Archive


Mudline Archive
STICKS, STONES, BROKEN BONES
During the 2000 Bush-Gore presidential race, we began collecting negative soundbites and posting them weekly on a MUDLINE ticker, as a temporary election feature. But in the aftermath of that tumultuous contest we realized that the tone of public discourse was unlikely to improve, and elected to continue the feature. Unfortunately, we were right; two decades later, incivility is hotter than ever. If you just can’t get enough snark on social media, this mud’s for you.
-
October 22, 2021
....Sen. Josh Hawley: "For those of us who missed the McCarthy era, I guess this president is intent on bringing it to us."....Glenn Greenwald on Dems: "The worst kind of fanatics: the ones who really believe their own lies."....Trump on immigrants from Haiti: "Probably have AIDS."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to Rep. Cheney: "You're done. You're a joke, Liz."....Fox News' Sean Hannity on Biden: "Not mentally, cognitively strong enough; not fit to serve."....Fox News' Tucker Carlson: "Is it still a good thing to get vaccinated? Did Colin Powell die BECAUSE of the vaccine?...We're just asking the questions the government won't allow us to ask."....conservative columnist Max Boot: "I can't think of any company that has done more damage to American democracy over the past quarter-century than Fox 'News.'"....MSNBC's Brian Williams on OAN: "For people who find Fox News too leftist...You can also pick up their signal if you happen to angle your tinfoil hat just right."....Howard Stern on Kyrie Irving giving up millions to not get vaccinated: "He's gotta be the top idiot in the country right now."....Fox anchor Will Cain on doctors who recommend vaccines: "Captured by groupthink."....Trump on GOP: "It was a dying party, I'll be honest. Now we have a very lively party."....Heather Digby Parton on GOP: "The party is actually eating itself alive."....poet Saeed Jones on Dave Chapelle's 'The Closer': "I felt like I'd just been stabbed by someone I once admired and now he was demanding that I stop bleeding."....Danny "D.J." Rodriguez, on his role in storming the Capitol on 1/6: "I'm an ass****. I'm a piece of sh**."....Joy Behar: "Pete Buttigieg served six years in the Navy Reserve and deployed -- was deployed to Afghanistan. Tucker Carlson was booted off 'Dancing with the Stars' after he couldn't even do the Cha Cha."....
-
September 29, 2021
Fox News' Jesse Watters on Biden: "Instead of uniting the country against this pandemic...he's trying to divide the country against itself."....AZ Secretary of State Katie Hobbs on her state's recount: "A colossal waste of time. And anyone who is considering replicating it in their state...should not be considered a serious leader."....VA state senator Amanda Chase: "Because the Democrats like to cheat, you have to cast your vote before they do."....Trump on Gen. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: "Dumbass."....Rep. Liz Cheney on Trump: "I like Republican presidents who win re-election."....Fox News' Tucker Carlson on vaccine mandates: "If they can force you to take a vaccine that you don't need, what can't they do? Why don't they make you take psychiatric drugs if you're persistently disobedient?"....former Gov. John Dean: "Fox News is killing people."....John Nolte on Biden, Pelosi, and Fauci: "Are deliberately looking to manipulate Trump supporters into not getting vaccinated."....Lara Trump: "In case you haven't noticed, America -- Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Democrats do not care about you.".... AG William Barr to Trump, April 2020: "The main problem is you think you're a f***ing genius, politically. There are a lot of people out there, independents and Republicans in the suburbs of the critical states that think you're an asshole."....Trump: "Our country is rapidly becoming a cesspool of humanity."....
-
September 14, 2021
....Rep. Mo Brooks: "The 2020 election was fraught with voter fraud and election theft on a massive scale...Trump won the election."....former Gov. Chris Christie on GOP: "Pretending we won when we lost is a waste of time and energy and credibility."....Fox News' Chris Wallace on election-deniers: "I don't, frankly, want to hear their crap."....Salon's Amanda Marcotte: "The vaccine-refusing ordinary Joes, on some level, understand they are part of a grim, deadly effort to regain power."....Howard Stern: "When are we gonna stop putting up with the idiots in this country and just say it's mandatory to get vaccinated? F*** 'em. F*** their freedom. I want my freedom to live...This is bulls***."....J.D. "Hillbilly Elegy" Vance on vaccine mandates: "Garbage."....Rep. Jim Jordan: "Vaccine mandates are unAmerican."....SC Gov. Henry McMaster: "We will fight them to the gates of hell..."....FL radio host Dick Farrel, subsequently killed by COVID, on Dr. Fauci: "A power-tripping lying freak."....FL citizen testifying before Lee County school board, on mask supporters: "They hate your kids. They hate my kids. Get it?"....Fox News' Tucker Carlson: "Medical Jim Crow has come to America. If we still had water fountains, the unvaccinated would have separate ones."....CNN host Jim Acosta on Carlson: "Human manure spreader."...."Thomas Jefferson" quote on Twitter: "Liberty means being a big baby and never having to do anything you don't wanna do even if it hurts or kills other people. Goo goo ga ga."....former Food Network host Josh Denny on Texas anti-abortion law: "Calm down, broads. You still have six weeks to decide your life is more important then anyone else's. And spare me the 'many women don't know they're pregnent for six weeks.' Whores. Only whores wouldn't know for six weeks."....Sarah Palin on AOC: "A fake feminist. As a real feminist, I'm embarrassed for her."....AOC on Palin: "I set up a special hotline for her...1-800-CRY-NOW."....Donald Trump Jr. on Biden: "Often can't remember where he is, can't walk up a flight of stairs, and can't get through a basic speech he's been giving for 50 years."....former Trump adviser Stephen Miller on Biden: "Clinically insane."....Daily Wire's Matt Walsh on Biden: "We had to elect this rotting bag of oatmeal to get a real tyrant."....Biden on airline passenger unruly behavior over mask requirements: "It's ugly...Show some respect."....Fox News' Judge Jeanine Pirro: "Maybe some of the flight attendants ought to show some respect to us, OK?"....Jonathan Katz: "For 20 years the U.S. effort in Afghanistan has done little but enrich defense and military contractors and bolster the global heroin trade while harming a country about which Americans knew and understood little."....Trump on Afghanistan: "We should have withdrawn in a totally different way, with great dignity."....Trump on Afghanistan: "We should have hit that country years ago, hit it really hard, and then let it rot."....
