Changin' The Law! Changin' The Law!

Sometimes, just when you think they can sink no lower, the Republicans pull out all of the stops and do something that can only be described as...

Awesome.

[W]hat I'm about to describe is outrageous and almost literally unbelievable.

As you've probably heard, the congress is pushing through a big omnibus spending bill this weekend. And at the last minute, Republican leaders tried to slip in a provision that would give certain committee chairman and their staffers unlimited access to any American's tax return, with none of the standard privacy protections applying.

You heard that right.

They could pull anyone's tax return, read it over and do whatever they wanted with the information. Those who would have this power would be the chairs and ranking members of the senate and house appropriations committees and subcommittees and "their designees."

The key is that the privacy rights provisions, and criminal and civil penalties that go with them, don't apply for the appropriations committees.