cawthorn, madison Rep 4%

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4* 4% tied with gohmert

MERRI OK

florida man? pension plan? run congress again 9 25

lost primary, accused gop of orgy, tillis backed opponent?

sadly promote to 2nd on coackroach factor, putin

in trouble w FEC

see troll caucus

see sedition caucus

neglected, see state

code bad?

gop convention speech stood up w/ 2 bros (schtick from motivational spker?]

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an 3 26

Conservative Dispatch CEO and editor Steve Hayes visited Bonita Springs, Florida, during campaign season and says he found the kind of political personalities you get in “Trump country.”

Former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn was one of the first personalities Heyes shined a light on trying to nab Florida’s 19^th Congressional District. In his article, titled “Meet the Has-Beens, Never-Weres, and Felon Locked in a Trumpy Primary,” he makes clear he is not impressed.

“That Cawthorn is a viable candidate — indeed, given his name recognition and MAGAworld celebrity status, he’s considered a real contender—says a lot about the contest in this dark red corner of Florida’s Gulf Coast and about the state of the Republican Party in the Trump era,” said Hayes, recounting Cawthorn’s congressional service beginning “with a rousing speech to the pro-Trump mob at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” where he praised the mob’s “willingness to fight, declared the 2020 election fraudulent, and later voted against certification.”

But that same career ended with “a flurry of bizarre and discrediting moments over the weeks leading up to the GOP primary for his reelection campaign,” said Hayes.

“A week after he lost that primary contest, the House Ethics Committee announced it was investigating the congressman for a possible improper relationship with a staffer and for a potential conflict of interest in his promotion of the LGB (Let’s Go Brandon) cryptocurrency,” for which he was ultimately fined $15,000,” said Hayes.

Another Trump Republican with a legal background would be former New York U.S. Rep. Chris Collins, who was charged with lying to the FBI in 2018, on top of charges related to insider trading. Republican leaders stripped Collins of his committee assignments. And even though he initially insisted on his innocence, two months later he accepted a plea deal. Three months after that he confessed his guilt at his sentencing hearing.

“Jonathan Barr, another lawyer for Collins, told Judge Vernon Broderick: ‘He accepted responsibility for his crimes, he has demonstrated sincere remorse. There is no excuse for the conduct. He doesn’t make any excuses for the conduct,” reports Hayes.

At the community meeting in Florida Hayes said Collins “used his opening remarks to emphasize (again and again) his coziness with Trump, [but] he left out the best evidence of their close relationship: Trump pardoned Collins after his guilty pleas and let him out of prison just two months into a two-year sentence.

But being an ally of Trump is what really matters in this deep-red Trump district, said Hayes. In fact, of all the candidates (and there are many more than Cawthorne and Collins) the only candidate whose website didn’t lead with Trump is Jim Oberweis, said Hayes. But of course his campaign—like all the others—is “nudging the White House political team for a Trump endorsement.

Every candidate is allied on policy, so the only advantage is which one gets the presidential nod, said Hayes.

“Nobody’s really campaigning — except to campaign to Trump,” said Francis Rooney, the former representative for the district. “The idea of Trump, the impact of Trump and MAGA is so overwhelming right now that the people want to be in that tent. And so they’re focusing on the things that are going to get the attention of the MAGA leadership.”

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no lnx

Disgraced Republican Madison Cawthorn arrested in Florida

U.S. Congressman-elect Madison Cawthorn speaking with attendees at the 2020 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Point USA at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, photo via Gage Skidmore.

Lesley AbravanelSeptember 11, 2025

Former North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn was arrested in Cape Coral, Florida Wednesday for failing to appear in court. He was released on $2,000 bond.

The 28-year-old was due to appear in court after he was cited by police in Naples for driving without a license on Aug. 19.

Cawthorn, who won election in 2020 at the age of 25, moved to Florida shortly after losing his GOP primary in 2022 after a series of scandals, including finding "himself in hot water with GOP leadership after making comments — without evidence — that linked his own party with cocaine use" and lurid activities.

READ MORE: 'He did not care': Details emerge about 71 year-old mistakenly arrested after Kirk murder

He was also cited in 2022 for traveling with a gun at a security checkpoint at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

This latest arrest comes a week after the 28-year-old former lawmaker was said to be preparing a run for Florida's 19th Congressional seat, according to Axios. That seat is currently occupied by Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who is leaving Congress to run for governor of Florida.

No stranger to traffic violations, Cawthorn was charged in 2022 for driving with a revoked license in North Carolina, stopped for several speeding tickets, and mocked for police footage in which he said was also unaware his father owned the car he was driving.

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sued by atty

https://www.alternet.org/cawthorn-2658973920/

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tough to guess pension plan; if greitens can come back anyone in gop can, tho he did not out fellows on coke orgies

already shilled for crypto?

redemption tour?!

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/madison-cawthorn-trump-dangerous-setting/

disgraced outgoing Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) has blamed former President Donald Trump (R) for creating a “dangerous setting” outside of the U.S. Capitol during the January 6, 2021 riots.

In his recent interview on the Carlos Watson Show, the show’s host asked Cawthorn if there was anything he would have done differently when he spoke at Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington D.C. the morning before the riots began.

“Well, you know, one, I mean, you know,President Donald Trump said, ‘I want you to peaceably and patriotically protest,’ — that’s good on his part. But if I could go back, I probably and I had an opportunity to speak with the President, which I did not, I would have asked that he did not send or tell the crowd to go down to the Capitol,” Cawthorn said, adding, “You know, I think that that just put everything in a dangerous setting.”

Later on in the interview, Cawthorn said that if he could go back and change his own speech at the rally, he would have urged Trump’s followers to be more peaceful.

However, the rally repeatedly told Trump’s followers, without proof, that the election had been stolen. Trump himself said that his followers should “fight” for their democracy or else they wouldn’t have one anymore. He also repeatedly blamed his own Vice President Mike Pence for not overturning the election, something that Pence had no legal or political precedent to do.

Trump’s followers later called for Pence to be hung for treason.

Five people died during the January 6 riot, and Trump’s supporters injured roughly 140 police officers. The police injuries included a broken spine, a lost eye, lost fingers, brain damage and multiple cases of PTSD. Four Capitol Police officers have died by suicide since the riots.

The rioters ransacked the Capitol, shattered windows while trying to access congressional chambers, smeared feces in the hallway and stole computer equipment, potentially constituting a national security breach.

Cawthorn was voted out of office on May 17, 2022, when he lost his primary election. He has since [said?] that “Dark MAGA” will rise, a presumably more-violent and corrupt version of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” political platform which advocates against minorities and uses mob violence against its enemies.

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an 11 22 ah

In North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District, Rep. Madison Cawthorn became a lame duck earlier this year when he lost a U.S. House primary to fellow Republican Chuck Edwards (who went on to defeat Democrat Jasmine Beach-Ferrara in the general election). Cawthorn, a far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist, will not be part of the U.S. House of Representatives’ new GOP-controlled majority when it is seated on January 3, 2023. And according to Asheville Citizen Times reporter Joel Burgess, Cawthorn is now missing in action.

Cawthorn, Burgess reports in an article published on November 16, “has apparently vacated his Washington and district offices nearly two months before the end of his term.”

“On November 16, Cawthorn's Washington office no longer had his name posted outside and had been cleaned out,” Burgess reports. “A call to the office reached a voicemail system inviting 11th District constituents to leave a message, saying a staff member would call them back. In Hendersonville, the district office with Cawthorn's name and the House seal on the door and window was dark and locked. Rooms were empty of furniture, and cleaning products could be seen on a counter.”

