It is critical that parents and other trusted adults initiate conversations with kids about underage drinking well in advance of the first time they are faced with a decision regarding alcohol.

But 18 years after the passage of the Civil Liberties Act, there still remains unfinished work to completely rectify and close this regrettable chapter in our Nation's history.

The good news is that parents are the leading influence on kids' decision not to drink alcohol.

As of 2002, two million Latino adults had been diagnosed with diabetes.

According to Teenage Research Unlimited, 51 percent of 13-15 year olds say they will be faced with making a decision regarding alcohol in the next three months.

Winning the peace is harder than winning the war.

February 19, 1942, is the year in which Executive Order 9066 was signed, and this was the order that called for the exclusion and internment of all Japanese Americans living on the west coast during World War II.

We cannot undo the past in this misguided war in Iraq.

I hate to say it but I think it has become very obvious that our system for devising trade agreements, so very important to this country's functioning around the world, has not only broken, but it has broken completely.

Twenty million more have Chronic Kidney Disease, where patients experience a gradual deterioration of kidney function, the end result of which is kidney failure.

The Smithsonian museums are among this country's most endearing treasures and I look forward to helping maintain and enhance their coveted works of art.

It is critical that parents and other trusted adults initiate conversations with kids about underage drinking well in advance of the first time they are faced with a decision regarding alcohol.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the first use of alcohol typically begins at age 12.

We are on pace this year to have a trade deficit that is larger than $800 billion. We have never faced that before, but we continue to put forward trade agreements like these that leave us naked to competition that is neither free nor fair.

According to the American Heart Association, the prevalence of hypertension in African Americans in the United States is among the highest in the world.

Diabetes occurs at twice the rate in the African American community as it does in white Americans.

Individuals with kidney disease who are able to obtain treatment early experience a higher quality of life and are able to maintain more of their day-to-day activities, including keeping their jobs.

Today, we have a trade regime which has led to the largest trade deficits this country has ever experienced.

African Americans make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population but comprise 32 percent of patients treated for kidney failure, giving them a kidney failure rate that is 4.2 times greater than that of white Americans.

As a regent, I hope to bring that important perspective of a typical family visitor in combination with my background as a Member of Congress and a proponent of the Smithsonian's efforts to reach all Americans.

Having passion does not mean you have to descend into bickering and fighting.

I will fight like the dickens to protect Social Security.

If we finally chose as a country to take responsibility for the wars that we believe we must engage in, and rather than borrow money to exercise that authority to go to war, we actually pay for these wars, that would save us over a trillion dollars, because that's what we have spent in Iraq and Afghanistan - all through borrowed money.

Shame on me if I don't try to do more with what I have. It would be... a terrible thing to waste this opportunity to try to make a difference.

This is precisely why you choose to run for office and get elected. You're asking the people to let you be their voice. I don't think there is a more powerful and intense experience than the opportunity to be the voice of the 307 million people living in this country.

We have a tax code that allows groups to use their political operations within the tax code, under the guise of a charity, to use undisclosed millions of dollars to do political campaigns.

We need to make investment to get the economy going again, to give the private sector the confidence.

No one will deny that the excessive use of alcohol and alcoholic beverages would do more than any other single factor to make impossible a total war effort.

We used to drink an awful lot of alcohol.

A lot of victims, for example, have become addicted to alcohol and drugs. It seems to me that the church's healing ministry is going to be enhanced through this in much broader strokes. That's good, it's all positive.

I'm glad now, at age 66, that I never used alcohol or tobacco... I've buried a lot of friends who used tobacco or alcohol.

One day my wife went and saw the accountant and said she's pulling the plug. She said you guys are done. I said, how bad can it be? 10 grand? She said you're not even close. It came out to almost $50,000 in alcohol for two months.

So at the end of the day, our number 1 goal, our top priority, is to motivate American youngsters to reject the abuse of illegal drugs, tobacco and alcohol. All three of them are illegal behaviors.

There's so much fear involved in trying to do something you don't know how to do that drugs and alcohol can become a big part of your life if you have an addictive personality or are very unsure, which most songwriters are.

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.

Alcohol is like love. The first kiss is magic, the second is intimate, the third is routine. After that you take the girl's clothes off.

Somebody said to me this morning, 'To what do you attribute your longevity?' I don't know. I mean, I couldn't have planned my life out better. By all accounts I should be dead! The abuse I put my body through: the drugs, the alcohol, the lifestyle I've lived the last 30 years!

I've never had a drink of alcohol or any drug in my life.

The stated mission at the time was simply to use the influence of the entertainment industry to do an accurate portrayal of drug and alcohol abuse. We all admit that we're not trying to censor anybody.

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

The good news is that parents are the leading influence on kids' decision not to drink alcohol.

I got sober. I stopped killing myself with alcohol. I began to think: 'Wait a minute - if I can stop doing this, what are the possibilities?' And slowly it dawned on me that it was maybe worth the risk.

As we celebrate Recovery Month, it is time for Congress to knock down the barriers to treatment and recovery for 26 million Americans suffering the ravages of alcohol and drug addiction.

I don't want to get in a big, long discussion about right and wrong, but our company has been working on the issue of underage drinking and alcohol abuse for a long time. I've been outspoken about it.

According to Teenage Research Unlimited, 51 percent of 13-15 year olds say they will be faced with making a decision regarding alcohol in the next three months.

Such lifestyle factors such as cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, little physical activity and low dietary calcium intake are risk factors for osteoporosis as well as for many other non-communicable diseases.

That's all drugs and alcohol do, they cut off your emotions in the end.

People in the business will stay with you through drugs and alcohol and divorces and insanity and everything else, but you have a failure, pal, and they don't want to know nothing about you!