There were more fists than ideas flying at Orange County Congresswoman Katie Porter’s town hall meeting Sunday, and the Irvine Democrat says the melee was a premeditated disruption planned by a MAGA crowd led by would-be Republican candidate Nick Taurus.
“At our town halls, we take steps, such as putting all questions into a bingo ball spinner, so that we hear all voices, not just the loudest ones,” Porter said in a statement. “It is disappointing that a small but vocal group of attendees, who advertised a ‘confrontation rally,’ created unsafe conditions at a planned family-friendly event. While I absolutely respect their right to disagree, their disturbance disrespected all the families who attended and were ready to engage in a thoughtful, civil, and safe way.”
Porter—who in 2018 became the first Democrat to represent California’s 45th Congressional District, and is famous for char-grilling both officials and corporate goons in public hearings—was referring to an Instagram post in which Taurus asked his 214 followers to “CONFRONT KATIE PORTER!”
Taurus also called Porter “a far-left ideologue supported by Bay Area academics, the billionaire class, and foreign lobbies,” as well as, “Carpetbagger Katie.”
Although Taurus—who says he’ll run against Porter in the midterm election—declined to comment on the incident to the Los Angeles Times, soon after Porter began to speak at Mike Ward Community Park in her first in-person town hall since the pandemic, she was interrupted by shouts of “Carpetbagger Katie!” and “Corrupt Katie!”
Porter supporters responded, chanting, “Katie! Katie! Katie!” and “Shut up!” before fisticuffs broke out and Irvine Police separated the opposing crowds, arresting one Porter fan and releasing them on a citation.
After the event, Taurus led a chant of “America first!” and asked attendees if they were from America.
Describing the kerfuffle on Instagram, Taurus wrote, “Porter Supporters are deranged, dysgenic, freaks, TOTAL ANIMALS! We will not cower from the globalists, even when outnumbered.”
Although Taurus’s own campaign biography reveals nothing concerning his qualifications—for instance, how he makes a living, or if he has a job—he does state, “I am an American nationalist and Roman Catholic who is most concerned with addressing the issues surrounding immigration, vaccination, and Critical Race Theory.”
Additionally, he says he grew up in Big Bear “engaging in the general mischief associated with the rites of manhood” and has a fondness for Hungary, where a stint teaching English after college “made me a man.”
As American Independent points out, Taurus is especially down with that nation’s anti-LGBTQ laws, writing “For the simple crime of merely refusing drag queens the right to read to their children, the Hungarian nation faces the full ire of the Globalist American Empire.”
In recent Facebook posts he’s both asserted that #CHAUVINDIDNOTHINGWRONG (referring to Derek Chauvin, the police officer who was convicted for killing George Floyd) and referred to “anti-white hysteria,” writing, “It is time for White People to realize we are the target,” not to mention, “In America, the cardinal sin is for White People to positively affirm their identity in any way.”
So far, no prominent Republican has come forward to challenge Porter.
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