voted for us than voted on your side. but you have the majority but you ought not to be in the position mr. leader of saying unless the senate will reseed to our position, we're not going to go to conference. i don't understand saying you want a bicam ral bipartisan agreement without going to conference. gentleman want to respond to

that? no. let me ask you about immigration then. nothing on here about immigration. senate passed a bipartisan bill. does the gentleman have any reason to believe that we're going to move ahead on immigration? president bush said just the other day the system is not working, it's broken. the chairman of the bument committee said we have a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed. can the gentleman tell me whether there is any action contemplated on immigration? >> i thank the speaker for that. >> gentleman from virginia. >> mr. speaker, i say to the gentleman that as he correctly indicated chairman of the judiciary committee has said

that our system of immigration is broken and that he and the members of that committee are trying to look at the complex issues of our immigration system and try and deal with them in a fashion that is discreet on each issue with a solution there to. and we are in the process as the gentleman knows in that committee in looking at all of that and intend on making sure we get it right. and the chairman has said rather than just doing it, we want to do it right. and we intend to do so. i yield back. >> mr. leader, last question. you said the defense authorization bill is coming to the floor. can the gentleman tell me whether that will be coming to the floor on an open rule or a rule other than open? i yield to my friend. >> i would say to the gentleman that the d.o.d. bill will be coming to the floor and the

rules committee will decide on the structure and how that debate will occur. and we will announce that obviously upon the rules committee meeting. >> thank you gentleman and i >> on the next "washington journal" we will sit down with lott and talkohn about the stand your ground loss. we will also speak with bob van vorris. beastso newsweek daily with the nomination of samantha power. and your calls and your tweets on "washington journal" beginning live on 7 a.m. -- on c-span at 7 a.m. eastern. i decided that he was a

delicious subject for a biography. he had been not only at abraham lincoln's bedside immediately after his assassination, but also at the bedside of mckinley in 1901. who could this fellow be? of course when i opened the archives, i be lysed -- i be lysed -- i realized. his life has two bookends. lincoln on one end. he was his personal secretary. he lived in the white house for four years. much of what we know about lincoln comes from this text -- context. on the other half, he served under mckinley and after his assassination, he was the secretary of state for teddy roosevelt.

you have these wonderful bookends of american history. you realize all of the factors in between in american history from the civil war to the beginning of the 20th century, there is a presence in every one of those chapters. his fingerprints are on all and of the pages. taliaferro on c-span's "q&a." was a keyared cruz at a republican fundraiser in des moines. i would traditionally host the first presidential caucus. this is part of c-span's 20 sixteen rd to the white house coverage. 2016 road to the white house

coverage. [applause] >> well, thank you. it is great to be with you. good afternoon. thank you for coming out. thank you for joining me. thank you for the incredible hospitality. today is the first time i have been to iowa. it has been a wonderful day. i'm struck with the values of iowa and my home state of texas. i would note that we have some friends outside that have a little different view than those of us in here. i am reminded of a few years back where i have the cares -- curious opportunity to travel and give the commencement speech to the school of government and if so happened that it attracted protesters at berkeley. they were very upset i have the

10 commandments in texas and they were protesting. my wife upon hearing that issue looked at me and said, you're not nearly important enough to protest. [laughter] everyone of you who is married understands the tremendous role our spouses play in reminding us of our humility. kids do a good job of that as well. i remember back in the campaign for senate about one saturday morning i was home and doing a radio interview. we got two little girls. caroline came bursting into the bedroom. she wanted to play with daddy. heidi jumped out of bed and said, daddy is doing a radio interview.

wait a minute. caroline crossed her arms and stomped out and said, politics, politics, politics. it is always politics. [laughter] i appreciate the commitment of each of you to politics. and even more importantly, the commitment to changing our country. [applause] everyone of you is here today and you understand these are not ordinary times. we are facing extraordinary challenges. we cannot keep going down the road we are going. we are jeopardizing the future of this great nation. we are jeopardizing the future for our kids. in my view, the men and women in this room are key to helping turn the nation around. i think we should do two things in the coming years.

number one, and defend the constitution. number two, champion growth and opportunity. defending the constitution, it is extraordinary right now the assault on the constitution that is coming from the federal government. this administration, the obama administration, is the most lawless administration we have ever had. in my short time in the senate over and over again, i have been blessed to have the chance to stand up and fight for the constitution. early on in my tenure, i had the privilege of standing alongside my good friend, senator rand paul, and participating in a 13 hour filibuster against administrations drone operations.

[applause] that was my first time to speak on the floor of the senate. there is a tradition in the senate that junior senators should be seen and not heard. i have not entirely managed to comply with that. [laughter] [applause] but i had respected the tradition that senators would a reasonable time before speaking on the floor of the senate. an initially, i told randy, i have not spoken on the floor of the senate yet. i want to give it more time to respect my colleagues. as if i started, this is one i could not be on the sidelines for -- as the fight started, this is one i could not be on the sidelines for. i had the opportunity to stand on the floor of the senate and read travis's letter. i had the opportunity to read shakespeare's speech.

we happy few, we band of brothers. i have the opportunity to read ronald reagan's 1964 speech. as they say in the beer commercial, it does not get any better than that. [laughter] what we saw that day, and i think it is important to look at what happened because it illustrates the terrain on which we are fighting has happened, when rand started that filibuster, our colleagues but

what he was doing was curious. as he stood up there and spoke the truth, one senator after another and another began to join. then the american people that interested. thousands upon thousands of americans became fixated by c-span, a phrase does not occur naturally in the english language. [laughter] with all apologies to our friends from c-span who are here today. [laughter] thousands of americans began going online and going on twitter and facebook and speaking out and saying to protect our rights. in the filibuster, i took to the floor and read some actual tweets that have been sent by americans that i am pretty sure the first time that has happened.

that means 20 years from now if anyone has a political trivial pursuit game for geeks, i will be that secure answer to be the first one to read a tweet on the floor of the senate. a woman said that she was a grandmother. i have never used twitter before in my life. i signed up today to back up rand. what happened in the course of the day as the american people got engaged and began speaking out, our elected representatives began listening. after 13 hours standing together, we were able to accomplish something that for three weeks the obama administration has refused to do and the next day in writing, they admitted that the constitution would put a limit on their authority to target americans. [applause] another example of defending the constitution is the battle that we had in the second amendment right to bear arms.

i'm guessing one or two people in this room might care slightly about the second amendment. as you know, following the horrific shooting in newtown, connecticut, the obama administration chose to take advantage of that tragedy to push an anti-gun agenda not to target violent criminals, but to target the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. i was very proud to work side- by-side with my friend and your senator, chuck grassley. helping lead the fight. chuck grassley, all of you know his leadership, but i will tell you a couple of things about him. number one, there's no member of the u.s. senate who is more relentless and more effective on oversight of the obama administration.

[applause] when the second amendment fight started happening, we sat down and wrote together what became the lead law enforcement alternative to president obama's bill called the grassley-cruise -- cruz legislation. it focused on violent criminals. we should come down on them like a ton of bricks. they would take the lives of innocent americans. it saves the constitutional right to keep arms from law- abiding citizens. it illustrates the power of grassroots, the power of the american people. i have to tell you that it did not look encouraging.

the president had a lot of momentum and conventional wisdom was that his anti-gun agenda was unstoppable. what happened again as millions of americans began speaking out, calling the representatives and we saw over the course of several weeks as a number of busted together. it started with a letter saying we would filibuster any legislation that would undermine the second amendment. what that did is give time and when the grassroots engaged and when american people once again demanded of our elected officials to stand up and do the right thing, protect the constitution, we saw one after the other forcing them to listen

to "we the people." every single proposal that would have undermined did the second amendment right was voted down on the floor of the senate. [applause] i'm grateful for chuck grassley's leadership. i'm grateful for rand paul's leadership tom about i'm most grateful for leadership in that fight. we could not have gotten any of that done without you. that shifts the second piece. what should we be doing? we should champion growth and opportunity. my top priority is restoring economic growth because growth is foundational to every other challenge. you want to turn around on employment, national debt,

maintain the strongest military in the world to protect national security? you got to have growth. the last four years, our economy has averaged 0.9% growth per year. there is only one other time before world war ii of less than one percent gdp growth, 1979- 1982 coming out of the jimmy carter administration, the same failed economic policy about out-of-control spending, taxes, and it produces the exact same economic stagnation. we want to get it going again, get it strong and there are three ways you do so. number one, you finally rein in out-of-control spending and unsustainable debt. back last fall, i have the opportunity to speak at the republican convention and i spoke about the national debt, talked about our two little

girls. afterwards, i went back to the hotel room and it pulled out my iphone again looking at twitter. it so happened that the comedian paula poundstone was watching the convention that night. i guess she did not have anything better to do. [laughter] she sent a tweet and said, ted cruz just said when his daughter was born the national debt was $10 trillion and now it's $16 trillion. what the heck did she do? [laughter] heidi and i laughed so hard we almost fell out of bed. caroline is five years old. in her short life, the national debt has grown 60%. what we are doing is fundamentally immoral. our parents did not do that to us.

