Constitutional Scholar To Speak On Legality Of Independence at Texicon2012

Wes Riddle, Constitutional scholar and recent US Congressional candidate, will speak during the first-ever Texas Independence Conference hosted by the Texas Nationalist Movement on November 3rd.

Riddle will be speaking on the sovereignty of Texas and the legality of independence.

Wesley Allen Riddle was born and raised in Houston, Texas. He went to Northbrook High School and then to the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY (Class of 1983). He spent twenty years in the U.S. Army and, at the time of his retirement, Lieutenant Colonel Riddle served at Fort Hood on III Corps Staff as the Chief of the Air Defense Element (ADE).

Previous assignments include both stateside and overseas tours in Europe and the Pacific. Awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal. During the Gulf War, he commanded a Patriot Missile battery that shot incoming SCUD missiles in northern Saudi Arabia. From August 2000 to August 2002, he worked at the Office of Military Cooperation-Kuwait, U.S. Embassy, as Air Defense Advisor to the State of Kuwait.

Wes obtained his Master of Philosophy (M. Phil.) degree in Modern History from Oxford University in 1993 where he graduated with Distinction and was recipient of the University's Sara Norton Prize for thesis work on nineteenth century political history of the United States. After which he joined the History Faculty at West Point for three years and taught Advanced American History, as well as the elective in American Political Tradition. While on faculty at the U.S. Military Academy he started what would be a prolific writing and lecture career. He was awarded a Salvatori Fellowship by The Heritage Foundation for 1996-97, and is widely published in the academic and opinion press on matters of American history and political theory.

In December 2000 he began writing his signature weekly conservative opinion column called "Horse Sense" in The Belton Journal, which spread to more small Texas newspapers and numerous opinion blogs including DallasBlog.com. In 2004 Wes placed second in the three-way Republican primary race for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31). After that he joined Vinnell Arabia, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman, and went to work in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as a defense contractor for 5 ½ years. In May 2010 he finished his overseas employment and leaving his position as Manager of the Force Integration Division (FID) joined again with the political fray. He founded the Central Texas Tea Party and became its chairman. He was also elected state director of the Republican Freedom Coalition (RFC), comprised mostly of disaffected Christian-libertarians and constitutionalist Republicans. From July to December 2010 he served as Policy Advisor to the Chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission.

Wes and his wife Aida met in the Philippines in 1984. They married in 1985 at his family home in Houston, moved to Central Texas in May 2000, and currently reside in Gatesville, Texas. Currently they own and operate the historic Beltonian Theater in downtown Belton located at 219 E. Central Avenue, a popular Central Texas venue for dinner, classic film and performing arts.

The Texas Independence Conference will be held November 3, 2012 at Washington-On-The-Brazos and will feature an expert line up of speakers and events centered around the issues of freedom and independence for Texas.

More information can be found at the official website of the Texas Nationalist Movement athttp://www.texasnationalist.com under the conference link (http://www.texasnationalist.com/index.php/conference).