The Citizen Times reporter adds, “Calls to the Hendersonville and other district offices reached voicemail or were disconnected. A message on the voicemail said the congressman was no longer accepting new requests for assistance ‘due to our office beginning to close for the term.’”

Burgess notes that Cawthorn “recently bought a $1.1 million house in Florida” but is, according to state records, “still registered to vote” in North Carolina.

Burgess also reports that Blake Harp, a Cawthorn spokesperson, “did not respond to November 16 questions, including where constituents should go for assistance with veterans’ benefits, Social Security, late tax refunds or other issues.”

Like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, Cawthorn is part of what has been described as the “House MAGA Caucus” — far-right Republicans who are loyal to former President Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda, traffic in conspiracy theories and are known for being combative and abrasive with both Democrats and non-MAGA Republicans. But unlike Greene, Boebert or Gaetz, Cawthorn did not make it to the general election in 2022.

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washington, DC

CNN —}:

Rep. Madison Cawthorn – the freshman Republican representing North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives – has in recent weeks become the center of chaos within the GOP.

At 26 years old, the youngest member of Congress has sparked uproar in the Republican Party after claiming on a podcast that people in Washington have invited him to participate in orgies and used cocaine in front of him – the latest incident in a string of controversies surrounding Cawthorn that include calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug” and the Ukrainian government “incredibly evil.”

The comments from the political newcomer, who faced charges in March for driving with a revoked license for the second time in five years, have drawn the ire of members of his own party.

CNN reported on Wednesday that Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina is throwing his weight behind one of Cawthorn’s primary opponent – an extraordinary broadside against a fellow Republican from his home state, as internal frustration with the controversial MAGA firebrand reaches a boiling point.

According to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, other GOP lawmakers who are at their wits’ end with Cawthorn are also considering endorsing one of his challengers, amid growing concerns that the North Carolina Republican is dragging down the entire party with his problematic behavior.

On Friday night, Cawthorn addressed his latest controversy in a tweeted statement, blaming the media and the left and vowing to “continue fighting for many years to come.”

Ahead of the Tar Heel State’s May 17 primary, Cawthorn is facing a number of opponents, including: state Sen. Chuck Edwards, whom Tillis said he is endorsing; Michele Woodhouse, a self-described “business-woman and political activist”; Bruce O’Connell, a hotel and restaurant operator; Rod Honeycutt, a retired US Army colonel; Matthew Burril, a businessman and local economic leader; and Wendy Nevarez, a Navy veteran.

Cawthorn’s challengers are trying to take advantage of his numerous controversies, including his speech on January 6, 2021, in which he urged those at then-President Donald Trump’s “Save America” rally to contest the election.

Controversial from the start

Cawthorn – who was partially paralyzed in a 2014 car accident and was the owner of a real estate investment company as well as a motivational speaker prior to his time on Capitol Hill – caused contention even before entering the halls of Congress.

In 2020, he scored a stunning political upset when he won the GOP nomination for the House seat of then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, despite Trump endorsing one of his GOP primary opponents.

After winning the primary runoff, the young Republican – who turned 25 before the general election, making him eligible to serve in the House – received the backing of Trump and was lauded for his charisma and appeal to younger voters.

“He’s 24-years-old, he’s dynamic, he was able to articulate the ability to reach out to younger voters. I’ve heard him referred to by some as ‘The AOC of the right.’ I don’t know if that’ll borne out to be true, but I do think that the generational piece is key here as well,” Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, said after Cawthorn’s primary victory.

But CNN reported that Cawthorn went on the defensive after photos of a 2017 trip to Adolf Hitler’s vacation house surfaced on Instagram. He wrote that the visit had been on his “bucket list for awhile” and “did not disappoint.”

Allegations of sexual harassment and misconductmade against Cawthorn by several women when he was in college also surfaced after he began his political career. For his part, Cawthorn has said, “I have never done anything sexually inappropriate in my life.”

Election lies

Cawthorn has become closely allied with Trump and voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Since then, however, the North Carolina congressman has contradicted himself when it comes to his statements on the 2020 election.

In January 2021, Cawthorn admitted that there was no fraud in the 2020 election after he voted to sustain the objection to electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania when Congress met to certify then-President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.

“Yes, I think I would say that the election was not fraudulent,” he told CNN at the time. “You know, the Constitution allowed for us to be able to push back as much as we could and I did that to the amount of the constitutional limits that I had at my disposal. So now I would say that Joseph R. Biden is our president.”

Yet last August, Cawthorn suggested there could be “bloodshed”over future elections as he pushed false claims about election security and voter fraud.

Speaking at a North Carolina county GOP event, Cawthorn repeated the lie about US election systems being “rigged” and “stolen,” something he said would “lead to one place, and that’s bloodshed” if it continued.

“And I will tell you, as much as I am willing to defend our liberty at all costs, there’s nothing that I would dread doing more than having to pick up arms against a fellow American. And the way that we can have recourse against that is if we all passionately demand that we have election security in all 50 states,” the North Carolina Republican said at the time.

Cawthorn spokesman Luke Ball told CNN in a statement at the time, “Congressman Cawthorn is CLEARLY advocating for violence not to occur over election integrity questions.”

“He fears others would erroneously choose that route and strongly states that election integrity issues should be resolved peacefully and never through violence,” Ball said.

Ball maintained in August that “Congressman Cawthorn’s views on the 2020 election have remained consistent.”

In Feburary, Cawthornfiled a lawsuit to shut down efforts by liberal activists to disqualify him from running for Congress because of his role in the January 6 insurrection. Cawthorn spoke at Trump’s January 6, 2021, rally and posted militant tweets in the run-up to the attack on the US Capitol.

In their challenge, lawyers for the group Free Speech For People said Cawthorn essentially aided and abetted the insurrection, and should be disqualified from office because he “was involved in efforts to intimidate Congress and the Vice President into rejecting valid electoral votes and subvert the essential constitutional function of an orderly and peaceful transition of power.”

A federal judge in early March shut down the legal challenge to Cawthorn’s candidacy, but the liberal activists, legal scholars and anti-Trump Republicans who oppose Cawthorn asked the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to step in and revive their challenge.

CNN’s Daniel Dale, Kate Sullivan, Dianne Gallagher, Kelly Mena, Caroline Kenny and Paul LeBlanc contributed to this report.

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an raw may 22

Rep. Madison Cawthorn suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of North Carolina voters on Tuesday.

"In 2020, Madison Cawthorn became the youngest Republican elected to Congress in American history. In 2022, he became the youngest Republican to lose re-election to Congress in American history," Ben Collins wrote for New York magazine. "The 26-year-old Cawthorn lost after a series of self-imposed scandals, controversies, and gaffes. He was repeatedly pulled over speeding while driving without a license, twice took a firearm through airport security, faced allegations of sexual misconduct and insider trading, baselessly accused colleagues of participating in cocaine-fueled orgies, and then there was the weird video of him humping another man."

Earlier Tuesday, Cawthorn called state Sen. Chuck Edwards to concede.

"Republican discontent stretched beyond traditional figures such as Tillis. 'No one from the Freedom Caucus guys to people in MAGA world are happy with how he conducted himself,' says one ally of Donald Trump," Collins reported. "There is a sense that he had behaved even worse than controversial figures such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, for all inflammatory rhetoric, was not viewed as “super conceited and cocky.” Another plugged-in Republican strategist put it more bluntly: “The guy is just a total f*ckup and shows the limits of patience and tolerance that the MAGA movement has for complete and utter idiots. It’s breaking laws and recklessness in personal behavior.”

