Former Trump administration officials:

U.S. vice president

• Mike Pence, U.S. Vice President (2017–2021) under Trump, Governor of Indiana (2013–2017), U.S. Representative from IN-06 (2003–2013), U.S. Representative from IN-02 (2001–2003)

Cabinet-level officials:

• John Bolton, U.S. National Security Advisor (2018–2019), Ambassador to the United Nations (2005–2006)[3][4]
• Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence (2017–2019), U.S. Senator from Indiana (1989–1999; 2011–2017) (endorsed Mike Pence)[5][6]
• Mark Esper, U.S. Secretary of Defense (2019–2020), U.S. Secretary of the Army (2017–2019)[7][8]
• John F. Kelly, White House Chief of Staff (2017–2019), U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security (2017) (Independent)[9][10]
• H. R. McMaster, U.S. National Security Advisor (2017–2018)[11]
• Only half of Trump's cabinet officials endorse his 2024 campaign.[12][13]

We need to accept an uncomfortable reality. The Taliban WILL take over Afghanistan. That was always the inevitable outcome. A committed insurgency will outlast an occupying force every time. There has never been an instance in history when this wasn't true.

And of course, we all seem to have forgotten that the Taliban evolved from the same Mujahideen who defeated and ousted the mighty Soviet military in the '80s (with aid from the U.S., I might add).

When people say Afghanistan is this generation's Vietnam, it really is an excellent analogy. Just as with Vietnam, we chose to oppose a government we didn't like and install a Vichy-type regime that was friendly to us, but which was inevitably hopelessly corrupt and weak.

That once again we've proven ourselves to be incapable of learning the lessons of history is no one's fault but our own.

By Annie Lowrey
July 27, 2021

Not long ago, a New York City data analyst who had been laid off shortly after the pandemic hit told me she had filed for unemployment-insurance payments and then spent the next six months calling, emailing, and using social media to try to figure out why the state’s Labor Department would not send her the money she was owed.

 (From Wikipedia)

The Beatles made several appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, including three in February 1964 that were among their first appearances in front of an American audience. Their first appearance, on February 9, was seen by a then-record 73 million viewers and came to be regarded as a cultural watershed that launched American Beatlemania—as well as the wider British Invasion of American pop music^[1]—and inspired many young viewers to become rock musicians.^[2] The band also made another appearance during their 1965 U.S. tour.

This is their first appearance: