Having a wonderful time reminiscing about all my past travel (and other) adventures. Hope you’ll share them with me in my blog, “All Roads Led to Russia.”
Happily, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are still around. But they’re older now, as we all are . . . no longer the two young, eager, junior investigative journalists who worked for the Washington Post in the 1970s.
And more’s the pity.
Woodward and Bernstein: Then . . .. . . and Now
Because this country has never been more desperately in need of the sort of fearless investigation and reporting we saw from the likes of that pair when they exposed the break-in at Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters in the Watergate complex on June 17, 1972 — 53 years ago yesterday.
Their subsequent reporting, followed by their 1974 book titled “All the President’s Men”, broke open a web of corruption, lies and cover-ups that led to the downfall of the Nixon administration . . . proving to the world that in the United States, no one — not even the President himself — was above the law.
Former President Richard M. Nixon, leaving Washington for the final time
But that was then, when the media, the courts and Congress were free to do their jobs without fear of intervention, threats, or retribution.
Leaving the G7 summit in the western Canadian province of Alberta yesterday, Donald Trump said that his early departure was necessitated by an urgent meeting of the National Security Council in Washington concerning the rapidly escalating Israel-Iran conflict.
Leaders (L-R) of Japan, Italy, France, Canada, U.S., U.K., Germany Alberta Province, Canada – June 16, 2025
In his typically belligerent, “I am the boss” style, he wrote on social media that “Our patience is wearing thin,” and that
“He [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] is an easy target, but is safe there [in hiding] – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”
“At least not for now” . . . ??!!!
Later, aboard Air Force One — he added, “I’m not looking for a ceasefire, we’re looking at something better than a ceasefire.” [RFE/RL, June 17, 2025.]
He also warned on his Truth Social site: “Iran should have signed the ‘deal.’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT [sic] HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again. Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” [Id.]
Attempted Evacuation of Tehran – RFE/RL photo – June 17, 2025
A serious threat, for sure. But in a region — just in terms of modern times, and leaving out its ancient history — that has been in conflict since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, is it really likely to be enough?
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Unfortunately, Trump’s hasty return home caused him to miss the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky . . . although popular opinion is that it would not likely have been a happy meeting, in view of Trump’s recent statement that the former G8 had been wrong in ejecting Russia following its 2014 annexation of Crimea. Trump called it a “big mistake,” and said he believes Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine would never have occurred had the G8 not taken that action eight years earlier.
Trump then added:
“Putin speaks to me. He doesn’t speak to anybody else. . . . He’s not a happy person about it. I can tell you that he basically doesn’t even speak to the people that threw him out, and I agree with him.” [Id.]
Well, of course he agrees that Putin shouldn’t be speaking to the other G7 members. That positions Trump as the sole interlocutor between Putin and the others, affording him the sort of control he thrives on.
Clearly, the newest Middle East conflict hasn’t made the Russia-Ukraine war go away . . . and with Putin’s continued stalling, and his increasingly devastating attacks on Kharkiv, Kyiv and elsewhere, that’s not going to happen in the immediate future either.
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It all makes me wonder, not for the first time, why anyone would ever want to be president. But then, I’m not a power-crazed tyrant.
In the hilarious 1981 film, History of the World, Mel Brooks famously boasted, “It’s good to be the king.”
Mel Brooks in “History of the World” – 1981
But I’m thinking that today, in 2025, it must be lonely as hell . . . unless, of course, standing by yourself on top of a rubbish heap is your idea of happiness.
One hundred forty years ago today, on June 17, 1885, the Statue of Liberty arrived in New York Harbor. A gift of friendship from the people of France, her 350 sculpted pieces of copper and iron had been packed in more than 200 cases, to be reassembled and dedicated the following year.
And there she has stood, for nearly a century and a half, proudly proclaiming the freedom and hope she has offered to the millions of people throughout the world seeking a better life for themselves and their future generations.
She has been a symbol of the greatness of a nation that was built by the hands of refugees from every continent except Antarctica . . . immigrants without whom there would be no America of today.
Let us pray that she will still be there, proud and tall and welcoming, four years from now . . . and not bowed down in the shame and despair of failure.
The “big, beautiful parade” in Washington on Saturday was sufficiently horrifying to remind me of my one and only encounter with a military deployment in that city, more than five decades ago. (I realize I’m giving away my age here, but what the hell . . . there’s no denying it any longer.)
It was early April, 1968. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4th, sparking race riots and other civil disturbances in more than 100 cities across the United States. The most violent of these occurred in Chicago, Baltimore . . . and Washington.
