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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September 21, 2022
FL Gov. Ron DeSantis on CA Gov. Gavin Newsom: "His hair gel is interfering with his brain function."....Sen. Ted Cruz: "It wasn't until 50 illegal immigrants interfered with teatime in Martha's Vineyard that liberal billionaire elites and the media finally took notice of the Biden Border Crisis."....Fox host Tucker Carlson: "The Vineyard is going to have to construct shantytowns for all these new people. But we can't call them shantytowns, obviously that's demeaning...They can occupy Barack Obama's compound...Build a soccer field on the lawn, an outdoor goat barbecue by the back lawn -- and bingo -- you've got affordable housing!"....Sen. John Kennedy: "Inflation loves Biden like the Devil loves sin."....Rep. Jim Jordan: "If you fly the American flag, wear the wrong t-shirt, or express doubt about big government, then you too could be labeled a domestic terrorist by Joe Biden's Justice Department."....Trump: "We are a nation that no longer has a free press, and has no fair press any longer. Fake News is all you get, and they are truly the enemy of the people. We are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed."....Donald Trump Jr. on enemies of the U.S.: "When they look at Joe Biden and they say, "You know what? We should attack now.""....Eric Trump on Biden: "The most incompetent president this country has ever had."....Trump on DOJ: "They leak, lie, plant fake evidence, allow the spying on my campaign, deceive the FISA Court, raid and break into my home, lose documents, and then they ask me, as the 45th President of the United States, to trust them."....Trump on FBI: "Very dishonest, sick people."...Sarah Huckabee Sanders, 2016: "When you're attacking FBI agents because you're under criminal investigation, you're losing."....Dahlia Lithwick on Trump: "The great greased watermelon."....Trump on Dr. Oz opponent John Fetterman: "Supports taxpayer-funded drug dens and the complete decriminalization of illegal drugs, including heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, and ultra-lethal fentanyl. By the way, he takes them himself."....Jack Schafer on Trump: "Abandoning all rationality, he continues wearing his red baseball cap like a crown and expounds on issues like a monarch. His most ardent followers' minds have become pudding as they predict and re-predict his restoration like a messianic cult or a doomsday sect."....Joe Biden on Trump, in speech: "You can't love your country only when you win."....Trump on Biden speech: "The most vicious, hateful, and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president...The enemy of the state is him and the group that controls him."....Gov. Mike Huckabee: "Sad. Rantings of an old man."....Sen. Josh Hawley: "Hate-filled and menacing rhetoric...disgraceful."....Monica Crowley: "Satanic."....Ben Shapiro: "The most demagogic, outragous, and divisive speech I have ever seen from an American president."....Tucker Carlson on Chuck Todd: "If you want to know what the Biden administration is really thinking, listen to the guy with the combover in the anchor chair at MSNBC."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Dr. Anthony Fauci: "I think that man belongs in jail."....Trump on FBI search-warranted seizure of government documents at Mar-a-Lago: "One of the most shocking abuses of power we have witnessed from any administration in American history."....Trump AG William Barr: "People say this [raid] was unprecendented -- well, it's also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, okay?"....Tucker Carlson on VP Kamala Harris: "What the hell are you talking about, you freaking lunatic?"....Trump on Biden: "Like the devil."....Frank Bruni on GOP candidates: "They're taking baby steps away from the world's biggest baby."....Andrea Junker: "The way I see it: The only person Trump ever hired who was actually qualified to do her job was Stormy Daniels."....Trump on the Lincoln Project: "Perverts and Lowlifes...The Perverts should not be allowed to "false advertise," and Fox News should not allow it to happen. See you all in Court!"....Anthony Citrano on Trump: "It's almost impossible to believe he exists. It's as if we took everything that was bad about America, scraped it up off the floor, wrapped it all up in an old hot dog skin, and then taught it to make noises with its face."....Trump, on the Bidens' seating at the Queen's funeral: "If I were president, they wouldn't have sat me back there...This is what's happened to America in just two short years."....Garrison Keillor on Trump: "Cornwallis surrendered. He didn't claim the battle was fraudulent and that he was the true winner, nor did he slip out of Yorktown a day early to avoid having to hand over his sword. He handed it over."....
