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Ranging from awful to atrocious, here are ten movies from 2018 you should be glad you missed. This year I practiced a little self-care. Mostly I avoided seeing films I didn’t think I would like. So don’t ask me for my take on Deadpool 2, Hotel Transylvania 3, or The Spy Who Dumped Me. I haven’t seen them. Nevertheless, some of the year’s most anticipated and/or highly praised films turned out to be grotesque abominations that should be relocated from the home-video department of Best Buy to the kindling department of Home Depot. Here are ten movies that appalled me...

GOODBYE FOREVER Facebook lets you download the data you've shared with Facebook since you joined. This includes your posts and photos, as well as the "activity log" — the history of everything you've done on Facebook, such as likes and comments on posts, use of apps and searches. The download also includes your profile, messages, list of friends and ads you've clicked on. This process should give you a good — perhaps scary — idea of what Facebook has on you. What you won't get are photos other people shared with you, even if you've been tagged. You need to...

For a man facing daily attacks for his activism and liberal vision of the world, George Soros was in a curiously buoyant mood on a sunswept afternoon in Marrakesh. He had just visited South Africa, home to his first philanthropic foray in the late 1970s, when he funded black students under apartheid. This time he learnt that Soros-backed investigative media and civil society groups had helped thwart an allegedly corrupt nuclear power plant contract with Russia. “It was a tremendous boost to reinforce my belief that we are doing something right,” says Mr Soros. “We haven’t stopped having a beneficial...

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey has appointed former Republican Congresswoman Martha McSally to fill late Senator John McCain's seat."All her life, Martha has put service first — leading in the toughest of fights and at the toughest of times,” Ducey released in a statement Tuesday morning. “She served 26 years in the military; deployed six times to the Middle East and Afghanistan; was the first woman to fly in combat and command a fighter squadron in combat; and she’s represented Southern Arizona in Congress for the past four years. With her experience and long record of service, Martha is uniquely qualified...

Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Republican who was appointed to the Senate this year, faces Mike Espy, a Democrat and former congressman, in a special election runoff on Tuesday after neither candidate won a majority on Election Day. The election was held to fill the seat of Senator Thad Cochran, who retired earlier this year for health reasons.

Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has defeated Democrat Mike Espy in Tuesday night's special Senate election in Mississippi, a contest tainted by race-related controversies, NBC News projects.

Two nooses were found hanging at the Mississippi State Capitol on Monday morning around 7:15, according to NBC affiliate WLBT. Hate signs also were found, although it unclear what they said or if the signs referenced the racially charged runoff Senate election taking place Tuesday between Democrat Mike Espy, who is black, and Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. State Capitol police did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment. Hyde-Smith has come under fire for her comment about attending a "public hanging" and voter suppression, which her campaign later said was a joke.

Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith once promoted a measure that praised a Confederate soldier's effort to "defend his homeland" and pushed a revisionist view of the Civil War. Hyde-Smith, a Republican, faces Mike Espy, a Democratic former congressman and agriculture secretary, in Tuesday's runoff in Mississippi -- the final Senate race to be decided in 2018. The measure, which was unearthed by CNN's KFile during a review of Hyde-Smith's legislative history, is the latest in a series of issues that have surfaced during her campaign, many of which have evoked Mississippi's dark history of racism and slavery. The concurrent resolution was...

People always learn the wrong lessons from elections. Most people think the election results just prove what they already believed. The smarter people in politics learn something new from the races they win — and they learn even more from the races they lose. President Trump could learn from 2018 that immigration isn’t everything. Yes, he needs to maintain his base, but also he needs to expand his electorate. In short, he has to try to win back suburban men. Everybody is going to write about suburban women. Truthfully, the GOP can lose plenty of suburban women as long as...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is leveraging his political power to try to convince Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to choose Rep. Martha McSally to replace Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, who is considering leaving his seat before his term ends, several Republican sources familiar with the conversations tell CNN. McSally, a Republican congresswoman who once worked for Kyl, lost her Senate bid two weeks ago to Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema. Kyl, who was picked by the governor in September to fill the seat vacated by the late Sen. John McCain. told CNN last week he has decided whether to leave office...

