Madison Cawthorn: I’m Shocked, Shocked to Find That Drug-Fueled Orgies Are Going On Here!

[Cartmann99]

The letter from the American Muckrakers PAC accusing Cawthorn of ethics violations is under the spoiler.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Cartmann99

[Alisamer]

Sounds like Maddie ought to hurry and marry Steven as quickly as possible, LOL!

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

His Twitter response: 

"Many of my colleagues would be nowhere near politics if they had grown up with a cell phone in their hands."

Once again, he's not addressing the behavior but whining about getting caught.  Like others, I am not a fan of someone being "outed" without consent but I also make an exception for people who actively engage in anti-LGBTQ+ campaigns and throw gasoline on the inferno of hatred.  It is very dangerous for people who are not cis-gender and people like Madison Cawthorn stoke the fires.  As a human being, I don't care what he does and with whom he does it as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult on equal footing but he doesn't get to be part of the hate that damages people who just want to be who they are safely and with equal rights while sneaking around enjoying his privilege.  

I dare his group of Congressional buddies to rally around him now.  C'mon guys, you were all cozied up together.  Is this the dealbreaker?  Gaetz' investigation involving children didn't cause him to be shunned so let's see what it takes to be kicked from the lunch table. 

[SPHASH]

Guess my gaydar was right after all.

[libriatrix]

On 4/23/2022 at 1:21 PM, SPHASH said:

Madam is now starting to ping my gaydar even though a lot of women have accused him of assault.  Thoughts?

I mean there's always the option that he's bi/pan. There are more options than straight or gay!

I also think it's possible that he's gay and has sexually assaulted women not because of sexual attraction but because of power. With the reveals about his male staffer who went on his honeymoon, I think it's pretty solid that he's attracted to men but I could see it either way whether he's attracted to women or not. A moot point really, since the more relevant elements of the whole thing for the American people as a whole are his hypocrisy and commission of assault. 

[AlmostSavedAtTacoBell]

I don’t care where he is on the sexual spectrum and I am not one to try to put labels on another person. I don’t get upset at anyone who for reasons chooses to live a certain outward life while having a personal different life as long as that person is not contributing to the anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment. This fucker not only contributed but was one of the big faces of it lately. Maybe he was experimenting, maybe he is only attracted to men but sexually assaulted women as a power play, maybe somewhere in between. I don’t give a fuck. I realize I sound harsh but I do not want his sexuality to deter from the real issue- his abhorrent and vile anti-LGBTQ+ words and actions while having fun with a same sex partner in secret. Adding insult to injury, his response was to cry that he got caught rather than to apologize to the very community he has caused so much pain. 

Edited April 30, 2022 by AlmostSavedAtTacoBell
Added the last line because he’s an extra asshole

[fundiewatch]

Same. This dude is the dystopian worst. 

[Cartmann99]

 

[Howl]

I just came across this tweet. . Fundamentalist Xtian men can do all sorts of things, play the "But I REPENTED!" card and keep right on going. 

But they cannot ever, at any time, do it with another man, seriously or in jest (unless you're Ted Haggard).  

He's crossed (and maybe snorted) multiple lines and I can't see him being able to PR himself back into contention in his upcoming race.  Women "might" buy it, but ostensibly straight white Christian men...nope, nope, nope, because defending Cawthorne would risk damaging their straight man cred. OTOH, they might call it photoshopped and just keep going .

 Again, I'm seeing a huge element of self destruction in his character. 

Exhibit 1: 

 

and on to Exhibit 2, the actual video! 

 

and Exhibit 3! 

and then because this is the funniest obscene thing that is actually just food, engineered food, but...yes, it's really *beyond meat*

 

Edited May 3, 2022 by Howl

[fraurosena]

"His cousin/scheduler" is a whole nuther level of kissing cousins that I did not need to know about.

[Becky]

Did he really say that?  "Pocket bible?" I cannot find anything that corroborates it, anybody have a linkie?  

 I despise Cawthorn, he is a revolting piece of shit.  

[Howl]

Good grief.  I wandered across this on CNN today.  There is a video of Cawthorn in bed with a male friend that has appeared on social media. 

