I got a call from a little birdy yesterday (funniest description ever) about local political goings on. There was a lot of news, on all kinds of different topics. One piece of news though was hilarious to me.
A certain member of County Council, running for re-election in 2025, apparently has told people *they* (no I’m not giving it away) plan to introduce legislation at Northampton County Council tonight to scrap the County Executive and return to the three person commissioner system that most counties use.
Say what?
Northampton County passed a Home Rule Charter that basically serves as it’s constitution. That charter created an elected Executive to run the day-to-day goings of the government. Many other counties don’t have that, and are sort of ran by a part-time Commissioner board, but are mostly run by unelected bureaucrats and people who “go along to get along” running departments. They raise taxes whenever they feel like it, and tend to do what is most popular in the government center. They don’t give a shit about public sentiment and they only answer to a bunch of commissioners who don’t really know how the government runs, because they’re not there. It’s an awful system and it isn’t responsive to the public.
I’m not going to name this council person, I like them personally and I hope that posting this ahead of time discourages their poor behavior. They are not doing this because they believe it’s a good idea, they’re doing this because they do not like the current County Executive and they do not like who they think will be the next County Executive. This is petty politics at it’s worst, the kind of mean girl shit that will make life worse for the public. If you don’t like Lamont McClure, Phil Armstrong, Tara Zrinski, or any other person who tries to be County Executive, you run a campaign against them. If people elect a County Executive twice or more, you should just tip your cap- they do represent what the public wants. Running around talking about being a check on elected power, when the voters can kick out that official if they want, is simply living in denial. Deciding you’re going to get rid of the office because you think the voters are going to vote for a third time the opposite of what you think they should is anti-democracy behavior of the worst type. I know this kind of bullshit behavior is par for the course in MAGA right now, but hopefully we’re not going to see this individual try this crap with the county government.
He’s got the black hoodie. He talks about “fighting” in Washington. He claims he’s a blue collar guy. He’s supported by Bernie Sanders. He has the same media consultants as Bernie, Fetterman, and Zohran. He’d like you to call him Brooksy. He stiffed his mother-in-law though, so on here we call him “Crooksy.”
Crooksy went on the Upper Lehigh Dems podcast/zoom to talk about his campaign. I needed to watch the leaves fall off trees in my neighborhood though, so I was too busy to listen to this guy lie about what a champion for the little guy he is. He is only the champion for some little guys, I think. I’m not going to listen to him lie when everything we need to know about him was litigated in public. A friend of the blog did watch though, a very skilled friend, and they had some thoughts.
Gotta tell ya, he is just not political material. I cannot imagine him going toe to toe with Rs in Congress or even some of his D colleagues.
Yep.
DC people pushed him and his head got big
Even more yep. He’s not at all of the caliber to do this. He’s not even someone who has shown us he can win anything. If we nominated this guy, one of two things will happen. It’s most likely that everything I received on him, and probably worse, is used against him, and Ryan Mackenzie wins another term. Under the unlikely scenario where this guy wins, he goes to Washington and is the next John Fetterman. Look, I was for Conor Lamb, so I don’t want to watch the rest of you get duped again. Send Crooksy off to the retirement he earned and give someone real a chance.
When I was a new voter in my college years, the Lehigh County Republican Party had begun their Fall. Democrats took back the County Executive’s job in 2005, a job the GOP has not won since, across three different elected Executives. The Lehigh County GOP had just face planted in 2001 in Allentown after a couple of terms in charge, then they lost to Ed Pawlowski and never got that job back either, three elected Mayors later. Lehigh County only has a small piece of Bethlehem, but they lose a lot there too. They managed to hang on to some visible power for years with Pat Toomey, Charlie Dent, and Pat Browne, but all of them have been sent off to the GOP inquisition for excommunication at the altar of Trump. As all of this went on, the Lehigh County GOP managed to lose all four at-large seats in the 2019 and 2023 elections and be relegated into a deep minority status on the Commissioner board, regardless of who the Democrats run and who funds the race. In short, the Lehigh County Republican Party has a recent record of success that looks like the New York Jets.
