Back in 2013, artist Kehinde Wiley was commissioned to paint a portrait of then-President Barack Obama. And until recently, it was displayed at the U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic. But the painting has been removed on orders from the U.S. State Department, with Donald Trump ally Erin Scavino and other MAGA Republicans attacking the painting as "woke."

Scavino, a former contestant on the hit reality "The Apprentice" — which Trump hosted during the 2000s — now heads the State Department's Art in Embassies program. And she defended the removal during an appearance on former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's podcast, saying, "It was very woke. It was by the gentleman who did Obama's portrait, and it was aesthetically terrifying."

On X, formerly Twitter, the Beast posted, "The State Department has removed a painting by an Obama portrait artist from a U.S. embassy, with the Trump goon running the agency's art operation trashing the piece as 'very woke' and 'aesthetically terrifying.'"

The removal is also being defended by Leah Campos, U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic. In a video posted on social media, Campos attacked the Obama portrait for promoting "globalist and woke ideologies."

But according to the Daily Beast's Leah Kimmins, neither Scavino nor Campos "explained what was actually wrong with the image itself."

"A State Department spokeswoman dodged discussing the canvas' contents when the New York Times reached out for comment on Monday," Kimmins reports in the Beast. "Instead, she dredged up a 2023 quote from Wiley about an entirely different painting, 'Judith and Holofernes,' which he had dubbed 'a play on the kill whitey thing,' alongside sexual assault allegations Wiley has denied."

Kimmins continues, "'Judith and Holofernes' reimagines the biblical story of a woman who saves her town by killing an invading army's general. In Kehinde Wiley's version, Judith is depicted as a Black woman holding the severed head of a white woman. The painting is Wiley's contemporary take on a 17th-Century work by Italian painter Giovanni Baglione."

Virginia Shore, who led the Art in Embassies program under former Presidents George W. Bush and Obama, is pushing back against MAGA attacks on Wiley's Obama portrait.

Shore told the New York Times, "Calling this woke is difficult for me to understand. This is a program validated and financially backed under Bush. There is a science of building trust and empathy across borders."

Kimmins describes the removal as "just the latest salvo in a scorched-earth campaign to reshape the embassy art program, an initiative dating back to the Kennedy administration."

The Beast reporter notes, "Trump appointee Scavino — who co-runs the program and is married to Trump's longtime aide Dan Scavino — bragged on Katie Miller's podcast about how fast she scrubbed art from the ambassador's residence in Bucharest, Romania, after MAGA Rep. Anna Paulina Luna claimed she spotted 'satanic baby art' during a trip."

Up until inside the past decade or so, I always fancied myself a fairly affable guy. Growing up in New Jersey and working in newspapers as an adult demanded a certain degree of tolerance and a wicked sense of humor.

Everybody had their flaws, but we were all in this mess together, so I figured let’s go for the laughs and make the most of it. I was willing to give anybody a chance.

Not anymore.

These days, if I even whiff the foul scent of Republican on you, I’m either going the other way, or right through you.

Lately, I hate Republicans. I mean I really HATE them. I don’t necessarily like that I really hate Republicans, but there is nothing to recommend them. They are just flat mean, morally busted, and are actively trying to kill us. Worse, many of them are doing it with a smile on their face.

How many more hundreds of thousands of Americans would still be alive if we all simply listened to the science, wore masks and got vaccinated? How much more stable would our democracy be if a defeat at the polls was accepted through gritted teeth and graciousness, instead of threats and insurrection?

Instead, Republicans have doubled down on their heinousness and placed an anti-vax ghoul in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services. They have made scientists the enemy, instead of our friends tirelessly searching for answers.

Rather than defend and replenish the lifeblood of any democracy, our vote, Republicans are doing everything in their power to kill it. It’s not a matter of IF Trump deploys the Insurrection Act but WHEN, to put down people who don’t like him or disagree with him, which we know from last weekend alone is an astronomical number.

It really is hard to see how we survive this without an all-out war. More than 7 million patriots were in our streets last Saturday peacefully sending the message that they’ve had enough of this dangerous, abhorrent Republican fascism.

The grotesque, orange would-be king responded by posting an AI video of himself literally s------g on those protesters. Republicans, as always, were just fine with this. Completely normal. Nothing to see here.

The corporate press, which has gone out of its way to enable this madness, barely gave it a mention.

