Good morning!

Blessings on you and your family, and from all the Huckabee staff!

Today's newsletter includes:

• Bomber's motive unclear, but narrative under construction
• Most-Admired
• Cousin Eddie
• The Best Way To Relive 2020
• Theoretically possible

Sincerely,

Mike Huckabee

Bomber's motive unclear, but narrative under construction

By Mike Huckabee

It looks as though the best way to find out how the Nashville bomber investigation is progressing is to “go local.”

According to the TENNESSEAN, there WERE red flags concerning the late Anthony Quinn Warner, the mystery man who apparently blew himself up in downtown Nashville near the AT&T building. His girlfriend said that officers went to his house 16 months before he blew up his RV, after she’d called them to her house and reported that he’d been building bombs inside that vehicle.

As we reported, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had said Warner was “not on our radar.” But as it turns out, there’s a Metro Nashville Police Department report on him from August 21, 2019, revealing that both local and federal authorities were aware of him as a potential threat. Nashville police had forwarded their report to the FBI, along with Warner’s identifying information so they could check their databases, as is routine. The FBI did the check and later that day called back to say they’d found no records on Warner. The ATF reportedly checked as well, and they didn’t find any information, either. But still, there was THIS report; why wouldn’t Warner have been on somebody’s “radar”?

According to the report, his girlfriend’s attorney also told officers that Warner “frequently talks about the military and bomb making.” The attorney, Raymond Throckmorton III, now says he urged police at the time to look into the woman’s claim and told them he feared for her safety

In the police report –- which, repeat, was forwarded to the FBI –- it says Throckmorton had told officers that Warner “KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING AND IS CAPABLE OF MAKING A BOMB.”

They’d gone to Warner’s house, the report said, but no one answered repeated knocks. The RV was parked behind a fence; it had “several security cameras and wires attached to an alarm sign on the front door,” and, yes, that does sound like something an eccentric and, perhaps, paranoid person would rig up. (On the other hand, Warner reportedly used to own a security alarm company.) But since there was no evidence of a crime being committed, the cops had no authority to enter Warner’s home or cross the fence. All they could do was notify supervisors and detectives of this incident.

There’s some lack of clarity in the TENNESSEAN story about Throckmorton’s relationship with Warner and what he might have told the cops about him back then. But today, he says he believes law enforcement dropped the ball. Apparently, though, Warner had no brushes with the law after the one in 2019, and he’d had only one previously, an arrest for marijuana possession in 1978.

NEWS 4 in Nashville reported the story of how the FBI came to interview realtor Steve Fridrich, who had employed Warner as a contract IT person. When Fridrich read Warner’s name in the news, he contacted the FBI himself. He said Warner had told him on December 5 that he was going to retire.

Fridrich told NEWS 4 that the FBI had specifically asked him whether Warner had expressed paranoia about “5G” technology, and that he had told them no.

They also reported that “a source close to the investigation” (there’s that phrase again) said that “among several tips and angles,” agents are investigating whether Warner might have been acting on paranoia about “5G” being used to spy on Americans.

Where they got the idea that he was paranoid about "5G," specifically, we don’t know. But there were reports as early as the day after Christmas that the FBI was already focusing on the “5G” paranoia hypothesis. It’s in the subhead of this story from THE GUARDIAN.

The GUARDIAN story describes this as a conspiracy theory about deep-state government spying linked to “rightwing cult movement” QAnon. So get ready for the narrative that Warner was a crazed right-winger.

Fridrich described “Tony Warner” as a kind person. “Nice guy,” Fridrich told NEWS 4. “You know, he was a techie guy --- don’t mean anything negative about that. He would do his thing and leave. He didn’t bother anybody.”

Warner did reportedly tell a co-worker that he hated cops. “They’re all corrupt,” he said. Still, that was decades ago, in the late 1970s when he was about 20; maybe it had something to do with his 1978 arrest for pot.