It’s safe to say the Lehigh County GOP has no “Broadway Joe” walking in to save them anytime soon though, so the Jets comparisons are fair. Instead they have Roger Maclean, a former Democrat that says he was always a Trump voter, and served as Ed Pawlowski’s hand picked city councilman and police chief, rubber stamping Pawlowski’s corrupt budgets. Maclean made a fool of himself in a recent debate, where he said he would fix the looming fiscal crisis in the county caused by the state’s overdue budget magically- “we’ll get our money.” Despite complaints to the contrary, Maclean was actually a terrible police chief too. Not only was there law breaking going on in city hall, Maclean had cops arrested in connection with rape, sex trafficking, and other horrific charges while he was chief in Allentown. Basically his cops were assaulting prostitutes and stealing money they recovered in drug busts, allegedly. Not only that, but crime fell immediately after Maclean left the job, both overall and in violent crimes. This guy is a dud.
Not only is the Lehigh County GOP running an ex-Pawlowski Democrat that was asleep on the job, they’re encouraging voters to “vote to honor Charlie” Kirk. Look, it’s awful that the guy was gunned down by a psychopath, but he has literally nothing to do with Lehigh County. I would venture a guess that over 90% of the folks who have discussed him in recent weeks never watched him. This has nothing to do with keeping Cedarbrook open, or how much to cooperate with ICE detainers, or running the children and youth departments, or open space preservation, or really anything within Lehigh County Government. It’s just a straight appeal to the most animal instincts of one portion of the electorate to be mad. Of course, in fairly blue Lehigh County, that won’t be enough for them, but they’re kind of just hoping more normal, moderate voters don’t notice this.
Unfortunately for them, that probably won’t happen.
I haven’t seen any full reports yet, but apparently we’re in for a bit of a surprise. Bob “Crooksy” Brooks definitely didn’t “rake in the cash,” only so far saying he beat $300k. That’s definitely not the $400k the DCCC rumor mill pushed. Despite touting his backing from a bunch of people from out of town and the non-endorsement that is supposed to be an endorsement from Governor Shapiro, Crooksy isn’t keeping pace with what his handlers are saying about him.
Meanwhile the word was that Ryan Crosswell was going to underwhelm. Well it doesn’t matter if it’s crushing Coors Light in DC or raising cash, he’s apparently keeping a serious pace. His campaign says they’ve raised $700k so far in two quarters. That would mean he raised $380k this past quarter. He probably beat Crooksy pretty badly.
Both of these guys have awful negatives and I think are very vulnerable. I think Crooksy probably has insurmountable negatives, no one likes a guy who stiffs his mother-in-law. Neither is a Democrat really, so I guess they both have primary problems. Crooksy was already $320k behind Union Busting Ryan to begin with, now it’s probably like $350k. Nobody knows who Crooksy is out there, it’s so bad that Mackenzie just left him out of his poll this week. Of course, earlier polling showed people didn’t really love Crooksy even when they were read a positive bio, so that’s probably for the best. Neither of these two are well known, but Crosswell will at least have money to try and cover up his bad behavior. If Crooksy keeps spending away his campaign money and missing his goals, he’ll be lucky to finish fourth in this primary. He should never have ran.
Ryan Crosswell’s manager says he’s feeling the love in Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, but every other metric says otherwise. No elected in the district backs him. No union backs him. He had one donor from the district on his first report. Look, it’s hard moving to a new place and making new friends, I get it. Ryan’s struggling a bit.
I have to hand it to him though, he’s a man after my own heart. A couple weeks ago he ran off to Washington, D.C. for a few days. I like to do that when I’m depressed and want to feel completely hopeless about the future. He went hanging out at a bar called “Problem Child” over by Nats Park in the Navy Yard, also known as “RNC South” for the folks living there. You know what, I’m still right with him, that’s exactly where I go to feel better about all of my flaws, the Navy Yard is full of people who will make you feel better about yourself. So far, I’m with him. He also went out drinking beer, and well, I definitely like beer. More importantly than me liking beer, I think any good candidate who isn’t literally a recovering alcoholic should be able to drink beer amongst the people, it shows you can relate to the masses. So far, I’d say Ryan is kind of winning me over with all of this. But… Coors? I mean look bro, why don’t you just order a water? At least the water isn’t created by a notorious anti-union company, and it probably will get you more drunk. If I were being called a Republican and a union-buster, while running in a Democratic Primary in a district I’m not from, I’d probably put down the Coors for at least a bit so that people can’t make the point once again that I don’t care about labor rights. Hey though, we all make choices.
The photo and others (more for later, right?) were forwarded to me in an e-mail from a friend. They were dated 9/18 and 9/19, so a Thursday and Friday. I don’t mind that Crosswell likes beer, I do too. This just all screams the main points about him though- he’s running not to represent the Valley, but to get back home to DC, and he doesn’t give a damn about Democratic values, because he isn’t one.
