Conservative rocker Ted Nugent has been fired from the Waco Tribune-Herald, the local Texas newspaper he had been a frequent contributor to since 2007. In an e-mail to Evan Smith, the President and Editor in Chief of the Texas Monthly, Nugent said the Trib recently acquired new ownership and was unimpressed by his criticisms, so much that they refused to run his coinciding Sunday write-up on the matter, titled 'I'll Take Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press for $100, Alex.'

In the "Teditorial," Nugent, whose byline had the subhead of "Texas Wildman," claims the newspaper's editor "is wrong to try and muzzle my opinions." He argued that "as a columnist, I express my opinions. That's what columnists do. That's also the charge of an independent and free press." Nugent, who has been said to consider running for governor of Michigan in 2010, then went on another anti-Obama rant, saying the President is bankrupting America, in hopes of challenging readers to respond and "be bold in your disagreement."

"To request that I not criticize," Nugent wrote, "is to spit on the memory of those who gave birth to America. Again, I criticize where I believe criticism is due. That's my civic job and your job as Americans. If the editor of this newspaper doesn't like that, he will have to fire me. I will not surrender to his wrong demands."

At least Nugent went down kicking and screaming. "Now they will have to rely on their other New York Times Best Sellers and array of clever and diverse journalists to convey their diverse & tolerant point(s) of view," he told Smith before closing his rant with this parting shot: "In the words of another famous American military man, William Barrett Travis, commander of the Alamo: God & Texas. Victory or death."