proposals. since the clinton administration. we'll take your calls and you can join the conversation at facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. shinseki offered me his resignation. host: that was president obama at the white house yesterday after emerging from an oval office meeting with his department of veterans affairs secretary. eric shinseki's resignation came after lawmakers from both parties called for his departure. on saturday, may 31 20 14 we are opening up our phone lines to our washington journal viewers to hear your thoughts on eric shinseki's resignation, what it means for the agency, and how it impacts veterans.

our phone lines are open -- also a special line for veterans. you can catch up with us on your favorite social media pages, on twitter, facebook, or e-mail us at journal@c-span.org. a very good saturday morning. the eric shinseki resignation playing out on the front pages of newspapers across the country. here it is in "the washington post's." to the kansas city star, there is a picture of eric shinseki

yesterday at the national coalition for homeless veterans, where he made a speech apologizing for delayed --atment, and other service for delayed treatment and other service lapses at the ba. the headline there -- onto the arizona republic, the home state paper of the phoenix -- of thefacility phoenix v.a. facility -- a quote from president obama. "he "richmond times dispatch already talked about the search for shinseki's since sasser -- for shinseki's successor. times" -- york that is the topic we are talking

about for the first half of today's washington journal. before we get to your calls i want to play you a little bit more from the president's statement yesterday on why he's -- why he accepted eric shinseki's resignation. [video clip] >> our commitment to our veterans is unquestioned. our service to our country is exemplary. i'm grateful for his service as well as our any veterans across the country. he has worked too hard to investigate and identify the problems with access to care. the v.a. needs new leadership to address it. his priority is to fix the problem and make sure our vets are getting the care that they need. that was rick's judgment on behalf of the us that low -- behalf of his fellow veterans. we don't have time for distractions. we need to fix the problem.

host: our phone lines are open. a special line is set aside for veterans. we want to hear from you in the first half hour of washington journal. that special line for veterans -- some comments on our facebook page on this topic. we will bring you other statements from the president and eric shinseki yesterday. we will start with darren calling it from massachusetts. good morning.

caller: hi. i have a comment. i just wanted to talk about what is really happening in the congress and what they are not doing. john boehner just spoke a minute ago -- it is a shame. watch how these people vote. they do not care about these veterans out here. people work for this money. raising the minimum wage. the people out here want that done. they will not do it. vote these people out because they did not give a dam about these veterans. >> let's go to our line for republicans. barbara is waiting calling in from alabama. thank you for waiting. caller:.

caller: i think mr. shinseki should be allowed to retire -- unless they are willing to return back to the people and the veterans their salary and their bonuses. it seems like this man has almost stolen from this country, from these veterans. him saying he couldn't control it, he didn't know just doesn't make it as far as i am concerned. talk more about eric , the former general who served in the vietnam war. when do you think the problems started under eric shinseki's watch. >> i think he was there when he accepted the position.

he knew they were there. how many years was he there? five? he was a general officer. brigades.ed he certainly should have been able to communicate with the at the bau will hospitals all across the country. -- at the ba hospitals all across the country. hospitals all around the country. to not be able to fix them and to accept bonuses, and these other managers accept mrs. dash to me that is just stealing from those veterans. host: what's go to mervyn

waiting on our line for veterans calling in from los angeles, california. good morning. caller: i think the reality is some people in the v.a. worked tremendously hard. i find nothing but professionalism there. they really want to work it. , i and her. shinseki took it -- he took a shaft. goes tuesdayody and sends a message that our veterans cannot be treated so underfunded. money soo spend more we have more doctors they can do more things. host: mervyn referencing the primary elections coming in california.

i want to play you more from eric shinseki himself. he was making a steep for them -- making a speech before the match will coalition of homeless veterans. [video clip] the problem was limited, isolated, because i believed that. i no longer believe it is systemic. too trusting of some and i accepted accurate reports that i was misleading with regard to patient wait times. this is something i rarely encounter during 30 years in uniform. i was not offended because it is indefensible. take responsibility --

i do. i extend an apology to the people whom i care most deeply about, the veterans of this great country. to their families and loved ones that i have been honored to serve for over five years now. i also offer that apology to members of congress who have supported me. and to the american people. all of them deserve better from there v.a. , the leadership and integrity problems can and must be fixed. host: comments in the washington journal on our facebook page. over twitter as well.

off of twitter -- on our facebook page -- a comment -- an editorial board in the new york times writes --

we want to hear your thoughts. let's go to germane waiting in new york on our line for democrats. caller: i do not blame generals shinseki-- generals personally. i do blame him on the fact that he has to check on everything that somebody says. comes totely when it the president, the president is put in a bad position.

the problem is the v.a. does not have enough doctors and apparently not enough funding coming from congress. i'm in hospitals a lot. i see a lot of people -- they have problems seeing doctors. the problems setting up appointments. any hospital in new york city. our veterans should not have to go through that. they should be automatic. host: let's go to kevin on our line for republicans. caller: first thing i want to do is thank all the veterans out there watching. thank you for your service,

thank you for our freedom. i do not personally blame generals and seki. -- elaine general shinseki. he has served our country well. he cares about the veterans and he cares about what he was doing. i do not believe he wanted to resign. i believe it was a possibility to make positive change. he is in a leadership position. -- percent charge takes the fall. shinseki had to step down. is a shamehing that is we are focusing so much subfunction seki. we should be focusing on what is causing the problems and what the real core of this is. our veterans need to be taken care of because they take care of us. on the skyfocusing

resigning we should be focusing on how do we improve this as a country, how can we help our veterans? tackling some of those issues coming up in about 15 minutes on the washington journal. we are joined by a defense .eporter for politico pro we are looking just to get your reaction this morning on the resignation of eric shinseki from the v.a.. we have a special line for veterans. matt is waiting in arkansas. good morning. everybody seems to be on the same page. history will look well on shinseki. out and speak up

for people in these facilities. they are hard workers. they deserve better than this. about there talking doctors and nurses? caller: yes, the whole staff. --n we are talking to people like to hear what they have to say. i guarantee it is because of funding. we need to quit going after and take a deep breath and take a step back and really look at things. thank you. caller: the -- host: that line for veterans --

republicans seek to keep pressure on obama in the wake of shinseki's resignation. boehner. bit from john [video clip] >> generals shinseki has dedicated his life to our country and we thank him for his surface. for his service. his resignation does not absolve the president of his responsibility to step in and make things right for our veterans. business as usual cannot continue. as a first step in the house of the v.a. accountability act. until a president outlines a ,ision and effective plan today's announcement changes nothing. one personnel change cannot be overas an excuse to paper a systemic problem. our veterans deserve better. he will hold president

accountable until he looks thing -- until he makes things right. host: here is cumbersome and paul cozart -- -- here is congressman paul goes are -- and senator patty murray -- we want to hear your thoughts and comments this morning as we alk about the v.a. it is the second-largest cabinet agency in the nation.

of 165 billion dollars, that is greater than the state department and entire intelligence community combined. that includes $60 billion for health care. the v.a. employs 20,000 personnel to run major medical centers and 300 storefront vet clinics and more than 50 regional benefit offices and facilities. the system provides health care to 9 million and rolled veterans, including 6 million who seek health care on a regular basis. let's go to nancy waiting in webster city iowa on our line for democrats. caller: i would like to thank the vets for all they've done. seki -- general shinseki is nothing more than a whipping boy for republicans who

have nothing better to do. there are not nearly enough clinics and hospitals to provide the kind of benefits that the veterans need. than's probably only less the provideher million -- the millions of dollars of services. they need to forgive student loans for doctors, nurses, and get people in there. maybe open up more clinics. need to quit blocking laws that provide more money into the systems. they have been denying services for years.

host: phyllis waiting in columbus, ohio. good morning. i would also like to thank the veterans for serving i would like to give an overview very quickly. i don't fault shinseki for everything he has done. that wasbureaucrat placed on top of a molehill of a mess. expect nobody who could anyone to solve those problems or take the blame. history if you look at it, unfortunately this country is very young. mainly they are not educated or not that smart. if you look back when it came to the revolutionary war, there were people that were promised -- there was no paying for the soldiers.

plots ofised them land. when the war was over they came and said give us our land. away.orced them forget about the war of 1812. after the civil war people were coming back with arms and legs missing, there was no support for them. if you went back and they had a family they took care of european world war i had the bonus riots were actual veterans came to the see of our government and said, give us what you said we had. at the point of bayonets they drove them away. now you look at world war ii. my father was a world war ii veteran. he was injured in the war. it takes 10 years with doctors -- itup on both sides

took 10 years to get any benefits of any kind. this has been the history of our country. host: where are you a professor? caller: i'm not teaching at the moment. my point is in our country the veterans have not been taking care of, they have not been treated well. to the v.a., they are trying to do everything they can do. but it is a bureaucracy. make any amount you want, they are trying to deal with stuff. there's nobody that is going to step their foot into it and say it is been this way for the beginning. host: on our twitter page -- peggy noonan it takes on this topic.

she writes -- that is peggy noonan's column if you want to read more. we will continue to take your calls on this topic. some other changes in the obama administration leadership, this is on his press team. the announcement yesterday that jay carney was leaving at white house press secretary, it makes the front page of the "washington post." jay carney is being replaced by his deputy josh earnest.

there is a picture there of jay carney on the right and press secretary now promoted to press secretary josh earnest. some stats from the washington post on jay carney. a news report from last june tot carney had responded questions of the daily brief you with three -- with variations of the phrase -- it also reported carney had about 9486tions times. we have five minutes left to continue taking your calls and then we will do it with our two guests in the next hour of "the washington journal." good morning.

caller: the v.a. i have been to has been doing an outstanding job. i have no complaints. i am a threat -- i am a veteran of the korean war. airplane, if you have certain things on an airplane that are critical, if it breaks you have a red light. criticald have a that would index bring the critical areas to the attention of the secretary and he could respond. there is absolutely no reason at all for this to happen. they do need some new hospitals and clinics.

is whenk fix on it these critical performance indexes reaches a certain point, it would treat their -- it would trigger -- is the most part the v.a. doing an outstanding job. host: you think there is a funding aspect of this as well? caller: the question about it. -- no question about it. served as a strategic air command or during the gulf war. general -- would have these critical performance issues. he also had the authority to replace people immediately. you have to have that authority.

people outyou have there who are simply not going to do their job as required. host: that is but a calling in from florida. maverick writes -- we will go to teresa waiting on our line for democrats in illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. i do enjoy your program so much. i deeplyt is that regret generals and seki had to resign. -- general shinseki had to resign. i was talking about the focus in arizona and i was wondering, is there data that the veterans in -- data of the veterans

in arizona who have complaints. i am wondering if there is any kind of data tracking that and why didn't this come out so much sooner or earlier from the senator's office? that would be my basic question. questionill ask that in our next segment of "the washington journal." a defenseined by reporter and political reporter. we will talk with them about this issue. just a few more headlines from around the country today on the -- e of benghazi

we will go to louisville, mississippi. independent line, good morning. the reason i am calling is everybody seems to want to blame this on general shinseki and president obama. where is the congress? 100 senators. are the people that are supposed to be the eyes and ears of the people. -- previous caller said where are they? to blame is trying general shinseki. what about the people that made

these -- can you imagine a person that's taking money and denying veterans services? host: and our last caller for -- stay ong segment the lines, we will have veterans line open to talk about this issue. willis talks about "washington -- in "the new york times." during an interview buck mckeon discussed the new house committee on benghazi. here's a pdf that interview. -- a preview of that interview.

