MAYRA'S FAKE MENU: "THE GEORGE SANTOS OF SOUTH TEXAS"

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Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Various Sources

Texas Tribune

Current Revolt

There are two things Texans know as FACT:
*Politicians lie about really stupid stuff.
*Mexican food is tasty.

Both of these facts have collided in what many people are referring to as GRUBGATE.

Mayra Flores, former Congresswoman and current candidate for US House Texas District 34, posted a delicious photo of a “gorditas de masa” with the caption of “The Ranch life with family is the best.”

She also clarified the type of food in the photo, implying she both took the photo and made the dish.

Unfortunately, several things were later revealed about the photo she posted:
*This meal was not made at a “ranch” on this continent.
*These are not gorditas de masa.
*She did not take this photo.
*She did not make this dish.

A user on X noticed that the photo Flores posted was from the “Visit Guyana” Facebook page from March of 2022. Guyanese people are not even considered Latino.

After this was noticed by the public, Flores locked down her X account and proceeded to change her handle from @MayraFlores_TX to @MayraFlores4Tx.

The Texas Tribune then revealed that the conservative Current Revolt dug further into Flores’ social media accounts, where they found numerous other posts in which Flores used others’ photos of campfire cooking or homemade tortillas to illustrate her own idyllic life on a ranch.

Her Fake Menu included some of these examples: Flores posted the photo below in September of last year, going as far as to clarify the cheese used. Turns out this photo (with higher resolution) comes from multiple sources, including a Facebook page from 2021.

And another another from her Instagram from August 2022 where she says she loves the “Rancho life” surrounded by her family.

Flour tortillas with beans, which are eaten in most Hispanic households daily were also used by Flores in an apparent move to ingratiate herself with South Texas voters. Unfortunately, the photo was also lifted without permission from social media. This photo below is from 2023 where she said “Flour tortillas with beans and family is the best.” This was also posted in 2021 on a Facebook page called Primera Fila Mx.

And yet another from our one-woman plagiarism machine where she says that “As a proud Latina who knows how to cook, homemade Mexican food tastes better from a gas stove,” she wrote alongside one photo of eggs and tortillas on what appears to be a wood-burning stove. The photo was initially posted on Facebook in 2021 by a Spanish-language magazine.

The Tribune separately reviewed Flores’ Instagram and found at least two such instances in the last year, including one post from July in which she shared a photo of meat and tortillas on a grill with the caption, “Joe Biden is not invited to the carne asada” in both English and Spanish. A reverse image search found that the exact photo was posted a year prior by a Facebook page for tourism in Tamaulipas – the state in Mexico where Flores was born. In a text message on Wednesday, Flores said it wasn’t her “intention to mislead.” 

“The photo simply reminded me of my upbringing in Mexico and childhood,” she said. “I deleted the tweet to clear up any confusion."

Asked to specify which of the photos she was referring to, Flores suggested that the Tribune focus on “the border crisis.”

She also changed her handle on X amid the criticism and has been blocking people on social media throughout Tuesday and Wednesday who have accused her of falsely passing the photos of cooking off as her own.

“The George Santos of the (Rio Grande Valley),” wrote the campaign for U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, who Flores is currently challenging.