Henry Cuellar's backs GOP, but Balanced Budget bill still fails in US House

WOW!, Now I really feel like a True Tea Partier !

US Representative Henry Cuellar, the blue dog democrat who has lately been voting with the GOP, backed another Tea Party-influenced, balanced budget bill which didn't even make it out of the Republican-controlled house.

Cuellar again threw his support behind Boehner's party as he has done so many times lately. During the Summer, Cuellar voted time and again, against clean air and water and for de-regulation of the abusive oil & gas industry. Many of those bills passed the house but have gone nowhere in the Senate.  This balanced budget bill was just Cuellar's last attempt to appeal the Tea Party and in essence, betray the 99 percent.

From The Associated Press 

The House rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have forced Congress to balance its budget every year as a way to reverse years of deficit spending. A majority of House members supported the balanced budget measure, but supporters fell short of achieving the two-thirds majority needed to amend the Constitution

A Congressional vote on a balanced budget amendment, between Oct. 1-Dec. 31, was required by the Budget Control Act of 2011.

Republicans who backed the amendment said it was the only way to get Congress to put its fiscal house in order. Democratic critics said a balanced budget requirement would result in drastic cuts in Medicare and other social programs when economic downturns put the budget out of balance.

It was the first House vote on a balanced budget amendment since 1995, when the House approved it but the bill fell one vote short in the Senate.

The first House vote on a balanced budget amendment in 16 years came as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction appears to be sputtering in its attempt to find at least $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade.

It's only the constitution !

The Occupy Laredo movement is urging visitors to its Facebook page to contact their city council representatives and tell them to vote in favor of OL's permit request to peacefully occupy several of Laredo's parks in rotation.  The next city council meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 28th. Will the city "leaders" grant the occupiers their first amendment rights?

Or can we expect the beloved city leaders to resort to their usual obstruction of constitutional rights of its citizens?

Washington Post documents Valley family : Deported & Divided

Princess Martinez was born and raised in south Texas. She and her six daughters are U.S. citizens, but her husband is not. Last year, he was deported after a DUI arrest, and the whole family moved just south of the border to Mexico. Then, the family faced an increasingly common dilemma: where to educate U.S. citizen children after a non-citizen parent is deported. (/Video by Alexandra Garcia, Reporting by Alexandra Garcia and Kevin Sieff)

It's the thought that matters, but why such a paltry sum?

Webb County's Shenanigans continue unimpeded

With Webb County wasting nearly one Million dollars of taxpayer money by mis-managing the Community Action Agency and the Comprehensive Energy Assistance Program, it appears that the commissioners are now cutting elsewhere to offset their costly shenanigans.

Case in point: from today's County Commissioner's meeting agenda, notice the relatively paltry sum that is being donated by one particular commissioner. With such worthwhile causes obviously needing funding from any source they can secure it, it's surprising that Webb County could only muster such a modest amount.

From Monday's Agenda

Honorable Frank Sciaraffa, Webb County Commissioner Pct. 1

 12. Discussion and possible action to donate $500.00 to the Habitat for Humanity Organization to support their efforts in providing affordable houses for the working poor of Laredo, Webb County, Texas. [Account #605-0201-8801] 

 13.  Discussion and possible action to donate $500.00 to the Webb County Children’s Advocacy Center, a 501 (c ) (3) non- profit organization that provides individual, family and group counseling sessions to child victims and their non-offending family members who have suffered as a result of sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect and domestic violence. [Account #605-0201-8801]

Aww commissioners, you shouldn't have. 

Henry Cuellar delivers Taco Palenque tortillas to Kabul

Photo from Houston Chron.com

Congressman Cuellar visits Southern Afghanistan


From MySA.com

WASHINGTON — Texas lawmakers assessing security concerns in Iraq and Afghanistan took time to deliver fresh tortillas to grateful troops over the Veterans Day weekend.

Five congressmen on the House Homeland Security Committee, on a trip organized by Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, met with American troops serving in the war zones, as well as those recuperating from wounds at a U.S. military hospital in Germany.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, R D-Laredo, said he brought tortillas from popular South Texas fast-food restaurant, Taco Planque, as well as letters from Laredo middle schools to the service men and women serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The tortillas were received warmly by Felix Rodriguez, who's serving at the International Joint Command in Kabul.

“I thought that I was going to catch you off guard by asking if you brought us some menudo, but the surprise was to receive a package of tortillas,” Rodriguez posted on Cuellar's Facebook page.

Rodriguez thanked the lawmakers for “your support to the military.”

Earthquakes becoming more common in fracking-frenzied South Texas

Record setting earthquake about 50 miles SE of San Antonio

From Austin's KUTnews.org

A University of Texas seismologist says hyraulic fracturing itself does not cause earthquakes. But he says earthquakes have been associated with the disposal of fracking fluids.


 “They [drilling companies] pump the water back into the ground into a deep aquifer to get rid of it,” earthquake researcher Cliff Frohlich at UT's institute for Geophysics told KUT News.

“The quakes have been associated with the pumping of water back into the ground, not the producing of the gas,” he said, pointing to seismic activity in North Texas and in Arkansas.

In September, Arkansas banned the use of deep wells to store waste water. StateImpact Pennsylvania points to a study by Southern Methodist University and UT that linked small earthquakes in the North Texas Barnett Shale with the practice, and says the Army Corps of Engineers has expressed concern about drilling for natural gas near dams.

But Frohlich says it’s too soon to say if waste water disposal activities were related to today’s 4.6 magnitude quake in South Texas.  “That’s a question,” he said.

The area southeast of San Antonio has felt earthquakes before. There was a 4.3 magnitude earthquake in 1993 near the same location, and there have been smaller quakes recorded back to the 1970s, Frohlich said.

City, County continue to cower for Eagle Ford Shale jobs

Last week, Webb county commissioner Jaime Canales came out once again praising the "jobs, jobs, jobs" impact that the Eagle Ford Shale activity is having on Laredo.  Who doesn't want jobs right?  Now the City of Laredo has the above graphic plastered all over its website: announcing a January, 2012 Job and Vendor fair dedicated solely to the Eagle Ford Shale.

ANGA's local representative Jose Ceballos has demonstrated just how easy it is to buy political favors around town. He definitely has Canales and Mayor Salinas in his corner while the area ranchers and residents are left to fend for themselves. For the politicos, it's an outrage even to ask questions about how fracking might be negatively impacting the health of our citizens as it simultaneously depletes our precious water resources.

Eagle Ford Shale can do no wrong in the eyes and pockets of our beloved elected officials.