[video clip] >> we were looking at a relatively small portion of the operation in benghazi. what happened prior to that time , what about the request for more security that was denied? ambassador even in benghazi? the british have withdrawn. i think many questions remain to be answered. saw the chairman recite a number of those questions. it is important we get to the bottom of it. >> from your perspective you are satisfied with the military response? theiven what the posture of military was at the time, yes. we are not on a 24/7 rotation. we do not have pilots sitting on

the runway with the plane fully me theird equipped with ammunition, weh can't do that. we now have rapid response or marines -- rapid response marines stationed around the world. that is a lesson we learned. we have the means to get them to where we didn't have the airlift with the marines. and then there was a requirement before they went into tripoli that they had to take their uniforms off and go in in civilian dress. some of these things are ludicrous but we learn from those. given the state of our financial situation and how much we cut back the military, i think we

are in a better position right now. we are still limited and have a targets -- lot of soft to take care of. us to discuss eric shinseki's resignation is leigh munsil and chris carroll. at one point -- at what point do think he was able to escape being a distraction? guest: there was a deception and scheduling of veteran appointments. it has been known for years and years that veterans had to wait

a long time. what came out this week was they had established this system of keeping dual books. some people were heading toward appointments and some people who keepept off the books to the weight. wait period down. guest: it has been building for weeks. president obama was very supportive of eric shinseki. he did not necessarily want to remove him from his post. he thought secretary shinseki could deal with these issues but then it just builds and builds over the past couple of weeks. we heard from veterans groups. the inspector general report came out on thursday. we had jeff miller of the v.a.

committee as well as john mccain on the senate side and buck mckeon of the armed services. very tellingy -- a sign. i think that was the belt whether of this. veterans callse that hurt him more? inst: i think that set it motion. the american legion said he had to go and that is huge. nothing has happen like that in decades. and the final straw was the lawmakers who had been supporting him, people like john mccain saying he is a distraction. host: we continue discussion on eric shinseki's resignation. our phone lines are open. we are taking your comments and

questions as we go about this. a special line continuing for veterans. with to be calling on that line for veterans from albany georgia. caller: thank you for airing this desperate situation for veterans. i am a veteran. i joined the army at 16 years old. as a result of some of my duty, i contracted melanoma cancer service connected. i have been dealing with the v.a. for 12 years trying to get a rating for this melanoma cancer. they finally gave me 10%. i don't want money, i want my health. to go back to the situation of hospital our veterans

in atlanta, where i was a patient at one time, i was from their because they opened up a storefront. it was a community based outpatient clinic. contracted company that akes money off of the v.a. it goes back to win the government started hiring contractors to do government work, which is costly and ineffective. to treat 6000 three lpm's. you can do the math and see with that is all about. he brings up some staffing issues in terms of contractors. are these issues that the v.a.

is in the midst of fixing or is this part of the exploration into the problem that continues to go on here? guest: the v.a.'s going to continue to look into this thing whether it is contractors. health centers across the country are going to do in other more exhaustive -- do another more exhaustive report. hereey thing to remember is the v.a. does hundreds of thousands of these appointments every year. they affect all sorts of people. the quality of care has affects across the country. it is a massive system. that is bound to happen. the key is finding out what can be fixed and what can be improved. topic president

obama fraud up yesterday as he was talking about eric shinseki's work, what he had done for the v.a., and where these waste time problems came from. here is a bit more from the president's statements yesterday. >> where we have seen a problem, where we have been aware of a problem, we have gone after it and fixed it and have been able to make significant progress. what is absolutely clear is this one, this issue of scheduling is one that the reporting systems service --dha do not did not surface to the level where we will able to see it -- were able to see it. when i was traveling around the country, the particular issue of scheduling. we are going to have to see to make sure how we get the information on how our systems

are working. host: explain the scheduling issue for those who may not be as familiar with the story that started coming out earlier about this. when: the issue is veterans: and want an appointment they need to have this appointment within 14 days. that has proven to be an unattainable goal. it could be a result of resources, of management. meeting that goal determines bonuses, determines whether people get promotions. to get around that they have created this dual books system where some people are kept off the books so it is not clear that there are so many on the waiting list. thehoenix more than half of veterans waiting for appointments were off the list. more than 1700 were off the

books. how many actual investigations are going on about the v.a. right now? by their members of congress and specific committees looking into this as well -- are there members of congress and specific committees looking into this as well? guest: absolutely the v.a. panel is going to be looking into this. the white house is doing its own inquiry. president obama sent one of his aides to phoenix to get to the bottom of what is going on there. doing itsve the v.a. own audit of almost all of its health centers across the country. some veterans have been waiting an average of 115 days for their appointment, which is much much

more than the 14 days they are supposed to be waiting. problem is much bigger than it had been originally. obama waspresident asked if the justice department can get involved. what that he say? guest: he said that is absolutely on the table. in the phoenix report there are allegations of harassment. many on the hill call for those things to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. form ofuld be a criminal response. host: we will go to richard waiting in pennsylvania on our line for better's -- for veterans. caller: fortunately for me everything ended quickly. with 25 years experience. i have been to every v.a. in pennsylvania and delaware. call people to let them know that walt's for all -- that --

v.a. is ok. the secretary definitely had to go. haveext secretary has to power to fire people because if you are not doing something properly you have to be fired. a doesn't matter if you are good guy or not a good guy, you should be fired for not doing your job right. if you do that in the private sector you are going to be fired. going to have whistleblowers and then everybody will go to jail and the whistleblower will keep their job. overall nobody tends to believe what they have to say when they come out and say this is what is going on. my cousin was in albuquerque, new mexico. is albuquerque issue personal to me. not just because of my family members but all veterans are my

family members. host: the color brings up whistleblowers. with reports of this, where there whistleblowers before the cnn story from earlier this year ? that was the one that gained a lot of headlines. guest: if there were they did not get blown up nationwide like this one to give -- this one did. there are reports that this wait time issue -- the whistleblowers who said there are cheating -- there is cheating and deception, that is elevating this to the level it has been act now. level it is now. it says in this piece --

that is in today's paper. theontinued talking about resignation yesterday of eric shinseki. john is up from camden town, missouri on our line for veterans. caller: i think blaming shinseki for this is ridiculous. the fault belongs with congress.

i will give you a good example of how congress works. -- yesterday you had a republican on there from texas, i cannot remember his name, discussing this same problem. the moderator read a report stating that each representative -- each doctor in the v.a. had a list of 2000 patients he was responsible for. this congressman said, that is not too many. there are doctors with 10,000 patients. of silly to me. i got out a pencil and paper and in 30 seconds i figured out that if a doctor had 10,000 patients, he works 365 days a year, 10 hours a day, each one of those patients would get 30 minutes of his time a year.

notproblem is congress does know what the heck is going on. care and they politicize everything. our: if you want to see interview yesterday with jeff miller, you can check that out .n c-span.org we also interviewed sheila jackson-lee. in terms of other members of theirss tweeting out reactions to eric shinseki's resignation yesterday -- also senator harry reid, majority leader -- conch cement cory gardner out of colorado --

congressman cory gardner out of colorado -- congressman armey bera -- congressman ami we are taking your calls and comments. bill is waiting on the line for veterans. he is calling in from new jersey. good morning. caller: the thing that gets me is we either have people that are in charge and have no sense and have the reason for making the decisions that they make. as far as the veterans problems are concerned, there are too many veterans going to the facilities to be treated. they cannot handle them all. the of use thing to do would be close to 50% of veterans are over 65, they already have medicare.

why doesn't the government supply them with a supplemental insurance and tell those people they can go to whatever facility they want if they cannot get a at the veterans facility he echoed that would put the pressure on the facility appointment at the veterans facility. that would put the pressure on the facility. any of the solutions work into these proposals? guest come this is at its heart a health care issue. it is a question of what is going to be the best system to deal with as many people who have to go through the v.a. system. this administration has been dealing with health care issues for it while. the possibility that those sorts of proposals could be used with the v.a. problems. we are not seeing a lot of

concrete proposals just yet. yes a lot of federal population at this point are 65 or older. we have a ton of veterans coming back from iraq and afghanistan and all of the issues going on in the fee a -- in the v.a. will only be compounded if you have an influx of veterans coming back from recent wars. certainly an issue that won't be going away. they have to get to the heart of proposals about specifics of health care in the best way to provide health care. host: a question specifically twitter -- guest come i think the v.a. is saying yes we need more money to do our job. -- guest: i think the v.a. is saying yes i'm a we do need more money to do our job. the cause of the ability to meet the 14 day requirement is they do not have enough providers.

there has been a lot of debate about this in the past. coming around. people are saying yes, the v.a. needs more funding. host: question -- guest: it is part of the benefit and payroll system that exists right now. that is one of the first steps that secretary shinseki took before he left, removing some of those bonuses. some people have been getting bonuses and are not living up to what they are supposed to accomplish. that is something we may see go future to diminished in v.a. systems. host: the white house -- here's

more from him on remedial actions he was taking in response to the v.a. crisis. [video clip] >> i will issue the process for the removal of the senior leaders. [applause] we will use all of authority at our disposal to enforce accountability among senior leaders who are found to have instigated, tolerated dishonorable scheduling practices at the v.a. health care facilities. i have also directed that no dh a senior executive will receive any type of award for 2014. [applause] i have directed that a patient wait times be deleted from tha -- from dha reports as a measure of their success.

there contacting each of 1700 veterans in phoenix waiting for appointments to bring them the care they need and deserve. we will continue to accelerate access care for veterans nationwide, utilizing care both in and outside the v.a.. [applause] we will announce the results of our nationwide audits of all the v.a. health care facilities in the coming days. congress to support senator bernie sanders's bill, giving greater authority to remove senior leaders. announcements -- do those announcements continue despite his resignation? guest: they do. the president announced they will be put in place. what really struck me was when he said, i was surprised this

was happening. this has never happened in all my years in the army. people talk about the need for cultural change. perhaps the secretary just didn't understand the culture of the v.a.. host: taking your calls and comments. let's go to doris waiting in chicago, illinois on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: i am really sad that general shinseki has been vilified in this way. i think it's a pretty good human being and he dedicated his life to this country and the military. my husband was a vietnam vet. he enlisted to the one 73rd airborne brigade.

