Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is a bad guy. In a different time, political people of all stripes would agree. Stiffing an elder out of over $50k is the kind of thing that made everyone condemn you at one time. The thing is, Bob is a bad guy under 2026’s partisan lense too though. He hated Barack Obama. He hated Colin Kaepernick too. Newsflash here- the guy doesn’t really like Black guys with political opinions, or at least he didn’t before he was running for Congress. He was a gun nut and school prayer proponent before too. In no measurable way was this man a good guy, according to Democratic values. He really wasn’t by non-political, neutral values either. Republicans are going to point out his personal finances and voters are going to cringe. He’s the one candidate who can lose to Mackenzie for sure. People will see right through the “working class hero” and see a bum.

The thing is, it’s way worse than I even previously wrote. While I was “away” at St. Luke’s, we learned where all his shady money went- shady causes. Much like he now runs as a “progressive champion,” it seems everything Crooksy believes in has a price tag:

Of U.S. immigration law enforcement, Brooks writes in his campaign platform: “In America, we don’t send masked men to kidnap people off the street and throw them into unmarked cars. It’s bullshit and un-American.” Brooks’ wife owns up to $1,000 worth of stock in government contractor Palantir, a company co-founded by Republican megadonor Peter Thiel that provides technology to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find and deport undocumented immigrants.

Regarding Americans staying healthy, Brooks writes: “No more lining the pockets of insurance and drug company bosses. Healthcare should work for people.” Brooks or his wife owns stock in several pharmaceutical and health insurance companies, including drugmaker AbbVie (up to $1,000), pharmaceuticals and medical products distributor Cardinal Health (up to $15,000), insurance company Elevance Health (up to $15,000) and insurance company Humana (up to $1,000), according to his financial disclosure.

In a statement to NOTUS, Brooks’ campaign manager Jenna Kaufman said Brooks has never personally traded stocks — the couple uses a professional investment management firm to steer their stock holdings, according to Brooks’ financial disclosure.

“Once in Congress, neither he nor his wife will own individual stocks,” said Kaufman, who did not answer questions about the couple’s personal investment philosophy or indicate whether Brooks and his wife would divest of their individual stock holdings in the meantime.

Among other stocks owned by Brooks or his wife: shares of Chevron, Meta, Nvidia and Tesla. Brooks and his wife together also own between $2,000 and $30,000 worth of stock in Amazon.com, which has faced accusations of illegal union busting and formal complaints alleging as much.

Brooks’ exact net worth is unclear, as congressional candidates are only required by law to list the values of their assets and liabilities in broad ranges, such as “$1,001 to $15,000” or “$50,001 to $100,000.”

Taken together, Brooks and his wife could be worth as little as about $148,000 and as much as $3.89 million, according to a NOTUS analysis of more than 220 individual assets and liabilities Brooks disclosed on Jan. 28.

Crooksy is going to make excuses about why he’s running as if he’s Bernie Sanders, but investing as if he’s Elon Musk. The Governor is going to defend him, because it’s good for him in 2028. Allentown’s electeds will defend him too, because they don’t want to get on the wrong side of the fire fighters. It’s all self interest, and it’s everything wrong with the Democratic Party. One of the main reasons we can’t get the votes of people we claim to want to help is that they know we’re full of shit. This dude is invested in Palantir and Chevron, but wants you to know he’s a working class champion who will stop Trump- do you think any normal, functioning human being believes this? Like, outside of hardened partisans, do we really think anyone buys this guy’s lies? Be serious with yourself, he is running as a lie. The truth is that this guy was a relatively mediocre, normal, white male citizen with semi-racist views and money issues, people puffed him up by telling him he could be a very important person in Congress, and now we’re all being fed a line of pony loaf and being told it’s good for us. This was a bad idea from the start, hence why I wrote the original piece about him and left his name out, because I hoped he wouldn’t do this to us. He’s a narcissist though, and he can’t help himself.