There is the whole matter though of how Bob “Crooksy” Brooks is raising $300k in the first place though. In multiple calls with local party leaders this week, they all remarked how he’s late for events and leaves before they’re over. At least two of these leaders made the remark to me though, “he does have the state party helping him.” Really? I’m not shocked that he has the Bernie grifters helping him raise money, and for that matter the same people who created Fetterman. The state party though? That’s fascinating. This is a Democratic Primary, almost all of the other candidates are definitely Democrats. The state committee, the elected body that governs the staff at the party, has not voted to endorse in this or any other Congressional Primary in years. No county party in the district has voted to endorse Crooksy. In fact, no elected official in this district is backing Crooksy. So under what authority are the new chairman and his staff helping this guy? Seems crooked as hell.
By now though everyone knows what’s going on here. Brooksy has no shot in hell against Ryan Mackenzie, they’ll drown him just with the fact that he stiffed his mother-in-law for $55k, let alone all the other stupid things. That was a temporary distraction though. No one has shown they are the certain nominee in this district, and Crooksy is good for the good ole’ boys in Harrisburg’s bottom line. Senator Fetterman’s mouthpieces get paid. The out-of-district legislators endorsing him get to come back to the IAFF later and remind them how they supported their guy. The Governor can say to IAFF leadership in his gubernatorial run, and his future Presidential run, that he has been a loyal soldier with them. Here’s the thing- that’s all true. The folks at the DCCC got to push some work to consultants they like too. Absolutely none of this does anything to win this seat and give the Democrats a majority in PA-7. We actually run the risk of nominating a dude who will be way over his head and get mugged by the GOP money machine in November. It’s a political dead end, and worse yet, even if I’m wrong and he does win, the guy is just another John Fetterman. Wasn’t it enough for the good ole’ boys in Harrisburg to push one massive mistake on us all? Do we need to do that again?
Does one district decide everything? No. This one is as close as you can get though. Nominating this guy and either losing or getting a shit Congressman will hurt people who need government to work. No one benefits from that. We need to sink this guy, and sink him fast. He’s a nightmare in waiting.
There will be millions of dollars spent on Pennsylvania’s judiciary this year. Millions will be spent on the Supreme Court’s retention race, where simply vote yes or no on each of the three incumbents (I recommend yes). The same will be said for the Superior Court and Commonwealth seats up for retention this year. There will be at least a few hundred grand spent on races for new seats on the Superior and Commonwealth Court as well. Here in the Lehigh Valley there is a singular seat on the Court of Common Pleas in both counties that is being competitively contested. All of these races will get plenty of attention and will stir up people’s emotions, just as races for County Executive, County Council, and municipal office will.
You know what hopefully doesn’t get you all hot and bothered this year? Retention votes for the Court of Common Pleas in Northampton County. Judge Paula Roscioli and Judge Sam Murray are both up for retention this year. Judge Roscioli has been on for 20 years. Judge Murray has been on for ten years. Both come highly recommended for another term by basically every lawyer I know in the county. They’re qualified, they’re competent, neither has done anything stupid or embarrassing to the community up there. Their colleagues speak highly of them. Give them another term.
Now here’s the only reason I’m writing about this- voting on these questions can be confusing. First off, the retention votes aren’t on the same part of the ballot as the votes for open judicial seats, so you have to go and find them and vote yes. Second off, a lot of money is going to be spent telling people to vote yes or no on other judicial retentions. Those are completely separate, more partisan races. I’m voting yes on those too, but maybe your politics are different than mine. Even if that’s the case, Democrats and Republicans alike approve of these judges. Vote yes to retain them.
First off, let me just respond to my own headline- I hope so. Really, as a fellow Moravian alum, I hope Rep. Flood abandoned all decorum. Why do I care? Apparently back in the old days, Murtha, Kanjorksi, and the boys used to show up on the House Floor late at night and yell drunken obscenities from the one corner of the U.S. House. Oh you think that’s dirty or mean? Give me a break. From what I hear, Rep. Flood has been defending her party’s senate caucus for not coming to work. What’s wrong with a lady from the Northern Tier of Northampton County letting it fly and yelling shit at a fellow member. Let me loose on the floor and I’d commit more violations just for the laughs. What has decorum brought us? If your answer is nothing, the answer is yes. She’s embarrassing her constituents, but they also voted for that.
The ugly side of this story did not come from Rep. Flood though. From the story told to me, some hillbilly from Central PA walked up to Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta after the showdown and called him “boy.” Really, conservatives, why are you being racist? Tell him you don’t approve and be done. The racism proves the point that your party is the hub of Nazis in 2025, and makes you unacceptable to a lot of people. You can’t defeat narratives while you behave like this. You kind of are what you are. It’s not a foregone conclusion, but letting these idiots formally say racist shit helps nobody.