their parents did that to them. no generation in the history of this country has given their children such crushing debt that it exceeds the size of our entire economy. our kids and grandkids, if we keep going down this path, they will spend their entire lives not working to meet the challenges they face but to pay off the dead their parents and grandparents racked up because we could not live with it. you want to know why the american people are fed up with politicians in washington, let me be clear, it is politicians in both parties who got us in this mess. [applause] the second element of restoring growth and opportunity is fundamental tax reform. we have all seen the scandals of the irs targeting conservative

groups, tea party groups, pro- life groups, targeting groups that use offensive words like "liberty," "constitution," "bill of rights." i think it's right in recognize those are a threat to what they were doing. as problematic as what they were doing was -- and let me be clear. richard nixon tried to use the irs to target political enemies it was wrong and it was rightly decried in a bipartisan manner. when the obama administration did the same thing, it is every bit as wrong. as bad as that scandal is, it underscores what i think is a far more fundamental solution. we need to abolish the irs. [applause]

let me tell you something. in washington, d.c., there is a technical term for what i just said. that's called crazy talk. you know, it's the people out there on the fringe. why? there is an army of lobbyists on k street to make a living putting exemptions into the irs code. there are more words in the irs code than there are in the bible. not a one of them is as good. anyone know the shortest scripture in the bible? there has been a lot of weeping because of the irs. listen. if you have to depend on elected officials in washington, the irs will not be abolished.

there is only one way that we will actually succeed in abolishing the irs and that is the same way we won the drone fight in the gunfight. there is no politician in washington who can win this fight. i cannot win it. chuck cannot win it. the only people who can win it are the men and women across america. if millions upon millions of americans come together as grassroots and demand of our elected officials to stand for principles. stop going down this road that is bankrupting the country and threatening the future of our kids and grandkids. that's the anything that can do it -- the american people demanding it. i'm working very, very hard to encourage and mobilize the american people to do exactly that. the third way we restore economic growth is regulatory reform, reducing the army a regulators, like locusts. actually, locusts are more

friendly. [laughter] you can use pesticide against them. it does not work nearly as well against regulators. but to stop the army of regulators who are destroying economic growth and there is no regulatory reform more important and repealing every single word of obamacare. [applause] now, i am here right now to enlist your help. we are getting ready to have an epic battle on obamacare. you may have read congress has voted 38, 39, 506 times two repeal obamacare but none of those votes were binding. none of them are passed into law.

it's one thing to vote when it's a symbolic gesture and you can save that you voted to do it. it's another thing when you can actually get it done. this fall, we have an opportunity to defund obamacare. [applause] in september, the continuing resolution that funds the federal government expires. i have publicly pledged along with a number of other senators but under no circumstances will i vote for a continuing resolution that funds one penny of obamacare. [applause] our framers knew what they were doing when they crafted the legislation. thomas jefferson said it is chains to bind the mischief of

government and one of the most important constraints they had was congress had the power of the purse and it is a very effective restraint to restrain an out-of-control executive. if we do one of two things, if we hold 41 republicans in the united states senate or 218 republicans in the house of representatives, we can defund obamacare in september. i will point out that this is the last fight we will have on this before it starts going into full force in january. just a couple of weeks ago, as you know, president obama unilaterally and, in defiance of the law, decided to postpone the employer mandate until

conveniently after the 2014 election. i will make two points about that. the fact that they moved it until after the election, and i suggest the timing is done accidental, is an incredible omission. if obamacare were a good thing, they would do it before the election. if it was working, as harry reid said on sunday, "obamacare has been wonderful for the american people," if that were true, why move it after the election? it is an admission from the president that just as the lead author of obamacare, max baucus, said, it's becoming a train wreck. the wheels are coming off. secondly, with the obama administration did was postpone it for small companies with 50 employees or more.

why is it that a corporations get benefits that hard-working families and taxpayers not given? that's why we need to defund every bit of it for every american. is this going to be easy? the two things i just put out there -- abolishing the irs and the funding obamacare -- i don't know if any of you and the business consultant world have heard of the phrase bhag? it stands for big, hairy audacious goals. these are big, hairy audacious goals for the american people. if either of those came to a vote right now in congress, we would lose. we don't have the votes in the senate or the house.

i will tell you as well there's nothing i can do to change it. i can argue until i'm blue in the face and it's not within my capacity to persuade 41 senate republicans or 218 house republicans but you can. the way we get this done is the american people stand together, we come together as grassroots activists and we demand of our elected officials -- enough is enough. stop talking. start acting. i'm reminded of back in 2001 i worked in the department of justice and my boss, john ashcroft, said the following. if i'm ever accused of accused of being a christian, i would like there to be enough evidence to convict me. i think the same thing is

true. demonstrate that we are with you by standing up and acting and the only way that will happen is if the grassroots demand it of our elected officials. i want to close by sharing with you -- this is a room of men and women who love this country, love liberty. for all of us, liberty is not some abstract concept we learn and read about in a high school textbook. it is something that is real in our own lives, something that means something to beach and everyone of us and and it has something to do with all of our collect stores. that is very much true.

my dad is from cuba. born in cuba, grew up in cuba. he started fighting in the cuban revolution. he spent four years fighting in the revolution and he was thrown in prison and tortured, beaten almost to death. to this day, his front teeth are not his own because they were kicked out of his mouth and a cuban jail. -- in a jail. in 1957, my dad fled the regime and came to texas. he had $100 sewn in his underwear -- which i don't advise. he got a job washing dishes. he did not have to speaking english. he made $.50 an hour in paid his way through the university of texas, got a job, started a small business, worked towards the american dream. today, my dad is a pastor in dallas. he's been my hero my whole life. please stand up.

[applause] when i was a kid, my dad would say to me over around over again, when we face oppression in cuba, i had a place to sleep. when we lose our sleep, where do we go? when we lose our freedom, where do we go? we have nowhere to go. that's why we are here. you know what i find most incredible? how commonplace it is. we have a story just like this whether it is us, our parents, or our great, great grandparents. we are all the children of those

who risk for freedom and i think that is the most fundamental dna of what it means to be an american, value freedom and opportunity above all else. that is what we are fighting for. that's why we are here. i will tell you i'm incredibly honored and blessed to have the opportunity to be side-by-side fighting together to take our country back to restore that shining city on a hill that is the united states of america. thank you and god bless. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> and now i am happy to answer or dodge any questions you like. [laughter] >> i appreciate your goals and you being here. one topic that's important to me that you failed to mention is in light of edward snowden's revelations it has become abundantly clear that america is running a police state that is more sophisticated than heinrich himmler could have ever dreamed of. what are you going to do to protect my fourth amendment and hold the nsa accountable for all of this? >> i appreciate the question and i am concerned about a pattern across this government of collecting more and more information about private citizens, about law-abiding citizens. in terms of addressing it, we

need to be cautious about the level of rhetoric we employ in the public sphere. there are enormous differences between what the federal government is doing and what nazi germany did and other dictators. >> it is critical we preserve our constitutional liberties. with edward snowden, i have tried very much to say let's take time to ascertain what exactly the government is doing, what the policies are, and there are twin objectives that i believe most americans want. the federal government has a responsibility to protect our national security and, in particular, to combat radical islamic terrorists. i would note that it says something that we have a president of the united states who seems unwilling to under the

-- utter the words, radical islamic terrorists. i have concerns about the approach of this administration on two fronts. one, it seems that they sweep law-abiding citizens into their sweep of information. they have been, on multiple occasions, less than effective in actually connect in the dots and after radical islamic terrorists. if you look for example at the boston bombings. we were notified by russia about these brothers, about there being potentially radical islamic terrorists and we went and investigated and by all appearances drop the ball. the older brother posted a youtube video that seemed to advocate jihad. that apparently raised no red

flag. i have a real concern why it was our federal government was not able to connect the dots and prevent that horrific act of terrorism. in texas at fort hood, major hassan who murdered other soldiers, again there were red flags. you had a major in the army was communicating with a known terrorist asking about the permissibility of murdering fellow servicemen, who was giving a presentation to fellow soldiers about radical islam and embracing jihad. again, it seems we dropped the ball. my view is that we need to be vigorous protecting the national security of the united states and that means finding and stopping radical islamic terrorism and the same time protecting the constitution of law-abiding citizens and i believe both of those are possible and indeed to serve the ultimate objective.