-
August 30, 2021
....Rep. Matt Gaetz on Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin: "Might be the stupidest person to have ever served in a presidential cabinet in America's history."....Megan McCain on Afghanistan withdrawal: "There's gotta be at least one person who can be found in the Biden administration with a brain pulse..."....Rep. Brian Mast on Biden: "He does not deserve to have the words "commander" or "chief" anywhere in his title."....Nikki Haley on Biden: "Failed miserably...He humiliated America."....Rep. Jim Banks on withdrawal: "Will go down in history as a black mark on our country and certainly will prove that this president is not up for the job."....Sen. Marco Rubio: "This White House is not strong, they are not prepared, they're not even competent."....Sen. Lindsey Graham on Biden: "Has no one to blame for this debacle but himself."....Rep. Kevin McCarthy: "Why would President Biden pick the Taliban over our allies and over Americans?"....Fox News' Greg Gutfeld on Biden: "Didn't see the Taliban resurgence because he was too busy indulging fabricated adversaries."....Bill O'Reilly: "The American people now know for certain that Joe Biden cannot do his job."....Laura Ingraham on Sec Def and JCS chairman: "If Austin and Milley were in charge, they wouldn't have been ready to launch the D-Day invastion until 1948. And then it would have failed."....Sen. Ted Cruz: "Is there an enemy of America for whom CNN won't cheerlead?"....Afghan war vet and former CIA analyst Matt Zeller on former Trump adviser Stephen Miller: "As complicit as the Taliban...A privileged little brat. He ought to be held for war crimes."....Michelle Cottle on AZ "Cyber Ninja" audit: "A poisonous, partisan P.R. stunt so poorly executed that it makes the hunt for a new 'Jeopardy!' host look smooth by comparison."....FL Gov. Ron DeSantis on masks: "Not proven to be effective...An illusion...The American public has been gaslighted by the medical industrial complex."....Arnold Schwarzenegger on anti-maskers: "Schmucks."....Trump on the U.S.: "Taken advantage of by the entire world."....former Clinton adviser Paul Begala on Trump: "The Grand Poobah of boohoo."....Mary Trump on her uncle: "An inveterate failure who keeps being allowed to succeed...Elected Republicans have become Donald's greatest enablers since his father, Fred."....Fox News' Tucker Carlson on US allies rescued from Afghanistan: "So first we invade, and then we are invaded."....Jennifer Wood: "If there's one thing Tucker Carlson is good at, it's being one of the world's most loathsome humans."....CNN's Jim Acosta on Carlson: "The Ayatollah of Paranoia."....John Oliver on Carlson and Laura Ingraham: "Racial-panic goblins."....anti-vax protester on COVID vaccine: "People are having their DNA wiped out."....
-
August 13, 2021
....Tucker Carlson on Dr. Anthony Fauci: "The man who helped to create COVID in the first place."....House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Dems: "Make no mistake -- the threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science."....House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on McCarthy: "Such a moron."....Rep. Lauren Boebert on House mask mandate: "Anti-science, totalitarian."....Rep. Byron Donalds: "The only science the left cares about is political science."....Sen. Ted Cruz: "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don't care about science. They care about power and control."....Charles Barkley on vaccine-refusers: "A**holes."....Howard Dean on FL Gov. Ron DeSantis: "Totally unfit to govern in any way."....TX Deputy AG Aaron Reitz on Simone Biles: "A national embarrassment."....Piers Morgan: "Are 'mental health issues' now the go-to excuse for any poor performance in elite sport?"....radio talk show host Charlie Kirk: "We are raising a generation of weak people like Simone Biles...She's very selfish, she's immature, and she is a shame to the country. She's totally a sociopath."....US Olympic swimming star Lily King: "The fact that we [as a country] don't celebrate silver and bronze is bulls***."....Charles M. Blow on GOP: "A national security threat and a cancer on our democracy."....Rep. Adam Schiff on GOP: "A cult of personality beholden to the whims of a disgraced, former president."....Maricopa County Board of Supervisors on Trump-inspired audit: "An adventure in Never-Never Land."....Carl Bernstein on Trump: "Our own American war criminal, of a kind we've never experienced before...He put his own electoral needs about the health of our people, as they were slaughtered in this pandemic."....Sen. Ted. Cruz: "People are dying, and Joe Biden doesn't care."....Dan Bailey to Tucker Carlson: "You are the worst human being known to mankind."....Donald Trump Jr.: "Biden really makes reading a teleprompter look hard."....pastor Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church: "This is your daily reminder that the so-called 'fact checkers' have been paid off by the left. Now that's a fact!"....