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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.

  • May 3, 2023

    ....Tucker Carlson on Biden: "The only job training program this administration has gotten behind in two years is getting Black people to sell more weed in the city."....Trump, on the morning his rape trial began: "The E. Jean Carroll case, Ms. Bergdorf Goodman, is a made-up SCAM."....Tucker Carlson on Trump: "What he's good at is destroying things. He's the undisputed world champion of that."....Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: "I know a ton of White people that are as lazy and sorry and probably worse than Black people I know."....Rep. Clay Higgins: "Over time, American communities will build beautiful, church-owned public-access libraries...The libraries regular Americans recall are gone. They've become liberal grooming centers.".....RNC chair Ronna McDaniel on Biden presidency: "A catastrophe for the American people."....Jesse Watters: "Joe Biden's a fraudulent president, who is terrified of reporters. All the man does is blame everything on Donald Trump and then go on vacation."....Trump on Biden administration: "They don't understand life. They don't understand -- whatever it is you have to understand."....Sen. Ed Markey on SC Justice Clarence Thomas: "It is evident that he cannot judge right from wrong, so why should he be judging the country's most important cases on its highest court?"....Rep. Lauren Boebert: "Buttigieg is running the country's rail system like a toddler playing with his first toy train set."....Trump on his former acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney: "'Liddle' Mick Mulvaney...The guy was uncharismatic, a born loser."....Andrew Sullivan on Dr. Fauci: "The patron saint of the pharmaceutical-government-media complex."....Trump on Sen. John McCain: "I never felt good about anybody having anything to do with John McCain and never will, even despite the fact that at their request, I gave him the world's longest funeral. Much like his wars, it never ended."....Roman Scheremeta on Tucker Carlson: "He is the most quoted and praised American political commentator on Russian propaganda TV. For them he is a hero...We literally have a Russian propagandist in our country."....Desi Lydic on Tucker Carlson's firing: "Apparently they only told him 10 minutes before announcing it publicly -- that's just so cold, and that's barely enough time to pack up all his Nazi memorabilia."....Howard Stern: "As important as Tucker Carlson might be to the Fox Network, [Rupert Murdoch] will fire your ass if you're a pain in the ass. Because at the end of the day, you are a fly on his asshole."....Trump: "Joe Biden is guilty. I am not at all. Thank you very much."....

  • 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?"....