>> [inaudible] >> i share your concerns. the question was about immigration. let me just address immigration more broadly. on immigration, i am both optimistic and pessimistic -- which may be a sign i have been in washington too long. i'm optimistic because i think there is a lot of bipartisan agreement on many aspects of immigration. i think outside of washington there is overwhelming bipartisan

agreement that the system is broken. we've got to get serious about securing the borders and stopping illegal immigration. it does make sense in a post- 9/11 world that we don't know who's coming in this country. there is overwhelming bipartisan agreement that we need to improve and streamline legal immigration. we need to remain a nation that does not just welcome, that celebrates illegal immigrants. american by choice, what president reagan referred to. if congress focused on an immigration bill focusing on those areas of a bipartisan agreement we would have a bill that would sail through congress. why am i pessimistic? i don't believe president obama wants to pass an immigration bill. i think his principal object did is political rather than passing it. in particular, the most politically divisive element of

this bill is a path to citizenship for the 11 million people here illegally. if you look back in 1986, the last time congress passed immigration reform, the congress told the american people we have a deal for you. we're going to grant amnesty to the the 3 million people currently here illegally and in exchange we are going to secure the border, stopping illegal immigration, fix the problem and the american people by and large said they would take the deal. we all know what happened. the amnesty happened and the border never got secure. and now, three decades of letter instead of 3 million people here, there are roughly 11 million. among many of them are human tragedies. this is a terrible, broken system. i encourage anyone interested in immigration to come down to the texas border with me and visit with the farmers and ranchers on

the border who no longer lock their homes because they have people breaking in desperate for food and water because they are on the brink of death. this current system, you have a women and children in trusting themselves to coyotes, dealers, being sexually assaulted, being left to die in the desert. visit with one of these ranchers who regularly encounter the bodies of those who die desperately seeking freedom and trying to come to this country. nobody who is interested in a humane system would want a system that encourages future illegal immigration. and the gang of eight bill, which i worked very hard to improve, and when they were not willing to improve it, to stop it, continues the same mistakes of the past offering the same

deal offered in 1980 six, -- 1986, legalization now and sometime maybe in the future, we will secure the border. if that bill became law, 10, 20, 30 years from now the same discussion would go on. i think what the american people want us to fix the system. i think what president obama and the obama white house wants for the bill to be voted down in the house of representatives because they want a political issue in 2014 and 2016. to my mind, the clarifying moment of the entire immigration debate occurred during the judiciary member market. one amendment to put real teeth in border security was rejected. one amendment to eliminate the path to citizenship.

that amendment b underlying provisions that provided legal work permits after the border was secure. senator chuck schumer responded. he said if there is no citizenship, there can be no reform. i actually took the opportunity to thank him for his candor. he has been very clear here today. he has stated he has one overarching political goal and that partisan political goal is more important than everything in this bill. he has stated that if he does not get 100% of his partisan political bill that he is willing to do nothing to secure the border, willing to do nothing to improve high-tech immigration, nothing to help our farmers and ranchers and improve

agricultural immigration. most tellingly, his willing to do nothing for the 11 million people here illegally. stay in the shadows because if i don't get every bit of my partisan political goal, i will take my marbles and go home. it was candid but it was also profoundly cynical. this is not hypothetical. then senator obama played a big role in sticking the knife in immigration reform than at the behest of the union bosses. right now, congress is not working to actually fix the system. that's what the american people want and that's what i hope the house does. i don't know if they will or not but i'm doing everything i can to encourage them to do exactly that. >> we have time for just one more question and then we will move down to the lower levels to meet with the media. >> i think many of us are willing to get going on grassroots. i'm really excited about it erie

it i feel like our hands are tied. we send letters to representatives. we call. we feel like we are going up against a black curtain and we know what happens. -- we don't know what happens. can you give us some advice on how to get going, how to mobilize people, some suggestions of opportunities we can all participate in? >> great question. one thing i'm trying to do is to help and encourage that. in the immigration fight, we started a website, secure borders now. we urge people all over to come and sign up to say secure the borders first, fixed the problem, don't repeat the mistakes of the past. getting involved and engaged that way makes a difference. as you may know, i'm participating to abolish the irs and urging people to call in and sign up together to mobilize the grassroots. let me give an example of what the grassroots can do.

from my and, i'm trying to help facilitate and encourage but to be honest, nobody can do it as well as you can as well as each of you organically reaching out to people you know and trust, nothing has the impact like someone like someone you know, respect, and trust saying, here's the truth. here's what we need to do. let me give you an encouraging and hope. about a month ago, i was in new york speaking at the new york republican party annual fundraiser. we had three groups of protesters. we had one group protesting immigration, one group protesting because they favored gun control and then we had another that was protesting

because i was willing to talk to the new york republicans who were not very stout in defending the second amendment. it was interesting to get protested from both ends. a group of liberal activists decided they were going to do what was called a twitter bomb. at the time i was speaking, there are going to launch a liberal activists all over the country to tweet, "you cruz, you lose." in response, a group of conservative grassroots activists were going to do a twitter bomb of their own. at 5:30 p.m. wednesday night, same time they were doing it, they were urging people to tweet "cruz to victory." by 9:00, #cruztovictory was trending number one in the u.s. and number two worldwide. [applause] the liberal attack did not make the top 10 list.

that was entirely organic. we did not prompt it. we did not organize it. we did nothing. that came from the people. some of you may have seen a senior republican sometime ago referred to me and rand paul. my response to that was not to reciprocate, not to launch an insult the other way but to simply say, if standing for liberty and constitution makes you a whackobird, count me a proud whackobird. [applause] in response to that, grassroots activists began showing up at events with t-shirts showing "whackobird" on the front. i have a picture of daffy duck with the picture "whackobird" that an activist gave to me.

when we stand together, we can do incredible things. i would encourage each of you organically with your friends to organize, get engaged, call your elected representatives. stand for principle. urging them for standing for principle makes a real difference and i appreciate everything you are doing. thank you and god bless. [applause] princeton and then harvard for law school.

>> [inaudible] >> did he really? fantastic. thank you. thank you. >> representative keating express concern about the direction the party was moving in. kingpresentative came -- expressed a concern about the direction the party was moving in. can you respond to that? >> i don't know him. he is entitled to his own opinion. i'm going to keep my focus not on the politics but on the substance. i think our country is facing enormous challenges right now. we are facing fiscal and economic challenges that i think are jeopardizing the future of our nation, the future of our kids and grandkids.

in my view, we need to do two things. we have to preserve our constitutional liberties. the obama administration has followed a pattern of undermining our constitutional liberty. two, we have to restore economic growth and opportunity. for the last four years, we have grown 0.9% year average. the only time of four consecutive years less than one percent was 1979-19 82 coming out of the jimmy carter administration and the same failed policies of out-of- control spending and regulations produce the same economic stagnation. the biggest problem with the economic stagnation of the obama agenda is that the people who are hurt the most are the most vulnerable among us. those who have been hurt the most are the young people, hispanics, african-americans, single moms. we need economic growth back so that people who are struggling to climb the ladder can have a fair and full opportunity to

achieve the american dream. >> the president just spoke on the george zimmerman verdict and trayvon martin. the president said there is a perception in the african- american community that if trayvon martin had been white the whole thing would have been different. both what happened in the aftermath. can you understand that perception? >> i did not see his remarks and i will say, any time you have a teenager who loses his life but it's a tragic day. two, i think the entire proceeding had some unfortunate elements to it. there were some in the political sphere who try to take a tragic encounter between george zimmerman, and hispanic man defending his neighborhood, and trayvon martin and turn it into a racially polarized battle. in this case, we had a trial, a

trial that was decided by a jury pursuant to the constitution and they rendered a verdict. we need to respect the verdict. to the president's credit, following the verdict, he said the same thing. we need to respect the jury's verdict and i appreciate the president saying that. more broadly, there is no doubt that in the african-american community that there are great challenges because many children in the african-american community are facing less opportunity than they would like and then they would deserve. they are often in failing educational systems, systems where their chances of getting a job, of climbing the american latter are minimized and we should have far more passion for improving the hope and opportunity of young african- americans, young hispanics of young people through the country. for example, we ought to see far

more competition and school choice so that young kids who are trapped in schools that are not teaching them, that are failing them, have the opportunity to go to a school and learn because education is foundational to achieving the american dream. i would love to see a renewed sense of passion for how we can expand opportunity and the african-american community, the hispanic community, and the two best ways to do so are to improve the educational choice and economic growth, an environment where small businesses thrive and prosper because it means that there are jobs for people climbing the ladder. >> the president called for a national review of stand our ground laws saying it was part of the problem. >> it's not surprising the president uses every opportunity he can to try and go after our second amendment rights rights. i think it's unfortunate that

this president and this administration has a consistent disregard for the bill of rights whether it's the first amendment and restrict and the rights of our servicemen and women to share their faith and not begat, -- and not be gagged, whether it's the second amendment right to keep and bear arms, whether it is the fourth and fifth amendment rights of american citizens to be secure from unreasonable search and seizure and be protect data from arbitrary targeting by drones, this administration has undermined the bill of rights bill of rights and i think that's unfortunate. >> have you put any thought into a presidential bid? >> i'm here because i'm focusing my time on trying to make the argument and when the argument that, number one, the free- -- and win the argument that, number one, the free-market system in the system has been the greatest engine for prosperity and opportunity the world has ever seen and, two, that our constitutional

safeguards, the bill of rights that protect our god given rights, they are foundational and we need to get back to the constitution. i have been in office all of seven months. prior to that, the last elected office i held was student council. what i can tell you is i have been to over one dozen states, have had 45 events across the state of texas doing everything i can to make and helped win the argument that we need to get back to our free-market principles, back to our constitutional foundation. >> is that a no or yes? >> my focus right now is not on politics. >> you are in iowa, senator. >> everything likes to be put through a political lens. i can tell you what i tell people in my office every day -- let's focus on substance, good policy makes good politics. but stand up every day, stand for principles, free-market principles, stand for the constitution and the politics will take care of themselves.

i have been to over one dozen states and this is an opportunity to speak and engage grassroots activists who are a critical part of the national dialogue. let me say second thing on the question of 2016. we just had a presidential race a few months ago. i will tell you as a voter, i think it's premature to decide who we should support and i will tell you for me as a citizen and a voter who i will support in 2016 is whoever is standing up and leading, whoever is effectively defending the constitution and free-market principles, effectively making the argument to the american people that there is another road we can go down, another path to return to prosperity and opportunity this country was built on. that is what we should be looking at and right now, the senate is the battlefield. i try to stand for conservative

principles in the senate and i think the focus on substance of the politics will take care of themselves. thank you very much. >> you recommended it your store cold reckoning with crimes ormitted, sponsored, committed by the united states. which crimes were you referring to? which decisions taken by the current administration would you recommend? >> thank you. thank you for giving me time to respond to that. immigrant to this country, i think it is the greatest country on earth. i would never apologize for america. it is the light to the world. we have freedoms and opportunities here that people dream about abroad. i certainly did.

