Tag: katie britt
Busted! Sex Trafficking Victim Debunks Katie Britt's Misuse Of Her Story

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

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

'Biggest Disaster': Republicans Blast Their Own State Of The Union Response

'Biggest Disaster': Republicans Blast Their Own State Of The Union Response

President Joe Biden was forceful, aggressive and focused during his State of the Union address on Thursday night, March 7, tackling everything from abortion rights and Obamacare to military aide for Ukraine. Biden never mentioned likely GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump by name during his speech, only referring to him as "my predecessor." Yet he made a strong case for rejecting MAGA policies in the November election.

Biden's SOTU was followed by a rebuttal from Sen. Katie Britt (R-Alabama). Democrats, not surprisingly, have been attacking Britt's speech as a weak response to a fiery, on-target address. But the criticism is not only coming from members of Biden's party.

The Daily Beast's Jake Lahut, in an article published the next morning, stresses that Britt's speech was so bad that even Republicans are slamming it.

"The freshman senator is considered a rising star in the party," Lahut explains. "But her speech’s intense tone — with an over-the-top dramatic cadence that was delivered in a kitchen — left political operatives and observers struggling to make sense of it. In particular, some Republicans watched the high-profile speech with a grimace."

Lahut notes that Britt has been mentioned a possible running mate for Trump but may have endangered that possibility because of her March 7 rebuttal.

A GOP "operative," interviewed on condition of anonymity, told the Beast, "Everyone's fucking losing it. It's one of our biggest disasters ever."

Another Republican insider told the Beast that Britt "lowered her stature" with the rebuttal. And former GOP strategist Tim Miller, a Never Trump conservative who is supporting Biden, slammed Britt's speech as "creepy."

Conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as White House communications director under Trump but endorsed former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, is criticizing Britt's speech as well — although not as intensely as others on the right.

On X, formerly Twitter, Griffin posted, "Senator Katie Britt is a very impressive person. She ran a hell of race in [Alabama],” a former Trump White House communications adviser and Nikki Haley supporter posted on X. “I do not understand the decision to put her in a KITCHEN for one of the most important speeches she’s ever given."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Sen. Ted Budd

Republicans Demand Billions For Trump's Botched Border Wall

Congressional Republicans want to force the federal government to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to restart former President Donald Trump's failed border wall project.

First-term Republican Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina told Fox News Tuesday that he is introducing the Build the Wall Now Act, which would require President Joe Biden's administration to resume construction of a massive wall along the nation's southern border. Fox said that the proposal, co-sponsored by Sens. Mike Crapo (R-ID), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Steve Daines (R-MT), James Risch (R-ID), and Thom Tillis (R-NC), would unlock more than $2.1 billion for wall construction and overrule any "legal impediments" to the process by codifying legal waivers issued by Trump in the process.

According to Fox, Budd said: "My Build the Wall Now Act ends this administration's excuses and forces them to restart wall construction immediately. It's time for a comprehensive solution to end the Biden Border Crisis, and this bill does just that."

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) introduced a similar proposal in the House of Representatives in January, with 38 Republican co-sponsors.

Newly sworn-in Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt on February 9 introduced her own proposal to appropriate $25 billion for construction of the wall. In a press release, Britt said her bill, which has six GOP co-sponsors, would be funded entirely "by eliminating the entitlement benefits and tax credits that illegal immigrants are using and fining those making illegal entry into the United States." The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has not yet evaluated that claim.

Each of the bills is intended to revive a project that was a signature broken promise of the Trump administration.

During his 2016 campaign, Trump repeatedly told voters that he would quickly build a massive wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border and that he would force Mexico to fund every penny of the project.

"We'll build the wall, don't worry, I promise. We'll build the wall. I promise, we will build the wall. If there's ever a second term, you'll say, Man, he got that wall built fast, we're going to put him up," he said at a rally in Waterbury, Connecticut, in April 2016. "So we'll see. We'll build the wall, don't worry."

That did not happen: Mexico declined to fund the project. In his quest to fund the wall, Trump tried to coerce Congress by forcing a partial government shutdown; he backed down after 35 days. Finally, he siphoned off billions of dollars in 2019 that had been appropriated for other construction and for military families, citing emergency powers.

Even after he found funding, Trump oversaw the building of just a few miles of new barriers, with most construction going to reinforce existing fencing. As of September 2020, USA Todayfound that of the 300 miles of wall that the administration claimed to have built, just 5 miles of it were new.

Biden ran in 2020 on a promise to halt the project, saying not another foot of wall would be constructed on his watch. After his inauguration, he immediately stopped construction and ordered that the funds that had been allocated for the project be redirected to others, including environmental cleanup at the wall construction sites.

Since assuming the majority in the House they won in the November 2022 midterm elections, Republicans have demanded significant cuts to "wasteful Washington spending" and even threatened to force a default on the national debt to force cuts.

But at the same time, Republican lawmakers have pushed for new policies that would make the budget deficit even larger by cutting revenue and increasing spending. The bills aimed at renewing construction of the wall on the southern border could add billions of dollars to the national debt.

Bloomberg News reported on Monday that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and several members of his caucus will visit the border this week to highlight illegal immigration.

"House Republicans can see first-hand how unlawful border crossings have sharply declined thanks to President Biden's new border plan," White House assistant press secretary Abdullah Hasan told Bloomberg.

"They can also see the additional progress that could be made if Republicans in Congress stop making this issue a political stunt and actually join the President in advancing real solutions – like comprehensive immigration reform," Hasan added.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

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