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.

  • November 18, 2021

    ....Ted Cruz on Liz Cheney: "Hates Donald Trump so much that it has just overridden everything in her system."....Cheney: "Trump broke Ted Cruz."....MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Cruz: "Sold his soul to a failed gameshow host."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Republicans who voted for Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: "Traitors."....Laura Ingraham: "Total frauds."....phone message for Rep. Fred Upton in response to his vote for Infrastructure Act: "I hope you die. I hope everyone in your f***ing family dies...I hope everyone on your f***ing staff dies."....Rep. Lauren Boebert on Rep. Ilhan Omar: "The Jihad Squad member from Minnesota."....Rep. Madison Cawthorn on people in Washington: "Trying to destroy Western Civilization."....Steve Bannon on VA Dems: "They can't win elections they don't steal."....Judge Jeanine Pirro: "Leave it to the Left to lie, divide, and turn us against each other."....Trump on Alyssa Farah, his former WH director of strategic communications: "A clown...a nobody...an inglorious lightweight."....Ann Coulter on Trump: "I had no idea how abjectly stupid the man is. I didn't think he was a genius, but I didn't think he was that stupid...He's just a very, very, very stupid man."....Rep. Lauren Boebert on Pete Buttigieg: "[Took] maternity, paternity, whatever the heck you want to call it [so he could] figure out how to chestfeed."....Elon Musk to Sen. Bernie Sanders: "I keep forgetting that you are alive."....Greta Thurnberg on COP26: "A global north greenwash festival."....Laurence Tribe: "By a vote of 1-0, I will no longer recognize the GOP as either grand or old or a party. It is a cult, and its loyalty isn't to an idea but to a cabal."....Chris Evans on CRT critics: "The people who threw rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school are now upset their grandchildren might learn about them throwing rocks at Ruby Ridges for trying to go to school."....Trump on Biden: "It's a failed administration. It's a disaster."....Ted Cruz on Biden administration: "Utterly lawless."....Rep. Adam Schiff: "There is no lie too big or conspiracy too dangerous for Tucker Carlson to propagate."....Carlson on 1/6 investigation: "A purge aimed at legacy Americans...Soldiers and paramilitary law enforcement guided by the world's most powerful intelligence agencies [are] hunting down American citizens."....CNN's Jim Acosta on Carlson's "Patriot Purge" series about 1/6: "Proud Boy porn."....Daily Beast's Wajahat Ali: "We kept telling you they were going to become a radicalized, weaponized, death cult. Here it is."....DC Metro Police Officer Michael Fanone on 1/6: "If you describe that day as anything other than brutal and violent and a disgrace to this country, you're lying to yourself."....Stephen Colbert on subpoenaed Trump associates: "A collection of powerful dumdums who helped orchestrate the last-ditch efforts to steal the election, a high-stakes low-IQ heist on democracy."....pastor Rick Wiles on COVID vaccine: "It's an egg that hatches into a synthetic parasite and grows inside your body."....Tucker Carlson to Sen. Lindsey Graham: "How long before you're ordering drone attacks on people whose politics you don't like?"....

  • October 30, 2021

    Orlando Sentinel on FL Gov. Ron DeSantis: "What a fraud. What a phony."....Trump national security advisor Mike Flynn: "Fauci-ism is a component of the health side of fascism and Nazism...Dr. Fauci would be right there in the same room with people like Dr. Mengele..."....Sen. Tom Cotton: "Tony Fauci should resign in disgrace."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Rep. Liz Cheney: "Karen."....Trevor Noah on Greene: "Your crazy aunt's even crazier friend."....Trump on Meghan McCain: "Has always been a bully, and basically a lowlife."....former Saudi intelligence officer Saad Aljabri on Crown Prince MBS: "A psychopath with no empathy, [who] doesn't feel emotion..."....Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Rep. Eric Swalwell: "Legitimately stupid...He can barely remember to breathe."....Trump WH physician Ronny Jackson on Biden: "Weak, sleepy, confused behavior."....Kellyanne Conway on Biden presidency: "A man-made disaster."....Donald Trump Jr. on the USA: "We're starting to see the empty shelves that I experienced in communist Czechoslovakia in the '80s in America right now."....NY Daily News on Donald Trump Jr.: "SPAWN OF HATIN'."....Dame Joan Collins on William Shatner's space flight: "What a fool. Who wants to do that?"....

  • 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."....