7th ad O Streets, N.W., Washington, DC – April 1968
For four days, predominantly Black neighborhoods in the city were subjected to rampages of arson, looting, and general destruction — far too widespread for the D.C. police to handle on their own. President Lyndon Johnson had no choice but to call in the National Guard to assist in the defense of the federal jurisdiction. When it was over, 13 people were dead, around 1,000 more injured, and over 6,000 had been arrested.
On that Friday evening, April 5th, I sat in the top-floor apartment of friends across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia, with the most morose group of people I had ever encountered outside a funeral parlor. For hours, we sat, barely speaking . . . just getting quietly drunk as we watched the glow of the burning areas of the capital city on the other side of the river.
I lived in a Virginia suburb, and was safely removed from the danger as long as I didn’t go back to work in D.C. But it was the weekend, and we were all certain the worst would be over by Monday. I just hadn’t counted on my sister’s problem.
She was living in an apartment in D.C., in a “safe” neighborhood. But there was one part of her routine that she was adamant about not breaking, and that was her regular Saturday appointment with her hairdresser . . . whose shop was in Alexandria, Virginia. She didn’t own a car — in fact, she didn’t drive at all — so she regularly rode the bus back and forth. But a curfew had been instituted, as I recall, for 5:00 p.m., so she expected to be home in plenty of time, and off she went. Then, at nearly 2:00 p.m., the D.C. authorities moved the curfew back to 3:00 p.m., and the buses stopped running into the city.
And now you’re thinking: No problem. She could just stay with me . . . right? Ordinarily, that is exactly what we would have done. But, on that weekend of all weekends, she had a friend from California staying with her, who was now alone in the apartment in D.C. My sister had to get home.
So of course, she called the one person she knew who was crazy enough to say yes. At 2:00 p.m., I jumped into my Chevy Corvair — a cute little car that got great mileage but wasn’t built for speed — and headed for the Capital Beltway, the fastest way to get from one part of suburban Virginia to another without worrying about stop lights. As I drove, I was listening to the news on the radio, thinking only of how long it would take for each segment of the trip, and calculating how much time I would need to get back over one of the bridges into Virginia before curfew.
You see, I had left my two children, then ages 4 and 2, with my mother, and couldn’t get stuck in D.C.
When I noticed that all the other cars on the highway seemed to be standing still, I took my eyes off the road for a second to glance at the speedometer and saw that — holy crap! — I was doing 90 m.p.h. In a little Corvair. On a 60-m.p.h. road. What a great little car she turned out to be.
I slowed down a little, but not much, until I reached my exit from the highway. When I got to the beauty salon in Old Town Alexandria, my sister was waiting. But there was another problem: I was low on gas. There was also a curfew in place on the sale of gas, presumably to prevent the rioters from stocking up for their Molotov cocktails, so I had to find a station on the Virginia side. That done, we headed for town.
Traffic going into the city was understandably light, so I got her home safely, watched while she went inside, and looked at my watch. It was 2:35 p.m., so I had 25 minutes to make it to the closest river crossing, which was the Memorial Bridge. No problem.
I headed south on New Hampshire Avenue, which would take me to Washington Circle, where I would then pick up 23rd Street directly to the Lincoln Memorial and Memorial Bridge. So far, so good. And then, suddenly, there they were.
Headed north on New Hampshire Avenue, coming toward me, was something I had never seen before: a convoy of military vehicles — no tanks, but a half dozen or so heavy-duty trucks and jeeps. It was like a scene from an old war movie . . . something that would have seemed in place in a European city, but not here. And as I continued to move slowly forward, the lead jeep suddenly made a sharp left turn directly into my path . . . and stopped dead, blocking my southbound lane.
What the hell? It was now 2:40 p.m., and I was immobilized. I saw a young soldier, carrying a rifle with fixed bayonet, leave the jeep and begin walking toward my car. He couldn’t have been more than 19 or 20 years old, and he looked scared to death. But he followed orders, walked over to my car as I rolled down my window, and said, “Excuse me, ma’am. Do you know there’s a 3:00 curfew?”
“Ma’am”? Did he just call me “Ma’am”??!!! I wasn’t much older than he was.
Putting aside the fact that this boy had just aged me ten years, I looked at him and saw that he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do. So I took mercy on him, and answered as gently as possible: “Yes, I know that. That’s why I’m trying to get back to Virginia before then. That’s where I’m headed now.”
Silence. He didn’t know what to do next, and the clock was ticking. Then I noticed movement to my left, and saw a D.C. police officer walking toward the car. He appeared to be around 40 years old, experienced, and calm. He asked what the problem was, and since the young soldier had obviously been struck dumb at some point, I answered, explaining that I had just driven my sister home and was headed back to Virginia before curfew.
