The interview process with the five candidates was done by union members in Pennsylvania. According to at least one former public sector union employee with knowledge of that room, the people doing the interview were not super impressed with Crooksy, but they liked Carol Obando-Derstine a lot. Now I’m a little bit surprised there on the one hand, because no other major union has backed Carol so far, but a lot of her message does overlap with the message of SEIU, so I tend to believe it. If the folks who actually did the interview had votes that mattered to the fat cats and big whigs, they were going to be the very first union to endorse Carol in this race. Apparently the folks in the interview don’t have votes that matter though.
Apparently in the conversations to get deadbeat Bernie Sanders to endorse Crooksy, the question of who else would come out and endorse him on day one came up. Bernie allied Congressman Chris Deluzio followed him into the race, just like he followed him out here for a rally (Note dude- this is not going to get you elected statewide, but cook bro.). The Governor had apparently decided to not get involved, but was willing to offer up the Lieutenant Governor as a consolation prize. The IAFF was in, because it would be absolutely hilarious if they didn’t back their own statewide President. But Bernie wanted a little more cover. Apparently the Sanders political operation has very good relations with SEIU’s political operation these days. One conversation lead to another, and the SEIU folks down in DC leaned their weight on the SEIU folks in Pennsylvania, and Carol lost her only labor endorsement to the man called Bob “Crooksy” Brooks.
Well, it’s time. The 2025 NFL Season is here, and right about now the banner is going up in Philadelphia. Yesterday I did my pre-season prediction for every game of the season. If I ever put this into parlay form, I would not only not win money, I would be institutionalized. I decided to pick my Eagles to repeat, because I still think they have the best overall roster in football and they’re winners. Something in my gut says they lose in the NFC title game or something because they get stuck on the road, but screw it, hope springs eternal. It is a brutal schedule though.
I picked an Eagles-Bengals Super Bowl, won by the Eagles. I picked the Eagles (NFC East), Lions (NFC North), Buccaneers (NFC South), Rams (NFC West), Bills (AFC East), Ravens (AFC North), Texans (AFC South), and Chiefs (AFC West) to win their divisions. I’m calling C.J. Stroud my dark horse pick for MVP.
I absolutely don’t care who the Eagles beat in the Super Bowl, anyone is fine with me. If we don’t win, I could live with watching the Bills, Ravens, Lions, or Bengals winning one, but I don’t think they will. I do want an Eagles-Chiefs III Super Bowl, and this time I want a 56-0 shut out so that Mahomes, Andy, and Travis can get one more ass whooping from this group. They need to pay dearly for the stolen championship of 2022.
Back in training camp, I tried my first hand at ranking the Quarterbacks of the NFL. A lot has changed since. No one has a QB4 now. Almost no one has a QB3. Every team has named their starter now. There’s a lot more clarity. Now that we got through that, I figured it was time to try my hand again.
Zeke, in happier times, at one of my Dad’s shows, with my Dad and Uncle.
On Monday, the news broke around town that Palmer Township Supervisor, owner of Easton Beverage, and longtime youth football coach in Palmer, Charles “Zeke” Bellis had been found dead. While I knew Zeke was having some health issues, it was a shock. I’ve known Zeke back to when I was in second grand and out playing football in the township. I knew the guy so long to be on both sides of it with him at different times. I’ll tell you what though, that was one helluva guy. Here’s what I wrote about his death on Facebook a couple of days ago:
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the passing of Zeke today. When public officials and political operatives I know die, I go back and read throughgh our texts, looking to see what I missed in real time about them. In this case I missed nothing. Zeke was who I thought, and maybe I didn’t appreciate that enough. I knew Zeke as the good guy and the bad guy at different points. He was always just him though. He was devoted to Palmer Township, and Easton in general. After all these years on this Earth, I appreciate the shit out of that. Someone who was exactly who he said he was, for whatever you thought of it. I enjoyed our conversations later on in life at the beer distributor, about football and local politics. Palmer should have been so lucky to have guys like that. I send my best to his mother. And my town.
I think I basically got across what I wanted to there. Zeke was a genuine article. I’ll go a half step further though. The one thing I don’t think I emphasized enough was that this guy really, really loved where he was from. He was proud to have grown up in Palmer, he was proud to have been an Easton Red Rover, and he was God damned proud as hell when his township placed their confidence in him by finally electing him. “The beer man cometh.” By God, he did.
I know a lot of politicians. They’ll put on a suit and tie for you. They’ll tell you stuff you want to hear. Increasingly, they’ll try to be what Zeke actually was- authentic, blue collar. There’s good and bad with that, but at least it’s honest. I’ll miss going down and talking to him when I buy beer.
Anyway, I felt like it was important to say a little more here. This guy was a true public servant, in the sense that he wanted to make things better for people. That’s rare these days. It wasn’t some ideological fever dream that made him coach football, or serve on the recreation board, or even serve as Supervisor. He just wanted to try his hand at doing good. He’s gone, but I’m proud of him, in the final analysis.
