* “It doesn’t matter what the president says about the stock market. What matters is that millions of people struggle to get by or don’t have enough money at the end of the month after paying for transportation, students loans or prescription drugs.”–Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, in delivering the Democratic response to President Trump’s SOTU speech.
* “Truth matters little to him. What’s right matters even less, and decency matters not at all.” Rep. Adam Schiff, in his closing arguments to the Senate impeachment jury.
* “An appalling abuse of the public trust.”–Sen. Mitt Romney, on casting his vote to convict the president for attempting to extort Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden.
* “I don’t need any lessons from anybody, especially the president of the United States, about dignity.”–Nancy Pelosi.
* “That Marco Rubio is a Republican prince and Romney a Republican pariah tells you all you need to know about how low a once-proud party has sunk.”–Max Boot, Washington Post.
* “Mr. Trump is on a roll, but there are 271 days left before Election Day. His supporters should remember: What happens the first week of February won’t decide what happens the first Tuesday of November.”–Karl Rove, organizer of the American Crossroads PAC and former George W. Bush adviser.
* “The central fact of America today is not its economic vigor but its profound inequity.”–Nicholas Kristof, New York Times.
* “Suburban women is where he has a challenge. I think the biggest problem that he has with suburban women is the part that so many in his base like about him. His rhetoric. His punching down at his opponents. It’s so different than anything they’ve seen.”–Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.
* “This (voting) fiasco means the end of the caucuses as a significant American political event. The rest of the country was already losing patience with Iowa anyway and this cooks Iowa’s goose. Frankly, it should.”–David Yepsen, Des Moines Register.
* “Let’s be glad in Florida we have professional election administrators running primaries and not party volunteers running a caucus.”–Michael McDonald, University of Florida political science professor.
* “If we are losing our national identity, it is not because we are becoming browner or speak in more languages than we once did. It is because we are losing our sense of the common good. ‘We’re better than anyone else’ nationalism, tinged with racism, typically emerges in countries where demagogues build their base of power by fueling fears of others outside the nation’s borders.”–Robert Reich, former secretary of labor and author of “The Common Good.”
* “Trump is utterly irreplaceable as the living id of the American right, an existentially satisfying demagogue who has proven himself capable of lashing out at the elements of American society they despise as much in deed as in word.”–Osita Nwanevu, New Republic.
* “The market can only ever provide what is profitable. It is utterly indifferent to human needs.”–Leigh Phillips, Jacobin.
* “A game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons.”–Rush Limbaugh’s characterization of the NFL.
* “We want this to be known as one of the top startup cities in the country, and we will get there. I think a reasonable time frame is five to 10 years.”–Jeff Vinik, the developer of Embarc Collective, a former downtown warehouse that is now home to dozens of startup companies.
* “The most effective way to combat hate is to build bridges within our greater Tampa community, especially between the Jewish and African-American communities, through dialogue and education. The more we know and understand about each other and our histories, the less likely vitriolic rhetoric will be tolerated.”–Joseph A. Probasco, president of the board of directors of the Tampa Jewish Community Centers & Federation.
* “I think there’s going to be a very big push for these (‘attainable housing’) types of projects in the next two years. We (architects) need to be in the forefront in leading the community discussion.”–Mickey Cohen, principal of the Design Studio at BDG Architects.
* “The old adage that you get what you pay for is true in education as well. It’s hard to recruit and keep good teachers if you are not paying them.”–Craig Richard, president and CEO of the Tampa Bay Economic Development Council.
* “I think the Water Department is acting in a rogue fashion.”–Tampa City Council member Bill Carlson on the city’s intentions about its Tampa Augmentation Project, which would convert highly-treated wastewater to drinking water.