Daily Caller - On Tuesday’s broadcast of Washington, D.C. radio station WMAL’s “Morning Majority,” MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews denied applying a double standard to his treatment of the tea party and “Occupy” movements. He also claimed he never saw hate-speech protest signs directed at former President George W. Bush — only at President Obama.

ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | Tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., made a political statement Monday morning when he refused a fully body pat-down after an abnormality was found in a full body scanner. According to a Facebook message posted on Paul's profile, which appeared around 10 a.m. Eastern time, he "is being detained at the Nashville Airport by the TSA [Transportation Security Administration]."

John Ransom, Townhall
Get ready for the all new GOP, under the lead of Mitt Romney.It’s a GOP where the Tea Party won’t be welcome, where the federal government will continue to bailout out banks and unions and everyone who’s anyone will continue to make money- except of course you and me.We’ll just continue to get stuck with the 100 year mortgage payment, as the GOP continues to be the “tax collector for the welfare state,” in the WSJ’s apt phrase. 

Michael McAuliff, Huff Post
WASHINGTON -- A liberal super PAC is set Monday to launch what it is billing as a multimillion dollar campaign to "Take Down the Tea Party Ten."The effort by the progressive outfit CREDO aims to use the new big-spending super PAC model, which can accept unlimited donations, to back extensive local organizing and "education" aimed at defeating 10 members of Congress seen by the left as the worst of the worst."We're talking about some of the most odious members of Congress. Even for Republicans these guys are low," said Campaign Manager Matthew...

Reuters - An Oregon special election in which national Democrats have sought to paint the Republican congressional candidate as a Tea Party radical foreshadows a tactic the party will employ in its quest to take back Congress seats lost in the 2010 election.

Daily Caller - Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich won a straw poll of Florida Tea Party Patriots members held on a conference call Sunday evening, with former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum a close second.

Daily Caller - On the online “Green Room” segment of Sunday’s “This Week” on ABC, conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham speculated that Romney’s strength in the contest is a sign that the tea party might not be as strong as conventional wisdom would suggest.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, straining to inject herself into the 2012 Republican primary, accused Newt Gingrich's critics of imitating the former communist dictator of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.

Palin, in a post on her Facebook page that was emailed to reporters by an aide, defended Gingrich against those who said this week that he criticized Ronald Reagan, siding decisively with Gingrich against Romney in the debate this week over who was a Reagan supporter.

"Newt actually came at Reagan’s administration 'from the right' to remind Americans that freer markets and tougher national defense would win our future," Palin wrote, seeking to explain comments by Gingrich in the 1980s that were critical of Reagan's foreign policy, particularly his approach to the Soviet Union.

Gingrich's comments were highlighted in a much-cited article by Elliott Abrams, an assistant secretary of state under Reagan, in the National Review. Gingrich was also hit with critical columns from a number of other conservatives.

Palin took issue with the way Gingrich's relationship with Reagan was characterized.

"This week a few handpicked and selectively edited comments which Newt made during his 40-year career were used to claim that Newt was somehow anti-Reagan and isn’t conservative enough to go against the accepted moderate in the primary race," she wrote. "What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history. It was Alinsky tactics at their worst."

Palin said the episode illustrated a larger dynamic of "the GOP establishment vs. the Tea Party grassroots and independent Americans who are sick of the politics of personal destruction used now by both parties’ operatives with a complicit media egging it on."

Former Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann has been named a witness for the defense in a lawsuit against Tea Party HD, a failed television network founded in 2010.

Ann Coulter and Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips were also named as witnesses for the multimillion-dollar federal lawsuit surrounding the failure of the network billed as the "world's first HD provider of news about the Tea Party," according to The Tennessean.

An initial $19 million lawsuit was filed in November against California businessman Anthony Loiacono by GOP fundraiser Bill Hemrick, along with a group of conservatives from Tennessee who claim Loiacono used the investments they made in the network for personal matters. Loiacono countersued for $1 million alleging defamation and abuse of process.

Bachmann is likely included thanks to her Tea Party HD-produced response to Obama's 2011 State of the Union address, The Hill reports. Bachmann also has direct ties to Hemrick, who served as the state finance chairman for her presidential campaign.

Jonathan Martin, Politico
As the Republican race moves to a state defined by the extremes in recession-era America — where the underwater and unemployed live just a few miles from the 1 percent — a sharp class divide is emerging between the two top contenders.Mitt Romney’s crowds look like something out of the president’s suite at a University of Florida football game — prosperous, trim, Tattersall-clad, and supportive but not rowdy.