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August 24, 2022
....Dr. Oz on Senate race opponent: "If John Fetterman had ever eaten a vegetable in his life, then maybe he wouldn't have had a major stroke."....Rep. Lauren Boebert on FBI seizing classified documents at Mar-a-Lago: "This is nothing short of a coup...Under Garland's watch, the DOJ resembles the Gestapo."....Trump on the FBI: "Has a long and unrelenting history of being corrupt."....Rep. Paul Gosar: "We must destroy the FBI."....Newt Gingrich: "The Constitution as a working document has ceased to exist."....Michael Flynn: "We have no rule of law in America."....Sen. John Kennedy: "The FBI and Department of Justice are going to give Trump a fair and impartial firing squad."....Trump Jr. fiancé Kimberly Guilfoyle: "This wouldn't be happening if President Trump was still in office."....Rob McElhenney: "How dare the FBI barge in like that. Donald Trump's golf courses are sacred burial grounds for his ex-wives."....Donald Trump Jr.: "This is an ultimate life hack: Become a Democrat, then you can do whatever you want with no accountability, no legal action, they'll just leave you alone."....Sen. Rick Scott: "The modern wacky left Dems have never read George Orwell. They don't know they're making his predictions come true."....Trump on Sen. Mitch McConnell: "A broken-down hack politician."....Charlie Sykes on Trump: "Disgraced, twice impeached, defeated, chronically lying narcissist."....FL Gov. Ron DeSantis: "These ruling leftist elites in our country, they consider us to be subjects to be ruled over."....Rep. Lauren Boebert: "Biden's America is Woodstock 1999."....Chelsea Handler on Boebert: "One of the biggest MAGA morons ever elected to public office."....Sen. John Kennedy on Biden: "Would be better off selling catheters on late-night TV than serving as President of the United States."....Sen. Chuck Grassley, on IRS seeking additional employees: "Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small-business person in Iowa?"....Sen. Ted Cruz on same: "Shadow army [coming to] hunt you down and take your money."....radio host Mark Levin: "If there is a civil war, I would say that Liz Cheney is on the wrong side of it. More Jefferson Davis than Abraham Lincoln."....Trump, six years before taking the Fifth 450 times in a deposition with the NY Attorney General: "The mob takes the Fifth. If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?"....Eric Trump on NY AG Letitia James: "The most corrupt Attorney General in the United States. I want to remind everyone of exactly who this evil woman is."....Trump online fundraising message to supporters: "You're a traitor. You abandoned Trump...This is your final chance to prove your loyalty or be branded a deserter...We're giving you one final chance to stand with Trump. You only have 17 minutes..."....
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August 10, 2022
....Trump: "Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those countries, corrupt at a level not seen before...We are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation...We are a nation that in many ways has become a joke."....Fox host Mark Levin: "The FBI is corrupt...The worst attack on this republic in modern history. Period."....Fox News' Jesse Watters: "What the FBI is probably doing is planting evidence...We also have a hunch that they doctored evidence to get the warrant."....House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on AG Merrick Garland: "Preserve your documents and clear your calendar."....Jeanine Pirro on the FBI: "Everything you've done regarding Donald Trump has been illegal, illegitimate, and immoral....And it's not Donald Trump's fault, it's their fault."....FL state Rep. Anthony Sabatini: "Sever all ties with the DOJ immediately. Any FBI agent conducting law enforcement functions outside the purview of our State should be arrested on sight."....Rep. Matt Gaetz: "This administrative state has been weaponized against our people in a very fascist way."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: "DEFUND THE FBI!"....Rep. Jim Jordan on Mar-a-Lago raid: "One of the most frightening things I've ever seen in our country."....Sen. Rick Scott: "The way our federal government has gone is like what we thought about the Gestapo, people like that, that they just go after people. What we thought about the Soviet Union. We have got to say, 'We're a country of laws.'"....former GOP presidential candidate Joe Walsh: "The Republican Party can never, ever again call themselves the party of law and order. Never again."....Rep. Elise Stefanik: "If the FBI can raid a U.S. President, imagine what they can do to you."....Paul Graham: "The only thing worse than a country where the police can raid a former president is one where they can't."....far right influencer and "Pizzagate" conspiracist Jack Posobiec: "The federal state has declared war...Lead, follow, or get out of the way. Leviathan has awoken. Welcome to the end game."...Molly Jong-Fast: "The idea that you can't hold Trump accountable because his supporters might be mad at you is one of the stupidest ideas I've heard."....Sarah Huckabee Sanders (11-3-16): "When you're attacking FBI agents because you're under criminal investigation, you're losing."....Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley in unsent letter of resignation, to Trump: "You don't understand what [WWII] was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that."....Jon Stewart: "The Senate is where accountability goes to die."....Tucker Carlson on Stewart: "Looks like a homeless mental patient. He's shrinking and disheveled. And very short. Really short. Too short to date. Was he always that short? What happened?"....Slate headline: "'Peak Trump' Reached as Ex-President Appears Concurrently in News Stories About Both Toilets and Hitler."....Andy Richter: "They're coming for your stolen Federal documents next!"....Jonathan Reiner on Trump: "I like people who weren't raided by the FBI."....Stephen Colbert: "Okay, GOP, you win; we should arrest whoever appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray."....Sean Hannity on climate change: "If the world is gonna end in 12 years, I say the hell with it all. Let's have one big party for the last 10 years and then we'll all go home and see Jesus together, or at least half of us will."....Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart: "What's happened here in America is we've lost the groove."....
