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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April 26, 2021
....America First Caucus proposal: "History has shown that societal trust and political unity are threatened when foreign citizens are imported en masse into a country."....Rep. Ted Lieu in response: "I served on active duty in the US military to defend your right to say stupid stuff...Take your nativist crap and shove it."....Rep. Ruben Gallego on AFC supporters: "[I] wouldn't want my non-Anglo, Columbian, Mexican indigenous blood to corrupt you."...HuffPo's Mary Papenfuss on proposed AFC: "A congressional Frankenstein with a Third Reich mustache."....Newt Gingrich on Biden Administration: "Anti-American."....Sean Hannity: "Joe Biden's been in Washington for 50 years. He's the ultimate swamp creature."....Rep. Mike Loychik: "The founders never intended for Washington D.C. to become a state."....Rep. Mondaire Jones on Sen. Tom Cotton: "Said that D.C. wouldn't be a 'well-rounded, working class state.' I had no idea there were so many syllables in the word 'white.'"....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: "Black Lives Matter is the strongest terrorist threat in our country."....Tomi Lahren on Rep. Maxine Waters: "This vile woman should not be in Congress."....Cobb County GA Young Republicans chair DeAnna Harris on GOP election fraud obsession: "We've got to get out of this mindset. It's amost like insanity."....Rep. Kevin McCarthy: "[Hugo Chavez] didn't have a revolution...He won democracy, then he changed the Constitution and the courts. It seems a lot like what the Democrats are doing."....Fox News' Greg Gutfeld on CNN: "For viewers, every day is a phony Tinder date. Every night they lie to you about their intentions."....Fox chyron: "WITH VICIOUS RHETORIC AND PLANS FOR RADICAL REFORMS, DEMS SET ON NEEDLESSLY DIVIDING COUNTRY MORE AND MORE."....Tucker Carlson in college yearbook: "[Member of the] Dan White Society."....SF Harvey Milk Democratic Club to Carlson: "F*** you."....CNN's Brianna Keilar on Hannity-Trump interview: "Mean girl group chat."....Trump on Twitter: "Really boring."....Trump on Dr. Anthony Fauci: "So full of crap."....Bill Maher on Hollywood: "Would it kill you once in a while to make a movie that doesn't make me want to take a bath with a toaster?"....Bhopal, India, crematorium official on COVID: "Swallowing our city's people like a monster."....
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April 14, 2021
....Fox News' Tucker Carlson: "The Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate...with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World...That's true!"....Anti-Defamation League on Carlson's "replacement" comments: "Not just a dog whistle to racists -- it was a bullhorn."....CNN's Jim Acosta on Carlson: "I'm not sure why he spells Tucker with just one K."....David Leheny on suggested title for Mike Pence memoir: "Humble Servant: How I Let Donald Trump Almost Kill Me and My Family, and Why I'd Do It Again."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on NYT: "CCP-controlled."....Erick Erickson on Greene: "She's batshit crazy."....Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green on women athletes: "I'm really tired of seeing them complain about the lack of pay, because they're doing themselves a disservice by just complaining."....Megan Rapinoe in response: "You obviously kind of showed your whole ass in not even understanding what we all talk about all the time."....Trump on Sen. Mitch McConnell: "Stone cold loser...That dumb son of a bitch."....former Speaker of the House John Boehner on Trump: "Incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons."....David Corn on Boehner's GOP: "You invited in the crazies and gave them a big bear-hug."....Mike Huckabee: "I've decided to 'identify' as Chinese. Coke will like me, Delta will agree with my 'values' and I'll probably get shoes from Nike and tickets to MLB games."....Daily Beast's Asawin Suebsaeng: "I've decided to identify as Mike Huckabee because I am also a huge idiot who has no skills at interacting with modernity."....Ken Jeong on Huckabee: "I've decided to identify you as racist."....John Boehner, improvising while recording the audio version of his memoir: "P.S. Ted Cruz, go f*** yourself."....Cruz: "He suggested that I do something that was anatomically impossible. To which my response was: Who's John Boehner?"....Maureen Dowd on Rep. Matt Gaetz: "The Beavis to Donald Trump's Butt-Head."....Michael Cohen on Gaetz: "I really do hope at the end of the day this resolves quickly for Matt, because I don't want him to miss the prom."....Twitter commenter: "Matt Gaetz is everything the Republicans were looking for in Hunter Biden."....Andrew Sullivan on Twitter: "Where all the reasonable arguments go to die."....