Cawthorn addresses video released by opposition group showing him naked in bed ‘being crass’

Maddy: “A new hit against me just dropped. Years ago, in this video, I was being crass with a friend, trying to be funny. We were acting foolish, and joking. That’s it. I’m NOT backing down.

CNN notes they have not been able to independently verify the video and does not link to the video. 

As I searched for a link to the video, the further down the page I got, the more graphic the headlines became: 

Media-ite:  Madison Cawthorn Confirms Video of Him Naked and Dry-Humping Man in Bed Is Authentic: ‘Blackmail Won’t Win’

Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) issued a statement Wednesday in which he confirmed a video of him nude and dry-humping another man in a bed is authentic.  A group called Fire Madison Cawthorn first posted the video online, and claimed to have the congressman in the nude “DRY HUMPING SOMEONE’S HEAD AND MOANING LOUDLY.”

Interestingly, Media-ite also did not post a link to the video, and noted: "The video appeared legitimate, but Mediaite refrained from reporting on it, as we were unable to authenticate it.  On Wednesday evening, the freshman congressman confirmed its authenticity himself in a statement."

OK, found it on the Daily Mail.  Video link here. There is nude thrusting and his butt is fully exposed, although Daily Mail blurred it out.  This is after his accident; his wheelchair is visible. I didn't have sound on and I didn't watch all the way through. 

This is a graphic simulated sex act with another man, being filmed by a third person.  

I suspect the adults in the room have told Madison he needs to bow out now, STAT, toot sweet!  No amount of damage control will help. This isn't survivable.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Emma]

“This isn’t survivable.”

One would think so, but this is the “family values “ bunch that elected Mr. Trump.

[SassyPants]

11 minutes ago, Emma said:

“This isn’t survivable.”

One would think so, but this is the “family values “ bunch that elected Mr. Trump.

Agreed. Days before the 2016 election, I remember when Billy Bush’s tape was released of Trump claiming he grabbed women by their pussies, and let just let you. I thought there was no way he could get elected after that, but…

[Howl]

46 minutes ago, Emma said:

One would think so, but this is the “family values “ bunch that elected Mr. Trump.

and 

32 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Agreed. Days before the 2016 election, I remember when Billy Bush’s tape was released of Trump claiming he grabbed women by their pussies, and let just let you. I thought there was no way he could get elected after that, but…

True, but Cawthorn is a loose cannon who has already pissed off a LOT of powerful and important people.  Too many shenanigans and now this. 

He's a representative for a very conservative area and he got there by presenting himself as a wholesome homeschooled Christian fundamentalist  firebrand with VALUES. 

Wholesome homeschooled Christian fundamentalist men don't end up in a video of a graphic simulated sex act with a man and no one, I mean NO ONE who watches this will think he's just being silly, goofing around with friends -- he has to be hemorrhaging donors and support at this point.  

Yes, he could survive but he's not promoting the cause, like Boebert and Greene, and he's turning into an embarrassment and a liability and I'm pretty sure he's being sabotaged by his own party. 

Would it have been different if there were sex tapes of Trump? I'm going to guess yes. 

That said,  Matt Gaetz is plagued by scandal and it hasn't hurt him. 

We'll see if he manages to make the primary. 

[Alisamer]

42 minutes ago, SassyPants said:

Agreed. Days before the 2016 election, I remember when Billy Bush’s tape was released of Trump claiming he grabbed women by their pussies, and let just let you. I thought there was no way he could get elected after that, but…

I don't know, I think this might, maybe, sink him - definitely with the religious right. Trump was all kinds of awful and inappropriate, but it was always with women (or girls, in some cases). The evangelicals, fundiies, religious nuts, they can overlook just about anything if it was done to/with a person with a vagina. They'll ask what she was wearing, what was she doing there, why didn't she stop him, etc. They'll shift the blame onto the woman. But with a MAN? That's GAY. And they hate "the gays". If he was doing those things with a woman, even a mistress, it would be easy for them to say "oh, temptation, he's repented, of course he couldn't resist her female wiles." Because the men of their group would have done the same thing, if they thought they could get away with it. 

But since evangelicals and fundies are obsessed with sex to the point of arranging their and their childrens lives around preventing it, getting married to have it, etc... they will look at these images and think of sex, and it's GAY. Le gasp! Horrors! It made them think of butt stuff! 