The nice officer turned to the soldier — who, of course, was still clinging to his rifle, apparently for support — and said, “Son, you’re supposed to stop people coming into the city, not leaving it. Now, why don’t you move that jeep and let her get home.”
And that seemed to snap the younger man back into consciousness. The jeep was inched back just far enough for me to squeeze through, I thanked the police officer (my guardian angel) profusely, and made a beeline for the border. It was now 2:45 p.m.
Bottom line: I was not only out of D.C., but all the way home, by 3:00 p.m. I didn’t bother to check the speedometer along the way.
Chevy Corvair: Small But Mighty
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That was a time of legitimate need for National Guard reinforcements: massive, violent riots in the federal city of Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital. Not localized, contained demonstrations in Los Angeles; and not the wholesale roundup of peaceful foreigners from their homes, schools, and workplaces around the country.
And not a Red Square-style display of military might tearing up the surface of Pennsylvania Avenue for a little boy who always wanted a parade for his birthday.
Comparing the situations does rather put things into perspective, doesn’t it?
He was going to end Russia’s war against Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office in January. Five months later, he’s still struggling to understand what Vladimir Putin is really about, and how to avoid having to admit he failed.
Now Donald Trump is trying to convince the world that he hopes to be able to bring an end to the growing conflict between Israel and Iran, saying on Sunday that “I think there’s a good chance there’s going to be a deal. I think it’s time for [a] deal and we’ll see what happens, but sometimes they have to fight it out.” [Kit Maher, CNN, June 16, 2025.]
The man seems to have serious difficulty with committing to a firm stance. Or perhaps . . . in fact, more likely . . . he’s just giving himself the wiggle room he needs in order to change direction when things don’t go his way.
Alleging that “we get along really well” with Iran, and that he believes Israel and Iran “have great respect for each other” (I have no idea where he came up with that last one!), he has thus far declined to say whether he has asked Israel to pause its attacks on Iran, commenting only, “I don’t want to say that.” [Id.]
Benjamin Netanyahu and Ali Khamenei
It’s becoming his scripted response to conflicts anywhere in the world. When discussing the Russia-Ukraine war, he had this to say from the Oval Office earlier this month:
“Sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other, and they’re fighting in a park, and you try and pull them apart. They don’t want to be pulled, sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart” [id.] . . . as though that had been his strategy all along.
Well, that may work well enough with two equally-matched kids on the playground — as long as they don’t end up beating the living daylights out of each other. But at least they’re not equipped with armies, missiles, drones . . . or nuclear weapons.
Someone needs to tell Trump it’s time to stop thinking like a kid in the schoolyard, and perhaps formulate some honest-to-goodness foreign policy. Of course, for that he’d need actual expert advice, which these days is in short supply in Washington. And even if such advice were available, he’d first have to learn to shut up and start listening.
The machines have taken over my iPad, and stolen my blog. I haven’t been able to retrieve it, re-download the blog site, or sync with my phone — which, through some miracle, has retained everything, thus at least saving me from thoughts of suicide.
But trying to compose a full-length post without a keyboard would take forever and drive me over the edge. So until I can solve the problem, brendochka.com will be quieter than usual.
Or maybe I’ll try my laptop later. Right now, I’m too frustrated to do much of anything. Except maybe reach for the Häagen-Dazs.
And then to sleep, perchance to dream. So for now . . .
It has been heartening — and reminiscent of the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s — to see the American people coming together to protest the excesses of a presidential administration that has become increasingly fascistic by the day.
And it has come as a tremendous relief to note that yesterday’s widespread protests were so successful . . . not only in scope, but in their peaceful, patriotic nature.
San Diego, California – June 14, 2025
Yet even within the mostly well-reasoned arguments of the anti-Trump movement, there have been a number of calls for impeachment — one even issued by none other than Elon Musk (though he quickly retracted it, admitting he had gone too far).
And those suggestions of impeachment worry me . . . not because they are unwarranted, but because I believe that is the last thing this country needs, for a number of reasons.
To begin with, it is unlikely that the present Congress — with a Republican majority in both houses — would be likely to convict. The entire disruptive exercise will have been a waste of time and effort, and would only have given Trump further cause to crow about his professed indestructibility.
The Smirk
But even more disturbing, to my mind, is what we would be facing if impeachment were unexpectedly to result in conviction, and Trump were removed from office. Unless we could somehow also impeach and convict the next three people in the line of succession, we would be stuck with:
Vice President JD VanceSpeaker of the House of Representatives, Mike JohnsonPresident Pro Tempore of the Senate, 91-year-old Chuck Grassley
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Now, someone tell me that’s not just a little disturbing. To me, it’s right at the top of the “be careful what you wish for” category.
