More and more Americans are asking about the price that we have to pay when Wal-Mart comes into a community, treats workers poorly, violates immigration laws and squashes small businesses.

Last Friday night, I Twitted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle. Once I realized I posted to Twitter I panicked, I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story, to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake.

I've exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years. For the most part, these communications took place before my marriage, though some have sadly took place after. To be clear, I have never met any of these women or had physical relationships at any time.

I am here today to again apologize for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused. I make this apology to my neighbors and my constituents, but I make it particularly to my wife, Huma.

For the past few years I have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over Twitter, Facebook, e-mail and occasionally on the phone with women I have met online.

I have made terrible mistakes that have hurt the people that I cared about the most, and I am terribly sorry. I am deeply ashamed of my terrible judgment and my actions.

There's no doubt about it, earmarks are not very popular. There are good earmarks and bad earmarks. The good earmarks are the ones I get for my district.

Pictures get manipulated, pictures get dropped into accounts. We've asked an internet security firm and a law firm to take a hard look at this to come up with a conclusion about what happened and to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I'm not resigning, and I'm going to try very hard to go back to work a better man and a better husband too.

Is Medicare socialism? You want to get rid of Medicare. And a lot of the people against health care do. I want to preserve it and grow it.

More and more Americans are asking about the price that we have to pay when Wal-Mart comes into a community, treats workers poorly, violates immigration laws and squashes small businesses.

Sooner or later they are going to live in a New York City where gay marriage is not only legal, but it's common and they don't even notice.

All those predictions about how much economic growth will be created by this, all of those new jobs, would be created by the things we wanted - the extension of unemployment insurance and middle class tax cuts. An estate tax for millionaires adds exactly zero jobs. A tax cut for billionaires - virtually none.

New York lost a classic. Carmine was an old school New Yorker.

Here we have been sitting down for a brief moment and you are already asking me if there are pictures of me in my drawers.

At a time when the GOP is playing games with the debt limit, a member of the Supreme Court is refusing to recuse himself from matters he has a financial interest in, and middle class incomes are stagnant, many want to change the subject. I don't. This was a prank, and a silly one. I'm focused on my work.

It's a nice neighborhood, like the one I left. My home borough is Brooklyn and Queens.

What I am saying is, all health care has a problem with costs. Medicare is growing slower than the private insurance plans. Why? Because of their efficiency. They don't have to give money to shareholders. Why should be defending shareholders?

I see a trend here where the President seems to think his job is to count votes and then try to make a deal That's what we in legislatures do. Mr. Obama's job is to travel the country, fight for the values that he cares about.

For the fifth year in a row, the Bush budget cuts city core services to pay for wealthy tax breaks. And once again, the mayor's requests were not funded.

I am announcing my resignation from Congress so my colleagues can get back to work, my neighbors can choose a new representative and most importantly that my wife and I can continue to heal from the damage I have caused.

It's also very important in Latin America. If we can deal with the drug problem there, some of their strife there, it's less likely we have immigration problems here.

Do you know what the overhead is of the Medicare system? One-point-zero-five percent. Do you know what - private insurance is 30 percent in overhead and profits? Given a choice how I'm going to improve health care, I'm going to take it away from private insurance profits and overhead. Wouldn't you?

We're trying to get to the bottom of where the picture came from, and we're trying to get to the bottom of what it's of and who it's of.

The picture was of me, and I sent it.

Listen, if the mayor wants to have a debate about education in this city, I got three words: bring it on.

I was trying to protect my wife, I was trying to protect myself from shame, and I really regret it.

There's no doubt about it that Mubarak has been indeed a partner with Israel, but there's also no doubt about something else. Conditions in Egypt were getting worse and worse, and it was almost just a matter of time before the popular uprising started.

Every dollar that we send in State Department aid or humanitarian aid that saves us from having to get involved with very expensive military actions is a good investment. And frankly, helping Israel fight terrorism in the Middle East is much cheaper than us fighting it here on our shores.

We always make the mistake in the United States of America in Democratic or Republican administrations alike is we tend to embrace the despot that's least troublesome to us. That should not be the way we view things.

I have made terrible mistakes that have hurt the people that I cared about the most and I am terribly sorry. I am deeply ashamed of my terrible judgment and my actions.

Working-class Americans have waited too long, close to a decade in fact, for an increase in the minimum wage. This has been the second longest period without a pay raise since the Federal minimum wage law was first enacted in 1938.

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

Americans seem sometimes to believe that if you are a thinker you must be a frowning bore, because thinking is so damn serious.

Americans are big boys. You can talk them into almost anything. Just sit with them for half an hour over a bottle of whiskey and be a nice guy.

Alabama citizens, like the vast majority of Americans, respect and value the meaning of decency, and appreciate public institutions that reflect the common values of our society.

People are stunned to hear that one company has data files on 185 million Americans.

Native Americans are the original inhabitants of the land that now constitutes the United States. They have helped develop the fundamental principles of freedom of speech and separation of powers that form the foundation of the United States Government.

I understand about this idea of terror and what it means to Americans and this idea that we can't just walk around free like we did; life has changed.

I mean, the reality is unemployment today - over 14 million Americans are unemployed. That's exactly what it was a year ago. I mean, this - the American people know we can't borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

There seems to be this sense among even well-meaning Americans that Africa is this black hole of murder and mutilation that can never be fixed, no matter what aid is brought in.

Currently, not only are Americans taxed on what they earn, but those assets are taxed again when they are passed on to a loved one.

In 2001, Congress passed much needed tax relief to allow Americans to keep more of their hard earned money and spend it as they see fit - rather than how the federal government sees fit.

Most Americans approach the problems of the Middle East with a pro-Israeli bias - and rightly so.

Backward is just not a natural direction for Americans to look - historical ignorance remains a national characteristic.

In the United States, there one feels free... Except from the Americans - but every pearl has its oyster.

Americans admire a people who can scratch a desert and produce a garden. The Israelis have shown qualities that Americans identify with: guts, patriotism, idealism, a passion for freedom. I have seen it. I know. I believe that.

I know that we're being inexorably taken over by the Americans. Without a doubt. I don't mean invaded or anything like that, just taken over. By degrees.

The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.