Ukraine’s inspiring democratic resilience; The Washington Post, November 28, 2025

Editorial Board, The Washington Post; Ukraine’s inspiring democratic resilience

"Democracy and martial law make strange bedfellows. In Russia, where President Vladimir Putin’s hierarchical power is never contested, authoritarianism is entrenched. Repressive measures imposed for the sake of the war are unlikely to ever be lifted.

In Ukraine, however, the democratic spirit never bridled under wartime restrictions. Most Ukrainians understand that emergency measures have been necessary but remain skeptical of permanent centralized rule.

Isolationists in Washington may try to use Yermak’s resignation as an excuse to ditch Ukraine, citing it as evidence of endemic corruption. In truth, his ouster is evidence of resiliency and maturity that should hearten the Trump administration. Friday’s news shows Zelensky’s willingness to sideline even his closest aide to do what’s best for his country in its fight for national survival."

A Native American leader who enlisted in the Union Army has been posthumously admitted to the New York bar after 176 years; CNN, November 15, 2025

Ray Sanchez , CNN; A Native American leader who enlisted in the Union Army has been posthumously admitted to the New York bar after 176 years

"Ely S. Parker, a Tonawanda Seneca from western New York, never took no for an answer.

At the start of the Civil War, Parker’s offer to enlist was rejected outright by another New Yorker, Secretary of State William H. Seward, who – according to historians – told the Seneca leader the war dividing America “was an affair between white men and one in which the Indian was not called on to act.”

“Go home, cultivate your farm, and we will settle our own troubles among ourselves without any Indian aid,” Seward told Parker, who also unsuccessfully petitioned Congress to grant him US citizenship so he could enlist. Native Americans would not be made citizens until 1924.

But Parker had connections: He was a close friend of future Union Army Commander Ulysses S. Grant, who eventually intervened and endorsed his commission as captain. He would become a top aide to the Union Army’s most revered general.

On Friday, in a ceremonial courtroom in downtown Buffalo, supporters and direct descendants of Parker gathered for a celebration of his resiliency, with the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, Fourth Department posthumously admitting him to the bar – 176 years after he had been denied because Native Americans were not considered US citizens.

“The posthumous admission to the bar is fitting and deserving of a man who lived his life with integrity,” said C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa, an associate professor of history at George Mason University who has written extensively about Parker. “He didn’t give up. He continued to fight for what he believed in.”

Parker is the first Native American posthumously admitted to the bar in US history, according to legal experts. The petition for admission was made on behalf of his great-great-great-grandniece, Melissa Parker Leonard, whose father, Alvin, often played the chief in historical reenactments. The effort dates to 2020, when former Texas appellate Justice John Browning, a law professor at Faulkner University, first approached Alvin Parker, who died in 2022.

“Despite all the odds, all the adversity, the Seneca people still reside in western New York,” Parker Leonard, a 42-year-old educator and vice president of The Buffalo History Museum, told CNN."