where to from here

Interesting tidbits.  Since the beginning of the pandemic, states with Republican governors with lower unemployment and the most recent numbers, there is no difference as states with Republican governors have lower unemployment than their Democratic counterpart, 3.2 percent to “3.8 percent.  And in those states where Republicans control both legislative and executive branch, unemployment are slightly under 3 percent versus Democrats 4 percent.  The bluer the state, worst unemployment.

when it came to economics Republicans navigated their states during than the Pandemic. The rise of the Republican Party may begin at a state level as many governors have shown the ability to be able to the rank beginning with Ron DeSantis but there are others who showed the wiliness to challenge the lockdown narrative.

Wilder, Plant, Haney – WIN … Results

By Tom Donelson / Member Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA) … Contributor to http://www.dmboxing.com with integrity and expertise since 2008

Deontay Wilder lost his second fight in the hard-fought Fury trilogy one year ago and his opponent Robert Helenius who is coming off two straight knockout wins over Adam Kowacki. For Wilder this was a must win if he wanted to be considered a heavyweight contender and the Fury trilogy was a brutal trilogy in which both men pounded each other . Wilder came in the fight as the favorite and he was in top ten shape weighing 215 and his opponent weighed 253.

On the same card, Caleb Plant faced Anthony Dirrell in a battle of two former super Middleweight champions and Plant was coming off a loss to Saul Canelo Alvarez.

Caleb Plant began the first round aggressively and looked the quicker of the two in the first round and the second round, Plant jab connected early and Dirrell looked measured and cautious . Plant jab snap Dirrell head and when Dirrell landed a nasty shot right back. Plant mixed body shots and shots to the head as he won round two.

Dirrell open the third with a good right hand while Plant rips a pair of right to the body. Dirrell hits a good shot to the body and a counter. Dirrell also clinched and provided some rough maneuver. Close round as Dirrell won the round but Plant could have won the round on the judges’ scorecard .

Referee warns Dirrell of his rough tactics and Plant put good combinations but when he overextended, he got nailed. As the fourth round progressed Plant is lunging more and Dirrell is using his experience to make it harder for Plant to land. Starting the fifth round, Plant’s jab stunned Dirrell and forced him to retreat . Plant’s speed allowed him to start the action, but Dirrell slowly adjusted. After the fifth round, I had the fight 49-46.

In round six, Dirrell allowed Plant to come into counter, but Plant landed hooks to the head and body. He connected on the most punches and Plant had a 59-55 lead at the halfway part of the fight. Plants begin the seventh round with a snappy left jab and Dirrell is landing punches fewer than even in the early rounds . Dirrell engages in rough tactics and is warned by the referee the second time. Plant gets Dirrell to the rope. Another round for Plant, 69-64.

Plant showed excellent defense and while he lowered his work rate, Dirrell is hardly throwing punches. The round ended as Plant landed a combination while Dirrell tried to return fire but missed. A combination by Plant ended the round.

Dirrell came out in the ninth round and Dirrell landed a big shot and forced to Plant to retreat. Dirrell has Plant backing up and shooting shots on the inside before out of now where, Plant lands a left hook that sent Dirrell down. This sent Dirrell down and out. Plant has put himself back in the Super Middleweight discussion.

Deontay Wilder showed he still has the power. Helenius comes to the center of the ring as Wilder moved. Helenius cut off the ring and Wilder sent a wild right following Wilder jab, both that missed. Helenius did not land or throw anything of significant. He landed a body shot but no real effect. Helenius followed Wilder into the corner and as he stepped forward, he got nailed by a right that sends him down. He was out cold and Wilder won with a first-round knockout.

Wilder is back as a heavyweight contender and he reminded people why he is a threat, for he can end a fight with just one punch.

In the land down under, Devin Haney defended his undisputed WBO lightweight champion against George Kambosa, Jr. Haney put on a clinic as he landed 202 punches to seventy-six for Kambosa and was even more dominating in this fight than his first fight with Kambosa.  In his first fight, he landed 147 to Kambosa 100 to win a decision. This fight was no doubt from the second round as Haney simply dominated the fight with his boxing skills. In the tenth round he landed thirty-four punches to Kambosa one punch.  A right hand opens a cut over Kambosa’s left eye. If there is a weakness in Haney skills, he does not have a knockout punch as he landed rights consistently 

What was impressive that Haney was willing to travel to Australia for the rematch after winning the title in Australia. He was confident that he beat Kambosa a second time on Kambosa home turf. He was right, and it was easier this time.

Dayton Moore is over

Since 2006, Dayton Moore ran baseball operation for the Royals but now the era is over as Moore was fired.  There were two Moore eras, the first one that began when he was hired and culminated in the 2015 World Series and the second era in which Royals went from World Series champ to the cellar of the American League Central division.

Moore struck all the right moves in winning the 2015 World Series.    Key members of the pennant winning team came from the minors including Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Salvador Perez, Alex Gordon along with pitchers Yolando Ventura, Danny Duffy, and Greg Holland.  Others that came up through the minors to fill out key roles including Christian Colon, Jared Dyson, Kelvin Herrera, Luke Hochevar, and Brandon Finnegan. He made several great acquisitions including James Shields, Wade Davis, Kendry Morales, Alex Rio, Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto, and Ben Zobrist.  They all played key roles in getting Royal to the 2014 World Series and then winning the whole ball of wax.