problems, wee any were happy with the care. i think the one thing missing is that republicans do not take any responsibility for their actions in these debacles. -- isdia is come complicit. host: which actions are you talking about? caller: hold on a second. the problems of the v.a. was compounded by these two wars, afghanistan and iraq. we had more wounded veterans. but we had tax cuts. and we had no increase. we did have an increase in vets meeting care. v.a. saw were cuts to in 2008 bush proposed cuts to v.a. a $612 paul ryan proposed

billion cut to the v.a. that would have taken 1.3 million that's -- million vets out of v.a. do you hear that in the media? nope. host: your thoughts on the history doris was talking about. guest: the funding question is a difficult one because there are reasons to say there is not enough funding at the v.a., that there are issues with funding, but in a lot of ways to budget has grown. it has not necessarily been declining. or notstion is whether it has been growing enough to keep up with this continued continued demand. and whether or not the money is being used advantageously and being used well, actually helping veterans as opposed to just building a bureaucracy that doesn't get anything done or help those veterans.

it is a matter of funding but it thatso a matter of using funding well. host: off of twitter -- whose loan tips in the echo guest: -- who is sloan gibson? infantry is a former officer who was a banker for a couple of decades and then he way he uso, which is the put in the veterans community know him. that is the organization that puts on two wars in war zones of entertainers and past set cookies and coffee at airports around the world for troops. has now been handed the job of running the v.a. in the wake of eric shinseki's resignation.

how long has he been on the job? guest: three months. it is going to be a steep learning curve as the president acknowledged yesterday. there is a lot to be addressed. host: haslam gibson made any comments that you have seen? i have not interviewed him or seen any substantive comments. we're talking with chris carroll and leigh munsil. we're taking your calls and comments. up next on the line for republicans from brooklyn, new york. caller: good morning. i finally get a chance to talk. president bush was a republican president. we had some scandal. this time, with president obama -- there is a high number of scandals.

solution.aising this they didny situations, not solve anything, but doubled my number of scandals. i think this resignation is a catastrophe for the community and the u.s. obamaa negative point for as a democratic president, with his policy to military staff. president bush, as a republican president, he had some good points. war in different countries started fighting each other. the persons in scandal were much lower than with presidneent obama.

host: he brings up the politics of this. can you talk about it from that perspective? what will this mean heading into an election year? a midterm election year, which compounds the sort of thing. a lot of democrats who were in the districts that were in danger were quick to jump on the bandwagon of calling for his resignation, calling for answers. obviously, politics plays into this issue. it is difficult to politicize veterans issues. that is the sort of thing that can backfire on you if you want to use it as a political point. it is veterans lives hanging in the balance. so, politics always pleasant to this. it has always been a disappointment, on the forefront of people's minds, for the

administration. they have been trying to push a bench of foreign policy related issues. the president came out and made and aouncement foreign-policy speech at west point, which laid out his doctrine for less intervention a summer on the world. now he is going on a two or of normandy for the d-day anniversary this next week. so, he has a lot of things he is trying to do. the scandal is just the split-screen. that is what they call when you talk about the media. you have the president on one side and the a issues -- v.a. issues. in the next week or so, he cannot get away from this issue. it will make it difficult for them to do what he wants to the leading up to the midterms, and make the points he is strong on foreign-policy. there are issues at home.

host: let's go to that line for veterans, daniel is calling for maryland. caller: good morning, how are you? host: good. go ahead. caller: i have been listening to general shinseki talk. the people in phoenix were about to be rescheduled. what is happening to the rest? i am a three-time combat veteran from new combat, not the vietnam stuff. what is being done for all of hospitals across the nation? are they all getting recalled? guest: there has been more attention on phoenix, naturally. that is where the story came out of. all of them are being reviewed now. there was just a quick review done. not that this is happening at

most v.a. hospitals. i can only assume, i i do not know for sure -- these people who have not had appointment scheduled will have them. host: this is one of the challenges that sloan gibson will be taking on. guest: absolutely. that will be his first rollout of the gate, to re-instill confidence in the v.a. to appear strong and able to deal with these issues. to get to the bottom of it, rather than brush it under the rug. that has been a frustration in the past. the question will be how much he will be dedicated to finding out what is going on. pusheems that there is a from congress and the president to get to the bottom of this. he will be able to have the backing he needs to find out what is going on.

host: go ahead. guest: the way i see it, this will be an easy thing to fix. a practice.topping what is not going to happen is problem of long wait times being fixed. host: i should note that sloan gibson was taking over the v.a. -- he was on this program back in 2009, when he was the uso ceo and president. the united services organization. he was talking about, at that point, the 60th anniversary of the usl. o. you can see that on c-span.org. we are talking with leigh munsil and chris carroll. there are 25 minutes left in the segment. we will go to frank in new

jersey on the line for independents. caller: how are you doing? host: good, go ahead. caller: i am a combat veteran from vietnam era. v.a., i am call the 100% connected. a lot of times, they will say to me, can't you see one of your outside doctors? we are on medicare, you know. it is a constant thing with them trying to ship me off to medicare. there was one instance where i had an ailment in 2010. it lasted for almost two years. i kept going back to the v.a. and they kept trying to shove me off to an outside doctor. i ended up getting a colonoscopy, and oscar the, everything. i family the got to the bottom

of things. it took two years. there are not enough doctors on the gp side. you have theck, stomach flu or something, and you call them up, they will try to make an appointment for you for two weeks away. you are sick that day. they tell you to go to the emergency room. the emergency room is 60 miles away. they just do not have enough doctors. this sort ofunsil, complaint is what members of congress are hearing as well. guest: absolutely. these are the things they want to try to fix. and also, keep in mind within dod and pentagon, personnel is a huge part of their budget. it ballooned over the last few years. it has become one third of the base budget. payroll compensation, those

sorts of things, for veterans. there is a good chance that we will see you reform of that as well. there will perhaps be less money spent or money spent more strategically. so, all of these things will be looked at in depth. host: one question from gene in ohio. what is the difference between active duty and veterans health care? guest: that actually was talked about this week. secretary hegel came out and said that the pentagon health service for active-duty service members -- and some retirees, would be audited as well. just make sure they don't have the same sorts of problems going on. there is a bit of confusion about what that wasn't how it was different. the v.a. is more for veterans. and the pentagon health services for active-duty. there is a little bit of overlap.

i would be interested to hear the specifics of that. it is very consultative process. it is difficult to get the nuances correct. host: chris carroll, do you want to jump in? host: -- guest: the active-duty service is called tri-care. it is a very good health system. no co-pay for service members. there are not a lot of issues like with the v.a. it is not perfect, obviously. military retirees are also eligible for tricare. although, there is some overlap. with tricare, you can go to a va hospital. it is a very complicated relationship. host: let's go to mike in bonita springs, florida. caller: yes, this is mike. i was an instructor at a

community college back in the 80's and 90's. i had a class with veterans. one of the subjects that was brought up was the exposure to agent orange. instructor, i took it upon myself to do some investigation. what i found was what the veterans were saying. they were not allowed to continue. there were no results and not downside to exposure. we all know what was happening in vietnam. it was used as a herbicide. the forces could detect the other indigenous people who had high cancer busters. -- clusters. those were reported. when the veterans came back,

they could not be seen for that. what i did, as i did my research, and found out that it is a contaminant chemical that was put into the -- you just can't control it. long story short. therehe cdc was doing, was a company that produced this. they were in charge of also producing the results on the humans. that is mike talking about his own research. chris carroll, have you done any work on agent orange? guest: not exactly. he does bring up an interesting point. one of the -- came in,etary shinseki one of his orders was to reduce the wait time for processing

orders. he has attended to that diligently. ago, they maders the decision to accept people with agent orange claims. that expanded the weight time -- wait time for benefits processing greatly. this did not look good for shinseki. a lot of people said it was the right thing. is except that the claim. host: for folks who are not familiar, tell them about stars & stripes. guest: this is a paper that covers the military. it is an independent paper within dod. under some federal legislation, it gives us editorial independence. we have no influence by the pentagon or military structures. we operate all of the world. carroll was

previously a staff writer at national geographic magazine. we're also joined by leigh munsil out of politico pro. also, a former staff writer at dallas morning news. we are taking your comments and questions for the next 15 minutes or so on the resignation of eric shinseki. leigh munsil, i want to ask you a question posed in the washington post. in the longshinseki term create who might be a more permanent replacement at the v.a.? gibson may stay for a while, even to the end of president obama's term. there are names being floated as possible replacements. one thing to keep in mind is that you may have to have any eventual replacement go through a senate confirmation process. given that this has become so political and so frustrating to members of congress, this has turned into such a big issue.

that will be a very difficult process, no matter who you name. anyone who is not palatable to the senate will not be a good choice at this point. a lot of times, you want someone who will fly through the senate fairly quickly. perhaps some names that have been brought up were military generals. asy perhaps would be seen positives. some other -- another side of this is the v.a. health care summit. it needs to be run with someone with health care experience. haveill see candidates who more of a background in those sorts of specifics. maybe the typical v.a. a situation of bringing in a veteran, some one who served a long time and is well respected but maybe does not have the organizational skills. host: talk about the rigors of a nomination process.

does sloan gibson have to go through nomination before he took the job? guest: i believe so, yes. he did go through a nomination process. he has already been approved by the senate at least to serve at v.a. host: chris carroll, your thoughts? nuest: it is always a interesting parlor game. i have seen a lot of former military members and generals mentioned. mike mullen has been mentioned. peter curley, the former vice chief. choice. interesting he focused heavily on the problems of ptsd and health care for soldiers. i think that appeals to veterans as well. some politicians have been brought up as well. ist: the wall street journal

taking up this question of who might be a permanent replacement. here is a chart of some possible picks for the next veterans affairs secretary. one of the possible picks noted in that chart is a republican. the wall street journal noted that the confirmation hearing for whoever replaces mr. shinseki has a prime opportunity for republicans to score points against the obama administration. a republican could ease the process to something that is not terribly political to begin with. just some thoughts on a possible placement. let's go to jerrold on the line from indiana. caller: good morning. my name is gerald. i am a past commander, retired. i also am married to a vietnam girl. i brought her back here to the united states. an honorable veteran.

i received in 1997 -- no one is talking about this, but i received full compensation of 100%, disabled. they reclassified me as 60%. now they want me to pay them back $253,000. i talked to the american legion representative in indiana. they told me i would be punished because i married a vietnam girl and brought her back. i should have never married her. i should have married somebody in the united states. this is what i was told and i am very upset about it. d talking about his situation in indiana. it's good to roger in des moine s. caller: good morning. i have been listening to everybody say more money, more

money. the last four years, there has been $1 million each year carried over. millionr, there is 500 that is being carried over. $4.5 billionears, that has not been spent. also, do you realize -- i just heard this. obama just met with shinseki for the first time in two years, and that is when he accepted his resignation. 08, wasnt obama, 2007-20 given reports on these. deal forhis a prime

his reelection. and nothing is happening. it has gotten worse. host: chris carroll, a couple of points. one on the unspent funds. was this the first meeting in several years? believe he met within him the week before, possibly the week before that. i do not know what the schedule history has been. he met with him once before the resignation. funds, i am just not familiar with whether there possiblynt funds or some statutory reasons they have to be directed in certain ways. that is a possibility, though. host: leigh munsil, any thoughts? anst: the funding issue is interesting one. especially when you talk about whether there needs to be more funding.