Cawthorn had the support of Donald Trump.

"Still, there was one shred of sympathy for Cawthorn as Tuesday night drew close," Collins reported. "After reading a long Politico profile of Cawthorn describing him as unraveling, one freshman Democrat told Intelligencer that they came away with a feeling of pity towards a colleague. 'I just felt more sympathy than anything else. This is a person who clearly has ambition whose pain and whose ability to create new life through that pain could be inspiring but instead has become self-destructive.'"Read the full report here.

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2x?

Ambitious cowardice at its worst': North Carolina Republicans are furious with Madison Cawthorn

Tom Boggioni Raw Story

December 17, 2021

According to a report from the Citizen Times, Rep. Madison Cawthorn's (R-NC) decision to switch districts -- and derail a popular Republican Party lawmaker's plan to run for that seat -- has rankled GOP insiders

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ron fein does better w/ MTG on block election, she rattled

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/madison-cawthorn-bad-person-liar/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/madison-cawthorn-busted-gun-airport/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/madison-cawthorn-2657222156/

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pump and dump crytpo $

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/madison-cawthorn-2657166634/

tax $ lux resort

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https://scorecard.lcv.org/moc/madison-cawthorn

4* 4% tied with gohmert

tribe buff

2021

427Supporting Tribal Management of BisonWildlife, Environmental Justice, Public Lands/Forests

2021385Transformative Climate, Jobs, and Justice Investments (2x Score)Climate Change, Air, Clean Energy, Environmental Justice, Transportation, Public Lands/Forests, Water, Other

2021385Transformative Climate, Jobs, and Justice InvestmentsClimate Change, Air, Clean Energy, Drilling, Environmental Justice, Public Lands/Forests, Transportation, Water, Other

2021379Censuring Paul GosarJustice and Democracy

2021272Taking Action on PFAS ContaminationToxics/Public Right to Know

2021260Restoring the Voting Rights ActJustice and Democracy

2021247Pro-Environment Funding PackageOther, Climate Change, Clean Energy, Clean Air, Clean Water, Environmental Justice

2021217Protecting People from PFASToxics/Public Right to Know; Water

2021208Investing in Transportation and Water InfrastructureClimate Change, Transportation, Water, Clean Energy, Environmental Justice

2021206Building Climate-resilient Wastewater InfrastructureWater, Climate Change

2021201Investing in Climate-Smart and Pro-Wildlife InfrastructureTransportation, Climate Change, Wildlife

2021196Removing Confederate Statues from the U.S. CapitolLands/Forests, Justice and Democracy

2021185Repealing Assault on Methane Pollution SafeguardsClimate Change, Dirty Energy

2021169Corporate Climate Risk Disclosure RequirementsClimate Change; Other

2021145Increasing Awareness and Reporting of Hate CrimesOther, Justice and Democracy

2021132Washington, D.C. StatehoodJustice and Democracy

202191Protecting Dreamers and Immigrants Fleeing DisastersJustice and Democracy, Other

202170Protecting the Rights of Workers to OrganizeOther, Justice and Democracy

202162Voting Rights and Democracy ReformsJustice and Democracy

202145Protecting Public Lands and Waters Across the WestPublic Lands/Forests

202117Impeachment for Incitement of InsurrectionJustice and Democracy

202111Certifying Pennsylvania’s Electoral VotesJustice and Democracy

:{:{202110Certifying Arizona’s Electoral VotesJustice and Democracy}::{}:

that's all folks}:

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ron fein does better w/ MTG on block election, she rattled

cawthorne got lucky w/ bad judge

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Zach Everson

Forbes Staff

I took an unusual route to get here. In a past life, I worked as a travel and food writer, which is how I got the assignment in 2016 to cover the grand opening of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., just a couple miles from my home. When Trump won the election and refused to divest his business, I stayed on the story, starting a newsletter called 1100 Pennsylvania (named after the hotel’s address) and contributed to Vanity Fair, Politico and NBC News.I’m still interested in Trump, but I’ve broadened my focus to follow the money connected to other politicians as well—both Republicans and Democrats.

4,683 views | May 13, 2022

Checks & Imbalances: Pro-Choice Billionaires, Abortion-Themed Ads

We continue looking at abortion’s impact on the midterm elections, as well as the latest district attorney who wants a crack at Donald Trump.

3,674 views | May 10, 2022

Checks & Imbalances:Cawthorn’s Check, Vela’s Whirl, Trump’s Cell

We look at who just donated to Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), the philosophy of Gordon Sondland and Donald Trump's latest reason to not comply with a subpoena.

15,989 views | May 9, 2022

Madison Cawthorn’s Campaign Gets Donation From Associate Of Sanctioned Russian Billionaire

The cousin and one-time asset manager for billionaire Viktor Vekselberg made his first-ever contribution to the controversial North Carolina Republican on Friday.

5,424 views | May 6, 2022..

chalk up one more controversy for Rep. Madison Cawthorn, the North Carolina Republican who seems enveloped in it. Cawthorn’s cash-strapped campaign for re-election received a donation Friday from the cousin and business associate of a sanctioned Russian oligarch,according to a report filed Sunday night with the Federal Election Commission.

Andrew Intrater, a U.S. citizen who’s an asset manager for New York-based Sparrow Capital Holdings, contributed $1,000 to Cawthorn’s campaign.Intrater’s cousin and, at least at one time, biggest investor is billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, who has been under U.S. sanctions since April 2018. Last month, Spanish police, with assistance from U.S. law enforcement, seized Vekselberg’s superyacht on the resort island of Mallorca.

Friday made for interesting timing for Intrater, who has donated $250,000 to Republican campaigns since 2017.Cawthorn, 26, has been through a tumultuous few months. Since the beginning of March, Cawthorn has been charged with driving with a revoked license, called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug,” claimed he was invited to a “sexual get-together” with other politicians and witnessed some of them doing cocaine, been cited for having a loaded gun in his carry-on bag at the Charlotte airport and had a Republican Senator from his home state call on Congress to investigate him for insider stock trading.

Intrater’s check comes as Cawthorn’s campaign is underwater. Last week, it reported debts of $325,000 with $138,000 of cash on hand.

Polls have shown Cawthorn’s favorability rating and support declining among GOP primary voters in his district, but he still holds a double-digit lead over his closest rival. Voting ends May 17.

Intrater and a spokesperson for the Cawthorn campaign didn’t respond to inquiries.

[no doc]

...

Sen. Thom Tillis called Wednesday for the House Ethics Committee toinvestigate fellow North Carolina Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn after watchdog agencies told the Washington Examiner the congressman could be implicated in an insider trading scheme,” reports Anna Kaplan:

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salon

2019?

also $ to cohen trump lawyer]

legally, things are looking incredibly bleak for President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort. On January 8, CNN and others reported that, according to special counsel Robert Mueller’s office, Manafort shared polling data with Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik when they met in 2016. This is on top of all the federal tax evasion and bank fraud charges Manafort was convicted on August 22, 2018.Yet despite his legal peril, Manafort’s family received a $1 million loan during the Summer of 2017—and Bloomberg News has reported that the loan came a few weeks after his home had been raided by the FBI.

In a January 9 post on Twitter, journalist Jeff Grocott (known for his Bloomberg articles) wrote, “This is wacky. Paul Manafort’s family got a $1 million loan in his moment of legal peril—just after FBI raided his home in summer 2017. So who loaned the money?”