He might, maybe, be able to explain this away well enough not to lose all of them, but there are a lot who are likely to be like "nope. Too gay." And one or two more of these things? Yep. Gay. Too gay for church.

If you're going to be gay in the mountains of NC, Asheville is the place to be. He's from Hendersonville, I think, but it's nearby. Unfortunately he's burned any bridges there might have been there I think so even if he did come out, he wouldn't be welcomed by the LGBT+ community there I think. 

(I think this same sort of misogyny/homophobia combo is what kept Josh Duggar from being completely disowned and badmouthed by the whole Duggar Borg. The images he had were of little girls. Little boys would have gotten him branded as gay, but little girls? Eh. At least it wasn't gay. I'm positive that's how JimBob and others looked at it.)

 

[Howl]

First, no one has confirmed the date of the video

Second, I think y'all identifying MC as gay/bi/pan upthread are correct. 

Something to consider: there are a LOT of his Christian fundamentalist followers who don't use social media because way too worldly.  They consume conservative religious media. 

They will not be seeing this tape and will completely discount it, buying Cawthorn's excuse of guys just being goofy because, hey,  lying main stream media lies about everything,  and vote accordingly. 

Unless -- an influential or even local pastor deems it too much and/or conservative media says it crosses a line and they no longer support or endorse him. 

I'd bet that calculus is being worked out in a lot of churches and newsrooms. 

I'm still intrigued that main news outlets were not linking to the video, while stating that Cawthorn had confirmed it.  Too gay porn adjacent? 

One last thing: is this the last release of a compromising video or is there more?

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Howl

[SassyPants]

WOMEN also voted for Trump. How? How can you overcome what was said on those tapes? How could a woman, even religious women (perhaps ESPECIALLY religious women) who know anything about Trump (his womanizing, his refusing to pay for services or his debts, his abusing the legal system to avoid paying for anything, his racist words….) justify voting for this man??????

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I think of how a President Pete B. Might be navigating our country’s woes at the moment, but being gay made him a non contender for many, I guess. Funny what some can overlook and what they can not.

[Howl]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

58 minutes ago, Howl said:

One last thing: is this the last release of a compromising video or is there more?

 

There's always another video...

[GiggleOfGirls]

Local radio station today (I was in a store, I’m not sure which radio station it was) was playing a very serious anti-Madison Cawthorn ad and it sounded like it was from the Republican side. 
 

And yeah, I cannot imagine any scenario in which the LGBTQ community here/Asheville ever accepts MC. 
 

In happy news, Hendersonville has a small but growing LGBTQ community as well. At the Indigo Girls’ concert last week in Asheville someone up front hollered out about the upcoming Hendersonville Pride event and Emily (I think) said something like, “That’s something we never would’ve seen 10 years ago!”

Edited May 5, 2022 by GiggleOfGirls

[Cartmann99]

Inside the Relentless Campaign to Ruin Madison Cawthorn

Quote

Multiple embarrassing traffic stops. A credible accusation of insider trading. Photos of him sporting hoop earrings and a bra. A video of a male staffer’s hand near his crotch. Another video showing him jokingly but nakedly humping the upper body of potentially the same man—his cousin. And possibly more to come.

Few in politics have seen anything like the ever-worsening public relations trainwreck that has consumed the political career of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC). The unrelenting pile-up of damaging stories, insiders say, is the clear handiwork of political players determined to take out the 26-year old MAGA hero in the May 17 primary election.

With a field of hungry Republican primary opponents eyeing the divisive freshman’s seat, the sources of the coordinated stories seem clear: the attacks are coming from inside the house.

“It’s definitely a hit job that I’m happy to be a party to,” a veteran North Carolina operative involved in the race told The Daily Beast.

“Most of the GOP universe has come around to align against this guy,” he added. “You’re seeing a full-court, state-based, establishment pushback against him. Get this guy out. Take him out. We’re gonna see if we can pull it off in eight days.”

A bit of conspiratorial conventional wisdom has taken hold recently among some on both the right and left: that the knives came out for Cawthorn in March after he alleged that unnamed GOP lawmakers were openly sniffing drugs and hosting orgies.

That may have been the last straw for some. But the reality is Cawthorn has spent the last year making enemies, from Capitol Hill to the corner of North Carolina that he represents. The congressman’s most recent string of unforced errors—from the coke-and-orgy comments to disparaging Ukraine’s president as a “thug”—merely helped to consolidate a powerful coalition of longtime foes and former friends.

