* “Vladimir Putin is a strong leader in the same way that arsenic is a strong drink. Praising a brutal KGB dictator, especially as preferable to a democratically elected U.S. president, whether you like Obama or hate him, is despicable and dangerous.”–Garry Kasparov, Russian former world chess champion and Putin critic.
* “When U.S. leaders think about negotiating with Russia, they need to be sure their model is John F. Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis, rather than Neville Chamberlain at Munich.”–David Ignatius, New York Times.
* “I understand we’re a young country, we are a restless country. We always like the new shiny thing. I benefited from that when I was a candidate, and we take for granted sometimes what is steady and true. And Hillary Clinton is steady and she is true.”–President Barack Obama.
* “Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it, you know what I mean? President Barack Obama was born in the United States. Period.”–Donald Trump.
* “Truth has a low priority in the misnomer known as reality TV. Rules are for losers.”–Former Boston Globe editor Martin Nolan.
* “Anything we can do to prevent the (presidential) debate from just being candidates disagreeing with each other, and to push the dialogue onto firmer ground, is a good thing.”–Lucas Graves, author of “Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism.”
* “A national disgrace. An international pariah.”–Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in referring to Donald Trump.
* “On the things that are really big, (Donald Trump) will in some clumsy way force real change.”–Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
* “I think that (Clinton’s) bodyguards should drop all weapons. Take their guns away. She doesn’t want guns … let’s see what happens to her.”–Donald Trump.
* “Standing up for children has been the work of my life, as a lawyer for the Children’s Defense Fund, as first lady of Arkansas, in the White House.”–Hillary Clinton.
* “All of the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done with executive order, which means the next president can reverse them. And that is what I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands.”–Donald Trump.
* “His (Barack Obama) is going to be easily the most valuable presidential memoir ever. And I think Michelle Obama has the opportunity to sell the most valuable First Lady memoir in history.”–Raphael Sagalyn of the ICM/Sagalyn Literacy Agency.
* “Against the candidate perceived to be the most hostile to Hispanic voters in modern presidential politics, why is (Clinton) not exceeding where Barack Obama was?”–Miami Democratic strategist/pollster Fernand Amandi.
* “The administration imagined something transformational; it ended up with something significant but incremental.”–David Brooks, New York Times, on the Affordable Care Act.
* “I think what it shows is, one, the NCAA is capable of doing the right thing. And two, when it wants to, it can act quickly.”–ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas, on the NCAA’s decision to pull seven championships out of North Carolina resulting from that state’s law requiring transgender people to use restrooms in schools and state government buildings that correspond to the gender on their birth certificates. The law also excludes gender identity and sexual orientation from statewide antidiscrimination protections.
* “We are unable to find any data that shows arresting youth for common youth misbehavior instead of issuing civil citations is a good idea.”–Dewey Caruthers, author of the “Stepping Up 2016” report by the Children’s Campaign advocacy group.
* “It’s nice to agree on something.”–Charlie Crist, during his debate with David Jolly, in reference to their agreement that St. Petersburg should be the home of a Cuban consulate and the Rays should remain in Pinellas County.
* “Port Tampa Bay is Cuba-ready, and we are open to any legal opportunities.”–Edward Miyagishima, Port Tampa Bay’s vice president of communications.
* “It’s my view that these cameras do act as something of a deterrent. They slow people down. They make people more aware.”–Tampa City Council member Harry Cohen, who voted in the (4-3) majority to keep the city’s red-light camera program for two more years.
* “It’s a fraud. It’s a cash cow for the vendor and a cash cow for the city.”–Tampa City Council member Frank Reddick, who voted in the minority to keep the city’s red-light camera program for two more years.
* “These are promoters in pursuit of profit and they could care less for the health, safety and welfare of attendees.”–Mayor Bob Buckhorn, on the return in 2017 of the Sunset Music Festival, an outdoor concert where two people died of drug overdoses earlier this year.