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How Texas Gov. Abbott Ruined Eclipse Bonanza For A Small Border Town

@crgibs
Greg Abbott
Gov. Greg Abbott
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The local economy of Eagle Pass, Texas was all set to rake in a huge financial windfall this weekend, when the town was expected to play host to tens of thousands of visitors eager to be the first in the US to see Monday's solar eclipse. Instead, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott's ongoing border standoff with the federal government ended up scaring most tourists away.

According to the Daily Beast, Aide Castano — the municipality's marketing and tourism director — told a meeting of the local Rotary Club last year that the town of 28,000 residents could expect to see its population temporarily swell to more than 100,000 people on the first weekend of April for the eclipse boom. The city scheduled a music festival to take place dubbed the "57 South Music Festival" set to last three nights, featuring 17 bands on two separate stages.

"If you’re a music lover and a celestial enthusiast, then there’s no better time to start planning your trip to Eagle Pass, Texas!" An advertisement from the city read.

"Mark your calendar for the eclipse, get your grocery shopping done, we’re gonna have 100,000 people in Eagle Pass, we’re gonna have millions of dollars in sales for downtown Eagle Pass," local resident Amerika Garcia-Grewell recalled Castano saying. In an interview with Texas Monthly, Castano said planning for this eclipse weekend first began in 2002, telling the publication that one of her coworkers said "this is like our Super Bowl."

"One of the real estate agents is like, ‘Airbnb will make $10,000 in the eclipse weekend,'" Garcia-Grewell recalled in an interview with the Beast.

However, Eagle Pass' economy became a secondary concern for Gov. Abbott, who heavily militarized the town's border crossing at the Rio Grande River center stage as part of his $10.5 billion Operation Lone Star protest of federal immigration policy under the Biden administration. Earlier this year, Abbott ordered a length of razor wire to be built along the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass to deter immigrants from crossing. The Supreme Court ordered Abbott to take it down, stating that international borders were under the jurisdiction of the federal government, not state governments.

After federal agents cut the razor wire, Abbott retaliated by building even more, and ordering national guardsmen to stand by at the border crossing in a show of force. Former President Donald Trump commended Abbott for his defiance of the Supreme Court, and posted a call to action to his Truth Social platform encouraging Republican governors to likewise deploy their national guard troops to the Southern border in Eagle Pass.

Meanwhile, the intimidating presence of troops and razor wire at the Rio Grande ended up scuttling the original plans for the 57 South Music Festival in Eagle Pass for the weekend of the solar eclipse. The Beast reported that the location for the festival was moved to the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle Casino, which is a 20-minute drive by car. As a result of the change, tickets for the festival dropped significantly in price. And at a March 14 town hall meeting, the town lowered their expectations for eclipse visitors from more than 100,000 to approximately 50,000.

Garcia-Grewell, the Eagle Pass resident, recalled to the Beast that she was told the city spent roughly $3.5 million on the festival, yet sold only 2,500 tickets. She further elaborated that the city would have had to sell tickets at $1,400 apiece just to break even when accounting for the total cost.

The 57 South Music Festival kicked off Friday afternoon, though crowds were sparse. Local music producer Tony Rodriguez said that he counted just 30 people at 4 PM local time, and only 150 people by 6 o'clock.

"The worst flop ever," he said.

Garcia-Grewell maintained that despite the swarm of soldiers and razor wire barrier, Eagle Pass was safe. Border crossings went from 2,000 per day in December to just a few dozen months later. While some of that could be attributed to Operation Lone Star, Mexico's government also stepped up their efforts to stem migrant traffic into the US.

"The State of Texas is making it look like a war zone, even though we’re one of the safest places in Texas,” she said. “And the city of Eagle Pass was not able to counter that. They won’t say anything against the state of Texas because Eagle Pass is so dependent on state funding."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Greg Abbott

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Busted! Sex Trafficking Victim Debunks Katie Britt's Misuse Of Her Story

Busted! Sex Trafficking Victim Debunks Katie Britt's Misuse Of Her Story

Karla Jacinto

The woman who is the sex-trafficking survivor in the story spun by Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) on Thursday night in the GOP response to the State of the Union address has come forward to denounce and debunk the Alabama Republican's telling of events.

“'I hardly ever cooperate with politicians, because it seems to me that they only want an image. They only want a photo — and that to me is not fair,'" Karla Jacinto told CNN on Sunday," the news outlet reported (video below). Jacinto, now an advocate against human trafficking, "told CNN that Mexican politicians took advantage of her by using her story for political purposes and that it’s happened again in the United States."

Jacinto "was not trafficked by Mexican drug cartels, but by a pimp who operated as part of a family that entrapped vulnerable girls to force them into prostitution, she said."

The Daily Beastadds that Karla Jacinto "said no one from Britt’s camp or anywhere else contacted her asking for permission to use her story in the GOP’s SOTU response, and she also confirmed allegations from a viral TikTok video that Britt’s telling of that story was, at best, completely misleading.

"Britt had told a story of a sex-trafficking survivor, now know to be Jacinto, that was crafted to sound as if the victim's horrific experiences had happened at the hands of a cartel and during President Joe Biden's term, in the United States, and as a result of his polices. In reality, the events took place in Mexico, during President George W. Bush's administration.

As the journalism news site Poynter reports, "former Associated Press reporter Jonathan Katz put out a video on social media, saying Britt was 'beyond misleading.' (Here’s Katz’s TikTok video.) The woman Britt appeared to be talking about is Karla Jacinto Romero, who testified before Congress about being the victim of sex trafficking by Mexican cartels years ago when she was 12. She was at a roundtable discussion at the border last year with Britt and two other senators."

CNN's Rafael Romo says he's known Jacinto since 2014, when CNN profiled her for a report.

"She was very surprised, she told me, when she found out on Saturday that she was involuntarily put in the middle of a social media storm," Romo said on CNN.

Through a translator, Jacinto told CNN: “I work as a spokesperson for many victims who have no voice, and I really would like them to be empathetic—all the governors, all the senators—to be empathetic with the issue of human trafficking, because there are millions of girls and boys who disappear all the time.”

“People who are really trafficked and abused, as she mentioned," Jacinto added, referring to Britt and her speech. "And I think she should first take into account what really happens before telling a story of that magnitude.”

Watch CNN's report, including the interview with Jacinto, below or at this link.

Woman who appears to be at center of Katie Britt's SOTU anecdote has message for the Alabama senatoryoutu.be

katie britt