The feud over who will be the next speaker of the House is heating up, as allies of the longtime Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, take on a rowdy band of rebels pushing for regime change. Pro-Pelosi forces launched a snarky Twitter assault against a handful of the men leading the rebellion. As the progressive pundit Joan Walsh tweeted, “So #fivewhiteguys are following the tactics of the right wing white guy Freedom Caucus to block a woman speaker after an election in which women saved the Democrats. Got it.”

Can't blame racism. Scott said he was gracious. What a low class lout he was.

What do Democrat, losers, Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams & Bill Nelson all have in common. Barack Hussein Obama, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey & Chuck Schumer all came to Florida and Georgia to campaign for them...and all of them lost their races. Of course, the Democrats with brains & street smarts, realized that having the Obama's, Clinton, Schumer & Winfrey campaign for them is the kiss of political death. I see the Clintons have cancelled their grand tour, no one has signed up to attend. Methinks, the Obama's and Clinton's are toast as effective campaigners for any Democrats. Case...

The election is over. Let the infighting begin.  For me it began Wednesday morning just after I awoke. I had spent the prior evening covering Republican senatorial candidate Bob Hugin's loss to Democratic incumbent Bob Menendez and didn't get to sleep until 2 a.m.After fortifying myself with some strong coffee, I checked my phone. There was a voicemail from the most prominent conservative Republican in the state Senate, Mike Doherty of Warren County.  Doherty was upset at the comments in my election-night column from the most prominent moderate Republican in the Assembly, minority leader Jon Bramnick.Bramnick had pinned the blame...

Beth wrote this week about Republican Rep. Mia Love’s lawsuit over ballot signatures in her very tight re-election race. At the time, she was trailing her Democratic opponent Ben McAdams. Prior to the ruling, The Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman said that Love is favored to prevail, and it looks she will do that.This comes hours a ruling on that lawsuit was handed down; a judge tossed it. But there’s no need to despair. She officially took the lead yesterday, though its within the margin of recount territory (via The Hill): BREAKING: As expected, #UT04 GOP Rep. Mia Love (R)...

"President Donald Trump landed in Northern California Saturday to tour the damage wrought by the state’s worst-ever wildfire, pressing his argument that the state’s forests must be managed more aggressively to prevent future disasters."

Democrat Stacey Abrams says she can’t win the Georgia governor’s race, effectively ending her challenge to Republican Brian Kemp. Her speech Friday effectively puts a stop to the contest. The final result had been in doubt for 10 days after the election.

As the hand recount in Florida’s contentious Senate election got underway in Broward County, it quickly became clear that Democrats were headed for a bad day. This is the county where incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson needed to net thousands of new votes on Friday. But minutes into the recount, that became unlikely. Broward County is at the center of Nelson’s hopes for defeating Republican Rick Scott, who currently leads by fewer than 13,000 votes, because there were tens of thousands of ballots in the county that registered no vote in the Senate race. Because Broward is a heavily Democratic county,...

Appearing on MSNBC Thursday morning to defend Democrat Stacey Abrams’ refusal to concede the race for governor in Georgia and hurl accusations of voter suppression against Republican Brian Kemp, Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo touted support from disgraced former CBS News anchor Dan Rather and MSNBC’s own Joe Scarborough. . . "GROH-WARGO: And that is a very clear effort really exposing these issues. Because here’s the deal, whatever happens with our campaign, we’ve got to fix the system here in Georgia."

TALLAHASSEE — Amid a dizzying whir of legal action, questions over uncounted ballots and the failure of two South Florida counties to meet the deadline, a machine recount produced little change in the overall results to three statewide races Thursday. Even so, the U.S. Senate and agriculture commissioner races are headed to manual recounts, results of which are due to the state by noon on Sunday. Certification of the official election results is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday. In the governor’s race, the recount showed that Democrat Andrew Gillum trailed Republican Ron DeSantis by 33,683 votes, a net gain of...