To watch "The Memo" click here.
Hi, I'm Bill O'Reilly. Thank you for watching us tonight.
We are being outsmarted. That's the subject of this evening's Talking Points Memo.
The Constitution says that we need the federal government to, quote, "establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare." That's why we pay federal income tax for those protections.
But the bad guys have figured out that the feds are soft, unfocused, and even corrupt. Usama bin Laden knows that the Immigration and Naturalization Service is incompetent, and he knows that the borders of the United States are wide open. Every dope pusher in the world knows that.
And so these villains exploit the situation and thousands of our countrymen have paid for it with their lives.
Likewise, some criminals on Wall Street know there's no one home at the Securities and Exchange Commission, that for more than a decade, lax federal oversight ignored phony accounting, fraudulent balance sheets, and shady payouts to corrupt executives.
And so millions of working Americans lost billions of dollars in a rigged stock market which is still sinking.
Now Americans know that the twin evils of terrorism and corporate fraud can hurt them dramatically, and it is only now that the federal government is responding.
But there are still Americans that resist more oversight on corporate criminals and tighter restrictions on immigration. The beat goes on.
President Bush finds himself in the middle of an intense presidency, something I believe that has greatly surprised him. The United States needs reform. The federal government must change, and fast. The Geneva Convention is obsolete. We are now fighting war criminals, and the battlefield is here. Our enemies are civilians who hide among the population.
The accounting rules on Wall Street are also obsolete, as slimy lawyers and accountants have found loopholes galore. Unless strict new rules are enforced, the fraud and theft will continue.
And immigration is no longer America's strength, it's now become dangerous. We are all living in a rapidly changing world where fanatics can send anthrax through the mail and kill anyone who touches the letter, where CEOs can run their companies into bankruptcy while simultaneously putting millions of dollars in their own pockets, where anyone with money can walk across the porous Canadian and Mexican borders.
Federal government must protect us from evil, whether it lives in a cave or in a mansion. Laws and treaties need to be changed. The general welfare has been ignored for far too long. What we need now is what President Bush called himself in his campaign, a reformer with results.
And that's The Memo.
The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day
Time now for "The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day."
If you're not doing anything on July 19, do we have a party for you. Janet Reno is holding a dance party at the Level Nightclub on Miami Beach, to raise money for her gubernatorial run against Jeb Bush. Expected to attend are Damon and Marlon Wayans and Ziggy Marley. Wow. No word on whether Ms. Reno will do the lambada, the forbidden dance of love. But if she does, it might be ridiculous.
— You can watch Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points and "Most Ridiculous Item" weeknights at 8 & 11p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com
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