one thing that i have talked about with todd harrison -- he tends to be a good person to talk to with budgetary stuff. that the v.a. budget has grown over the past several years. there is a chart that goes up in the past 10 or so years. there are a lot of veterans compensations. those funds have gone up. it could be a matter of funding, but it is a matter of using funding well. throwing more money at a system that does not work does not fix anything. neither does taking out the official at the top of the system. these issues are systemic. that is what the report found out. they are across the country. there is a lot more to it than just more funding. i think that is too simple an answer. host: use of that term systemic from the report --

members have been using that in their statement of concern about the v.a. and their comments this week. you keep hearing systemic. one question for leigh munsil -- one caller had this question. is there any data on veterans complaints? particularly in arizona facility? is there any data tracking over the years for not getting appointments on time? she want it to know if there's anything like that before these reports came out earlier this year. guest: i imagine we would find out any longer audit situation. we might find out more that stuff by august. one of the issues in phoenix was that there were 1700 people who were not on any electronic waiting list. aba official testified before the committee on the house side this week and pushed back on this idea of the seeker waiting list. he said that those documents were not able to provide the documentation of wait times,

because he said they were intermediate work documents. they were not kept. they did not keep all of those records. the question of whether they kept records of debate, where they are, whether those we made public, is an audit situation he for the end of the summer. host: we will try to get in as many calls as we can before the end of this segment. we're talking about eric shinseki's resignation, announced yesterday. let's go to johnny waiting in georgia. caller: good morning. it seems to me that it is ridiculous. removing general shinseki -- mccain is a senator from arizona. he is closer to the situation. he should have been able to solve that. i am sure someone could call him and tell him what was going on. should be fired.

thank you. host: chris carroll of stars and stripes, have you heard some of these complaints before? that member should have been more on top of these issues? guest: sure. i have heard complaints about mccain and congress in general. you can't really fire a senator. , how much managerial oversight a senator should have is an open question. i don't know how many complaints the senator received at his office about the v.a. topic,ow, on the same the v.a. is in the -- right now. it is not a system that is seen as bad. there are a lot of veterans that are satisfied. in these moments, to have a clear view of what the picture really is.

it is a mixed picture. the systemic problem is kind of a narrow system problem. whether that means there are other systemic problems, they could. -- it could. as of now, i think we have an incomplete deal. host: let's go to alan in new jersey on the line for veterans. caller: good morning. i am a veteran from iraq. i am 100% disabled. i went to the v.a. with a formal complaint about the way that the doctors were handling my claims. not my claims, but my service. those complaints were told to me that the doctors are untouchable. there are not enough of them to do anything about. i wrote to congress and never received any answer back. then i went to washington and had them take me to the hill.

i spoke to numerous congressmen up there in washington. nothing was ever done about it. hadso found out that they passed a bill for veterans who blindness, and spinal injuries. there was money granted to the veterans. the v.a. got that money and misappropriated it. when i talk to these people on the hill, they did not have a clue where this money was or where went. host: leigh munsil, more concerned about members not having their hand on the brains of some of this funding. guest: some members of congress have a better sense than others. this sort of issue is obviously highly geographical. like senator mccain was mentioned -- phoenix has a lot of v.a.

facilities, as does the rest of arizona. senator mccain has paid fairly close attention to veterans issues. bernie sanders has been an advocate for veterans. most people in congress want to be seen as advocates for veterans. what they know about their ters in theirth cen district is less clear, depending on their floor speeches and stuff. it obviously is something that lawmakers pay attention to. if you go to town hall meetings, when election season comes around, there are hearings for veterans. a lot of constituents are veterans. a lot of voters are veterans. a lot of people are getting very deeply into the political process and have that background. a lot of lawmakers hear from veterans all the time and hear these sorts of things that we are hearing on the calls. specific instances of frustration, whether in clinics or funding.

congress has to at some point be tuned into this issue. i think a lot more has come to light recently that makes it bubble up. we will see more hearings and more specific attempts to get to the bottom of this system as a whole. host: you bring up bernie sanders, the chair of the veterans affairs committee here. he made a statement after the resignation. to unequivocal goal must be provide the highest quality health care to our veterans in a timely manner -- we must transform the culture of the v.a., establish accountability, and punish those responsible for the manipulation of wait times. i look forward to working with president obama and the new leadership to make that happen. one more call from harrisburg, pennsylvania, on the line for veterans. matt, good morning. caller: i currently live in harrisburg, pennsylvania. for two years. previously, i received treatment in brooklyn.

i received excellent treatment in new york. i am an independent, but i agree with the republicans. there ought to be an investigation of every single were presented at. they have all received complaints. they have had time to hobnob with their financiers and lobbyists. they should be under oath to give a detailed account of that. host: who do you think should be conducting those investigations? counsel orcial someone outside of the justice department. host: the executive branch? department of justice? caller: yes. host: chris carroll, your thoughts on whether something like that should happen? guest: that sounds somewhat unlikely. members of

congress would be investigated to see how they responded to constituents. i do think that the caller is right. thingskely, a lot of the result in no action or just a short letter to the v.a. packets a pro forma response. the way this works is that as it as it builds its reach -- as it builds it reaches a critical mass. sometimes it is a random thing. host: that is all the time we have in this segment. i want to thank our guests area in -- our guests. thank you for both -- thank you both for joining us. lis from therek wil

new york times. later we will talk with jerrod with jared peta -- goodman from peta. we will be right back. >> what has been the result when you have this classic economic hold down problem with retransmission for video, you have companies doing this game of chicken where they cut off service to customers. they are starting to block traffic on their internet services for customers. it causeste result is spiraling up and up. hamstrung byally

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c-span's new book "sundays at eight" includes journalists on the fall of the soviet union. -- >> many of the problems we saw at the end begins at the very beginning. i spoke earlier about the attempts to control all institutions and the time to control deal -- control political and social life. when you try to control everything and you create opposition and potential dissidents everywhere. if you tell all artists they have to paint the same way and one says they do not want to paint that way, you have just made him into a political dissident, someone who may have otherwise been a political. tell boy scouts for have to be young pioneers, which is what happened in a number of countries, and one group decides they don't like that so they form a secret underground boy

scout troop, that is what happened. you have just created another group of political opponents in another way. >> more from our q&a programs. now available for a father's day gift. "washington journal closed quote continues. host: derek willis talks about campaign finance. this week he had the headline -- what was your measurement for congressional accomplishment here in this data-driven piece? guest: is not a perfect measurement. it is not something that is going to give you to first and last word on congressional productivity. billasurement was

introductions, which is the first step on the way to making sure a bill gets possibly to the president's desk and signed into becoming into law. what i measured was how money bills are members of congress introducing in the house. i also checked the senate. oath chambers were pretty interesting in that. measurement, it is coming down after several years of a flurry of bill introductions in both chambers. is the fewesteing number of legislative proposals offered since the end of the clinton administration. host: the measurements has been bills passed, because result of this process. we're trying to give members the benefit of a doubt in productivity by starting on the front side. guest: in.

congressional productivity is a really hard thing to measure. thing the process is designed to be difficult. if it were easy to pass bills you would see a lot more being passed. it is designed to be tricky. not only do you have to get the bill out of your own chambers theittees but then all to floor and passed but all of the majority of your colleagues but also in the other chamber and go to the exact same process and maybe reconcile any differences. over.a high bar to get what are they doing differently now than they may have done in ?he recent past is our bills a good measure of what they did is members of congress? you find they need to do

different things other than simply introducing legislation. that is not the whole story behind this change, this reduction in the number of bills proposed, but it is part of it. many of them see a lot of other tasks as necessary and critical to their job. host: this specifically for the u.s. house, the number of members who have introduced 25 proposals has fallen two thirds compared to the previous .ongress that puts the house on track to produce the number -- the lowest number of legislative proposals since the clinton administration. take us through the senate steps you found. the number of bills so far introduced this year at the

beginning of january 1, 2013 up until than -- up until the end of this week, it is up 23%. is -- is itening is is not a historic low but it is getting back to the levels we saw in 1998 and 2000. from 2001 through 2012 actually saw a lot more legislative then whatoffered would traditionally be considered normal. in most congresses you probably get seven or so thousand. we recently had 7000 bills in the house and three or 4000 bills in the senate. that has been pretty high, relatively speaking. now we are getting back to what is a bit more normal legislative activity.

thing was interesting the number of people who are simply reducing the number of bills that they are offering. that is pretty different and .nusual -- not manyt memory members of the house that do that. host: a visual on house bill introductions, this from the start of the 113th congress through may 13 of this year. that is compared to the same timeframe in the 112 congress, congress,ress, 110th and so on deadline down to the 105th congress. if the legislation --

guest: i ran the numbers specifically for house bill -- not resolutions or joint resolutions that may not have the force of law if it becomes passed and signed by the president. the senate holds for bills that do establish law or do the other necessary things that legislation often does. get the speaker of the house to be able to respond to some of these concerns about the lowest numbers of bills introduced. here is a bit from speaker john boehner's weekly republican radio address, touting some of the legislative accomplishments of the house. this is from the end of april. [video clip] >> the majority of the house is made your priorities our

priorities. we make it easier to find jobs and create jobs in places like this. we are ready to improve job rating programs. open new markets for small many factors and repeal and replace obamacare. the president said he wanted this to be a year of five partisan action. it still can be. we just need to get leaders in the senate to take up our jobs bills. while republican may be the minority in washington we have made some headlands. for the first time since the korean war we have cut spending. we kept -- we protected 99% of americans from taking tax increases. and we have passed the free trade agreements that have paid big dividends for our government. host: from that radio address it dones like the house has

quite a bit in the past year and a half. guest: i don't want to leave the impression that the house has literally done nothing. certainly there are many thousands of legislative proposals that have been introduced. some of them have been passed by the house. there is the tension the speaker references of, we passed things in the house, why isn't senate acting on them the echo that is part of the -- on them? that is part of the reality of the split government. there are some frustration on the bill on the part of the .ouse republicans there is activity. they are passing builds -- passing bills. i think part of the frustration you see sometimes the media or among people is the appearance of gridlock is pretty prepaid persuasive --

pretty pervasive. get toeant to be hard to a legislative accomplishment or victory. wrote this piece is there are individual members of congress that are changing their tactics a little bit. they are adjusting their tactics to fit this new situation of gridlock and the fact that it -- in some instances it is hard to get a bill all the way to the present. some of them are doing different things. emphasis on maybe they spent more time on rounding up their colleagues and try to bring bills to the floor or prevent bills from coming to the floor. maybe they spend more time getting involved in issues through the media or state or local politics back home.

