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.

  • July 27, 2023

    Trump on Biden: "We can't have a crackhead in charge of our nuclear arsenal!"....Trump on DOJ: "This is a sick nest of people that needs to be cleaned out immediately. Get 'em out."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: "Not just the CIA -- the FBI, the DOJ. They need to be ripped down...They are rotten to the core."....Rep. Matt Gaetz: "The very same FBI task forces that were set up to go after terrorists in the caves of Central Asia have been turned against Catholic Churches and parents at school board meetings."....Rudy Giuliani on FBI and AG Bill Barr: "These people tried to overthrow our government."....Rep. Ted Lieu: "It's not the FBI's fault that Donald Trump surrounded himself with criminals."....Trump on former chief of staff Mick Mulvaney: "The dumbest person...A born loser."....Trump on his former WH press secretary: "Kayleigh 'Milktoast' McEnany."....Chris Christie: "If you disagree with Donald Trump, the petulant child comes out and he calls you names."....Trump on Christie: "A coward who didn't do his job...A mistake...A gutless pig."....Ann Coulter on Trump: "The most inconsequential president in US history...I'll need another column to even begin to capture the horror of this wasted presidency."....Trump on FL Gov. Ron DeSantis: "His polls are dropping like a rock heading to Hell."....Maureen Dowd: "The papers spilling out of boxes are a snapshot of Trump's id...His disordered mind has caused public disorder."....Trump: "Really big fundraising...since the radical left indictment hoax was initiated by the misfits, mutants, Marxists, and communists! Thank you."....Fox host Jesse Watters on the homeless: "You have to call them what they are. These are people that have failed in life and they're on their deathbed."....James Carville on Fox audience: "A giant monster that you have to feed every night."....Sen. Ted Cruz on Ari Melber: "MSNBC clown."....Sen. Chris Murphy on GOP: "Addicted to chaos."....FL gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum: "I'm not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist, I'm simply saying the racists believe he's a racist."....Newt Gingrich on elections: "Democrats have a passion for stealing them."....SC Gov. Henry McMaster: "I look forward to the day that Democrats are so rare, we have to hunt them with dogs."....Bill O'Reilly on the USA: "Blaming others for everything is standard. Personal responsibility is rarely championed."....House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Trump indictment: "A grave injustice."....Trump on Special Counsel Jack Smith: "Thug...Deranged lunatic."....Trump fundraising appeal sent out an hour after indictment announced: "We are watching our Republic DIE before our very eyes."....Rep. Clay Higgins on indictment: "Patriots, we've manipulated the MSM to establish deep commo, now copy this...do NOT trip the wire they've laid for you. Maintain your family. Live your life. Know your bridges. Hold. Let Trump handle Trump, he's got this."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Trump: "I don't think he needs a vice president. If there's ever one president who was so strong he doesn't need one, it would be him."....Trump: "Our country is being destroyed by stupid people."....David Corn on Henry Kissinger turning 100: "Forget the birthday candles, let's count the bodies."....Wanda Sykes on school library book-banners: "Until a drag queen walks into a school and beats eight children to death with a copy of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' I think you're focusing on the wrong s***."....

  • April 11, 2023

    ....Sen. Lindsey Graham on Trump indictment: "If you've got a pile of crap and you chop it up 34 times it's still a pile of crap...This is literally legal voodoo."....Trump on Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg: "An animal."....Rep. Ronny Jackson, a retired admiral, on Bragg: "Hey FAT ALVIN, go ahead and celebrate with another jelly donut..."....Trump on Special Counsel Jack Smith: "A radical-left lunatic known as a bomb thrower."....Trump on AG Letitia James: "A racist."....Sen. Rand Paul on Trump indictment: "A disgusting abuse of power. The DA should be put in jail."....Sen. Josh Hawley: "This is burning down the rule of law."....Donald Trump Jr.: "This is stuff that would make Mao, Stalin, Pol-Pot -- it would make them blush."....Eric Trump on daughter of judge in Trump case: "They are all hand-picked. It is all pre-arranged. The corruption is on a different level."....Rep. AOC: "Nothing says innocent like threatening a judge's family."....Paul Wehner: "I recently wrote that Trump was behaving like a mob boss. That comparison turns out to have been insulting to mob bosses everywhere."....former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman on Trump posts re judge and family: "There is a rule in organized crime...You do not do this with respect to the judge. You certainly do not go after their families...Leave it to Trump to go where Mafia dons will not."....George Conway: "Don Jr., like his father, is scum."....Joe Walsh on DJT Jr.: "A coward, just like his dad."....defeated Wisconsin Justice Daniel Kelly on Justice-elect Janet Protasiewicz: "I wish...that I would be able to concede to a worthy opponent. But I do not have a worthy opponent."....Sen. Ted Cruz: "The Biden family is enriching themselves off of China and all of it hinges on Daddy's position..."....Charles M. Blow: "Trump is the Andrew Dice Clay of American politics, appealing to machismo, misogyny, and mischief...Narcissism is still his engine."....Rep. MTG on Stormy Daniels: "Too old and disgusting to make money as a porn star now, so she's grifting off her lies about Trump."....Ted Nugent at Trump rally, on Zelensky: "Some homosexual weirdo."....Steve Bannon to Elon Musk: "You would take a check from Adolph Hitler."....The Dish's Andrew Sullivan on the NYer's David Remnick: "Wokism's Reek."....Stephen Colbert on Trump: "What if he goes to jail? He could end up the head of a violent white supremicist gang -- but in prison this time."....

