During a trip to Iraq last fall, I visited our theater hospital at Balad Air Force Base and witnessed these skilled medical professionals in action and met the brave soldiers whose lives they saved.

Mr. Speaker, democracy works best when the American electorate is engaged and informed.

As part of my efforts to fight identity theft, I worked with my colleagues on the Financial Services Committee to strengthen consumer protection with a reasonable notification requirement.

Identity theft is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the nation - especially in the suburbs.

By overhauling current rules and speeding the entry of competitors in the market, we encourage competition and provide our constituents with new choices and cheaper bills.

Social security, bank account, and credit card numbers aren't just data. In the wrong hands they can wipe out someone's life savings, wreck their credit and cause financial ruin.

If we want to truly regain the public's trust, we can provide greater accountability and transparency with a simple step. Let's start by communicating to our constituents about the votes we take.

Under the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Program, homes are independently verified to be measurably more energy efficient than average houses.

Even the best data security systems can't protect private taxpayer information from entrepreneurial foreign businesses than can make huge profits selling U.S. taxpayer information.

Many of our constituents have one option for cable TV and one price. Our constituents desire choice.

In fact, 80 percent of our domestic job growth comes from the small- and medium-sized business community.

Blaming others is an act of refusing to take responsibility. When a person can’t accept the fact or the reality, they blamed another person or the situation instead of taking accountability.

I am a true winner not because my life is free from struggles, challenges and obstacles, but because I always believe that there are some effective solutions to my difficulties in life.

We are homesick most for the places we have never known.

Sometomes that's all people ever really need. Just to know.

The truth is that no matter how many retakes you do, each will be different and that is the nature of any creative medium. There's no such thing as perfection.

Shame cannot survive being spoken. It cannot tolerate having words wrapped around it. What it craves is secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you stay quiet, you stay in a lot of self-judgment.

If I’m as normal as I think I am, we’re all a bunch of weirdos.

If you want to learn about the whole government and how it operates, the Appropriations Committee is the best place to learn it.

In Los Angeles, as I gained and lost celebrity, then gained it again, I often found myself wondering why I, out of thousands like me, had become famous.

I think Charles Manson was a hair's breath away from just being a terrorist. He wanted to start a war, too.