You can’t pee on someone’s leg and tell them it’s raining. Voters who aren’t rabid partisans are not going to see this man as a “working class hero.” Perhaps 2026 will be such a partisan wave that it won’t matter, but I doubt that. Sooner or later, voters are going to view this guy as the entitled “fat cat” that he is, and it’s going to be a problem. It’s going to be a problem because it’s true. It’s all true. You can’t lie to people forever.

Yesterday a web poll came out that was very obviously from Ryan Crosswell or someone supporting him. They tested a lot of statements, good and bad, about Crosswell. They tested mostly positive messages about Lamont McClure and Carol Obando-Derstine. They tested a bunch of negatives and a little positive on Bob “Crooksy” Brooks. It was by no means a complete poll, but it was much better than the slop Crooksy released.

By no means is this a real poll and the numbers you will eventually get will be whatever point in the poll tested most positive for Crosswell. However the message testing was very interesting. It was almost familiar. It was everything you’ve read here about Crooksy. In fact, I can now say with certainty that whoever dropped me the dossier on Crooksy last year was connected to Crosswell somehow. The reason I know that? I hadn’t yet wrote about Crooksy supporting election deniers, but it was in the dossier. It was in the poll yesterday. Even the wording was the same. I have to tip my cap to the Crosswell folks, good job here. Everything they found was accurate and true, and they got it out into the lifeblood of local politics ahead of their actually using it. Grade A work.

In case you’re wondering if I’m mad about it, I’m not. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is the worst candidate of the real ones. His personal baggage would lose him the general election, nominating him would be a mistake. I don’t like the idea of nominating a union buster and Republican as the Democrat in PA-7, and I don’t trust Crosswell, but I find him less fraudulent and more electable than Crooksy. I think nominating a Republican carpet bagger is reprehensible, but I find it less repulsive than nominating a guy who stole from his mother-in-law and won’t pay her back.

Also, apologies to Carol Obando-Derstine’s team, who while I had never written it, I long suspected was behind sending me the Crooksy info. I’m pretty certain they were not.

Mark Pinsley is running for Congress right now in PA-7, and at least according to Facebook, still has an even scheduled for this weekend. He should keep it up. Of course, the street rumors are churning that Pinsley will soon drop out of the race to run for the 16th District in the PA Senate. The preferred story out there is pretty predictable- that seat is winnable, the writing is on the wall, and he lacks money. Those are all pretty good reasons to make the move, if we’re being honest. The problem is, these stories are like a night club, you can get in, or if you know someone who owns the place, you can really get in. You see, Mark Pinsley is a serious problem for Bob “Crooksy” Brooks, the preferred candidate of the Harrisburg Good Ole’ Boys. They want to make Crooksy the “working class hero” of the left in this race, hence his endorsement from Bernie Sanders, but it’s all fraudulent. A lot of people are realizing that Mark has actually been honestly talking like a leftist populist for a long time. They are going to have to astroturf that kind of movement for Crooksy. So the more juicy version of this story that people who know, but don’t like it, are trying to get out there is this- the 16th State Senate District nomination to take on Jarrett Coleman can be had, if he just moves over to that race, from this one. They may insinuate support or money for that, I’m not privy to that, so it’s not clear.

Look, if in fact Mark can actually go to that race and cleanly clear the field and flip it, then he should do that. That’s not clear though. First, he did lose by nearly 10% last time. Second, this race is going to be anything but clean and clear. The Bucks County Democrats chose to endorse Pennridge School Board Member Bradley Merkl-Gump, who defeated the “Moms for Liberty” slate on that school board in 2023. That endorsement has come under fire by activists and other candidates alike. Lehigh County resident Juan Vargas decided he’s just going to run anyway. Ruby-red Richlandtown Mayor Wayne Codner, a Black veteran winning in deep red territory, is likely to run. And well, the commentary on the endorsement was basically awful in the article. The Red, Wine, and Blue organizer said no one likes it, a Democratic consultant said the party has no idea what they’re doing. This primary is going to be ugly and brutal.

