The Department of Veterans Affairs has been scrambling to fix its backlog, which has reached 584,308 claims that have been pending for 125 days or more. About 873,680 veterans have filed claims and that number continues to grow.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) have started a petition urging President Obama to intervene and end the backlog. They have started an aggressive social media campaign by using the hashtag #EndTheVABacklog and compiled a list of solutions to achieve the ultimate endgame for this process.

Many factors have contributed to the backlog, including a paper-based process system which should be digitized by the end of this year and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tom Tarantino, the chief policy officer for IAVA, addressed the paper system on Andrea Mitchell Reports Friday, calling it “a decades old problem.”

Statistics on the VA backlog

“The good news is that the Department of Veteran Affairs is switching to an entirely digital system and as of April of this year, they are not receiving any more paper for claims,” Tarantino said. “The problem is that the majority of the claims in the backlog are either resubmitted claims or older claims so 97% of that claims that are waiting are still in stacks of paper and it is going to take a very long time to walk through those  and frankly, even though they should have anticipated that they have not built the systems to do that in a timely fashion.”

The filed claims include both medical benefits and current needs. According to Tarantino veterans are seeking benefits for assistance with “hearing  loss, tinnitus, scarring, vision loss.” Benefits for post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries have also increased but because both are “difficult to diagnose,” they are “difficult to reign”

“As we’re seeing a lot more of these injuries come, especially from the Iraq and Afghanistan generation – who are surviving combat and living with much more complicated injuries, it becomes more difficult to rate,” Tarantino said. “The problem is that the Department of Veteran Affairs did not anticipate this and here we are 11, 12 years into the war and they’re saying well, we’re just seeing this huge flood of cases that they should have anticipated five or six years ago.”

When Mitchell asked Tarantino whether a shakeup is leadership is needed at the Department of Veteran Affairs, he expressed optimism that the changes being made now “will help prevent the backlog in the future,” saying “I think we’re going to see a much more efficient system.”

Tarantino explains that The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America are calling on “the president to lead.”

“This isn’t just about the VA,” Tarantino said. “It’s about making sure that the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs have the same medical records. People who make the veterans and people who care for the veterans should be looking at the exact same file. But right now if you’re a right, you don’t – the President of the United States does not give you clarity as to when you’re going to see an end to your long wait.”

“The recent declines in teen childbearing are sustained, widespread, and broad-based,” the agency reports, and they parallel a steady rise in birth-control use among sexually active teens. Over the course of two decades, these trends prevented an estimated 3.6 million births among 15- to 19-year-old girls.

Babies born to teenagers are more likely to experience low birth weight and premature delivery and more likely to die during infancy. And like other public-health problems, this one tends to affect people already facing other disadvantages. The public costs approach $11 billion a year.

The new report shows lingering disparities by race and by region, but rates have declined fastest in the groups at highest risk. As this chart shows, black teens gave birth at 2.7 times the rate of white teens in 1991; the rate among Hispanic teens was 2.4 times that of whites.  Among white teens the rate fell by 50% over the next two decades, but among blacks it fell by 60%, and the Hispanic teen birth rate fell by 53%.

Likewise, all but two states (West Virginia and North Dakota) have seen their teen birth rates fall in recent years. The biggest declines were concentrated in the Intermountain West, but rates also fell sharply in four of the six states in the so-called teen birth belt that stretches east from New Mexico to Mississippi.

For all the progress the country has made, it still lags far behind the rest of the developed world in preventing teen pregnancy. American teens give birth at five to 10 times the rate of their peers in Scandinavia and Western Europe—not because they’re more sexually active (they’re not), but because they’re less likely to use reliable contraceptives.

Countless factors affect a teen’s risk of pregnancy, but there’s one obvious way to reduce that risk that researchers have found. This country’s teen pregnancy rate fell by nearly a quarter between 1995 and 2002 alone. What drove the decline? In a 2007 study, researchers found that most of it—86% to be exact—stemmed from increased use of birth control among sexually active teens.

Obama is expected to deliver his remarks at 2 pm EST. Watch it live here:

The ad, titled  “CLOSE GUANTANAMO NOW,” calls to “stop the torture” and “end the war crimes and violations of fundamental rights.” It contends that the president closed the office responsible for processing prisoners’ releases, made it more difficult for lawyers to meet with their clients by recently banning commercial flights to the prison, and has stalled waiting for Congress’ approval to shut down the internment prison.