  • March 21, 2023

    ....former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard on Democratic Party: "Is controlled by this elitist cabal of warmongers that has been, continues to be, led by the queen of warmongers herself, Hilary Clinton."....Fox host Tucker Carlson: "We are glad Ronald Reagan is not here to watch Lindsey Graham invoke his name to justify anti-American stupidity."....Rep. Eric Swalwell on Speaker Kevin McCarthy: "He helped himself and hurt everyone else by feeding a troll like Tucker Carlson."....Steve Bannon on Elon Musk: "A total and complete phony. He is owned -- lock, stock, and barrel -- by the Chinese Communist Party, and he acts like it."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: "By the way, Jane Fonda, your eggs are dried up so you don't have to worry about getting pregnant anytime soon, so you can retire from demanding baby murder now."....Sen. Ted Cruz: "Biden is weak, incompetent, and afraid to fight."....Donald Trump Jr. on Gov. Ron DeSantis: "He's totally owned by Karl Rove, Paul Ryan, and his billionaire donors."....Sen. J.D. Vance: "Alvin Bragg is bought by George Soros...These people are trying to turn America into a third-world country."....Mike "Pillow Guy" Lindell on DeSantis: "A Trojan horse...Disgusting."....Trump on 2020: "It was a rigged election. They used COVID to cheat."....conspiracy theorist Alex Jones: "Obama basically created COVID to destabilize America and the world."....Lara Trump: "It's not just Republican versus Democrat, or left versus right. It is good versus evil in so many respects."....Mike Pence on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg: "Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression."....Trump on Pence: "In many ways you can blame him for Jan. 6."....

  • March 8, 2023

    ....Fox host Tucker Carlson: "Zelensky is not a hero. He's an anti-hero. He's a destroyer...A Ukrainian pimp."....Sen. Ted Cruz on Zelensky: "I think People magazine is going to name him the Sexiest Man Alive. A Ukrainian flag has become like a COVID mask -- it's a sign to show your virtue."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on Biden: "Is kissing Zelensky's ass."....former WH doctor, Rep. Ronny Jackson: "Biden is the cancer. He's what needs to be removed, not the lesion they found."....historian Michael Beschloss on Gov. Ron DeSantis: "A local Mussolini."....Trump on DeSantis: "A wheelchair-over-the-cliff kind of guy."....Putin on the West: "Is perverting its own people, destroying the family, mocking children. Even pedophilia is declared the norm. They are even considering God to be gender-neutral!"....Tucker Carlson on House Speaker McCarthy: "A puppet of the Democratic party."....Hasan Minhaj on Carlson: "A moral vacuum. A hole, if you will, who glorifies election deniers."....CNN's Jim Acosta on Fox News: "A bullshit factory."....Kimberly Guilfoyle on Jan. 6th committee: "How horrific and brain-damaged are these people?...I had to go testify for like 14 hours, and I wasn't even at the Capitol!"....Ralph Nader on Elon Musk: "A gigantic corporate welfare king masquerading as a capitalist businessman."....Trump on pre-Trump GOP: "Ruled by freaks, neocons, open-border zealots, and fools."....Jimmy Kimmel on Trump: "He should change the hats to say 'Make America Whine Again.'"....Stephen Colbert on Kari Lake: "The sitting governor of the state of denial."....

  • February 20, 2023

    Fox News' Greg Gutfeld on Greta Thunberg: "A bug-eyed brat."....Ben Shapiro on Chelsea Handler: "This lady is miserable, and it's written all over her face."....radio host Jesse Kelly on Handler: "Your womb resembles a dried-up tumbleweed blowing down an old Western town."....Tucker Carlson on Handler: "An aging, deeply-unlikable woman who never had kids."....Chelsea Handler on Carlson: "I think we both know that you are hate-masturbating to me, and I'm down with that."....Nikki Haley: "It's always the liberals who are most sexist."....Ann Coulter on American-born Nikki Haley: "A preposterous creature...Why don't you go back to your own country and reconsider that history? This is my country, lady."....John Bolton on Haley: "Light as a feather."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: "America is BROKE. Criminals and Cartels reign."....Sen Ted Cruz: "Joe Biden becoming president was the single greatest thing to happen to the drug cartels."....Stuart Stevens: "The FBI can search Mike Pence's home every day for the next twenty years and they're not going to find the spine of Mike Pence."....Elon Musk: "My pronouns are Prosecute / Fauci."....Donald Trump Jr. on Sen. John Fetterman: "The vegetable senator from Pennsylvania."....Sen. Mitt Romney on Rep. George Santos: "A sick puppy."....Rep. Ronny Jackson on Rihanna: "Why is the NFL showcasing this crap?"....US Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Putin: "Continues to change generals the way I change sox."....Sen. John Kennedy: "I wouldn't turn my back on President Xi if he were two days dead."....Heather Digby Parton: "Trump was always a warmonger, it's just that his war was always going to be waged against his enemies at home. Can DeSantis beat that by fighting teenage trans kids?"....Trump on DeSantis: "Meatball Ron."....Tucker Carlson on Biden: "Instituting a government-wide system of racial discrimination that dwarfs Jim Crow."....Sacha Gilbert: "What I want to know about Hunter Biden is: Why did the Saudis give Jared Kushner $2 billion?"....