Free Republic

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter has earned eight platinum records in a music career that started in the 1960s, and he has received numerous security clearances and contracting jobs since the 1980s as a self-taught expert on missile-defense and counterterrorism. Baxter was one of many luminaries at the White House on Thursday to watch President Donald Trump sign the Music Modernization Act, which reforms copyright laws. Unlike every other musician in the room, including Kid Rock, Baxter has built a successful second career as a defense consultant. Baxter dropped out of college in Boston in 1969 to join a short-lived psychedelic-rock band....

Not only is Jeff "Skunk" Baxter a ponytailed former guitarist for Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, he's also an expert on missile defense who advises the Pentagon and enjoys what he calls "high-level security access." "I wrote a paper a long time ago and gave it to a friend, Dana Rohrabacher," the Republican House member from California, Baxter told us. "The next thing I know, I'm advising members of Congress and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization at the Pentagon." [snip]"It's a changing world, and a lot of people haven't caught up to it yet. Somebody has to take the...