Like I said, this is not sustainable.

It was quite a surprise then, that when I rolled out of the rack today, I resolved to find a better way to talk to Republicans. I’m sure it had something to do with a recent epiphany, but more on that below.

Something has to change …

I didn’t always hate Republicans. Hell, I used to vote for ’em every now and then.

Are you still there …?

A number of my oldest friends are Republicans. We’ve been around several blocks together. These are the people I grew up with; got in trouble with; fought for; whose pockets were stuffed with my secrets … the people I loved.

I know where my old friends came from; how they were raised; whether their mother or father was an ass; where the skeletons were buried … Nobody knows more about you than an old, trusted friend.

Lately, I don’t much recognize too many of my old friends anymore. I reckon I look pretty hazy to them, too. I see the stuff they load up on their Facebook page, and wonder how it is we ended up living on different planets when we used to share the same bed.

This all started with Trump, of course. The guy brought out the worst in all of us. It’s his singular talent. Everybody around him is miserable and angry.

I realize I’m not splattering you with any big revelations here. We’ve all gone through this. Not a one of us hasn’t been touched by this negative, soul-crushing force.

Used to be we could trade political insults. Poke fun at each other. In the event it got too heated we could turn the flame down by simply agreeing too many of our politicians were full of crap. They were just going to screw us all in the end no matter what. There was money to be made.

Much better to believe in a friendship that had stood the test of time, than some political party that would test your patience.

Those were the days ...

Today was going to be different, though. Today, I was going to be the bigger man. I was going to reengage. Bridge the gap. Start anew. Find some reason amid the ashes of these torched relationships …

I blame Barack Obama for this.

I don’t know about you, but I do most of my above-average thinking while lying in bed. There’s not a more honest place than safely underneath the covers, head nestled in a pillow.

Just before I closed my eyes Sunday night, I remembered something the two-term, scandal-free president said on a campaign trail way back when while stumping for Joe Biden. I’ll paraphrase, and guarantee you it was even smarter than I’ll type it. But it stuck, and here it goes:

“Look,” Obama said in his ascending tone, “If I tell your Republican friends they should consider voting for something or doing something, they’ll look at me and laugh. They don’t like me! But if YOU tell your Republican friends they should consider voting for something or doing something, they’ll listen! And they’ll listen, because-they-like-you! They might even LOVE you! So sit down. Talk with them!”

See what I mean? If FDR deserved four terms, this guy should have got at least that many. Imagine how much better off we’d be for it.

Except we don’t allows kings in the country …

Now, here I was this morning, refreshed and ready to bring it. There were holes to patch and old friendships to cement. I would be the better man, and cautiously extend a hand. Maybe, just maybe … I could reconnect with a few of these lost souls.

I figured there was nothing to lose, because everything has already been lost. If nothing else it might add perspective, and make for a half-decent column.

I poured a cup of coffee, plugged into a comfy chair, cracked open the local paper, and said this out loud: “Awwwwwwwww fuuuuuuuck …”

HEADLINE: “GOP Tries to Weaken Law Shielding Whales, Seals and Polar Bears”

Whales, seals and polar bears????? Holy hell, are there three more lovable and majestic creatures on this earth?

Whales, seals and polar bears?????

Is there ANYTHING these detestable Republicans won’t put their filthy hands on and strangle to death?

Here’s the lede of this important story:

BOOTHBAY HARBOR, Maine (AP) — Republican lawmakers are targeting one of the U.S.’s longest standing pieces of environmental legislation, credited with helping save rare whales from extinction.Conservative leaders feel they now have the political will to remove key pieces of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, enacted in 1972 to protect whales, seals, polar bears and other sea animals.

Turns out this story was filed last week and got very little damn attention, because Republicans are coming at us with both barrels. They intend to end America as we’ve known it since the last Civil War.

It’s impossible to keep up with it all, and process this madness, which is all part of their destructive design.

The Republican Party is anti-life, anti-American, and anti-good.

The party that said boogeymen were coming for our cats and dogs, are literally coming after our whales, seals and polar bears.

How damn much more of this are we supposed to take?

So, hands shaking, I put the paper down, and raged to the point of tears.

I decided talking to my Republican friends could wait for a bit, and until I could do it without wanting ’em all dead.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

Far-right ex-Fox News host Bill O'Reilly is telling President Donald Trump to take a month off to rest because he clearly needs it.