I probably yelled “shut the fuck up” at somebody when the Rams were blowing my parlay tonight. Even so, we don’t need to be a racist society. Do better House GOP. Nobody really needs this. Rep. Flood, I mean whatever, but still. I hope you didn’t do it.
The federal government is shut down. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has no budget or appropriations bill. These are just words on a page to most people, because most people don’t eat, sleep, and pray politics, believe it or not. They go to work, take care of their families, and try to live their lives the best they can. They cannot simply decide to stop doing that, so their time to read about what the government is doing or proposing is very limited. They kind of need the cliff notes version so they have a basic understanding of the problems, and what should or can be done. I’m going to give it to them here- there is no money.
Your county, your city, and your school board basically are being kept open using your local taxes- often property taxes, but also sometimes sales and income taxes as well. Yes, the federal and state government are still collecting revenue from you right now (taxes), but they have no legal authority to spend new money moving forward. For now there are still some payments that were pre-approved that are going out, but even they are starting to run out of legal authority. In the not so distant future, there will simply be no more money going from the feds or the state out to counties, non-profits, cities, townships, public-private partnerships, or school boards. The net effect of this is devastating. Most of what counties, municipal governments, and school boards do are mandatory actions imposed on them from Washington or Harrisburg. A school can’t cut school lunches or busing, for instance. A city can’t stop providing a police department or fire department, in some form. The feds and the state send along a rather large chunk of cash to finance all of that. Local governments don’t tax nearly a high enough rate to pay for all of these programs on their own. They still must provide them either way.
In other words, there is a breaking point. I recently slammed Roger Maclean for saying “we’ll get our money” in his Lehigh County Executive debate with Josh Siegel, because that is an ignorant statement. Even before the Federal shutdown, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” DOGE, and the last appropriations bill all cut federal payments to state and local governments. Now that cut is currently a zero. Worse yet, the state contribution to local governments and services is now zero. If they don’t give you money, money does not magically show up. Lying to the public and to public workers and saying “it will all be okay” is not only irresponsible and immoral, it takes the heat off of the people who should be doing their jobs and funding the locals. Congress shut down the government to cut Affordable Care Act subsidies, aka health care for working people who buy it. The State Senate hasn’t come to work in three months because they want to kill SEPTA and make Josh Shapiro look like a weirdo. No local official should be giving these people a pass. Local elected leaders should be pointing out all the ways this is beginning to hurt normal people.
Unfortunately a month out from an election, there are a lot of irresponsible children running for office who want to pretend nothing is wrong. Unfortunately both parties are doing it. I get it, nobody wants to be mom telling you to eat your peas and carrots instead of cake, and certainly nonsense like this from “The Quiet Man” Tom Giovanni, silent because he’s confused, isn’t helpful:
“As a candidate for Northampton County Executive, I believe it is unacceptable that the current administration has chosen to cut essential programs and furlough hardworking employees simply because Harrisburg has failed to pass a state budget. Leadership is about preparation, responsibility, and putting people first. Our county should never be held hostage to gridlock in the state capital.
Instead of hurting workers to make a political point, I recommended that the administration follow Treasurer Stacy Garrity’s example of providing loans to counties to cover short-term budget needs. That would have protected services and employees while avoiding unnecessary disruption.”
Garrity’s loans will not be sustainable soon, and are not free money for the county, but let’s get to the heart of this- actually Tom, people suffer when Harrisburg fails to pass a budget. It turns out state and national government are actually important in our society, and we’re learning that in real time. The county does not tax their population a high enough rate to absorb the costs of running itself if the state just decides to stop paying them. If your response to that is “do less!,” then please proceed to tell us if you’re going to close the prison, stop providing a court system, get rid of the department of children and youth, or close the nursing home. If you can name another county office that actually exists, you can choose that too. For the most part though, cutting those services would run into legal trouble, because most of what they do is mandatory under federal and state law.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention all the Democrats though who also aren’t willing to bite the bullet. The truth is that the solution to the counties and municipalities running out of money is Harrisburg and Washington making agreements that re-open the governments. There is no other answer, and frankly given that Democrats aren’t in charge of anything federally or the vacationing State Senate, we should be saying that. I’ll be voting for Tara Zrinski, but I don’t agree with her here:
We need to create avenues of mutual aid within the community by calling on community partners to fill some of the gaps in human services. We have already delayed funds to service providers but we did not entertain temporary redistribution of County Funds or a Tax Anticipation Note, which would allow us to borrow against anticipated property tax revenue. This TAN would be paid back when the State passes a budget but with approximately $350,000 – $400,000 of accumulated interest. This has been the sticking point for the administration that has no desire to bail the State out because the interest would not be paid back by the State. We cut our nose off to spite our face though. That interest is a small small price to pay for the safety of our community and the security of our workforce that knows we have their backs. Literally, it is an estimated 2 cents for every $1000 of assessed property value in the County.
