By Bill O'Reilly
It seems every night I'm sitting here telling you about another horror story in Washington.
Today we learned that Americans who have Verizon telephone services are being spied upon by the national security agency, the NSA an intelligence gathering group that often monitors communications abroad. Just a few moments Megyn Kelly will be here to tell us all about the spying program.
But the headline is this; the NSA and Verizon have all your calls, they know who you called, when you called and how long you stayed on the phone. Apparently they are not listening to your calls just cataloguing them. The Obama administration says this is necessary to fight the war on terror. But even liberal Americans are openly criticizing the President.
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ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, THE HUFFINGTON POST: She want to guess your move in fact every week we discover that they have strengthened the Bush state when it comes to not just security when it comes to going after whistle blowers, when it comes to criminalizing investigations by the press.
ALEXANDER ABDO, ATTORNEY, ACLU NATIONAL SECURITY PROJECT: Well this is the type of program that I think would put even Orwell to shame and in some ways is even more troubling than the Bush administration wiretapping program.
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O'REILLY: Now, "Talking Points" usually supports war on terror strategies but this one, a major intrusion on the privacy of all Americans. This one is dangerous to us.
Also today another IRS hearing. Now, we're learning the agency spent about $50 million taxpayer dollars on parties and conferences that were totally unnecessary.
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REP. MICHAEL TURNER (R), OHIO: We have, we understand that the -- the swag bag from the event. This says "Leading into the Future" and then we have a portfolio that says "Teamwork in Action." These items like 3,000 of them were given to the -- to all the participants over $60,000 of these types of trinkets.
We know in the -- in the footnotes in what was in these -- these swag bags, is that it also included -- and I'm kind of confused by saying this, a plastic squirting fish.
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O'REILLY: Of course, of course it does. Now this IRS embarrassment comes on the heels of the agency's admission that an unfairly targeted conservative Americans. Today we learned the IRS people in Cincinnati, originally blamed, say they were ordered by their superiors in Washington to do what they did. No surprise except the Kool-Aid drinkers who refuse to acknowledge the federal government is out of control.
And why is that? Well it's President Obama's management style. He's simply not interested in many of the mundane things that go on in Washington. Unlike Bill Clinton for example, the president delegates but does not oversee. So, ideological federal employees and corrupt people working for the government know they can do pretty much what they want to do because there is little oversight from the top.
And even when, even when screw-ups happen like the Justice Department snooping on reporters, nothing happens to those who are accountable like Attorney General Holder.
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PETE WILLIAMS, NBC NEWS: But to be clear you're not stepping down?
ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: No, I have no intention of doing so now.
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O'REILLY: No. Why would he? No. So it's clear there is just chaos in Washington. I wonder what I'll be telling you tomorrow.
And that's "The Memo."
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