There’s a fairly decent chance that Pinsley can win this primary. He has been the nominee before, he’s an elected official in the county with more voters, and he’s run before. That’s far from a sure thing though. And then there’s the question of whether he should want that. Does he want to run as an anti-establishment candidate against candidates who are literally living the anti-establishment mantra right now? Does he want to win an ugly primary and spend any money he has trying to claw through it? Does he really believe all the state leaders and labor unions saying the seat is open right now are going to fund him at the level he needs to beat a Yass-funded candidate? Yeah, there’s lots of maybes there. Maybes don’t often become yes’s, and they never do when you need a bunch of them in a row.

Yeah, I’m sure everyone is telling him he has no shot to win the Congressional race. I don’t think he’s a favorite or anything. But if he’s going to roll the dice on coming up with a flush here, why not go for more consequential victory?

I told you on Sunday that they were holding a debate without press, at the request of Croosky’s campaign. I get it, the guy can’t talk off of a script. As it turns out, the details were even dumber than I was initially told. Some guy at the DCCC was actually making the demands for no press, and even no candidate questions for each other. He basically wanted robotic answers and no possibility of anyone slipping up. This is incredibly stupid and kind of gets to the point- they want to push an absolute potato of a candidate on us without testing anything about the guy. They’d rather wait until the general election to see how their guy handles being called out for being a crook. I get why. At a recent Lehigh Valley 4 All meeting, when asked about funding for Israel, Crooksy pulled his shirt up over his face and then proceeded to try and say he’d cut off war funding, but would let them keep the Iron Dome. Hopefully he knows the difference between the Iron Dome and the “Golden Domers” at Notre Dame, but I’m not holding my breath there. He was so awful in his answer that the video is now set to private. Anything to hide this man’s weakness. The problem is, their luck will run out there. For as much as I have released about Crooksy on here so far, the Republicans already have far more. A former fireman who decided not to share information with me about him instead recently took his dossier of interesting info to a Republican lobbyist in Washington. They’re going to tear this guy to shreds.

What’s actually the point of even having a debate if no one sees it? I’d argue that five of these seven candidates have very little to no name recognition right now, including the DCCC’s chosen potato. I mean, they’re debating in a room full of basically well informed, decided voters. No one else got to see it. No live stream, no videos, no press coverage. Did it even happen? If I didn’t have people in the room to tell me about it, I wouldn’t be able to prove it. Honestly, if the support staff doesn’t want these guys to debate, I think they’d be better off just saying don’t have the debate. Honestly, who even benefited from this?

I told you before that despite losing his manager to a job with the Governor, Republican Ryan Crosswell has a huge pile of money for his Congressional run. That’s sort of true. Yes, his shady out-of-town, union buster donors are writing him shit tons of money. He raised $443,757 in Q4, putting him at $1,144,864.79 for his 2025 fundraising. That’s pretty impressive. Until you look at the full report. Crosswell, who is virtually unknown yet to the voters of the 7th Congressional District, where he never lived until this election cycle, spent a whopping $532,615.04 so far in this election. No, he really hasn’t done any direct contact to voters yet. He has $612,250 on hand. That’s an astounding burn rate. I guess the important guys in DC really told him how to run his race. With that said, even this looks competent in the field. He has spent 46.5% of what he has raised so far. That’s absolutely incredible, and not in a good way.

Bob “Crooksy” Brooks must be taking the same advice, he’s just not as good at this. I guess that’s why Harrisburg bosses want to buy it for him. Crooksy got crushed again by Republican Crosswell, raising $301,698 even with the Governor’s help. To date, Crooksy has raised $609,957.05. He has spent an astounding $269,189.98 to date. This leaves him with $340,767.07. I couldn’t even believe his report. No one who doesn’t read this site knows who the hell this guy is yet, and he’s spent nearly half of his money already. If anyone hits him for stiffing his mother-in-law, hating Barack Obama, being a religious fanatic and gun nut, and posting racist shit online, he’ll have to divert his funds away from introducing himself to defending that. He’s spent 44% of his funds as is, and has little to show for it.