quote, one to that of the things that moved me, some have written very critically about the clinton administration's response to the genocide back in 1994. president clinton came forward and expressed his regret that the investors did not do more in the face of the genocide. when i traveled through rwanda, i was stunned to see the degree to which clinton's visit to rwanda and his apology for not having done more, it had a great effect on rwandans. up thesenate takes nomination of samantha power to be the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. tv, live 2 book coverage of the harlem book fair. and your calls and resent at k

comments starting saturday at 11:45 a.m. commentsur tweets and starting saturday at 11:45 a.m. and american history tv. >> jackie was raised as her mother was raised. she was the same kind of wife and hostess. the home and the children and entertaining and the style. that was her heritage. she did it again and the white house. right after her administration and during the johnson years, the whole world erupted like a volcano. women who went to work and got divorces and demanded equal rights and flower children and free love. boy oh boy was it great for the young. i missed all of that. [laughter] the whole world changed. it became a new concept of women.

i think mrs. clinton represents the new woman. >> we continue our conversation , the socialies secretary to jacqueline kennedy, talks about the role of first ladies and how it has changed along with the nation. today the president made his first public comments on the trayvon martin murder trial after a florida jury found jim mirman -- and found george zimmerman not guilty. >> that is so disappointing. jay, is that the kind of respect you get? television you look like you

are addressing a full room. irage.is a m >> all right. do you think anyone else is showing up? i want to come out here first of all to tell you that jay is prepared for all of your questions. very much looking forward to this session. the second thing is i want to let you know that over the next couple of weeks there will be a whole range of interests -- issues. we will try to arrange a fuller press conference to address your questions. the reason i wanted to come out today is not to take questions, thato speak to an issue has gotten a lot of attention over the course of the last week . issue of the trayvon martin ruling.

i gave a statement right after the ruling on sunday, but watching the debate over the course of the last week, i thought it might the useful to expand on my thoughts a little bit. first of all, i want to make sure that once trayvon family of martin and to commend them on their entire grace and dignity. i can only imagine what they're going through. it's remarkable how they've handled it. the second is to reiterate what i said on sunday. which is there are going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case. 'll let all the legal analysts to address those issues. the judge conducted the trial in a professional manner.

the prosecution and the defense made their arguments. the juries were properly instructed that in a -- in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant. and they rendered a verdict. and once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works. but i did want to talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling. trayvon martin was first shot. i said that this could have been my son. another way of saying that is trayvon martin could have been me 35 years ago. and when you think about why in the african-american community

at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened here. i think it's important to recognize that the african-american community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a go ory that -- that doesn't away. there are very few african-american men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping at a department store, that includes me. there are very few african-american men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. that happens to me, at least before i was a senator. there are very few african-americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman

clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. that happens often. and, you know, i don't want to exaggerate this but those sets of experiences inform how the african-american community interprets what happened one night in florida. and it's inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear. the african-american community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws. everything from the death enalty to enforcement of our drug laws and that ends up

having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case. that is isn't a segment african-americans are naive, that african-americans, young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they're disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. it's not to make excuses for that fact, although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. we understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

and so the fact that sometimes unacknowledge add to the frustration. a lot of ct that that african-american boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statusics out there that show that african-american boys are more violent, using that as an sons treated see differently causes pain. i think the african-american community is also not naive in understanding that statistically somebody like trayvon martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. so -- so folks understand the challenges that exist for

african-american boys. but they get frustrated, i think, if they feel there's no context to support it. and that context is being denied. nd -- and that all contributes, i think to a sense if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario that from top to bottom both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different. now, the question for me at least and i think for a lot of folks is where do we take this? how do we learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction? i think it's understandable that there have been

demonstrations and vigils and protests and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through as long as it remains nonviolent, if i see any violence then i will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to trayvon martin and his family. but beyond protest or vigils the question is are there some concrete things we might be able to do? i know that eric holder is reviewing what happened down there. but i think it's important for people to have some clear expectations here. traditionally these are issues of state and local government, the criminal code and law enforcement as traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels. that doesn't mean, though, that some tion we can't do

things that can't be productive. so let me give a couple of specifics that i'm still bouncing around with my staff. we're not ruling out some five-point plan but some areas where i think all of us could potentially focus. number one, precisely because law enforcement is often determined at the state and local level. i think it would be productive for the justice department, governors, mayors to work with law enforcement about training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists. you know, when i was in illinois, i passed racial profiling legislation. and it actually did two simple things. one it collected data on traffic stops and the race of the person who was stopped.

but the other thing it resourced us training police departments across the state on w to think about potential racial bias and ways to further professionalize what they were doing. and initially, the police departments across the state were resistant but actually they came to recognize that if it was done in a fair, straightforward way, that it would allow them to do their jobs better and communities would have more confidence in them and in turn be more helpful. and applying the law. obviously law enforcement has a tough job. so that's one area where i think there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought to bear if state and local governments are receptive and i think a lot of them would be. and let's figure out are there ways to push out that kind of

training? along the same lines i think it would be useful for us to ca nute some state and local -- examine some state and local laws to see if they're designed in such a way to see if they may encourage the kinds of altercations and tragedys that we saw in the florida case rather than diffuse potential altercations. i know that there's been commentary about the fact the stand your ground laws in florida were not used as the defense in the case. on the other hand if we're sending a message as a society someone mmunities that who is armed potentially has the right to use those fire arms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation is definitely going to be

contributing to the peace and security and order that we'd like to see. -- who resist ho that idea that we should think about something like the stand your ground laws, i just ask people to consider if trayvon martin was of aged and arm could he have stood his ground on that side walk? and do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting mr. zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? and if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of lawsuits. number three and this is a long-term project. we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we

bolster and reinforce our african-american boys? and this is something that michelle and i talk a lot about. there are a lot of kids out there who need help, who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement and is there more a t we can do to give them sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them? you no, i'm not naive about the prospects of some brand-new federal program. i'm not sure that's -- that that's what we're talking about. but i do know that i have some convenient me power and for us to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and

clergies, celebrities and athletes and figure out how are e doing a better job helping young african-american men feel that they're a full part of -- and ety and that that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed. i think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. and we're going to send some time working on that and thinking about that. and then finally, i think it's going to be important for all of us to dosome soul searching. you know, there has been talk should we convene a conversation on race? i haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. they end up being stilted and

politicized and folks are lock into the positions they already have. families and and, churches and workplaces, there is a possibility that people are a little bit more honest. at least you ask yourself your own questions about am i bias out of -- wringing as much bisa out of myself as much as i can, not based on the color of their skin but the content of their character? that would i think be an in the ate exercise wake of this tragedy. and let me just leave you with a final thought that as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, i don't want us to lose sight that things re getting better.

each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race. it doesn't mean we're in a post racial society. it doesn't mean that racism is eliminated. but you know when i talk to maleah and sasha and i listen to their friends and i see them interact, they're better than we are. they're better than we were on these issues and that's true in every community that i've isited all across the country. and so so, you know, we have to be vigilant and we have to we have to work on these issues and those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature as opposed to using these episodes to

heighten divisions. but we should also have confidence that kids these day, i think have more sense than we did back then and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did and that along this long difficult journey, you know, we're becoming a more perfect union, not a perfect union, but a more perfect union. all right. thank you, guys. now you can talk -- >> have you talked to the martin family, mr. president? >> next on c-span, the house veterans affairs community hears from military sexual assault victims. how leaders discuss the congressional agenda and ted cruz talks to republicans in

owa. on the next "washington journal." we'll sit down with john lily and john lott to discuss stand your ground laws in states across the country. vorris talks about the 2008 financial meltdown. after that the senior correspondent for "newsweek daily beast" a u.n. ambassador to the u.n. samantha power and the challenges she faces if confirmed by the senate. "washington journal" beginning at 7:00 on c-span. >> in 2003, in an article you recommended a historical reckoning with crimes permitted by the united states. which crimes were you refering to and which decisions taken by

the current administration would you recommend for such a reckoning? >> thank you, senator. and again, thank you for giving me occasion to respond to that. i as an immigrant to this country think that this country is the greatest country on earth as do you. i would never apologize for america. america is the light to the world. we have freedoms and tons here that people dream about abroad. i certainly did. and with regard to that quote, one of the things that had moved me, i had somehow mentioned written very critically about the clinton administrations response to the rwanda genocide, written in great detail about that and president clinton himself as you know came forward and expressed his regret the united states didn't do more in the face of the genocide.

when i traveled to rwanda having been very, very critical, i was stunned to see the degree to which clinton's visit to rwanda, his apology for not having done more, how would it have resonated with r wandans. saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern. on c-span2, book tv, live full day coverage of the harlem book fair including panels, your calls and facebook comments starting at 11456789 and on c-span 3, lessons and histories and a history of u.s. political parties, sunday at 1:00. members of the military and victims of sexual assault about the treatment they received from the department and the department of veteran affairs.

