Article on Katie Porter from Vanity Fair:

[applegrove]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/katie-porter-has-the-floor

"SNIP......

There was going to be trouble—that much was certain. The question was, how bad would the trouble get? It was a scorching Sunday afternoon in July, and Representative Katie Porter was about to hold her first in-person town hall since COVID-19 beset the nation. Porter, who represents California’s 45th Congressional District, had chosen an outdoor venue—a field at Mike Ward Community Park in Irvine—partly in deference to the virus and partly to be welcoming to parents and their children. A 47-year-old single mother of three, Porter understands the challenges of multitasking when you have kids.

......

Porter was running late, and some in the crowd were growing restless. A few minutes after three o’clock, a group holding a Green New Deal banner walked by a small knot of Trump supporters. (Orange County has long been a Republican stronghold—until Porter, a law school professor born of tiny-town Iowa, came out of nowhere to win there in 2018 and again in 2020.) One of the Trumpers—a man sporting cargo shorts, wraparound shades, and a pompadour—started heckling the Green New Dealers, calling them “globalist tools,” ranting about “corporations…conglomerates…Jews.” It was as though a tablet of toxic Alka-Seltzer plopped into a fish tank.

That’s about when Porter arrived, double-timing it across the field. When she finally reached the podium and began to speak, her mic cut out. Sensing an opening, Pompadour and his crew began to shout over her: “Carpetbagger Katie! Carpetbagger Katie!” The yelling, the glitches, the heat—it all boiled into a brawl. Arms swung, elbows flew, a guy pulled a guy off another guy—it looked like a rugby scrum in a mosh pit.

.....

Porter craned her neck, sizing up the scene. Then she took off, speed walking toward the scuffle. A young male staffer tried to keep up with her, his head on a swivel. You could almost read the thought bubble over his head: Is this really happening? Porter made her way through the knot of people until she reached the center. She put each of her arms around two clearly rattled seniors; her immediate concern was protecting them, keeping both of them from being pushed over. Porter called for calm. Her sudden presence in the tangle, alone, seemed to startle the bad actors into reconsidering their behavior. A handful of police officers were about a football field’s length away. By the time they arrived, she had mostly de-escalated the tension.

.......SNIP"

[vanlassie]

1. She. Is. Awesome.

[ms liberty]

2. Great piece. I really like her. n/t