Grocott has posted an entire Twitter thread about the loan, stressing that the identity of the lender remains a mystery.

The lender, Grocott explains, called itself Woodlawn LLC. It’s unclear exactly who Woodlawn LLC is, although the lender is connected to Hollywood producer Joey Rappa—whose name appears on a November 2018 filing that was made when Mueller moved to seize Manafort’s properties. In the filing, Rappa (who was a production associate on the 1996 film “The Nutty Professor”) is described as a “managing member” of the Nevada-based company that made the $1 million loan and is making a claim on the Manhattan condominium that Manafort’s family offered as collateral.

Bloomberg has reported that according to Rapp’s lawyer, he had nothing to do with making the loan. However, Rapp is, through his film work, linked to Andrew Intrater—an American financier and cousin of Ukraine-born oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who Mueller’s team questioned in 2018 about his connection to Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Intrater, Bloomberg reports, has been working on a film with Rapp.

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no lnx twt

Trump’s most strident House 'exhibitionists' are spending more than they’re bringing in: report

[Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia speaking at the 2021 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona, Gage Skidmore]

Alex Henderson April 20, 2022

In the 2022 midterms, a long list of far-right House Republicans — from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina to Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado — are running for reelection. And if Republicans regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives as many pundits are predicting, extremists like Greene and Boebert, assuming they are reelected, will be part of the House’s majority party.But the Daily Beast’s Roger Sollenberger, in an article published on April 20, reports that some of Trump’s most strident “exhibitionists” in the U.S. House have been underperforming from a fundraising standpoint in 2022.

“Last year, it was a fundraising feast for the MAGA Goon Squad,” Sollenberger explains. “But in 2022, without the donor stimulus of an attempted insurrection, things are going in the wrong direction. The first three months of the year took more than $275,000 combined out of the pockets of Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) — the foursome of America First, Donald Trump-loving, exhibitionist election objectors. All told, it was their worst showing to date.”

Sollenberger continues, “It wasn’t always like this. In 2021, that crew saw eye-popping returns, stacking up a combined year-over-year gain of $4.8 million. The only one who showed a net loss on the year was Gaetz, whose campaign account shed $95,000 amid a drumroll of bombshell headlines and steep costs related to an ongoing child sex trafficking investigation. Still, the post-insurrection fundraising ground was so fertile that even he posted record fundraising hauls, taking in $3.2 million in the first half of 2021.”

Greene’s 2022 reelection campaign, according to Sollenberger, is spending more money than it’s bringing in.

“The campaign that led the way last year has also done the most damage this year,” Sollenberger observes. “That distinction would go to the Greene campaign, which, after banking $5.2 million last year, kicked off 2022 with a $3 million haul. While stunning, that total didn’t outstrip the record spending that ultimately left her $314,000 in the hole. It was Greene’s first negative fundraising return since she was elected.”

Sollenberger notes that Boebert “hasn’t turned in a quarterly loss,” but Gaetz and Cawthorn have. And even Boebert’s “quarter’s totals represented her smallest gains by far,” according to Sollenberger.

“The Gaetz campaign took a bath in both the second and third quarter last year, and Cawthorn hasn’t bulked up since his million-dollar fundraising spree on the heels of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol,” Sollenberger writes. “After losing another $41,300 since January, the Cawthorn campaign only holds about $282,000 — a little more than half its stash this time last year. And he’s sapped whatever firepower he might hold in his other committees, in the process rankling potential allies.”

---

The chairman of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus is demanding U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) back up his incendiary charges that several members of Congress invited him to alleged orgies where they would do “key bumps” of cocaine.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) (photo), who has been asked by the January 6 Committee to testify but has refused, told Politico’s Olivia Beavers, “I think it is important, if you’re going to say something like that, to name some names.”

Tuesday Beavers also reported that House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy had wanted to speak with Cawthorn about the allegations – not to start any type of investigation, but because some Republicans said they were “upset” Cawthorn made the claim.

Perry and McCarthy are not the only ones angered about Cawthorn’s charges.

“You should have to name names if you are going to go make those kinds of brush stroke accusations and impugn the character of people in this institution or … anybody else in this town,” an unnamed House Republican, told Beavers.

Last week Cawthorn told the “Warrior Poet Society” podcast that, Beavers writes, “he received invitations along the lines of “‘hey, we’re going to have kind of a sexual get-together at one of our homes, you should come’.”

“What did you just ask me to come to?” Cawthorn said. “And then you realize they are asking you to come to an orgy.”

---

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/madison-cawthorn-2657029617/

switch distr?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/madison-cawthorn/

1/6 mult weapons

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/north-carolina-newspaper-slams-madison-cawthorn-for-pushing-kremlin-talking-points/

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/cawthorn-2656948171/

state gop embarassed?

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/madison-cawthorn-volodymyr-zelenskyy-thug/

badash

U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn continues to follow the same playbook as what some are calling the “Sedition Caucus,” far-right congressional Republicans who at times seem more aligned with extremists and Vladimir Putin than mainstream America or even the GOP.

The freshman North Carolina GOP congressman was caught on tape declaring over the weekend that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a hero to his own people and much of the world, is a “thug.”

“Remember that Zelenskyy is a thug,” Cawthorn says in video obtained and published by WRAL. “Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt and is incredibly evil and has been pushing woke ideologies.”

Republican strategist and Bush 43 Senior Advisor Karl Rove was the first to attack Cawthorn, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday.

---

sad!

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/cawthorn-2656854718/

salon78

A federal judge on Friday struck down a legal challenge against Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., who a group of North Carolina voters argued was ineligible for re-election due to his apparent role in fomenting the January 6 Capitol riot.

The decision was handed down by Judge Richard Myers, a Trump-appointee in the eastern district of North Carolina, who rubber stamped Cawthorn's request for a preliminary injunction against the petitioners.

Myers is a member of two conservative advocacy groups, including the Federalist Society and the National Rifle Association. He also serves as a faculty advisor for the Christian Legal Society, whose members profess to be "dedicated to serving Jesus Christ through the practice and study of law."

The case originally stems from a lawsuit filed by a group of voters and advocacy groups back in January, alleging that Cawthorn should be disqualified from re-election over his conduct before and during the Capitol insurrection

In the leadup to the insurrection, Cawthorn encouraged his followers to "lightly threaten" their representatives if they didn't validate Donald Trump's baseless claims of election fraud. The conservative firebrand also made an appearance at the "Stop the Steal" rally, held just hours before the riot, where he blasted Republicans for "not fighting" hard enough. When the rioters had finally made their way inside the House chamber, Cawthorn appeared to be brimming with pride over Twitter, writing gleefully that "the battle is on the house floor."

The lawsuit, now all but dead, hangs its hat on the 14th Amendment's "disqualification clause," which prohibits any officeholders who "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same" from holding a seat in government.

[twt]

but in a countersuit filed in February, Cawthorn's lawyers argued that the Amnesty Act of 1872 – which allowed ex-Confederates to serve in office after the Civil War – effectively validates Cawthorn's re-election bid. In fact, that law only applied to ex-Confederates – not future insurrectionists, Slate's Mark Joseph Stern noted.

Still, Myers sided with Cawthorn's abstruse logic, claiming that "we are at a moment in which interest in free and fair elections is at its peak." The judge added that he felt too responsible for protecting "the soapbox … the ballot box … and the jury box … And when those fail, that's when people proceed to the ammunition box."

Rob Fein, the legal director of Free Speech For People, which is representing the voters who filed the suit against Cawthorn, has called for the decision to be appealed.