The former group—led by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC)—has backed state Sen. Chuck Edwards, one of Cawthorn’s leading primary challengers, and has spent heavily on ads damaging the congressman.

But it’s that latter group—his old allies—that turbo-charged the kitchen-sink push to drag down Cawthorn ahead of primary day. Multiple sources deeply involved in the race suspect the most sensitive material was leaked by people formerly close to Cawthorn, and the rumor mill in western North Carolina is buzzing daily with guesses.

The conduit for many of those hits, however, has been no mystery. “Fire Madison,” a political action committee run by two local Democrats, has published and publicized some of the most salacious items about the young congressman.

“We’ve become kind of the dumping ground for info on the guy,” admitted David Wheeler, a former candidate for the state senate who runs much of the day-to-day operation of the Fire Madison PAC. “Obviously, we have a target, we’re not afraid to take him on and put out the information his opponents wouldn’t—or the Democrats wouldn’t.”

That included a video last week, released with many disclaimers and caveats, showing a naked Cawthorn mounting another man in bed and dry-humping his face while making bizarre yelping noises—seemingly as a joke, but bizarre nonetheless. Cawthorn did not deny the video was authentic, but he dismissed it as horseplay, and said his foes were trying to “blackmail” him by publishing it. Few news outlets reported on it. His opponents didn’t even go near it.

In an interview, Wheeler told The Daily Beast that the video arrived, via email, from a man who wanted to remain anonymous as a “former supporter and donor” for Cawthorn.

It was just one of many tips and bits of information that the PAC has received about Cawthorn from various sources. And according to Wheeler, that firehose of oppo includes much more explicit material featuring the congressman—material Wheeler said he could not publish without breaking North Carolina law.

“People think we’re under Kevin McCarthy’s finger, and that he’s telling us what to do because he wants to get back at Madison,” Wheeler said, referencing the House GOP leader who publicly and privately reprimanded Cawthorn after his orgy comments.

“It’s not folks out of Washington that are sending this stuff,” Wheeler maintained. “It’s folks who used to work with him, who were his supporters.”

With less than a week until the primary election, the hits on Cawthorn are expected to keep coming. If he notches less than 30 percent of the vote, the congressman would head to a runoff with the second-place finisher in a field of seven challengers—a scenario that might only intensify the stream of attacks.

But on several other important fronts, Cawthorn isn’t exactly helping his own cause.

For one, his campaign has churned through nearly all of its cash, running on fumes as it heads into the primary home stretch.

The Cawthorn operation currently owes twice as much money as it has in the bank. In the month of April alone, they racked up nearly $250,000 in debt while spending another $216,000. The campaign offset that with only $102,000 in contributions, closing the month with a little more than $137,000 cash on hand.

But the problem isn’t limited to the spending itself. It’s also how he’s spending it.

“It’s a grift and a racket,” one North Carolina GOP strategist told The Daily Beast. Reports of Cawthorn setting up his friends with cushy paychecks have raised eyebrows among Republicans in the state, he said.

The Daily Beast reported last week that Cawthorn appears to have paid his top office and campaign staffer more than the maximum allowable outside income—exceeding that limit by as much as $40,000, while routing tens of thousands of dollars through a shell LLC. The staffer is a twentysomething college friend whose work experience prior to helming a congressional office appears mostly grounded in running a Texas fireworks stand.

Cawthorn has also doled out campaign funds to a number of other friends, while going increasingly light on the details of those payments, a person familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast.

His personal life choices have raised concern among Republicans from ex-President Donald Trump to House leadership to people close to the Cawthorn campaign, especially in the months after the 26-year-old’s brief marriage came to a seemingly abrupt end last year.

Rolling Stone reported on Sunday that Trump is “completely weirded out” by Cawthorn’s behavior. McCarthy said in late March that Cawthorn had lost his confidence as minority leader, and that Cawthorn needed to “turn himself around.”

What exactly that means remains an enigma, but, as with most things involving Madison Cawthorn, there’s clearly plenty of innuendo and anger.