ContributorNetwork - Reuters reports the most prominent Cuban-American in Florida politics has thus far refused to endorse any candidate for the GOP nomination. Sen. Marco Rubio is considered to be a possible vice presidential running mate. He is descended from Cuban immigrants and is a tea party favorite. He has former staffers in both the campaigns of Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Both men have courted Rubio for his coveted endorsement.

Reuters - He could be the Republican vice presidential candidate from central casting: telegenic, Hispanic and a fiscal conservative who has been embraced by the Tea Party.

Politico - A sharp class divide is emerging between the GOP's two top contenders.

Daily Caller - Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich may see himself as a Marco Rubio figure in Florida, but the freshman senator beloved by the tea party isn’t backing him up on that.

At the National Press Club tonight, former presidential hopeful Herman Cain delivered the official State Of The Union rebuttal on the behalf of the Tea Party, marking the second time the nascent conservative movement has fulfilled that role. But while Herman Cain improved on the performance of his predecessor, Michele Bachmann, and managed to deliver the standard Tea Party talking points against the Obama administration, he didn't do much to prove the necessity of a Tea Party rebuttal. His critique of Obama was a carbon copy of what every standard issue establishment Republican would say. And there was not much effort to establish anything like a Tea Party platform of policy ideas. In fact, Cain's elocution of a Tea Party platform fell well short of his elocution of his own policy platform.

Cain began the speech with a riff on how badly the Tea Party is disrespected, despite the fact that many people, in his estimation, were "Tea Party people and don't know it." He railed against "media elites" for "marginalizing the Tea Party" -- a curious charge, given the fact that the Tea Party has been wildly and enthusiastically supported by the Fox News Channel, and has already co-sponsored presidential debates with CNN.

Cain moved from there to a broad critique of President Barack Obama and his State Of The Union. He said that tonight's State Of The Union address was filled with "scripted rhetoric, proclamations, and promises of doing things about various problems." More pressingly, Cain said that the speech was filled with "class warfare ... picking winners and losers" and "attacks on businesses and Congress."

Cain next moved into a section of what "we did not hear" in the speech, which for Cain, boiled down to "the real facts about the state of the union." Here, Cain's critique was often effective. Cain is absolutely right that the real extent of the unemployment crisis is masked by the 8.5 percent top line statistic that is commonly referred to as "the unemployment rate." When you add in workers working less than full-time, or who have gotten so discouraged that they've stopped trying to find jobs, the real unemployment rate is much higher. Cain was also correct to note that "economic growth has been anemic." It has, and it will play a major role in determining whether Obama wins a second term.

However, he was on less shaky ground when he suggested that our growth rate should be around 5 percent. Tim Pawlenty made the same claim during his presidential run, and if we're being charitable, it was merely ambitious. If we're David Frum, we call it "too good to be true" and a promise he wouldn't, in all likelihood, be able to achieve. And if we're Glenn Kessler, you note that Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton rarely hit 5 percent or more, and never sustained it. (It was also odd that Cain decided to compare the state of our economic growth with that of China, which operates under a command economy that one would presume would be unwelcome by the typical Tea Party member.)

Cain hit on many other points of argument and difference with the Obama administration, blaming the White House for rising gas prices, Obamacare, and the national debt (which Cain said had become "a national disgrace"). But the main point that Cain made about the State of the Union address was that, to his mind, it was "a hodgepodge of little ideas."

"Some of us are not stupid," said Cain. "The state of the union is not good. We want common sense solutions. That's how we do it outside of Washington, and we would like to see some inside of Washington." But here, Cain matched Obama's "hodgepodge of little ideas" with -- well ... with nothing, actually.

Unsurprisingly, Cain signaled an opposition to both government spending and raising revenue. He seemed then, to pivot right to his sweet spot -- the 9-9-9 plan -- by suggesting that Obama's tax reform proposals merely "manipulated around the edges." He then almost came close to discussing "9-9-9" -- the tax code, he said, should be junked outright, and replaced with something that treated "every taxpayer and every business the same." But he went no further than that, making no mention of the plan that defined his candidacy.

It was a disconcerting thing to listen to. Based upon the way Cain has said his candidacy would transform, one expects him to continue to promote "9-9-9" -- along with other "Cain solutions" -- rather confidently and aggressively. It's not certain why he didn't go farther tonight -- if he muted his own message or was restricted from talking about it further -- but the overall effect was self-neutering.