pentagon estimates that and average of 70 sexual assaults occur in the u.s. military occur each day. later we'll hear from defense and mental v.a. mental health providers about programs in place to treat victims of sexual assault. this is just under three hours. >> good morning. we will come to order. before we begin i would like fellow s consent from committee members to

participate in today's proceedings. without objection so ordered. with that i welcome you for today's meeting safety for survivor, care and treatment for military sexual trauma. i'm grateful to you all for being here today. when the men and women of our armed forces sign up to defend our freedom they willingly accept the threat of danger from our enemies but what they should never have to accept is the threat of sexual assault from their fellow service members. it should be aggressively pursued, prosecuted and punished. i along with my of my colleagues here are looking to reform legislation to improve the system. just as important as that severt the one we turn to today. listening to caring for and supporting the healing of those who have suffered this terrible crime. according to the d.o.d., there

were roughly 38 incidents of sexual assault among male ervice members and 33 sexual assaults among female service members per day, last fiscal year. let me repeat, last fiscal year there were 71 incidents of sexual assault every single day among those who wear our uniform. to say that this is unacceptable does not adequately describe the terrible reality of military sexual assault and the lastings effects it can have on the lives of those who experience it. a service member who is a victim of sexual assault is often hesitant to seek the supportive services that they need and deserve. this is troubling to me. it's even more troubling to listen to the stories of those who come forward and find that those department's tasks of carrying for them, the department of defense and

veteran of affairs are uncoordinated and unable to meet their obligations of these survivors. in january of this year, the government accountability office issued a report which found among other things that d.o.d. sexual assault coordinators who are the single point of contact for sexual assault survivors who are tasked with managing their medical need within the department of defense are "not always aware of the health care services available to sexual assault victims at their respective low cases." they found that military health care providers did not have a consistent understanding of their responsibilities to care for sexual assault victims. further, a v.a. inspector general report issued last december found that among other things v.a. military sexual trauma coordinators who are the single point of contact for a veteran who has experienced sexual trauma within v.a. facilities report as little as

two hours a week to conduct outreach and monitoring of their veteran who is have screened positive for military sexual trauma. what confidence can asaul survivors have when -- assault survivors have when at their lowest moment fail to understand their own responsibilities to provide care, file provide the health care options that are available and fail to empower their most directive points of contact with the knowledge, authority and the tools to be effective, not just present? the answer to that question lies in the voices of our veterans themselves. in preparing for this hearing we spoke with many survivors and those who work closely with them. their frustrations and concern were legend. i'm honored to have four such veterans with us this morning. these veterans represent four branches of the services. the army, the air force, the navy and the marine corps. the service from the vet

unanimous war to the conflicts in iraq and afghanistan. these young brave and women have military sexual trauma. they know better than anybody how very long and difficult the journey to healing can be. each of them has public scrutiny and they're reliving very painful memories to be with us here today and to share with us their experiences in the hopes that we might do better for those that come after them. your contribution here today will bring out of the shadows and into the light a much needed call for change. i thank each of you for your on -- on >>able service to your country and veterans. i think that says a lot about the importance or lack there of that the d.o.d. places on this topic. ly now yield to our ranking member juliette browning for any opening statements she may

have. >> thank you, plch. good morning to everyone. i would like to thank all of you for attending today's hearing focused on examining the care and treatment availability of survive overs of military sexual trauma. the subcommittee will be looking at the coordination of care and services offered to the victims of m.s.t. through the department of veteran affairs and the department of defense. many m.s.t. victim who is have suffered through an or deal such as sexual assault oftentimes are reluctant to discuss their situation and seek help. those that finally gather the courage to speak up find that their story is often dismissed or treated indifferently, unjustly becoming the victim again. as many of you know, the pentagon reported earlier this year that an estimated 26,000 cases of unwanted sexual contact occurred in 2012 up

from 19,000 in 2011. incidents .5% of reported it is clear that we must do a better job in both preventing and treating m.s.t. these service members and veterans often continue to experience debilitating physical and mental symptoms from m.s.t. which can follow them through their lives, focusing on prevention, however, is only part of the solution. it is critical that we do everything that is necessary to do to make it easier for victims of m.s.t. to access needed benefits and services an receive treatment. compassion and care are a significant part of healing those that have been sexual assaulted. i applaud the legislative efforts our colleagues who have introduced legislation,

h.r.-1593 the sexual assault training and prevention act and h.r. 671, the ruth moore act. these bills seek to ensure stronger prubs are in place so that the safety and well being of our men and women in uniform is assured. we must begin to take these important steps to end sexual assault. as a proud co-sponsor of both bills, i believe we are headed in the right direction but we still need to do more. i was saddened to read the testimonies of our first panel. the pain and suffering was evident in the personal stories written. i know that this is hard for all of you. an i commend all of you on your bravery to speak up and be here today. we need hear firsthand the experiences of veterans who have found the system unfriendly and intimidating so that we can make it better.

i look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. again, i thank you for being here. this is a very important issue for us to tackle hear in congress. and i thank you mr. chairman and i now yield back. brownlee.ou, mrs. to the ike to welcome table our panel. joining us today is ms. sanders. she's a veteran of the united states army and a foreman registered nurse. thank you very much for being here and for your service. i will now yield to my friend and colleague jacky warlorski who will introduce our net veteran. >> thank you for yielding and the commitment we share with the committee in addresseding this rit cal issue for the survivors of military sexual trawla. i want to -- sexual trauma.

i want to thank everybody for the bill passed and many of the co-sponsors are sitting here today. it's my honor to druce sbruste lisa wilkin who was sexual assaulted and 100% disabled from the trauma she endured from her horrific attack. she's a survivor. she's a survivor who has made it a mission to bring other victims out of the isolation and the shadows that they suffer through. he's also a veteran and she has a right to receive treatment to meaningful treatment. thank you for having the courage to testify before this committee today. thank you for your tireless efforts to hold the v.a. accountable of victims of military sexual trauma. i yield back. >> thank you for being here today and for your service. our next veteran witness is brian lewis. mr. lewis is a veteran of the united states navy and a recent

graduate of stephenson university. mr. lewis, thank you very much for being here and thank you for your service. we are also joined by tara johnson. ms. johnson was born and raised in new jersey. she's a veteran of the united states marine corps and serves as an army wounded what oradvocate. thank you very much more being here and thank you for your service. ms. sanders would you please proceed with your testimony. the way it works you have five minutes to testify and we'd like to try to do that and be polite with our time. thank you. >> thank you. thank you, plch, representatives and panel. i want to thank you for the opportunity to speak before the committee. it's like a birthday gift because yesterday was my birthday. on my 20th birthday i arrive at my only active duty station in fort carson.

one month later i was raped in the middle of the legal battle i was thrown into a custody battle. separated from my house and divorced. it has been a long hard road and i'm hoping my testimony today will help me come full circle. my rapist confessed to enough of his crimes that he was reduced in rank, lost pay and was confined to barracks. this is an example of chain of command harassment because the barracks where he was confined to is the one i worked. and he still worked in the office next door. when you report a rape you become public enemy number one. no one will talk to you. and if they do it is to tell you you got what you deserved. you are called names. it feels like it's your fall. even if your rapist is punish, harassment is limitless. it followed me through three

transfers in nine months. i had an out because my custody battle made me a single mother. at the time single parents were discharged lately. but i began a slow decline known as post traumatic disorder. a g raped by a member is single betrayal. because the innocent are treated as criminals we have lost good people on each step of this journey. today i want to mention too, kerry goodwin and sofey did not live long enough to become veterans. my experience with the v.a. mental health was supportive, caring trained professionals. we had a great clinic in san hoe say. i watched it go from a thriving froom a ghost town. i ones of a group of five women who were not el zwroible go for inpatient treatment for various reasons. dr. alona pavar and her

students started a group for the five of us. this is only done in an inpatient setting. she was told by her boss that she could not continue this therapy with us. she did however finish time-out 17-week program. she was not going to leave us. our world was crushed. the student who worked with her watched us and as she watched she decided to change her focus to trauma and specialically military sexual trauma. she went to work afterat the v.a. after she completed the studies. she worked there until she was offered the job at stanford to be available. it does intensive therapy using processing therapy and most ings not available at v.a. facilities. how many times can a person take the same information in

the same form from a student reading from a book? that is not therapy. since i have moved myself to the san francisco v.a., i have only seen two full fledged doctors. the rest were sbernses, dock ral candidates, fellows. they were not trained in specific trauma therapy. all of that is outlined in my rinne -- written testimony. i believe paula chaplin was right. being assault sd not a mental illness. psychiatric diagnose is not scientifically ground does not improve outcome that is does not reduce human suffering and carries tremendous risks of many kinesdz. they should be offered services 2002 requirement they would be given psychiatric labels. these can be arbitrary. there's no universityly accepted idea treatment for it.