Well, here are my 2 cents– County Executive McClure has presented this as an inevitability. But there is nothing inevitable about abandoning our workforce. There are alternatives. There are reserves, reallocations, and other strategies available that don’t involve punishing workers or jeopardizing public safety. Leadership means problem-solving—not taking the easy way out by balancing the books on the backs of our workforce. When we destabilize human services, we invite higher long-term costs, greater risks, and more pain for the very residents we are sworn to protect. So today I stand with SEIU 668 workers, and I call on County Executive McClure: stop these furloughs. Protect the people who protect Northampton County. And I call on Harrisburg legislators: end the gridlock. Pass a fair budget now. You are literally arguing over what amounts to 6% of your overall budget– for what? To lower medicaid, to take away SNAP benefits. Where are the adults in the room?
Ok, so basically “the plan” here is to borrow money against money we’re supposed to get back in the future, never mind that we don’t know when that will be and therefore don’t really know if the $350-400k number will be final, and continue providing services? We should reallocate funds- should that be Medicaid/Medicare funds for Gracedale, the funding for the jail, the funding for the courts, or what mandatory spending should we end? And we should accept the 6% interest on a loan because Ann Flood and Joe Emrick don’t want to fund SEPTA and the GOP State Senators wanted to spend September and October at their beach houses?
Yes, I think it’s fucking awful and barbaric to do things like furlough caseworkers who literally work for way less than they’re worth to protect children, or to close Safe Harbor and services for the homeless, or to really lay off anyone who is working for the county, almost everything they do down there is to help those who are the least fortunate in our society. It’s awful and barbaric, and it’s who the hell we are as a society. The State Senate is not some abstract entity that has nothing to do with the people, the State Senate is the people. Ryan Mackenzie wants to cut subsidies for working poor people buying the Affordable Care Act and dramatically raise health insurance rates for people paying full price, such as myself (a recent amputee), but Ryan Mackenzie is in Washington shutting down our government for a reason- he was elected to go there. Let’s stop pretending we’re so much better than our government as a society, we picked the bastards who are in it.
What the local officials are proposing here is simply shifting the pain and suffering of the incompetence in Harrisburg and Washington from municipal and county employees to the broader society that pays their salaries. Is that fair and moral? Probably yes actually, you voted for this. Is it sensible or even remotely a sane way to run a community? No, of course not. Re-distributing the pain and suffering on to our full society sounds absolutely nuts if you say it out loud, and if you do it in front of someone they’ll either hit you or have you committed. Yes, it’s obviously an easier, temporary way out. It’s also utterly stupid.
If you sit here and say furloughs are a good thing, you’re a heartless moron that is robbing Peter to pay Paul. If you sit here and say we should just borrow our way through the ineptitude, you’re inept. The only good solution would be a Harrisburg and a Washington that aren’t trying to do anything possible to screw the least amongst them, and funded their governments. That is the solution. There is no “magic carpet ride” to utopia here. The money that keeps children, old people, the disabled, the sick, and the mentally incompetent safe in our society, it comes from the federal and state governments. Do I think McClure is insane to propose furloughs in the middle of both the campaign to succeed him and his own Congressional campaign? Yes, it could very well be political suicide. These are the actual choices being presented to us locally though by our elected state and national leaders.
Yesterday our neckbeard Vice-President basically suggested emergency rooms should not have to treat the “illegals” that are over-running them (that is not happening). That would, of course, be a violation of the law, everywhere in America. I wonder how many people have considered or fathomed what this would look like though? I have friends in foreign countries, some of them have seen dead bodies from people who starved or were left untreated while sick. This is a choice a society can make, and it’s a choice that the Vice-President of the United States is advocating. We really aren’t better than this.
Anyway, I lost you by the second paragraph I’m sure. My original point was people don’t have time to read all of this shit. So I lead with the point- there is no money, because Harrisburg and Washington. If you got anything, I hope you got that. There will not be any “magic money.”
Apocalypse Vibes 