In the weeks before the bombing, Warner took actions consistent with preparation for a suicide. He told his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and gave her his car, and also gave away his $160,000 home to a woman in California “whose link to him remains unclear” according to DailyMail.com. Inside the car were a hat and gloves belonging to Warner; these were reportedly used to make the DNA identification.

FOX NEWS reported Tuesday night that investigators had worked through the bomb site so quickly that they’d already turned over half the area to city crews, who in addition to doing the clean-up are checking the structural integrity of about 40 buildings near the blast, which pretty much took out a city block. But even this latest report said the motive is still elusive, adding that the FBI is sending profilers to interview more people who were acquainted with the bomber.

"He didn’t leave behind a clear digital footprint or any other obvious clues,” said FOX NEWS. Recall that a neighbor said Warner, a few days before Christmas, had told him with a smile that he was going to be famous. If Warner wanted to be famous for anything other than being a psychopath, why aren’t there any “obvious clues” as to why he did it? Specifically, if he was so paranoid about “5G” technology, why didn’t he leave everybody an unmistakable warning about what it was doing to them?

Most-Admired

By Mike Huckabee

According to a new Gallup Poll, President Trump is the most admired man of 2020. He knocked Barack Obama into second place after a 12-year run (the two tied last year.)

Joe Biden came in a distant third with one-third of Trump’s support, but I’m sure if they keep polling overnight, he’ll pull ahead somehow.

Cousin Eddie

By Mike Huckabee

A Kentucky man went viral after he posted a video of himself on Facebook dressed as Cousin Eddie from “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” melting the snow off his driveway with a flamethrower. He captioned the clip, “God Bless American Rednecks!”

Okay, soy latte-sipping, urban-dwelling, gender-fluid sociology majors, tell me again how you’re going to go into “flyover country” and arrest and beat up all the rednecks for voting for Trump. That would go about as well for you as it did for the snowflakes in this guy’s driveway.

The Best Way To Relive 2020

By Mike Huckabee

I doubt that anyone wants to look back on and relive 2020, a year in which the highlight was finding toilet paper at the supermarket. But if you have to do it, the best way is with humorist Dave Barry’s annual “Year In Review.”

Theoretically possible

By Mike Huckabee

From our “I Can Dream, Can’t I?” Desk, here’s a story about how it’s theoretically possible that Nancy Pelosi could be replaced as House Speaker by Republican Minority Leader Keven McCarthy.

Here are some of the dominoes that would have to align perfectly: three Democrats have already said they won’t back Pelosi, and several more say they might not. Because of the very narrow Democrat majority in the new House, if six or eight Democrats are out due to having COVID-19 or being quarantined and no Republicans are, there could be just enough Republican votes to elect McCarthy.

It’s a nice daydream, but don’t count on it. For one thing, I’ve heard the “I won’t vote for Pelosi” mantra before, but in the end, they always knuckle under. Nancy Pelosi plays hardball DC politics, and she won’t relinquish her iron grip on power until she’s good and ready. It’s not for nothing that I thought of her when I read that a Connecticut museum had named a cockroach after Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. These are some of the very few things that could survive even a nuclear blast.

Uncle Sugar

By Mike Huckabee

Millennials who voted for Joe Biden thinking he would issue an executive order to forgive their student loan debt might want to sit down for this story. In describing actions he plans to take by executive order, Biden admitted that some things would be unconstitutional. For instance:

“I’m going to get in trouble for saying this...for example, it’s arguable that the President may have the executive power to forgive up to $50,000 in student debt. Well, I think that’s pretty questionable. I’m unsure of that. I’d be unlikely to do that.”

So anyone who voted for Biden thinking it would result in Uncle Sugar paying off their college loan debt may be poised to learn a hard lesson: never vote for anyone who promises you free money taken from other people. It might be a crushing disappointment, but it’s still a far more valuable life lesson than anything they heard in their gender studies classes.

BIBLE VERSE OF THE DAY