View his obituary here. Viewing services are 4-7pm, fittingly on a game day Friday in Easton. RIP.
Meet union busting, carpetbagger Republican Ryan Crosswell. I’m sorry you have to, but he and his rich Republican friends are trying to buy him a seat in Congress. His manager claims PA-7 is accepting him with open arms, but every single donor he has but one was from outside of the district. Of course, if his manager has his way, you probably don’t really understand where the district is. Honestly, if you listen to Crosswell’s out-of-touch manager, you might actually believe the sky is green.
Crosswell’s manager either doesn’t know that Pottsville is not in the 7th Congressional District, or doesn’t want you to know it’s in the 9th District. Just read the response he gave to attacks on his lack of any connection to our community.
Grimshaw added Crosswell was a “lifelong Republican that suddenly changed his thinking and became a Democrat to run in our district… [and] to my knowledge, until recently, he never even lived here.”
Worob noted Crosswell grew up in Pottsville.
“Like a lot of Pennsylvanians, Ryan left the state for public service. He joined the Marine Corps, then served as a federal prosecutor,” Worob said.
“He has spent his life serving his country, because that’s what people from here do — they put others before themselves. And like many people who leave Pennsylvania to serve, he decided to come home when his service was over.
“The people of the Lehigh Valley and this district have welcomed him with open arms.”
Again, who the hell is welcoming him with open arms? All of his donors don’t live here and absolutely no one is endorsing him. Second, Ryan Crosswell did not “come home” to the Lehigh Valley. After the Marines, Crosswell moved to North Carolina to bust unions, then to Louisiana to do some Prosecuting, and then to Washington, DC to do Donald Trump’s bidding. This guy didn’t “come home,” he’s almost certainly never been to Jimmy’s Hot Dogs, or went to a show in the old “Croc Rock,” or spent an evening taking in the salad bar at the Bethlehem Diner. His home is Pottsville. That’s not here. In fact, it’s a bit of a ride.
Then there’s the whole matter of Crosswell busting unions. Here’s what his guy had to say:
“Ryan worked at a large law firm early in his career, and left that job over a decade ago to join the Department of Justice where he protected our country from fraudsters, pedophiles and corrupt politicians until the day that Donald Trump tried to force him to drop a case against one of his cronies,” Worob said in a prepared statement.First off, Crosswell started buying domains for a Congressional campaign years before Eric Adams was even charged with a crime. Potato, Poh-tat-oh, right? But let’s talk about what Ryan Crosswell says he did at Littler-Mendelson:
McClure noted candidate and former federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell‘s work with Littler Mendelson — “the largest union-avoidance law firm in the United States,” according to McClure, who is Northampton County executive.
“This firm made millions helping corporations crush organizing efforts,” he said. “That’s not someone who shares labor’s values or belongs in a Democratic primary.”
Crosswell’s campaign manager Noa Worob said Crosswell never worked on a case that involved union busting.
Here’s the truth though- Crosswell got out of law school and took a job at a firm that does major union busting activities. He literally says he didn’t bust unions, he just sued employees to enforce non-compete agreements that are straight up predatory in nature. It’s disgusting. Of course when Crosswell went to that firm, he registered to vote as a Republican. He registered as a Republican in North Carolina before the 2012 Election, probably helping Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama there. Then he moved to Louisiana and registered as a Republican there, voting in their 2016 Republican Primary and in the general election- I’d love to know who he voted for in that Republican Primary. Then he took a job from Donald Trump and registered as a Republican in Washington, D.C. as Trump enacted the Muslim ban, appointed judges who overturned Roe v. Wade, and eventually attempted a coup on January 6th, 2021 to overturn an election. He voted in the 2020 Election as a Republican and stayed registered as a Republican even when Trump was trying to overturn our democracy and his allies on the Supreme Court were taking away a woman’s right to choose. According to the latest voting records I saw, Crosswell didn’t even return his ballot for the 2024 Election. Then he’d like you to know he became very angry and left the GOP. Honest to God.
In plain English, Ryan Crosswell worked at one of the largest union-busting law firms in America. At that firm, he says he tried to enforce predatory agreements against low wage workers to prevent them from moving jobs. He registered as a Republican multiple times, including after Trump was elected President, and voted in Republican Presidential Primaries and in general elections as a Republican. Crosswell lived everywhere but in the Lehigh Valley, and this was never his home at any point in his life.
Ryan Crosswell is a Republican. Ryan Crosswell is a carpetbagger. Ryan Crosswell screwed over the working man. He’s really hoping you’re too dumb to realize that.
Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is the kind of working class hero who stiffs his mother-in-law for $55,000, so you know he’s an authority on helping out the little guy. Like his hero, Deadbeat Bernie Sanders, Crooksy thinks the Democratic Party sucks. They apparently don’t want to talk to working class people, Crooksy says:
His campaign is playing up his volunteerism as a youth baseball coach and his tattoo: a bulldog in a fire helmet.
“The party of labor, I believe, is the Democrat Party, but I don’t think the Democrat Party talks about or to the working class people anymore, and I think we need to get back to that,” Brooks said in an interview. “The Republicans, they talked about us, they talk to us, but then they go down to DC and they vote against us.”
Here’s what you need to know- Bob Brooks is a fraud, he’s a poor man’s version of John Fetterman. “Oh look at me, I have tattoos, Bernie Sanders loves me, and I say the word middle class and how the Democratic Party sucks, three times in every paragraph that comes out of my mouth!” Of course I was against John Fetterman in 2022, but you know, that’s history. Brooks has the same media team trying to create a picture of him that is very similar to the one Fetterman began with. They’re flat out lying to you. This guy is a blue collar hero like milk from last month is still good for you. Kind of like he’s “endorsed by Josh Shapiro,” but Shapiro has said that nowhere.
New week, new rankings. Here was week one. Then here is week two. Here’s last week’s. Away we go with this week’s.
The Milwaukee Brewers
The Philadelphia Phillies
The Toronto Blue Jays
The Detroit Tigers
The Chicago Cubs
The Boston Red Sox
The Los Angeles Dodgers
The New York Yankees
The Houston Astros
The San Diego Padres
The New York Mets
The Seattle Mariners
The Texas Rangers
The Cincinnati Reds
The Kansas City Royals
The San Francisco Giants
The Cleveland Guardians
The St. Louis Cardinals
The Arizona Diamondbacks
The Tampa Bay Rays
The Miami Marlins
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
The Oakland Athletics
The Baltimore Orioles
The Atlanta Braves
The Minnesota Twins
The Washington Nationals
The Pittsburgh Pirates
The Chicago White Sox
The Colorado Rockies
Ok, I’ll give you a little more commentary this week. I wanted to move virtually every top 12 team down at a different point in this past week. The reality though is we’ve played five months, and teams kind of are who they are now. The top five teams all have 80 or more wins with 23 or 24 games to go. They should all be 90 plus win teams. Everyone from six to twelve is a playoff team right now with 73 or more wins. Then from 13th back to like 20th, there’s somewhere between a chance and an insane hope of still getting in. After that, I’m almost ranking them based on the vibes. Is this team interesting to watch at least, since they aren’t good. The team trending hardest in the wrong direction is Atlanta. That’s all for now.
This guy, who fashions himself a big labor leader, and is banking on essentially usurping the labor support of other candidates, didn’t even want to go hang out with the union people. Sure, he raised a decent amount (less than Crosswell) on his launch, but that was pushed to him by DCCC employees and Deadbeat Bernie’s friends. This guy has no idea what it takes to campaign and win a seat. This fire is too big for Crooksy, and he will prove that to you, again and again.
Bob Brooks told folks he had the support of the Governor. I guess he meant the Lt. Governor. He also claimed Hakeem Jeffries himself wanted him to run. Maybe he meant Deadbeat Bernie Sanders. Then there was his claim that labor was going to run over to support his campaign. I guess he only meant SEIU and his own Fire Fighters union.
I suppose Bobby found some friends though, as you can see in his graphic above- a bunch of State Legislators who don’t live in the 7th Congressional District. You have Representatives and Senators from as close as Mt. Pocono and Scranton, or Philadelphia and lower Bucks County to the South, and as far as from Harrisburg and west of Pittsburgh, and hell, even Erie. What you don’t see is either Democratic State Senator from the Lehigh Valley. You don’t see any of Allentown’s Democratic State Representatives, either of Bethlehem’s, or the one in Easton. You don’t see the Lehigh County Executive, the former Democratic Congresswoman, or any local Lehigh Valley politician. No one here, who actually has to deal with nominating Bob Brooks actually wants to nominate Bob Brooks. He has a laundry list of Democratic politicians from the rest of the state, all of whom are making the political calculation that it’s good politics to support a statewide union President in some other district. I get it. It’s very misleading though. It’s probably helping him raise money, his campaign is claiming to have raised $100k in the first 24 hours, but I’m sure that’s largely from outside of the Lehigh Valley too, like an other candidate.
Maybe the problem for Brooks is too many people in PA-7 know too much. The stakes in the Lehigh Valley are too high to back a candidate who probably won’t be able to defend himself when the Republicans come for him. He calls himself a “family man” on his website, but the conduct doesn’t match the words.
This whole campaign is a John Fetterman styled bait and switch. Run as one thing, be another. Build all kinds of support from people not here, be vague with everything, then be something totally different. Not coincidentally some of the same folks are involved. I have a feeling the disappointment will come earlier this time. There’s a reason they call this man Crooksy.
Apocalypse Vibes 