senator barbara mikulski will join mayor rawlings blake and others at the opening of the university of baltimore school of law today. supreme court justice elena kagan will speak at the event, along with u.s. representative elijah cummings. the center includes 15 classrooms, a 32,000-square-foot library, and a 300-square-foot mock courtroom. the shooting death of florida -- the shooting death of a florida teenager trayvon martin is back in the headlines. i keep hearing is being held today for george zimmerman, who was -- i key hearing is being held today for george zimmerman, who was accused of second-degree murder in the case. >> george zimmerman was accused of second-degree murder in the telling of trayvon martin. at issue, can he claim the controversial standard ground youruring trial -- stand ground law during trial? he waved the right prior to trial. >> is it your decision not to have a pretrial immunity hearing? >> after consultation with my counsel, yes, your honor. >> has anyone promised you anything to make this decision? >> no. >> has anyone threatened you? >> no, your honor.

were happy to give him our champion of public broadcasting award, as we gave it to the senator barbara mikulski, steadfast supporter of public television for her entire distinguished career here in washington. as for congress, we spend a lot of time talking with members of congress and their staff about what we're doing at the local level. we bring our station managers to washington as well as lay leaders, who are community letters who support -- community leaders who support our enterprise, and to tell them the story about the community service we provide and we also ask members to come back to their stations in their local communities and see on the ground what it is we're doing, and the more they see, the bet they're like what we do. so we're encouraging more and more interaction, and the more we get, the better off we're going to be. >> many of your congessal champions of public broadcasting funding are democrats. do you see the issue of funding becoming more bipartisan? >> guest: yes, i do. we just had a great public media summit at the end of february, the last day of which our members fo

able to give him our champion of public broadcasting award as we gave it this year to senator barbara mikulski, the new chairwoman of the senate appropriations committee, who's been a steadfast supporter of public television for her entire distinguished career here in washington. as for the outreach to congress, we spent a lot of time talking with members of congress and their staff about what it is we're doing at the local level. we bring our station managers to washington as well as lay leaders who are community leaders who support our enterprise in local areas to tell them our stories about the community service that we provide. and we also ask members to come back to their stations in their local communities and see on the ground what it is that we're doing. and the more of that that they see, the better they like what we do. so we are encouraging more and more interaction, and the more we get, i think, the better off weaver going to be. >> many of your congressional champions of public broadcasting funding are democrats. do you see the i i issue of funding becoming more bipartisan? >> gue

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this is from the united states senate offices of barbara mikulski.helby, a democrat and a republican. how did these contractors justify these salaries they are making? guest: the argument here is that they need pay high salaries in order to attract talent. they are essentially public employees and the republicans are often arguing that public employees are overpaid. there is an anti -- there is an inconsistency there. if the government can get employees that are confident the contract should be able to two big. -- able to too. the threshold is set at what employees of big publicly traded employees get. the government can turn around and bill them and pay more in profits on top of that. host: one of those contractor groups talking about this proposal that shelby and mikulski was trying to lower the salary-cap. he is the president and ceo of that group that deals with federal contractors. he says -- he also says much of the rhetoric on contractor conversation is intentionally misleading and reflects the stark reality of today's contracting environment.

toator barbara mikulski ignore sequester. house but is ignoring the sequester cuts in current law. a crafty bills at the one. -- $1.05 trillion level set by obama and senate budgets, senate appropriations committee chairwoman barbara mikulski is setting the stage for a showdown with the house, which intends to use -- about this gun debate? caller: there are plenty of state and local laws on the books. criminals will always be able to get guns. a kid who kills his mother and breaks into a gun cabinet can always have a gun. it is terrible descendant is getting involved in a tragedy to create new laws. i do not think anyone -- anything can be done about a nut who can get things done anyway. ?ost: do you own a gun what was the process in the massachusetts? caller: it is a tough state. you have to deal with whatever town you are in, local police. you have should state laws in massachusetts. that does not stop people from killing other people. it happens all the time. alexandria, virginia. on thee your thoughts republican line. the main thing we are talking about a major policy is to rea

i cheered barbara mikulski on in her efforts to get back to regular order. this is where decisions should be 345eud in prioritizing our spending. in the interim we ought to solve the problems we can. and solve the problems that affect the safety of the american people. > i would just add, whatever the politics here, the effort of the united states congress ought to be to reduce and minimize the harm resulting from sequestration. there is no point in doing more harm. our mott motto or mantra -- our motto or mantra should be as the doctors say, first do no harm. that's what's resulting from this approach to sequestration in an area that is not a thrill or luxury for many people. travel is essential to the functioning of our economy. in this day and age, air travel is integral to business development and job creation and all of us have a stake in making sure that we do nothing to harm that interest. in addition to air safety. >> i think senator blumenthal and i's call is that the congressional process ought to work. we ought to solve this problem. and we'll liv

barbara mikulski became a senator in 1986. nancy pelosi became the first woman speaker of the house in 2007. hillary clinton became the first comment to win a state presidential primary in 2008. these women ran into the one in our lifetime and in my lifetime, because i have a few more years on you, we've tripled the number of women who have served in congress, tripled .. the 113th congress has the greatest number of women ever. and i can proudly say that 59% of those women are emily's list candidates. but we are still only at 20%. and we still face challenges. i love to tell the story, when barbara mikulski was first elected to the senate, i'm serious about this, there was no women's bathroom in the united states senate building. seriously, she had to go to the office building across the street to go to the bathroom come and had to ask them to build a bathroom in the united states senate. that was in 1986. just to make this clear, we have mtv before the was a woman's bathroom in the united states senate. and this year senator

this is from the united states senate offices of barbara mikulski.eringalling for a of those caps. how did these contractors justify these salaries they are making? guest: the argument here is that they need pay high salaries in order to attract talent. they are essentially public employees and the republicans are often arguing that public employees are overpaid. there is an anti -- there is an inconsistency there. if the government can get employees that are confident the contract should be able to two big. to too. the threshold is set at what employees of big publicly traded employees get. the government can turn around and bill them and pay more in profits on top of that. host: one of those contractor groups talking about this proposal that shelby and to lower thetrying salary-cap. he is the president and ceo of that group that deals with federal contractors. he says -- he also says much of the rhetoric on contractor conversation is intentionally misleading and reflects the stark reality of today's contracting environment. we are taking your calls

senator barbara ma cull ski she's the one who had to make the decision to ultimately put it in the budget bill where it doesn't belong. us, it wasn't us, the spokesperson said, senator mikulskiands the anger of this provision. she didn't put it in the bill. she doesn't support it either. how did it get in there? some people think it's the obama administration who asked them to put it in. i want to go back to the tea party patriots. this is a different kind of special interest given away all together. this is a situation in which a company is given the ability to ignore court orders in what boils down to a deregulation scheme for a particular set of industries. now you know it's controversial when you got conservatives complaining about deregulation. that's how bad it is. okay. now, ben you look at this, and i mean, i keep trying to--there is no excuse for this. am i seeing it the wrong way? how did i think what is obama doing? why? >> we were talking about this in the morning meeting. this is such a huge win for whoever we thought of as conservatives, old school corporatists may an better word who fought years and years the chamber of congress, in every big business of this