CNN's Jeffrey Toobin comments on Pres. Obama's decision to resume military trials for Guantanamo Bay terror suspects.

Dan Abrams, legal analyst at ABC News and founder of Mediaite.com, is grilled about his new book ("Man Down: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else") that argues women are better than men at doing most things. FULL POST

Fmr. US Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson pushes for a no-fly zone over Libya and arming the anti-Gadhafi resistance.  FULL POST

Dan Abrams, legal analyst at ABC News and founder of Mediaite.com, discusses Glenn Beck's future with Fox News, having lost a significant amount of viewers recently.   FULL POST

CNN's Eliot Spitzer ("In The Arena") responds to reports that he's planning to run for mayor of New York in 2013 on Sunday's edition of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS."

Today’s Number of the Day is 43.

That is the average size of an english class in Los Angeles in the 11th and 12th grades. Budget cuts are starting to have a direct impact on some basic services - such as education.

Does anybody think a teacher - even a great one - can handle a class of 43 students?

This is the trade off we have made. Those tax cuts for the wealthy that were so vital? Inadequate funding for education is the consequence of that decision. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s five OFF-SET questions is Wissal, a New Yorker whose sister is in Libya. (We are withholding her last name as not to put her sister in further danger.)

Eliot spoke with your sister in Tripoli last Wednesday, March 2. She had only left her home once in all that time to find food. How is she doing now?

She is very frightened. She watches with a broken heart as countless members of her community are dying and being kidnapped by the Gadhafi regime. The situation has deteriorated; nearly every institution in Libya has broken down. Even the police have become an instrument of violence deployed by the regime against the people.

As the Gadhafi regimes continues to operate with impunity across the country, my sister feels that the regime is becoming emboldened and she fears it will try to consolidate its grip through increased crackdowns.  

Nevertheless, she is determined to stay in Libya as the nation struggles to achieve freedom.  FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s five OFF-SET questions is Michael Prell, a strategist with the Tea Party Patriots—the largest Tea Party group in the country–and author of the book, “Underdogma.” Prell writes that “underdogma is the belief that those who have less power (underdogs) are good—because they have less power, and those who have more power (overdogs)—are bad—because they have more power.

You are accusing conservative critics of union workers in Wisconsin of “being completely hypocritical” when they attack those workers for making more money and having better benefits than non-unionized workers. Why do you think those critics are hypocrites?

Thanks so much for letting me take the time to speak regarding this important issue.  There are many legitimate ways for conservatives to criticize public sector unions.  Criticize them for making it nearly impossible to fire bad employees, or to reward good employees, or because they use extortion to get more taxpayer dollars.  The dictionary definition for extortion happens to be “getting money from someone by the use of force or threats.” 

But I say to my conservative friends, do not criticize them for having jobs that pay well.  Those who criticize union workers for making more money and having better benefits than non-unionized workers are practicing class warfare, plain and simple.

When was the last time you heard conservatives criticize Wall Street fat-cats?  Now some conservatives are demonizing Main Street fat-cats—which is what public sector union members have become. FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is David Leonhardt, "Economic Scene" columnist for The New York Times business section. He is also a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and contributes to the Economix blog. In 2005, he was one of the reporters who produced "Class Matters," the paper's series on social class in the United States. In 2004, he founded an analytical sports column, called "Keeping Score." Leonhardt won the Gerald Loeb Award for magazine writing in 2009 for a Times Magazine article, "Obamanomics."

Leonhardt is scheduled to appear In the Arena on in the near future.

State and local governments are on the brink of financial disaster, with governors and mayors facing huge deficits. So they turn to public sector employees and ask for pay freezes, pay cuts and fewer health benefits.  Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker targeted collective bargaining and faced weeks of protests. At a recent White House meeting of the nation’s governors, President Obama said that balancing state budgets will require shared sacrifice and that it doesn’t do “any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified.” Why have public sector unions received so much criticism?

I think it's an exaggeration to say that state and local governments are on the brink of disaster. They have major problems. But they're not on the brink of disaster. I recommend the piece by Roger Lowenstein in this weekend's New York Times Magazine, as well as this analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington.

Why are public-sector unions coming in for criticism? Two reasons, one fair and one unfair. The fair one is that many public-sector unions have resisted changes that would make government function better. The best example is the hostility of many teachers unions to performance evaluation (though there lately have been some positive signs here). Beyond these problems, some public-sector unions have won benefits that are simply too generous. Over all, though, public-sector workers are not significantly overpaid.

The unfair reason is that public-sector unions make for good scapegoats. We'd all like to believe the looming deficits are caused by someone else's benefits, rather than because we're not paying enough taxes as a society to pay for the level of benefits we want. FULL POST

RICHARDSON CALLS FOR NO-FLY ZONE OVER LIBYA - Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson called for a no-fly zone over Libya during an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." Richardson made recommendations for next steps in handling the crisis in Libya, saying, "Next week is going to be crucial and the most important step is the development of an internationally recognized no-fly zone."

As deadly clashes in Libya continue with no clear end in sight, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed a new special envoy to Libya–Abdelilah Al-Khatib, a former foreign minister of Jordan–to discuss the crisis with officials in Tripoli, the United Nations said in a statement Monday. FULL POST