At the military prison, 166 men still languish, more than 100 of them engaged in a months-long hunger strike in protest of their continued detention. But rather than address their grievances, the U.S. military is now shackling the hunger strikers to chairs to force sustenance into their stomachs through their noses.

“It was the hunger strike that inspired all of us to feel like this demand to close Guantanamo, release the cleared prisoners…had to be delivered right now,” Debra Sweet, director of World Can’t Wait, the group that first organized the call to action, told MSNBC. “We feel it is extremely important to get this message out.”

When the president speaks Thursday at the National Defense University about counterterrorism policies in his second term, he has the chance to recommit to the principles of transparency and human rights that he promised four years ago. During his first election campaign, he said he would close the prison at Guantanamo within a year.

World Can’t Wait is a national movement formed to halt and reverse war, repression, and theocracy initiated by the Bush administration, according to the website. The ad’s call to action began with the Guantanamo lawyers, followed by well-known figures and others who have taken a stand against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sweet said.

The list includes attorneys for Guantanamo prisoners, former military lawyers, former Guantanamo guards, and famous names including historian Noam Chomsky, actor John Cusack, filmmaker Michael Moore, and screenwriter Oliver Stone.

The group has an ongoing fundraising campaign in hopes of publishing the ad elsewhere in the United States and internationally, Sweet said.

“The exciting part is we were able to gather a lot of young and emerging activists who have not been in this circle of activity before,” she said. “This was a chance for voices of conscience in this society to have a vehicle to make this unified expression together.”

See the full-page ad here:

In the opinion pages: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell talks IRS and the “left-wing playbook” in The Washington Post. Washington Senator Patty Murray and New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte outline their plan to decrease sexual assaults in the military in Politico. The Wall Street Journal editorial board discusses the Obama Administration’s “lack of political accountability“.

Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael McClendon, a staff adviser “responsible for the health, welfare, and discipline” of 125 cadets, has been charged with four counts of indecent acts, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment, and violations of good order and discipline. The New York Times reported that a dozen women are being contacted by the Army to discuss the breach of privacy, while McLendon has been transferred to the Fort Drum Army base in upstate New York.

The news comes at a trying time for the military. A recent Pentagon report found an estimated 26,000 personnel were sexually assaulted last year, many of them women. Of those, just over 3,000 cases were reported. Congress, led by a record number of elected women representatives and senators, is engaged in hearings that have shed light on the under reported issue, while exposing shortcomings in the military’s response and prevention systems. President Obama called on top military and defense personnel to stop the “scourge” of sexual assault during a Friday meeting at the White House, charging that it undermines the military’s effectiveness.

“Not only is it a crime, not only is it shameful and disgraceful, but it also is going to make and has made the military less effective than it can be,” Obama said Friday.

Following the meeting, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the military to review and retrain personnel charged with preventing and responding to sexual assault cases.

According to The New York Times, McClendon’s role involved “assist[ing] each cadet in balancing and integrating the requirements of physical, military, academic and moral-ethical programs.” Approximately 15% of West Point’s student body is female.

For more on this, watch NBC News Chief Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski’s report, below:

In the opinion pages: The New York Times’ editorial board looks at the Justice Department leak investigation into FOX News reporter James Rosen and the Obama Administration “going overboard“. The Wall Street Journal editorial board turns the tax spotlight back onto Congress after Apple CEO Tim Cook’s testimony.

Anthony Weiner is back.

As of 11 a.m. ET, there had been more than 64,000 mentions of the #PrayForOklahoma hashtag across Twitter, according to Topsy.com.

]]> http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/21/prayforoklahoma-survivors-politicians-share-stories-and-support/feed/ 0 Image: caramaresca http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/17/sexual-assault-a-scourge-that-hurts-military-effectiveness-says-obama/ http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/17/sexual-assault-a-scourge-that-hurts-military-effectiveness-says-obama/#comments Fri, 17 May 2013 22:17:51 +0000 Erin Delmore http://tv.msnbc.com/?p=141858 ]]> As yet another military leader of a sexual assault prevention or response unit came under fire for treatment of women Thursday–the third in just two weeks–President Obama called the prevalence of sexual assault in the armed forces a “scourge” and charged Defense Secretary Hagel with weekly meetings aimed at toward stemming the crisis.

