It's hard, sometimes, not to literally jump out of my chair and wave my hands around and scream "Do you see what they're doing? Do you? Can't you see the goddamn pattern?"

That was my reaction, anyway, about this thing:

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Democratic leaders and senators from both parties expressed outrage on Sunday about an obscure provision in the huge end-of-session spending bill that would allow the chairmen of the Appropriations Committees and their staff assistants to examine Americans' income tax returns.

Republican leaders said that their motives had been misread and that there was never any intention to invade the privacy of taxpayers. They promised that the provision would be deleted from the bill in a special session on Wednesday before the spending measure, which cleared Congress on Saturday night, was sent to President Bush for his signature.

Uh-huh.

Look at him. Do you trust that guy?

The use of the power of the state to investigate, persecute, and smear the opposition is like, not too conservative. It's, like, fascist.

Here's the question: if they're bold enough to try to slip shit like this into legislation, what do you think they're doing, extralegally, right now?