having a diagnose ptsd does nothing for the future of this care. what i see is more of the same. most of the chiefs of staff were cadets when i was raped in 1975 this year they had to disban the rugby team for inappropriate behavior. the number of failures this year alone is too long to list. every day 71 more people are assaulted and 22 veterans commit suicide and we don't know how many of those are because of assaults an rapes. -- and rapes. >> thank you very much, ms. sanders. i truly appreciate your words. ms. wilkin, please go ahead. >> thank you. i'm a united states air force veteran. i was medically separated after a sexual assault. and i'm currently rated 100 service connected by the department of veterans affairs. i'm a wife and a mother. and more importantly i am a

military sexual trauma veteran. in my opinion that is the d.o.d. and the v.a.'s way as categorizes us as we are rape survivors of friendly fire. and i use those terms not to make a joke of it but to bring it home that we were assaulted by someone who wore the uniform as we wore. and not all people wear the same -- the uniform as honorably as you do. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. i am proud of my service because of the experience i had in the military. but speaking out about this topic makes it so that if another veteran doesn't have to suffer and struggle with the things that i've struggled with, it's important for me to do so. and no at day goes by that i don't deal with something that is a result of this sexual

assault. why is ptsd from sexual assault so long lasting? i believe the reason for that is that it's not properly treated or dealt with at the time. the treatment that we receive when we report an assault in the military it is as if we are the perpetrator, we're the ones who are put under the microscope and that's something that needs to stop. it is almost as if your chain of command sets out to do some type of emotional blackmail to you or emotional trauma and that's something that a rape survivor can't handle at that time. you're in a closed society. most people don't realize how much the v.a. treatment facilities mirror or military treatment facilities. and so that's one of the big hurd thals the v.a. must start with is recognizing that there are a lot of men and women that will not come to the v.a. for

treatment because of the experience that they had in the military or because at the time there wasn't the whistle blower protection and they didn't report it. but now that they're older and having problems, they won't come to the v.a. because of their experience in the military. you're going to hear me speak a little bit about outside treatment facilities. we need the ability to go outside of the v.a. if services are not available for us at that v.a. medical center so that we don't have to suffer in silence. we need groups that are v.a. centers for support and we need groups outside at v.a. facilities. most people don't realize that sexual assault is not something that you can be treated for. it's not like a broken arm where your sarm in a cast for six weeks and then you're fine. military sexual assault or sexual assault in general is something that change as person from that point forward.

it takes the opportunity of what you could have become and changes it to what it makes you. why is it so important that we speak out about this topic? the reason that it's so important that we speak out about this topic is so that other men and women who are currently wearing the uniform understand that they're not alone and that there are people throughout that will stand up for them. one of the things that's important to realize that in our treatment we need better resources. and those resources can be outside of our v.a. in our local communities. right now at our indianapolis v.a. medical center, the wait to get in to see someone to treat you for military sexual trauma is almost two years. er -- if we could yutelidse our local health care providers and mental health providers, i know the men and women in indiana

would utilize that. unfortunately, getting approval from the v.a. to go outside is a difficult process and it's not something that's done easily. we have m.s.t. coordinators at all of our v.a. facilities, unfortunately, they're generally one person and they have other assigned duties. we need military sexual trauma coordinators at all of our v.a. facilitys that have a staff that they're able to do things more than just push the paperwork for their veterans, that they're able to enter wact that veteran and make sure that the veteran is receiving the care that they need and if they're not have the ability to stand up for that veteran because those are the things that we didn't get while we wore the uniform and being able to have the services available to us now can change people's lives. thank you for your time. >> thank you very much for your

testimony. mr. lewis, please proceed with your testimony. >> chairman, bennett, distinguished members of this subcommittee and members of congress sitting with the subcommittee. it's a privilege and honor to be testifying before you here today. i'd like to thank my partner who could not be here today. our significant others allow us to do so much and they receive so little credit for the time, effort and energy that they put into us as survive overs. and i -- as survive overs. and i'd like to acknowledge that i would like to thank the subcommittee for treep -- treating this in a gender inclusive way. about 14,000 of the 26,000 sexual assaults are male victims. this gender neutral conduct places it ahead of the veterans

health administration. indeed, it's been my experience that the veterans health administration discriminates against male survivors solely because of their gender. this is a practice that needs to be brought to light and stopped by the subcommittee. currently, the veterans health administration operates about 24 ressdenltial treatment programs for post traumatic stress disorder. only about 12 are designed for the treatment of military sexual trauma. f those 12, only one accepts male patients. that facility at the v.a. medical center is co-educational. put simply, male survivors have no single gender residential treatment program designed specifically for military sexual trauma avement i know. i tried. there was nothing available for me in a single gender capacity. this made it very difficult to process the issues when i was at v.a. bay pines.

i joined the american legion in sing that the co-educational model of residential treatment programs needs to be overhaul and quickly. in the outpatient environment, care for male survivors of military sexual trauma can be potty at best while there is counselors available for us receiving care such as peer support groups and being allowed to speak about military sexual trauma in mixed gender and or mixed trauma groups by and i mean combat ptsd combat groups mixed together hard. this needs to stop. male survivors are equal as the female survivors and need to be

treated as such by the veterans administration. i will -- i've placed more substantial data in my written testimony about my personal treatment at v.a. bay pines and at the baltimore medical center. and i will leave that in there. the next subject i'd like the touch about is the overy'all as you were vision of military sexual trauma within the veteran's health at ministration has invested in this. this oversight protocol denigrates the experience of mel survivors and reinforces the concept that they see the ilitary sexual trauma as a " women" issue. that's not the case. mel survivors have the right to seek and be treated at the v.a. as any other survivor.

another harmful practice is personality disorders as this subcommittee is well aware, permit disorders have been used along with adjustment disorders, bipolar sicedist swords and many diagnoses to push survivors of military sexual trauma out of the military. and it has far-reaching consequences for example survivors attending to the topeka, kansas are asked to defend their discharge and explain it on their application to enter topeka, kansas' program. a survivor that has been pushed without one of these weaponized diagnoses does not want to d that. so i strongly urge the subcommittee members to support h.r. 9-75 by tim walls. this legislation would give veterans like myself that would be misdiced to retire and ship

some of these calls back to where they belong nsm conclusion the veterans health administration fails male survivors every single day. they have proven their inl ability to adequately care for us. that is why me and several other survivors have found that men surviving from this, an organization designed to advocate for male survivors. thank you, mr. michigan. >> thank you, mr. lewis for your testimony. i truly appreciate your efforts here. ms. johnson, could you please go ahead? the nk you for opportunity to speak today. i proudly served in the marine corps for 10 years and achieved the ranked major. i'm now 40 years old. and this is the first time i have ever disclosed my experiences regarding m.s.t. and the care i received or did not receive from the d.o.d. and the v.a.

i joined the marine corps because i wanted to serve my country. my first incident occurred when i was an officer candidate and by a sexual asalted senior officer. i did not disclose these experiences as i have seen the unfair treatment of those who had reported incidents to their command. despite these experiences, i exceled in the marine corps and lived the motto of suck it up and press on. i spent eight years in active duty. i rurched from active duty in 2009. again, experienced an incident of m.s.t. i began to suffer from depression, anxiety and panic attacks. i did approach my commander. my statements were simply dismissed and endured more harassment and abuse. i sought to treatment medical treatment for panic attacks, medication but i was never asked by m.s.t. by medical personnel. i was put on medication to

relieve depression and anxiety. it got so bad i requested early release from these active duty disorders because the situation was so difficult i felt i co no longer endure it. in decision to leave active duty placed me and my children in an extremely fragile financial state for a very significant period of time. the complete pride i had knelt the past is now rid wlt shame, self-doubt and distrust in october 2010, i sought freement the madison, wisconsin v.a. i received limit treatment and i was mainly described medication. while it was evidence i had severe symptoms of ptsd i was never asked by a provider if i had experienced ptsd. i had under gone the screenings but yet i wasn't a combat veteran but yet no one looked at these symptoms and these causes gs asking what

this. for the first time i contemplated suicide. but i needed to go on for my children. it was difficult for me to receive treatment as i was not yet service connected. i received little to no medication monitoring. and i sincerely feel that the medication caused more depression, more anxiety and was the reason i had contemplated suicide. had my mmer of 2010 i examine for mental health. i entered this exam to finally be able to receive help. the doctor spent 20 minutes with me. he was extremely abrupt and impersonal and did not ask me anything about mst. he ended our appointment very quickly stating he was sure i would be just fine. the next few months i was informed that buzz of my income

the prior year even though i was currently unemployed i would have to pay for any care that i received from the v.a. i was not yet financially stable and could not endure extra cost. i disclosed my m.s.t. experience. he immediately contacted the regional office and attempted to have m.s.t. added to my claim. i was directed to prepare and submit a statement that described the details of my assault and other incidents. though extremely difficult i submitted the statement. i could address my experiences on m.s.t. i was not granted another examine. i continued to struggle with my symptoms and memories. because it was not addressed in any of any examines i was told i was not able to utilize the local vet center. several months later i did receive the service connection

and was able to work with a provider. the v.a. provider again did not ask about m.s.t. but i decided i needed to disclose my experiences. i was extremely detailed and candid. this survivor did inform me that i did have ptsd. my sense of relief quickly disappeared as she inform med the wait list was at least four months long. when i did get the opportunity to receive treatment my provider was only there twice a week. it was extremely difficult to sedge consistent appointments. there ariness tenses i would take time off work only to be told it was cancelled. i was aware that even though the hospital had canceled these appointments my patient record had i had no-showed or canceled myself. i grew more distrustful and frustrated. i was then informed i was noncompliant because i felt i couldn't participate in a therapy called prolonged