host: we are talking with derek willis. here to answer your questions and comets about his recent piece -- the number of bills proposed is down sharply from previous congresses. the foam ones are open. democrats can call -- we will start with ed calling in from philadelphia, pennsylvania on our line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. to ask the gentleman, does he not remember the 2010 elections that was not only a landslide, it was a restraining order to stop this. it worked. another question would be how many bills as the house passed

the echo -- the house passed? guest: there are probably dozens of bills that have been passed out of the house that are not getting any action in the senate. that is the partisan result you will get from having a divided government. i think even more important is the sense that the 2010 thereons in particular, is this idea that passing bills was a strong measure of that. if they are not passing bills or than congress is not working in some respects. -- in the sense of i was not elected to pass laws, i was elected to restrain the size of the government or restrain government spending.

there are certain members to take pride in a headline like that. i would think there are certain members who were elected and have the backing of many of to notonstituents introduce more legislation or to , to event that they do repeal existing legislation or existing law. those are legitimate legislative goals and outcomes. this isn't a situation whereby if you are not passing laws you are not fulfilling your duty or not accomplishing the goal you may have set out to accomplish. yes there is a legitimate political and legislative could result in you limiting or reducing the amount of legislation you propose. host: good morning. caller: good morning.

they cut medicaid. security, andcial -- everything they asked for we cut. it is all president obama. theyand nine -- 2009 -- don't even pick the right people here. we don't need him here. we need the speaker of the house. we are talking with derek willis, who writes for the new york times. did you havearch to to on this piece and where did you go to find out how many bills are passed? rut -- thekfully the

library of congress -- the library of congress keeps track of all these things. they have lots of information you can just pull off of their website. host: that it's all open to the public. what piece of see legislation your representative have introduced. we had to do a bit of collating of those. and aggregating of them to come up with the overall statistics for how they have been introduced. the attrition is broadly available if you know where to look. about members not seen the electoral benefits of introducing bills to have introduced in the past. explain that. guest: very often you do not need to pass a bill to get some

sort of political benefit from it. for example if there is a particular issue in your district or your state that is a the mereconcern, even act of introducing legislation , here is what i think should be done about it, here's what i am proposing, in the past there has been a political benefit just by doing that in many cases. if only the rest of my colleagues would be as wise as i am or a coup with me we could get this done. i think some of the folks i talked to for this story casts some doubt on whether or not that is as valuable as it once was. >> the folks who mostly voice that concern our political science professors i talked to. are -- amongere

members, their concern was, if i have a lesser chance of getting something out of committee and onto the floor and passed by my what is the benefit of me introducing legislation that is not going to go anywhere? that in the fact that it could almost become a liability in the sense that you proposed office legislation but it hasn't gone anywhere. what is the benefit for the constituency? i think that focus on whether or not my congressman has been able to work with other congressmen to get bills passed and signed into law, that is a totally legitimate constituent concern. with dereke talking willis from the new york times about his recent piece. you previously worked at "the washington post" center for

and "the palmty beach post." here to answer your questions and comments. let's go to maria waiting in westfield new jersey. caller: my representative has been reside in the spring. he introduced exactly one bill. i want to ask this gentleman to reply. colonists byl the the british. after world war ii we took our place in the world, which explains why we are rebelling on the great gamble in afghanistan, the trade agreements, new client have a four-legged -- a foreign legion with cubicles being allowed to come in.

are billing cds in afghanistan for foreign companies. i think we have to look at the -- guys for we need all the people of the it is foreign-- aid. the defense thinks trade agreements -- of these people are not for us, they are against us. we need to march on washington or do something. concernedseems to be that when congress does something it is doing something overseas and not at home. guest: certainly there are committees and members who are dedicated and focal to foreign affair concerns.

andrews as i remember, even when i was not a congressional quarterly, was one of these members who had a bill for every situation. he introduced a lot of bills. i remember the article in the washington post when he resigned because it said he did not get any of them pass. in some ways i think it is a difficult characterization to make because he was one of these lawmakers who was induced -- who introduced more than 25 bills. was a was looking for spot to fill it on. i remember talking to him about this. i dropped off most legislation that i chop off legislation and

most of it doesn't go anywhere. the timing is right. a lot of this is frankly about timing. about legislative process. it is having the right language for the right situation at the right time. one way to do that is respond to events. congressman andrews, what he did was try to preemptive -- the members that introduced the most pieces? guest: it shifts from congress to congress. there are a lot of longtime members who have legislation introduced repeatedly, year after year or session after session. jose serrano from new york is one of my favorite examples. --ce the end of the edmund since the end of the clinton administration he has introduced a bill allowing a third term for presidents. it is a monthly it will go anywhere. -- it is unlikely it will go

anywhere. it is something he feels strongly about so he introduces it at the beginning of every new congress. there are a lot of folks like are fewer folks in congress that are the other way, who don't introduce a lot of legislation. to the extent you can , we don't needem to work on a lot of legislation. their work is focused on committee those pieces of legislation that will already be introduced and voted on. you don't see from a lot of the legislation that addresses the concerns. host: off of twitter -- guest: i don't think we really have a good definition of what a productive congress is.

we don't have a very consistent definition. there's no perfect measure in my mind. you talk about congresses that actually pass significant legislation, there have been a number of congresses. congress havefdr legislation that had tremendous long-term effect. a reader wrote a lot of domestic policy. and you can say the same thing about lyndon johnson. you can also say similar things past about thet 109th or 110th congress. a passing the four noble care act and other issues, things that were pretty substantial pieces of legislation. since those are contested issues thatlot of ways,

productivity doesn't mean the same way at the same thing for someone else. -- doesn't mean the same thing for somebody else. of twitter -- guest: many presidents found themselves frustrated by what congress will or won't do in terms of their agenda. him that happens to republican presidents, two democratic presidents. that is not a new thing. but different presidents may have to have different ways of looking at congress. president obama distancing all that interested in working with congress at this point because they have not been able to do stuff together in the last four years. the evidence is pretty plain. host: we go to harry waiting in pennsylvania on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning.

i am calling about the unemployment extension for jobless benefits. the deadline was supposed be june 1. when we get the call it is congressman john boehner. they tell me, what was passed in .he senate it seems like john boehner -- no one isit and talking about. what can the president do to get this legislation passed? it is very important and very urgent. isould like to know where it at and what the president can do to get this done. guest: there are a couple of things -- first of all there is a mechanism within the house for forcing a vote on legislation. it is called a discharge petition. the discharge petition requires

that some members of these with the majority party are signed on to enforce a bill to the floor. of the last times it happened was 2002 of the campaign finance bill. there is at least one way of getting that go on the floor, sort of by force. signaturesgether 218 and then that requires the speaker bring that particular bill to the house floor for a vote. obviously there are other ways to get laura. -- to get -- the traditional bill to getting a house passed is through the committee. the committee process is not exactly as it used to be. the committee, particularly in are holding to the

leadership of the house rather than autonomous. they were never completely him thomas -- completely autonomous. it continued with speaker boehner. the committees have been doing things mostly at the direction of the leadership. if the leadership does not want a bill to come to the floor, it is pretty easy to stop that bill. host: a bit on your story of that topic on the role of the committees quoting david price of north carolina. partly what's going on here is a decline in the committees, congressman price said. he's a former political science professor and introduced four bills this congress, down from 15 from the previous one and says, the place is much more centralized and less active, less autonomous committees. we're talking with derrick willis of "the new york times," writes for the upshot there about his piece on a do-nothing congress. well, pretty close is the headline. we'll go to michael waiting in

new york. new york on our line for democrats. michael, good morning. caller: good morning, gentleman. mr. willis, i have a question for you. a few calls back, there was a gentleman calling and he was stating every bill passed by congress, that goes on harry reid's desk, he doesn't touch it, but what they still cannot understand is just like the clip that was shown with speaker boehner talking about job creation and job training, the very last thing he says is, and to repeal obamacare. harry reid is not picking up any bill that's got repealing obamacare. and republicans just don't get it. so that's why those bills that are coming from congress aren't going anywhere. host: this has been an issue. caller: certainly over the past couple years and republicans in the house, again, i think it's them representing the wishes of their constituents, will pass legislation out of the house that repeals or defunds in

whole or in part, parts of obamacare, of the affordable care act. and the caller is absolutely right. the senate, in most cases, isn't interested in those pieces of legislation. you saw that sort of an extreme when it came to the partial government shutdown last fall because it was triggered over issues related to defunding or repealing of the health care law. so there is that natural -- i mean, it's that constitutionally designed tension between the house and senate but then you throw into that mix, you have this issue over a very controversial, to many folks, the health care law. host: you brought up sequestration, did that issue or the recent country's budget woes contribute to this lack of bill introduction, do you think? guest: i'm not so sure it did so much because for many of these members they do a lot of

bill introductions at the beginning of a congress and because they have proposals that they've been championing for a long time or want to get started early, because it can take months to get a bill into a committee, out of a committee, and on to the floor. a the lo of times they're introducing bills the first five or six months in congress. for most of these bills we're talking about, they were already introduced by the time -- months before sequestration became an issue. it's more of a single explanation than a combination of factors. i think it's very possible that sequestration and the effects of that haven't exactly been a positive or an encouraging sign in which you may want to introduce new legislation. i'm not sure it was a prohibative sign. host: we have 10 minutes left of derek willis of "the new york times" to talk about his piece on twitter, american hero

joe writes in on this topic of a do nothing congress, perhaps rhetorically, joe asks, what exactly do you want congress to do that would be an improvement over nothing? let's go to mark waiting in chico, california, on our line for democrats. joe, good morning -- mark, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a comment and a question. rom what i understand, members of congress spend like four or five hours a day dialing for dollars. and i think that's ridiculous and it doesn't need to happen. we need some -- that whole campaign finance is just terrible. but my question is, when john boehner took office, he would only put bills on the floor that the majority of his members would support and he

wouldn't even consider if the democrats might pass it. and so isn't that a quandary right there? and thank you. host: mark -- guest: that does limit your options, by design in this case, it sort of co-localely called the hastert -- hastert rule on the floor that a person shouldn't bring a bill to the house unless it has the support of the majority of the majority. this isn't a hard and fast rule and other speakers haven't paid attention to this and speaker boehner brought several pieces of legislation on the floor that passed without a support of the majority of the majority. for instance, the spending bill for relief for hurricane sandy and other natural disasters. so it does, but if you start out with that as sort of your -- kind of one of your

principles or guiding things, then i think it does limit the ability for certain bills to pass, just based on who is backing them. this is not an entirely new thing, though. this has become a little bit more -- it's become a little more prominent in people's minds the last decade, but generally speaking, it was prior to the republicans taking control of the house in 1995, there wasn't really -- this wasn't an issue because most of the time democrats had such a large majority that almost every seggetive proposal that came to the floor had the support of the majority of the majority. it didn't happen that often. you hear about it now more because the margins between the two parties in the house are relatively closer than they were in the 1970's or even the early 1980's. host: i want to ask you if you're surprised by the findings of a bipartisan poll that came out earlier this year in march regarding opinions on