"This ruling, by Chief Judge Richard Myers II, a Trump appointee, is wrong on the law and would block the State Board of Elections from determining whether Cawthorn is ineligible under the Insurrectionist Disqualification Clause of the US Constitution," he said in a statement. "The ruling must be reversed on appeal, and the right of voters to bring this challenge to Cawthorn's eligibility must be preserved.

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// rick scott?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/madison-cawthorn-2656782306/

U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) has revealed his “New Contract with America” that’s designed to destroy Social Security, one of the most successful and life-saving programs in U.S. history, to “incentivize” the elderly to return to work.

That’s just one aspect of what Cawthorn describes as a 10-point plan that reads like a far right-wing dream from capitalist kingpins to return America to the days of child labor, seven-day work weeks, and no retirement for senior citizens. But it does call for the federal government to “promote and celebrate the American manufacturing and agriculture industry by incentivizing domestic production,” despite the US economy being so on fire the Federal Reserve is poised to dramatically raise interest rates to cool off spending and so-called “inflation.”

The youngest member of Congress, currently facing a legal battle that could ban him from keeping his seat over his role in the January 6 insurrection, explained to Fox News his “new Contract With America is really a “retort” to the Green New Deal.

“I think the Green New Deal is much less of a climate plan and much more of a Communist manifesto.”

Cawthorn does not reveal who actually wrote the plan, which is in the form of a House resolution (embedded below) – so it has zero chance of passing as long as Democrats hold the chamber.

It includes “slashing government spending by a third by 2031; enacting a balanced budget amendment; and abolishing the income tax and finding a replacement flat tax or consumption tax by 2026,” Fox News adds.

“The contract also calls for abolishing the Department of Education, making English the official language of the United States, banning federal funding for critical race theory teachings, and enacting school choice on the federal level so federal dollars follow the students to their school of choice, including private religious schools.”

There’s also a companion video that looks more like a video game than a rational political agenda.

[vid] ncwa

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an 2 22

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) recently expressed concern about a new lawsuit referencing his "Stop the Steal" rhetoric which could subsequently impact his chances of re-election in the 2022 midterm elections. After fighting to push Trump's self-serving agenda, now, according to The Daily Beast, the Republican senator claims he's focused on the will of the American people.

On Monday, February 21, Cawthorn appeared on "The Tucker Carlson Tonight" where he shared his disdain of the critics calling him out in his own state.

“I’m sure that you were as puzzled as I was following Jan. 6 when they started saying that we were insurrectionists, seditionists, traitors. I thought they were just trying to get a flashy headline,” Cawthorn said.

However, the lawmaker also explained how this was part of a so-called “plan.”

Per The Daily Beast, the lawsuit focuses on the 14th Amendment, which includes a clause designed to prohibit former Confederates from holding public office. It states that no individual “having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.”

“What is going on here is that they are actually very close to being able to subvert the will of over 700,000 Americans,” Cawthorn claimed.

However, Cawthorn appears to believe every constituent in his district is rallying behind him.

“And make no mistake, Tucker: This is not just about a 26-year-old from western North Carolina in a wheelchair," Cawthorn said. "This is about the future of our very nation. If they’re able to set this precedent in North Carolina, they will be able to keep anybody who had valid and legitimate concerns about what happened in the 2020 election from being able to ever hold office.”

Unsurprisingly, Carlson backed Cawthorn's assessment as he attempted to distort Democratic lawmakers' motives.

“I think your analysis is so smart. You’re exactly right,” the Fox News host gushed. “That’s why they called the rioters ‘insurrectionists.’ And so many conservative officeholders and news organizations have ignored it. They’re so embarrassed. They don’t see what this is really about, which is ending democracy.”

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1 22 yahoo mail

North Carolina voters challenge Rep. Madison Cawthorn’s candidacy for re-election under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The challenge, filed before the North Carolina State Board of Elections, alleges that Cawthorn is constitutionally disqualified from public office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, based on reasonable suspicion that he helped facilitate the January 6th insurrection. This is the first such challenge to candidate eligibility filed since the Reconstruction era.

In the weeks leading up to January 6th, Cawthorn publicly urged his followers to threaten and intimidate Members of Congress into blocking certification of 2020 election results. As the date approached, Cawthorn or his staff were in close contact with organizers for the “Save America” demonstration, in which Trump incited his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” and “fight like hell.” Cawthorn’s speeches, tweets, and other public statements establish reasonable suspicion that he helped plan the demonstration and/or march with advance knowledge of the violent attack. Furthermore, his speeches since then suggest that he continues to endorse political violence as a tool for intimidation.

Free Speech For People is proud to represent these voters upholding our Constitution and defending our democracy in the face of the ongoing threat Cawthorn and his allies pose to our republic. But we can’t succeed without your support....

---

sat behind mcc baby carrot filibuster? leering?

---

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/kyle-rittenhouse-verdict-2655766162/

many twt

Be armed, be dangerous’: Madison Cawthorn horrifies viewers with his celebration of the Rittenhouse verdict

Alex Henderson November 19, 2021

A Wisconsin jury acquitted teenage vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse on homicide charges on Friday, and one of the far-right MAGA Republicans who is celebrating the verdict isRep. Madison Cawthorn. The North Carolina congressman is even offering the 18-year-old Rittenhouse an internship, inspiring plenty of negative reactions on Twitter.

Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida has offered Rittenhouse an internship as well.

Cawthorne, sounding delighted, declared,"Kyle Rittenhouse is not guilty, my friends. You have a right to defend yourself. Be armed, be dangerous, and be moral." unapck this? smite thy enemies like yawh? only shoot ppl who deserve it? having a gun automatically MAKES you righteous defended of the holy const and freedumb?

Armed with an AR-15-style weapon, Rittenhouse shot three people during Black Lives Matter demonstrators, two of them fatally in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August 2020. During his trial, the defendant maintained that he acted in self-defense — and the jury found him "not guilty."

Many observers found Cawthorn's open celebration of being "armed" and "dangerous" to be disturbing. He previously drew criticism for telling a crowd to raise their boys to "be a monster." One might argue his admonition to "be moral" softens his plea to "be dangerous," but people can do a lot damage and harm even [especially?] when they think they are morally right.

In response to the 26-year-old Cawthorn's remarks, progressiveMSNBC host Mehdi Hasan tweeted his horror. Hasan implied that Cawthorn, as a far-right Republican, gets a pass when he openly promotes violence: [imagine me or inhan telling followers to be more armed and dang; #bipartisanship?

Here are some more responses to Cawthorn's 'be armed, be dangerous" remarks:

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red pill BS?

Madison Cawthorn urges mothers of young boys to ‘raise them to be a monster’

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

October 19, 2021

U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn is urging parents to turn their young children into monsters.

The North Carolina Republican Congressman lamented that American "culture is trying to completely...[emasculate, refs testosterone levels but sidesteps why]

knife at mtg?

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Christian Taliban leader' Madison Cawthorn accused of calling for 'holy war' against Democrats

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

October 04, 2021

U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), facing growing and heated opposition from North Carolina Democrats and Republicans, is now being accused of calling for a "holy war" after posting a clip from a speech ...

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f/u

...As we noted in a tweet, David, Daniel, and Esther are Jewish figures who were mentioned in the Hebrew Bible hundreds of years before Jesus or the existence of Christianity, so it makes no sense to insist that they “influenced the governments of their day to uphold Christian principles.”

Predictably, Cawthorn doesn’t actually care about the coherence or accuracy of his statements and has now turned those remarks into a fervently Christian nationalist reelection ad for his campaign. The ad, which was released Sunday afternoon, urged Christians to “take our country back.”...