And the glancing mention of "9-9-9" was about the only strongly articulated "solution," despite Cain's insistence on common sense solutions. Cain said that the Tea Party "deserved" a "strong military" and a "brighter future" and probably a pony. And that the Obama administration needed to "stop the class warfare" and "attacking business" and "the blame game" and, most perplexingly, "the racial innuendo." But against the State Of The Union address' call for teamwork and unity and Seal Team Six-like dedication to a mission, Cain's call for people to just be handed what they felt they "deserved" sort of presented the image of the Tea Party as some wealthy, supine dowager, calling for another box of bonbons.

And that was fairly strange, given the fact that the Tea Party has real electoral achievements to tout and a strong record of moving the policy conversation in the Republican caucus in a rightward direction to celebrate. One would have thought, a year after Michele Bachmann's awkward rebuttal, that the Tea Party would have wanted to cite their own contributions to the effort in Washington, instead of deploying all of the passive imagery that Cain chose to place in the center of his oration. Either Cain didn't want to talk about that, or he didn't know enough about it to mention.

Cain ended his rebuttal with a historical reverie about the original Boston Tea Party, a call for a new "revolution," and a reminder to Washington that the Tea Party exists. "Washington is out of touch with the people," Cain said. "We must remind them, we the Tea Party are coming." He closed with a bit of Old Testament iconography: "We know that we are up against Golaith, but we will not become a single David, but an Army of Davids." It was a good image to end on, in that it restored the idea of the Tea Party as a dynamic, active organization. It's too bad that for the larger part of Cain's rebuttal was more in line with Leonard Cohen's famous song about David -- a baffled Cain composing his hallelujah.

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Newt Gingrich was forced to defend his record as House speaker and later as a consultant to mortgage giant Freddie Mac during Monday night's GOP presidential debate in Tampa, Fla. And he said he was the type of bold, tough leader Washington needs. That's the part of his record that appeals to many of his supporters in the Tea Party.

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Milton Wolf, Washington Times
By Dr. Milton R. Wolf -The Washington Times Monday, January 23, 2012 So long as the Washington establishment continues to underestimate - and even misunderstand - the Tea Party, insiders will continue to be pummeled by the grass-roots giant that no longer sleeps. Democrats dismissed the Tea Party in 2010 and took a historic shellacking. Republicans would be wise to learn from their mistake.First, let’s remind ourselves, the Tea Party is not a formal political party or even an advocacy group, but rather a state of mind. If you believe in constitutional fidelity,...

AP - He's young, telegenic and charismatic. He's Hispanic, Catholic and the son of Cuban immigrants. He's a tea party favorite, a GOP star and, many say, the future of the Republican Party.

AP - He's young, telegenic and charismatic. He's Hispanic, Catholic and the son of Cuban immigrants. He's a tea party favorite, a GOP star and, many say, the future of the Republican Party.

ContributorNetwork - On Friday, I attended a tea party tax rally at Jessye Norman Amphitheater in Augusta, Ga. Although I'm more of a libertarian than a tea party member, I've been an avid supporter of tax reform for many years and have lived in the Augusta area for most of my life. My interest in the rally was primarily to support the FairTax movement.

Tim Stanley, The Telegraph
Just three days ago, many pundits were writing the obituary of the Tea Party. The unstoppable rise of Mitt Romney and the hopeless divisions within the conservative field seemed to suggest that the radical grassroots movement had passed away. The UK’s Guardian newspaper (a sort of Pravda for public sector workers) was gleeful. Ewen MacAskill wrote, “The noise and energy associated with the Tea Party since it exploded on to the US political scene three years has been stilled, overshadowed in recent months by the youthful enthusiasm of the Occupy Wall Street...

Erick Erickson, RedState
Peter Hamby from CNN notes what is going to be a recipe for disaster for Mitt Romney as he tries to relate to the Republican base.In South Carolina exit polls, Romney wins only the “moderate or liberal”, those with incomes in excess of $200,000.00, those with postgraduate education, those who oppose the tea party movement, and those who think religion does not matter at all.A number of those have been consistent through Iowa and New Hampshire too.

Daily Caller - The assistant Democratic leader, South Carolina Democratic Rep. James Clyburn, accused former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich of “appealing” to the racist tea party “element” of the Republican Party in his campaign. Gingrich won the South Carolina Republican presidential primary on Saturday.

ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | You know something, I had honestly forgotten that Herman Cain had been a candidate for president. The time before primary season seems so long ago, when there were so many fresh faces dotting the political landscape.