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July 29, 2022
....Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on GOP blocking burn pit bill to aid vets: "Total bullshit."....Jon Stewart: "Congratulations, Sen. Toomey. You successfully used the Byzantine Senate rules to keep sick veterans suffering...The Senate is where accountability goes to die."....Alan Dershowitz on 1/6 hearings: "A Fraud, and a disgrace to America."....former Trump WH aide Garrett Ziegler, after testifying before 1/6 committee: "They're Bolsheviks, so they probably do hate the American founders and most White people in general."....Freudian-slip-tweet by House Republicans right after 7/21 hearing: "This is all heresy."....Clare McCaskill on Trump during afternoon of 1/6: "He was holed up in his dining room drinking a Coke like a big baby."....Rep. Matt Gaetz: "Our America is proudly ultra-MAGA, not some low-energy roadside RINO safari...Mike Pence will never be president."....former Pence chief of staff Marc Short in response: "I'd be surprised if he was still voting. It's more likely he'll be in prison for child sex trafficking in 2024."....Sen. Ted Cruz on DOJ: "Has turned into the partisan attack dog of the Biden White House."....Aaron Rupar: "Do you ever think about how Texas has 29 million people and yet they ended up with Ted Cruz and John Cornyn as its US senators, or is it just me?"....Fox host Tucker Carlson on Dems: "The great replacement? It's not a conspiracy theory. It's their election strategy."....Media Matters senior fellow Matthew Gertz: "The difference between a Tucker Carlson monologue and a white supremacist mass murderer's manifesto is the Tucker Carlson monologue gets aired in prime-time on the nation's most-watched cable news network."....Trump on 1/6 testimony of former WH official Sarah Matthews: "'15 Minutes of Fame Matthews,' who I don't know, is clearly lying."....Trump on Rep. Liz Cheney: "A sanctimonious loser."....Trump on Jake "Fake" Tapper: "So biased and pathetic. No wonder CNN's ratings are at an all-time low."....Trump on Elon Musk: "Another bullshit artist."....Trump: "Joe Biden, who many have said is our worst President, has come down with a case of the China virus...Doctors described my fight against the China virus as Herculean, and not meaning the woke Disney Hercules but rather the Kevin Sorbo one. The Lou Ferrigno one as well. Joe, I wish you a speedy recovery, even though you are taking America in the wrong direction."....Mark Leibovich on Trump: "Easily the sorest loser, the most prodigious liar, and the most interminable victim ever to occupy the White House...He is, quite possibly, the biggest crybaby ever to toddle across history's stage."....
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July 19, 2022
....Newsmax's Greg Kelly on NY Gov. Kathy Hochul: "Has not really done much of anything, other than, I'm sorry but, be somebody's wife."....Rep. Lauren Boebert on Dr. Fauci: "He belongs in jail."....Gov. Kristi Noem: "Joe Biden's like the George Costanza of politics. Every single instinct he has is wrong."....Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on Biden: "Are they...feeding him drugs to allow him to function?"....Joe Walsh: "I'm no longer a Republican because my former political party is now authoritarian. F*** authoritarianism."....Trump: "When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me to help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it's electric cars that don't drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he'd be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, "Drop to your knees and beg," and he would have done it."....David Brooks on Trump: "We've got this perverse situation in which the vast analytic powers of the entire world are being spent trying to understand a guy whose thoughts are often just six fireflies beeping randomly in a jar."....Dinsh D'Souza: "Biden and the Left...established a cross-border sex trafficking operation in conjunction with the Mexican cartels."...AZ gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake on Meghan McCain: "Like a rabid dog who's been cornered...thrashing round."....former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis: "Fittingly, Biden awarded his presidential medals to fellow losers, Biles and Rapinoe."....Mike Lupica on Ellis: "Losers work with Giuliani and try to overturn elections. Losers try to turn the Constitution into a dishrag. Losers can't even win in traffic court."....Trump: "The greatest danger to America is the destruction of our nation from the people from within. And you know the people I'm talking about."....Trump on 2020 election: "CORRUPT, RIGGED, & STOLEN!"....Ted Nugent: "People that are just maniacally drunk on hate towards Donald Trump -- you know what they really hate? They hate America."....Garrison Keillor: "We've had one 15-year-old president and now we get a new look inside his world, there's no need to repeat the experiment."....Alex Jones, in speech on 1/5/21: "We're going to take on the Soroses and the Bezoses and the Gateses, we're going to take it directly to those scumbag Nazi bastards who thought they'd kill this country...They will be in their Goddamned bunkers when we come for them. They will be hiding. They will pay. They will be destroyed. Because America is rising. 1776 is the answer to 1984. 1776! 1776! 1776!"....