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.
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July 23, 2021
....Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Rep. Cori Bush: "Could never have a job in the real world because she's not smart enough for a real job...Wrecking the country she hates."....Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol on Carlson: "A very talented demagogue."....Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sen. Rand Paul: "You do not know what you are talking about, and I want to say that officially."....Rep. Madison Cawthorn on Fauci: "A pawn of the Chinese Communist Party...We want to prosecute this guy to the full ability of the law."....Rep. James Talarico on Fox's Pete Hegseth: "You have made a lot of money personally and you have enriched a lot of corporations with advertising by getting on here and spewing lies and conspiracy theories to folks who trust you."....Michelle Goldberg on Trumpers: "Followed Trump from rally to rally like authoritarian Deadheads."....former Trump Homeland Security official and "Anonymous" author Miles Taylor: "The number one national security threat I've ever seen in my life to this country's democracy is the party that I'm in, the Republican Party."....Rep. Ronny Jackson: "Today's Democrat Party is made up almost entirely of socialists, communists, and Marxists. ALL BAD!"....Sen. Ted Cruz: "The left hates America. Believe them when they tell you this."....Sen. Marco Rubio: "My office stands ready to help the leaders of the Black Lives Matter organization to emigrate to Cuba."....J.D. "Hillbilly Elegy" Vance on Dems: "A party of childless people."....Atlantic's Tom Nichols on Vance: "A contemptible and cringe-inducing clown."....Rep. Josh Hawley: "While violent crime soars, Joe Biden's priority is his domestic war on terror -- snooping and spying on normal, working Americans who have the 'wrong' political opinions."....GOP strategist Susan Del Percio: "Forget 'Trumpism.' It's neofascism. That's what the grassroots of the party looks like right now."....Tucker Carlson on Covid vaccine: "I hope that people will not comply, by any means necessary."....former Fox reporter Carl Cameron on Fox's vaccine coverage: "It's not news. It's gaslighting. It's propaganda."....Steve Silberman: "Just say it plainly: If the terrorists had been Black instead of MAGA, Trump would have called in tanks and snipers on 1/6, rivers of blood would have run down the Capitol steps, and Fox News would be celebrating the massacre."....John Dean: "The Trump family is obnoxious out of power and dangerous in power because of their corruption and incompetence (a lethal combo)."....Rep. Jamaal Bowman on Amazon: "They've created a plantation work environment."....Taliban spokesperson on demonstrations by armed Afghan women: "Women will never pick up guns against us. They are helpless and forced by the defeated enemy. They can't fight."....Michael Wolff on Trump: "He is deranged...Everybody knows there was no election fraud, except for Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. It's like they're on some other planet."....Robert Reich: "Instead of asking his followers to get vaccinated, the former guy is claiming that people are not getting vaccinated because they don't trust the election results. Serious question: Is he the most loathsome human being ever to hold elected office in the US?"....former Trump chief of staff Mark Kelly on Trump: "The most flawed person I have ever met in my life."....Trump: "I was banned by sleazebags. I was banned by bad people."....
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July 6, 2021
....Rep. Scott Perry on Democrats: "They are the opposition to everything you love and believe in. Go fight them."....Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Kamala Harris profile: "The propagandists at North Korea's Communist Party news agency look on in awe at the reporters of Vogue magazine."....NY Post editorial board on Manhattan DA's investigation of Trump Organization: "All that Vance & Co. really have is partisan hate, not evidence."....pastor Greg Locke on Biden: "A sex-trafficking, demon-possessed mongrel."....radio host Michael Savage on critical race theory: "I am Jewish. I know how this starts. Attacks on white people is exactly what was done to the Jews in Germany in the 1930s...This is the road to the death camps."....Glenn Beck: "Yes, Obama. Critical race theory IS racist. And so are you."....David Groff: "I doubt there will ever be a Donald Rumsfeld School for the Study of Historically Informed and Contextualized Defense Policy Implementation. He remains the second-worst Donald."....Rep. Matt Gaetz on Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley: "With Generals like this it's no wonder we've fought considerably more wars than we've won."....Trump on New York publishers: "Some of the biggest sleazebags on earth... No morals, no nothing, just the bottom line."....Trump on Barr and McConnell: "Spineless RINOs."....Trump on Biden victory: "The crime of the century."....Stephen Colbert on "pipehitters" -- former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's nickname for his supporters: "If you think Mike Pompeo should be president, you're definitely hitting the pipe."....
