Good day and welcome to DKos Asheville. This is the weekly DKos Asheville Open Thread for Saturday, April 2nd, 2022.
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Madison Cawthorn takes the spotlight back this week from Mark Meadows. I have a feeling there will be a lot of news from both of these characters in the foreseeable future. #CocaineOrgy stories follow, but before we get started, Madison hates everything.
WLOS Asheville, Anjali Patel, 3/30/2022
A spokesperson for the Friends of the Ecusta Trail says they are "shocked" by comments allegedly made by Rep. Madison Cawthorn recently.
Chris Burns, the treasurer and public relations contact for Friends of the Ecusta Trail, said they were alerted by attendees of a March 22 meeting of the Buncombe County Republican Men's Club, that Cawthorn "called the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy with reference to the Ecusta Trail as a communist activity, or communist project, is what it was called."
Burns said they verified the congressman's comments with several people.
"Whether you make reference to his comments were specifically about the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy or Friends of the Ecusta Trail, that's to be decided," Burns said. "But in our view, if you attack the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, you're attacking the organization that does nothing but advocate for rail banking and Rails-to-Trails."
Raw Story, Brad Reed, 4/1/2022
Embattled Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), who drew a rebuke from multiple members of his own party this week after he leveled baseless allegations that they regularly held cocaine-fueled orgies, is getting a lifeline from former President Donald Trump.
As reported by journalist Ben Jacobs, Cawthorn on Friday was announced as a "special guest speaker" during a Trump rally that's scheduled to take place next week in Selma, North Carolina.
This news comes just after Cawthorn was chastised by GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) called him out for falsely accusing his fellow Republicans of inviting him to orgies, and after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) openly endorsed Cawthorn primary opponent Chuck Edwards.
Raw Story, Tom Boggioni, 4/1/2022
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), who is already reeling from a public rebuke from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) over his tales of cocaine-fueled orgies among Beltway conservatives, is now reportedly being mocked behind his back by some of his GOP colleagues.
According to a report from Politico, the freshman lawmaker has already alienated Republicans in his home state by jumping from district to district in an effort to get re-elected and now, after he made his orgy claims, has few defenders in Congress.
As Politico's Olivia Beavers wrote, Cawthorn showed up at a fundraiser on Wednesday night for Harriet Hageman, who is opposing Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) for the GOP nomination for Wyoming's one House seat after being endorsed by Donald Trump.
Salon, Amanda Marcotte, 3/31/2022
It would be funny if it weren't so deeply evil. Republicans can dish it out but really can't take it.
During last week's confirmation hearing for Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman nominated to the Supreme Court, the nation bore witness to a grotesque display of Senate Republicans openly pandering to QAnon, a large and growing cult of Donald Trump fanatics who claim that Democrats are blood-drinking pedophiles who worship Satan. In the process, they subjected Jackson to a vicious smear campaign implying that she has some special fondness for child molesters. (This, needless to say, is absolutely false.) Even for those who had no doubt that the GOP is a party of shameless liars and bullies, their behavior at Jackson's confirmation hearing was gross to the point of shocking.
But, like all bullies, Republicans proved themselves to be incredibly thin-skinned this week.
CNN, Melanie Zanona, Manu Raju and Alex Rogers, 3/31/2022
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina is throwing his weight behind a primary opponent to freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn – an extraordinary broadside against a fellow Republican from his home state, as internal frustration with the controversial MAGA firebrand reaches a boiling point.
“It comes down to focus on the district, producing results for the district, and in my opinion, Mr. Cawthorn hasn’t demonstrated much in the way of results over the last 18 months,” Tillis told CNN, describing why he is backing state Sen. Chuck Edwards in his primary against Cawthorn.
And Tillis may not be alone. Other GOP lawmakers who are at their wits’ end with Cawthorn are considering endorsing one of his primary foes, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, amid growing concerns that the North Carolina Republican is dragging down the entire party with his problematic behavior. The two most powerful North Carolina Republicans in the state legislature – Senate leader Phil Berger and House speaker Tim Moore – are headlining a fundraiser for Edwards on Thursday, according to the Edwards campaign.
