EXCLUSIVE: Education Secretary Arne Duncan says Congress must fix No Child Left Behind or he'll take matters into his own hands.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and CNN Senior Political Analyst David Gergen discuss reinstatement of Wisconsin's law that curbs collective bargaining rights. FULL POST

Fiscal commission co-chair Alan Simpson, a former conservative Republican U.S. Senator from Wyoming, says if Congress can't compromise on the debt-ceiling, members should go home.  FULL POST

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) was shown the door Friday when he asked Iraq to repay the U.S. for the cost of the war.

The Number of the Day is negative one.

That negative 1 is something called the net hiring figure. In her New York Times Economix column, Catherine Rampell explains that small businesses in the U.S. are not very optimistic about hiring in the next three months. In fact, they are planning to decrease the number of workers on their payrolls.

Rampell examined a report from the National Federation of Independent Business, and wrote:

"Each month the federation releases results from a survey of questions about small business optimism. One question asks whether businesses plan to increase or decrease the number of employees working for them in the coming three months. Economy-watchers can then calculate a “net hiring” figure by subtracting the percentage of companies that say they plan to decrease their work forces from the percentage of companies that say they plan to increase their work forces.

"In May, there were more companies that planned to decrease their payrolls than those planning to increase them. This was the first time since September that net hiring plans were negative."

At last night’s Republican Presidential Debate in New Hampshire, seven GOP hopefuls said more jobs will be created when Barack Obama is defeated and one of them gets elected and immediately undoes the Obama health care plan, makes deep cuts in the federal budget, stops bailing out U.S. companies in trouble, lowers taxes, and reduces the scope of government regulations. Oh, and throws gays out of the armed forces.

If you’re running a small business, would that vision of the country make you optimistic enough to hire more people?

Let me know. FULL POST

Eliot appeared at MIT in April, 2011 –and on C-SPAN's Book TV–and we thought you'd like to see his remarks.

Eliot Spitzer, former governor of New York and New York State attorney general, presents his thoughts on when the government should intervene in the financial market.

Spitzer argues that government assistance given to the banking industry in 2009 was a poor decision, as it forced the American public to share in bank's risks without benefit.

The *author posits when intervention is appropriate and details how the government can reestablish the public's trust.(*Boston Review Books published Eliot's book, "Government's Place in the Market.")

Eliot Spitzer is in conversation with Simon Johnson, co-author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown. This event in Wong Auditorium was part of the "Ideas Matter" series at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

CLICK HERE to watch the C-SPAN video.

CLICK HERE to listen to Eliot on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show on 6-14-11.

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today’s OFF-SET questions is Dr. Alyson Nerenberg, Psy.D., CSAT, a clinical psychologist with over 20 years in practice.

Her practice is in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and she works with relationship issues, anxiety, depression, divorce, eating disorders and addictions. Dr. Nerenberg was trained in a variety of therapy approaches which include: family systems, gestalt, cognitive behavioral, and psychodynamic.

Obviously, you haven’t diagnosed Rep. Anthony Weiner, but you have worked with many patients who have addictions, including sexual addictions. First of all how is sexual addiction defined?

A sexual addiction occurs when a person engages in out of control sexual behavior and is unable to stop these behaviors despite negative consequences in his or her life.  Often the addict tries to limit or stop the behavior but is unsuccessful.

This past weekend, the congressman said he was entering some kind of treatment. Based on the photographs you’ve seen of Rep. Weiner, and the tweeting between him and various women that’s been made public, is it possible the treatment is for sexual addiction?

Due to the amount of women that Weiner has been communicating with, and the nature of the flirting, sexting, sending of naked photographs and hundreds of  inappropriate facebook messages, it certainly sounds like he could benefit from a treatment specifically designed to treat sexual addictions.  FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's OFF-SET questions is Steve Kornacki, the news editor for Salon.com.

He’s previously written about politics for the New York Observer and Roll Call, and his work has also appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and on the Daily Beast. And he's a frequent In The Arena guest.

The candidates at Monday night's GOP Presidential Debate in N.H. blamed President Obama for just about everything that’s wrong. The words “failure of leadership” were uttered over and over again. Is that going to be the anti-Obama strategy?

Sure. I mean, it works on two levels. The GOP base is fueled by a powerful, highly emotional resistance to all things Obama, so bashing him is essential for all of the candidates now.

But it's also, really, the message the party will have to rely on in the general election, which will be a referendum on Obama. Republicans will only have a chance in November '12 if voters first decide that they're ready to get rid of Obama.

What impression of the Republican vision did you get from the two hours? What direction is the GOP heading in?

The vision is: We're not Obama! No one at this point is offering a credible, comprehensive policy alternative, which isn't really a surprise. The Republican base was conditioned to despise Obama even before he took office and the strategy of GOP elected officials has been to oppose him first, then work backwards from there and decide why. The debate very much reflected this. FULL POST

GOP CANDIDATES TARGET OBAMA – Seven Republican presidential contenders faced off Monday in one of the first debates of the primary season, offering policy ideas and criticism of President Barack Obama to try to separate themselves from the competition almost 17 months before the 2012 election. Some of the contenders made news in the debate, with conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota announcing she filed her papers Monday and would soon declare her formal candidacy for president.

“IF IT WAS ME, I WOULD RESIGN” – Rep. Anthony Weiner took a two-week leave of absence from the U.S. House on Monday to consider calls by Democratic leaders - and a strong hint from President Barack Obama - that he should resign over a "sexting" scandal and his subsequent lies about it. "Obviously, what he did was highly inappropriate," Obama said in [an interview with NBC], scheduled for broadcast Tuesday. He added, "Ultimately, there's gonna be a decision for him and his constituents. I can tell you that if it was me, I would resign." FULL POST