u.s. congress asking voters their opinions on different aspects of congress. and this according to the "usa today" story about that poll, found -- americans say it's more important for their representative in congress to stop bad laws than to pass new ones. on that, there's a -- there's no partisan divide, 54% of republicans and 51% of democrats say blocking bad laws should be their priority in congress. the story goes on to note, one of the pollsters from the bipartisan policy center who helped run that poll saying, there's a feeling on the part of many people that in this environment where they don't see a lot of good that's happening, their goal is to have their members stop bad things from happening and see polarization as a way of doing that. re guest: that strikes me as logical for the current situation though i don't think it's entirely new. congress has, for its history -- throughout its history, has done a lot in the way of

stopping laws, preventing bills from being passed. it's not necessarily a new thing but certainly is a factor and i think it becomes more important in people's minds, in the public minds when you have a situation where it is back and forth, gridlock, divided rule, divided powers in washington. that sort of heightens the priority for stopping what one person considers to be a bad law or a bad proposal. and so i think for many democrats, these midterm elections for the senate are all about stopping laws from being proposed, like if they can retain the majority in the senate, then they do not enable some of these proposals that have come from the house to ever reach the president's desk, thus forcing a possible veto. hannah: a host: a few minutes left with derek willis of "the new york times." let's go to pete garland. thanks for waiting, pete. caller: my question is this,

sir. the house republicans keep saying about all the bills they've passed but the senate passed a bunch of bills, too, that the house hasn't brought up. if the house republicans want to complain about not passing their -- their bills not being passed, what about the senate bills not being passed? especially the unemployment. i know that's one that's dear to me. guest: yeah, the caller -- pete raises a good point. it goes both ways in this instance, which is to say the house is in charge of bills it can pass and the senate is in charge of bills it can pass and both chambers choose what to consider and not consider. and there are certainly senate proposals that have been passed by the senate, by a majority of the senate, that the house won't consider and vice versa. i think that we make a lot about that. we make that kind of a big deal. and in some instances it is a very big deal or can be a very

big deal to a lot of people. it also is sort of the default situation constitutionally. in that the way the legislative process is set up is that each house has its own prerogatives and in order for something to become law, they have to agree. and the default outcome of any sort of legislative process is the status quo, is let's not do anything. to actually t is accomplish something. the harder task in legislating is to pass a law that changes the status quo. host: do you think the elimination of the earmark process had an impact on the numbers that you found? guest: i think so. because in certain instances, t now has made it harder for members to get money or funds for particular projects back home. i think it has had an impact. i think it had an impact on appropriators themselves on their work but i also think

that because of the reduction of earmarks and this sort of change in the committee process, particularly in the house, i think what you see is members now see the appropriations bills as their only -- or their main hope to getting any kind of language of theirs they drafted into law. so maybe it's -- maybe it comes in a different form but now they see basically, i have to tailor something that can get into a legislative -- into an appropriations bill, as an amendment or stand-alone bill or whatever. but i think that's changed the way appropriations has changed and changed the way members respond legislatively. host: let's go to gerald waiting on the line for republicans in oklahoma. good morning, gerald. caller: good morning. i just want to respond a little bit to this. obviously, i'm a republican, and you know, not necessarily a tea party but certainly conservative. but i think the best examples of presidents and the different

congresses are really the ones that can, you know, someone like myself, a good example would be bill clinton and newt gingrich. certainly polar opposites and they were able to get -- achieve a great deal of reform and they did a great deal of -- they passed a lot of legislation. so the affordable care act, there was not a buy-in at all from one republican. now, ultimately president obama won the battle on that, but he lost the war in the sense that he didn't have the buy-in from the republicans. no, you know,, you cited lyndon baines johnson, and i'll agree, they accomplished a great deal. ronald reagan, tip o'neill. those are the -- that's what you want to see is the best -- you want to see leadership from the executive branch, the president, and you want to see

congress work together. maybe you don't get everything you want, you know. but just what the affordable care act, you would have had something that we all could have lived with. instead you have president obama, you know, continually defending and it's just not a workable solution. so they need to try to work together. guest: gerald makes an excellent point. there are plenty of examples of bipartisan congressional esidential common ground, at least progress. the clinton and gingrich example is a good one, though it should be noted it took a government shutdown to get to that point. but that doesn't -- that actually underscores gerald's point in the sense there is going to be conflict and there are going to be disagreements but there also are examples or

ways to get together and do things. i think what's missing from the current situation between the legislative branch and executive branch is there isn't a lot of trust on either side to advance big proposals. there are proposals for dealing with immigration or tax reform that has a lot of support among a lot of people but it's tough to get done because it's very difficult for one side, for either side to sort of trust how much the other side is going to do and vice versa. host: irish eyes writes, congress' inability to do what we pay and send them there for is clear evidence why we need a none of the above ballot choice. let's go to mark waiting in henderson, north carolina, on the line for republicans. good morning. caller: how are you today? host: good. go ahead. caller: i listened to you on c-span and wasn't going to call but i heard this man, and correct me if i'm wrong, aren't spending bills actually supposed to originate in the house and not in the senate so that harry reid passing an

unemployment bill that which is a spending bill, he actually did not follow his protocol because that bill is actually supposed to originate in the house and not in the senate. correct me if i'm wrong. guest: depending on the wording of it and whether it's an extension of an existing program or whether it's obligating new funds, yeah, there are spending bills, appropriations bills and passed bills, for that matter, are supposed to originate in the house. and this is something that has obviously -- the senate obviously -- folks in the house, it's a point of pride and responsibility for them and for the senators, sometimes that can be a pretty big irritation, frankly, that they have to defer to their house colleagues on that. and so some of the stuff that goes on in response to things like that are what amount to sort of protest actions by one chamber against the other, where they pass a bill they know won't get picked up for a variety of reasons but one of

them might be the reason like this isn't your responsibility to initiate, it's our responsibility to initiate. host: that's all the time we have with derek willis but if you want to read more on his piece, it's the "a do nothing congress -- well, pretty close." it's in the upshot, the data driven column in "the new york times" and we appreciate you stopping by with us. guest: nice to be here. host: we'll talk with derrick goodman with hunting and fishing groups to write hunting rights in state constitutions with jared goodman. we'll be right back. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp.2014] >> you realize all these families are there and you're in the trenches with them. this family, maggie's family, maggie had been through nine surgeries in nine months, various different problems. so as daunting as our situation was, we were really feeling for them. and we were in that waiting room every day, walked past maggie's bed on the way to paul's bassinet. the day of paul's surgery, we came in and maggie's family wasn't there. she had passed away the night before. and it was really, really hard to imagine that family had spent so much time waiting for her to get out of the hospital and she didn't make it. so we went into surgery that day, eight-hour surgery, first open heart surgery of three, and as we're sitting in the cardiac intensive care unit watching through a clear plastic bandage, my son's

heartbeating, you know, which was a moment in and of itself, the nurse comes over and says, you have a phone call. and they brought me the phone and it was maggie's mom checking on paul's surgery. and the strength and the grace and the fortitude it took for a mother who had lost her child the night before to call and check on our child, i think it was a moment that we'll always remember. >> fox news channel anchor brett bear on his career and his book, "special heart" which chronicles the life and near death struggles of his, paul, sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's "q&a." >> you now can take c-span with you wherever you go with our free c-span radio app for your smart phone or tablet. listen to all three c-span tv

channels or c-span radio any time. there's a schedule of each of our networks so you can tune in when you want, play podcasts of recent shows from our signature programs like "afterwards," the communicateors, "and "q&a." download your free app online for your iphone or blackberry. >> "washington journal" continues. host: last weekend in this segment of washington journal we had a representative on from the sportsman alliance to talk about efforts added to a constitutional amendment added to several state constitutions this year to protect hunting and fishing rights. here now to take on the same topic from the perspective an animal rights organization is jared goodman who serves as the animal law director for people for the ethical treatment of animals. eight states with the right to hunt and fish ballot measures this year, if they all pass, 24 states total will have

constitutional amounts protecting the right to hunt and fish. what has been peta's response to this effort to enshrine hunting rights? >> these constitutional amendments are entirely frivolous. all they're serving to do is to clutter the state's most mportant charter of government with special interest group political statement. as it is, these states allow hunting. all these constitutional amendments expressly recognize that the state continues to have the right to regulate hunting and this is purely a political statement. hunting is -- there are less than 6% of the population is currently hunting in this country. and hunters realize that that number is only going down and the constitutional amendment is t going to change people's minds and stop them from choosing more ecologically responsible activities.

host: our radio listeners, we just showed a chart with the states considering amendments to the constitution for the right to hunt and fish this year. that's indiana, michigan, missouri, mississippi, new jersey, new york, pennsylvania, and west virginia. the states that already have the right to hunt enshrined in their state constitutions, alabama, arkansas, georgia, idaho, kentucky, louisiana,man, montana, nebraska, north dakota, oklahoma, south carolina, tennessee, virginia, washington, and wyoming. in peta's view, is there any ethical hunts? is there any form of hunting that peta is ok with? guest: there isn't. peta's position is unequivocal, no animal, regardless of species, should be killed for sport. host: what is peta's mission for those who may not be familiar with what peta does?

>> animals are not ours to use, eat, use for entertainment or abuse in any way. host: on the hunting issue, peta has been involved in efforts to monitor hunts using new technologies, efforts to promote the use of drones to monitor hunters. talk about that effort and where that's gone. guest: this is peta's air angels program and essentially peta sells hobby drones on its website with the hope that just hobbyists and people will buy them correction creationally to use them to essentially monitor what's going on in the woods and with hunters with the idea that they can capture footage of very common but illegal hunting practices like drinking while in possession of a firearm, using feed lures and spotlights and shooting animals and failing to pursue them and we encourage the people who do capture this to turn it over to

game wardens. host: what's been the response in states where this has happened? >> from the states themselves? host: yes. guest: there really hasn't been any of. i know of one effort to ban the use of drones to interfere with lawful hunting practices. but simply the air angels program doesn't do that. it's intended to just monitor and to capture illegal activity. it doesn't interfere with either the hunters or the animals. host: last week as we said in the segment of "washington journal" we had a representative from the sportsman alliance to talk about the effort to enshrine hunting rights on certain state constitutions and will be on the ballot in eight states this year. in that segment of "the washington journal" he was talking about, bill horn, the federal affairs director of the sportsman alliance, talking about peta and these other groups, calling them part of the radical animal rights movement. i want to play a clip of that and get you to respond to that. [video clip]