“Not only is it a crime, not only is it shameful and disgraceful, but it also is going to make and has made the military less effective than it can be,” Obama said in a meeting Thursday with Hagel, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey, and top military and national security personnel. “This is not a sideshow. This is not sort of a second-order problem that we’re experiencing. This goes to the heart and the core of who we are and how effective we’re going to be,” Obama said.

The president vowed to task the military’s top personnel with overseeing efforts to address the long-standing, but chronically under-reported crisis.

“We will not stop until we’ve seen this scourge, from what is the greatest military in the world, eliminated,” Obama said.

Monica Medina, a former Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense under Secretaries Panetta and Hagel, told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Friday that a spotlight cast by Congress and the president on the issue could lead to reform.

‘The fact that sexual assault prevention officers within the military weren’t really taking it seriously is a sign that despite the tough talk at the top, it hadn’t permeated down through the ranks. So it’s time for that to really take hold now,” Medina said on Andrea Mitchell Reports Friday.

According to a Pentagon report, 3,374 instances of sexual assault were reported in the fiscal year that ended on September 30. The Pentagon estimates that as many as 26,000 military service members may have been sexually assaulted during that time, based on the reported number and anonymous surveys.

Congress, led chiefly by the women’s caucus, brought the issue to the forefront of discussion in recent weeks, holding hearings with military officials and sexual assault survivors. Legislation has been introduced in both the House and Senate to combat the prevalence of assault and to change the institutionalized reporting system.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand introduced a bill Thursday to remove the prosecution of these crimes from the military justice system. Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice system, officers in the chain of command have the ability to overturn a jury verdict, even on sexual assault cases.

Gillibrand called on Hagel, who has voiced support for no longer allowing commanding officers to overturn a verdict, to remove a commander’s ability to decide whether or not a case goes to trial.

“If you have 26,000 assaults a year and only 3,000 reported, you have a large structural problem,” Gillibrand, a Democrat,  said on Andrea Mitchell Reports Friday. ”We have to create a system whereby victims actually can receive justice to give confidence to other victims that they can come forward and hold their perpetrators accountable.”

Obama called the crisis in Syria, which has killed more than 80,000 people and displaced more than one million, “an international problem.” He insisted that an international coalition move to stem the violence.

“It is very much my hope… to find a solution that brings peace to Syria, stabilizes the region, stabilizes those chemical weapons,” Obama said. “But it’s not going to be something that the United States does by itself.  And I don’t think anybody in the region, including the Prime Minister, would think that U.S. unilateral actions in and of themselves would bring about a better outcome inside of Syria.”

At the same time, the president noted, “I preserve the options of taking additional steps–both diplomatic and military–because those chemical weapons inside of Syria also threaten our security over the long term, as well as our allies and friends and neighbors.” U.S. intelligence confirmed “with varying degrees of confidence” in late April that chemical weapons had been used in Syria by the Assad regime. Since then, the president has continued to call for more supporting evidence.

Obama held a Thursday press conference with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Edorgan told reporters that information pertaining to chemical weapons had been shared between Turkey and the U.S. and others. “The U.N. Security Council, all the other relevant authorities, will also receive that information in the proper time so that more information is provided to the public,” Edorgan said.

As Syria’s neighbor to the north, Turkey has been pushing for intervention in the region. Turkey hosts at least 300,000 Syrian refugees, according to UNICEF–causing a significant financial burden to the nation.

President Obama reiterated a pledge to “shoulder the burden” alongside Turkey and other countries in the region by providing humanitarian aid.

Asked about a timetable for Assad’s ouster, which the president has publicly advocated, Obama said, “We would have preferred Assad go two years ago; last year; six months ago; two months ago…Assad lost legitimacy when he started firing on his own people and killing his own people… So the answer is the sooner the better.”

The United Nations passed a nonbinding resolution Wednesday calling on Assad to stop the bloodshed. Obama praised the resolution saying “what we have to do is apply steady international pressure.”

“I do think that the prospect of talks in Geneva involving the Russians and representatives about a serious political transition that all the parties can buy into may yield results,” Obama said Thursday.

Edorgan noted his upcoming trip to Gaza and the West Bank in June, saying, “I place a lot of significance on this visit in terms of peace in the Middle East, and this visit in no way means favoring one or the other. I’m hoping that that visit will contribute to unity in Palestine.”