last year, that was enough to get the attention of maryland senator barbara mikulski. that's when she held hearings on how to protect small business owners who had been victimized by companies like l.a. payroll. >> they disappeared and these businesses paid in thinking that they had paid their taxes also disappear. >> until congress figures things out, what can you do to protect yoursel yourself? >> if you're using a payroll definitely find out if they're bonded. >> you may want to find out if the company you're working with is insured. find out how they deliver your payments to the government and how you can verify those payments have been received. and if you do get scammed, you might take a lesson from dr. dardashti who immediately set up a facebook account. >> by having this facebook page, it brought us together. >> he use this to find and contact other victims like himself, share information about what's happening, organize group action and get the media attention to support their cause. but according to robert, preventing this kind of fraud in first place will ta

when i first came to this body, i say to these young women especially, barbara mikulski was the senator from maryland. i came with her to the senate, and she was the woman. that was it. i couldn't help but earlier this week smile because a number of women, seven or eight women congregated here. and as one of the senators said to me, a female senator said look, we all, many of us wore turquoise today. it was so bright and the clothes looked so vibrant and added so much to this body. so, it used to be, boys, that the senators we had here with rare exception were men, but that's not the way it is anymore. i can speak from experience, the senate is a much better place because of the input of women. men and women are different. they have different views and outlooks on life, and as a result of that, this is a much better place. i can remember a number of years ago when i looked here on the floor, i was the whip at that time taking care of the floor, and it was stunning to me when the military construction bill, appropriations bill, two women were running this. kay bailey hutchison, a republi

senator barbara mikulski in supporting the consideration of the three bills before us today. mr. president, all three bills received strong bipartisan support at the full committee on appropriation level, and i'm pleased that we have begun to re-establish regular order in the appropriation cross. we started that last year, and we need to continue this, and we are. after the uncertainty of sequestration and last year's disagreement over the budget control act caps, this past december's murray-ryan budget deal provided the clarity needed to move us towards a regular budget and a regular appropriation process. the murray-ryan deal, mr. president, which became the bipartisan budget act, provided a compromise solution that ended the congressional deadlock over top-line discretionary spending. and while i appreciate that the carrierwoman was operating in a tight -- that the chairwoman was operating in a tight fiscal environment, we did not ultimately agree everywhere on how to allocate funds within the new caps. all 14 republican members of the appropriation committee wrote to the chai

trust worthy, by trustworthy people who are trained and they devote their lives to this, as barbara mikulski said, in a particular place, why cash it out? >> senator, rockefeller, thanks for the question, the current system involves a host of safeguards, technical safeguards, policy and procedural safeguards, training safeguards and safeguards around limiting the number, you mention the 22 people who are authorized to access that database. that's an example. very, very restricted. completely audited. and with software in place that prevents them from making an erroneous query against a number that has not been authorized by the court. and our record of -- in that arena is outstanding in that regard in terms of protecting the -- the privacy. i think those were -- were necessary for two reasons. one, because it's the government with the data, as opposed to someone who's not the government, and so the powers of electronic surveillance and the need to very closely circumscribe those, the second one was -- the second reason is because the data was aggregated so all the data was in one place. unde

them from negotiating with al qaeda for other american business," the story quoting senator barbara mikulski of maryland. "she wants the obama administration to pursue talks to free warren weinstein, a usaid contractor who was kidnapped by al qaeda, and alan gross, another contractor imprisoned in cuba. both of them are from maryland." bob waiting in wisconsin on our line for independent. caller: good morning. i would like to know if obama would have traded hitler for a pow. he put a target on every man and woman in our service to be kidnapped. host: william is up next from augusta, georgia on our line for democrats. caller: good morning. i would like to say obama is not responsible for none of that. he is trying to get these people's kids home, and it is a good thing. for everythingod the devil do? how can you blame this man for everything that happens in his administration? that's all i have to say. host: a few headlines to read for you on a busy friday morning. last night senators brokered a deal on va care. that announcement making the front page of "usa today." deal thursday to address

senator barbara mikulski who is very influential happens to love the goddard space center in marylandnd happen to do work on the planetary side and are building the james webb telescope. some of the question marks that are open, as we're in the middle of an appropriations process, there's a good deal of foreshadowing just based on where the work is. host: exploration, about $4 billion, breaks down into three systems, exploration systems, commercial space flight, exploration r&d, paint us a picture. guest: in the exploration account you have the human space flight stuff except for the international space station. particularly within exploration you're talking about the space launch system rocket, the big rocket nasa is building which would lift a thing called theo ryan -- the orion space capsule to perhaps a vicinity in the moon and are looking at a flight to 2017 as a shakedown. but then you have commercial cargo services and these are paying for commercially operated capability to do what the space shuttle used to do, vary goods and services and eventually crew to the international s