The 80-year-old president has suffered some health problems during his first year in office. Swollen feet and legs, bruised hands, exhaustion, multiple doctor visits and frequent gaffes have led to questions about whether Trump can handle the high-stress job mentally and physically.

Trump spent most of his time outside office complaining about "Sleepy Joe Biden," whom he said was too old to do the job. He questioned the former president's cognitive ability and even went so far as to promote a conspiracy theory that the Biden administration used an auto-pen to sign documents because he was somehow unfit to sign them himself.

Trump's ongoing attacks throughout the administration are now prompting questions about his own mental fitness and cognitive abilities. It has grown so noticeable that even his allies are questioning whether he's up for the job.

O'Reilly said he's known Trump for 35 years, and it's clear he's being affected by his advanced age, Mediaite observed in a published transcript.

"I’ve noticed that he is hunching over a little bit and, uh, that’s normal," said O'Reilly.

As bones weaken, the spine can compress and lead to further muscle weakness after a lifetime of poor posture, explained Banner Health. The weakness in the upper back and neck muscles can atrophy, and after years of looking down at a desk and a phone, the pattern can make it difficult to resist the pull of gravity.

O'Reilly, who is only four years younger than the president, said that as we age, every person will face one malady or another.

"I can’t even bore you with the stuff I got to deal with. And I, I was actually feeling sorry for myself the other day, and I never do that," the elderly conservative lamented.

"But I know the president a little. So, my advice to Donald Trump is to take the next month off, if you can," O'Reilly suggested. He told the president to "get into an environment where you like, golf and relax. You got to deal with Iran. I understand that. Everybody understands it. But you can do that on the phone, and you can do that with your people coming."

"But you need a breather," he continued. "I need a breather, and I’m going to build it into August. But he needs a breather much more than I do, OK?"

O'Reilly then said he wishes the best for Trump as he does with all presidents, touting his respect for the office of the president itself.

"Even [Joe] Biden, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter," O'Reilly named.

During his time on Fox, O'Reilly frequently attacked former President Barack Obama for taking pricey vacations while the economy was struggling to get back on its feet after the 2007-2008 crash.

"Creative people need downtime in order to operate at their best. Bad decisions are often made when a person becomes exhausted. Presidents are under siege to deal with one problem after another. Everybody wants something. The job never stops," wrote O'Reilly in a 2011 column attacking Obama for not setting a good example and contributing to tourism in other places than Martha's Vineyard.

He closed the column by telling Obama to have fun, "but [he] shouldn't get used to it."

Writing for The New Republic, a former White House staffer exposed the real reason why President Donald Trump's embattled young aide is so alarming, based on their experience serving in the same role.

Natalie Harp has emerged as one of the closest and most influential aides of Trump's second term, controlling the information that he is exposed to and treating her relationship to him with an alarming level of devotion, which many observers have likened to an obsession. Once considered a minor fixture of the administration, her profile has exploded into a mainstream scandal after details about her adoring letters to the president were exposed in the book Regime Change, and following a mocking remark from Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff.

Aside from acting as a "human printer" sharing stories and messages with Trump, Harp has also been among the staffers operating his social media accounts. Greg Greene previously served the same role managing partisan accounts for former President Barack Obama, and in a recent piece for The New Republic, exposed just how badly the job standards have degraded under Harp.

"Handling a U.S. president’s social media voice is a magisterial job," Greene explained. "The work involved ranges far and wide—from figuring out how to handle the president’s receipt of a Nobel Peace Prize to huddling with colleagues to pull just the right clip from a speech. Or, if you’re President Donald Trump’s aide and traveling companion Natalie Harp, you might use AI to portray the president as a fighter pilot dropping payloads of poop on No Kings demonstrators."

He continued: "I know something about this particular job. I managed President Barack Obama’s partisan social media accounts over much of the first year of his presidency. It’s fair to say this was a more innocent age. The watchwords I took to the work were ones like safeguards and restraint, instead of poop jet and What if we depicted the president as Jesus Christ. A president’s statements, I knew, could move markets even if ventriloquized by twenty- and thirtysomethings working to channel the top guy’s voice. At every point, my colleagues and I took intentional steps to guard against loose words."