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rww 921

several Republican members of Congress, North Carolina state legislators, various candidates for office, and radical religious-right activists gathered at Temple Baptist Church in Mount Airy, North Carolina, last weekend for the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition’s “Salt & Light Conference.”

Among the politicians in attendance was Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who used his time in front of his home state crowd to declare that he is waging a “spiritual battle” in the supposedly “evil and vile” Washington, D.C., against people like Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her “cold, evil eyes.”

“I believe that the power of prayer will save this country in the coming decades,” Cawthorn. “When I’m in Washington, D.C., I know a lot of you consider the place to be evil and vile, and I am here to tell you with first-hand knowledge, it is evil and vile. But I will tell you when I’m there, I don’t feel an overwhelming sense ofdarkness as if the devilhas complete dominion of that area because I feel a spiritual battle going on on Capitol Hill. And patriots like all of you in this room, on your knees, praying that we have the cover within the spiritual fight is what it will take to save this country.”

“I have to look Nancy Pelosi in her cold, evil eyes every single day,” he continued. “She just passed a bill yesterday trying to say that we can abort babies on demand all the way up until right before the day of birth. When we hear this, when we hear the fact that if a baby comes through a botched abortion alive, sitting there on the table, they then still have the right to murder that child, we realize that when I quip and say, ‘I look her in her cold, evil eyes,’ it’s not a joke. These people hate us.”

“I will tell you, the only way that we take our country back is when strong, God-fearing patriots decide it is time for us to stand up and say, ‘No’ to your tyranny,”Cawthorn declared. “It is time for the American Christian church to come out of the shadows, to say no longer are we going to allow our culture to be determined by people who hate the things that we believe in. We are going to stand valiantly for God’s incredible, inerrant truths that predate any version of government. Because my friends, if we lose this country today, if we bend the knee to the Democrats today, our country will be lost forever, and our children will never know what freedom is. It’s our duty to stand up. I encourage you—let us stand united as men and women of faith to fight for our country!”

---

https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/madison-cawthorns-home-town-newspaper-calls-for-republicans-to-stop-ignoring-his-dangerous-rhetoric-and-calls-for-violence/

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721 no lnx

U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) on Wednesday attacked President Joe Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, a college English professor and former school teacher, calling for the latter to be "indicted."

"I think we should indict Jill Biden," said Cawthorn, who keeps company with the QAnon and sedition camps of the House GOP.

"I'm not saying indict in terms of criminal. But I'm saying that we should call her out for being so cruel to her husband."

Cawthorn, on the far right media outlet Newsmax, mocked President Biden by saying "I don't think he could find his way to Congress," an attack on the Commander in Chief's age and mental acuity. The right regularly and falsely claims Biden is not cognizant of his actions and is incapable of basic thought, claims reinforced on the right through manipulated video.

"The man is clearly mentally unstable," said the freshman congressman who first gained notoriety when he was still a candidate after bragging that visiting Adolf Hitler's summer home had been on his "bucket list for awhile" and "did not disappoint."

The North Carolina Republican who not only is not a gerontologist, neurologist, or medical doctor, went on to claim Biden "is having some form of degradation of his mind."

"They are putting him up there to be assaulted by the greatest debater the country has to go against him," he added. It was not clear who he was referring to.

"As much as I want to question Joe Biden I want to question who's really calling the shots right now," he continued down his conspiracy theory-formed claim. "I don't think Congress or the American people truly know who's behind the scenes pulling the strings."

Watch:

Rep Madison Cawthorn: "I think we should indict Jill Biden. I'm not saying indict in terms of criminal. But I'm say… https://t.co/wutGILwaJu

— Jason Campbell (@Jason Campbell) 1626902720.0

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

CNN reveals that a man from the Capitol riot joined House ... ›

Cawthorn: Democrats hate the 'nuclear family' because they're ... ›

'Suspicious': Right-wing scholar slams Madison Cawthorn over top ... ›

Madison Cawthorn mocked for suddenly changing his tune about the stimulus bill he voted against

Meaghan Ellis

March 31, 2021

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) is facing criticism for his seemingly abrupt change of heart regarding the $1.9 trillion stimulus package he previously opposed and voted against.

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Wingnut' Madison Cawthorn accused of 'anti-Catholic bigotry' after criticizing Vatican vaccination policy

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

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1/25/21 an

Before he became a Never Trump conservative, Christian Vanderbrouk spent eight years in the George W. Bush Administration. Vanderbrouk analyzes the state of the Republican Party in an article published by The Bulwark on January 25, concluding that in light of the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol Building and widespread efforts to overthrow the 2020 election results, the GOP is "too compromised by extremists to be trusted with political power" at this point.

On January 6, Vanderbrouk notes, a "rampaging and murderous mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists…. ransacked the U.S. Capitol to disrupt (then-) President-elect Joe Biden's transition to power, murdering officer Brian Sicknick and shouting 'kill him with his own gun' at officer Michael Fanone while they tased him to the point of causing a heart attack." Such extremism, Vanderbrouk argues, now enjoys widespread support among former President Donald Trump's loyalists in the GOP.

Vanderbrouk explains that after the 2020 election, "Pro-Trump conservatives and elected Republicans echoed and amplified such menacing calls over the next eight weeks, with a particular focus on legislators, state government officials, and judges who refused to help the president remain in power. Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani endorsed threats against lawmakers who refused to help overturn the election results. 'Sometimes, it even requires being threatened,' Giuliani said about pressuring Michigan state lawmakers. Freshman Congressman Madison Cawthorn urged attendees at Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA to threaten their representatives as well."

According to Vanderbrouk, "Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn attracted widespread condemnation for advocating that Trump invoke the Insurrection Act in the weeks following the election and demanding a 're-vote' under military supervision. Fewer people noticed that Flynn also encouraged his followers on social media to donate to a group called the '1st Amendment Praetorian,' which describes itself as a 'volunteer force of military, law enforcement & intel agency community professionals standing up to protect the 1st Amendment and those who use it.'"

Vanderbrouk wraps up his article by stressing that traditional conservatives should not ally themselves with a party that has been overrun by secessionists and violent insurgents.

"For those of us who still consider ourselves conservative, we cannot yet return to a Republican Party that, at best, maintains strategic silence in the face of violent or secessionist agitation — and at worst, is egging it on from the fancy sinecures of Conservatism Inc.," Vanderbrouk warns. "A cancer of complicity afflicts nearly the entire movement, and while there are decent leaders who deserve support — particularly from far-right primary challengers — the GOP is too compromised by extremists to be trusted with political power anytime soon."

nothing in bio true: anap, biz, paraolympics

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/madison-cawthorn/

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supported stop steal then 180 after insurrection?

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1120 rww stop the steal dc march

greene:

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-supporting Republican from Georgia who will be walking the halls of Congress come January, closed out the rally at Freedom Plaza with a torrent of falsehoods, offering a sense of what kind of colleague she’ll be on Capitol Hill.

“This is only the beginning,” she said. “The Democrat Party is the party of socialism, the party of riots, the party that wants to murder babies up until birth and make taxpayers pay for it, they’re the party that wants to take away your guns.”

With that, the rally blasted the song “YMCA” unironically, and the march to the Supreme Court began. ...

...The far-right QAnon conspiracy theory also made a showing, with the QAnon slogan, “Where we go one, we go all,” abbreviated to “WWG1WGA,” on T-shirts, “Q” pins on hats, and posters about child-sex-trafficking. One man wore a sweatshirt that read, “Investigate Pizzagate,” referring to the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory that preceded QAnon and ended with a gunman showing up to a Washington, D.C., pizzeria.

