* “Today, it happened to 10,000 computers. There’s no barrier to do it tomorrow to 100 million computers.”–Ori Eisen, founder of the Trusona cybersecurity firm, on the recent global “ransomware” cyberattack.
* “Very simply, he was not doing a good job.”–President Donald Trump on the firing of FBI Director James Comey.
* “Dems have been complaining for months and months about Director Comey. Now that he has been fired, they PRETEND to be aggrieved. Phony hypocrites!”–Donald Trump.
* “It’s now up to Congress to save the Constitution by initiating impeachment proceedings. Trump can’t say ‘You’re fired’ to the House of Representatives. Trump has crossed the line. He is covering up high crimes and misdemeanors.”–Lawrence Tribe, professor of constitutional law at Harvard University Law School.
* Liberals need to accept that the strongest case for removing Trump from office is likely to remain a 25th Amendment case: not high crimes and misdemeanors, not collusion with the Russians, but a basic mental unfitness for the office that manifests itself in made-for-TV crises and self-inflicted wounds.”–Ross Douthat, New York Times.
* “No district is off the table.”–New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, the House Democratic campaign chairman, in vowing that Democrats will cast the widest possible net in 2018.
* “If you want Trump to tell the truth, to behave responsibly, and not to lash out in unreasoned fury, then it can’t just be Democrats who take him on.”–David French, National Review.
* “Trump doesn’t have to ‘deliver,’ in the traditional sense, in order to retain his base. … They are satisfied with a president with whom they feel culturally in sync.”–Bill Scher, Real Clear Politics.
* “In a lot of ways, I think Republicans have co-opted the Democrats’ message. They have policies that benefit the top 1 percent but managed to convince people those things are in their best interests, when they’re not.”–Former state Rep. Ed Narain.
* “If this behavior continues, your degrees will be mailed to you. Choose which way you want to go.”–Bethune-Cookman University President Edison Jackson, in admonishing B-C graduates for booing and turning their backs on commencement speaker Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education.
* “We don’t have the budget to do some of the marketing campaigns we have in the past without Visit Florida. Marketing pictures of just beaches doesn’t work anymore.”–Visit Tampa Bay CEO Santiago Corrada.
* “If you ask any site selector, they will tell you the importance of financial incentives. The days of relying on the weather and our favorable tax climate are long over. … We are competing against states like Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia–states that we never thought we would compete against but we are.”–Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan.
* “Maybe we do temporary freezes until we know how all our numbers play out. We don’t know yet until Aug.10 (the first day of school) how many students will be in our classes.”–Hillsborough County Schools Superintendent Jeff Eakins.
* “For a nonpartisan office, this is likely to be a highly partisan race. These are two experienced politicians. Both have won in this geography. Both have a lot of passion.”–USF political scientist Susan MacManus, on the St. Petersburg mayor’s race pitting incumbent (Democratic) Mayor Rick Kriseman and former (Republican) Mayor Rick Baker.
* “It’s not a secret that we have to have an office (consulate) close to our major communities, and it’s not a secret that we have our own preferences that way. Of course, we will be looking to places where local authorities consider it good news to have a Cuban office there.”–Jose Ramon Cabanas, Cub’s ambassador to the U.S., in an appearance at St. Petersburg College.
* “What I’d consider to be the No. 1 public safety issue in Pinellas County.”–Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, on the epidemic of juvenile car thieves.