Madison Cawthorn v. the establishment

Madison Cawthorn has a target on his back. He’s taking hits from the Democratic Party and the Republican establishment ahead of his May 17 primary. So he must be doing something right.

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and the third time it’s enemy action.Ian Fleming

Madison Cawthorn set up?

CNAV has covered Madison Cawthorn before. He describes official Washington as a hard party town of orgies and cocaine. And though he says some people tend to exaggerate, he won’t walk it back.

In one show of particularly bad sense, he brought a loaded gun to the Charlotte Douglas Airport in Charlotte, N.C. At least, he admitted to having it, and the TSA confiscated it and provided a photograph. In fact he has recently apologized for carrying it.

But the timing of this scandal should raise suspicions. Anyone, in the surprise of the moment, might try to smooth something over, to avoid making a bad situation worse. Suppose, then, that someone planted that gun? After all, why would anyone these days try to smuggle a loaded gun aboard an aircraft anywhere in the world? Unless that person intended to hijack the plane or kill someone on board – and no one is accusing Madison Cawthorn of that. Or unless someone in his campaign packed the loaded gun in his bag. So why didn’t he complain at the time? Well, anyone can also wonder whether he absent-mindedly did some untoward thing himself. Taking advantage of someone’s own self-assessment as an absent-minded professor is the time-honored way to “gaslight” someone. We saw Charles Boyer to it to Ingrid Bergmann in the movie that turned “gaslight” into a verb.

Why is he a target?

For two reasons. First, because he puts America first ahead of either empire-building or subservience to anyone else’s empire. Second, because he exposed official Washington for the cesspool that it is.

The Hill yesterday published a “timeline of Madison Cawthorn controversies.” In this order, writer Sarakshi Rei lists:

• Speaking at the January 6 rally, ahead of that false-flag pseudo-event,
• Refusing to apologize for it,
• Correctly calling those still languishing in prison “political hostages” (August 30, 2021),
• Suing the North Carolina Board of Elections to stay on the ballot in spite of them,
• Calling “President” Biden an “inept, geriatric despot” over his deployment of American troops to Eastern Europe (two weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine),
• Driving with a suspended license,
• Calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug,”
• Exposing the Washington sex- and drug-party atmosphere,
• Taking heat from a former employee who accused him of keeping a bar in his office,
• Having to deal with Caribbean cruise ship photos taken years ago,
• Allegedly trying to get onto an airliner with a loaded gun, and
• Facing insider-trading allegations over his support for the “Let’s Go Brandon” crypto coin.

Interestingly, Rai left out the allegation that he had an unloaded gun in a carry-on bag at the Asheville airport in February 2021. Perhaps it was her turn to make an absent-minded mistake.

Madison Cawthorn reacts

Naturally Madison Cawthorn replied three days ago that the Republican establishment is getting at him. He tweeted a two-minute video alleging that yesterday (see below).

And he has good cause to believe “RINOs are tripping over themselves to defeat [him].” Salon talked about how Republicans hate Madison Cawthorn. When they do that, they give away the game.

Separately, The Daily Mail carried pictures of Cawthorn with someone’s hand in a sensitive spot on his body. Seeing that, Jamelle Bouie, who writes for The New York Times, tweeted:

They’re coming down so hard on this guy that I half wonder [whether] the cocaine orgies are real.

She’s in good company, for so does Newsweek.

CBS News reports that a group calling itself American Muckrakers is pressing an ethics complaint against Cawthorn. They allege he has lavished a munificent $250 on the very aide in the hand-in-wrong-place picture. Not in cash, but in housing and travel allowances.

As for the whoopee and high jinks on a cruise liner, Madison Cawthorn effectively asks whether that’s the best his enemies can do.

Three Percenter Nation likewise reminds everyone that the Caribbean cruise pictures are several years old. In fact they allege blackmail, and that the blackmailers released the pictures after he called their bluff.

Summing up

Everyone agrees why he is a target. He puts America first, and has said out loud that Washington is Sodom West. And by the way: a federal judge threw out the attempt to keep him off the ballot, citing the Amnesty Act of 1872. The judge didn’t bring up the Amnesty Act of 1898, which removed every last exception the 1872 Act had made. Furthermore, the Heritage Foundation wrote this Legal Memorandum on April 6, saying why such keep-off-the-ballot efforts break the Constitution.

That Memorandum clearly shows that the Amnesty Acts of 1872 and 1898 passed with two-thirds supermajorities in both chambers of Congress. Nor did either Act specifically reference the War Between the States as the insurrection or rebellion in view. Therefore it applies today, whether or not anyone charges anyone with insurrection over the January 6 event.

So they can’t keep Madison Cawthorn off the ballot; a federal judge said so. Therefore they resort to dredging up pictures of whoopee and high jinks from events before Madison Cawthorn came to Congress. They also make a big deal of more recent whoopee and high jinks – and a whopping $250 worth of favors. And maybe – just maybe – someone on his staff plants a gun in his carry-on bag.

Mr. Cawthorn, if you’re reading this: you have troublemakers in your office. You have to clean house – so you can win reelection and help clean House.

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