USA Super Bowl: Dark clouds hang over this year′s Super Bowl

You can feel there is an energy in the air in the United States for this year's Super Bowl. The 2021 game in Florida had a reduced capacity because of pandemic rules.

Sunday's match between the LA Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals will be played in front of 70,000 spectators at the SoFi stadium, a new $5 billion (€4.4 billion) arena in Los Angeles, California. Local heroes Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar will serve up a halftime show.

On paper, the Super Bowl is ready to deliver. In a world of pandemics, culture wars and geopolitical uncertainty, it should provide a few hours of respite to our complicated lives.

Yet Sunday's game will be played under some enormous low-hanging social clouds. Accusations of institutional racism in the NFL

Read more at: Opinion: Dark clouds hang over this year′s Super Bowl | Opinion | DW | 12.02.2022

USA; Presidential Elections: Trump's train is running off the tracks - Opinion by John Avlon

he fever may be starting to break. Donald Trump has held his party in line with bullying tactics and the white-hot love of the conservative populist base.

But now — badly trailing in the polls and marred by increasingly erratic, self-sabotaging behavior — there are signs that some Republicans are beginning to distance themselves from Trump in a desperate attempt to avoid political doom.

 

The unlikely canary in the coal mine came in the form of Arizona Sen. Martha McSally — typically a Trump sycophant — who avoided answering several direct questions on whether she was proud of her support for the President during her debate against Democratic challenger Mark Kelly. Instead, she robotically repeated that she was "proud to be fighting for Arizona."

 

It wasn't subtle but it was strategic. That's because hugging Donald Trump too tight is a liability in a purple state general election. Independents make up 32% of registered voters in Arizona and in the latest CNN poll, Trump has just a 37% approval rate among independents nationally.

 

In Arizona, Trump has the added burden of repeatedly insulting the state's favorite son, John McCain, whose wife Cindy has endorsed Joe Biden. Trump's persistent disrespect of McCain provoked McSally to slap the President more directly: "It pisses me off when he does it."

Read more at: 
Opinion: Trump's train is running off the tracks - CNN

Global Economy:The Calm Before the Economic Storm - by John Mauldin

The Friday after Thanksgiving is known for heavy spending in retail stores, but it’s clear that consumers are increasingly turning to the Internet to make their holiday purchases,” said Comscore Chairman Gian Fulgoni at the time. “Online spending on Black Friday has historically represented an early indicator of how the rest of the season will shake out. That the 22-percent growth rate versus last year is outpacing the overall growth rate for the first three weeks of the season should be seen as a sign of positive momentum.

The Great Recession began one month after this “sign of positive momentum.” A strong holiday shopping season won’t mean we are out of the woods and could mean we are just entering them.

Read more at:The Calm Before the Economic Storm | Equities.com