In fear of losing to the young woman who nearly ended his long Congressional career in the 2020 election, Rep. Henry Cuellar appears in this campaign — as evidenced by the tone and content of his mail-outs and other communications — to have reached new lows in slinging half-truths about Jessica Cisneros that he hopes will stick.
One of his earliest lobs via mail-out avers that Cisneros is a New York City outsider, when in fact she, like Cuellar, is a first generation American born in Laredo to immigrant parents.
Another mail-out compares them side by side, posing the question, “What have they accomplished for us?” — a ridiculous metric considering he has held his seat in D.C. for nearly two decades and Cisneros has yet to be elected. His part of the report card glows with all the federal bacon he has brought home for education, healthcare, jobs, and border security; hers with “Nothing.”
Those are tiny swats compared to what Cuellar and company packaged in Volume I • May 2022 of a sorta- looks-like-a-newspaper-but-may-not-be-beyond-this election-cycle. Five of the eight pages of The South Texas Reporter, including its cover, page 2, centerfold pages 4 and 5, and page 6 are either self-serving tributes to Henry Cuellar or demeaning screed about Cisneros.
The headline of Page 1 declares “CUELLAR CLEARED,” followed by a story by Evan Alvarez in which Cuellar’s attorney Joshua Berman states that in a recent conversation with a Department of Justice prosecutor he was advised that the Congressman is not a target of an investigation that included a raid of Cuellar’s home and office on January 19, 2022. The raid was part of a wide-ranging federal probe relating to American business ties to the former Soviet state of Azerbaijan.
Berman’s statement is controverted in a Sunday, May 22, 2022 online story by Christian Alejandro Ocampo in The Laredo Morning Times, a story headlined: “FBI won’t officially clear Cuellar of wrongdoing before Election Day.”
From Laredo Morning Times
A teaser box at the bottom of Page 1 of The South Texas Reporter titillates the reader with Jessica Cisneros being responsible for the breakup of a marriage after an alleged romance with her Early College technology teacher named John Balli.
The Page 2 story, which reads like a story torn from The National Enquirer includes language from Cisneros’ text messages to Balli and a photo of Cisneros with Balli and Balli’s ex-wife Sandra Ramirez.
There are four references to Cisneros being 18 at the time of the romance, but it is not stated in the story who initiated the relationship or if it began when Cisneros was a minor.
Balli, the 41-year-old adult who had a relationship with his student, is not the object of blame in the story. The writer lays it squarely on Cisneros, which was the end goal of the story.
To ensure that the reader is not flummoxed into thinking that this issue of The South Texas Reporter is not a gun-for-hire publication solely aimed to exalt Cuellar and debase and discredit Cisneros, there are six brief stories in the issue regarding groundbreaking for Laredo Heat’s new soccer facility, the Bexar County Judge runoff race, Cuellar’s funding for domestic violence hotlines, Operation Lone Star, Maverick County’s new judge, and Gov. Abbot’s truck policy.
What is written here is not to defend Jessica Cisneros’ actions.
She has no doubt been handed very personal data with which to impugn her opponent, but has chosen not to use it.
This is written to make the point that in choosing desperate strategies to win this runoff, Henry Cuellar has lost dignity and credibility, He has besmirched his own character.
Henry “Señor Trashmouth”