exposure therapy for fear that would increase any symptoms and affect me personal lip and professionally -- personally. no doctor asked me if i received m.s.t. though some of my symptoms were correlated with m.s.t. though there was an m.s.t. coordinator i had never had the opportunity to speak with her and i had never witness nid collaboration between the women's health manager and the m.s.t. coordinator. i attempted to speak with him but i was unsuccessful. in 2012 i decided to attempt to engage in treatment of the v.a. once again. i was assigned a male pro cider who was new to the v.a. during my first appointment, i again closed my experience. the provider shat back in his chair and said well, do you

really think you were raped? i cannot bring myself to trourn the v.a. and it was at that time that i began to utilize my private experience. i now pay out of pock for all of my therapy. based on my experiences and those of other veterans i have worked with and spoken with i recommend that you reconsider the treatment. it needs to become a safe environment. if i had only been asked about my experiences with m.s.t. i would have provide full disclosure. i like many was never asked. thank you. >> unfortunately, they called both on the floor. we will be back in session as son as that's over with. i truly appreciate all of your testimony and the bravery that you vall shown about these deeply personal and difficult events. we'll be in recess until i get ack.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2013] >> the subcommittee is called to order. i'm going to yield myself five minutes for questions. frankly the system that i heard from all of you today is, you

know, really, really revealing, tragic and i know that there's bipartisan support in the make mittee to really significant change in the way the d.o.d. and the v.a. treat victims of sexual trauma. i can think of -- maybe the most interesting and i've heard this before from other cases, the testimony they heard from you ms. sanders is the fact -- i think sort of that came out in all of your testimony that you never get someone at the v.a. if you ever get into counseling or -- that you have a consistent provider. i think i know how difficult that is trying to, you know, talk to somebody that doesn't know your case.

can you expand on your testimony there, ms. sanders to kind of make us all aware of how difficult it is to get a consistent provider even though you've got an provider, has it been so bad that you were never table to get anybody con sys teptly? >> when i first entered the system there was a fantastic clinic. and they treated us very well. they went out of their way to make sure we got the treatment we needed but it was led by a very dynamic person. that was dismantled and we were left with scraps. i was -- ended up, i was the only person going to that clinic and was seeing a social worker and unfortunately, she passed away. so i was left with no care. i moved to north of san francisco because i had a grandchild and i started care at the san francisco v.a. because i can't drive very far and i've had no real care in

two years. base basis. fee i took it to our local county they closed the county office the second day i was there. and it was a facility that treated both civilians and military sexual trauma victims and people who were coming out of jail and trying to get off of drugs and trying to get their children back. i've since asked for a fee basis. i was told you got a fee basis for two sessions. i was never told where to get that fee basis. i was never told who to contact by. i attempted to say, ok, i have med care. can we get some movement on that? i received a phone call. they said go on the computer and look up caregivers in your -- >> that was all the guidance

you got? >> excuse me? >> that was all the guidance that you got? >> i have in front of me a fee basis that i was supposed to receive for may. i never got the letter in the mail. i called after six weeks because i was told we don't know how long it will take. and she said, oh, it's already expired. so they sent it to me and it expired july 17th. i still have no one to take it to, no help to find anyone to take it to, i asked if a social worker could sit down with me and make the phone calls, if they didn't want to do it but that i alone cannot just sit own and call every pro vider my county to see who will take the fee basis. the one person i contacted said $280 for every session after that.

she had to have the money upfront. and i had to go get money from the v.a. and then i came here. so i'm hoping that by coming here and telling you guys that a measly two fee basis is not going get me anywhere. no decent provider is going to say oh, yes, i'll see you twice and then we'll wait to see how long it take them to get back to us.

and we provide care in a timely manner to where the veterans are. i think there is a range of options, and clearly one of the options would have to be sea- based services. >> i would like to go on with another question, if you do not mind. the other issue is around screening. that cant seems like be a simple fix to make sure across the country that we are doing the screening. it was very concerning to hear ms. johnson, who is our most veteranervicemember and who clearly was not screened. , and yet are screening

from the testimony, we can conclude that it is not failsafe program, that every single man and woman are not being screened. that -- it is something that is not complicated. it is just a matter of making sure we are doing it. i also think these of these screening that screening is something, it is not something that is a one-time thing. we have to today -- continue to follow-up. there have to be other places in the process where they are screened again so it is not a one-time thing. so it is more of a check and balance and more of a failsafe system. the other thing that has come to mind in listening to the first , having advocates for these men and women that can access the system to prioritize

toir needs within the system get the services they need, when they need it, and it can help with coordination also. in making sure that from every place where ever it may be that ,hey are getting what they need and i would ask if you could comment on any of those. thank you very much for those comments. i fully agree with you. i think there are many points that our veterans made in terms of suggestions that we would take to heart, and we would go back and review our current policies and procedures. for instance, screening -- i think there are some things that we would need to look at. i was very surprised to see that none of the four veterans, the

possible explanation could be that maybe the screening was conducted a few years earlier when the screening was not fully in place, but that still is not a reason not to do that again. i think you point out a very good thing. i think the veterans have indicated that we need to look at our procedures for screening to see if there is a way that we kind of chancee to have the screening done in a simpler way. i would fully agree -- i take -- it makesoint sense in terms of veterans having options available, some .ind of coach or a coordinator i think we are toying with some of those ideas in our primary care clinic. we have recently introduced the concept of coaches or health coaches.

these are like the coordinators we have. coordinators help in the transition of servicemembers coming into our system. but they also assist in coordinating care whether it's with other specialty clinics or between the va and community. a lot of our pac teams have post deployment counselors that also provide a similar kind of a role. what we begin to do now is to add some more coach that is can help to further strengthen this element of coordination of services because a lot of the dual care that happens in our system. >> thank you. and if the chair would allow me a little bit more time i would like to ask the dod to respond to some of these issues as well. i think there is a lot that

we have done recently. we have a new dodi instruction which kind of talks about the roles and responsibilities of everyone in the department of defense to specifically address sexual assault prevention and response. that was just issued in april. the services are in the process of fully implementing it. we know they are compliant with the healthcare provisions in there. so we know that providers are trained. they are meeting the standard for providing 24/7 coverage. there are safe kits in all of the the mtf. we have responded in a thoughtful way to what we also heard from survivors in our focus groups to fix some of the problems that were articulated. we are seeing if we have solved some of the problems that were articulated. i know there are some more that you all have articulated here. i want to art late my thanks for the first panel.-- want to articulate my thanks to the

first panel. it is only through their eyes we see us as we are and that's how we fix things. i'm grateful to their willing tons help us understand and that's how we get better. >> thank you for that. i think we all walk away today, hopefully the congress, dod and the va walk away with a sense of urgency today that we have a lot of work ahead of us. thank you mr. chair. i yield back. >> our committee has heard a stigma exists in the military that deters active service members from getting mental healthcare. one of our veteran panelists suggest there be a mental health day where professionals are brought together so that service members can seek mental healthcare that day and see professionals. has that recommendation been explored before? >> i've not heard of that

particular recommendation. we have done a lot in the past several years to provide embedded mental health providers both in the deployed environment. we have them embedded in our care teams for the patients in a medical home. i think we are doing a pretty good job of trying to penetrate and provide our specialists where they need to be and so they are not seen as something different but they are just part of your group. and i think that that is going to go a long way. we have seen in the department an increase in people accessing services for mental health which i think is a good news story. i think that means we are addressing stigma. have we totally fixed it? probably not but i think some of the choices we've made are making some end roads to it. i'll take back the idea of a mental health day and see how people respond to that.

>> i represent a large district in arizona and we are using more and more tell medicine and i'm finding patients are open to that and it's a positive experience. tell medicine may be a way for some of our veterans to seek medical treatment in the privacy of their home without having to go to a facility. would you address that idea? >> thank you for that question. i think the potential for tell health is still i would say in it's infancy so we can take this to many different levels. i think the point that you are making and the veterans have made providing care where the veterans live in that community is a message that we have taken to heart. we have done a lot but we need to do a lot more. i think the days of asking the veterans to drive 00 miles or 150 miles to come to the mother ship and be able to receive

care i think has to be a past and we need to move on to the point where we are able to provide more services in our community based out patient clinics or in their homes. that is an area we are looking at very actively and will continue to expand on. >> thank you and thank you for the panelists for being here and i yield back. >> looking at this gao report from january of this year says we found that military healthcare providers do not have a consistent understanding of their responsibilities in care of sexual assault victims. did the testimony of the first panel, did that affect you in your thoughts of how things are going in the system? >> i think the testimony of the first panel was compelling and

heart wrenching. i think that the things that we addressed many the new guidance to the field will go a long way to remedy some of the things they have articulated. all healthcare providers who have responsibility for sexual assault and treating those patients are required to have an initial treatment and an annual refresher course. those that actually perform the safe exam which is the forensic examination are required to have very specific training to a national standard which is the department of justice. >> let me ask a quick question here. there has been concern about people that have survived mst and their ability to stay on active duty because there is not the treatment protocol to allow them to do that. is there some way that we're addressing that in the d.o.d.?

>> i would have to actually go back and talk to people about that to make sure we've got something in place that is directly addressing that particular question, sir. >> i'd appreciate you getting back to me about that. i want to thank you all for joining us this afternoon. i truly appreciate it and i hope that as i said earlier that the testimony of the first panel affects you all in your zeal to make things better from every aspect of the va and the d.o.d. i know it certainly affecting us here on the committee and we're going to work on improving it from our end. but i would hope that this would inspire you to work harder in making it happen. so with that, you're excused. thank you.