I have to admit, I did not think Lamont McClure would have this much trouble raising money, given his track record. But alas, here we are. McClure has raised $480,615.99 so far in the campaign, with $200k of that coming from himself. He raised just $21,770 in the last quarter. He has spent $193,025.79 to date. He has $287,590.20 on hand. Basically Crooksy has spent what he has on hand, Crosswell has spent more, and they’re still behind, which is really what he has to hang his hat on here. He has spent 40% of his money, which is far too much. His report is here. If everyone is going to be left throwing rocks though at the end, he probably wins that. The optics aren’t great, but he has less to introduce than these other folks.

Mark Pinsley’s campaign is in a worse version of the same situation. Pinsley raised $52,088 last quarter, and $125,194.46 for the year. He spent an utterly insane $75,177.31, or the majority of his money. He has $50,017.15 on hand, but also has a debt of $1,567.67. If you don’t believe me, check out his report. Listen, I actually like Mark personally, so don’t get this twisted. The guy has spent 60% of his money. I’m not sure anyone outside of Lehigh County knows much about him. He can basically afford like a little more than one piece of mail to the whole electorate right now.

Carol Obando-Derstine’s situation is interesting, because she raised six figures, but yet the finances look bleak. She raised $100,625 in Q4 and $431,919.36 for the year. She spent a crazy $308,411.36 so far, or most of her money. She has $123,508 on hand, and a $12,500 debt. She spent 71.4% of what she raised. You can check it out here. I guess she’s in a better place than Pinsley, but it feels like she should have spent much less.

Aiden Alexander Gonzalez report isn’t up yet, so we have no idea how he did. Lewis Arthur Shupe doesn’t even turn up a committee when you google him, so I’m going with God there.

Look, I think using fundraising numbers to pick your candidate is the dumbest thing ever. Does anyone really think the DCCC and national Democratic Party PACs aren’t going to come in here and spend in the general election? Of course they are, they have to, there’s no way we win the House and don’t win this seat- unless we nominate a dope of a candidate. You try to pick the candidate who has the best combination of good ideas and a chance to win, both at once. Perfect policy positions are meaningless if you have no shot of winning, and being the most electable candidate ever is worthless if you’re basically going to vote with the other side. The point of looking at these numbers is guessing what their chances of victory are. I don’t think any of them have enough money right now for the stretch run of this race. Television is expensive in the Philadelphia media market. Mail is not cheap in this day and age. Digital? Yeah, it’ll cost you. If you think field organizing is going to win you a race like this, just understand you need to scale up to a Congressional District’s sized field operation- which is expensive. Nobody has that here. Perhaps Crooksy’s dark money gets him there. Maybe Emily’s List gets Carol over the line. Maybe Crosswell just has another good quarter and out spends everyone two-to-one, and the fact that he’s a union-busting Republican doesn’t matter. Or, just maybe, McClure hangs on to this thing by spending wisely. I don’t know. This looks increasingly to me though like it’s a rock and spear chucking battle, and not an atomic age showdown.

I got a text this morning with some news about the PA-7 Congressional primary- Republican Ryan Crosswell is losing his campaign manager to Governor Shapiro. You may remember the manager from this, so maybe you don’t think it’s a big deal, but we are now only a couple months from the primary. I don’t know this person, so there is no way to confirm it, but it would obviously change the campaign a lot if it’s true.

It may or may not be a big deal for Crosswell. He was burning some 40% of his campaign money up to this point, and probably needs to spend it since no one knows who he is. With that said, it’s more telling to me where this text says the manager is going- the Governor’s campaign. You wonder who initiated this, and if it’s just the latest attempt to try and rig this primary for Crooksy, because they fear he can’t do it himself unless he is running against a bunch of incompetent candidates? The amount of effort to create a candidate with this many flaws is remarkable to me. Why not just back one of the actual Democrats from the Lehigh Valley who wanted to run to begin with?