Classy concession speech

Joe Crowley after 20 years as a Congressman conceded the primary elections to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, age 28, who is on track to become the youngest congresswoman in history of the United States.The district which is in the Bronx and Queens is roughly 50% Latino.

Acknowledging her youth, he sang "Born to Run" which is at least a decade older than Ocasio-Cortez.

There are 21 Republican congresswomen and 62 Democratic congresswomen with record numbers of women running for Democratic seats this November.

Quote: Pacomartin

Joe Crowley after 20 years as a Congressman conceded the primary elections to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,.

She's running on the "I'm clueless"
ticket. Free stuff for everybody.
College, healthcare, it will all be
paid for by Uncle Sam. When asked
how she will pay for all this, she
changes the subject because she
hasn't a clue.

Oldest political trick, promise a
chicken in every pot and a car in
every garage, with zero idea how
you'll do it.

A lot of emphasis on first bullets, but not so many on the final ones.

"The Nordic Model – Embracing globalization and sharing risks" characterises the system as follows:[13]

1. An elaborate social safety net, in addition to public services such as free education and universal healthcare in a largely tax-funded system.
2. Public pension plans.
3. The United Nations World Happiness Reports show that the happiest nations are concentrated in Northern Europe. The Nordics ranked highest on the metrics of real GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived freedom to make life choices, generosity and freedom from corruption. The Nordic countries place in the top 10 of the World Happiness Report 2018, with Finland and Norway taking the top spots.
4. The Nordic countries received the highest ranking for protecting workers rights on the International Trade Union Confederation's 2014 Global Rights Index, with Denmark being the only nation to receive a perfect score.
5. Public expenditure for health and education is significantly higher in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in comparison to the OECD average.
6. Sweden at 56.6% of GDP, Denmark at 51.7% and Finland at 48.6% reflect very high public spending. One key reason for public spending is the large number of public employees. These employees work in various fields including education, healthcare, and for the government itself. They often have greater job security and make up around a third of the workforce (more than 38% in Denmark). Public spending in social transfers such as unemployment benefits and early-retirement programmes is high. In 2001, the wage-based unemployment benefits were around 90% of wage in Denmark and 80% in Sweden, compared to 75% in the Netherlands and 60% in Germany. The unemployed were also able to receive benefits several years before reductions, compared to quick benefit reduction in other countries.
7. Strong property rights, contract enforcement, and overall ease of doing business.
8. Free trade combined with collective risk sharing (social programs, labour market institutions) which has provided a form of protection against the risks associated with economic openness.
9. Little product market regulation. Nordic countries rank very high in product market freedom according to OECD rankings.
10. Low levels of corruption. In Transparency International's 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Norway were ranked among the top 10 least corrupt of the 167 countries evaluated.
11. High percentage of workers belonging to a labour union. In 2013, labour union density was 86% in Iceland, 69% in Finland, 68% in Sweden, 67% in Denmark and 52% in Norway. In comparison, labour union density was 14% in Mexico and 11% in the United States. The lower union density in Norway is mainly explained by the absence of a Ghent system since 1938. In contrast, Denmark, Finland and Sweden all have union-run unemployment funds.
12. A partnership between employers, trade unions and the government, whereby these social partners negotiate the terms to regulating the workplace among themselves, rather than the terms being imposed by law. Sweden has decentralised wage co-ordination while Finland is ranked the least flexible. The changing economic conditions have given rise to fear among workers as well as resistance by trade unions in regards to reforms. At the same time, reforms and favourable economic development seem to have reduced unemployment, which has traditionally been higher. Denmark's Social Democrats managed to push through reforms in 1994 and 1996 (see flexicurity).
13. Overall tax burdens (as a percentage of GDP) are high: Sweden (44.1%), Denmark (45.9%) and Finland (44.1%). The Nordic countries have relatively flat tax rates, meaning that even those with medium and low incomes are taxed at relatively high levels.

Quote: Pacomartin

The Nordic Model –

That's all fine and well, but these
countries have no race problems,
have tiny populations compared
to the US, and the average IQ of
the citizens is among the highest
in the world. It wouldn't work here.
And they are mostly secular, which
is a big advantage.