From 2016, the decline began as Royals finished just .500 and then 80-82 in 2017.  Moore tried to give his core one more chance to win a title but instead, he set the stage for another dark age.  Unlike his previous tour, his moves proved disastrous including Luka Duda, Brandon Moss, Ryan Goins, Ian Kennedy, Chris Owings, and Brandon Maurer.  Maybe one trade that reflects this period was Wade Davis for Jorge Soler. Soler was considered a potential star in the future.  In 2019, he had his best season, batting .265 with 48 homers, a Royals record but for the most part, Soler never reached his potential.  

The minor league fails to produce prospects over the next few years. The strategy in 2008 started with drafting college players, hoping they could make the jump to majors sooner. So far this hasn’t really worked out on the pitching side as only Brady Singer has made the jump to the majors.  Other like Kris Bubic and Daniel Lynch have yet to show any improvement since they have come up. 

Coming into 2022, there was hope that the Royals would continue the improvement from the year before.  Royals won the season series against Twins, White Sox, and Tigers. Only the Guardians won 4 their season series and the Royals won 74 games and finished with less than 90 losses the first time since 2017 not counting the 2020 shortened season.

Perez had a career year with 48 homers, a team record and Lopez hit .300.   Benintendi hit .276, provided good defense in left field and added 17 homers plus Merrifield hit .277.   The bull pen looked like they were developing a young bullpen including Coleman, Brentz, Staumont, and Barlow. The only question was whether the young starting pitcher can make the next move.

Instead, the whole thing came crashing down as Royals began 16-32 as the starting pitching collapsed and the relief pitching was complete failure.  While Benintendi started out fast and was batting .300 plus going into All-Star break, Perez, Merrifield, rookie Witt, and Santana were hitting .100 and the offense was totally ineffectual.  Perez had injured thumb and eventually had surgery.  

By the All-Star break, the Royals were back to ground floor of the rebuild. Moore view that the Royals were close to contention was over.  Royals brought up much of the minor leagues and begin the rebuild.  Moore firing is a reflection that the failures of the past seven years from 2016 to the present.   Moore is a good guy who gave Royals fan a brief three-year window of winning and championship between 2013 and 2015 but since then, the franchise floundered.  From 2016, he had one year .500 and six losing season with three at 100 losses, one at 88 losses and this year Royals will have 90 plus losses.  Failure has consequences.

Who Did Better on Unemployment?

Comparison of Republican States and Democratic States from August 2020 to August 2022.

By Tom Donelson

Since August 2020 and during the pandemics, there has been one constant: unemployment in Republican states have been significantly lower than in Democratic states. The chart below shows this

In August of 2020 unemployment for states with Democratic governors was 8.4 compared to 6.4 unemployment for Republican governors and in August 2022, unemployment under Democratic governors was 3.7 percent and under Republican governors was only 3 percent.

We also compared states with exclusively one-party control of the both the legislature and the executive states with mixed control with one party who split control of the lever of power and found differences. Republicans who control both the legislature and governor seats, had an unemployment rate of 2.8 percent compared to Democrat states who control both the governor seat. and the legislature had an unemployment rate of 4 percent. Those who had mixed government had an unemployment rate of 3.4.   

Completely run blue states had 30 percent more unemployment than completely run red states and these Democrats run states were even behind those states with split control. We did not find a difference between states with Republican governors and split government and Democratic governors with split government as GOP governors was 3.4 percent and Democratic governors was 3.3 percent. When we combined GOP governors and split governance, we see the unemployment is 3 percent.

We also compared the top four most populous states with Republican governors: Florida, Ohio, Texas, and Georgia to top four populous states with Democratic governors: New York, California, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. States with Republican governors had unemployment of 3.4 percent and two, Florida and Georgia, were below the national average and below 3 percent. The Democratic states averaged 4.4 percent and not one of these states were below the national average. Not one Democratic state had unemployment less than 4.1 percent.

The main reason for this difference is that Republican states open their economy earlier during the Pandemics compared to Democratic states. While some GOP states were aggressive with lockdowns initally, GOP states reduce restrictions, and this showed up in the lower unemployment.

Dr. Wilfred Reilly conducted three studies on the impact on the lockdown and found that there were no real differences in deaths per capita and both non-lockdown states and Republican states had lower unemployment compared to lockdown states and Democratic states. 1 Unemployment for non-lockdown states was 5.5 percent and for Republican states 6.4 percent whereas lockdown states and Democrat states unemployment was 8.2 percent in August of 2020.

In winter of 2020, many states reinstate lockdowns and in reviewing those states in August 2022, the unemployment was 3.5 percent for lockdown states compared to 2.8 percent for non-lockdown states. In both studies, all the non-lockdown states had Republican governors and in those states in which Democrats ran all phrase of government, the unemployment rate was 4 percent.

What we find for the past two years is that Republican states have lower unemployment compared to their Democratic counterpart and we found this difference most significant. Other studies support this including a report card by Casey Mulligan, Phil Kerpen and Steve Moore. They observed, “Economy and schooling are positively correlated (correlation coefficient = 0.43), which suggests a relationship between the willingness of the population (or its politicians) to resume normal activity in business and school. MT, SD, NE, and UT are the states’ highest on the economy score and among only seven states to exceed 85 percent open schools. The correlation between health and economy scores is essentially zero, which suggests that states that withdrew the most from economic activity did not significantly improve health by doing so.”2 

  1. Ignored cost: Effect Yes-No lockdown states along with Red-Blue states political partisanship and other variables on April-August unemployment across the United States. Sept 2020
  2. A FINAL REPORT CARD ON THE STATES’ RESPONSE TO COVID-19 by Casey Mulligan, Phil Kerpen and Steve Moore April 2022