But that doesn’t mean we have to survive another three and a half years of the erosion of all that makes this country great. Our courts are doing their best to maintain the rule of law, and must be pressed to continue on course. The Supreme Court, however heavily weighted to the conservative side, must also be made to realize the urgency of the situation and reminded of its mandate: that is, to uphold the laws and the Constitution of the United States, without bias or political consideration.
Finally, there is Congress. In less than a year, we will be in the throes of mid-term elections that will determine the balance of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. And that is where our power — the power of the people — comes into play.
It is up to us to choose, and choose wisely, who will represent our interests in the coming years. And that means we must educate ourselves as to the histories, political records, and characters of the candidates — of both parties — and not merely base our selections on campaign promises. We’ve all seen how much those are worth!
Promises, Promises
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In short, we must keep up the fight to keep America free . . . to keep America strong . . . and to keep America, America. I think the person holding this sign in one of yesterday’s protests said it rather well:
His story first came to my attention back in September 2024, when a woman identifying herself on Facebook as the sister of American Stephen James Hubbard wrote that her 72-year-old brother, a retired school teacher who had been living in Izyum, Ukraine, for some ten years, had been kidnapped by Russian forces in 2022 and was being held on charges of fighting as a mercenary on behalf of Ukraine.
Stephen James Hubbard
At first, all that was known was that a hearing on Hubbard’s case had been scheduled in Moscow for October 3, 2024. But it was soon learned that his trial had actually begun on September 27th, and was scheduled to continue on October 3rd. If convicted of the charges against him, he could receive a sentence of seven to fifteen years in prison . . . at his age, and under the harsh conditions of life in a Russian penal colony, a virtual life sentence.
On October 5th, the Moscow court announced that the closed-door trial had resulted in Hubbard’s admission of guilt, and that — upon the request of prosecutors, allegedly in deference to Hubbard’s age — he had been sentenced to the minimum seven years, to be served in a maximum-security penal colony.
And then he vanished.
On Trial
Finally, in April of this year, his family and his U.S.-based legal team were able to track him down in a prison facility in the Mordovia region of Russia, some 275 miles east/southeast of Moscow. Though U.S. officials have requested his immediate release, consular access to him has been denied. But he has finally been allowed to communicate remotely from prison, about which his American attorney, Martin De Luca, had this to say:
“The first thing Hubbard wanted to talk about when he was able to make contact with the outside world was: ‘It’s not true.’ They [Russian soldiers] grabbed him from his house. He was not in any combat or military unit.” [Lucy Papachristou, Reuters, June 13, 2025.]
And Hubbard’s son, Joseph Coleman of Cyprus, said he was able to speak to his father by phone for less than five minutes on May 28th:
“He did sound a little down. He said, ‘I’m tired of being a slave.’” [Id.]
A masterpiece of understatement, no doubt.
Videoconference From Prison
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Of the nine Americans currently imprisoned in Russia, Hubbard, now aged 73, is the only one officially designated by the U.S. as “wrongfully detained,” which gives him the best chance of being returned home in a future prisoner exchange; and his recent reemergence is reason for cautious optimism. Further, the Kremlin said last month that the two sides had been in discussions concerning a possible swap involving nine people on each side, though no names have been released as yet.
This is making it difficult to type, but my fingers seem to be stuck in a crossed position until all nine Americans — and the other political prisoners of various nationalities — are returned safely home.
And once again, here they are:
Prisoners of War:
The People of Ukraine The Azov 12
Political Prisoners:
David Barnes Ales Bialiatski (in Belarus) Gordon Black Andrei Chapiuk (in Belarus) Antonina Favorskaya Konstantin Gabov Robert Gilman Stephen James Hubbard Sergey Karelin Ihar Karney (in Belarus) on Vadim Kobzev Darya Kozyreva Artyom Kriger Uladzimir Labkovich (in Belarus) Michael Travis Leake Aleksei Liptser Ihar Losik (in Belarus) Mikita Losik (in Belarus) Daniel Martindale Farid Mehralizada (in Azerbaijan) Nika Novak Marfa Rabkova (in Belarus) Igor Sergunin Dmitry Shatresov Robert Shonov Eugene Spector Valiantsin Stafanovic (in Belarus) Siarhei Tsikhanouski (in Belarus) Laurent Vinatier Robert Romanov Woodland Vladislav Yesypenko (in Crimea) Yuras Zyankovich (in Belarus)
The Blog About Everything … and Sometimes Nothing 