I was in a small Swedish University town in 1984 and everyone got drunk and told ethnic jokes. First they made fun of people from Gotland. Gotland is an island of less than 60K inhabited since prehistory where people still speak Gutnish, a dialect of Old Norse which was used by their Viking forefathers during Medieval times.

The main town in Gotland is still protected by a medieval wall.


I figured that was OK as that would be a reasonable ethnic joke. Then they started telling Norwegian jokes, which seemed extremely funny to me. It was like Cabots of Boston telling jokes about the Lodges.

I remember telling someone that my grandfather came from Castille and Leon in Spain in 1920 and married a woman whose parents came from Hungary, My other other grandfather was the son of Syrian immigrants who came at the turn of the century and married a woman whose male line had immigrated from Western Germany in 1750. She said, so your not a "true American".

I was trying to figure out what she thought a "true American" was. But I guess if your relatives all came from the same peninsula for thousands of years, everyone else seems pretty mobile.

Quote: Pacomartin

The main town in Gotland is still protected by a medieval wall.
.

I look at that wall and marvel that
for centuries that kind of technology
actually worked to keep invaders out.
Tech advanced at such a slow rate,
until tech figured out how to do tech,
and now it advances very fast.

There had to be a pervasive attitude
against tech advancement, not many
were ever trying to improve anything.
What was good enough for grandpa
is good enough for me.

Quote: Evenbob

She's running on the "I'm clueless"
ticket. Free stuff for everybody.
College, healthcare, it will all be
paid for by Uncle Sam. When asked
how she will pay for all this, she
changes the subject because she
hasn't a clue.

The Democrat Party is at a kind of split. They have a certain number who want all this free stuff, paid for by cuts to the military and taxes on the rich. They sound like a junior high mock candidate. What we have to see is how far left this pulls the party in general. 2020 is shaping up to be probably Hillary and a bunch of far-left loons. The primary debates should be funny and scary. They will all be competing to see who can give away the most.

Quote: AZDuffman

T They will all be competing to see who can give away the most.

It really does not work anymore.
Look at Bernie. People are wiser
now politically.

The Bronx is roughly the size of two congressional districts, however It is broken up into three districts, (13th,14th, 15th) with only the 15th entirely in the South Btonx Technically only the 15th is majority (over 50% ) Latino, but all three districts are minority majority.
13th White-non Hispanic 13.3% / Hispanic 48.8%
14th White-non Hispanic 24.6% / Hispanic 46.0%
15th White-non Hispanic 2.3% / Hispanic 60.3%


Adriano de Jesús Espaillat Cabral (born September 27, 1954) is a Dominican-American politician. He is the U.S. Representative for New York's 13th congressional district since January 2017 and the first formerly undocumented immigrant to ever serve in Congress.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (born October 13, 1989) is an American political activist, educator, community organizer and politician. On June 26, 2018, Ocasio-Cortez won the Democratic primary in New York's 14th congressional district, defeating the incumbent, Democratic Caucus Chair Joseph Crowley, in what has been described as the biggest upset victory in the 2018 midterm election season. Ocasio-Cortez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.


José Enrique Serrano (born October 24, 1943) is an American politician who has been a member of the United States House of Representatives since 1990. Serrano, a Democrat from New York, represents a district that is one of the smallest in the country geographically, consisting of a few square miles of the heavily populated South Bronx in New York City. His district is also one of the most densely populated and one of the few majority Hispanic districts in the country.


The 16 districts that compose south-eastern New York state have three Republican districts (two on eastern Long Island and Staten Island).

Quote: Evenbob

It really does not work anymore.
Look at Bernie. People are wiser
now politically.

It will always work on 20-25% of the population. Some people really believe the free-college thing will work. That one will get worse as it appears over the next couple decades that the bottom tiers of colleges will have to close, and even many state schools will need to consolidate.

Trump is stand-up enough to call this our. But saw we get another Bush43 who went along and offered DemocratLite. It is very scary as look at what we joked about in the 1990s eventually becoming mainstream-liberal. 20 years from now who knows.