Nashville Tennessee – One person was killed and eight others wounded Sunday after a masked man opened fire following a church service in Antioch.  Press Conference with details below:

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The shooter, identified as Emanuel Kidega Samson, a 25-year-old Rutherford County man from Sudan, accidentally shot himself after he was confronted by an armed member of the congregation and is being treated at the hospital, according to Metro Nashville Police.

Police say he previously attended the church.  The woman killed has been identified as Melanie Smith, 39, of Smyrna.

[…] Police say the gunman wore a neoprene ski mask when he shot and killed a woman in the parking lot of Burnette Chapel Church of Christ, as the service was ending shortly after 11 a.m. With his blue Nissan Xterra still running, the gunman then entered the rear sanctuary doors of the church and began “indiscriminately” shooting, police said.

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Headlines you won’t see in the U.S. media.  According to the latest media report Angela Merkel has won reelection but only garnered 32.9% of the vote (2013 election was 41.5%).
This means in victory Angela Merkel has less support in Germany than Donald Trump has in the U.S. However, don’t expect that reality to stop the global leftist media from selling a narrative of optical success surrounding Merkel’s election.  Too funny.

The moonbat far-left socialist party of Germany “Social Democrats (SPD)”,  dropped to 20.0 percent. Whoopsie, that’s a new post-war low. However, alternatively the German Nationalist party AfD enters parliament with 13.5% support.

“The AfD won 13.0 percent of the vote – more than expected and one of many shocks on a night of drama that saw Merkel’s conservatives get their worst result since 1949, and her main Social Democrat (SPD) rivals their worst since 1933.” (link)

(Via Reuters) […] According to early projections, the AfD was set not only to enter the national parliament for the first time, but to become Germany’s third-biggest party with 13.5 percent. It is the first time that the far-right has been represented in the parliament for more than half a century.
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President Donald Trump meets with President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and highlights the message that the ongoing goal of Israeli-Palestinian peace remains vital to regional stability.

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CTH readers are entirely clear-eyed as to the scope of the challenge. No-one amid our association is naive to the seemingly impossible scale against the backdrop of history. It may be that their task is impossible. Yet, if they do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if they do not try, it most certainly won’t be done…
There is absolutely no doubt of the work that has been going on for months, quietly, mostly under the radar. National media are completely deficient for not covering the ongoing events and the diplomacy that has been taking place all year.
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Yesterday President Trump took heat from U.S. and international media for calling the attempted London bomber a terrorist, identifying the “loser” and saying he was “in the sights” of law enforcement:

The media went bonzo: […] “ Mr. Trump’s assertion that the assailants had been known to Scotland Yard angered Prime Minister Theresa May, who said it was not helpful for anyone to speculate while an investigation was underway.” (New York Times)
Well, today:

(Via Daily Mail) The suspected Parsons Green bomber was a ‘problematic foster child’ who was allegedly arrested two weeks ago near to where the attack took place before being freed.

Police are searching a house in Sunbury-on-Thames after the 18-year-old, who could have been an asylum seeker, was detained in the port of Dover earlier today while apparently attempting to leave the country.

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Hypocrisy, thy name is….  German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an election challenge.  In 2014 German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the world that German’s borders were open and welcoming to Islamic refugees from the Middle East.  Hundreds of thousands of Muslim males aged 18 to 34 took her up on her offer.
Terrorism necessarily skyrocketed throughout Germany and Western Europe in 2015, 2016 and 2017.  Today German Chancellor Angela Merkel is saying Germany’s borders must be protected.

(Via Irish Times) With a month to election day, German chancellor Angela Merkel has ramped up her refugee-critical rhetoric in a bid to pull back far-right voters, boost her Bavarian allies and win over a record number of undecideds.

The chancellor used weekend interviews and rallies to stand by her 2015 decision that saw almost one million asylum seekers arrive in the country. She said she would decide the same way again, but insisted that events of 2015 “must not be repeated”. Aware of huge public unease over the refugee crisis, and related terror attacks since, she signalled Germany would demand an extension of border checks on the border with Austria, a Schengen suspension requiring EU approval.

