Quotables

‘You coward.’

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer on the House floor after Kevin McCarthy, the Republican majority leader, spoke of plans for a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security for three weeks rather than a full year in order to include provisions restricting President Obama’s executive action to grant legal status to illegal immigrants. Hoyer afterward apologized to McCarthy, and the Republican leadership on March 3 moved forward and the House passed a bill to fund DHS for a year without any immigration provisions.

‘I’m very open-minded.’

Defense Secretary Ash Carter on whether transgendered persons should be allowed to enlist in the military. They currently cannot serve openly. Carter said he didn’t mind transgendered persons serving “provided they can do what we need them to do for us” and that they “be excellent service members.”

‘Nobody even tries to use any diplomatic words.’

Former Israeli national security adviser Giora Eiland on the deteriorating relationship between Israeli and U.S. administration officials.

‘You walk out of your house and see a TV news truck outside and think to yourself, “Another murder.”’

New York City postal worker Luis Gesto on the 20 percent increase in murders in the city during the first two months of 2015. Shootings are also up 20 percent, but the number of crimes in other major categories have fallen.

‘Should our children be taught a curriculum that was written under the direction of a child pornographer and sexual predator?’

Mary Ellen Douglas of Canada’s Campaign Life Coalition on efforts to amend or derail a controversial new sex education program in Ontario. Former provincial education official Ben Levin oversaw the development of the curriculum, but he now faces two child-pornography charges and one charge of counseling an undercover cop posing as a mother to sexually abuse a child. The curriculum reportedly teaches children about “consent” in first grade, same-sex relationships in third grade, and sodomy in eighth grade, and mentions gender identity dozens of times.