:{:{:{}:

}:}:

Meanwhile, Alex Jones, who pushed that theory, was given the microphone on the same stage at which recent electeds Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorn, who both have dabbled in QAnon, would later speak.

:{:{:{}:

}:}:

After claiming that “globalists are making their move against us,” Jones led the crowd in a prayer. “We absolutely commit to you on your holy altar to never submit to Satan and these globalist pedophiles, and we will defeat their new world order. Amen!” he yelled before starting the crowd on a “U-S-A!” chant.

...

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new GOP congressman makes disturbing comments about trying to convert Jews: 'They are very difficult'

David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement

November 16, 2020

GOP congressman-elect Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina has quickly made a name for himself in many ways. At 25, he's just become one of th...

GOP congressman-elect Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina has quickly made a name for himself in many ways. At 25, he's just become one of the youngest Americans ever elected to Congress.

During the campaign Cawthorn was accused of being anti-Semitic and supportive of Adolf Hitler after an Instagram post was uncovered showing not only has he visited "The vacation house of the Führer," as he wrote, in Germany, but he gloated about it, saying it had been on his bucket list.

Now Cawthorn is once again under fire, and unsurprisingly it's about comments he made about Jewish people in an interview with Jewish Insider.

A devout Christian, Cawthorn bragged that he personally has tried to convert Jews to Christianity. He confessed that while he has been successful converting "a lot" of Jews, but not those who are devout.

He seems to believe, as Jewish Insider reports, that it is his duty as a Christian to convert as many people as possible. He also suggests that "culturally Jewish people" are not real Jews.

Cawthorn says he tried "unsuccessfully" to convert Jews but then adds, "I have switched a lot of, uh, you know, I guess, culturally Jewish people."

"But being a practicing Jew, like, people who are religious about it, they are very difficult. I've had a hard time connecting with them in that way."

Jewish Insider's Matthew Kassel writes, "Cawthorn expressed a similar sentiment during a July 2019 sermon at a church in Highlands, North Carolina."If you have Jewish blood running through your veins today," he told the crowd, mulling on a chapter from the Gospel of Mark, "this might not mean as much to you, but for someone like me, who's a gentile, this means a lot."

He's once again under fire.

---

https://ballotpedia.org/Madison_Cawthorn

never elected to anything

submitted Biography: "Madison Cawthorn is an 8th generation resident of North Carolina's 11th district. His ancestors date back all the way to the Revolutionary war. Madison was nominated to the U.S. Naval Academy in 2014.Unfortunately, his plans were derailed after he nearly died in a tragic automobile accident that left him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair.

:{:{}:

:{:{Madisons [sic, your welcome] accident built his faith, }:made him a fighter:{, helped him appreciate everyday, and inspired him to help everyone he encounters overcome whatever adversity they face in their daily lives. }:

Today, Madison is the CEO of real estate investment company. He is also a motivational speaker and challenges people around the nation tohave faith, work hard, play by the rules, and pursue the American dream.

A constitutional conservative, Madison is committed to defending the values of faith, family, and freedom. "}:

---

its been a bad couple of weeks for Madison Cawthorn, the 24-year-old wunderkind Republican candidate for Congress.

Let's review:

He had an unfortunate — and since deleted — post on Instagram about visiting Adolf Hitler's mountainous World War II retreat, the Eagle's Nest in Berchtesgaden. Cawthorn referred to Hitler as "the Führer" and the visit as being on his "bucket list."

It sounded a little fawning. To be fair, he called Hitler a "supreme evil," which I hope was not a compliment.

When I want to Germany in the 1980s as a tourist and history buff — and about the same age as Cawthorn is now — I also visited Berchtesgaden. We had no social media back then, but I'm pretty sure I would not have used the honorific "fuhrer," ("leader" in German) for Hitler, who orchestrated the murder of 6 million Jews during the war and basically tried to take over the world.

Clearly, Cawthorn showed some pretty poor judgment here, not to mention immaturity.

Misleading bio

Next, asAVL Watchdog reported and we ran on our website Aug. 12, Cawthorn messed and stepped in it by creating an impression he was heading to the Naval Academy before a tragic car crash left him paralyzed from the waist down at age 18. Here's an excerpt from the article, citing in part Cawthorn's website:

“Madison was home-schooled in Hendersonville and was nominated to the Naval Academy by Rep. Mark Meadows in 2014,”according to the 11th District candidate’s website. “However, Madison’s plans were derailed that year after he nearly died in a tragic automobile accident that left him partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair.”

But in a 2017 sworn deposition obtained by AVL Watchdog, Cawthorn admitted his application to the academy had already been rejected before the crash. The campaign did not comment, despite repeated requests over several days."

this may seem like a minor fudge in the world of politics, but it's also telling about the young man's character. Like the man he's seeking to replace, former U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows, who also was caught up in an imbroglio about his academic record, Cawthorn seems willing to create a false impression about his accomplishments.

For the record, he was home-schooled in Henderson County and left college after a semester of earning mostly D's.

White supremacy questions

A far-right candidate, Cawthorn has also come under fire for using the name, "SPQR Holdings, LLC" for his real estate investment company. In another AVL Watchdog story, the organization reported, "The initials SPQR derive from the Latin initials for 'the Senate and People of Rome,' which denoted the Roman empire at its height and today appears widely on Italian tourist trinkets. But in recent years SPQR has been embraced by skinhead gangs in Italy and by some white nationalists in the United States."

In an almost comically gun-happy campaign photo, Cawthorn is pictured with a scoped hunting rifle Elmer Fudd would envy, and a handgun in a holster with a Roman legion mask on it. Some took that as another nod to the whole Roman Empire shtick.[pix rifle, blk/wht trojan helmet 300, germ shep]

Allegations of inappropriate behavior with women

Next up, several women came forward to accuse Cawthorn of aggressive and inappropriate sexual behavior in years past, including unwanted kissing on a bad date, and putting his hand on a young woman's thigh in a college dining hall. World Magazine, a Christian magazine, first reported this story, and we ran a follow story Aug. 20.

Cawthorn's campaign pushed back hard on the issues via a statement from John Hart, a public relations consultant. Hart said, "There’s a big difference between a failed teenage romantic advance and being forceful, to the extent that’s possible when you’re a paraplegic.”

And he said the timing of allegations is curious, too. Cawthorn handily beat Meadows' hand-picked successor, Lynda Bennett, in the Republican primary runoff, despite Meadows and President Donald Trump endorsing Bennett. Trump and Meadows (Trump's current chief of staff) are now promoting Cawthorn, appearing recently with him at Trump's hotel in Washington, D.C.

Hey, politics is a forgiving business.

“When attempts to portray Madison as a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer failed, national Democrats turned to their new favorite pastime of Kavanaugh-like character assassination,” Hart wrote, referring to an AVL Watchdog report detailing Cawthorn’s use of symbols associated with white nationalists.

The campaign also said Cawthorn is a gentleman with the ladies, and provided women who had positive dating experiences with Cawthorn. Cawthorn did tell the Smoky Mountain News, regarding the unwanted kissing incident, “As soon as I realized that she didn't want to — I think she pulled back a little bit — the date was over and we continued to sit around the fire for quite a while."

Every campaign is going to have some scandals or allegations of outrageous behavior, and now that Cawthorn has garnered national attention, he can expect even more of these kind of reports.

Does this matter, politically?