>> animal rights is a radical philosophy in and of itself. for hundreds of years, the judeo-christian western ethic has not invested animals with rights on par with human beings. we have obligations to treat animals humanely and not engage in malicious contact. we have animal welfare statutes that reflect those concepts but the idea that animals are completely on par legally with human being beings is a radical notion and the woman who was one of the founders of peta used to say in her opinion a rat is a big is a boy is a dog which means there's absolutely moral equivalence between a laboratory rat and human being and we frankly reject that. that is a radical notion and we'll continue to call it a radical notion. i think an animal rights advocate may not like that term but think it's an accurate one. i think the idea that there's somehow gratuitous violence

going on in the woods in terms of hunting is simply wrong. people who have engaged in this over the years understand the notions of ethical fair chase pursuit. most of us have this connection to the wild animals. that's why we're out there hunting and of course one of the great privileges is to be able to do it, to bring home a wild duck and serve yourself a wonderful wild duck dinner puts you a little bit more in connection with our roots and our history and we think that's something to be cherished and protected. host: jared goodman from peta is the animal law director. your thoughts on bill horn's comments last week? guest: there's a lot to unpack there. first, as far as just claiming that peta opposing hunting here is a radical position, it certainly isn't. i have to mention there are less than 6% of the population of the united states hubts -- hunts and the vast majority of

the population opposes hunting. so this is the mainstream. host: where do you get the stats from on the opposed hunting versus supporting hunting? guest: these were gallup polls, i believe. it certainly wasn't a radical position by any means. it's simply these animals are in their natural habitats and have the right to not be killed for sport. it's truly simple as that. mr. horn mentioned a concept in his fair chase but really it's neither of those and nothing fair about an animal in his or her habitat being shot at with high-powered shotguns and into -- and bows and arrows where they have no opportunity to run or escape it or let alone fight for themselves so there's nothing fair about it. host: we're talking about jared goodman of peta, here to answer your questions. if you have comments or questions, our phone lines are

open. call. democrats 202-585-3880 and republicans 202-585-3881 and independents 202-585-3882. we mentioned earlier in the program if all the states that have ballot measures on their state ballots this year pass those measures, 24 states would have constitutional amendments protecting the right to hunt and fish. this has all happened mostly since the 1990's, 23 of those would have happened since the mid to late 1990's. you take these ballot measures as a sign the work that you're doing at peta is being noticed? >> absolutely. and the legislatures in proposing these ballot initiatives have been very clear that the purpose behind them is to combat the animal rights organization, the animal rights organizations and the

concept that people are no longer comfortable with hunting and are realizing animals are a part of our environment and not moving targets and just one other thing to address from mr. horn, he mentioned that hunters hunt because of a certain connection to animals and certainly there are other ways to connect with animals and wildlife in a much more effective way where it actually engendered appreciation for the environment as opposed to simply slaughtering animals and taking them from their families and damaging ecosystems, things like kayaking, canoeing, hiking, bird watching. there are lots of options for someone who truly appreciates the environment to show respect for it. host: jared goodman of peta here to take your comments and questions, starting with doc caughting from baton rouge, louisiana, on the lined for intent -- independents. good morning. you're on with mr. goodman.

caller: good morning, mr. goodman. i have a question. i agree with a lot of the things you're saying. i want to know what is peta's views on totally dismantling d destroying a person in the womb? could you give me -- because i get nothing but the run-around when i ask people about that that belong to peta. we protect animals, do you all protect humans? host: jared goodman? guest: peta is an animal protection organization. we protect animals from unnecessary suffering which includes being chased after and hunted with shotguns and crossbows. peta takes no position with regard to this issue which is why you likely haven't received an adequate answer for it. host: tom waiting in alexandria, virginia, also on our line for independents. good morning.

caller: good morning. i am a brazilian, by the way, originally from ethiopia. host: we can hear you. caller: i'm originally from ethiopia, what makes the united states different is the right to choose. mr. goodman chose not to eat meat and not to hunt and not to fish. how does he have the right to impose his views on me not to fish, not to hunt, and also, let me add, does the fact the farmers and hunters are the biggest contributors of conservation to the environment, to the wildlife, etc., etc. so don't i have the right to make my own decision and choose? they're trying to make it illegal for anybody to hunt and fish and do anything else. you can choose to watch birds. i watch birds, also. i plant trees. i work, i volunteer to restore

river systems and so forth. why should you have the right to impose your choice on me? host: jared goodman, responsibility. guest: really like any crueltyy towards animal, crueltyy is prohibited by law. while hunting and fishing is not currently prohibited, peta believes it is simply cruel. there's no right to use guns in any manner that anyone sees fit and ideally the use of guns to kill animals in hunting would be prohibited just as all other types of gun violence are. as for your point about your contributions to conservation and other hunters, there simply would be nothing to prevent you from doing that if you are not hunting. and i personally appreciate the efforts you have made to contribute to those issues and would hope that you would continue to do so even if you were not killing animals for sport. host: last week on the

washington journal, bill horn of the sportsman alliance brought up this same topic and here's what he had to say on it. [video clip] >> people need to understand there's more than just personal choice involved here. the hunting and fishing community basically provide almost 100% of the wildlife conservation funding at the state level with licenses and fees and duck stamps. and at the federal level rough special excise taxes the federal government levies on guns and fishing tackle and it's those moneys that approximate $4 billion a year that sustain our wildlife management programs within the united states. we terminate hunting and fishing through failure to protect it from these activists and terminate that funding stream and wildlife conservation for both the hunting and nonhunting publics is going to suffer. host: jared goodman? guest: there's simply no evidence that individuals would

not continue to contribute to these causes and as one of your callers actually mentioned last week, caring individuals like the vast majority of the population who decide not to hunt, would certainly be willing to contribute to these conservation efforts. that's essentially it. host: in terms of hunting and what you would support and don't support, there is a question, what if an animal is invasive in destroying an ecosystem? he points out like russian bores in the south. guest: i admittedly, i'm not incredibly familiar with russian boars in the south. it's a position commonly taken by hunters and this happens very often in the context of white tailed deer where, as we heard last week, individuals are saying they do this to, quote, control the population. but the fact there are more than 20 million deer currently in the u.s., surely that's been

an ineffective management policy and studies have shown that controlling breeding and sterilization are possibly long-term and effective measures to control overpopulation. even beyond that, only 6% of animals were actually hunted are deer, at least 40% are quirrels and doves who unquestionably pose no issue with regard to overpopulation, are not being eaten and killed solely for sport. host: chris in alabama writes, i always thought people who hunt for sport are a little unbalanced. we want to hear your thoughts and comments. we would be happy to hear from hunters as well in this segment of the washington journal. we have about 20 minutes or so left with jared goodman of peta here to take your calls and comments. joe lynn is up next from crystal springs, pennsylvania, on our line for republicans.

good morning. caller: good morning. i am the wife of a hunter. i am the mother of hunters. i do not hunt myself but i will tell you right now, i thoroughly enjoy cooking and eating what they bring home. they're out there, they spend a lot of money in this economy. they call the herds, whether you believe that or not. you're welcomed to believe that. but do not try to thrust your way of thinking on everyone. that's what's so wrong with you people. you constantly go after -- you don't eat meat, i do and i enjoy it. i enjoy fish. i enjoy squirrel. i enjoy dove. host: all right. we'll let him respond. guest: really, regardless

hunters are eating the food they're catching, there simply is no excuse for killing animals for food these days. there are so many wildly available and affordable vegan options in supermarkets and restaurants across the country, like vegan hot dogs and hamburgers, barbecue ribs and crab cakes. but there simply is no reason to kill animals for food. as far as calling herds and believing there is a conservation purpose to it, a perfect example of the issues and why they're presented and why this isn't really an accurate position occurred in north carolina just this month when a federal judge had to step in and prevent the hunting or, rather, stop the hunting of coyotes because endangered red wolves were being killed because hunters admittedly were killing the two populations.

host: a tweet, overpopulation of species are not -- are easily controlled not by hunting but ensuring natural predators are not driven to extinction. we're taking your thoughts and comments with jared goodman of peta, the animal law director there. how long have you worked at peta? guest: five years. host: always as a animal law director? guest: began as a fellow. host: what are some of the issues you work on as animal law director besides hunting? guest: one of the issues particularly pertinent to our discussion here relates to ag-gag laws. host: explain that? guest: essentially anti-whistle blower laws pushed forward by the meat and animal agriculture committee to prevent anyone from exposing cruelty on farms and in slaughterhouses, poor working conditions and food

safety issues and this is another example of an industry attempting to thwart the progress of not only animal activists but just the public who are generally concerned about animal issues now, and these bills, like the right-to-hunt bills, are popping up everywhere, unfortunately, peta, through its campaigns, has had wonderful success in getting them defeated. 15 of these 18 bills have been struck down after being introduced in recent years, and two of them are currently peta along with other animal protection organizations, journalists, and civil liberties organizations have challenged two of them on constitutional grounds because they are a blatant violation to the right of free speech and freedom of the press. host: wild and wonderful has a question about peta's mission. is it peta's goal to eventually end the consumption of any animal for food? guest: yeah.

peta's position is unequivocally that animals are not ours to eat. host: let's go to ann waiting in sugar grove, north carolina, on our line for independents. good morning. caller: hi, good morning. thanks for taking my call. i have so many things on my mind but will keep it short. i saw the program last week with bill horn and calling animal rights people radical and whatnot and saying the country was built on judeo-christian values which i find very hypocritical because i want to read this quick quote from st. francis, if you have men who will exclude any of god's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have mean who will deal likewise with their fellow men. that's really all i wanted to say. thank you very much. host: ann from sugar grove, north carolina. unless you had a comment on ann's thoughts? guest: i would just like to support ann and thank her for calling in and say i entirely

agree it is not traditional judeo and christian value to hunt animals. the opposition to hunting spans far beyond and encompasses both parties. it's a nonpartisan issue. and it simply is becoming archaic which is the reason for this push to enshrine the right to hunt as ineffective as these amendments may be in the state constitutions. host: the caller brought up last week's segment with the member of the sports alliance, bill horn, and you can see it on our website at c-span.org but we have 15 or 20 minutes left of jared goodman with peta to tackle this subject this morning. we'll go to bill waiting in melbourne, florida, on our line for democrats. good morning, bill. caller: good morning. i just have a couple comments here. mr. goodman keeps bringing up

hunting for sport but i don't think that hunting for sport covers people that actually eat the animals. hunting for sport is putting a head on a wall and nothing more. the next thing is, the majority of americans don't go into space but we're not canceling nasa yet. i think that most of these opinions of his are ridiculous and think it's far more humane to hunt an animal in a wild than send a bunch of animals through a slaughterhouse. finally, peta should just be more honest and go about banning meat eating in the united states and then we'll see if the majority of americans really support their views. thank you. host: mr. goodman? guest: i -- the issue with the vast majority of americans not going into space is entirely irrelevant because going into in e is not harming animals nature and their natural habitats and not only is this

disturbing animal populations but it's also disturbing ecosystems and it prevents animals from engaging in their normal eating habits. it's incredibly stressful. often mothers are killed and then their children starve in the wild or -- and actually, with regard to fair chase, as we spoke before, and which bill horn i know mentioned a number of times, studies have shown that most kills are not quick and animals are often shot and left to die prolonged and slow deaths from their injuries. one study actually has shown with regard to bow hunting, 50% of the animals who are shot are not killed and are maimed and manage to escape and must die slowly from their injuries, from either blood loss, shock, gangrene or just being vulnerable to predators because they've been attacked. host: for folks who want to

check out these studies, where is the best place to go to find out the information you're talking about. guest: peta.org and on peta's website there are citations to all of these statements. host: dede fredericks writes on twither and it sounds like a states rights issue with a variety of views among the various states. we have 10 or 15 minutes left with jared goodman of peta. i want to talk a little bit about paid hunting licenses in the united states, the number of license that are out there, some stats, according to the u.s. fish and wildlife service on this, in 2013, 14.6 million paid hunting license holders in the u.s.. that's down from 14.7 million 10 years ago in 2003. it was 15.6 million in 1993. 16.4 million in 1983. your thoughts on these numbers?

