GOP reality check: Obama looking tougher to beat in 2012  —  Just four months after posting historic election gains, Republicans are experiencing a reality check about 2012: President Barack Obama is going to be a lot tougher to defeat than he looked late last year.

Obama Supports Easing Health Law Mandates for States  —  WASHINGTON — Seeking to appease disgruntled governors, President Obama announced Monday that he supported amending the 2010 health care law to allow states to opt out of its most burdensome requirements three years earlier than currently permitted.

GOP spending plan would cost 700,000 jobs, new report says  —  A Republican plan to sharply cut federal spending this year would destroy 700,000 jobs through 2012, according to an independent economic analysis set for release Monday.  —  The report, by Moody's Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi …

Last U.S. World War I veteran Frank W. Buckles dies at 110  —  Frank W. Buckles died early Sunday, sadly yet not unexpectedly at age 110, having achieved a singular feat of longevity that left him proud and a bit bemused.  —  In 1917 and 1918, close to 5 million Americans served in World War I …

THE HILL POLL: On shutdown, more voters would blame Dems  —  Twenty-nine percent of likely voters would blame Democrats for a government shutdown, compared to 23 percent who would hold Republicans responsible, according to a new poll conducted for The Hill.  —  The results are surprising …

TRENDING: Obama gives props to Romney on health care  —  (CNN) - In a moment that Mitt Romney's future GOP opponents couldn't have scripted better themselves, President Obama Monday issued a full-throated embrace of the former Massachusetts governor's stance on health care.

GORDON HINTZ: “YOU ARE F'N DEAD!”  —  Last week, we heard thatState Rep. Gordon Hintz (D-Oshkosh) had been busted in a prostitution sting. … Last Friday.... after the Assembly voted to engross the Budget Repair Bill, Hintz turned to a female colleague, Rep. Michelle Litjens and said: “You are F***king dead!”

Andrew Sullivan Joins The Daily Beast!  —  In exciting news for the two-year-old Daily Beast, the blogging trailblazer is moving his influential Daily Dish to our site.  His blog will occupy a new channel starting in early April, and he will become a Newsweek contributor.

Farrakhan: Mideast uprisings will come to US  —  Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan predicted on Sunday that America faces imminent uprisings that mirror those in the Middle East.  —  “What you are looking at in Tunisia, in Egypt ... Libya, in Bahrain ... what you see happening there …

‘My People Love Me’: Moammar Gadhafi Tells ABC He Cannot Step Down  —  Christiane Amanpour Sits Down for an Interview With Libya's Embattled Leader  —  REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK BY CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR  —  I interviewed Col. Moammar Gadhafi this morning, when he told me he cannot step …

Limit Pay, Not Unions  —  IN Ohio, Wisconsin and other states facing budget deficits, some elected officials assert that closing those gaps requires achieving labor savings and weakening labor unions.  They are half-right.  —  Across the country, taxpayers are providing pensions …

The Madoff Tapes  —  One evening, my home phone rang.  “You have a collect call from Bernard Madoff, an inmate at a federal prison,” a recording announced.  And there he was.  —  Bernard L. Madoff is in therapy.  Each week, he waits for the signal that prisoners are allowed to leave their housing units …

Politics at the Oscars — Union Support  —  ABC News' Chris Marderosian reports:  —  At the Academy Awards tonight, best cinematography winner Wally Pfister made a point during his acceptance speech of thanking his union crew on “Inception.”  —  Backstage he went further …

Unions vs. the Right to Work  —  Collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.  —  How ironic that Wisconsin has become ground zero for the battle between taxpayers and public- employee labor unions.

Speaker Boehner tells Brody File President Obama's DOMA Decision is “Raw Politics”  —  Speaker of the House John Boehner says President Obama's decision to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court strikes him as “raw politics” and says Obama is “pandering to the other side on this issue.”

Newt Gingrich To Announce Presidential Exploratory Committee Decision This Week  —  ABC's Jonathan Karl reports:  —  A spokesman for Newt Gingrich tells ABC News that the former Speaker of the House will announce this week whether he intends to form a presidential exploratory committee.

Salon.com Sale Talks Collapse  —  Merger talks between Salon.com, a pioneer in online news and opinion, and Newser.com, a news aggregation Web site founded by journalist Michael Wolff, have collapsed, according to people involved in the talks.  —  Salon.com, which had quietly put itself …

Sen. Hatch says USU receives most federal dollars per capita  —  Young people will face a bleak future without Social Security benefits if Democrats continue to “overreach” their constitutional boundaries, said U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch, Friday, in the Education Building.

Ohio, Wisconsin shine spotlight on new union battle: Government workers vs. taxpayers  —  COLUMBUS, OHIO - Across Ohio last week, the legislative push to restrict the union rights of government workers was greeted again and again by noisy protests.  —  But in this state dotted …

Former GOP Sen. Bennett: Reagan Held Views That Were ‘Absolutely Anathema’ To The Tea Party  —  Former GOP Sen. Bob Bennett (UT), who lost his seat to a far-right primary challenger after holding it for over a decade, slammed the tea party in an interview with Fox News host Greta Van Susteren Friday.

Goddangit, Baby, We're Making Good Time  —  With a new master plan for the GOP, Karl Rove is revving up for a comeback.  —  Karl Rove is driving through Central Texas with his girlfriend, on the way to a weekend quail hunt.  —  “I've been called up by my emergency Texas militia unit …

Un-American Revolutions  —  Most rebellions end in carnage and tyranny.  So why, Niall Ferguson asks in this week's Newsweek, are Americans cheering on the Arab revolutionary wave?  —  Americans love a revolution.  Their own great nation having been founded by a revolutionary declaration …

Gov.'s memories of King may be inaccurate  —  Gov. Haley Barbour recalled hearing Martin Luther King Jr. speak at the old fairgrounds in his hometown of Yazoo City in 1962.  —  “I was there with some of my friends,” Barbour told the Weekly Standard.  “We wanted to hear him speak.”