Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele rebuked Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday after McConnell labeled former President Barack Obama as “classless” for criticizing his successor’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

McConnell had declared Monday that Obama “should have kept his mouth shut” about President Donald Trump’s response to the health crisis. But Steele disagreed, tweeting that the former president is entitled to voice his view. He also noted that Trump has “yet to keep ‘his mouth shut’” about Obama.

The president has persistently attempted to blame Obama for testing failures and a shortage of medical supplies during the pandemic and has this week peddled a fringe theory accusing his predecessor of “the biggest political crime in American history” while declining to specify what that alleged crime would be.

Steele, who served as chairman of the RNC from 2009 to 2011, has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, and has reproved McConnell in the past for his loyalty to the president.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/michael-steele-rnitch-mcconnell-obama-criticism_n_5ebb1ec1c5b62c834aaf611b

A cease and desist order is being sent to TempleLive in Fort Smith to stop a concert planned at the venue on Friday (May 15), Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday (May 12) during a daily COVID-19 update.

The concert is scheduled to happen before the allowed date of May 18, set by Gov. Hutchinson and the Arkansas Department of Health.

Lance Beaty, owner of Beaty Capital Group which owns and manages TempleLive, told our content partner Talk Business & Politics he is disappointed in the decision.

“I’m disappointed that we’ve seen the discussion transition from a science and health discussion to a politics and power issue,” he said.

https://www.5newsonline.com/article/news/local/templelive-fort-smith-concert-cease-and-desist-order/527-629c5080-8c67-4856-b45a-30baf12ae6c6

In 2010, a car insurance company conducted a study that concluded the average man will drive an unnecessary 276 miles a year before he asks for directions. How many American lives will President Donald Trump negatively affect before he has the courage to ask for directions?

The president was already the poster child for an outdated, dangerous and defunct form of masculinity before the coronavirus hit. But now that we are in the midst of a global pandemic, he has become a pathetic parody.

While female heads of state in New Zealand and Germany have led with a mix of compassion and informed strength, Trump has taken the opposite approach.

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But nothing reveals the dangers of Trump’s ego more clearly than his refusal to wear a mask. Even when he delivered his own agency’s guidelines of wearing cloth masks in public, Trump said he himself wouldn’t be complying with them. Now, predictably, the virus has reached the White House. As of this week, all staff must now wear face masks. Everyone except the alleged man in charge.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1205441?__twitter_impression=true

giving president new influence over Postal Service

A top donor to President Trump and the Republican National Committee will be named the new head of the Postal Service, putting a top ally of the president in charge of an agency where Trump has long pressed for major changes in how it handles its business.

The Postal Service’s Board of Governors confirmed late Wednesday that Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina businessman who is currently in charge of fundraising for the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, will serve as the new postmaster general.

The action will install a stalwart Trump ally to lead the Postal Service, which he has railed against for years, and likely move him closer than ever before to forcing the service to renegotiate its terms with companies and its own union workforce. Trump’s Treasury Department and the Postal Service are in the midst of a negotiation over a $10 billion line of credit approved as part of coronavirus legislation in March.

Trump has indicated that he wants the Postal Service to dramatically raise fees for delivering packages for customers such as Amazon in exchange for tapping the line of credit. Trump has long argued that Amazon doesn’t pay the Postal Service enough, a charge the agency has fiercely contested. (Amazon’s chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-republican-fundraiser-and-trump-ally-to-be-named-postmaster-general-giving-president-new-influence-over-postal-service-officials-say/2020/05/06/25cde93c-8fd4-11ea-8df0-ee33c3f5b0d6_story.html#click=https://t.co/9nNw6BfB1W