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.

  • 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!"....

  • 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."....

  • 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."....