Chicago Mayor Lightfoot Defies President Trump as “Foolish” After Announcement to Reopen Churches

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lashed out at President Trump on Friday as “foolish” after he deemed all churches and synagogues and places of worship as “essential.”

Lightfoot says President Trump has no power to override her local lockdown on churches and businesses.

Chicago police fined three churches last weekend for holding worship services.

South Side Churches cheered President Trump’s announcement on Friday.

A Sunday service showdown could be looming across the state this weekend.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot slammed President Donald Trump’s calls on Friday for churches and other houses of worship to reopen, while Gov. J.B. Pritzker — who has managed to fend off a series of legal challenges against his stay-at-home order — said Illinois will “continue to operate on the basis of science and data.”

Lightfoot was more pointed in her criticism of Trump, who, during a hastily arranged White House press conference, said he’d identified churches, synagogues and mosques as “essential places that provide essential services” — and that he would “override” governors who don’t abide by his request to open them.

The mayor called those remarks the latest in a long list of “dangerous and foolish” things the president has said.

“The faith leaders that I’ve talked to across the city recognize that they have to be smart about this, they’re worried about their parishioners, and we get that,” Lightfoot said during a news conference announcing plans to “cautiously reopen” sectors of the city economy.

“We are not going to rush to do something, so he can fulfill a campaign promise that sets people’s lives at risk. … He’s said so many dangerous and foolish things — add this to the list,” she said.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/05/chicago-mayor-lightfoot-defies-president-trump-foolish-announcement-reopen-churches/

Donald Trump Calls on Jeff Sessions to Drop Out of Alabama U.S. Senate Race

A Twitter spat that began on Friday night escalated Saturday afternoon between President Donald Trump and his former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Alabama.

It began with a tweet from Trump promoting Sessions’ opponent, former Auburn head football coach Tommy Tuberville. It led to a response from Sessions as having been “damn fortunate” for the recusal.

The back-and-forth resumed Saturday morning, with Sessions posting another tweet directed at Trump about the people of Alabama and their relationship.

Trump responded with a series of tweets, once again questioning Sessions’ 2017 decision to recuse himself from investigations tied to the 2016 presidential election, which included allegations of Russian interference in the election, and the possibility of Russian collusion. He then suggested Sessions “drop out.”

A Cygnal poll conducted May 7-10 among 607 likely GOP primary voters, Tuberville leads Sessions by 23 points.

Sessions finished second in the March 3 Republican primary, two points behind Tuberville. However, shortly after the primary, Trump gave his support to Tuberville. Sessions and Tuberville face off in a July 14 runoff initially slated for March 31 but delayed to give the state of Alabama time to get a better handle on the coronavirus pandemic.

The winner of the primary will face incumbent Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), who defeated former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore in a special election in 2017 to fill Sessions’ old seat.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/05/23/donald-trump-calls-on-jeff-sessions-to-drop-out-of-alabama-u-s-senate-race/

Ukrainian MP Found Dead With Gunshot Wound To The Head

Ukrainian MP Valery Davydenko of the Dovira faction was found dead in his office bathroom with a gunshot wound to the head, according to a post by MP Ilya Kiva on his Facebook page and confirmed by local media.

"His body with a gunshot wound has just been found in the office of an MP Valeriy Davydenko. The circumstances are being investigated," he wrote.

According to the Ukrainian Truth news agency, a weapon was found near the body.

"The body of MP Valeriy Davydenko was found in the toilet in his own office with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. An investigative police group is working at the scene," said Deputy Interior Minister Anton Herashchenko, who added "Police and prosecutors will check all possible versions of the tragedy."

Davydenko was a defendant in several corruption cases - including the theft of funds from the country's Agriculture Fund. In February, 2014, Davydenko and Borys Prykhodko - another MP from the Dovira faction, were accused of embezzling US$75 million while Prykhodko was the First Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine.

Following Davydenko's death, ex-People's Deputy Ihor Mosiychuk called for the immediate arrest of Prykhodko, who he called the "accomplice in the theft of the agrarian fund."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/ukrainian-mp-found-dead-gunshot-wound-head

Did Jack Dorsey Just Issue A 'Mea Culpa' To All Twitter-Banned "Conspiracy"-Peddlers?

Did Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey just, sheepishly, issue a 'mea culpa' to all those innocent (mostly conservative) voices he has silenced in the last few years who dared to question the "Russia, Russia, Russia" narrative, the "Biden did nothing wrong" stories, the "Comey is an American hero" facts, and, of course, the "COVID started in a wet market" orgy of lies.

In a tweet, the outspoken provider of safe-spaces, retweeted an essay by Charles Eisenstein entitled "The Conspiracy Myth" which appears to go against everything Twitter has done.

So, we ask in all seriousness, why did Dorsey - who has shown himself, via his actions, to be an enemy of any non-establishment-sanctioned narrative with his suspension and banning of any tweets or twitter-ers that dare to offer alternate views - retweet an essay that raises doubts about the over-arching threat of "conspiracy theories" to snowflakes, promotes the idea of exploring all sides of an argument before dismissing it, and most ironically, rails against "information suppression" and centralized decisions based on someone's "trustworthiness"?

The Conspiracy Myth

The other day I was amused to read a critique of The Coronation in which the author was absolutely certain that I am a closet conspiracy theorist. He was so persuasive that I myself almost believed it.

What is a conspiracy theory anyway? Sometimes the term is deployed against anyone who questions authority, dissents from dominant paradigms, or thinks that hidden interests influence our leading institutions. As such, it is a way to quash dissent and bully those trying to stand up to abuses of power. One needn’t abandon critical thinking to believe that powerful institutions sometimes collude, conspire, cover up, and are corrupt. If that is what is meant by a conspiracy theory, obviously some of those theories are true. Does anyone remember Enron? Iran-Contra? COINTELPRO? Vioxx? Iraqi weapons of mass destruction?

During the time of Covid-19, another level of conspiracy theory has risen to prominence that goes way beyond specific stories of collusion and corruption to posit conspiracy as a core explanatory principle for how the world works. Fuelled by the authoritarian response to the pandemic (justifiable or not, lockdown, quarantine, surveillance and tracking, censorship of misinformation, suspension of freedom of assembly and other civil liberties, and so on are indeed authoritarian), this arch-conspiracy theory holds that an evil, power-hungry cabal of insiders deliberately created the pandemic or is at least ruthlessly exploiting it to frighten the public into accepting a totalitarian world government under permanent medical martial law, a New World Order (NWO). Furthermore, this evil group, this illuminati, pulls the strings of all major governments, corporations, the United Nations, the WHO, the CDC, the media, the intelligence services, the banks, and the NGOs. In other words, they say, everything we are told is a lie, and the world is in the grip of evil.

More

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/did-jack-dorsey-just-issue-mea-culpa-all-twitter-banned-conspiracy-peddlers