Raw Story. Matthew Chapman, 3/30/2022
On Wednesday, Axios Raleigh's Lucille Sherman reported that Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) appears to have lost the institutional support of two of North Carolina's most powerful Republican officials — who are now backing a primary challenger.
On Wednesday, Axios Raleigh's Lucille Sherman reported that Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) appears to have lost the institutional support of two of North Carolina's most powerful Republican officials — who are now backing a primary challenger.
As Sherman notes, both of these officials have obvious reasons to support Cawthorn's opponent. Edwards is a Senate colleague of Berger. Meanwhile, Moore's candidacy for Congress was thwarted after Cawthorn decided he was jumping over to run in the newly drawn 13th District, where Moore was running, even though it doesn't share much territory with his current district.
Raw Story, Sarah K. Burris, 3/30/2022
Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) didn't comply with President Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment about never speaking ill of his own party. Instead, Cawthorn yucked it up with an associate on camera about how Washington, D.C., is nothing more than a over-sexed version of "House of Cards."
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced that he would be speaking with Cawthorn after his tell-all conversation about "orgies" and officials fighting the drug war while also "doing a bump of cocaine."
McCarthy said Wednesday that Madison "has lost my trust is gonna have to earn it back," Axios congressional reporter Alayna Treene quoted on Twitter. "And I laid out to everything that I find is unbecoming."
Daily Kos coverage
Daily Kos, Kerry Eleveld, 4/1/2022
After sleeping through four years of Donald Trump, a raft of colleagues cozying up to white nationalists, and a homegrown coup attempt directed at the U.S. seat of government, Republicans finally found something to care about when one of their own cast their party as a drug-laden, orgy-hungry group of scoundrels.
Daily Kos Staff, 4/1/2022
● NC-11: Sen. Thom Tillis announced Wednesday that he was endorsing state Sen. Chuck Edwards' campaign to defeat freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn in the May 17 Republican primary, saying the next day that the incumbent "has fallen well short of the most basic standards Western North Carolina expects from their representatives."
Daily Kos, Hunter, 3/31/2022
Republican lawmakers have pointedly defended all manner of grotesque behavior from their leaders and each other in the past year, from international extortion to open white nationalism to calls for violence to intentional hoax-premised propaganda to showing up to a House hearing fiddling with a handgun to the outright attempt to stage a government-toppling coup. But Rep. Madison Cawthorn's claims of cocaine use and orgies in the Republican halls of power have set them off.
Daily Kos, 3/30/2022
Over the last week, Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina has made waves by making some pretty outrageous claims. As is his special talent, Cawthorn has been recorded saying these things with his own mouth—every time. His most recent claims, made on a video podcast called Warrior Poet Society, is that Washington, D.C. operatives he has “looked up to” his whole life are morally bankrupt, doing “key bumps” of cocaine in front of him, as well as inviting him to orgies at their homes.
Daily Kos, Walter Einenkel, 3/29/2022
Over the weekend, Rep. Madison Cawthorn made news once again for saying something relatively egregious about his fellow members of Congress. This time, instead of slandering Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or lying about himself and his own (lack of) achievements, Rep. Cawthorn made the claim, in a recorded interview, that people he had “looked up to” invited him to “sexual get together[s]” at their homes. Oh, without taking a breath, he also claimed some Congressperson did a “key bump of cocaine” in front of him.
Daily Kos, Walter Einenkel, 3/28/2022
Any story written about Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina must begin with the continent-sized caveat that Cawthorn is a liar. He’s a pathological liar. He has lied about getting accepted into the United States Naval Academy; he’s lied about his own friend’s responses to the car accident that left him without use of his legs; he’s lied about training for the Paralympics; he’s lied about running a racist website—there are only so many semicolons one can use before running out of runway with Madison Cawthorn’s lies.
Thanks for reading and contributing, I hope your weekend is safe.