For the record, his opponent, Democrat Moe Davis, made it clear he had 'no involvement" in disseminating these stories to media outlets.

Davis, 62, is a retired Air Force Colonel and former Chief Prosecutor at Guantanamowho has also worked as a law professor, judge, speaker, writer and national security expert. He's also earned undergraduate and law degrees.

In short, he's been around a lot longer than Cawthorn and has decades of life and work experience.Cawthorn maintains he's a real estate investor, but he has no work record to speak of.

A casual observer may be excused for thinking Davis is clearly the more qualified candidate, not to mention far more mature and experienced. These stories that keep emerging about Cawthorn paint a picture of, well, an immature 24-year-old kid whose main attribute in running for Congress is that he's young and good looking and has a compelling personal story.

Casual Observer, or CO as I'll call him, might also think, with all these questions about Cawthorn's immaturity and lack of experience, that Davis would be a slam dunk.

But CO clearly knows nothing about the 11th Congressional District and gerrymandering, or politics.

Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper does, though, so I asked him if any of these recent scandals could be a major factor or even a campaign-ender for Cawthorn.

"Collectively, I do not see the most recent flap as a campaign-ender," Cooper said. "I see it as it's going to make the campaign more competitive — it's making a campaign that shouldn't be competitive actually be competitive. And it will drive more national media coverage into the story."

Cooper noted that the Cook Political Report shifted the Davis-Cawthorn race from a "likely" Republican win to "leaning" Republican.

Davis says the race is close

About a week ago, Davis's campaign posted this to Facebook: "Polling shows a virtual dead heat in the NC11 congressional race. Col. Moe Davis (Ret.) can win this with your support." On Aug. 12, Davis' campaign cited a poll conducted July 9-12 by EMC Research that "shows that the once heavily gerrymandered 11th Congressional District in Western North Carolina is a virtual dead heat between Democratic nominee Moe Davis and Republican Madison Cawthorn."

The poll, citing 402 likely November 2020 voters in the 11th District, "showed the race at 42% for Cawthorn to 40% for Davis."

So why would Cooper suspect Cawthorn has a strong chance of winning, that the race really shouldn't be competitive? CO may wonder, "How can this be?"

Look at 2016, Cooper says.

"As it's currently drawn, the (11th Congressional) district went 57% for Trump in 2016," Cooper said.

In short, the 11th Congressional District was redrawn to look less flagrantly gerrymandered, but it's still pretty solid Trump territory. With Trump coming here Monday, look for Cawthorn to get some more presidential love, maybe even an unwanted kiss.

I joke.

But seriously, Trump and Meadows are going to pump Cawthorn up. So despite his immaturity and lack of experience, he's got a real good shot at winning.

Davis tweeted this Aug. 21: "My #NC11 opponent has no education, training or experience, but he has the the GOP behind him and even Trump dropping in next week to try & revive his floundering campaign."

Davis is not wrong.

But in politics, good looks and a good story go a long way, especially with a dash of gerrymandering tossed in.

This is the opinion of John Boyle. Contact him at 828-232-5847 or jboyle@citizentimes.com

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/qanon-supporters-win-seats-in-congress-city-council/

several politicians with ties to the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory have been elected to positions of power.

Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene [pix w/ uzi ar15] was declared the winner in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, becoming the first QAnon supporter to win a U.S. House seat.She wasfollowed shortly thereafter by mixed martial arts fighter Tito Ortiz, a fellow QAnon supporter who was elected to Huntington Beach City Council.

Greene made headlines for her anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, and bigoted statements, reported on back in June. Videos acquired by Politico appeared to show her comparing Black Lives Matter to the Klu Klux Klan, claiming that Muslims should be banned from serving in the U.S. government, and propagating anti-Semitic statements about billionaire George Soros.

The Georgia Republican also faced scrutiny for her support for QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory turned virtual cult that claims a cabal of elite pedophiles made up of Hollywood actors, Democrats, and other high-ranking officials, is behind a global child sex-trafficking ring. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has labeled the movement a “potential domestic terror threat.”

“Q is a patriot, we know that for sure,” Greene said in a 2017 video, which has since been deleted. “There’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out, and I think we have the President to do it.”

Despite her controversial statements and tinfoil hat conspiracies, Greene received support from influential GOP donors, as well as from groups associated with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

As for Ortiz, the MMA fighter finished first among 15 candidates in the Huntington Beach city council race, receiving 14.3 percent of the overall total (34,901 votes). He will serve a four-year term once he is sworn in.

Ortiz, known as the “Huntington Beach Bad Boy” during his MMA career, was elected without any previous political experience. A fierce Trump loyalist, the fighter used his platform to amplify the president, associate with far-right groups, and propagate dangerous conspiracy theories such as QAnon, all while campaigning with the Trumpian slogan of “Making Huntington Beach Safe Again.”

For a while, Ortiz sold apparel marked with QAnon slogans such as WWG1WGA (short for Where We Go One We Go All) through his Punishment Athletics clothing line. (It appears that Ortiz has since removed the QAnon apparel from his site.) He also claimed that the coronavirus was “man-made” and a political scam devised to suppress protests around the world. “Once again, it’s population control by the left. They’re trying to get rid of all the older people who are getting Social Security,” Ortiz:{ }:{ }:during a podcast appearance.:{ }:

Ortiz, who ran as a conservative, was endorsed by the Huntington Beach Police Officers Association, the Republican Party of Orange County, former Huntington Beach mayor and convicted felon Dave Garofalo, as well as Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes.

(Author note: Right Wing Watch covered Ortiz’s campaign, including his support for the QAnon movement, here

It should also be noted that Lauren Boebert, the Colorado Republican who was criticized for supporting QAnon, won the race for Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District on Wednesday.Back in May, Boebert joined QAnon conspiracy theorist Ann Vandersteel on her “Steel Truth” program, where she said she believed the conspiracy theory was “only motivating and encouraging and bringing people together, stronger—and if this is real, then it can be really great for our country.” Boebert was endorsed by the American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual The Conservative Political Action Conference.

According to The New York Times, Boebert has since “disavowed” the baseless conspiracy theory.

Republican Madison Cawthorn will also be heading to Congress as the youngest member elected in modern U.S. history. The 25 year old defeated Democrat Moe Davis for North Carolina’s 11th Congressional District. He came under scrutiny earlier this year for Instagram photos that show him visiting Adolf Hitler’s vacation house in Germany in 2017. And while he reportedly disavowed QAnon, he repeated some of the child sex trafficking claims promoted by the far-right conspiracy theory.

“But what’s really going on is we are having a large group of cartels coming into our country, kidnapping our American children and then taking them to sell them on a slave market, on the sex slave market,” Cawthorn said in a campaign video posted on Instagram.

Tags: Lauren Boebert Madison Cawthorn Marjorie Taylor Greene Tito Ortiz QAnon

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GOP congressman-elect Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina has quickly made a name for himself in many ways. At 25, he's just become one of the youngest Americans ever elected to Congress.

Now Cawthorn is once again under fire, and unsurprisingly it's about comments he made about Jewish people in an interview with Jewish Insider.

He seems to believe, as Jewish Insider reports, that it is his duty as a Christian to convert as many people as possible. He also suggests that "culturally Jewish people" are not real Jews.

Cawthorn says he tried "unsuccessfully" to convert Jews but then adds, "I have switched a lot of, uh, you know, I guess, culturally Jewish people."

"But being a practicing Jew, like, people who are religious about it, they are very difficult. I've had a hard time connecting with them in that way."

He's once again under fire.

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