A Cawthorn campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Despite the drumroll of attacks, the political arms of the national party are largely staying out of the race. Even the Trumpiest lawmakers aren’t opening their checkbooks to support Cawthorn—or appearing anywhere near him.

“MAGA world is keeping their distance,” a strategist told The Daily Beast, noting that party brass is unwilling to place bets ahead of a possible primary nail-biter, especially since the winner will be a strong favorite in the general election in this conservative district.

“They aren’t sure how this is going to play out, and right now they don’t want to put their credibility on the line considering all the baggage Madison has right now,” he said.

In the face of near-daily stories casting doubt on his character and integrity, Cawthorn has fully embraced the Trumpian playbook of dismissing them as products of the “fake news” and attacks from establishment “RINOs.” And like many scandal-plagued Republicans in this era, he has tried to turn his terrible headlines into something that ties him closer to Trump.

“I’ve never seen the Swamp launch such a coordinated attack against any individual in politics except for Donald Trump,” Cawthorn said in a video posted to Twitter last week, in which he bragged that he was so ahead in the polls that he did not need to defend himself but was “honor-bound” to supposedly set the record straight.

Some of Cawthorn’s critics have expressed concern that sympathy for the young congressman is growing among Republican voters. Even some liberal-leaning publications, like Mic, have amplified the suggestion that Cawthorn is being punished because he was telling the truth about rampant drug use and group sex in the old, white confines of the GOP.

Michele Woodhouse, a former chair of the district GOP who is challenging Cawthorn from the Trump lane, said she meets people on the campaign trail who believe there is a “conspiracy” to oust him.

While Woodhouse said the “Raleigh swamp”—typified by Tillis and Edwards—is out to get Cawthorn, she argued the congressman has only himself to blame for many of the scandals dogging him now.

“The left-wing media didn't make Madison Cawthorn drive without a license for three years, or burn through money like a drunken sailor, or give him 18-plus ethics violations,” Woodhouse said. “Western North Carolinians are smart—and there is no conspiracy here. It’s his choices. It’d behoove him to own them.”

Wheeler, who helps run the super PAC that Cawthorn blames for many of the stories that have surfaced, dismissed the idea that there would be any backlash to the relentless attack that they are gleefully carrying out.

“Our perspective is, anybody that believes Madison Cawthorn was the victim here was probably going to vote for him anyway,” Wheeler said.

Some media commentators have questioned the decision to publish the sexually charged Cawthorn videos, pointing to some of the news coverage, which has leaned heavily on the suggestion that the congressman is attracted to or involved with men.

Without any context to explain the most recent video—such as whether Cawthorn was married at the time or even what age he was—it’s trickier to argue what larger point, exactly, is being made by releasing the embarrassing tape to the world.

When asked, Wheeler said it was “easy” to make the decision that releasing the video was in the public’s interest. But he did say that, after getting it, the PAC considered flagging it for the sheriff in Henderson County—Cawthorn’s home county—and decided not to.

They also waited to see if other media outlets would report the video once it had circulated, but after some time, “we could tell nobody was going to take it,” Wheeler said. At that point, they felt they had “no choice” but to release it, albeit with a long list of caveats.

The PAC’s site, Wheeler said, saw its traffic skyrocket from an average of 2,000-3,000 viewers to 370,000 viewers of that video alone—which nearly crashed the site.

He argued that despite the lack of knowledge around the circumstances of the video, his conduct spoke for itself and showed he is a hypocrite about the buttoned-down, socially conservative ideals he espouses in public.

“Our focus is getting the guy fired. Some of what we do is pleasant, and readable, some of what we do is a little nasty, and not everyone’s cup of tea,” Wheeler said. “But it’s all facts.”

 

[Alisamer]

I'm not able to find the article at the moment, but there was a very similar article to the one posted above, but which also pointed out how little Madison Cawthorn has actually worked since being elected. He's racked up tons of absences in congress. Even the people in Western North Carolina who like the guy are a little POd that they elected him to WORK, and he's basically not. Working class people rarely have the privilege of laziness, and don't like it in other people either. And working class people are the majority of his voting pool.

[fundiewatch]

New video of him driving an unadapted car in Italy with a stick. He’s legitimately so embarrassing. 

[Alisamer]

At the rate he's going we might not have to worry about him long. He'll remove HIMSELF from politics - and the gene pool - sooner or later.