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Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday that illegal immigrants should be allowed to become U.S. taxpayers and ultimately get a shot at citizenship, a significant step for the Tea Party favorite amid growing Republican acceptance of the idea.

Twice burned, Republicans are treading carefully around tea party groups as they pursue a Senate majority that slipped through their fingers in 2010 and 2012....

The tea-party movement is trying to regroup after taking some licks in this month's elections. Several groups already are setting their sights on 2014 congressional races, in which they plan to promote their preferred candidates and hope to weed out Republicans they consider insufficiently conservative.

Bill Clinton’s new book, “Back to Work,” is really several books in one slender volume. It’s a lucid one-man rebuttal of the Tea Party’s anti-government agenda. A series of shrewd talking points for Democrats trying to hold on to the White House and battling for control of Congress in the midst of a sour economy and growing voter discontent. A self-serving reminder of the prosperity the country enjoyed during Mr. Clinton’s tenure in the White House, meant to burnish his legacy. And a practical set of proposals — some borrowed and some new, some innovative and some highly sketchy — for restoring economic growth and creating jobs.

Rasmussen Reports returns from the field with what I think is the first poll about Occupy Wall Street. The buried lede: At the moment, the protesters who've been mocked on CNN and Fox News, accused of class warfare by Mitt Romney, and handled delicately by the White House, have... decent favorable ratings.

Obama senior adviser David Plouffe accuses 30 Tea Party members in Congress of controlling the debate — whether over deficit reduction, taxes or more immediate items like funding for the government and disaster relief — both set to run out this week.'Fox News Sunday' Transcript: Plouffe Defends Obama's Deficit-Reduction PlanFull Coverage:

Rep. Maxine Waters has four words for the tea party: Go straight to Hell. At a community summit on Saturday, the California Democrat, who has been increasingly critical of President Obama, as well, had tough words for the other side.
“I’m not afraid of anybody,” Waters said at the summit in Inglewood, Calif. “This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned, the ‘tea party’ can go straight to Hell.”

A Tea Party group is fighting back against Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who said this weekend that the small-government movement "can go straight to hell."

Little more than a year ago, most Americans did not know enough about the Tea Party to have an opinion. Now, more people have opinions, and they are hardly positive. The latest on President Obama, the new Congress and other news from ...

One of the Senate nominees singled out by GOP Sen. John McCain during a tongue-lashing that compared the Tea Party movement to hobbits is responding ...