* “International diplomacy has been reduced to name-calling, giving it a surreal sense of unreality that makes the world security situation ever more threatening.”–Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
* “Something terrible, and perhaps irreparable, has happened. The idea of America has been sullied. It has fallen victim to Trump’s untruth, indecency, racism and contempt for the values without which American greatness is inconceivable. The president is at home with despots because he sees himself in them. … He has turned the meaning of the word ‘America’ on its head. He has empowered bigots, thugs, bullies, racists, nationalists and nativists the world over.”–Roger Cohen, New York Times.
* “History suggests that democratic norms are vulnerable to polarization. Some polarization is healthy, even necessary, for democracy. But extreme polarization can kill it. … Parties come to view each other not as legitimate rivals but as dangerous enemies.”–Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, co-authors of “How Democracies Die.”
* “Democrats are far more concerned with illegal immigrants than they are with our great military or safety at our dangerous southern border.”–Donald Trump.
* “We are not going to allow (presidential assistant) Stephen Miller to exploit a crisis that he and his boss created to take a wrecking ball to the Statue of Liberty and enact his nativist wish list.”–Frank Sharry, executive director of America’s Voice, a pro-immigration group.
* “She probably has some tiny, shriveled husk left in her soul where she realizes this is the wrong thing to do. But she does it anyway because otherwise they’ll replace her.”–Florida-based, conservative commentator Rick Wilson, on White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
* “Barack Obama was always calling to our better angels. Donald Trump is paying off porn stars and denigrating struggling countries that send minorities to the U.S. as ‘sh*tholes.’ How did we drop so far and so fast from class to crass?”–Maureen Dowd, New York Times.
* “It’s pretty clear to me that everybody in the White House knows it would be the end of President Trump’s presidency if he fired Mr. Mueller.”–Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
* “Is what we’re watching a tragedy or a farce?”–Ross Douthat, New York Times.
* “Women can be not only complicit but enabling in sexual abuse, and we women as a community, as a society, need to recognize that every single one of us needs to take a good look at who we’ve stood up for and who we haven’t.”–Juliet Williams, professor of gender studies at UCLA.
* “Evangelicals have cast their lot with a hedonistic president who seems to merely give the Bible lip service at public functions.”–Jamil Smith, HuffPost.
* “You have not taken gymnastics away from me. I love this sport, and that love is stronger than the evil that resides in you, in those who enabled you to hurt many people.”–Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, among the more than 150 women and girls who confronted Larry Nassar over his abuse of gymnasts.
* “Going to sleep with the lights off doesn’t make us anti-electricity. In the same way, turning off our phones to be able to reconnect with the people and things we most value doesn’t make us anti-technology.”–Arianna Huffington.
* “And look at the job God gave me now.”–Pope Francis, while chatting with reporters aboard the papal plane. The Holy Father has been known to have had frosty relations with the Argentine media.
* “Extending this moratorium (scheduled to end in 2022) will ensure that there is no question that Florida is off the table from drilling and not at the mercy of politicians like Gov. Rick Scott and President Donald Trump who have flip flopped on the issue.”–U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa.
* “I cannot more enthusiastically endorse and completely support your run.”–Sean Hannity’s gubernatorial endorsement of Florida Congressman Ron DeSantis.
* “One of the biggest things we’re trying to do is ‘green’ our fleet of generators.”–TECO CEO Nancy Tower.
* “I think that patients in Florida should be able to grow their own without fear of being arrested.”–Joe Redner, registered medical marijuana patient, who is challenging state rules that ban Florida residents from growing their own marijuana.
* “We are transitioning from an economy that was focused on construction and tourism and agriculture to an economy that is built on technology. We are global in our perspective.” Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
* “It is not so expensive that it really is out of the realm of us figuring out how to pay for it.”–Tampa City Council member Harry Cohen, on the financial perspective of the bus rapid transit proposal.
* “I think it’s my greatest feat ever in the game of hockey to put a hockey team in Florida.”–Tampa Bay Lightning founder Phil Esposito.