KID LONAS COUNTERPUNCHES OP 10.33'S "MOCO" HERNANDEZ

(As part of my answer to Mike "El Moco" Hernandez's million-dollar suit against me, this is a rough draft of an affidavit where I, Jerry McHale, explains who I am to the Tarrant County judiciary in Fort Worth. My lawyers, Ed Stapleton and Ben Neece recommended this presentation to establish my credentials as a legitimate journalist and writer.)

By Dr. G.F. McHale-Scully

Hernandez has declared war on me. 

Inside sources have informed me he is also trying to force the BISD to terminate me. He does not dispense thousands of dollars out of the goodness of his heart. He is a thin-skinned tyrant. Like a vulture, he sees Brownsville as roadkill. "

And like the Nazis extracting gold from the mouths of dead Jews, Hernandez recognizes the economic opportunities controlling public monies. In terms of his real identity, there is (no?) doubt that he is a carpetbagger, a scalawag, a bully and a coward.

He believes that in the Third World Capital of the U.S.A where corruption, poverty and ignorance reign, he can rise to the top and become so powerful that his dictates are our commands. I wasn't looking for this fight, but when someone punches with the intention of destroying me, I have no other alternative but to rise to the occasion and defend myself with the instrument he seeks to eliminate from my arsenal--free speech:

I was born in 1950 in Riverside, California, the oldest of eight children in an Irish/Catholic family. I lived in the state until I was 24. My father was a communications consultant and my mother was a teacher. I graduated from eighth grade at St. Stanislaus Catholic School in 1965. There is still a plaque in one of the parochial school's musty halls distinguishing me as that class's top student.

I graduated from Modesto's Davis High in 1969. By Texas standards a 6A school, I was a starting guard on the Spartans' varsity basketball team. I graduated from Cal State at Stanislaus in 1974 with a major in British and American Literature and a minor in Spanish. After a sojourn through Mexico, happenstance brought me to Brownsville, Texas, in 1975.

I started teaching in the Brownsville Independent School District in the spring of that year. The 2016-2017 school year marks my 39th year in the district. I am presently employed at Rivera High School where I teach seniors British Literature and new immigrants English.

During my long and satisfying career with the BISD (I have no plans of retiring in the near future although others might think differently), I am proud of my many accomplishments. The community has bestowed upon me the undeserved title of the Father of Brownsville Soccer. I took the first team to the state finals in 1983 as head coach. I coached for 25 years in the BISD, which also included stints as a tennis instructor, assistant athletic director and host of a television show featuring BISD athletes.

In 1981 I ran for Brownsville city commissioner and in 1983 I ran for mayor. I lost both races, but I established a name for myself politically. I have participated in numerous campaigns for individuals and issues. This spring I was the campaign manager for a longtime educator seeking a position on the community college board of trustees. He won.

I began my newspaper career in the spring of 1977 as a stringer for the Brownsville Herald. I became the newspaper's sports editor in the fall of 1977 and in my rookie season won a first place for a column I penned about boxing in Matamoros, Brownsville's sister city across the Rio Grande. (That's me in the cowboy had during the student riot in Matamoros when they burned the city hall and jail after a student was killed by police 37 years ago, Mike.)

I have worked for the Brownsville Times, the Harlingen Valley Morning Star, the Laredo News, the Monterey News, the Mexico City News and the Guatemala City News. I have also submitted scores of articles for numerous weeklies and monthlies that have come and gone in the Rio Grande Valley over the past four decades.

I started my own periodical in 1989 called El Rocinante. I featured political commentary, oftentimes satirical, poetry and short stories. In 2000 I moved to the internet and I have blogged since that date. My current blog is called The McHale Report. Many of the pieces on that site I post on Facebook. I have a following of 4100 on the latter.

Besides poetry and short stories, I write novels. Currently I have ten titles on Amazon. I am concluding the third novel in the Tommy Tamaulipas trilogy, which I expect to publish before the year expires.

I became familiar with Mike Hernandez's OP 10.33 last year when I noticed large billboards throughout the city promoting this mysterious organization as an effort to eliminate corruption and improve the economy. Against a black background was the arresting silhouette of a dog. I still can't discern if it's a Doberman Pincher or a German Shepherd, but the animal evokes the violent images of Nazis keeping Jewish prisoners at bay or Birmingham police attacking black protesters in the sixties.

I found OP 10.33's site on which Hernandez presents himself as founder/director. Part of his manifesto includes this statement: "To support only candidates, regardless of party affiliation, who show proven results generating funds from the prospective government agencies in their purview and to back new candidates who show the ability to do so. We will also strongly oppose strongly any candidate who does not."

As part of his political push, he has urged citizens to become involved, particularly in his V3 Army. He hopes to register thousand of voters that he can utilize as a block to elect the candidates he backs. He has hired firebrand activist Jose Angel Gutierrez to coordinate this endeavor. If you search Gutierrez's name on Google, this is the quote most infamously attributed to him:

"We have got to eliminate the gringo, and what I mean by this is if the worst comes to worst, we have to kill him."

Hernandez has also selected as his job development director an individual who is a Brownsville kingmaker. Called the Machiavellian Matamoros Millionaire, Carlos Marin owns a company that specializes in garnering government contracts. He contributes significant amounts of money to candidates competing for city, county, school board, college board and port positions. These investments have paid large dividends.

By controlling Brownsville politically, Hernandez and his compadres hope to control Brownsville economically. Both he and Marin contributed to all three candidates running for county judge in the spring in order to hedge their bets.

In more recent elections, there were three seats available on both the Port of Brownsville's board of commissioners and Texas Southmost College's board of trustees. The six candidates I supported all won while I can argue that Hernandez went zero for six. In the port contest, he contributed $10,000 each to two candidates and the pair fell by ample margins.

I am a educator and a writer. I have raised five children through the BISD and I have been in the trenches fighting for social justice in my community. I am a maverick who maintains an independence from all factions. Though I make choices when I go to the polls, I am allied with no group or entity.

Hernandez sees me as a threat to his plans because I dare rise against him. Filing a million dollar law suit in another county 500 miles from Brownsville is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate me from expressing my opinions by making my existence more inconvenient. I have not defamed him. As Howard Cosell used to say, "I tell it like it is." I have paid my dues in Brownsville and I speak and write with authority.

I live a simple life. I do my best to maintain my health and source of income so I can confront both the big and little challenges of my daily routine. I also believe that if I lose the ability to exercise my right of free speech, I cease to exist and our Constitution ceases to be little more than a worthless sheet of paper. Free speech isn't our First Amendment by coincidence.