Greene explained that, during his time on the job, he helped create a system in which no single person controlled the entire apparatus behind an official account, having different people draft content while others controlled the login information and posting duties. Conceding that he "may have gone overboard with the approval steps we put into place," he argued that it was still important to make sure no single person had "sole ownership over the digital persona of a president of the United States," even at the cost of "nimbleness in quick-moving moments."

Greene argued further that "it hardly takes a genius to spot how the standards around Trump’s social media accounts have slipped," highlighting reports about Harp "supplies [the president] with content she fishes out of the social media gutter," including the infamous video depicting the Obamas as apes. He also stressed that there is "strong reason to wonder what else the woman who 'texts with world leaders on the president’s behalf' and operates 'entirely outside the usual chain of command' is doing with her prized, rare access."

"How has Harp handled her touch-screen access to Trump’s private communications with world leaders? I can’t say. More worryingly, government agencies can’t say, either; MS NOW reports that for a year, Harp repeatedly declined to seek the security clearance that West Wing staffers usually obtain," Greene continued. "I also had no clearance—at the DNC, that wasn’t required—but that’s precisely why my colleagues and I built a process where people with clearances had visibility and could step in."

He concluded: "Maybe she’s on the up-and-up with her access to the president and his accounts. Maybe she sees devotion to Trump as its own reward, even if that means squeezing herself behind an SUV’s seats like a stowaway. But that Harp fights so hard for both proximity to the president and a free hand to post on his behalf is why I don’t trust her at all—and neither should you."

President Donald Trump’s close aide, Natalie Harp, has received harsh criticism recently, from journalists who speculate she is “unwell” to commentators who speculate the notoriously philandering Trump has an inappropriate relationship with her.

“Long before Harp sprinted down the fairways of a Scottish golf course in an effort to catch up with Trump’s motorcade, I heard plenty of stories about the absurd lengths people went to for ‘the boss,’” wrote Sarah Matthews, former deputy press secretary to the White House. “Staff reportedly steamed his pants while he was still wearing them. Trump would also ask aides to take mirrors from events if he thought they made him look especially flatteringly slim. Another time, he asked aides to steal sculptures from the U.S. embassy in London.”

Matthews added, “I worked on Trump’s 2020 campaign from June 2019 through June 2020. After that, I joined the White House press shop, where I served as White House deputy press secretary up until January 6, 2021. Back then, there was no one quite like Harp inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the office environments, bordering on a king’s court, that have allowed her to become such a critical figure with such remarkable access were already very apparent.”

The former staffer then described the White House under Trump as analogous to the reality TV show he hosted shortly before becoming president, “The Apprentice,” in which everyone had to tread carefully and behave like a sycophant in order to avoid getting fired. She also described how Trump behaved inappropriately with one young female staffer in particular, asking that she travel with him often and using a vulgar term to describe ogling her. Finally, she pointed out that Trump staffers frequently leaked negative information about each other in order to play to Trump’s ego and get rivals punished.

“The steady stream of leaks about Harp tells me some of her colleagues clearly have it out for her,” Matthews wrote. “Publicly, they’ll defend her and fling accusations of misogyny at anyone who questions her closeness to Trump. They do so because they know she controls the flow of information to him and they need her on their side. But privately, it’s obvious some of them think she’s cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs—and that’s really saying something in an administration staffed almost entirely by fellow toadies.”

She added, “Some may look at the fact that Harp has become so weirdly close to the president in such a short amount of time and assume something sexual must be going on between them. I don’t. While their relationship is deeply bizarre, I think Harp simply understands just how Trump operates. He wants emotional support blankets; he wants people who never push back; he wants to be put on a pedestal. Harp is just better at the game than anyone else . . . for now. The problem with making your career—and life—about being the boss’s favorite is that he can always change his mind.”

Matthews concluded, “Good luck, Natalie.”

In contrast to Harp’s approach to her job, a former staffer who held an analogous position under President Barack Obama recently described his position as much less bizarre.

"I know something about this particular job," Greg Greene recently explained in The New Republic. "I managed President Barack Obama’s partisan social media accounts over much of the first year of his presidency. It’s fair to say this was a more innocent age. The watchwords I took to the work were ones like safeguards and restraint, instead of poop jet and 'What if we depicted the president as Jesus Christ.' A president’s statements, I knew, could move markets even if ventriloquized by twenty- and thirtysomethings working to channel the top guy’s voice. At every point, my colleagues and I took intentional steps to guard against loose words."