Youngstown is on the precipice by Bertram de Souza of The Vindicator

Welcome to Bertram de Souza's hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, where he has been the lead opinion writer for the region's leading daily newspaper, "The Vindicator", for decades. In his weekly Sunday column, Mr. de Souza is the only local journalist who holds public officials accountable. Sometimes this writer is brutal and malicious, but in this Sunday's column he writes of a Democratic Party Chairman who is about as impotent as a muzzled poodle; a mayor convicted of innumerable crimes involving the public trust who refuses to leave office; a corrupt city government filled with rogues who more or less do whatever pleases them and ingratiates them (just as "Baby Doc" Duvalier once ran Haiti); and a bullying, billionaire, shopping-mall magnate who collects local politicians to his war chest just as an adept chess player throws captured pawns into a box on the side of the game board.