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June 23, 2021
....Fox News' Tucker Carlson on 1/6: "It turns out that this 'white supremacist' insurrection was...organized at least in part by government agents."....CNN'S Jim Acosta: "I've decided to award Tucker with the distinction of Bullshit Factory Employee of the Month. Congrats, Tucker, you did it. Nobody bullshits like you when it comes to the insurrection."....Daily Kos headline: "Trump Admin Lawyers Having Trouble Finding Jobs Post-Jan.6: Violins Shrink to Quantum Level."....Sen. Ted Cruz: "Critical race theory is bigoted, it is a lie, and it is every bit as racist as the Klansman in white sheets."....Trump on CRT: "A Marxist doctine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation."....Fox guest Charles Murray: "The cognitive demands of [some] occupations mean that a whole lot more of white people qualify than black people, and even a higher proportion of Asian people qualify than white people."....Glenn Beck: "Yes, Obama. Critical race theory IS racist. And so are you."....Confederacy VP Alexander Stephens: "[The Confederacy was founded] upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition."....The Nation's Elie Mystal: "Joe Manchin is the guy at the whites-only diner who thinks the Negroes staging the sit-in are disturbing the peace."....SC Justice Alito on narrowness of Fulton case ruling: "This decision might as well be written on the dissolving paper sold in magic shops."....Joe Rogan on Trump: "F***ing dangerous."....Donald Trump Jr.: "Does anyone think that the Biden-Putin meeting will be anything but a bloodbath for American interests?"....Sean Hannity: "I think Putin is going to eat Biden's lunch."....Laura Ingraham on Biden: "Speaks softly and carries a big foam pool noodle."....Fox News on Biden's first foreign trip: "A colossal failure."....Newt Gingrich: "There's something about being a liberal Democrat that just loves power."....Trump on NY publishers: "Some of the biggest sleazebags on earth run these companies. No morals, no nothing, just the bottom line."....Chrissy Teigen on herself: "There is simply no excuse for my past horrible tweets...I was a troll, full stop."....white nationalist Nick Fuentes on the age of consent: "I think what it's really about is artificially increasing the sexual marketplace value of older women."....Piers Morgan on Meghan Markle: "Princess Pinocchio."....
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June 14, 2021
....Rep. Lauren Boebert on the media: "Needs to quit acting like cicadas are the worst creatures in DC. I can list several that are worse, starting with the Speaker of the House."....Donald Trump Jr. on Biden: "The world sees him as feeble."....Sean Hannity: "The Squad runs Joe Biden."....Rick Perry on VP Harris: "She's finished."....US Capitol Police officer James Blassingame on 1/6 rioters: "[Looked like] a horde of zombies, just people as far as you could see just salivating..."....Fox News contributor Miranda Devine: "That's the way [Joe Biden] operates with his entire family; white privelege, Biden privilege. And he has projected his whole racism onto America. He has sullied us all with his own sins."....CA Gov. Gavin Newsom on US District Judge Roger Benitez: "A wholly-owned subsidiary of the gun lobby and the NRA."....Sen. Rand Paul on Dr. Fauci: "Continuously and deliberately misleading the public at every turn."....Sean Hannity: "Flip-flop Fauci."....Judge Judy on CBS: "We had a nice marriage. It's going to be a Bill and Melinda Gates divorce."....MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid: "Donald Trump Jr. selling birthday greetings for $500 a pop is one of the saddest and most hilarious unexpected outcomes of our prior four years of hell."....former GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock on Trump: "The patron saint of sore losers."....former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner on Trump: "A runaway criminal president."....Frank Bruni on Trump: "A glutton yanked away from the buffet...No good comes from an ego as ravenous as his. He will make a meal of the Republican Party -- and of American democracy itself -- if he can."....Trump: "Our country is being destroyed before our very eyes."....Kid Rock: "If Kid Rock using the word 'faggot' offends you, good chance you are one."....
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June 3, 2021
....NY Post on Sen. Mitch McConnell blocking Jan. 6 probe: "Spineless McWorm."....Michael Steele on McConnell and GOP: "Pathetic cowards."....CNN's Don Lemon: "They're trying to throw the truth of what happened into a big old memory hole so they never have to think about it again."....David Corn: "It's kind of amazing that you can watch in real-time the Republican Party betraying the nation."....Fox News' Sean Hannity: "The left's obsession with being 'woke' is turning America into a nation of weak wimps."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on AOC: "O'Crazyo-Cortez."....WaPo on Trump's website: "Has attracted fewer estimated visitors than the pet-adoption service Petfinder and the recipe site Delish."....Roger Stone on Zachary Petrizzo: "Is this not the most punchable face you have ever seen? What a little a**hole."....Eric Trump: "The Washington Post is a joke."....Trump on Madoff family, 2011: "For these people who sit there and claim they had no idea what was happening with their father, who was right next to them in offices and everything else -- don't believe it, folks! It's a scam."....Michael Cohen on Trump: "Reality doesn't exist in Donald Trump's world."....Joy Reid on Tucker Carlson: "A male Karen."....Piers Morgan on Naomi Osaka: "World sport's most petulant little madamn...A petulant brat who can't handle criticism."....Fox Sports commentator Skip Bayless on LeBron James: "The Drama King."....