ANTHONY WEINER

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The picture was of me, and I sent it.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

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?