Tea Party Express founder Judson Phillips got into a spirited donnybrook with MSNBC host Martin Bashir over Newt Gingrich’s comments about President Obama being the “food stamp president.” Judson told Bashir that Gingrich is succeeding with throwing red meat to the party base.

Mark Williams, the Tea Party Express organizer best known for writing a letter to Abraham Lincoln on behalf of “colored people,” is apparently still someone who gets asked about things. In a recent appearance on RT America’s Crosstalk, Williams held forth on how Republicans loosened the jar for President Obama on Libya and Osama bin Laden, and what great friends they are to Israel. Luckily, liberal blogger Cliff Schecter was there to set him straight.

PBS NewsHour gathered together political editor David Chalian and senior correspondents Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff to offer up a little sneak peek of what’s to come in tonight’s CNN / Tea Party Express GOP Debatapalooza.

In the midst of what seems like the thousandth iteration of negotiating backs and forth between the House GOP and the White House, at least one faction of the Tea Party has expressed serious doubt in the leadership of…Rep. John Boehner! (Wait, What!?) Tea Party Patriot leader Jenny Beth Martin appeared on Fox News’ America Live to tell host Martha MacCallum that, in they eyes of her Tea Party group, Boehner simply isn’t getting it done.

A recent fundraising plea from the Tea Party Express contains some selling points that are counter-intuitive, at best. Mediaite has obtained a fundraising email from the group in which they oddly point out that, after sending out a solicitation to over 400,000 members to raise $1 million, “we failed – all of us. As of this evening only 250 people made a contribution.”

Rallying the troops is one thing, but advertising your own irrelevance is quite another. Check out the full email after the jump.

Taiwan’s premiere animated news service NMA has given us tons of amazing(ly bad) videos before, and this latest one is no different. The CGI-animated video depicts Karl Rove‘s ongoing spat with Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell. The video also renders Palin and O’Donnell standing atop a moving train — named, of course, the Tea Party Express — that runs over President Barack Obama, whose avatar apparently enjoys loitering on railroad tracks.

Last night Rachel Maddow reported on the so-called “expulsion” of Mark Williams and the Tea Party Express from the larger “Tea Party Movement.” Williams was “booted” after he crafted what many thought to be inappropriate parody that played upon racial tropes and stereotypes. “How does one get kicked out of a movement?” Maddow asked, barely keeping her schadenfreude in check as she outlined the byzantine structure that is the Tea Party movement.

There has been a rather ugly conflict between the NAACP and the Tea Party movement that has heated up of late, centering around the use of “colored people” and a satirical letter written by Mark Williams, a Tea Party Express organizer. The Republican strategist Mary Matalin (who is a former adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney) appeared on CNN’s Situation Room this afternoon to discuss this, and painted Williams to be a fringe character who’s not in a position to influence anyone…”unlike Reverend Wright.

On last night’s Countdown, host Keith Olbermann devoted his “Tea Time” segment to a stupefying response by Tea Party Express organizer Mark Williams to the NAACP’s resolution condemning “racist elements” within the Tea Party movement. In the form of a letter to Abraham Lincoln, from NAACP President Ben Jealous, Williams took the NAACP’s historical retention of the term “colored people” in their name, and ran with it. Olbermann called on all Tea Party leaders to immediately repudiate Williams.

Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams, who made a name for himself attacking Geraldo Rivera‘s journalistic credibility and making controversial statements about Islam and President Obama, is stepping down. He says it is part of a new plan to “think globally, act locally” against the plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero and running for a spot on the Sacramento City Council.

Last Saturday night, Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams gained legendary status among right-wingers for bravely standing up to the unfair stereotypes of the Tea Party movement perpetuated by… Fox News. Turns out that, besides biting the hand that feeds, Williams was actively promoting these stereotypes last September when he called Barack Obama an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug” on his blog.

There was a bit of an uproar recently when some left of center websites a suggested that CNN was “pimping” the Great American “Tea Party Express PR and Propaganda Tour.” Many thought CNN’s motivation was to promote the Tea Party tour, but rather, to be in the right place at the right time when something juicy happens. As it turns out, reporting by conservative Newsbusters seems to confirm elements of liberal Crooks and Liars‘ thesis, or at the very least, that CNN is trying to have it both ways.

When I saw this post at liberal blog Crooks and Liars alleging that CNN is “pimping” the “Great American Tea Party Express PR and Propaganda Tour,” I thought perhaps I had stumbled onto an explanation for all the Erick Erickson-related craziness this week. First, CNN hires the incendiary Redstate blogger, then they hit the road with the Tea Party Express? Is this a bid to peel off some Fox News viewers?

The Tea Party movement is often seen by outsiders as one big monolithic force, especially by its detractors (who occasionally use nastier words than “monolithic” to describe it). But lately, there has been a mounting civil war between two rival factions of Tea Partiers.

One big bone of contention? The GOP‘s growing involvement with the movement.

Tea Party Express organizer Mark Williams joined Anderson Cooper and Roland Martin on CNN last night to discuss the races today, and mainly what’s happening in New York’s 23rd congressional district.

And while there was a debate for the majority of the segment, Williams essentially described his organization and others are already looking toward “Judgment Day” – next year.