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April 2, 2021
....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Dr. Anthony Fauci: "Dr. Always Wrong."....former Trump adviser Peter Navarro on Fauci: "He's simply a sociopath. He just lies to advance his own interest."....Trump on Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx: "Two self-promoters trying to reinvent history."....FL spring break partier Kyle Mrzena, aka "the Miami Joker," on the pandemic: "We were invited to come here by the governor...COVID is over, baby! F*** that sh**!...It's all a joke. It's all propaganda."....Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt on Georgia voter suppression law: "If you go to Yankee Stadium, and you stand in line and get a ticket, do they serve you water?"....Steve Doocy: "I have been voting for over 40 years and I have never thought o myself, 'Okay, I'm gonna go vote today. Will they have snacks?'"....former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal on Trump: "The only president to have more open grand juries than election wins."....Noam Chomsky on Trump: "The worst criminal in human history."....Sen. Ted Cruz: "The contempt of Democrats for prayers is an odd sociological thing."....Molly Jong-Fast on Cruz and Sen. Lindsey Graham: "The lessons these Republican senators learned from Trumpism is performative assholism."....AOC on Cruz: "Your resignation is 84 days past due. At least."....Sean Hannity on former House speaker John Boehner: "Will go down in history as one of the worst Republican speakers in history...There was not a single time I was around him when he didn't just reek of cigarette smoke and wine breath."....Michigan GOP chair Ron Weiser on top Dem officials: "Our job now is to soften up those three witches and make sure...that they are ready for the burning at the stake."....Sen. John Kennedy: "The people that President Biden has put in charge to make border security policy are not qualified to manage a food truck."....James Carville on White House press corps questions at first Biden press conference: "I give them a D+ today."....Jeanine Pirro on Biden presser: "Most of it made no sense to me."....Sen. Steve Daines on cartel meth in his home state: "Twenty years ago in Montana, meth was homemade. It was homegrown. And you had purity levels less than 30%."....
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March 22, 2021
....Stacey Abrams on Georgia voting changes: "Jim Crow in a suit and tie."....David Plouffe on Sen. Ron Johnson: "Sounds like a senator from Alabama in 1921."....Rep. Chip Roy defending his comment about stringing up bad guys: "We need more justice and less thought policing."....CNN's Don Lemon on Roy and others: "Stop making it about you -- 'My freedom, my freedom to be a bigot, to say racist things.' Please, I'm sick of it. Shut up. Take a good long look in the mirror. Stop being a bigot."....Rudy Giuliani on Biden: "He and his socialist, internationalist advisers reject America First. They see the U.S. as just a nation among others."....Jennifer Weisselberg on former father-in-law and Trump exec Allen Weisselberg: "He has more feels and adoration for Donald than for his wife...For Donald it's a business, but for Allen it's a love affair."....home video by QAnon adherent: "The COVID-19 shot is an experimental bioweapon...You can see the harm it's causing...It's killing all the people."....Sen. Rand Paul to Dr. Fauci: "Such a government worrywart...You've been vaccinated, and you parade around in two masks for show."....Trump on vaccine: "If I wasn't President, you wouldn't be getting that beautiful 'shot' for five years, at best, and probably wouldn't be getting it at all."....Fox News' Juan Williams on Trump: "He will be remembered for his jealous rage...The bottom line is that he produced the greatest failure of presidential leadership in history."....Steve Marmel: "Biden tripped. Hillary coughed. Trump killed 500,000 Americans."....Tucker Carlson: "Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It's a mockery of the U.S. military."....Sen. Tammy Duckworth: "F*** Tucker Carlson."....Jon Stewart: "I called Tucker Carlson a dick on national television. It's high time I apologize -- to dicks. Never should have lumped you in with that terrible, terrible person."....Donald Trump Jr.: "The Washington Redskins [sic] just got rid of their cheerleaders. Apparently they didn't have the decency to tell them face to face...Apparently they read about it on Twitter. This is insanity, guys."........
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March 11, 2021
....Sen. John Kennedy on COVID relief bill: "The only way I know how to improve it is with a shredder...Calling this a coronavirus bill is like calling Harvey Weinstein a feminist."....Sen. Joni Ernst: "A porky partisan pricey pet project package."....Piers Morgan on Meghan Markle interview: "A diatribe of bilge...I don't believe almost anything that comes out of her mouth."....WSJ on Trump: "Unhappy with us for recognizing reality."....House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on For the People Act: "[Would] put a thumb on the scale of every election in America."....Rep. Lauren Boebert on Dems: "They don't want you to have freedom of speech. They don't want you to have freedom of religion."....Hannity on the radical left: "They want to control your life, your business, your car, your house, your education, your food, what you read, and what you can watch on television. They believe the American people need to be ruled with an iron fist."....Newt Gingrich on Joe Biden's goal: "An America in which transgender dominates Christianity and Judaism."....Donald Trump Jr.: "If it wasn't for double standards, the Democrats would have no standards at all."....Donald Trump Jr. on Cuomo: "Groper-in-Chief."....Sen. Ted Cruz: "Today's Democratic Party will do anything in pursuit of political power."....former House Speaker John Boehner on Cruz: "There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless a**hole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else."....Laura Ingraham on CDC: "Guidance disconnected from reality."....face-covering worn by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on floor of House: "This mask is as useless as Joe Biden."....Biden on Texas Gov. Abbott lifting COVID restrictions: "Neanderthal thinking."....Rep. Veronica Escobar: "Defies logic."....John Oliver on Royals: "An emotionally stunted group of fundamentally flawed people doing a very silly pseudo-job."....Stephen Colbert on QAnon Shaman: "On the endangered dumb-ass list."....