guest: just hunting, the interest in hunting is dramatically increasing as people are coming to the conclusion they're just much more humane and appreciative ways to look at our environment and you bring up an excellent point because with regard to the position that hunting licenses are funding conservation efforts, we're seeing these hunting licenses dwindle and certainly the funding for conservation efforts has not been lost with that. host: let's go to henry waiting in california on our line for republicans. henry, good morning? caller: good morning. i thank c-span for being there. mr. goodman must not be a hunter. because what he says animals are defenseless. have you ever stood in front of a bear, a pig? deer are very, how would you say, aggressive if given the opportunity.

i was taught at a very early age to respect, whether i was fishing, hunting, and so it was taken with some -- how would you say, right that i think our creator put food here and for me to, how would you say, eat it. and that's pretty much all i have to say. thank you. host: mr. goodman? guest: i think it's probably fair to assume you also eat food that you do not kill yourself. surprising, to say the least, that people take the position that you truly respect the animals that you kill, because certainly you wouldn't kill an individual that you respect. and with regard to the animals being defenseless, regardless how aggressive a bear may get when he or she is trying to

protect the cubs in the face of a hunter, certainly the bear has little defense against a shotgun, a crossbow, or a high-powered rifle. host: you talked a little earlier about the air angel technology that you're encouraging your supporters to use. can you talk about technology used on the other side by hunters. reports recently, a hunt in alaska, i believe, that used a drone to spot the animal? guest: this is actually one place peta and hunters tend to agree. these are being outlawed in states including alaska because for different reasons, of course, peta believes this is cruel, just as any hunting is, and hunters, because it's a form of cheating because there's no, quote, fair chase if you're using a drone to spot an animal. and frankly, there's no fair chase at any time and i don't

to rstand how using a drone just spot an animal makes any difference to that animal attempting to three from being killed. host: we're talking with jared goodman, the animal law director at peta. it's peta.org if you want to check out their website and follow them on twitter @peta. we have a few minutes to take your calls. jack is on our line for independents. caller: good morning. foremost, i'm an american indian and deeply offended by your position. you talk about the ecology and environment at no time in human history was the meshes -- americas in better shape than the hunting cultures of the american indians roamed this country. your arguments are species, spurious and ridiculous and am offended you use the term "enshrined" about the laws because you're trying to place

religious context on it. furthermore, i'd like to ask you, do you care about babies being scrambled in the womb? host: jared goodman, i'll let you respond to the first part of his question. guest: with regard to the ecology being in better shape years ago, it certainly is true and it's not because of hunting at the ecology was in better shape but everything else that happened from the environment, mainly large-scale animal agriculture and factory farms that are creating rivers of waste, noxious fumes, and slaughtering billions of animals per year to put them on people's plates. host: let's go to joe waiting in chandler, arizona, on our line for republicans. joe, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you guys doing? host: good. caller: the reason i'm calling, i'm not a hunter and used to hunt as a child but am not a big fan of game food in terms of the flavor, but i happen to

know a number of families that couldn't get through the years, stretch their budgets through the year if they couldn't -- or if they didn't have the opportunity to hunt, let's say deer or duck or wild turkey. and i'm a little concerned about peta's position when it comes to that sort of thing. they think that everybody has the opportunity because the food is available, they can get anything they want. and personally, i tried a variety of different meat substitutes and to be perfectly honest with you, they don't taste good at all. i'm a little concerned that you don't want people to eat any kind of flesh, but it tends to go against the nature of man, because if you take a look at the structure of a person's jaws, their teeth, they're designed not only to eat grains and vegetables, but also designed to eat flesh. so i'd like to have your comment on that. host: mr. goodman? guest: with regard to a

person's nature, you easily can look at your teeth and compare them to a carnivore like a big cat or domestic cat and these are animals who truly are -- who have been meaning to and have evolved to eat meat. certainly it's not entirely natural for us to need to do this for us to eat meat when you have to use a rifle, a shotgun, and bows and arrows and cook the meat afterwards. host: you bring up domestic cats. what is peta's position on domestic pets? guest: peta's position, certainly all of us, staffers at peta, including myself, we have cats and dogs and companion animals at home because there's just a terrible animal overpopulation crisis in this country. three to four million cats and dogs are euthanized every year

because there aren't enough homes for them because people do not make the responsible decision to speedway and neuter their animals and instead let them breed and buy dogs and cats from pet shops instead of rescuing them from shelters. host: let's go to scott waiting in niceville, florida, on our democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. host: do ahead, scott. guest: i'm a nuisance alligator trapper and recently wednesday i was called out to one of our local military institutions -- installations to capture an eight-foot aggressive male alligator because people had been feeding it. what would you do in that situation to of course what would peta do with that animal? because by law once you start feeding an alligator, they keep coming at people because they look at you as if you were fad. what would you do as a human? host: what happened to the alligator?

caller: by law i have to dispatch it and cannot relocate it because it will find its way back to where it was getting fed by humans. host: mr. goodman? guest: the response to that is you need to address the root of the problem which is to encourage people not to feed wildlife because it does create this issue that you then have to deal with. ideally the animal would not be relying on human contact or human food for survival and you would be able to take an alligator who has arrived somewhere where they may potentially be threatening humans and return them to their natural habitat. host: bill horn last weekend talked about the sportsman's bill moving through congress, the senate set to move on that bill. is peta doing anything, lobbyingwise, on the sportsman packages that are moving through congress? guest: peta generally encourages its members to oppose measures like this,

contact local representatives, respond to action alerts to their representatives, and as i mentioned, the ag-gag laws, has held press releases showing undercover footage from investigations and encouraging people to contact their governors. peta is not a lobbying organization but certainly supports legislation to protect animals and opposes legislation that threatens them. host: talk about some of your undercover investigation work. guest: peta undercover investigations have been around for decades and have revealed just horrific cruelty such as individuals at farms kicking pigs in the head, spray painting them in their eyes, smashing chickens and turkeys into the ground and throwing them like footballs. and these are the type of activities that these ag-gag laws i mentioned are attempting to shield from the public. and the purpose of these

investigations is to show people what truly is happening behind closed doors. the american public has a right to be informed. and we've been celebrating investigations like this and of the meatpacking industry for over a hundred years for exposing cruelty like this and informing the public and reating change and now big agriculture is attempting to prevent the public from learning these things. host: what are some of the more high profile ones that viewers might know about that peta was involved in. guest: one of peta's most significant investigations was in 2008, a pig farm in iowa where some of the cruelty i explained was taking place that resulted in actually 22 felony charges against the workers there. other investigations have resulted in the first ever charges for abuse of birds on factory farms as well as other charges and convictions for

cruelty to animals in other places. host: what is peta's budget on a yearly basis to run the work that you do and some of these investigations? guest: well, peta, as indicated on its 990, it is about $30 million per year. host: is that all through donations? guest: yes, completely. there are no private backers or anything like that. it's a 501 c-3, nonstop corporation. host: let's go to keegan in connecticut on our line for republicans. you're on with jared goodman of peta. caller: how are you doing? i have a question for mr. goodman here. you like your country. i would prepare to say you love your country. caller: absolutely. host: now, isn't it a fact that our country has been formed for us to express how we want to. our right to pursue whatever passions we want to pursue, life and liberty, all of that

as long as we don't harm another human being? guest: our country certainly is built on liberty and you're correct, i do appreciate that and appreciate our freedoms but frankly i disagree. we are not able to do whatever we'd like as long as it doesn't harm another human being. there are environmental crimes, cruelty to animal laws in every state. in fact, 49 states have felony cruelty to animal provisions and that number has been increasing in recent years because of the public interest in protecting animals from cruelty. host: one of the things i want to get you to talk about if the couple minutes we have left here is peta's efforts to get the 13th amendment applied to animals, including orcas at sea world. guest: this was one of peta's groundbreaking initiatives and was the first lawsuit ever attempting to apply the constitution to nonhuman

animals and this lawsuit was brought on behalf of the five wild captured orcas at sea world and we asked the court to extend the protections of the 13th amendment to them because they are unquestionably being enslaved at sea world. these orcas in particular who were captured from their homes are forced to perform for human entertainment, are forced to breed and put through artificial insemination procedures, and were taken from their families, transferred between different facilities when it would create bigger revenue for sea world. host: what's the status of that lawsuit? guest: unfortunately, the court didn't see the 13th amendment as a way to protect these animals from slavery but there is no question they are being enslaved. the lawsuit was based on the plain language of the 13th amendment which simply prohibits the institution of slavery wherever it exists in this country and our position

is the species of the slave is not any more relevant than the gender or ethnicity of the slave. host: jared goodman is the animal law director of peta, peta.org and follow peta on twitter if you'd like @peta. thanks you for joining us on "the washington journal." guest: thank you for having me. host: that will be our show for saturday, may 31 and will see you tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern, 4:00 p.m. pacific [ [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp.2014] . >> coming up today on c-span, a discussion about the f.c.c.'s open internet policy. then president obama hosting this year's white house science

fair. and at noon eastern, some of the commencement addresses from graduation ceremonies from across the country. you'll hear from businessman and philanthropist mark benioff and suzanne rajitsky and dallas mayor mike rawlings. >> c-span's new book "sundays at 8:00" includes journalists on the fall of the soviet union. >> the soviet system in eastern europe contained the seeds of its own destruction. many of the problems we saw at the end we see in the very beginning. i spoke in the very beginning about the attempt to control all institutions and control all parts of the economy and political life and social life. one of the problems is that when you do that, when you try to control everything, then you create opposition and potential disdents everywhere. if you tell all artists they have to paint the same way and one artist says i don't want to paint that way, i want to paint

another way, you've made him into a political dissident, someone who might have been otherwise aye political. if you tell boy scout troops they're not allowed to be boy scouts anymore and they're to be young piners -- young pioneers and one group decided they don't like that underground scouts were very important. you would just create another group of political opponents from a political teenagers. >> read more of this conversation and other featured interviews. this is now available for a father's day gift at your favorite bookstore. >> a look at the fcc's open internet policy which they voted to move forward with later this month. if only implemented the proposal that with provide better service