Your Morning Matters: Talking about Traficant

Good morning and welcome to your Morning Matters.

It's Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2020, and on this day in 2009, disgraced former congressman Jim Traficant was released from the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minn., after serving seven years.

A jury had found him guilty of myriad charges, including RICO, bribery, obstruction of justice and tax evasion, in 2002. As Congress looked to expel Traficant, he appeared in front of the House Ethics Committee. Arriving to learn his fate, he told colleagues to hurry it along because "Mr. de Souza is here from The Vindicator and if you want to be defamed, there is no one in America who can defame you like de Souza." Later, in a 420-1 vote, Traficant became only the second member since the Civil War to be expelled from the U.S. House.

Though Traficant died in 2014 after a farm accident, his exploits live on in Mr. — Bertram — de Souza's book "No Holds Barred," a collection of his old Vindicator columns. I asked what he was thinking when Traficant made that remark as he covered it live in D.C. Noting the contentious relationship between them, Bertram said he thought little of it until other reporters inquired.

Bertram told me his book features many of his Traficant columns, as well as new thoughts in an introduction to that chapter that might surprise a few folks: "I do express regret that here was a man who had talent from God, literally, ... who could today have been a leader in Congress if he would have, you know, just walked the straight and narrow and kept his nose clean," he said.

Let's keep our collective noses clean and let's be careful out there.

And here are more of the things you need to know about what's happening in the Mahoning Valley:

Tim O'Hara resigned as United Auto Workers Local 1112 president Tuesday. The shop had 1,600 local members before General Motors ended production of the Chevrolet Cruze and idled the Lordstown Assembly Complex in March 2019. It now has fewer than 20.

"I always knew my term would be limited, leading the local union from another state, and at some point I would be stepping down. That time has come," O'Hara wrote in a Facebook post.

PANDEMIC FACTS

• In the U.S.: 5,995,270 confirmed cases; 185,456 deaths, according to infection2020.com at 10 p.m. Sept. 1.
• In Ohio: 118,048 confirmed cases; 3,879 deaths.
• In Pennsylvania: 134,795 confirmed cases; 7,691 deaths.
• In the Mahoning Valley: 2,854 confirmed cases in Mahoning County; 1,749 in Trumbull; and 1,828 in Columbiana.
• Dow Jones Industrial Average: Closed at 28,645.66, up 215.61 points, or 0.76 percent.

Other matters

Schools are still waiting for Gov. Mike DeWine's order compelling K-12 schools to report COVID-19 cases in their districts to both parents and the public. He gave some new details Tuesday. Mahoning Matters

The way Collin Boring looks at it, Rugged 3D had to leave its heart in San Francisco and relocate to the Youngstown Business Incubator Technology Campus. "If YBI would have been on the moon, we'd be going there, too," Boring, Rugged 3D's chief technology officer, said Tuesday. Mahoning Matters

Today's edition of our Business Updates features a new marketing agency called Clever. We also highlight the Youngstown Columbiana Association of Realtors, Huntington Bancshares and Limitless CBD. Mahoning Matters

Kent State University is reporting 12 new coronavirus cases in the past week. The school reports 24 total cases since July 7. WKBN

Trumbull County officials have yet to reach a deal to bring sanitary sewer services to the new General Motors/LG Chem battery-cell plant being constructed in Lordstown. The Vindicator [May encounter paywall.]

With the Canfield Fair closed this year to all except Junior Fair competitors, the annual event is moving largely online. On Tuesday, the Canfield Fair launched its official podcast, "Something to Crow About." The Business Journal [May encounter registration wall.]

Those big C-130 airplanes we're used to seeing fly over the Valley are now sharing the skies with an even larger plane. The 910th Airlift Wing at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station announced that C-17 Globemaster II cargo planes have been flying from their base in Pittsburgh to conduct training exercises in the less congested airspace here. WFMJ

In case you missed it

Mahoning Valley Sojourn to the Past Executive Director Penny Wells says advocacy is her calling. Her life has been a spectacular journey as a civil rights advocate. "I feel like that in my life, that was God calling me to this, like, this is what I'm supposed to do. Sojourn, social advocacy has been part of my life forever," she told Mahoning Matters.

This story was made possible by Eastwood Mall.

Your comments matter

"I do a lot of online shopping from many stores out of necessity. As soon as the item pops up on the store website, it says not available at your store (identified by ZIP code). My question is, why not? I'd like to support local stores, but …"

— Norma Roden, on columnist Liz Dreier describing a local shopping experience.

Registered readers can comment on a selection of our stories, and all readers can comment on stories on our Facebook page. Opinions published here do not reflect the views of Mahoning Matters.

Event of the day

Lit Youngstown will present a free reading by Youngstown natives William Heath and Susan Petrone at 7 p.m. on Zoom and Facebook Live. An open-mic will follow. Click here to register on Zoom. Click here to watch on Facebook.

To see what else is going on around the Mahoning Valley, check out Mahoning Matters' event calendar here, or click the Events tab on the top menu at mahoningmatters.com.

Story tips

Is there a story you think we should know about? Please tell us at news@mahoningmatters.com.

Let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful for you. Send your ideas and thoughts to mark@mahoningmatters.com. If you want to get this in your email inbox, sign up here.

This story was originally published September 2, 2020 at 6:55 AM with the headline "Your Morning Matters: Talking about Traficant."