>> all members have five legislative days to revise their remarks. without objection so ordered i would like to thank all the witnesses and the audience members for joining us here today for these important conversations. and this hearing is here by adjourned.

>> on the next "washington journal," we will sit down with john -- jon lowy and john lott. then a reporter from bloomberg news will talk about the sec costs ongoing court case against the goldman sachs trader and his role in the 2008 financial meltdown. then the senior correspondent beast, thek-daily challenge is samantha power bases if confirmed by the senate. your calls and tweets on "washington journal" beginning live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-

span. decided that he was a delicious subject for a biography when it dawned on me that he had been not only at abraham lincoln's bedside immediately after his assassination, but also at the bedside of william mckinley in 1901. i thought, who could this fellow be? when i opened the archives, i realized what a rich subject it was. life really has two bookends at either end of his biographical shelf. end, hisincoln on one personal secretary, lived in the white house with lincoln for five years. so much about what we know comes from his imminent contact with them. at the other end of his life, hayes served not only under mckinley, but after mckinley's

assassination, he was secretary of state for teddy roosevelt. you have these wonderful, iconic bookends in american history. when you look deeper, you realize that all of the chapters in between in american history on the civil war through to the beginning of the 20th century, he is a presence and everyone of those chapters. his fingerprints fingerprints are on all the pages. in many cases, he has written those chapters of american history. taliaferro on the life of jonathan hage on c-span's "q&a." >> the u.s. house passed a major revision of the 2001 no child left behind act. after the vote majority leader eric cantor discussed the next items on the congressional agenda, the 2014 budget and the farm bill. this is 25 minutes. mr. speaker, on monday the house will meet at noon for

morning hour into an :00 p.m. for legislative business. on tuesday and wednesday, the housel meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning our and noon for legislative business. on thursday, the house will meet at 99:00 a.m. for legislative business. last votes are expected no later than 3:00 p.m. on friday, no votes are expected. the house will consider a few suspensions next week. in addition the house will consider hr-3498 the department of defense appropriations bill. this bill provide the resources necessary for our men and women in the armed services to carry out their vital mission. there are a number of bills the appropriations committee which have reported may come to the floor in the near future. further more they may consider two bills. the first bill hr-2218 authored by david mckenley would create

enforceable minimum standard of cole ashby the states allowing their use in a safe manner that protects jobs. the second bill, the energy consumers relief act sponsored by bill cassidy will require the e.p.a. before finalizing any energy related rule costing more than a billion dollars to report to congress on price and job impacts. both these bills foster economic growth and low energy cost for american families and businesses. finally, mr. speaker, the house acting to prevent the doubling of the student loan enter rate. i thank the gentleman and yield back. >> i thank the j for his information with respect to the legislation for next week. i note that there was not on the notice for next week the

senate has now voted to go to conference on the farm bill. clearly that is a matter that i think both sides or certainly your side, ours as well as feels is a priority item. does the gentleman have any plans to move to go to conference next week on the farm bill? i yield to my friend. >> i thank the gentleman for yielding. i'll respond by saying we are committed to acting with urgency to bring to the floor a bill under the nutrition title of what was formally the farm bill which that title married up with the agriculture provisions. it is our hope we can get anew transition bill to the floor because we believe strongly the programs under those titles providing a safety net to country's most vulnerable is

something we maintain and implement retomorrow to those programs that have long been called for so we can make sure for the efficient flow of dollars to those beneficiaries who most need it. i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman for that comment. however, i'm somewhat perplexed, mr. leader. you and i had a relatively animated colloquy some two or three weeks ago at which time you said we passed the farm bill that we didn't like and none of us voted for that we passed the farm bill so we could follow regular order and go to conference. we passed that farm bill. the senate has now voted to go to conference. but what i hear the gentleman saying is like the budget bill, we're not going to go to conference unless something else happens.

and in the case of the budget, until mr. ryan get ms. maury to agree on i don't want to characterize it to heavily but to agreeing with him as opposed to compromising. i'm a little perplexed because three weeks ago you told me that the reason we passed that farm bill without the provision for nutrition which will h been in there for half a century was so that we could go to conference. well now we are there but there is no motion to go to conference. i'm perplexed and i would appreciate if the gentleman because we now have the opportunity to follow regular order. we now have the senate who has voted to go to conference acted on our bill that we sent there substituted their bill for ours and now have asked for a conference on the same. that is regular order. can the gentleman tell me are we now making a condition that something has to happen before we go to conference? because frankly, mr. leader, you and i both know that the new

transition bill is what- nutrition bill is what made the farm bill fall on the rocks. which is why you dropped it. i yield to my friend. >> mr. speaker, i thank the gentleman for yielding and i know that the gentleman in his call for regular order also know that is the house has prerogatives as does the other body. we believe strongly that marriage of the two constituent sis of the old farm bill was a marriage

that began some 40 years ago and frankly it is the majority of the house that that marriage makes sense. and instead if we could as a house ought to be transparent and look at the policies on the agriculture side the way that we did and then look at the policies under the nutrition title in the same deliberate fashion that we can actually make for better product. now the gentleman says that the farm bill that was passed was a partisan bill. certainly no member of the minority voted for the bill. but i would and not to rehash several weeks ago said that the same attitude was taken with the old farm bill by the minority. saying it was too partisan.

we tend to proceed looking at policies that make sense reforming these programs in the vain of trying to get to those most vulnerable the relief they need at the same time paying cognizance to the fact that we have fiscal challenges we must deal with. we are trying to be about truth in legislating mr. speaker and that is making sure that the agriculture policies is adequately addressed as well as the nutrition title and providing relief to our country's most vulnerable. i yield back. >> the truth in legislating is that we are not legislating. we are putting forth the positions of your party in this house not shared by the senate or the president of the united states, also elected by the people of the states and absent agreement by those two entities co-equal branches of the congress and a co-equal branch of the

government, the executive, absent their agreeing with your party's perspective, we're not legislating. that's the problem, mr. leader. and again, i express to you, you said- and i don't have the words in front of me but we can pull them out. but you said when we pass the farm bill without the nutrition bill in it which had been done for half a century by republican congresses and democratic congresses signed by republican and democratic presidents. it's only the last two years we've been able to come to agreement bipartisan on the farm bill. it only in the past two years we've been able to get a bill that was bipartisan on the floor and vote on passage. the bill that came out of the committee last congress and this congress were turned into- the

first one last congress didn't come to the floor as the gentleman knows didn't bring it to the floor at all notwithstanding the bipartisan in the -- bipartisan support in the committee. and notwithstanding the bipartisan support, notwithstanding he didn't agree with some portion that is were adopted for instance on milk. he was nevertheless prepared to adopt it until we thought very harmful amendments to people without means were adopted. you knew that was the case. i repeat and reiterate but the simple representation you made was that we did that and mr. sessions made that and said by the way that the nutrition part of the program getting support for people who needed food was

extraneous to the bill. that's not our perspective here. but that was the perspective of the rules committee laid out when we considered the rule. but you then said the reason we did that was because you wanted to get a bill through and frankly that's the only way you could pick up the majority of the 62 republicans who voted against it. i can only conclude that because you got the majority to do it failing the first time because 62 republicans didn't like the nutrition part of the bill and they voted against it. when you dropped the nutrition part of the bill which had been in there for 50 years then you got the majority on your side. i'm perplexed that now that we have done what you said we were going to do, not about budgets. you and i agree we need to get a handle on that. that's not what this issue is about. this is about whether or not we're going to have a farm bill

and in a timely way. we have 17 days left to go between now and september 30. we think it's timely to move. and i don't know when your nutrition bill is not on the program here. we'll have one week after next week. we're not sure, we haven't seen anew transition bill that you have. we don't know what is going to be in that. but we have passed a farm bill. senate wants to go to conference. at least the democrats do on the budget and we're not doing it, mr. leader. and we need to do it. >> not to belabor this point, mr. speaker. i appreciate the gentleman for yielding. just to correct the facts about what i said before and what i represented. i said it was our intention to bring to the floor a bill dealing with the snap program, that portion of which was traditionally the farm bill and

we intend to be bringing that vehicle to the floor at some time in the near future. i did not say what the gentleman indicated. we would like to say to all of our colleagues we want to work together on anew transition titl.e- on a nutrition the gentleman heard what i said before. the marriage of those two bills and policies were done in an arbitrary fashion 50 years ago as he indicated. there is no policy reason for that to be done. and we're trying to get down to what policy works and the reform of making sure that we pay attention to the efficacy of the programs getting the dollars to the people who need it and doing so in an efficient manner takes some deliberative approach. that is why our members on the majority side of the aisle felt very strongly that we should act in the way we did. and we intend to bring anew transition title to the floor.--

a nutrition title to the floor. we're working with the chairman of the agriculture committee to get that policy right. i hope the gentleman in the spirit of bipartisan will work with us to do that. >> it takes two to be bipartisan, mr. leader. you know that and i know that. and i have a pretty long record of working in a bipartisan fashion. but i will tell you i disagree with the majority leader respect fully there aren't the votes on this floor to pass the snap program and the agriculture program. we agree on this side there is a relationship between those who produce food and those who eat food. we think there is a direct relationship which is why for half a century these have been related so that the folks in the city would understand those on the farm are very important people. we need to make sure we have a partnership with them. very frankly it's worked for half a century. unfortunately it didn't work this year.