* “The overwhelming majority of Afghans continue to see partnership with the United States as foundational to our future.”–Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani.
* “Cuba is in very dire economic straits. They need the United States. Venezuela’s economy could collapse, and then what are they going to do?”–Carmelo Mesa-Lago, University of Pittsburgh economist.
* “You can engineer all the safeguards you want, but the deliberate act of a deranged individual is going to cause major harm, because society has to trust certain people to do high-risk jobs.”–John Cox, retired airline pilot and aviation safety expert.
* “Today I am announcing that I am running for president of the United States. It is a time for truth, it is a time for liberty, it is a time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States.”–Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
* “I’m not going to fake anger to placate people’s angst.”–Jeb Bush.
* “Voting for president is a political act, but it’s also a relational one. … Right now in (Scott) Walker and Marco Rubio, (Jeb) Bush faces two opponents whose backgrounds and identities–the working-class slayer of unions, the self-made immigrant’s son–match the way Republican voters want to think about their party in a way that a silver-spoon politician, whatever his record, never will.”–Ross Douthat, New York Times.
* “Though Jeb is more apt to do his homework, he’s unformed on foreign policy, like his brother–except that his brother was elected before 9/11. Now the neocons who treated W. like a host body for their own agenda are swirling around Jeb, ready to inhabit another President Bush.”–Maureen Dowd, New York Times.
* “Word’s gotten out and people are communicating that they want to go before Cuba changes.”–Tom Popper, president of New York-based InsightCuba, on the notable hike in monthly tour bookings to Cuba.
* “Conservatives see the environmental left as people who want to eat bugs, walk and destroy the economy.”–Bob Inglis, executive director of the Energy and Enterprise Initiative.
* Honest to God, if you start to engage me in a race conversation before I’ve had my morning coffee, it will not end well.”–Gwen Ifill, the African-American co-anchor of “PBS NewsHour,” in a Twitter post, after Starbucks announced the “Race Together” initiative that encourages baristas to talk about race-related issues with customers.
* “If you made it less easy for employers to fire union organizers, you would meaningfully impact the amount of collective bargaining.”–Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.
* “The average Floridian pays about $1,800 a year in state taxes. That’s the lowest in the country. But we can do even better. And we will.”–Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach, chairman of the Florida House finance and taxation committee.
* “We’re very much in the posture to meet the House on tax cuts if, in fact, we have a resolution on health care.”–Florida Senate Appropriations Chairman Tom Lee, R-Brandon.
* “The Legislature greatly exceeded my expectations for mischief. There’s no question about what the emphasis was. It was Florida Forever. We were clear about that.”–Clay Henderson, former president of the Florida Audubon Society, on how the Senate and House are interpreting Amendment 1.
* “The days of nonpartisan races being truly nonpartisan are gone.”–USF political scientist Susan MacManus.
* “This is fundamentally a different way of looking at Tampa going forward. Forever more, Tampa will be a city that people will view from the vantage point of the waterfront. And the Riverwalk has made that possible.”–Former Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio.
* “He doesn’t just want a great district, a great setting for the Lightning to play, a great place to hang out on Thursday night, but a really great place to make Tampa a more competitive city and region.”–David Dixon of Stantec engineering, who’s advising Jeff Vinik on “new urbanism” applications.
* “It’s been a long time coming. I couldn’t be happier to be the mayor in office when we bring back the Tampa Pride Parade.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
* “There’s elections and there’s politics. In my office, we do elections; we don’t do politics.”–Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer.
* “From our perspective, it is very difficult to get a new stadium done without cooperation, help, assistance from local government. We’re hoping–we’re hoping–that Stuart (Steinberg) gets that kind of help so that they can get a facility that will keep the Rays and keep them competitive for the long term.”–MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred.