Last Call

Republicans have named all six of their House and Senate members to the "Super Committee"/Gang of 12/Catfood Commission 2/Giant Charlie Foxtrot thing, and the six of them are exactly who you expected the Tea Party to appoint.

Republicans named their six members Wednesday to a congressional deficit-reduction super committee, including a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement and other no-new-taxes hardliners.

In a move that could deadlock the 12-member panel over taxes, but perhaps set the stage for changes later, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell named Tea Party ally Patrick Toomey to the panel with Jon Kyl and Rob Portman.

The panel is known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction and was established to find $1.5 trillion in additional budget savings over 10 years, but markets have been looking for signs that it may be able to do more.

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, appointed Dave Camp, who chairs the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee, along with conservative "young gun" Jeb Hensarling and Fred Upton.

For those of you keeping score, that's five bomb-throwing Tea Party jagoffs and Fred "We're going to make him pay for the CFL light bulb thing!" Upton, who will be made to throw bombs in order to save his place as House Commerce Committee chair.

Not a single one of these guys will accept a dime in taxes, revenue increases, tax expenditure reductions, or loophole closures.  They will, to a man, vote hard core Tea Party "our way or the highway".  The plan here is to force the trigger conditions and then blame the Democrats...or being really, really, amazingly nice to Sen. Max Baucus, and then blaming him when Republicans get exactly what they want:  massive Social Security and spending cuts.

This should be fun.  Not.