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There is a considerable amount of visible internet and social media angst surrounding the National Security Council and staffing decisions made by National Security Advisor HR McMaster.   CTH has no insight into the inner workings of disagreements within the current NSC, however, with a modest amount of both skepticism and cynicism the current level of alarm appears over indulged.

Within any work group there’s going to be differences of opinion.  Within any national security working group there’s going to be ideological differences of opinion.  The issues are important and very complex.  The differences should never be dismissed or marginalized in their potential consequence.  That said, it’s not the differences of opinion that present problems – it’s when those differences become entrenched in opposition to the reason for the groups primary function.  That’s when differences become problems.
Consider the foreign policy proposals, and worldviews therein, of candidate Donald Trump and candidate Ted Cruz.  Now think about taking the foreign policy/NatSec principals from both candidate camps, and the outlooks carried therein, and put them into the same council chamber to hammer out papers of recommended action toward policy.
Can you see the structure for an underlying problem?  Now overlay the ideological interests of the institutional military with a healthy dose of both deep state and religious (centered principle outlook) career ideology, and you’ve got a recipe for disagreement.  Well, that’s essentially what I see when reviewing various media reports of internal group conflict points. (more…)

Dangerous/Sketchy – An Inspector General investigation into a military recruitment program for non-Americans with foreign language skills has resulted in a dangerous level of foreign infiltration by potential terrorists.  Some of the dangerous recruits, potentially terrorists, are now “missing” and “unaccounted for”.

“The program has been replete with problems, to include foreign infiltration.”

(Via Fox News) Defense Department investigators have discovered “potential security risks” in a Pentagon program that has enrolled more than 10,000 foreign-born individuals into the U.S. armed forces since 2009, Fox News has learned exclusively, with sources on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon expressing alarm over “foreign infiltration” and enrollees now unaccounted for.

After more than a year of investigation, the Pentagon’s inspector general recently issued a report – its contents still classified but its existence disclosed here for the first time – identifying serious problems with Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI), a DOD program that provides immigrants and non-immigrant aliens with an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for military service.

Defense Department officials said the program is still active but acknowledged that new applications have been suspended.
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The backstory to the Awan brothers is a story within congress where three Democrat staffers within various House committees, including the House Intelligence Committee, were suspected of a variety of unlawful actions including accessing highly classified information under suspicious circumstances. – More Here –

Yesterday FBI agents seized computer equipment from the home of the aide to congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who was one of the parties employing the Awans.  And now last night Imran Awan was arrested by the FBI at Dulles airport.

(Via Daily Caller)  Florida GOP Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s right-hand information technology (IT) aide was arrested attempting to leave the country just a few hours after The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group revealed that he is the target of an FBI investigation.

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Moments ago President Trump and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri met in the Oval Office. Following their discussions President Trump and PM Hariri held a joint press conference in the Rose Garden.
President Trump focused his remarks on Syria, terrorism and the refugee crisis as he delivered a statement alongside Prime Minister Saad Hariri of Lebanon:

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During press questioning President Trump is also asked about his confidence in Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Again President Trump affirmed his confidence in Sessions’ ability, however he also noted frustration (“disappointment”) with Session’s reluctance to confront corruption within the DC swamp.
My hunch is that Sessions will tender his resignation within 48 hours; this will lead to a conversation with President Trump. If Trump doesn’t accept the resignation it will be because Sessions agrees to change approach and confront the corruption within DC including the corruption within the DOJ. (more on that later)
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Social justice, political correctness, affirmative action, diversity policies and the predictable consequences therein, all converged in Minneapolis last week when a Somali police officer shot and killed a Australian woman in her pajamas; sketchy reason yet undetermined.

Today, amid the swirling controversy, the chief of diversity and policing resigned from office:

(Reuters) – Minneapolis police chief Janee Harteau resigned on Friday at the request of the city’s mayor, who said that she had lost confidence in Harteau following the fatal police shooting of an unarmed Australian woman.
The death of Justine Damond, 40, from a single gunshot wound to the abdomen fired through an open window of a police patrol car, has outraged her relatives and the public in Australia. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called it “shocking” and “inexplicable.”

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